Uncle Bill George Carlin Dies |
6-23-2008 06:37 AM |
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ina7M8zC1QQGSxe-e-PxBrf9kl0gD91FORCO3
George Carlin mourned as a counterculture hero
By KEITH ST. CLAIR – 48 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Acerbic standup comedian and satirist George Carlin, whose staunch defense of free speech in his most famous routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, has died.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. He was 71.
"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.
Carlin's jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day.
When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.
When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.
"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 — noting on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long" — and appearing some 130 times on "The Tonight Show."
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989 — a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (and sometimes hitting all points in one stroke).
"Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?" he once mused. "Are they afraid someone will clean them?"
He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS.
Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s.
"We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."
That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years.
"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."
Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.
While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.
"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.
From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Fort Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.
In 1960, he left with Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show."
Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.
Only problem was, it didn't work for him, and they broke up by 1962.
"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."
Eventually Carlin lost the buttoned-up look, favoring the beard, ponytail and all-black attire for which he came to be known.
But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit "Cars."
Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.
Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed to this report.
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Philosophical George Carlin was first Host of Saturday Night Liv |
6-23-2008 06:57 AM |
If I'm not mistaken George Carlin was the first Host of Saturday Night Live
RIP George Carlin |
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Ronen first Host of Saturday Night Live |
6-23-2008 10:38 AM |
If I'm not mistaken George Carlin was the first Host of Saturday Night Live
RIP George Carlin |
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Matt I didnt realize he was 71 |
6-23-2008 10:45 AM |
RIP, George.
I didn't realize he was 71. |
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marco polo I am very upset about this |
6-23-2008 11:35 AM |
Oh my God!
I am very upset about this.
He did standup about two months ago in my town. I missed out because I didn't get the time off from work.
Oh man..... |
Mc7 Carlin ruled |
6-23-2008 12:16 PM |
| Carlin ruled |
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Baruchel RIP |
6-23-2008 12:39 PM |
| RIP |
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KROCK I will miss this man |
6-23-2008 12:55 PM |
| I love stand up and George Carlin IMHO is in the "Mount Rushmore" of comics. The guy was flat-out hilarious and even questioned sanity. I enjoy cigars but George said smoking them is like sucking on a big brown dick. I stopped. I will miss this man and was fortunate to have seen him live a few years ago! |
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THE ROVER Not a good start to the week |
6-23-2008 1:15 PM |
Not a good start to the week...R.I.P George, thanks for the laughs.
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DANG RIP George |
6-23-2008 1:27 PM |
| RIP George. you made me laugh, made me think, gave me an attitude, and enriched my life. you were always there for me. I'll never forget you. |
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Wolfman RIP |
6-23-2008 1:31 PM |
| RIP |
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solaire six words |
6-23-2008 1:55 PM |
All I can say about this are six words:
Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker.
Because this most certainly is not tits.
RIP, George.
George lived a full, crazy life and really was a wordsmith of the highest degree, I'd even go as far to say the best of the 20th century. A true loss to America and the world of comedy. |
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Z88 RIP |
6-23-2008 2:08 PM |
| RIP |
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TresMontes awwww man |
6-23-2008 3:06 PM |
awwww man. now that really bums me out.
In this age of insanity we desperately need keenly intelligent, funny and fearless guys like George Carlin.
Probably the biggest lost in comedy since Bill Hicks died.
What a shame. |
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Lanakin dunno what to say. |
6-23-2008 4:49 PM |
Just saddening, dunno what to say.
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BiLlyH9 While in recent years |
6-23-2008 5:31 PM |
While in recent years he pulled more from his "angry" routine, he was one of my favorites growing up. Him, Richard Pryor and Rodney Dangerfield were all pioneers in their own ways.
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Kissandra It sucks |
6-23-2008 8:20 PM |
| Bill Hicks and Sam Kinison were lost way too soon. It sucks within the last few years lost Rodney Dangerfield and George Carlin. These were big losses! |
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TresMontes People often forget about Bill Hicks |
6-23-2008 9:02 PM |
People often forget about Bill Hicks, but that guy was brutally funny and sharp as a tack.
And you're right about Rodney. I kind of forgot about him recently passing, which you have to admit is pretty funny in and of itself (no respect after all). He was one of a kind. He didn't have the cultural and socio/political acumen of Hicks or Carlin, but he could make you laugh without doing a damn thing.
Not to mention The Triple Lindy was the single greatest high dive of all time.
TresMontes |
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CRACKER crying |
6-23-2008 9:16 PM |
| crying |
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Kessel Class Clown |
6-23-2008 9:34 PM |
I couldn't believe it when I heard the news. The world has lost one of the greatest comedians of all time. I think I'll go listen to Class Clown.
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