WARNING: This post may contain some dirty words.
George Carlin’s 1972 arrest photos. He was charged with obscenity for his famous 7 Dirty Words routine.
A lot of people police their own brains. They’re like citizen soldiers, so to speak. I’ve seen people who will willingly arrest, try and punish their own brains. Now that’s really sad. That’s vigilante brain policism. It’s not even official, it’s like self-imposed. It’s hard to pin it down to one central agency when you realize that so many people are willing to do it to themselves. I mean, the people who want to become amateur brain police, their numbers grow every day - people who say to themselves, ‘I couldn’t possibly consider that’, and then spank themselves for even getting that far. So, you don’t even need to blame it on a central brain police agency. You’ve got plenty of people who willingly subject themselves to this self-mutilation ~Frank Zappa
New York-born comedian George Carlin died on Sunday, June 22, 2008. Carlin was a celebrity of my youth, as were other social commentators and free speech practitioners– Allen Ginsberg, Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor immediately come to mind. I remember reading Ginsberg’s Howl in my public speaking class in college and getting a wonderful sense of freedom (and perhaps some perverse pleasure) from saying Fuck out loud. Hey, it’s only a word, it’s life, it’s poetry, man. And who are the Brain Police anyway, to take words away from us? Carlin did not police his thoughts– he howled them.
And like Ginsberg, Bruce and Pryor, Carlin loved words— he didn’t want any taken away from him, or any of us, either. Besides, he loved fucking with words– it was the essence of his comedy. He’d fiercely flaunt them in the face of the social speech police. He was a word artist. And like all artists, suppression is rarely possible, unless you live in communist China or some parts of Arizona. I think about George and a comment policy– and I laugh at what he might say– “If you don’t want a comment, don’t fuckin’ ask for one.”
He was labeled “counterculture”, as was want to do in those hazy days and high times of pot smoking, long haired, radical hippie freaks (insert sarcasm here). He was not counterculture– he was culture-observant. Carlin was that rare wit who could see the hypocrisies in society and turn them on their comic heads. As he got older, his edges grew a lot longer, and sharper, some say angry and misanthropic.
Like Bruce before him, Carlin was arrested and charged with violating obscenity laws in 1972 after a radio broadcast of an uncensored version of his routine “Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Radio or Television” (or some national real estate blogs), raising, once again, the debate over censorship of speech in a free society.
Among his artistic works, George Carlin recorded 23 comedy albums, starred in 14 HBO specials, and published 3 best-selling books. He won 4 Grammy Awards. In June 2008, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, announced Carlin would receive this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which is awarded in November. Just four days later, on June 22, 2008, Carlin died of heart failure.
The Carlins, Ginsbergs, Bruces and Pryors remind me to word paint using any colors I choose, and to resist the group think repression of the label-making brain police.
Farewell, George. Like all good baseball players, you’re going home.
Further:
From George Carlin’s last interview.
7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Radio or Television (video)
Technorati Tags: George Carlin, comedy, humor, satire, social commentary, Allen Ginsberg, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor
