Farewell to One of the Funniest Men Ever, George Carlin
The world of comedy got hit upside the head this morning with the sudden death of George Carlin at the age of 71. Carlin had a history of heart problems, having had a heart attack in 80’s and two open heart surgeries in that decade as well. Yesterday he checked himself into the hospital complaining of chest pains, this morning he died.
For decades George Carlin entertained us with his scathing critiques on politics, religion and the fun little nuances of society. Throughout his very long and extremely successful career, he was able to shed light on so many of life’s absurdities while being hysterical and sometimes even touching.
You would be hard pressed to find comedians who work in the field of political and social comedy and satire who have not been at least somewhat inspired by Carlin. How could you not? The man started his comedic career in the 1950’s, was the first host of Saturday Night Live in 1975 and was still working successfully up until he died.
This clip from some of his latest work is not his funniest, but in typical Carlin fashion it’s very poignant for the times. Some criticized parts of Carlin’s later work for being especially combative and pessimistic, to which Carlin replied “Scratch any cynic and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”
4 Comments
Thanks for this post. I’m a Christian and a life-long Carlin fan as well, and I did my own little tribute to the man, from a similar-but-different perspective. Thought you might be interested.
Grace and Peace,
Parables of a Prodigal World
This man was one of the best representatives for Jesus of any I could think of: Be honest, was his message. And if you didn’t, he’d get you.
We’ll miss you, buddy boy.
Thanks Raffi. I was a little skeptical about what I would find in your tribute but that was very cool. Nice to see that even some Christians were big Carlin fans, and appreciate a lot of what he had to say.
It really speaks volumes about what George Carlin contributed while he was here.
Alice-Cool website on Kusinich’s articles of impeachment on Bush and the spineless efforts by most democrats to just let Bush and Cheney slide on by, no biggie, why bother trying to impeach them?
Another spineless effort by the dems is ignoring Mike Gravel’s grievances about an overpopulated prison system over bullshit. That conversation ended real quick when they booted Gravel out of the debates.