George Carlin
Arts: Carlin speaks up about what's wrong with Mickey Mouse, baby boomers, private property, and political activism.
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George Carlin wanted to be Danny Kaye when he grew up. Instead, his straight-arrow career was hijacked by the counterculture, and he became the angry voice of a generation. Today, he laments that generation's loss of idealism, but he does so driving a BMW and luxuriating in his private flotation tank, which he calls "Our Lady of Good Salt." After decades of misanthropic stand-up, Carlin promises that a newfound grace infuses his book Brain Droppings, which Hyperion is publishing this spring. "There's a surprising amount of innocence and sweetness in it," he says. And even though he excoriated Mickey Mouse when the "imaginary rodent's" 65th birthday became a news item, the comedian wants you to celebrate when he turns 60 in May.
Q: Let me read you something from your own act: "I hope Mickey dies. I do. I hope he goddamn dies. I hope he gets ahold of some tainted cheese..."
A: "...and dies lonely and forgotten behind the baseboard of a soiled bathroom in a poor neighborhood with his hand in Goofy's pants."
Q: What did Mickey Mouse ever do to you?
A: That's not how these things generate themselves. What Mickey Mouse did to me was to represent something -- in this case, meaningless shit on the news, the way they fill our minds with all this stuff to distract us from the real tragedy. He's a symbolic figure.
Q: This spring marks your 20th year on HBO, your 40th year in show business, and your 60th year on the planet. What makes your birthday different from Mickey Mouse's?
A: I hope they don't ever use my birthday as a news item. That would be one distinction. I would also hope to tell people I'm 60 because it's a nice human fact for a guy like me to make it all the way to 60.
Q: Do you exercise?
A: I use a treadmill because I've had three heart attacks. My father died at 57. His first symptom of heart trouble was a trip to St. Raymond's Cemetery.
Q: Do you have any of the appliances or equipment that you make fun of in your comedy routines: camcorders, pasta makers...?
A: I have no pasta maker. I probably have a device at home that would take pictures of moving images and would pass for a camcorder, but I don't know where it is.
Pat Paulson of the Smothers Brothers
on political comedy.
I also agree with his position on Mickey Mouse--but not for exactly the same reasons. Mickey Mouse is NOT funny. He is a brand, without distinguishing character otherwise, (like McDonalds, 'Bush' or 'Clinton'). The rodent represents much of what is rotten at the core of our society. "Monkey-see monkey-doo-doo". To poverty children who can not go to the theme park and who's only interaction with Mickey is the rats in their empty kitchen, the mouse is a cruel (and unfunny) hoax.
Now enough morning--lets all go out and have a few beers in Carlin's name and move on.
http://thiscanadian.typepad.com/thi s_canadian/2008/06/the-american-dr.html
"money you don't have, on things you don't need"...
"the owners of this country don't want that, the Real Owners... forget the politicians... you have no choice... they *own* everything... they spend billions of dollars every year to get what they want. & we know what they want...
... what they don't want: a population of citizens capable of thinking... well informed people capable of critical thinking...
...they want *obedient workers*... "
There is no 'we' in corruption.
http://thiscanadian.typepad.com/thi s_canadian/2008/03/there-is-no-we.html
I suspect if he *could* 'look down on us from Above', that he'd be disappointed. I mean, I suspect that in recent months, he was grateful that he wouldn't be around to see what self-absorbed screw-ups we were becoming & the mess we are about to discover we've generated both domestically & internationally...
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BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
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"... tolerance of intolerance is cowardice... " ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
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"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
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Be there, soon...
Barry Willis
Get lost,
Brick
"Ever notice how everyone that drives slower than you is an idiot, and everyone that drives faster is a maniac? LOOK at THIS idiot! Look at that MANIAC go!"
Go well, Mr. Carlin
in America, yuppism ,rich baby boomers and their phoney lifestyles,Goerge was the face of reality and the voice of truth in a truly screwed up world.
After turning 70, Carlin noted:
"I prefer to think of myself as 69, with one finger up my ass."
i first heard of you when i was about 12.
you were making the funniest fart jokes i ever heard.im 39 now.and im cutting farts that would kill a canary. (ha-ha)
anyhow george, just wanted to say, you were practically my guru.
im getting a photo of you and your going up right next to my paramhansa yogananda photos.