They're Never Really Gone

Everyone else has wrtten about the death of George Carlin...
I have to say that he had the most integral impact on my life of any comedian or pundit. He boiled things down to the simple, undeniable truth-as-he-saw-it. Other folks talk about Lenny Bruce and other comedians, but he was the first one that had any real impact on me.

Part of that was because my father admired him and owned every record he ever made, even bought his book. Dad was a news director for several radio stations, and a nastier, more irascible, more opinionated man you have never met. His friends worshipped him, and his enemies feared him. He never crossed the line into yellow journalism, bt always researched his facts deathlessly. He boldly exposed people who hurt others, and refused to admire people with the public pack. His friends were his friends til death - and his enemies were the same. Dad had talk shows where he brought on famous people and either exposed them or increased folks' admiration for them. I was therefore stunned that my father, who stood foursquare wrapped in the flag of his country, who pounded home truth as beauty, admired a long-haired hippie freak like George Carlin.

Why? Because truth was truth, and George had a way of making people see it. From his parody of "Al Sleet, the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman" to his "A Place for My Stuff" - George was an ill-tempered, irascible, grouchy, critical and angry, self-assured young man - just like my Dad. But instead of using the truth as a club to slay giants of public adulation, he used it as an ice pick - sharp and sudden, unexpected jabs into the balloons of self-deceit and self-congratulation that people inflated around themselves. Even if the balloons were your own, you had to laugh.

George's use of the English language to make his points perfectly and humorously, rather than scathingly and with killing strokes, impressed my father mightily... and therefore, me. Dad may have been my life's inspiration, but George was the inspiration for my own ventures into comedy - the softer, funnier, more lovin' life side of me. Dad was intense - George was intense and yet didn't portray the cold that my father wore as a shield. His humor made the difference; made me realize that the Irish deep, dark, and angry side could have a funnier, lighter side without losing any of its incisive observations. He made my Dad laugh, which was rare. And he kept the world in perspective, which was harder still.

So yeah, I'll miss him too, but not really. George is always with me; in the recordings we have, in the quotes we share - even my children quote him and admire him still. As a fellow Irishman, he probably has no idea of the impact he had on three generations. Also as an Irishman, he would probably have made fun of that impact, had he known!