George Carlin died today. What can you say but, "Que pasa, que what you call your pasa? Hahahahahaha!" One of the all-time greats. A comic who was relevant for over 40 years. Someone who changed his look from the ubiquitous suit and tie to long hair, jeans, and an earring when comics didn't do that. The author of the revolutionary "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television". I'm not sure he personally took up the obscenity fight with that recording, but contrary to popular belief, that Supreme Court ruling was 5-4 against, although a victory in the sense that it could be played overnight on the radio. The first guest host on "Saturday Night Live". One of the first to find freedom of expression on cable television. One of the most notorious anti-religion comics out there. And has a lot of "his stuff" on the Internet. Don't forget he was also in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" and played a Cardinal in "Dogma".

I think his greatness is affirmed because you can still remember his old shit like Al Sleet, the hippie-dippie weatherman, with his "Tonight's forecast...dark!" I know his Biff Burns routine, "Time for the Biff Burns Sportlight Spotlight. Spotlighting sports that are in the Sportlight Spotlight." That had the lines of "Here's a partial score...Ohio State, 10." and "CalTech 12.3, MIT 9.7".

In recent years, his book sales were quite good, as he was really good, I thought, at exploring language, like "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence". His second last special on HBO kinda freaked me out because he was angry. I mean, not even funny angry, practically mean. I happened to hear an excerpt from that special on an XM channel today and it was basically, "They don't give a fuck about you. Their big club? You and me...we ain't in it." That's tough to take for 90 minutes, because inherent in that argument is, well, you're stupid for not questioning things, etc. But I think he calmed down a bit since then and it's a shame he won't pick up his Kennedy Center award in person later this year.

I always liked his quote, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." That's the truth.

Here's a lengthy, but I think brilliantly constructed routine. Sort of an uncomfortable topic, while not insulting to the audience, Carlin frames a cogent argument with a unique ability to inject humor in all the right places.

"Religion Is Bullshit"/George Carlin



Meal of Links

Speaking of words and playing with them. Here's Wordle. Hopefully, you get something. I think I killed it.

The inevitable march toward the "Avengers" movie. Ant-Man? Did anyone like him?

You can watch television without paying for it. I'm digging Hulu right now.

This sort of explains how odd Wikipedia can be. It is uncanny when you hear of someone's death, this time Tim Russert, and it is up on Wiki before many news outlets have reported it. We noticed this during, of all things, Jim Rome's Smackoff this year. The results were on Wiki seemingly instantaneously. Heath Ledger's death, same thing. It seems as if there is a person assigned to each entry and that is their charge to instantly update anything. It can be creepy how fast some things are updated on there.

Exercise Yard

Spaceman Lee still has it. And he's 62! He just tossed six innings in the Midnight Sun game in Alaska.

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