Jun 24 2008
RIP George Carlin
I saw him several years back with my parents while I was in high school. My father and I used to watch his HBO specials all the time. On the evening George W. Bush announced that we were attacking Iraq, I turned off his address to the nation and, instead, slipped in my copy of Jammin’ in New York, the first bit is about the Gulf War and references many of the same players (Bush, Cheney, Powell — it was remarkably apt). Somehow, regardless of how his age showed (he seemed to be tripping over his lines quite a bit in his most recent HBO special), Carlin always seemed immortal to me. Sadly no.
So, here’s the man talking about “the sanctity of life.”
Carlin had a great common-sense approach to everything, so he had to comment on such nonsense as god and religion. It’s interesting to me to see the press focus so much on “the 7 words” and little on what Carlin spent more time on: that god is invented and religion is stupid. You will be remembered, George. You will live on through our shared memory (and all the recordings) of your comedy and your message and that’s a pretty sweet afterlife.