George Carlin - 1937 - 2008 RIP
By Nicole Belle Sunday Jun 22, 2008 1:30am
The Seven Words (NSFW)
Comedian George Carlin, a counter-culture hero famed for his routines about drugs and dirty words, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday, a spokesman said. He was 71.
Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, died at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters.
Known for his edgy, provocative material, Carlin achieved status as an anti-Establishment icon in the 1970s with stand-up bits full of drug references and a routine about seven dirty words you could not say on television.
:(
Sad day.
Wow. That's awful. :-(
Goodbye, George.
In honor of George Carlin I can only say, "Fuck... I'm crying my eyes out"
Funniest comedian ever. Knew the smell of bullshit, and when to let you know about it.
RIP George
HOLY SHIT
His honesty, I hope, will not evade us
He knew he was getting close to death, and the truth rushed out of him like a gust of fresh air. In the last ten years he spoke more truth on stage than he did the first thirty.
R.I.P. George
rip george
i am totally in shock, and i really am crying
i hate when i have to stare mortality in the face
i know george would tell me to fuck off, and this is exactly what life is all about...but the dude was not old
i remember doing a rendition of his hippy dippy weatherman for a talent show when i was 13, thinking no one had ever heard of the guy or his comedy albums...only to find out that everyone had heard his stuff...i of course lost
i am now going to crawl into the fetal position for a few hours....cya
rip
BEST EVER!!!!!!!
He didnt believe in anything ...
Sayonara George! We will miss you buddy!
noooooooooo! man, i am truly bummed right now. r.i.p : (
Nothing can be said that would give justice to the passing of the great Carlin.
He was such a wonderful influence on my language.
George was the best
We were lucky to have him
So sad.....
Crap. Didn't want to end the night like this.... RIP .. You WILL be missed!!!!
anon @ 11:
can we remove this post before i say what i really feel? thank you
Funny, funny guy. I think the announced last week that he was going to receive the Mark Twain Award at the Kennedy Center this year. Lousy timing. :(
Takes me back to when I was 13-14 yrs old, listening to his records. Seems like such a long time ago now.
I was a little disturbed at what a misanthrope and nihilist he became. But he never pandered, and never went for cheap laughs. He was a social critic as well as a funny man. He told the truth.
RIP, condolences to his family.
i won't feel this way when
brad stine kicks the bucket
and goes to hell.
rip george.
*
Sad. I just found out. He was quite a clever character.
Rest in peace, Mr. Carlin. :(
I always thought the man could never die: heaven didn't want him and the devil was afraid Carlin would upstage him. And I say that with a certain fondness for him. :)
I hope that, when I die, I go wherever he went. He will be missed.
I just sent the same video as an email.
Too bad.
Rest in peace, George. Thanks for making me laugh with your keen wit.
we've definitely lost a legend... that man told it like it was... Its too bad we never listened to what he had to say - we were too busy laughing at the truth of it all.
RIP Mr. Carlin
NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
This is sad. RIP, George.
He is/was my favorite comedian, he will be missed. Time to go to YouTube and watch some of his old stuff to laugh like he would want us to do.
THE best comic relief of my generation. Spoke only the truth and answered to no one.
RIP George...you will be missed.
I just found out about this. I've been a fan of Carlin since I was about 13, and heard this rant from What Am I Doing in New Jersey?
(Parental discretion advised)
I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photographs of all the criminals and law-breakers in the Ronald Reagan administration. [laughter] Yeah! Yeah! 225 of 'em so far! 225 different people in the Ronald Reagan administration have either quit, been fired, been arrested, indicted, or convicted of either breaking the law or violating the Ethics Code! 225 of 'em! And Edwin Meese alone... [laughter] Edwin Meese alone has been investigated by three separate Special Prosecutors and there's a fourth one waiting for him in Washington right now. Three separate Special Prosecutors have had to look into the activities of the Attorney General, and the Attorney General is the nation's leading law enforcement officer! [laughter]
See that's what you've got to remember, this is the Ronald Reagan administration we're talking about. These are the Law and Order people! These are the people who are against street crime! They want to put street criminals in jail to make life safer for the business criminals! [laughter, cheers] Yeah! They're against street crime, provided that street isn't Wall Street. [laughter]
And the Supreme Court decided about a year ago that it's all right to put people in jail now if we just think they're going to commit a crime. It's called preventive detention. All you've got to do now is just think they're going to commit a crime. Well if we'd known this seven or eight years ago we could have put a bunch of these Republican motherfuckers directly into prison [laughter, cheers] Yeah! put 'em in the joint where they belong and we could have saved the expense of putting these pin-headed assholes on trial. [laughter] Another thing you gotta remember is these are the people elected with the help of the Moral Majority. Elected with the help of the Moral Majority and -- the Teamster's Union. That's a good combination. Organized Religion and Organized Crime working together to help build a better America. [laughter, cheers]
They were going to get government off our backs. Yeah, but when it comes to abortion they don't mind government being in a woman's uterus, do they? [laughter] Yeah, backs are no good, but uterus is ok by them. These people call themselves Right to Lifers. Don't you love that phrase, and don't you love the way these kind of people pervert the English language? Right to Lifers? Don't you realize that most of the Right to Lifers are in favor of the death penalty, and they support the South American death squads, and they're against gun control, and they're against nuclear weapons control. When they say Right to Life they're talking about their right to decide which people should live or die. [cheers]
So these right-wingers, you know, so these Reagan people, these right-wingers in general, these crypto-Fascists, they're against homosexuality, they're against pornography, they're against sex education, they're against abortion, yeah they're going to get government off your back but they're going to tell you how to live your sex life. And let me ask you this, how would they know anything about it? [laughter] Have you ever taken a look at those people? [laughter] No wonder they're afraid of their bodies, take a look at 'em! [laughter] Doesn't it strike as mildly ironic that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place? [laughter, cheers]
Hey, I'm the first one to say it's a great country, but it's a stra-a-ange culture. We got a strange culture. ... This is a country where tobacco kills 400,000 people a year -- so they ban artifical sweeteners! [laughter] Because a rat died! [laughter, cheers] Know what I mean? This is a place where gun store owners are given a list of stolen credit cards, but not a list of criminals and maniacs! [laughter] And now they're thinking about banning toys guns, and they're going to keep the fucking real ones!! [laughter, cheers] This is a place where alcohol ruins more lives than cancer, and everybody gets upset when some athlete gets hooked on cocaine. You know Time Magazine and Newsweek put cocaine on the cover, but they put the liquor advertisements inside the magazine.
It's the old American double standard, you know say one thing and do something different. And of course the country is founded on the double standard, that's our history, we were founded on a very basic double standard. This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free. [laughter, applause] Am I right? A group of slave owners who wanted to be free. So they killed a lot of white English people, in order to continue owning their black African people, so they could wipe out the rest of the red Indian people, and move west and steal the rest of the land from the brown Mexican people, giving them a place to take off and drop their nuclear weapons on the yellow Japanese people. [laughter] You know what the motto of this country ought to be? You give us a color, we'll wipe it out! [laughter]
George Carlin was a truth-teller for so many years. He will be missed. I miss him already.
Here's one of his greatest recent riffs...
"It's called the American Dream-- because you have to be asleep to believe it."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI5EY5kqiBU
Rest in peace, George. You were loved. You are loved.
This is the first celebrity death that has ever truly affected me. I'm stunned.
Holy shit! He was the anti-god and I... I have no words. None. I
I
crap.
We've lost one of the great minds of our age. One of the few with the courage to call things as he saw them.
He'd give us all shit for being sad. We are lucky that we got to hear and see so much of him.
So he's dead, but those foul-mouthed a-hole Republican commentators are still alive? Damn, that sucks...
Sad. One of my favorite comedians.
Aw fuck. So long George.
this is really a bummer, man.
Go into that questionable night, young man.
A 60's guy who never got rid of his bullshit meter. A unique comedian who made us all rethink what we we're doing, once we got his take on the issue. No one could look at life in the way George did. I feel empty.
Son Of A Bitch!
What The Fuck!
Why do the best social commentators die when we need them the most?
George Carlin was a truly brilliant person, RIP George.
George Carlin interviewed by Keith Olbermann on Countdown...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UVXj8F9Fmk
Sigh. Rest in peace.
GOD DAMNIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We lost one of the great ones, he can never be replaced.
I am completely without words. RIP George. The world will not be the same without you.
No. No, no, no, no, no.
No.
George Carlin..... how sad. I only wish the Heaven and Hell he never believed in actually existed, as I am sure he would have had a great time being thrown back and forth by God and the Devil because he exposed them for the frauds they are.
A man who decided that to believe in something that cannot be proven, believing what he was told was an idiotic idea, a way of life fit only for fools and sheep. A man who believed in nothing but telling the truth, had, in turn, some of the greatest ideas and an incredible talent for getting to the truth in everything he considered.
He will never be forgotten. He is an inspiration for all the freethinkers that see the truth in life. And the bastard had a great sense of humor to boot.
If I could channel his spirit for a moment I would imagine his tombstone would say something like the following-
Life's a piece of shit,
and you're still in it.
Fuck you George, how dare you die!
Quitter.
Shit this sucks.
George, thanks for helping me laugh at the misery of reality.
FUCK!!!!!!!
I worshipped him.
I had a feeling this would happen. I was thinking about him the other day.
RIP George.
This makes me very very sad.
I've seen George a dozen times since the 70's.
He was the greatest.
I love you George- you'll be terribly missed.
George...Rest in Peace brother!
You were (are) one of my favorite people in the world.
Nothing was sacred and thats the way it needs to be!
Thanks for calling it like you saw it Mr. Carlin. See you on the flipside motherf#%ker.
Thank You George. I remember watching you on The Ed Sullivan Show and watched you evolve from the coat and tie days until now. What a productive life lived to the fullest! Every stand up comedian owes you a debt of gratitude as do we all. Aloha
[deleted--don't wish death on anyone on this site]
I'm in shock, Carlin has been a major influence in my life and the lives of my friends. No other comic comes close. Thank you for making us laugh George.
Rave On George Carlin...........Rave On the seven words words that you cannot say on television!
Rave on Al Sleep.........Rave On the hippy-dippy weather man!
I look to the left of the comment box and see the names: Donahue, Thompson, Harris, Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, Giuliani, Delay, Coulter, Malkin, Novak, Limbaugh.......etc,etc, George told the world........"these cocksuckers don't give a damn about you", George took on the tyranny and proclaimed..F%$k You to its minions.
Thanks to a uninhibited internet new generations will be able to see his cutting edge humor and biting satire..........
..............Rave On George Carlin!
I admired him and learned much about critical thinking. Im almost 40 and my heros are dying. Im sad he is gone.
First Pryor, now Carlin. Who is left now that they're gone? I mean, really? It's definitely the end of an era.
Thanks for the laughs and rest in peace, motherfucker.
I am STUNNED and upset that we lost a SANE one on OUR side today!!!! Dammit!!! Dammit!!! Dammit!!!
Thank You George. I remember watching you on The Ed Sullivan Show and watched you evolve from the coat and tie days till now. What a productive life lived to the fullest! Every stand up comedian owes you a debt of gratitude as do we all. Aloha
George was one of the great ones. He's going to be missed.
When my daughter heard, she said," MOM....Mr. Conductor died.". Even when he was on a kids show, he seemed a little subversive.
RIP George. You will be missed by many people.
Pictagoras @ 58:
Dont forget the great, late, Bill Hicks.
Carlin had a bullshit detector with a hair trigger. I miss him already.
And what does the new generation of young adults have?
Dane fucking Cook.
Man, I feel like truth is dying out.
It was a good run.
that just ruined my day, probably didn't help his either
You will be missed greatly George. You were one of very few people who had the brains to see the world for what it is and the nuts to say exactly what you saw. You held up a mirror to the world and made us laugh at ourselves.
Very, very sad.
This is like losing an old friend ---- R.I.P. sir.
R.I.P. Mr. Carlin!
Here's a great collection of his work if you're interested:
http://www.guba.com/all/search?query=george+carlin&set=5&x=0&y=0
I had a chance to see him a couple years ago, took it even though I coudn't afford it. So glad I did, too. He had just gotten out of the hospital, didn't look well at all. Took some pages out of his pocket and asked if it was OK with us if he tried out some totally new material for the first time, said it might be a little rough.
I knew it might be my only chance to see someone who had been a touchstone of my generation... I'm just sad that he had even less time that I had hoped.
I'm really starting to feel like things are beyond hope. The truth tellers have been marginalized and are dying off... the corporate media has everything locked down tighter than ever before.
They simply ignore stories, they ignore all of Bushs crimes, they ignore whats going on in Iraq, they Afghanistan, they ignore the Pentagon "Media Military Advisors" crime, they ignore it all.
And people like Tim Russert, who aids and abets the lies, who acts simply as a mouthpiece for the government/corporate machine, are memorialized like some kind of saint...
Meanwhile the truthtellers are dying off.
I really am starting to feel like its too late. Electing Democrats doesn't seem to help. I'm starting to think that once you let the money get too much control, there's no getting it back.
Just watch... the right wing will lie about Carlin, with both demonize him and yet claim him as one of their own. They already spread jingoistic racist xenophobic BS emails around, claiming they are his sayings... something that pissed him off to no end.
infinitstars @ 62:
Yup, Bill Hicks was a genius too...Sam Kinison, Lenny Bruce...so many great iconoclastic comedians have been taken from us.
It suddenly strikes me that George Carlin's passing likely won't receive 10% of the attention in the media that Tim Russert's did, despite the fact that he was infinitely more culturally significant.
Last of the great modern originals. Joe bless you, George.
"Aww Batshit!"
Truly a John Lennon moment for me.
"Tonight's forecast . . . dark..."
RIP
Since everybody's pretty much sayin' what I wanted to say, I'm going to bring one in from slightly outside the box:
The movie Jersey Girl actually works -- and it works *because* Kevin Smith cast George Carlin as Affleck's dad in such hilarious juxtaposition against Carlin's overall legend/reputation. If only that cocksucker Kevin Smith would just stop treating the movie as his red-headed stepchild (admittedly, that'll take him directing a movie that does worse at the box office), Carlin's performance could be finally get a fair shake.
Oh, hell, just watch Jersey Girl. Jennifer Lopez is in it for far fewer minutes than you fear that she is. And Affleck and Arwen[1] make a cute couple in a very Carlin way.
-- Rob
[1] Liv Tyler will always be Arwen to me.
Shit Piss Fuck Cunt Cocksucker Motherfucker Tits.
Some see the glass as half-empty. Others see the glass as half-full. I see the glass as being twice the size it should be.
RIP.
Goodbye to my friend who told me to use my brain.
Rot in peace George! I'll miss you!
Fuckity-fuck fuck, FUCKING FUCK!!!
Now who's going to point out the rampant bullshit in our modern world with laser-like accuracy?
First Russert, now George....
Why is it only the good guys who are dying of heart attacks?
Brian @ 40:
Ditto. Good night, George. Rest well.
oh man, no. Baseball and football -what a mutherfukkin genious he was. I'm so glad he leaves us with such a large body of work. And thanks Youtube et al! I'm crying my eyes out and laughing my ass off at the same time.
This sucks.
Rest in peace, George.
For some reason, Yahoo doesn't have this story up. They've got an article about pandas, they say Amy Winehouse apparently has emphysema, and they have a bullshit Politico story about Republican female VP prospects - but they've got nothing on one of the greatest comedians and social commentators of my lifetime.
One of my favorite terms he came up with recently is "Professional Christians"
Oh the irony of people saying "god bless you George".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
He is the only entertainer I can actually remember watching and laughing hysterically at. I was about 12 and he was on the Flip Wilson show. Can remember it like it was yesterday. That sums up the impact of this guys work. Truly unforgettable!
RIP!
The giants are leaving us.
Rest in Peace George Carlin. You will be missed.
You will not be forgotten...
It's been said many times before, but the good always die young.
One of the funniest men to ever walk the planet and, as was stated by others, one of the most honest. He will definitely be missed.
It's an honor for me to say I got a chance to see him live, and he did not disappoint.
I'm very sad to hear about this. He is one of the greats.
While his death isn't as shocking for me as Bill Hick's, it still hits hard...
I didn't realize he was 71. To me, he's always been young, in-yer-face, vibrant, pertinent, wonderfully ageless.
And now, irreplaceable.
Damn. :(
HOLY SHIT!
I just watched his last HBO special, what was that, like two months ago? I was thinking that he was getting up there in age, but he still seemed to have all of his wits and worked the stage pretty well so I assumed he was going to live forever.
The only comedian left who is willing to push the envelope farther than Carlin to force people to think through the politics and bullshit in life is Bill Maher. But Carlin was one of a kind.
He'll be missed!
Very sad. Felt a shock when I first read it. I feel fortunate that I was able to see him perform. I remember being young and listening to him and thinking he was such a great combination of humor and insight. One of my favorite bits....and there are many I could have chosen...is his baseball vs. football bit. Definitely will miss him. Hope wherever you are, it's better than you expected.
I was just watching his bit on Religion this morning.
:(