NotTheRock Musings

Some people loved him -- others hated him. I happened to think George Carlin was a brilliant comedian. Sure, sometimes his stuff felt a little tired or overused. But when you consider he was a top-draw comedian for over 35 years, it's pretty impressive.

I often wondered how long he'd last, what with all the drug use, constant smoking, obvious drinking, etc. George never really looked healthy. In fact, if you look back at his 70s performances, he looked old then. And so it was that old cranky George Carlin died yesterday at the age of 71.

Some of my favorite jokes and one-liners came from George Carlin routines... here's a sampling, many of which old friend Xtrosity and I still use all the time...

On air travel:

"Here's one they just made up: 'near miss.' Two planes narrowly avoid hitting one another... they call it a 'near miss.' It's a near HIT! A collision is a 'near miss.'"

"'Please check around your immediate seating area for any personal belongings you might have brought on board.' Well.... I might have brought my arrowhead collection. I didn't.... so I'm not going to look for it!! I'm going to look for things I did bring on board! Would seem to enhance the likelihood of me finding something, wouldn't you say?"

"'...for any personal belongings...' What other belongings are there... besides personal? Public belongings? Do these people honestly believe I might be traveling with a fountain I stole from the park?"

"'The captain has turned on the no smoking sign.' Well, who gives a shit who turned it on? It's on, isn't it?"

On needless words:

"Too much use of this prefix, 'pre.' Place the turkey in a preheated oven. That's ridiculous. An oven can exist in two states only -- heated or UNheated. Preheated is a meaningless fucking term."

On little things that make us all the same:

"Do you ever look at your watch, and you don't know what time it is? So you look again, and you still don't know... so you look a third time, and somebody says, 'what time is it?' and you say, 'I don't know!'"

Anyway, I thought I'd post a clip on, naturally, death. There are tons of YouTube clips floating around out there by George and this one mocks the idea of heaven but it's still pretty funny unless you're too sensitive. Which was really the way all of Carlin's routines were. Funny, unless you were too sensitive.

Labels: George Carlin