George Carlin United Us In Laughter

When NBC's Tim Russert died this month (see blog of June 13) many of his fans, including yours truly, were nearly brought to tears with grief over such an immediate and unexpected death. He died of a heart attack while working in his office. But when news came that comedian George Carlin had died June 22, many of his fans were brought to smiles and perhaps a little laughter.

"Everything God makes, dies," Carlin quipped in one of his many comedic routines.

Everything?

"Yup everything, every blue hog....."

It is my sincere belief that George Carlin perhaps was among the most honest and irreverent human beings on Earth during the 71 years of his life. He told it like it was, in his opinion yes, but also in the shared opinions of many others, including those who would not publicly claim to be a fan of George Carlin's rude and often disrespectful behavior.

I thought he was right on target with many of his routines derived from his unique observations on life. And who could truly argue with some of those observations?

"The forecast for tonight is dark, and continued dark throughout most of the evening with some widely scattered light towards morning," said one of his early characters -- Al Sleet, the noted Hippy Dippy Weatherman. It truly was a routine for the ages as Carlin so cleverly and simply outted the true ridiculousness displayed by nearly every TV weather person in the United States today.

If human cloning ever was a reality many years ago, then Carlin certainly may have been cloned from the DNA of the late social writer, comic, critic and American satirist Leonard Alfred Schneider (aka Lenny Bruce). It was from Bruce's style of raunchy humor and satire launched during the 1950s and 1960s, that some say ignited the generational culture change among the first of the Baby Boom generation. Many thought that Bruce was responsible for a growing tide of social and civic disrespect in the U.S. In fact, he was arrested in Miami during 1951 because he impersonated a priest attempting to secure donations to assist a leper colony in British Guiana.

That sounded so Carlin-esque.

Carlin was no stranger to priests, having been raised an Irish Catholic in New York City. In fact, among his largest followings were Catholic schoolboys who grew up in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s. As many of us were trained by our Catholic educators to recite noted works such as the Gettysburg Address, learn Latin and also be able to name in correct chronological order all the U.S. Presidents and their respective terms in office by year -- then it should not have come as any surprise that many of these same Catholic boys, including a few who today are Roman Catholic priests, were able to entirely and accurately recite some of Carlin's comedy routines. Topping this list of course, and ranked No. 1 well ahead of any other subject matter by Catholic boys and perhaps Jewish boys, and Protestant boys and so on and so forth, was Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" routine.

Those of us, who among a consensus of our youthful peers back in the 1960s and 1970s, could accurately and with proper inflection, recite Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" routine in its entirety without being caught by parents, teachers, Catholic nuns and priests, relatives, neighbors and the police --- became journalists by trade. I am proud to say I became one of those journalists.

What struck me about George Carlin perhaps above all other things was his ability to convince audiences that his comedy routines in fact were not comedy, but acute satire which he believed to be a truism for life as we have come to know it, but afraid to admit it. Carlin was the quintessential expert, who successfully crafted and offered in highly public fashion, his judgements about people as merely his "observations" of life.

• "First of all, the Catholic boys where I grew up would always go to a Spanish priest, like Father Muerta, to confess their sins because they didn't seem to understand the sins: "Ah, Bless me Father for I have sinned....I've touched myself in an impure manner -- thought, word and deed.....etc., etc., etc---"that's okay man, tres Santa Marias ---- brrrrrrroooooo (with a roll of the tongue). Whereas the Irish priests---well first they knew your name -- why did you do that George? Oh God, he knows! And, they were heavy into Penance.

Carlin indeed proved himself to be the world's ultimate class clown. He often regaled television audiences with his observational humor, not only as the very first host of Saturday Night Live in 1975, but also as a frequent and regular substitute host for the late Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show".

I can say with laughter and forever a huge smile, that Carlin's death will likely reunite him with the place where all of his "lost stuff" throughout a lifetime of 71 years likely now can be found to some extent. His death will certainly put him right there in touch with Johnny Carson as some sort of heavenly co-host. Carlin's death perhaps means that he could one day become united with his greatest known fan of all time -- the Lord himself. As irreverent as that may sound to a few people, I think the Almighty might just agree that he is a fan of the most honest and directly outspoken comics, authors, satirists and entertainers known in this millenium.