George Carlin

George Carlin, comedic genius, died Monday afternoon from heart failure.
After all this talk about not feeling emotions anymore, this is the one event that's driven me almost to tears.
Perhaps it's all the other, subconsciously repressed emotions all coming out now. Perhaps we now find out where my true priorities lie, a comedian I've never met.

Whatever, this is still a terrible event. He was one of the few men still alive I wanted to 'meet', if only seeing them from a distance. This is the second or third time this has happened; where someone I'd love to meet dies before I get the chance to even see them. I had tickets to his concert a few months ago, but my plans changed and I couldn't go.
Josef Zawinul, famous jazz fusion keyboardist, died last September, before his tour came to Virginia.

I'd love to say some sensitive shit about how 'life is short' and such; but I have upwards of 70 years left. I got plenty of time. I guess the moral is that with the death of a person, you lose all they gave/could give, especially in the case of entertainers as original and unique as George.

But I'd just like to show my respect for this man, his beliefs, and his talents the only way I really can. He was a genius, both comedic and sociological, and even had the ability to talk about the worst cuss words, then turn around and host/narrate a kid's show. I do own all his books, so If anyone would like to borrow them, I highly recommend them; especially if you haven't experienced Carlin's unique brand of comedy. I like the quote from John Hargrave, another comedian, "He'll be remembered for "Seven Words You Can't Say On TV," but that's like the Beatles being remembered for "Hey Jude." ". It's very true-he was so prolific and original.

I'll leave with an anecdote presented by Hargrave, from his friend.

I found myself on a plane with George Carlin. We were both riding in first class. Before the plane took off, I had to endure people reaching over me to get his autograph, he signed them all and was very gracious about the whole thing.

Immediately after takeoff, the flight attendant came and took our dinner orders. It became apparent that Mr. Carlin had planned his trip to be a working trip. He asked for his meal to be brought at the last possible second before the descent to land. He wanted to get as much work done as possible on his Macbook and didn't want to be interrupted by the whole dinner ordeal.

I knew that, if I were going to get a conversation with George Carlin, it would be at that moment: when his meal arrived. So I waited and worked on my own laptop. Finally, four and a half hours into the flight, the attendant brought out his meal. I shut down my computer and took my opportunity. I turned to him and said, "Mr. Carlin, I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you not disturbing me during this flight and allowing me to finish my work. It's so hard to get things done on airplanes and I really do appreciate it."

George Carlin busted out laughing.

Once you've got George Carlin laughing, you can do almost anything, right? I continued on, and we had a pleasant conversation. I commented to Carlin that I was amazed at his observational skills, that most people don't notice the little things around them. Carlin disagreed immediately. He said, "On the contrary, EVERYONE has great observational skills. Otherwise, no one would know what I was talking about when I say something like, 'You ever open up the refrigerator and...'. If no one noticed things, no one would find it funny."

Carlin then revealed his secret. He opened his Macbook and showed me his folders: a detailed filing system with over 2500 categories where he stored every observation that he had made over the years. "Everyone notices everything," he said, "the difference between them and me is that they don't know what to do with it once they notice it. I do. Most people just forget about it, until I mention it again in my bit and make them laugh."

He was one of the few last original greats of entertainment. After this, our feeble grasp on decent entertainment slips, as it all falls back onto standardized, computer-generated crap that the masses are subtly forced to love.