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Whenever anyone would ask me who my favourite comedian is, my answer has always been George Carlin.
Thanks for all the laughs, George. You will be missed.
Cheers,
Louis
Didn't really know this guy - but I understand he gave many people great pleasure.
When I saw this Video Louis - and others - I thought he just looked like Spiderman's creator Stan Lee
EDIT - was he in 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure?
daveac
daveac on blip.tv, TalkShoe, iTunes, LiveVideo, uStream, GE, Sci-Fi, DWO, DS & WTA, Dave C on WLP,
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I was a few years to young to be his primary "70's counterculture" audience, but I grew up with my dad doing near dead-on of impressions of Carlin (edited for children of course) so I feel like I've been a fan of his forever. The man was a genius and I loved damn near everything he did (possibly the one exception).
I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I'll give you an example of that. There's a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to it's absolute peak and maximum. Can't take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue. Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha.
I'm going "Full Circle" and putting my avatar back to what it was when I first joined. :)
Not only was he funny but he had a body of work that will be tough for anyone to equal. I mean he did a new funny HBO special every 2 years or so.
Plus he did a few good movies here and there.
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as a hitchhiker and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
For the people with HBO, I think they are going to run a bunch of his specials this week. Or look for them on your favorite sharing site. The are solidly funny.
"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the Universe." - Carl Sagan
Monday, June 23 2008 @ 01:51 AM EDT
