George Carlin passed away yesterday at the age of 71. We’ve been reading the obits and the tributes all day and all of them cite Carlin as a rebel, a maverick and a defender of free speech, especially with respect to his arrest and the Supreme Court case over his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine. Yep, the fight to be allowed to say dirty words in a public forum was important, we suppose, because it was a fight for free speech in a broader context that we see threatened today with various hate speech laws.
What we will remember George Carlin for most, though, is nailing…. absolutely nailing the differences between the idyllic, pastoral, timeless 19th century game of baseball and the military-industrial apocalyptic urgency of 20th century football (its telling that Grantland Rice’s “Four Horsemen” wasn’t about Ruth, Gehrig, Meusel and Lazzeri of the ’27 Yankees but rather the ’24 Notre Dame football team).
George Carlin. R.I.P.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Ah Poop! George Carlin died.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
I guess the GOP spin machine now has to go strictly to putting words in the mouth of Jay Leno while mass-circulating those "Leave it to (George Carlin, Jay Leno, etc.) to nail it..." emails that seem to show up in everyone's in-box at least once a week.
You know, the ones with long lists of mostly common-sensical insights like "People should cover their mouths while sneezing", while also putting in a couple of product-placement conservative sayings like "People should carry a semi-automatic at all times in case they need it to beat back the commies after they are done sneezing".
Obviously, I won't be writing any of those lists myself anytime soon.
But, back to Mr. Carlin. Two of his more interesting takes, and offensive and (warning) as full of 4-letter bombs as anything...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyWEBbFwU1o&feature=related
- Leave It To Mongo
Post a Comment