Comedian George Carlin is dead

Yeah, I just heard about that on the radio this morning.  Had some pretty funny things to say.
 
You know what's even worse that finding out that someone has died?  Finding out that someone you thought had been dead for a while, actually wasn't....but is now!
 
George Carlin was my favourite comedian, and had absolute amazing things to say in regards to...well, everything.
 
Everywhere I turn, everyone seems to be saying what a great guy Carlin was, with no qualifications whatsoever. Allow me to be the bad guy and say: while he was a great comedian who will be missed, he wasn't everything that some people* seem to think he was.

* I'm not referring to people on this forum - more the other forums I've seen. Carlin worshippers everywhere...

Has anybody besides me seen his HBO specials in the last 10 years or so? Remember, HBO specials for Carlin were like studio albums for rock bands. They were usually the debut venue for his new material; they usually got released on CD and DVD after the HBO broadcast. If* it's appropriate to judge the man, those specials are the first standard to judge him by.

* It's not appropriate to judge Carlin or anyone else. Live and let live ... and be a fucking hypocrite once in a while. I'm gonna judge Carlin now...

Those last 3 or 4 specials had some of the great material we all loved Carlin for. Wordplay gags and insightful rants about why religion makes no sense*. Half the time, the man was right on the money.

* Carlin's classic rant about "God" as an "imaginary friend in the sky" (circa 1998) was hugely influential on me, triggering my growth from mere skeptic to fully conscious atheist.

But the other half of the time, Carlin was nothing but a misanthropic, hateful, grumpy old man. He attempted to claim that because he spat his vitriol on all groups equally, he wasn't really that bad. But he was. I had a hard time watching his last few specials, as his nonstop hate did nothing but bring me down.

The one that really pissed me off was his routines about how the democratic process in the US is broken, and therefore he refused to vote. The process may indeed be broken in some significant ways, but that's no excuse for abdicating one's responsibility as a citizen and then blaming the ills of society on everyone else.

Carlin was great when he stayed away from large societal issues (excepting religion). But his moral compass with regards to the rest of humanity was fucked, and his "comedy" became increasingly intolerable as the years went on.

So I'll mourn the passing of a man who was brilliantly funny in the 1970s and 1980s, but the Carlin of the last 15 years or so will not be missed much.
 
Agreed.  I generally don't consider the man to be a paragon of social virtue...but he was damn funny on a lot of it.
 
I've had the pleasure of seeing some of his rants on youtube (probably from the eighties) and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I am unfamiliar with his new material so I can't say I'll miss him, but I will look out for it from now on.
 
Never heard of him but hey I'm not from the US.
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You should definitely check out some of his earlier work then Foro, I really think you would enjoy his brand of comedy.
 
I didn't know Carlin until Loosey pointed me to a few YouTube videos. I must admit that the God rant is fantastic, but I quite enjoyed the rest too.

So I was well flattered when old Loosey called me a "Swiss George Carlin, or whatever you may be".

SinisterMinisterX said:
Carlin was nothing but a misanthropic, hateful, grumpy old man.
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Yep, that describes me quite well too. Cheers SMX!  :D
 
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