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Controversial comedian George Carlin died June 22, of heart failure
after a four-decade career as a stand-up comic. He was 71.
Carlin is known for his HBO comedy routine "Seven Words You Can
Never Say on Television." When Pacifica Radio broadcast it uncensored
in 1978, someone registered a complaint with the FCC, which
quickly ruled that certain words (regardless of the Free Speech
Amendment) could not be broadcast on public airways during prime time
or when the likelihood was that children would hear them.
Carlin quipped on the radio that there are about 400,000 words in the
English language and only seven of them cannot be spoken on TV. They
are: "Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits.
Those are the heavy seven.” Those, he continued, "are the ones
that'll curve your spine, warp your mind, and keep the country from
winning the war."
Carlin started out in the ’60s as a stand-up comic, in a short hair
cut, and skinny black tie. He appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and
the “Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson. Wanting a younger, hipper
audience, he grew his hair and a beard. But he took that era’s reigning
comic bad guy, Lenny Bruce, as his model. (He was in the audience the
night Bruce was arrested. He refused to present his ID to the cops, and
so ended up riding in the patrol car with Bruce.)
Carlin started writing material criticizing U.S. political, social,
religious, and cultural issues. As George Orwell had done couple of
generations earlier, he riffed on the government’s use of euphemisms, like
"peace officers" for police. He pointed out that the
government glosses over its most egregious acts, calling soldiers’
killing of innocent civilians, "collateral damage."
He also came down on the Christian right’s protection of the
"unborn." As long as you’re unborn, you’re protected, but
once you’re out, you’re on your own till you’re in the military—then
it’s okay to kill you.
In his last performance for “Saturday Night Live,” Carlin upset NBC
with a routine about God. On June 28, as a memorial tribute, NBC aired
the very first SNL, in 1975, which George Carlin had hosted.
Over the years, he has won four Grammys, plus authoring three
best-sellers. Just before his untimely death, he was to have received
the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Award for Humor. It will be given
posthumously. Who will replace this comic voice of the American
conscience in a time when we sorely need one?
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