“I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.” - George Carlin
A groundbreaking observational comedian and a flat-out great storyteller, George Carlin died yesterday of heart failure at age 71. Known for his edgy, provocative material, he was shocking, irreverent and hilarious, yet somehow made you question things you thought you knew.
The last vote that George Carlin said he cast in a presidential race was for George McGovern in 1972. And when Richard Nixon, who Carlin described as a member of a sub-species of humanity, overwhelmingly defeated McGovern, the comedian gave up on the political process.
But while he may have stopped voting in 1972, America’s most consistently savage social commentator for the better part of a half century didn’t give up on politics. He read the papers, followed the news, asked questions and turned it all into a running commentary that focused not so much on politics as on the ugly intersection of power and economics. He didn’t want Americans to get involved with the system; he wanted citizens to get angry enough to remake the system.
Needless to say, he was not on message for 2008’s “change we can believe in” election season. No, his was a darker and more serious take on the crisis and the change of consciousness — sweeping in scope and revolutionary in character— that was required to address it. Like the radicals of the early years of the 20th century whose politics he knew and respected, he believed that free-speech fights had to come first. He always pushed the limit, happily choosing an offensive word when a more polite one might have sufficed.
By 1972, the year he won the first of four Grammys for best comedy album, he had developed his most famous routine: “Seven Words (You Can’t Say on Television).” That summer, at a huge outdoor show in Milwaukee, he uttered all seven of them in public — and was promptly arrested for disturbing the peace. When a version of the routine was aired in 1973 on WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation radio station in New York, Pacifica received a citation from the FCC and was ordered to pay a fine for violating federal regulations prohibiting the broadcast of “obscene” language. The ensuing free-speech fight made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled 5-4 against the First Amendment to the Constitution, Pacifica and Carlin. Amusingly, especially to Carlin, a full transcript of the routine ended up in court documents associated with the case, F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978).
There will, of course, be those who dismiss him as a remnant of the sixties who introduced obscenity to the public discourse — just as there will be those who misread his critique of the American political and economic systems as little more than verbal nihilism. In fact, George Carlin was, like the radicals of an earlier age, an idealist — and a patriot — of a deeper sort than is encountered very often these days.
Carlin explained himself best in one of his last interviews. “…I don’t consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word ‘cynic’ has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. ‘George, you’re cynical.’ Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?”
This is a Patriot’s Journey post. You may also enjoy visiting the other journeyers: Drumwaster, Larry at The Bastage, the folks at The Line Is Here and Shortbus from The Edge of Reason…