This weekend George Carlin died at the age of 71, which is reasonable. What’s unreasonable is that he was performing edgy, hip standup at that age. I mean what the hell! At that age you generally take a part in a family sitcom as the lead character’s eccentric dad; you do NOT somehow shock people with your act. The twilight of Carlin’s career was more like other comic’s high noon.

About 7 years ago I caught Carlin in a huge Vegas showroom. There he was with his grey ponytail, in black jeans and a black shirt, relentlessly pacing to and fro, gulping water from bottles. As the act went on, you’d see outraged couples walking out. I recall one thing that shaved off a few groundlings was his routine about the Ten Commandments, and how you could telescope them down to about three because the rest were just variations. The bad language didn’t bother people as much as the sacrilege.

I know that a few people bought tickets based on a vague recollection of the name and not a familiarity with Carlin’s recent work. But still - it takes a lot to get people to walk out on a show in Vegas. People are exhausted! A standup act in Vegas represents 90 minutes off your feet, away from the noise of slot machines. If you’re so challenging that you can pry people away from that shelter, well, that’s saying something.

I read this blog today that wished Carlin “godspeed.” Seeing as he was such a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, this wish is hilariously ironic. On the other hand, I don’t think he would be upset. After all, he’s dead now, and to him that meant it’s all over. He can’t read blogs anyway. Wish him whatever you want.

-daniel k

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 5:31 am and is filed under General, Stage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.