Thanks for Everything, Uncle George

George Carlin died today. I'd hoped he would hold out longer, but he had long term heart problems.

George Carlin was the most prolific and successful live standup comic who ever lived. From the time he started performing live comedy routines in 1957 to his last show a week ago in Vegas, he never stopped performing. In terms of total ticket sales, no comic even comes close. His career oversaw the transformation of standup comedy from stale, cliche joke-telling, into an art form. His comedy so defined his era that it wound up being debated by the Supreme Court, who considered it dangerous enough to serve as an example of what we should censor.

But to me, he's just Uncle George. That's how I feel about him. I discovered Uncle George at the age of 15, a crucial turning point in my life. I had turned my back on the church, starting smoking pot and dropping acid, given up on school, and gotten kicked out of my mom's house and sent to live with my dad in the desert, where there was nothing to do. Angry, miserable, and bored, I starting snooping around and found some old comedy LP's that my step-mother had stashed away. Among them were a Cheech and Chong record and George Carlin's FM & AM. Cheech and Chong were good for a low-brow chuckle, but Carlin's masterful wordplay and melodic, almost musical delivery, captivated me.

I forgot about him for a while, but when I was 17, my friend Scurvy came over and put on What am I Doing in New Jersey? followed by Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics. It was like an implosion in my frontal lobe. The polished writing, the perfectly honed delivery, the masterful language, the pacing, the melody were unlike anyone I'd ever heard. He was able to take some of the most complex, deeply rooted philosophical struggles of our age, and summarize them with flawless logic, while squeezing the laughter right out of your guts.

By now, I've heard all of his 23 albums, seen all of his 14 HBO specials, read all three of his books, and seen him live twice. I can't think of any other media figure to whom I have devoted that much of my time to. I guess I just liked the sound of his voice, the way his mind worked. He questioned everything, found humor in everything, vented his rage at everything. After listening to him for all these years, his voice is now a permanent voice in my head, right up there with my freinds and family. And I don't have many heroes. But George Carlin was my hero.

Now that Bill Hicks, Hunter S. Thompson and George Carlin are all dead, I guess I'm done with heroes. I don't need them any more. I can make it on my own from here.

Thanks for everything, Uncle George. I'll miss you. And your eyebrows.