|
|
 |
|||
|
THROUGH THE YEARS WITH THE CLASS CLOWN |
|||||
|
|||||
|
by
Tom Lounges Photography by: Roy Ferrer
George
Carlin is an ambivalent and often controversial wordsmith who has made a
forty year career saying the kinds of things that most of us think but
are too politically correct to admit.
“It’s in my genes,”
explained Carlin. “I got
a great genetic package from my parents.
I got a gift for language and a gift for the spoken word from
them. I’ve just used those gifts in a way that has been successful.
“The right side of my brain
wants to write all this interesting stuff and the left side says we
can’t do it if we don’t make little piles of paper, categorize them
and analyze them,” he laughed. “In
other words, my right side is creative and my left side is anal but it
all comes together. I got
born with the right skills for doing this.” THE
CLIMB UP
In the Air Force at age 18,
the future comedy star and cultural icon found himself in the Louisiana
backwoods at the console of radio station KJOE.
“The military promised me the world and give me Shreveport,”
laughed Carlin.
He proved to be a natural in
front of a microphone and pursued a broadcasting career after the
service, landing at KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.
There he met Jack Burns and the two became fast friends and a hit
morning drive team – one of the first of the now established “Zoo”
or “Madhouse” type of
morning shows.
Leaving radio for night club
work, Burns & Carlin were hugely successful. They appeared on the “Tonight
Show” with Jack Paar less than two years after teaming up.
Their act had a decidedly
anti-establishment, satirical flavor, but by 1962 Carlin had married and
was ready to step out on his own.
His success with characters
like “The Wonderful Wino”
and “The Hippy Dippy Weather
Man” landed Carlin on a bevy of television talk and variety shows
during 1965-66, including the first of more than 130 appearances on the
revamped “Tonight Show”
starring Johnny Carson. Carson
loved Carlin so much, that he often asked George to guest host the
venerable show in his absence. BITTEN
BY THE ACTING BUG
Guest shots on late
‘60s TV shows like “That
Girl” and even a role in the hit Doris Day film, “With
Six You Get Egg-Roll,” were not as satisfying as Carlin had hoped.
A second attempt at acting
years later also proved less than fulfilling.
In 1994, Fox-TV gave Carlin his own weekly television series, “The
George Carlin Show.”
Carlin said he felt out of
his element in commercial television and the show was cancelled after
its first season.
Surprisingly, one acting gig
Carlin really enjoyed was playing Mr. Conductor, in the early 1990s on
the PBS children’s television program, “Shining
Time Station.” He
also enjoyed working with Kevin Smith in the modern cult classic, “Dogma.” FINDING
HIS “STAGE VOICE”
By 1969, Carlin’s frequent
television appearances had made the comedian seem bland compared to the
rebellious and anti-establishment tone of his earlier work.
Carlin shifted gears to put
color back into his life. “I looked to those who’d inspired me most
as a comedian, people like Shelly Berman, Mort Saul, Jonathan Winters
and Lenny Bruce,” he said of that time.
Carlin gambled his
middle-class lifestyle and steady career in 1970 when he set out to
change his style. When he
said “ass” on stage at the Frontier Hotel in Vegas, his engagement
was suspended. When the
Frontier gave him a second chance, Carlin uttered a more colorful swear
word and his contract was cancelled.
“Woody Allen had already
established himself by that time,” said Carlin, “but Richard Pryor
came along when I did. And there was Lily Tomlin, Bob Newhart and
others. There were a lot of us all on the same page, but we were all
very different. It was a
very creative time for comedy. Shows
like ‘Monty Python’s Flying
Circus’ and ‘Saturday
Night Live’ soon followed.”
While flattered to be
mentioned in the same breath as Lenny Bruce, Carlin feels those who have
compared him to that first truly controversial comic have no concept of
what Bruce was all about.
“Lenny was an accomplished
master and I was just a guy trying to find my stage voice at the
time,” said Carlin. “There
was no comparison to be made, but people still tried.” BECOMING
AN HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE
Carlin said that he “became
a footnote in history” because of a lengthy court case concerning free
speech and First Amendment rights.
The only case ever put before the Supreme Court revolving around
a comedian’s routine concerned a Carlin bit called, “Filthy
Words,” from his third album, “Occupation:
Foole.”
“Filthy
Words” was a sequel of sorts to his world-famous
“Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television” routine, which had
appeared on his second album, “Class
Clown.”
When non-commercial radio
station WBAI broadcast “Filthy
Words” in 1973, only one listener out of the entire city of New
York issued a complaint, but it was enough for the FCC to slap the
station with a hefty fine. WBAI fought the FCC on the ruling and the
case eventually went before the Supreme Court in 1978, where Carlin
performed his bit live to the sober courtroom audience.
Carlin enjoys the irony of
having had endured the landmark court case and then nearly thirty years
later, in 2002, getting rewarded for his swearing on stage.
In March of last year, Carlin received the
“Free Speech Award” from the First Amendment Center at US Comedy
Arts Festival 2002, held in Aspen, Colorado.
“Basically, I got this award for swearing a lot in public and
getting away with it,” he jived. WHERE
TO LOOK FOR HUMOR
While most people try to look
a life through rose-colored glasses, Carlin views it through shards of
broken glass, observing the ironies in life, the double standards by
which we live and the futility of trying to change things.
“That’s me now,” said
Carlin of that description, “but that’s not how I was when I first
started. In the ‘60s, I
did media spoofs where I played all these characters.
In the ‘70s, my material was autobiographical and I did bits on
being Catholic, being a school kid, being from Harlem, being Irish and
all that. Then I discovered
the world of observation, where you talk about what’s in your glove
compartment, how people drive, store clerks, relationships and universal
things that everyone knows.”
Today, Carlin draws material
from three different realms. “I
draw from the ‘small world,’ which is observational stuff on a
personal level like I just mentioned.
I also draw from the ‘big world,’ which are issues out of our
control like death, race, economy, religion and consumerism.
I also draw a lot on language,” he said. “I look at how
people talk to each other and what’s really is going on behind the
words we speak.” STILL
A WORKING FOOL(E)
At age 65, this bearded icon
of the American counterculture claims to be busier than ever and still
performs an average of 150 concerts a year.
“I have to credit the folks
at HBO for keeping me on my toes creatively,” said Carlin.
“I’ve done eleven HBO specials, so I have to keep coming up
with an hour’s worth of new and funny material.
Once the cable special airs,
a soundtrack CD is released and Carlin hits the concert trail with his
new material. “By the time I get off the road, it’s time to do
another HBO special,” he said. “I’m
fortunate to have HBO in my corner and wanting a new special every two
years, because it has made me to grow as a writer and it doesn’t give
me time to be lazy.”
The comedian recently put pen
to paper for “Napalm And Silly
Putty,” the follow up to his 1997 book, “Brain
Droppings.” Both are
collections of thoughts, musings, questions, assertions, assumptions,
commentaries and other verbal ponderings.
“Brain
Droppings” spent 18 weeks on the New York Times best seller list
and sold over 700,000 copies in hard cover. The audio book version of “Napalm
And Silly Putty” won Carlin his fourth a Grammy Award in February
2002. The paperback
version has sold 400,000 copies and topped its predecessor by logging 20
weeks on the New York Times best seller list.
“With my first book, I
discovered I had a book audience,” said Carlin.
“I also discovered that I really enjoyed editing myself and
moving text around. I learned that I not only enjoyed writing but that I was
actually pretty good at doing it.”
Carlin, who has wisely
retained the rights to his recorded material, compiled them for a 7-CD
boxed set, “George Carlin: The
Little David Years (1971-1977),” released in 1999 on his own, Ear
Drum Records. The set contained all six of Carlin’s albums released
via Little David Records during the ‘70s – “FM
& AM,” “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole,” “Toledo
Window Box,” “An Evening With Wally Londo, featuring Bill Slaszo”
and “On The Road.” The
seventh disc contained unreleased bits from Carlin’s personal vaults.
Those CDs have since been
re-released individually, along with DVD versions of Carlin’s first
four HBO specials – “On Location: George Carlin at USC” (1977), “George Carlin Again” (1978),
“Carlin At Carnegie” (1982), and “Carlin
on Campus” (1984).
Though he has undergone
bypass surgery and is at an age when most people think of retiring,
Carlin shows no signs of slowing down.
He will hit the silver screen this Spring in Kevin Smith’s
Miramax film, “Jersey Girl,” playing Ben Affleck’s father in what
he terms his “largest acting role to date.”
He is also working up – “Watch
My Language” – a “one-man Broadway show” he plans to open in
the fall of 2004. “A
90-minute theme show about language and speech in America” is how he
describes it his latest venture.
And of course, he continues
to steadily tour, returning on April 4 to Merrillville’s Star Plaza
Theatre.
Carlin sums up his life and
career in one word – “Lucky!”
|
|||||
|
Web
Design By: All Rights Reserved © 6 String Design2003 |
|||||
Like
Lenny Bruce, George Carlin has created his share of controversy over
routines which some people have deemed “vulgar.” 