I’ve been a bit out of the loop lately- I don’t watch the news so I get behind on what’s going on. I just heard that George Carlin died of a heart attack, very sad. I was immediately transported back to my young adulthood. In our basement was an old record player- the needle was worn and it seemed there were more crackles heard than music but that is where my brothers and sister listened to our records and played pool. The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who, Frank Zappa and George Carlin are the performers that come to mind.

I feel as though I grew up with George Carlin. My older brothers bought the albums FM & AM, Toledo Window Box, On the Road and my favorite, Class Clown with “The Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on Television.” I would listen to these albums constantly- having them memorized. My parents let us listen to him, I suspect because, while he may have been talking about the seven dity words, it was genuinely funny.

I saw him in concert in 2001. He was funny but it seemed a bit tired. Some of it seemed to be crude for the sake of being crude- or maybe I had gotten older and wasn’t titillated (which is not one of the seven words) by that kind of humor anymore. I didn’t follow him too much after that although from the review it seems his HBO specials were pretty cutting edge and he had gotten back to what he did best, which was make people laugh.