Carlin still has rich comic stuff
Since George Carlin earned his first professional laughs, the country has endured 10 presidents, three wars and a dozen HBO specials featuring his trademark observational humor, social satire and political jabs.
What has kept him going so long?
The occasional encouraging word didn’t hurt. Example: “My Aunt Aggie once said, “You’re very clever.’ “
He also has been known, he says in perfect Carlin overkill, to employ “bribery, treachery, blackmail, trained audiences and targeted assassinations.”
In honor of his 50 years in showbiz, the DVD collection “George Carlin: All My Stuff,” complete with the 12 TV concerts plus two bonus discs, has just arrived in stores.
At $190, that’s costly stuff. But just watching the funnyman’s shifting hairstyles in ever-intensifying shades of gray as his act matures over four decades is fairly priceless.
From pointing out the ultimate oxymoron (“jumbo shrimp”) to portraying the hippie-dippie weatherman Al Sleet (“Tonight’s forecast: dark”), Carlin, 70, has left a mark – if not a large stain – on the cultural landscape.
If he had to choose one routine that he’s most proud of, it’s “A Place for My Stuff,” his riff on our materialistic need to accumulate: “That’s what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff!”
“It had universal reach,” he says. “Everyone who heard it could identify strongly with it.”
And don’t think that the founder of The Container Store wasn’t listening.
Coming in second is his most infamous bit, “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV,” which caused him to be charged with obscenity after a 1972 performance in Milwaukee and led to a 1978 Supreme Court case.
The seven dirty words “gave me an identity,” he says. “Both routines are a source of pride.”
Carlin remains nobody’s pushover. Ask him to imagine what his humor would be like if he started out today, and he flatly declines.
“If I started out today,” he says, “I have no idea who I would be, much less what my comedy would sound like.”
He has released more than 20 albums, worked in 14 films, written three best-selling books (the latest: 2004’s “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?”) and was the first host of “Saturday Night Live” in 1975.
There are always frontiers to conquer. Carlin just entered the brave new world of satellite radio as host of XM’s “Unmasked: George Carlin,” a live interview show.
But stand-up continues to be his mainstay.
“I tour all the time, 80 or 90 shows a year,” Carlin says. “Every two years or so, there is enough new material to do an HBO show.”
His next special, “It’s Bad for Ya,” arrives March 1, broadcast live from Santa Rosa, Calif.
There is one small item of confusion to attend to. According to nearly every Carlin bio, he got his start as a DJ at radio station KJOE in Shreveport, La., in 1956.
That’s 51 years, George. What gives?
“Simple,” he says. “It’s because we’re fudging it. That’s the truth.”
The birthday bunch
Actor Tom Bosley is 80. Actress-singer Julie Andrews is 72. Actress Stella Stevens is 71. Actor Randy Quaid is 57. Singer Youssou N’Dour is 48. Actor Esai Morales is 45. Model-actress Cindy Margolis is 42. Singer-guitarist Kevin Griffin is 39.