Tuesday, June 24, 2008

A few more than 7 words

On Sunday, George Carlin passed away. He was right at the top of my favorite comedians. My first exposure to him was at my buddy Sean's house. We were in high school, and I went over there to hang out. Sean had a videotape of a special that was on HBO, around 1992. I never laughed so hard in my life than when he started talking about the "safety lecture" that precedes every flight. Here is a link to the partial video. It's pretty funny now. It was absolutely hilarious at age 16.

His line about pilots is genius: "Captain...he's a f#$&#&$ pilot, let him be happy with that! Tell the captain Air Marshal Carlin says, 'go f#$& yourself!'"

George Carlin is one of the all-time greats. He definitely got more jaded as the years go by, but frankly I can't blame him. I enjoyed his cynical take on things. In some small way, I kinda felt like a kindred spirit, especially when I was more cynical than I am now (I am still plenty cynical). But, my favorite thing about Carlin is his ability to rattle off about 35 different things to help illustrate his points. It was great, and so was he.

RIP, George.

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