George Carlin, R.I.P.

The comedian's thoughts on death are above. His routine on the words you can't say on television is below.

Comments

[Josh]

Man... so sad. The death of celebrities rarely affect me that much, but George Carlin will be missed. I especially enjoyed the acting he did later in his life (Jersey Girl, Dogma, etc).

[Truth]

Carlin was more than a comedian; he was a voice of reason.

[Tim Finn]

He was huge and he deserved twice the outpouring that Tim Russert got. Over the course of 40 years, he affected our culture much more.

On Larry King on Monday night, Seinfeld was grieving and marveling at his output: 14 HBO specials, books, albums ... He turned the page, from Cosby's funny but vanilla ruminations ("Why Is There Air") to things that were substantive, radical, subversive and silly. His material on priests and Catholicism and confession were irreverant and hilarious ("... heavy on the rub, Father"). His riffage on words exposed the laziness in our language ("hot water heater? Hot water doesn't need heating!"). His observations about stuff that happens to everybody preceded everyone else's: ("Have you ever been making out with someone and one of you has a snot that's whistling?") But he could take on the huge issues, too, like religion ("Is God so powerful that He could make a rock so big that even He couldn't lift it?") No one had the breadth and depth of material that he had. He and Pryor. Untouchable.