Word: carliner
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...stuff of George Carlin's comedy is words. He makes them sound nice as he says them, but more importantly, his comedy reveals words for what they are--artificial symbols for items and concepts that exist in reality. Like fantasies, words are creations of the human mind; if there were no human minds, there would be no words...
...Carlin always enjoyed breaking rules, crossing race and ethnic lines, mimicking Blacks and Italians and Jews. He's listed his "Seven Words" in auditoriums for ears all over America, and has completed a very astute study of the unspoken street culture that parents try desperately to shelter their kids from. Carlin sees his comedy and rebellion as his self-expression, his way of freeing himself from his emotions and feelings--a liberation. It started, he says, "when I was a kid and I ran away from home and told all the institutions to go and fuck themselves. I was smoking...
...every "parental" restraint he defiled, Carlin found he was opening up his mind to the world, understanding other perspectives on life. Drugs had opened his "doors of perception," he says, and "they had an influence I wouldn't deny...
With his stark, honest irony, Carlin has shown countless audiences how silly and obsolete America's taboos and social inventions really are, especially in the age of the city. "Cultures have to have some things they consider unthinkable, and in ancient times, health or survival reasons entered into this," he says. But it would be really nice to channel some of the things going on today that are really unspeakable--like severe deprivation--and make them the focus of our attention...
...much for the critics who say Carlin's comedy is kid stuff. Despite living in the luminous shadow of Lenny Bruce, pioneer of modern irony and consciousness, Carlin has steadily dug out his niche as a performing artist...