[arreskslarlig]

Culture observer par excellence.

George Carlin was a perfect fit for the 1960s, and never lost his relevance.

From his former Burns & Carlin partner, Jack Burns: "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s.

"We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."

That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years. George Carlin: The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things -- bad language and whatever -- it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have. Besides the adult and edgy commentary with which Carlin is most identified, he did the narrative for the U.S. version of the children's TV series Thomas the Tank Engine.



Farewell, George.