Saturday, June 28, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
06.06.08
Following my last day at my job at the law firm, my fellow Project Assistants went to The Map Room for a few beers. I'm pictured with Elliott (above) and with Marie and Liza, Elliott's girlfriend (below). They were all fun people to work with; they made the job a lot more bearable.
05.23.08, Continued
Below, Matt looks much more excited than normal, as Felicia tries to duck out of the way.
Turck claims he wasn't drunk that night - just tired. Nonetheless, he looks pretty wasted.
This awful picture below is actually the best of the bunch of Laura and I. Apparently I was inspired to make stupid faces this evening.
Memorial Day Weekend
Yankees Win, 6-4
04.23.08 US Cellular Field
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss at What Stage, Bonnaroo Music Festival, Manchester, Tennessee
Rich Woman
Leave My Woman Alone
Black Dog
Sister Rosetta
Through the Morning, Through The Night
So Long Goodbye to You
Fortune Teller
In the Mood
Black Country Woman
Bon Temps Roulez
Trampled Rose
Green Pastures
Down to the River to Pray
Nothin'
Battle of Evermore
Gone Gone Gone
One Woman Man
Robert and Alison's set came after a great show by the Yonder Mountain String Band. While I'm not a huge bluegrass fan, I can appreciate talent well enough. Those four guys can really play. The leader of the band (looks like his name is Jeff Austin... ) made some remarks about the performance being a "brown trouser set," and basically implied that he was plenty nervous to serve as the opening act of sorts for Robert Plant. Laura and I got up to the wall at the front of the general area, up in front of the scaffolding where the cameras were perched, but not in the pit area closest to the stage. We were up early and caught all of YMSB's set, which concluded with an entertaining bluegrass rendition of Ozzy's "Crazy Train."
After Yonder Mountain left, you could tell when Plant's pre-show music came on, because all of a sudden one was hearing a lot of Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf tunes, like Spoonful.
As has been customary at all of the Plant Krauss shows, the backing band entered first and began the sultry tones of Rich Woman before Robert and Alison entered from opposite sides of the stage, taking up their designated places in front of their respective microphones. The
audience greeted them warmly.
Without much of a pause, Leave My Woman Alone, as performed by Ray Charles, began. This was a brisk little song, pushed along by some nice mandolin work from Stuart Duncan and jangling guitar from Buddy Miller. At the song's conclusion, Plant picked up his mic stand and moved over quite closely to Alison's side of the stage. Krauss looked somewhat amused. The majority of the crowd seemed a bit lost with Black Dog's banjo introduction until the lyrics kicked in. There was a bit of a hush during a lot of song, and I'm not sure everyone knew what to think of the understated delivery. There wasn't a dramatic response to the "ahh-ahh" portion, but the overall impression was positive.
Plant greeted the crowd then, with a "Bonnaroo!" and a not-quite-Zeppelin-like, "Good Evenin'!" He then introduced Alison Krauss and moved to the rear of the stage to provide backing vocals as she started Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us, a song by T Bone's ex-wife, Sam Phillips. This was followed by the very sad Gene Clark song, Through The Morning, Through The Night with Buddy Miller on lap steel guitar. The choice of putting these two songs together was somewhat questionable given the nature of the festival at which they were playing, but it seemed from the composition of the entire setlist that not much thought was given to keeping the crowd "into it;" all they did was to take a few songs out of the usual setlist, without adding anything or switching the normal running order. I think this was a mistake, given the impression I got from several people I overheard at the show that they viewed this as a chance to see Robert Plant. I do not think that many of those folks owned Raising Sand and may not have even heard much about it.
It's Goodbye and So Long To You (watch it here), apparently recorded by the Osborne Brothers with Mac Wiseman, came next. Many fans have commented on Alison's lack of charisma/stage presence, and I have to say that I agree. She failed to move around much at all, loosening up slightly when she was alone at the front of the stage, as on this song. A jaunty number like this one, which was a perfect showcase song for the fair-haired, fiddle-playing damsel, succeeded in getting her to sway her hips ever-so-slightly, but even then she looked a little restrained.
For a non-fanatic's perspective, I'll paraphrase what Laura had to say after the show, which was essentially that Alison has an incredible voice and is a fantastic singer, but she is a poor "performer." In contrast, according to my bride-to-be (one year and three days from today, as glance at the calendar), Robert Plant still has a great (and unique) voice, but he is a phenomenal performer, with an unsurpassed ability to truly connect with an audience.
Alison would be well-advised to at least make it LOOK like it's taking something out of her to sing as well as she does. Even when she was really belting it out, the rest of her face looked pretty stoic.
Plant returned to the stage for Fortune Teller, which was a song I was never completely sold on when listening to Raising Sand. I thought the arrangement made him sound slightly whiny. While I'm still not a complete convert, seeing him sing the song live is an improvement.
Apparently no one suggested this for Robert and Alison to do on the album; Plant just started singing the song when the rest of the band were jamming on something else (according to Burnett as quoted in the tour program).
Next was one of my favorite songs of the show, In The Mood, from Plant's own back catalogue, off 1983's Principle of Moments (see it here). That's right, the song is 25 years old! If only Plant could stay as faithful to his own songs when he performs them with Strange Sensation as he did with this version of ITM. He stripped Slow Dancer to the bone in 2006/2007 and there was nothing left of that powerful track. The Raising Sand-era rendition of In The Mood is excellent, with a smooth string arrangement taking the place of the original (slightly cheesy) synth. The inclusion of Matty Groves in the middle was seamless. Plant took up some maracas for this portion and stomped around behind the band, coming back to the mic as they transitioned back, and getting one of the biggest reactions from the crowd as he declared several times in unison with Alison that they were both "In The Mood."
Black Country Woman was also well-received, although with this track after Black Dog, some in the crowd might have wondered if every Zeppelin song starts with the words "hey, hey, mama..." Predictably, Plant elicited a big cheer when he reminded us "that's all right - I know your sister, too." Alison played a nifty fiddle solo and then joined Plant on the chorus again. Robert yelled, "T Bone! T Bone!" almost in the "oh, Jimmy!" style, circa 1977 with Nobody's Fault But Mine, although there wasn't much of a solo to be had.
Just when the crowd was getting warmed up, Plant and Krauss left the stage after Robert introduced Burnett for his Creole-seasoned Bon Temps Roulez. I realize the billing of the show is "Robert Plant and Alison Krauss featuring T Bone Burnett," but I think they would have done well to skip this number altogether. Shut It Tight might have been a better selection, but either way, they were losing the audience here. I saw quite a few people sit down within the front pit area, and others left entirely. The fenced-in pit area operated on a one-out, one-in basis all weekend, so there was a steady flow of people. If a person left during a band's set, they were unlikely to be able to return anytime soon.
Krauss returned for Trampled Rose with her siren wails. Although they were impressive, they got somewhat repetitive after she managed them about eight times. Again, the flow of the set was under threat, since the slow, haunting Trampled Rose was followed by Green Pastures, another borderline sleeper song. More impressive in a concert-hall setting perhaps, but the crowd was getting a little restless for Plant's return.
He ambled back to provide one-third of the backing harmony vocals with Stuart Duncan and Buddy Miller on Alison's Down To The River To Pray, which was cheered very respectfully. The lyrical contrast was striking with the next song, Townes Van Zandt's Nothin'. After hearing some of the early shows and realizing that Plant had no intention of singing the song in the same way as he had done on Raising Sand, I was disappointed, since that was among my favorite of the RS tracks. However, their live version has grown on me, and I was impressed with the performance last Sunday. The song received the strongest Plant vocal treatment of anything that was played that day, with some vintage mournful cries that served to throw some red meat to the hungry masses. Buddy Miller provided some choice licks on electric guitar as well, and one could definitely see how Zeppelin would have (or could still?) blown this song to pieces. Both Miller and drummer Jay Bellerose got nods from Plant afterward.
The Battle of Evermore was a real treat, masterfully done by the whole band. Plant gave his all. The crowd was very excited for this one. There was one guy in the pit, probably almost forty or so, who jumped up and down and whooped for nearly the first full minute of the song. The video screens showed some ladies up front with a banner that said "Camp Evermore." Nothing topped the audience's ovation for this song...
...which is why it was pretty anticlimactic to launch into Gone Gone Gone right afterward and close the set that way. A fun song? Sure, but not even in the same league as Battle of Evermore. If they wanted to close the main set with a song from their album, they should have switched Battle of Evermore and Nothin', either performing Gone, Gone, Gone earlier in the set or using it as an encore.
T Bone led the crowd in cheering Plant, "Robert Plant! It's his world and you're welcome to it!" and the band took their bows.
As it was, I think most of the crowd (or maybe just me) expected that we would get a Zep song in the encore, but instead we got only one number, the George Jones-penned One Woman Man, for which Plant, Krauss, and Buddy Miller traded lead vocals. I thought we'd probably hear When The Levee Breaks, but as the crowd chanted "just one more," the pre-recorded music came back on and we knew the show was over.
Leave My Woman Alone
Black Dog
Sister Rosetta
Through the Morning, Through The Night
So Long Goodbye to You
Fortune Teller
In the Mood
Black Country Woman
Bon Temps Roulez
Trampled Rose
Green Pastures
Down to the River to Pray
Nothin'
Battle of Evermore
Gone Gone Gone
One Woman Man
Robert and Alison's set came after a great show by the Yonder Mountain String Band. While I'm not a huge bluegrass fan, I can appreciate talent well enough. Those four guys can really play. The leader of the band (looks like his name is Jeff Austin... ) made some remarks about the performance being a "brown trouser set," and basically implied that he was plenty nervous to serve as the opening act of sorts for Robert Plant. Laura and I got up to the wall at the front of the general area, up in front of the scaffolding where the cameras were perched, but not in the pit area closest to the stage. We were up early and caught all of YMSB's set, which concluded with an entertaining bluegrass rendition of Ozzy's "Crazy Train."
After Yonder Mountain left, you could tell when Plant's pre-show music came on, because all of a sudden one was hearing a lot of Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf tunes, like Spoonful.
As has been customary at all of the Plant Krauss shows, the backing band entered first and began the sultry tones of Rich Woman before Robert and Alison entered from opposite sides of the stage, taking up their designated places in front of their respective microphones. The
audience greeted them warmly.
Without much of a pause, Leave My Woman Alone, as performed by Ray Charles, began. This was a brisk little song, pushed along by some nice mandolin work from Stuart Duncan and jangling guitar from Buddy Miller. At the song's conclusion, Plant picked up his mic stand and moved over quite closely to Alison's side of the stage. Krauss looked somewhat amused. The majority of the crowd seemed a bit lost with Black Dog's banjo introduction until the lyrics kicked in. There was a bit of a hush during a lot of song, and I'm not sure everyone knew what to think of the understated delivery. There wasn't a dramatic response to the "ahh-ahh" portion, but the overall impression was positive.
Plant greeted the crowd then, with a "Bonnaroo!" and a not-quite-Zeppelin-like, "Good Evenin'!" He then introduced Alison Krauss and moved to the rear of the stage to provide backing vocals as she started Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us, a song by T Bone's ex-wife, Sam Phillips. This was followed by the very sad Gene Clark song, Through The Morning, Through The Night with Buddy Miller on lap steel guitar. The choice of putting these two songs together was somewhat questionable given the nature of the festival at which they were playing, but it seemed from the composition of the entire setlist that not much thought was given to keeping the crowd "into it;" all they did was to take a few songs out of the usual setlist, without adding anything or switching the normal running order. I think this was a mistake, given the impression I got from several people I overheard at the show that they viewed this as a chance to see Robert Plant. I do not think that many of those folks owned Raising Sand and may not have even heard much about it.
It's Goodbye and So Long To You (watch it here), apparently recorded by the Osborne Brothers with Mac Wiseman, came next. Many fans have commented on Alison's lack of charisma/stage presence, and I have to say that I agree. She failed to move around much at all, loosening up slightly when she was alone at the front of the stage, as on this song. A jaunty number like this one, which was a perfect showcase song for the fair-haired, fiddle-playing damsel, succeeded in getting her to sway her hips ever-so-slightly, but even then she looked a little restrained.
For a non-fanatic's perspective, I'll paraphrase what Laura had to say after the show, which was essentially that Alison has an incredible voice and is a fantastic singer, but she is a poor "performer." In contrast, according to my bride-to-be (one year and three days from today, as glance at the calendar), Robert Plant still has a great (and unique) voice, but he is a phenomenal performer, with an unsurpassed ability to truly connect with an audience.
Alison would be well-advised to at least make it LOOK like it's taking something out of her to sing as well as she does. Even when she was really belting it out, the rest of her face looked pretty stoic.
Plant returned to the stage for Fortune Teller, which was a song I was never completely sold on when listening to Raising Sand. I thought the arrangement made him sound slightly whiny. While I'm still not a complete convert, seeing him sing the song live is an improvement.
Apparently no one suggested this for Robert and Alison to do on the album; Plant just started singing the song when the rest of the band were jamming on something else (according to Burnett as quoted in the tour program).
Next was one of my favorite songs of the show, In The Mood, from Plant's own back catalogue, off 1983's Principle of Moments (see it here). That's right, the song is 25 years old! If only Plant could stay as faithful to his own songs when he performs them with Strange Sensation as he did with this version of ITM. He stripped Slow Dancer to the bone in 2006/2007 and there was nothing left of that powerful track. The Raising Sand-era rendition of In The Mood is excellent, with a smooth string arrangement taking the place of the original (slightly cheesy) synth. The inclusion of Matty Groves in the middle was seamless. Plant took up some maracas for this portion and stomped around behind the band, coming back to the mic as they transitioned back, and getting one of the biggest reactions from the crowd as he declared several times in unison with Alison that they were both "In The Mood."
Black Country Woman was also well-received, although with this track after Black Dog, some in the crowd might have wondered if every Zeppelin song starts with the words "hey, hey, mama..." Predictably, Plant elicited a big cheer when he reminded us "that's all right - I know your sister, too." Alison played a nifty fiddle solo and then joined Plant on the chorus again. Robert yelled, "T Bone! T Bone!" almost in the "oh, Jimmy!" style, circa 1977 with Nobody's Fault But Mine, although there wasn't much of a solo to be had.
Just when the crowd was getting warmed up, Plant and Krauss left the stage after Robert introduced Burnett for his Creole-seasoned Bon Temps Roulez. I realize the billing of the show is "Robert Plant and Alison Krauss featuring T Bone Burnett," but I think they would have done well to skip this number altogether. Shut It Tight might have been a better selection, but either way, they were losing the audience here. I saw quite a few people sit down within the front pit area, and others left entirely. The fenced-in pit area operated on a one-out, one-in basis all weekend, so there was a steady flow of people. If a person left during a band's set, they were unlikely to be able to return anytime soon.
Krauss returned for Trampled Rose with her siren wails. Although they were impressive, they got somewhat repetitive after she managed them about eight times. Again, the flow of the set was under threat, since the slow, haunting Trampled Rose was followed by Green Pastures, another borderline sleeper song. More impressive in a concert-hall setting perhaps, but the crowd was getting a little restless for Plant's return.
He ambled back to provide one-third of the backing harmony vocals with Stuart Duncan and Buddy Miller on Alison's Down To The River To Pray, which was cheered very respectfully. The lyrical contrast was striking with the next song, Townes Van Zandt's Nothin'. After hearing some of the early shows and realizing that Plant had no intention of singing the song in the same way as he had done on Raising Sand, I was disappointed, since that was among my favorite of the RS tracks. However, their live version has grown on me, and I was impressed with the performance last Sunday. The song received the strongest Plant vocal treatment of anything that was played that day, with some vintage mournful cries that served to throw some red meat to the hungry masses. Buddy Miller provided some choice licks on electric guitar as well, and one could definitely see how Zeppelin would have (or could still?) blown this song to pieces. Both Miller and drummer Jay Bellerose got nods from Plant afterward.
The Battle of Evermore was a real treat, masterfully done by the whole band. Plant gave his all. The crowd was very excited for this one. There was one guy in the pit, probably almost forty or so, who jumped up and down and whooped for nearly the first full minute of the song. The video screens showed some ladies up front with a banner that said "Camp Evermore." Nothing topped the audience's ovation for this song...
...which is why it was pretty anticlimactic to launch into Gone Gone Gone right afterward and close the set that way. A fun song? Sure, but not even in the same league as Battle of Evermore. If they wanted to close the main set with a song from their album, they should have switched Battle of Evermore and Nothin', either performing Gone, Gone, Gone earlier in the set or using it as an encore.
T Bone led the crowd in cheering Plant, "Robert Plant! It's his world and you're welcome to it!" and the band took their bows.
As it was, I think most of the crowd (or maybe just me) expected that we would get a Zep song in the encore, but instead we got only one number, the George Jones-penned One Woman Man, for which Plant, Krauss, and Buddy Miller traded lead vocals. I thought we'd probably hear When The Levee Breaks, but as the crowd chanted "just one more," the pre-recorded music came back on and we knew the show was over.
Monday, June 23, 2008
RIP George Carlin, Dead at 71 [NYT Obituary]
Carlin and Bill Hicks were among the greatest social critics through comedy that this country ever produced. His insight and sharp insight will be greatly missed.
June 23, 2008
George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian, Is Dead
By MEL WATKINS
George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.
The cause of death was heart failure. Mr. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital on Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble. The comedian had worked last weekend at The Orleans in Las Vegas.
Recently, Mr. Carlin was named the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was to receive the award at the Kennedy Center in November. “In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer, and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Kennedy Center chairman. “His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching.”
In an interview with The Associated Press, Jack Burns, who performed with Mr. Carlin in the 1960’s as one half of a comedy duo, said “He was a genius and I will miss him dearly.”
Mr. Carlin began his standup comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.
But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”
Mr. Carlin released his first comedy album, “Take-Offs and Put-Ons,” to rave reviews in 1967. He also dabbled in acting, winning a recurring part as Marlo Thomas’ theatrical agent in the sitcom “That Girl” (1966-67) and a supporting role in the movie “With Six You Get Egg-Roll,” released in 1968.
By the end of the decade, he was one of America’s best known comedians. He made more than 80 major television appearances during that time, including the Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show; he was also regularly featured at major nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.
That early success and celebrity, however, was as dinky and hollow as a gratuitous pratfall to Mr. Carlin. “I was entertaining the fathers and the mothers of the people I sympathized with, and in some cases associated with, and whose point of view I shared,” he recalled later, as quoted in the book “Going Too Far” by Tony Hendra, which was published in 1987. “I was a traitor, in so many words. I was living a lie.”
In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.
By 1972, when he released his second album, “FM & AM,” his star was again on the rise. The album, which won a Grammy Award as best comedy recording, combined older material on the “AM” side with bolder, more acerbic routines on the “FM” side. Among the more controversial cuts was a routine euphemistically entitled “Shoot,” in which Mr. Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic’s longer routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” which appeared on his third album “Class Clown,” also released in 1972.
“There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time ‘ass’ is all right on television,” Mr. Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. “You can say, well, ‘You’ve made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.’ You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one — perfectly all right.”
The material seems innocuous by today’s standards, but it caused an uproar when broadcast on the New York radio station WBAI in the early ‘70s. The station was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, “upheld an FCC ban on ‘offensive material’ during hours when children are in the audience.” Mr. Carlin refused to drop the bit and was arrested several times after reciting it on stage.
By the mid-’70s, like his comic predecessor Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr. Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade. In addition to his irreverent jests about religion and politics, he openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found “far more pain in the deal than pleasure.” But the edgier, more biting comedy he developed during this period, along with his candid admission of drug use, cemented his reputation as the “comic voice of the counterculture.”
Mr. Carlin released a half dozen comedy albums during the ‘70s, including the million-record sellers “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole” (1973) and “An Evening With Wally Lando” (1975). He was chosen to host the first episode of the late-night comedy show “Saturday Night Live” in 1975. And two years later, he found the perfect platform for his brand of acerbic, cerebral, sometimes off-color standup humor in the fledgling, less restricted world of cable television. By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, “George Carlin at USC” was aired, he was recognized as one of the era’s most influential comedians. He also become a best-selling author of books that expanded on his comedy routines, including “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,” which was published by Hyperion in 2004.
He was “a hugely influential force in stand-up comedy,” the actor Ben Stiller told The Associated Press. “He had an amazing mind, and his humor was brave, and always challenging us to look at ourselves and question our belief systems, while being incredibly entertaining. He was one of the greats.”
Pursuing a Dream
Mr. Carlin was born in New York City in 1937. “I grew up in New York wanting to be like those funny men in the movies and on the radio,” he said. “My grandfather, mother and father were gifted verbally, and my mother passed that along to me. She always made sure I was conscious of language and words.”
He quit high school to join the Air Force in the mid-’50s and, while stationed in Shreveport, La., worked as a radio disc jockey. Discharged in 1957, he set out to pursue his boyhood dream of becoming an actor and comic. He moved to Boston where he met and teamed up with Jack Burns, a newscaster and comedian. The team worked on radio stations in Boston, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles, and performed in clubs throughout the country during the late ‘50s.
After attracting the attention of the comedian Mort Sahl, who dubbed them “a duo of hip wits,” they appeared as guests on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar. Still, the Carlin-Burns team was only moderately successful, and, in 1960, Mr. Carlin struck out on his own.
During a career that spanned five decades, he emerged as one of the most durable, productive and versatile comedians of his era. He evolved from Jerry Seinfeld-like whimsy and a buttoned-down decorum in the ‘60s to counterculture icon in the ‘70s. By the ‘80s, he was known as a scathing social critic who could artfully wring laughs from a list of oxymorons that ranged from “jumbo shrimp” to “military intelligence.” And in the 1990s and into the 21st century the balding but still pony-tailed comic prowled the stage — eyes ablaze and bristling with intensity — as the circuit’s most splenetic curmudgeon.
During his live 1996 HBO special, “Back in Town,” he raged over the shallowness of the ‘90s “me first” culture — mocking the infatuation with camcorders, hyphenated names, sneakers with lights on them, and lambasting white guys over 10 years old who wear their baseball hats backwards. Baby boomers, “who went from ‘do your thing’ to ‘just say no’ ...from cocaine to Rogaine,” and pro life advocates (“How come when it’s us it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken it’s an omelet?”), were some of his prime targets. In the years following his 1977 cable debut, Mr. Carlin was nominated for a half dozen Grammy awards and received CableAces awards for best stand-up comedy special for “George Carlin: Doin’ It Again (1990) and “George Carlin: Jammin’ “ (1992). He also won his second Grammy for the album “Jammin” in 1994.
Personal Struggles
During the course of his career, Mr. Carlin overcame numerous personal trials. His early arrests for obscenity (all of which were dismissed) and struggle to overcome his self-described “heavy drug use” were the most publicized. But in the ‘80s he also weathered serious tax problems, a heart attack and two open heart surgeries.
In December 2004 he entered a rehabilitation center to address his addictions to Vicodin and red wine. Mr. Carlin had a well-chronicled cocaine problem in his 30s, and though he was able to taper his cocaine use on his own, he said, he continued to abuse alcohol and also became addicted to Vicodin. He entered rehab at the end of that year, then took two months off before continuing his comedy tours.
“Standup is the centerpiece of my life, my business, my art, my survival and my way of being,” Mr. Carlin once told an interviewer. “This is my art, to interpret the world.” But, while it always took center stage in his career, Mr. Carlin did not restrict himself to the comedy stage. He frequently indulged his childhood fantasy of becoming a movie star. Among his later credits were supporting parts in “Car Wash” (1976), “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989), “The Prince of Tides” (1991), and “Dogma” (1999).
His 1997 book, “Brain Droppings,” became an instant best seller. And among several continuing TV roles, he starred in the Fox sitcom “The George Carlin Show,” which aired for one season. “That was an experiment on my part to see if there might be a way I could fit into the corporate entertainment structure,” he said after the show was canceled in 1994. “And I don’t,” he added.
Despite the longevity of his career and his problematic personal life, Mr. Carlin remained one of the most original and productive comedians in show business. “It’s his lifelong affection for language and passion for truth that continue to fuel his performances,” a critic observed of the comedian when he was in his mid-60s. And Chris Albrecht, an HBO executive, said, “He is as prolific a comedian as I have witnessed.”
Mr. Carlin is survived by his wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law, Bob McCall, brother, Patrick Carlin and sister-in-law, Marlene Carlin. His first wife, Brenda Hosbrook, died in 1997.
Although some criticized parts of his later work as too contentious, Mr. Carlin defended the material, insisting that his comedy had always been driven by an intolerance for the shortcomings of humanity and society. “Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”
Still, when pushed to explain the pessimism and overt spleen that had crept into his act, he quickly reaffirmed the zeal that inspired his lists of complaints and grievances. “I don’t have pet peeves,” he said, correcting the interviewer. And with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added, “I have major, psychotic hatreds.”
Anahad O’Connor contributed reporting.
June 23, 2008
George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian, Is Dead
By MEL WATKINS
George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.
The cause of death was heart failure. Mr. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital on Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble. The comedian had worked last weekend at The Orleans in Las Vegas.
Recently, Mr. Carlin was named the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was to receive the award at the Kennedy Center in November. “In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer, and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Kennedy Center chairman. “His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching.”
In an interview with The Associated Press, Jack Burns, who performed with Mr. Carlin in the 1960’s as one half of a comedy duo, said “He was a genius and I will miss him dearly.”
Mr. Carlin began his standup comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.
But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”
Mr. Carlin released his first comedy album, “Take-Offs and Put-Ons,” to rave reviews in 1967. He also dabbled in acting, winning a recurring part as Marlo Thomas’ theatrical agent in the sitcom “That Girl” (1966-67) and a supporting role in the movie “With Six You Get Egg-Roll,” released in 1968.
By the end of the decade, he was one of America’s best known comedians. He made more than 80 major television appearances during that time, including the Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show; he was also regularly featured at major nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.
That early success and celebrity, however, was as dinky and hollow as a gratuitous pratfall to Mr. Carlin. “I was entertaining the fathers and the mothers of the people I sympathized with, and in some cases associated with, and whose point of view I shared,” he recalled later, as quoted in the book “Going Too Far” by Tony Hendra, which was published in 1987. “I was a traitor, in so many words. I was living a lie.”
In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.
By 1972, when he released his second album, “FM & AM,” his star was again on the rise. The album, which won a Grammy Award as best comedy recording, combined older material on the “AM” side with bolder, more acerbic routines on the “FM” side. Among the more controversial cuts was a routine euphemistically entitled “Shoot,” in which Mr. Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic’s longer routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” which appeared on his third album “Class Clown,” also released in 1972.
“There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time ‘ass’ is all right on television,” Mr. Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. “You can say, well, ‘You’ve made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.’ You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one — perfectly all right.”
The material seems innocuous by today’s standards, but it caused an uproar when broadcast on the New York radio station WBAI in the early ‘70s. The station was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, “upheld an FCC ban on ‘offensive material’ during hours when children are in the audience.” Mr. Carlin refused to drop the bit and was arrested several times after reciting it on stage.
By the mid-’70s, like his comic predecessor Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr. Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade. In addition to his irreverent jests about religion and politics, he openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found “far more pain in the deal than pleasure.” But the edgier, more biting comedy he developed during this period, along with his candid admission of drug use, cemented his reputation as the “comic voice of the counterculture.”
Mr. Carlin released a half dozen comedy albums during the ‘70s, including the million-record sellers “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole” (1973) and “An Evening With Wally Lando” (1975). He was chosen to host the first episode of the late-night comedy show “Saturday Night Live” in 1975. And two years later, he found the perfect platform for his brand of acerbic, cerebral, sometimes off-color standup humor in the fledgling, less restricted world of cable television. By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, “George Carlin at USC” was aired, he was recognized as one of the era’s most influential comedians. He also become a best-selling author of books that expanded on his comedy routines, including “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,” which was published by Hyperion in 2004.
He was “a hugely influential force in stand-up comedy,” the actor Ben Stiller told The Associated Press. “He had an amazing mind, and his humor was brave, and always challenging us to look at ourselves and question our belief systems, while being incredibly entertaining. He was one of the greats.”
Pursuing a Dream
Mr. Carlin was born in New York City in 1937. “I grew up in New York wanting to be like those funny men in the movies and on the radio,” he said. “My grandfather, mother and father were gifted verbally, and my mother passed that along to me. She always made sure I was conscious of language and words.”
He quit high school to join the Air Force in the mid-’50s and, while stationed in Shreveport, La., worked as a radio disc jockey. Discharged in 1957, he set out to pursue his boyhood dream of becoming an actor and comic. He moved to Boston where he met and teamed up with Jack Burns, a newscaster and comedian. The team worked on radio stations in Boston, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles, and performed in clubs throughout the country during the late ‘50s.
After attracting the attention of the comedian Mort Sahl, who dubbed them “a duo of hip wits,” they appeared as guests on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar. Still, the Carlin-Burns team was only moderately successful, and, in 1960, Mr. Carlin struck out on his own.
During a career that spanned five decades, he emerged as one of the most durable, productive and versatile comedians of his era. He evolved from Jerry Seinfeld-like whimsy and a buttoned-down decorum in the ‘60s to counterculture icon in the ‘70s. By the ‘80s, he was known as a scathing social critic who could artfully wring laughs from a list of oxymorons that ranged from “jumbo shrimp” to “military intelligence.” And in the 1990s and into the 21st century the balding but still pony-tailed comic prowled the stage — eyes ablaze and bristling with intensity — as the circuit’s most splenetic curmudgeon.
During his live 1996 HBO special, “Back in Town,” he raged over the shallowness of the ‘90s “me first” culture — mocking the infatuation with camcorders, hyphenated names, sneakers with lights on them, and lambasting white guys over 10 years old who wear their baseball hats backwards. Baby boomers, “who went from ‘do your thing’ to ‘just say no’ ...from cocaine to Rogaine,” and pro life advocates (“How come when it’s us it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken it’s an omelet?”), were some of his prime targets. In the years following his 1977 cable debut, Mr. Carlin was nominated for a half dozen Grammy awards and received CableAces awards for best stand-up comedy special for “George Carlin: Doin’ It Again (1990) and “George Carlin: Jammin’ “ (1992). He also won his second Grammy for the album “Jammin” in 1994.
Personal Struggles
During the course of his career, Mr. Carlin overcame numerous personal trials. His early arrests for obscenity (all of which were dismissed) and struggle to overcome his self-described “heavy drug use” were the most publicized. But in the ‘80s he also weathered serious tax problems, a heart attack and two open heart surgeries.
In December 2004 he entered a rehabilitation center to address his addictions to Vicodin and red wine. Mr. Carlin had a well-chronicled cocaine problem in his 30s, and though he was able to taper his cocaine use on his own, he said, he continued to abuse alcohol and also became addicted to Vicodin. He entered rehab at the end of that year, then took two months off before continuing his comedy tours.
“Standup is the centerpiece of my life, my business, my art, my survival and my way of being,” Mr. Carlin once told an interviewer. “This is my art, to interpret the world.” But, while it always took center stage in his career, Mr. Carlin did not restrict himself to the comedy stage. He frequently indulged his childhood fantasy of becoming a movie star. Among his later credits were supporting parts in “Car Wash” (1976), “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989), “The Prince of Tides” (1991), and “Dogma” (1999).
His 1997 book, “Brain Droppings,” became an instant best seller. And among several continuing TV roles, he starred in the Fox sitcom “The George Carlin Show,” which aired for one season. “That was an experiment on my part to see if there might be a way I could fit into the corporate entertainment structure,” he said after the show was canceled in 1994. “And I don’t,” he added.
Despite the longevity of his career and his problematic personal life, Mr. Carlin remained one of the most original and productive comedians in show business. “It’s his lifelong affection for language and passion for truth that continue to fuel his performances,” a critic observed of the comedian when he was in his mid-60s. And Chris Albrecht, an HBO executive, said, “He is as prolific a comedian as I have witnessed.”
Mr. Carlin is survived by his wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law, Bob McCall, brother, Patrick Carlin and sister-in-law, Marlene Carlin. His first wife, Brenda Hosbrook, died in 1997.
Although some criticized parts of his later work as too contentious, Mr. Carlin defended the material, insisting that his comedy had always been driven by an intolerance for the shortcomings of humanity and society. “Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”
Still, when pushed to explain the pessimism and overt spleen that had crept into his act, he quickly reaffirmed the zeal that inspired his lists of complaints and grievances. “I don’t have pet peeves,” he said, correcting the interviewer. And with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added, “I have major, psychotic hatreds.”
Anahad O’Connor contributed reporting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)