News of George Carlin’s death spread this week like a slow red tide.
Carlin, the counter-culture comedian known for his smart, sarcastic take on drugs, dirty words and the decline of human civilization, died of heart failure in Santa Monica on Sunday.
Since Carlin had a history of heart attacks and drug addition, his death at age 71 didn’t exactly come as a surprise.
Still, most people — like me — were taken aback by the loss of one of America’s funniest sages.
When I interviewed the bald, bearded comedian in September 2007, Carlin was on a national tour and preparing for his 14th and final comedy special for HBO. (”It’s Bad For Ya” aired this March.)
On stage, Carlin’s natural pessimism came to audiences tempered with gallows’ humor and a sly, sideways grin. The ship might be sinking, he seemed to say, but at least we were in the same doomed boat.
In person, though, there was little to temper the bitterness behind the comedian’s astute observations.
My first thought was, “Man, this guy is depressed.”
“I didn’t really care about my culture or my country. I really don’t have any emotional stake in either of them anymore,” Carlin told me, back in 2007. “I’ve kind of given myself a divorce from the Homo Sapien species … I’ll still live here and I’ll still take advantage to the things that are afforded me, because anything else would be stupid.”
“But, at the same time,” he added, “I don’t really participate emotionally in the American drama. I don’t really care what the outcome is. I have a suspicion, a very strong one, that this country is breathing its last gasps and maybe a hundred years is left.”
Not exactly inspiring words.
“I try to be skeptical,” he explained. “I try not to just believe everything I’m told, and I try to be realistic about what the world is, not what some people wish it would be.”
Carlin, of course, had reason to be realistic.
Raised Irish-Catholic and poor in a New York neighborhood, he grew up with an absent father and a working mother. He witnessed America grow in the prosperous ’50s and ’60s. He watched hope and freedom flourish, while he worked to establish his career.
Then, as Carlin battled relationship problems and drug addiction, he watched as almost every promise from the Summer of Love was betrayed by decades of greed and political maneuvering.
As he told me, “They say if you scratch a cynic, you find a disappointed idealist. I would have to admit to some version of that being true for me, way down deep beneath the surface.”
Added Carlin,”For those who wonder why I’m angry, I’m not angry. … What (people) hear on stage that they think is anger is disappointment and disillusionment with my fellow humans and my fellow Americans because they’re pursued such a silly path.
“They’ve made all the wrong decisions about how to organize themselves, and I just think it’s stupid. And stupidity sometimes will make you a little bit impatient. So that’s what it is.”
There you have it, folks: Brilliant. Edgy. And not afraid to speak his mind.
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As tributes to Carlin pour in, here are a few that have caught my eye.
Here, you can read two interviews done by The Onion AV Club in 1999 and 2005.
Entertainment Weekly blogger Gary Susman shares his thoughts, along with a few video clips.
Director Kevin Smith, who directed Carlin in “Dogma,” “Jersey Girl” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” speaks here.
And here’s a great picture, courtesy of The Associated Press and The Los Angeles Times: Carlin being led away by police during his 1972 arrest on obscenity charges.
But it really doesn’t get much better than this New York Times op-ed by — who else? — Jerry Seinfeld.
