In December 1962, when Lenny Bruce was arrested for obscenity at the
Gate of Horn in Chicago, the police broke open his candy bars, looking
for dope. They checked the IDs of audience members, including George
Carlin, who told the cops, "I don't believe in IDs." Then they
arrested *him* for disorderly conduct, dragged him along by the seat of
his pants and hoisted into the police wagon.
"What are *you* doing here?" Lenny asked.
"I didn't want to show them my ID."
"You *schmuck,*" said Lenny.
Lenny and Carlin had similar points of view--for example, they were
both outspoken about the decriminalization of drugs--and they were both
self-educated, but their working styles were different. Lenny didn't
write his material, it evolved on stage, whereas Carlin did write all
his routines and then memorized 'em. Although both were unbelievers
as far religion was concerned, Lenny came from a Jewish background, and
Carlin came from an Irish Catholic background.
Susie Bright, who first heard Carlin when she was in 7th grade,
recalls playing his *Class Clown* album for her mother, "a woman
whose first twenty years were entirely dominated by the Irish Catholic
Church--and it was a comic exorcism for her. She peed in her pants!
She was cured in one LP [long-playing vinyl record]!"
Carlin was a generous friend, and such a sweet man. When I performed
in Los Angeles, he sent a limousine to pick me up at the airport, and I
stayed at his home. More recently, when I opened for him at the
Warner-Grand Theater in San Pedro, California, we were hanging around
in his dressing room, where he was nibbling from a vegetable plate. I
watched as he continued to be genuinely gracious with every fan who
stopped by. If they wanted his autograph, he would gladly sign his
name. If they wanted to be photographed with him, he would assume the
pose. If they wanted to have a little chat, he indulged them with
congeniality.
"You really show respect for everbody," I observed.
"Well," he responded, "that's just the way I would want to be
treated."
As a performer, Carlin was uncompromising, knowing that
his audience trusted him not to be afraid of offending them. Who else
would have posed this rhetorical question: "Why are there no
recreational drugs in suppository form?" I was pleased to inform him
that teenage girls have been experimenting with tampons dipped in vodka
as a way of getting intoxicated without their parents detecting booze
on their breath.
Carlin provided an introduction to one of my books, *Murder At the
Conspiracy Convention.* Referring to the 1960s, he wrote: "As
America entered the Magic Decade, I was leading a double life. I had been a
rule-bender and law-breaker since first grade. A highly developed
disregard for authority got me kicked out of three schools, the altar
boys, the choir, summer camp, the Boy Scouts and the Air Force. I
didn't trust the police or the government, and I didn't like bosses
of any kind. I had become a pot smoker at 13 (1950), an unheard-of act in
an old-fashioned Irish neighorhood. It managed to get me through my
teens....
"My affection for pot continued and my disregard for standard values
increased, but they lagged behind my need to succeed. The Playboy
Club, Merv Griffin, Ed Sullivan and the Copacabana were alll part of a
path I found uncomfortable but necessary during the early 1960s. But
as the decade churned along and the country changed, I did too.
Despite working in ‘establishment' settings, as a veteran
malcontent I found myself hanging out in coffee houses and folk clubs with others
who were out-of-step people who fell somewhere betweek beatnik and
hippie. Hair got longer, clothes got stranger, music got better. It
became more of a strain for me to work for straight audiences. I took
acid and mescaline. My sense of being on the outside intensified. I
changed.
"All through this period I was sustained and motivated by *The
Realist,* Paul Krassner's incredible magazine of satire, revolution
and just plain dissrespect. It arrived every month, and with it, a fresh
supply of inspiration. I can't overstate how important it was to me
at the time. It allowed me to see that others who disagreed with the
American consensus were busy expressing those feelings and using risky
humor to do so. Paul's own writing, in particular, seemed daring and
adventurous to me; it took big chances and made important arguments in
relentlessly funny ways. I felt, down deep, that maybe I had some of
that in me, too; that maybe I could be using my skills to better
express my beliefs. *The Realist* was the inspiration that kept
pushing me to the next level; there was no way I could continue reading
it and remain the same."
You can imagine how incredibly honored I felt.
George Carlin was once asked how he wanted to die.
"I'd like to explode spontaneously in someone's living room,"he replied. "That, to me, is the way to go out."
And, through his CDs, DVDs and books, he does indeed continue to
explode spontaneously in living rooms across the country.
Comments