My parents had a huge & bizarre LP collection. Nat King Cole next to Creedence Clearwater Revival, Led Zeppelin with Waylon Jennings, Richard Burton reading Shakespeare next to K-Tel’s "Goofy Greats." This diversity shaped my truly strange aesthetic tastes.
But one album stands out today with the passing of the great George Carlin, Class Clown.
(there was also Steve Martin’s Wild & Crazy Guy, a discussion for another day, but I leave that subject with the tune, "Grandpaaaaaa...bought a rubber.")
I "discovered" Class Clown when I was about 9 or 10 and couldn’t stop listening. I would lay on the floor in front of our big console stereo and listen to that album over and over while staring at the cover of his impish face, middle finger up the nose. It was different than anything before or since. Yes, there were plenty of dirty words for my puerile (still) young mind to indulge, but there was so much more.
Class Clown was scatological and childish, full of goofy voices and snide asides; who can forget "the old artificial fart under the arm?" It was sacrilegious and profane, and opened my eyes to the very thought of questioning religious doctrine, leading the way to my near-atheism today.
Yet more than anything, it was smart. Carlin’s analysis of language and culture was always brilliant and sometimes mind-bending. The "7 words" bit is pure comedic genius and contains one of my favorite thoughts:
People much wiser than I have said "I'd rather have my son watch a film with two people making love than two people trying to kill one another." And I of course can agree, what a great sentiment, I wish I knew who said it first. I really do agree with that, but I'd like to take it a step further. I'd like to try to substitute the word fuck for the word kill. In all those movie cliches we grew up with, right? "OK Sherrif, we're gonna fuck you now. But we're gonna fuck you slow."
Carlin helped to open my mind to a world of literate possibilities and forever corrupted my sense of humor. In the later years his often dark rants on politics and war made me feel that I was not alone.
I thank him today for making me laugh and making me think. Rest in peace, you motherfucker. I leave you with his All Purpose Cheer:
Rat shit,
Bat Shit,
Dirty ol’ twat
69 assholes tied in a knot,
Hooray!
Lizard shit!
Fuck!