Carlin at Xmas: What One Foul-Mouthed Crank Meant to My Family

My little Hoosier family always had more than its share of idiosynchrosies, one of the more secret of which was our tendency to listen to comedy recordings on the holidays.  You see, after the grandparents, aunts and fifth cousins 10 to the power of 23 removed had gone home with their leftover trays and presents in hand, my parents, sister and I would clean up and do the dishes to Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant on Thanksgiving, and George Carlin at Christmas.

Those were the best times for my family, no need to talk, just sharing knowing side-long glances. We all laughed together and washed a regiment of dishes and silverware as George described Things You Never See, and The Types of People You Meet, or dismantled the bizarre language of the Airline Safety Lecture.  George's adroit handling of language and political clarity entertained and challenged our assumptions. Soft Language devastates the Orwellian use of jargon to sap the power of words. Saving the Planet skewers us for a paternalistic hubris towards the environment, and asks us who we are really trying to save.  And Why is Prostitution Illegal? is a brilliant indictment of the conflict between our Puritanical national morality and our Capitalist impulses.

Living in Indiana, we were suffering from a sanity-threatening lack of irony in our lives.  In a place where a person can say "When I grow up I plan to do nothing but drink beer and sit on my porch," with no irony intended, it can be hard to recognize, or get recognized.  So my family enjoyed being sarcastic at home, to the point where my father sometimes complained that he couldn't tell what anyone really meant.  (This was disingenuous: my father lied to children for sport, just to see what strange things he could get us to believe.)

My dad doesn't travel now.  He's suffering from a genetic syndrome that forced an early retirement from his career as an EMT.  The last vacation I took with my parents was over ten years ago now.  My parents and I drove to Louisville, Kentucky to look at antiques (idiosynchrosies, remember?).  On the way, my mother wanted to show off her new toy, a cell phone, and so she handed it to me with a brochure from Louisville.  I found us tickets to a George Carlin show at the Louisville Palace Theatre, which had just reopened after years of being a grand ruin as part of Louisville's downtown revitalization.  (It was the 90s, remember the 90s, when there were downtown revitalizations going on?)

The Louisville Palace is a grotesque, gorgeous old theatre.  The ceilings in the foyer are covered with harlequin masks, each one a different gross grimace.  The theatre itself is designed to look like a castle, with balconies built like turrets and a fake night sky with stars and clouds up above.  After a forgettable, and forgotten, opening act George walked stiffly to center stage, glancing around carefully.

"Please tell me that all of you see this shit too."

Thanks George, we'll miss you, your wisdom, and your intolerance for convenient lies and acceptable bullshit, especially now that we need them most.

More George here.