George Carlin on hats

[Levallois]

Carlin was a huge favorite of mine from my teens into my forties. However, at a certain point his style changed from the amused stoner to the angry old man. I'm sure the change was due more to growth and maturity, was organic and not calculated. Although I still found him funny, intelligent and insightful, he came off more as bitter and p*ssed. I found it off-putting, but most people responded well to it. I owned every album from FM 7 AM to On the Road. Great stuff.

I'm going to have to agree. He could be very funny. His routine on "stuff" is one of my favorites. But he just seemed like a grumpy b*stard other times.
L.

 

[skydog757]

Zombie_61 - You're right, of course. I also remember the more "conventional Carlin" prior to what I consider to be his prime. Carlin must have realized that playing a hippie and doing pot jokes were dated heading into the latter part of his career. And I'm sure he looked for a way to present material involving current events that would be relevant and still true to himself, thus the "angry" Carlin. I just hate to use the word "calculated" when refering to Carlin as it smacks of commercialism and that is something that I never would associate with Carlin. But it was a major shift (which did work) and I have to say that I did not care for it as much as his earlier material. Just my opinion.

 

[Zombie_61]

...Carlin must have realized that playing a hippie and doing pot jokes were dated heading into the latter part of his career. And I'm sure he looked for a way to present material involving current events that would be relevant and still true to himself, thus the "angry" Carlin...

In my opinion, one of the things Carlin did brilliantly was the way he worked current events into his material without making them feel "dated" (for the most part). I hear a lot of modern comedians making references to things like, say, Charlie Sheen's well-publicized "meltdown", or some currently popular starlet's recent legal troubles, and all I can think is that someone listening to those routines 20 years from is not going to know what they're talking about and won't "get" the joke. I'm sure Carlin was aware of this, and deliberately chose subject matter for his routines that was more universally understood.

...I just hate to use the word "calculated" when referring to Carlin as it smacks of commercialism and that is something that I never would associate with Carlin. But it was a major shift (which did work) and I have to say that I did not care for it as much as his earlier material. Just my opinion.

I agree the term "calculated" often has negative connotations, but Carlin was certainly aware of the "business" side of his chosen profession. When his Fox sitcom The George Carlin Show was canceled, he was quoted as saying, "I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work." Now, nobody put a gun to his head and forced him to pursue an acting career, but he was aware of the fact that comedy was his "bread and butter". And when he returned to standup, largely to pay off his debt to the IRS, he said, "It made me a way better comedian. Because I had to stay out on the road and I couldn't pursue that movie career, which would have gone nowhere, and I became a really good comic and a really good writer."

As for the evolution of his material from "conservative/traditional" to "hippie dippy counterculture" to "angry curmudgeon", I like it all. I became a fan the first time I heard his 1972 album "Class Clown", and never looked back. His delivery wasn't quite as sharp in his last two or three HBO specials, probably due to his age and health issues, but in my opinion his 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased is a masterpiece.

 

[Seb Lucas]

I might try to check him out given the fans here. I've never heard of him probably because I've never much responded to stand up comedy - doesn't matter whether it's Lenny Bruce, Billy Connolly, Robin Williams, Bill Hicks or whoever. I've never been more than faintly entertained by it.

 

[Seth Duzan]

I love Carlin, jus the way he could rapid fire off words and use them correctly was impressive... He is definitely one of my top five favorites, with Robin Williams, Eddie Izzard, Billy Connolly and Betty White...

 

[Fed in a Fedora]

The polite description was that he was a wordsmith and clever thinker.

Otherwise, he purposely chose to advocate acting in an irreverent manner which is out of step with my attitude towards the world.

In short, I will not take etiquette advice or life lessons from a clown.

Fed

 

[Genuine Classic Gangster]

Carlin's point seems to be that the custom which attaches the wearing of hats under certain conditions to the idea of "being disrespectful" is stupid and invalid.

I agree with that point.

No inherent connection exists between wearing hats and being disrespectful, under any circumstances. The supposed connections that society alleges to exist are merely man-made fabrications, and ones that are totally arbitrary.

The truly disrespectful person is whomever invented those fabrications: he or she was disrespecting all hat-wearers (past, present, and future) by unfairly projecting his or her fantasies onto them, and by forcing them either to conform to his or her fantasies, or be ostracized by others who (without justification) believe those fantasies are valid.

 

[Fed in a Fedora]

And how did you determine that these customs were not created by hat wearers as a means of showing respect rather than imposed upon them by anyone else?

Fed