George Carlin dies at 71 years old

[WonderWendy3]

May he Rest in peace....



Comedian George Carlin dies at 71: Anti-Establishment icon gained fame with his ‘Seven Dirty Words’ routine ... Known for his edgy, provocative material, George Carlin achieved status as an anti-Establishment icon in the 1970s with stand-up bits full of drug references and a routine called “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television.”



SANTA MONICA, Calif. - George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his “Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV” routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.

Carlin went into a Santa Monica hospital Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham.

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. It was announced Tuesday that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.



Carlin constantly pushed the envelop with his jokes, particularly with the “Seven Words” a routine called “The Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV.”

When Carlin uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested for disturbing the peace. And when they were played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a Supreme Court ruling in 1978 upholding the government’s authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language.

“So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I’m perversely kind of proud of,” he told The Associated Press earlier this year.

He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies. Carlin hosted the first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” and noted on his Web site that he was “loaded on cocaine all week long.”

When asked about the fallout from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson’s breast-baring “wardrobe malfunction,” Carlin told the AP, “What are we, surprised?”

“There’s an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body,” he said. “It’s reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have.”



Carlin was born May 12, 1937 and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.

While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.

“Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot,” his Web site says.

From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.

In 1960, he left with a Texas radio buddy, Jack Burns, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. Carlin said he hoped to emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.

Only problem was, it didn’t work for him.

“I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn’t really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people,” Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, “It’s Bad For Ya.”



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25322638/&GT1=43001

[WonderWendy3]

He's lived hard! I liked him too.....seems like the article was a bit negative, or is it me?

[Predator Prevention]

That's sad to hear. He certainly was an icon.

[spot]

I'm glad he did what he did, it can't have been an easy life. He put a lot into it.

[CARLA]

George was truly the only Comedian that made me laugh till I cried. He made us look at ourselves and dang it was funny. I'm saddened by his passing he was truly "1 of a kind"

[qsducks]

Bummer and he was a funny guy.

[chonsigirl]

That is sad, he was a funny comedian.

[Lon]

My favorite----------I'm going into mourning for 5 minutes.:wah:

[spot]

While he would have been a loss to the world at, say, 50, one can scarcely complain at his departure after 70. It's in the nature of things. He came, he ranted, he left. Bravo Mr Carlin and congratulations on being surprised by death, not everyone's that fortunate.

[Galbally]

Oh damn, I had only found out who he was, he was quite funny, and a smart fella as well. He had a pretty good run though, at least he didn't die at 33 like Bill Hicks, that really sucked.

[hotsauce]

I also thought he was looking pretty awful during his last stand up. I thought he was hilarious. This is actually the first I had heard of his death. I really need to turn my TV on more.

[Trunk Monkey]

Goodbye George and I will use your own words:

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

*The moon will howl tonight for a great and very funny George Carlin*