Cru Jones Society

Obviously we here at crujonessociety.com are huge fans of comedy, and stand up comedy ranks high on that list. So when we heard that George Carlin had passed away we felt we owed it to him to post a little tribute. So here’s our eulogy to a legend.

It seems that every time someone passes out a quasi-witty sardonic chain email about politics, life in general, or some other uninspired cynical list, or collection of half-assed observations, the thing ends up being attributed to George Carlin. Inevitably, the commentary falls flat, and turns out to have nothing to do with George Carlin. It just goes to show though, how we’ve all come to identify that brand of humor with one person. George Carlin was the King of sardonic wit, and no Comedian has ever been his equal. Pointing out the absurdities of society this way isn’t an easy thing to do, and few comedians have ever possessed the raw intelligence combined with the ability to tell a joke the way George Carlin did. He had the uncanny ability to talk about anything from baseball, to rape, to the outright absurdity of organized religion, and it would all be funny. Most importantly, George Carlin did not give a fuck. It didn’t matter what anybody else thought, it didn’t matter what subject was supposed to be taboo, what you were supposed to say, and what you couldn’t. If George Carlin he thought a joke was funny, he would tell it, and he knew how to make it funny, and that is why he will be missed.

George Carlin was a true comic genius. Many comics struggle their entire career to put together a 7 minute act good enough for one appearance on the Tonight Show. Few ever have enough material to warrant an hour long special, or for a single comedy album. George Carlin presented new material for over half a century to include over 20 comedy albums, more than a dozen HBO specials, and even a handful of books. All of it was consistently good. Most importantly, he never sold out and tried to make a crappy sitcom on FOX. Wait….. crap. Nevermind.

- Senor Limon

One of my earliest memories of Carlin was that sitcom. I wasn’t completely sure who George Carlin was but I knew that I probably should be familiar with him. I wish I had been exposed to more stand up comedy when I was younger. I watched Showtime’s “Full Frontal Comedy” but mostly that was during my adolescent years and I was mainly hoping to see tits. I watched Eddie Murphy’s “Raw” or “Delirious,” but I knew I was seeing a whole other side of comedy when I first watched Carlin’s stand up.

It was brought to my attention that stand up comedy could be about things I understood. It wasn’t all about sex, politics, or poverty. None of which makes sense when you’re starting puberty, but when you hear things like “ever notice when you blow in a dog’s face he gets mad at you, but when you take him in a car he sticks his head out the window?” I remember hearing that and then going “huh? Yeah what the hell?” then laughing. I remember doing that often with Carlin jokes. I think that is what helped me to appreciate comedy. That someone could be so funny just for discussing the tiny nuances of everyday life, or more accurately everyday stupidity.

George you will surely be missed, but I hope you found out what’s with that basket.

- Lee S. Hart

I was saddened to learn of George Carlin’s death, but not all that surprised. When I watched his last stand-up special, he looked like he was approximately 93 years old when he was actually only 70. Carlin reportedly did a large amount of drugs in his life, and when you couple that with an exhausting life on the road, you’ve written yourself a ticket for a shorter lifespan.

I discovered George Carlin when I was about 14, and I think watching whichever HBO stand-up special he was peddling at the time helped pour gasoline on the fire that is my love of comedy. I was a regular viewer of A&E’s “Evening at the Improv” by the time I was 10, and taped Showtime’s “Full Frontal Comedy” every week by the time I was 13. But Carlin showed me that comedy didn’t have to be all sexual depravity and political commentary. It could be straight up ridiculous and mellifluous wordplay.

The English language is ripe for parody and ridicule, and Carlin excoriated it whenever he could. His maestro-esque sentence composition and rhythmic manner of delivery was almost song-like and gave his comedy an added dimension of tactility. It was not only comedy to laugh at, but comedy to sway to. Your heart rate jumped ahead and then slowed. Peaked and swooned. You laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of Carlin’s unprecedented language juxtapositions, but you sat riveted wondering where his linguistic symphony would end. It was rap music without all the stupid rapping. Beat poetry without the stupid beatniks. In a word: art.

Carlin was an artist, and although he claims he (and Richard Pryor, incidentally) only walked through the door opened by Lenny Bruce; Carlin opened many other doors for my favorite comedians of today. He’ll always be best remembered for his “7 words you can never say on television” which was a transcendent bit (Any joke from a comedian that leads to a Supreme Court case is always already a transcendent bit), but I’ll always remember him for his description of using a picture of his dog and cat having interspecies sex with each other as his Christmas card, and the subsequent anger from the card’s recipients, that made me laugh so hard I nearly choked to death.

Carlin had that effect on people. He was an artist. He was a free speech pioneer. And most importantly, he made me laugh and he made me think. He showed us those two things didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. He’s one of the inspirations for the Cru Jones Society. Rest in peace, George Carlin. The world was a better place when you were here.

- E Dagger

If I can leave you with one last piece of wisdom from Carlin its this: “We’re all fucked. It helps to remember that.”

senor.limon@crujonessociety.com

lee.s.hart@crujonessociety.com

edagger@crujonessociety.com