Goodbyeee...

"You ever notice there aren't too many Chinese guys named, 'Rusty'? Guess the name never caught on over there..."

A quick note about George Carlin's passing: Carlin's 'Toledo Window Box' was the third album I ever bought in my own life. (First two: Queen's 'News of the World' and Roxy Music's 'Country Life'. Why? 'Cuz 'News of the World' had 'We are the Champions' and 'We will Rock you' on it, and 'Country Life'... Well, Google the images section of 'roxymusiccountrylife', and you'll see why...)

"Our thrust is to prick holes in the stiff front erected by the smut dealers..."

Carlin's brand of comedy involved reframing reality in our use of language, in the way he pointed out how the English language could be used to fuck people over. I picked up 'Toledo Window Box' because the track listings included such titles as, "Urinals are 50% Universal", and "A Few More Farts", and well, fart and pee jokes were all about what the budding young sophisticate Pajak considered the height of comedy at the time.

"The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done."

What Carlin did for little ol' me was plant the seeds of doubt in faith in authority, be it school, work, government, or organized religion. First and foremost, he taught me that if it smells like bullshit, it's bullshit. You can't listen to his routines and feel the scrabbling intellect at work there, pointing out the hypocrisies and lying in our day-to-day goings on.

"If we could just find out who's in charge, we could kill him."

I can't say I'll miss him, just that I wish we were all a little younger. Bye, George.

"I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work. "