George Carlin

As you may have heard, George Carlin passed away yesterday or was it mobaday. (you won't get unless you over 40)

I'm a big fan of humor and Carlin was the best at the laugh, as well as poking big brother in the ribs from time to time.

Who could forget Carlin's hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. "The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight's forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning."

Among his more controversial routines was the euphemistically entitled "Shoot," in which Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic's longer routine "Seven Words That Can Never Be Said on Television," which appeared on his third album "Class Clown," released in 1972.

"There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time 'ass' is all right on television," Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. "You can say, well, 'You've made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.' You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one — perfectly all right."

The seven word's routine seems bland by today's standards, but it caused such an uproar in the early seventies that the New York radio station which broadcasted Carlin was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, "upheld an FCC ban on 'offensive material during hours when children are in the audience." Carlin, refused to drop the bit and was arrested several times after reciting it on stage.

Here in it's entirety In honor of George Carlin are "The seven Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television"

CAUTION THE FOLLOWING WORDS MAY STILL OFFEND SOME PEOPLE

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words.

I want to tell you something about words that I think is important.

They're my work, they're my play, they're my passion.

Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid. Then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for that thought, so be careful with words. I like to think that the same words that hurt can heal, it is a matter of how you pick them.

There are some people that are not into all the words.

There are some that would have you not use certain words.

There are 400,000 words in the English language and there are 7
of them you can't say on television. What a ratio that is.
399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous
to be separated from a group that large. All of you over here, you 7,
Bad Words. That's what they told us they were, remember?

"That's a bad word!" No bad words, bad thoughts, bad intentions,
and words. You know the 7, don't you, that you can't say on television?

"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"

Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.

"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"

Wow! ...and Tits doesn't even belong on the list. That is such a friendly sounding word. It sounds like a nickname, right? "Hey, Tits, come here, man. Hey Tits, meet Toots. Toots, Tits. Tits, Toots." It sounds like a snack, doesn't it? Yes, I know, it is a snack. I don't mean your sexist snack. I mean New Nabisco Tits!, and new Cheese Tits, Corn Tits, Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits, Onion Tits, Tater Tits. "Betcha Can't Eat Just One." That's true. I usually switch off.

But I mean, that word does not belong on the list. Actually none of the words belong on the list, but you can understand why some of them are there. I'm not completely insensitive to people's feelings. I can understand why some of those words got on the list, like CockSucker and MotherFucker. Those are heavyweight words. There is a lot going on there. Besides the literal translation and the emotional feeling.

I mean, they're just busy words. There's a lot of syllables to contend
with. And those Ks, those are aggressive sounds. They just jump out at you like "coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer. coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer."

It's like an assualt on you. We mentioned Shit earlier, and 2 of the
other 4-letter Anglo-Saxon words are Piss and Cunt, which go together of course. A little accidental humor there. The reason that Piss and Cunt are on the list is because a long time ago, there were certain ladies that said "Those are the 2 I am not going to say. I don't mind Fuck and Shit but 'P' and 'C' are out.", which led to such stupid sentences as "Okay you fuckers, I'm going to tinkle now."

And, of course, the word Fuck. I don't really, well that's more accidental humor, I don't wanna get into that now because I think it takes to long. But I do mean that. I think the word Fuck is a very important word. It is the beginning of life, yet it is a word we use to hurt one another quite often.

People much wiser than I am said, "I'd rather have my son watch a film with 2 people making love than 2 people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is a great sentence.

I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but I like to take it a step further. I'd like to substitute the word Fuck for the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. "Okay, Sheriff, we're gonna Fuck you now, but we're gonna Fuck you slow."

So maybe next year I'll have a whole fuckin' ramp on the N word.

I hope so. Those are the 7 you can never say on television, under any
circumstances. You just cannot say them ever ever ever. Not even
clinically. You cannot weave them in on the panel with Doc, and Ed,
and Johnny. I mean, it is just impossible. Forget those 7. They're out.

But there are some 2-way words, those double-meaning words.

Remember the ones you giggled at in sixth grade? "...And the cock
CROWED 3 times"

"Hey, the cock CROWED 3 times. ha ha ha ha. Hey, it's in
the bible. ha ha ha ha.

There are some 2-way words, like it is okay for Kirk Youdi to say "Roberto Clametti has 2 balls on him.", but he can't say "I think he hurt his balls on that play, Tony. Don't you? He's holding them. He must've hurt them, by God." and the other 2-way word that goes with that one is Prick. It's okay if it happens to your finger. You can prick your finger but don't finger your prick. No,no.

Carlin, was classic I don't think I agree with the "counterculture hero" label, as from my perspective he was pretty mainstream.

He loved words, especially those that didn't make real sense, like - Terminal - why would anyone want to fly if you have to go to a place called "terminal"?

Why aren't buildings called builts? They done building or you wouldn't be in them right?

My all time fav.... imagine what a chair would look like if our knees bent the other way?

OMG my brain is full of cluttered nonsense! Thank you Mr. Carlin!