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The ninth-grade dropout laureate of American culture

June 20, 2009

George Carlin’s Last Interview; Enjoy!

George Carlin is truly one of the bright stars of American culture.  How else explain a ninth-grade dropout who wound up being a part of not only entertainment, but philosophy, law, literature and academia?  Like Twain before him, he relished the contribution that technology could make to his writing.  At first he described himself as “a comedian who writes his own material” but over time he changed to “a writer who performs his own material”; 

I wonder if any George Carlins will come out of the structured childhoods we enforce on today’s children:

As a child, my father was gone. I had no grandparents; they were all dead. Had no real cousins to play with, and I didn’t give a sh*t, frankly. I experienced my life in a very happy way, but, what I want to say to you is, I was alone as a child. My father was dead. My mother left him when I was 2 months old and he died when I was 8 years old. He drank too much and he was a bully and she had the courage to take two boys, one of them two months old and one of them 5 years old and to leave him in 1937 and get back into the business world and get a job and raise us through the end of the Depression and through the Second World War. She did a great job, but she was at work until 7 or 7:30 at night many nights.

So I spent a lot of time on my own. In the house or out around the neighborhood or sneaking in the subway, going down to 42nd street, traveling around Manhattan Island, learning it as a youngster. And I experienced that because psychologists ask you not if something’s good or bad, but how do you experience it? I experienced that as freedom, independence, autonomy. And I was brought up on that feeling. That’s what made me, I think, able to quit school, and go out and try to start my life and career early, because I had that strength…

We learn a great deal about his mother, who wanted him to go to college and get into advertising, but realized that was not going to happen and instead bought him a tape recorder in the days before they were consumer items.  At the time of this interview, Carlin gave no sign of being only a few days away from death: his commentary is incredibly sharp and textured. He was performing weekly and working on new projects in a rented house while his own home was being remodeled. 

(h/t to John Wilkins)

Categories: Uncategorized
  1. June 20, 2009 at 15:37 | #1

    thanks for this bit, I miss Carlin

    I’m in Peoria, up for a caller?

  2. June 20, 2009 at 15:54 | #2

    You bet!  Unfortunately I can’t travel that far but if you have time to come to Normal, I’d love to meet you! Dinner, if you can spare the time.  Email me at george.wiman@gmail.com for phone number.

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