Goodbye, George Carlin

Carlin came out of an Irish-American circle of which I am very familiar. But I never saw anyone remotely like him in the neighborhoods.

Today, at work, three of us who some would call right-of-center happened to meet up, and Carlin came up. Though he tended to be on the opposite side of any political things (apart from his open despising of all forms of political correctness) we agreed that we all just loved Carlin.

Most political comedians that I've seen are so earnest and pedantic that their humor suffers for it. Not Carlin.

He was always personally nice to people, something that gets you great credit in my books. A lot of performers and politicians would like to be thought of as nice. Few are. Many try unsuccessfully to fake it. Carlin didn't have to fake anything. He thought he was as good as anyone who ever lived, but no better. And that's fine with me.

Two months ago, he was interviewed from his home in Los Angeles by phone by WABC radio in New York. Only it was six am in LA, so he took the call by cell phone from his car. His wife was still sleeping in the house, and he didn't want to wake her. I loved that.

Cross posted here