It pisses me off that the media is calling George Carlin the Seven Dirty Words Comic [1], as though his career ended in the 1970s. I’m honor-bound to defend him now because I once penned a critical piece for the San Francisco Chronicle alleging that Carlin seemed a little bit too fond of mere wordplay, unlike Lenny Bruce, who was all about the power of words but never about puns. Carlin was so incensed by my comments that he went to considerable lengths to find my home phone number and, when he finally found me, said, "I read the article and I want to explain to you what I do." I knew by then he was going to call, so I said, "George, I’m a big fan, you don’t have to do this." And he said, "No, we’re not gonna do the big fan bullshit," but he said it so breezily–he was really a shy and gentle man, despite his reputation–that I started laughing.
We then talked about New York, Texas, California, and several other chit-chat topics until I felt bold enough to say, "Okay, I know what got you. The reference to Lenny Bruce. I don’t have any right to say that. I didn’t know Lenny Bruce and you did." And then we talked about Lenny Bruce, and Carlin eventually said, "I just want your address really, so I can send you this new show of mine, I want you to see the kind of stuff I’m doing now." And he sent me an HBO special he’d just finished, the one where he spends the last twenty minutes talking about the environment, the one that nobody talks about today because it’s so anti-environmentalist.
That was not the only Carlin position that was profoundly conservative. He was no kneejerk liberal. He was a contrarian. He didn’t like pro forma liberal positions any more than pro forma conservative positions. He was also not above going for the cheap f-word laugh. And he was also, many times, I’m sorry, George, but it’s true, a little bit too fond of mere wordplay. But he was funnier than Lenny Bruce, whom many admired but few loved. People loved George Carlin. He was a teddy bear. I wish I’d talked to him about God that day, too, because he was under the mistaken impression [2] that he was an atheist.
There’s Something To Be Said for the Distant Judaic God
I’m all for inspiring youth ministries like the Children’s Christian Coalition in Southern California, but their "Christ Within Us All" T-shirt [3], designed to show an angry Jesus bursting out of your chest like the mutant in Alien, is just TOO INCREDIBLY CREEPY. Stop it! Or is it just me?
I’m With Stupid
Atheists are crowing about research by University of Ulster psychology professor Richard Lynn [4] showing that the higher the IQ a person has, the less likely that person will believe in God.
For example, only 7 percent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences believe in God, and only 3.3 percent of the members of the Royal Society. Primary school children believe in God at extremely high levels, but that belief declines as they get older. Of course, we didn’t really need an article in the journal Intelligence to tell us this. After Jesus predicted the destruction of the great cities that failed to notice him, he thanked God, "because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." And then there was Paul, who did his own research into the matter and discovered "that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence." Or, if I could just sum up here, it’s the stupid people, stupid.
The Other Madonna
Alma Manera will star in the all-singing, all-dancing version of the Virgin Mary story, which sounds like something they’d do in Greenwich Village but is actually having its world premiere at the Paul VI Auditorium in Vatican City. Mary of Nazareth, A Story That Goes On has the full blessing of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State [5], even though the score was written by Stelvio Cipriani, whom we all remember best for his work on Piranha 2: The Spawning, not to mention Black Orgasm. The libretto is by Maria Pia Liotta, artistic director of a regional theater company in Reggio Calabria, and the title role is played by her daughter, a former Miss Italy contestant who lucked into the only female role in history that makes pregnancy cool.