GEORGE CARLIN:
STILL SANE AFTER ALL THfSE YEARS
By Richakd Levinson
George Carlin is sitting in a director’s chair in a Los Angeles pho
tography studio, mugging for the camera. "Hey, Jerry, Brenda,
c'mon you guys, you gotta say some stuff that'll really make me
laugh,’ Carlin says to his wife of twenty years and his longtime
friend (now personal manager) Jerry Hamza “Whatre the seven
deadly sins?” asks Carlin.
'Greed,” answers Hamza Carlin’s face suddenly becomes very
greedy Click. One frame
“Try pride ” Pride. Click. Not quite.
"Nah, that was really more disdain, wasn’t it?” says Carlin.
’Lust. Ahhh, lust. Carlin’s face grabs lust and holds it in a
strangle-lock for three frames He’s got lust down
“Great, great How about anger?” suggests Hamza
Anger? Oh, yeah, but I can’t do that one It takes too much out
of you.”
"I think lust is the one,” says Hamza
The photographer calls a break, and Carlin gives his face a rest.
The camera, on its own, falls forward on its tripod. “That’s the
inanimate world responding to me,” says Carlin Hamza starts
laughing, then goes over to the telephone to do some business
He>-, where there's a phone, there’s an office, right?
These days, there’s a lot of business for Hamza to do After al
most five years of relative obscurity for this normally high-profile
comedian, George Carlin is back, and back loud. A new album (A
Place for My Stuff), a Playboy interview, plans for books, more
records, a cable T.V. show on HBO (“The biggest budget in the
history of cable comedy’ says Hamza), more frequent tours and
Tonight Shou appearances (“Do you know who the most popular
guest host is?” Hamza knows), and lots and lots of ink bear witness
to Carlin s return to the spotlight. But, like everything else in his
sometimes turbulent career, this re-emergence Is on Carlin's own
terms. A brief Carlinography: he achieved some notoriety in the
Sixties as a “straight” comic and satirist, known for such bits as
The Indian Sergeant (which you still hear on airline stereo com
edy programs, wedged between Bob Newhart and Phyllis Diller),
and for the classic 45 "Wonderful WINO’’/’’Hippy Dippv
Weatherman .” He built his Las Vegas price up to *12,500 per week,
but in 1970 left the comfort of the Vegas stage cold. The much
retold story of his hasty exit from his straight career says less about
censorship, (audiences of conventioneers began to take exception
to his more controversial act, and the hotel fired him), than it does
about Carlin himself. He simply had more he wanted to say than
the audience was ready to hear, so it was bye-bye Las Vegas Carlin
began playing colleges in the early Seventies and again achieved
success, recording six albums (four gold) as a “counterculture”
comedian and as a “social critic,” labels that Carlin himself
wouldn’t use.
“1 don’t do politics. Basically, I do this for myself My main prior
ity is to be funny, to get them to say "God, wasn’t that clever,' to
satisfy my childhood ego. I talk about wrhat’s in your refrigerator,
how your deg and cat are’different, words you use without notic
ing what they mean. Beyond that, I have a great us-and-them men
tality, which surfaces along with the other stuff. It’s another section
of my personality But 1 don’t rely on that. I go out there to be
funny."
The mid-Seventies brought a lot of changes, none particularly for
the better Massive cocaine consumption, a heart attack, the pursuit
of a movie that was never to be completed, and years of therapy
kept Carlin out of the public eye. He survived: health, wit and,
almost as importantly, career intact. That kind of silence might deal
a fatal blow to the career, of one or another entertainer, but in
many ways, Carlin s comeback has been easier than his going away.
He attributes this to the professional groundwork he has laid over
two successful career phases so far.
“Monologues are the basic thing I do. They always will be That's
the thing that got me from standing behind all the guys on the
comer to standing in front. If I’m able to expand and develop
other forms of writing and performance, they'll be good for me
But they'll never entirely eclipse that the basic thing I do is think
about things, stand up and tell them. Having established over a
long period of time that I am someone who can always come back
and do that well, I would expea the audience to have full confi
dence, to be ready for me.”
Minding the fine points of coming back is the task of Carlin's
professional advisors, headed by Hamza. Forget how Carlin might
describe himself in conversation, his most recent image is that of a
rubber-limbed, wild-eyed class clown who, as often as not, would
8« himself in trouble saying the right thing to the wrong people
Now, his presentation to the public is very neatly sculpted • The
official photo on Carlin s press-kit shows a rather mature, intelli
gent face with a neatly clipped beard, a friendly, amused be
nevulerit look. Like a cross between a happily tenured college pro
fessor and a liberal, socially aware (dare I say it?) priest The new,
grown-up George Carlin
Although he must have approved of the milder image (nothing
in his career gets by him), it doesn’t prevent him from saying
whatever he feels like at interview time,
'I don't see much hope for this society, maybe even the human
race. The [population] segment I identify with is the one that feels
as I do, that it s hopeless The things 1 do that are pointedly anti
institution are just my way of name calling, of standing across the
street and shaking my fist So, I do them, and try to make them as
tunny as possible, so they are entertaining to the segment that
doesn t give a (insert one of the seven words you can never say on
I V , or print in this magazine) The trouble is profit I think the
only real hope is to kill about three or four hundred million
people, maybe even a billion, and start all over again without cash
registers "
Arc the billion on any particular continent?
“No, they're all over You'd have to aim mainly
at the financial centers, the commercial centers I
want to be fair When you're lulling that manv
people, you want to be as fair as possible fill he
nice, because you'll get a lot of Christians, loo "
Carlin doesn t like Christians very much
'Christians have spread more evil titan most I
don't like many organized religions, including
Judaism Bui the Jews have usually been padting
and running — it was the Christians doing the
chasing”
Is the trouble in the teachings, or are people
just reading h wrong*
“You’ve answered the question Nothing wrong
with the teachings But you let a coupla
greedheads get a hold of some gokl. and they’ll
Mt up a good philosophy every time " Carlin
adds that this will probably end up as a routine,
perhaps as a companion piece to a bit he does on
life after the nuclear holocaust
That s the trouble talking with George Carlin
You never really know if you re hearing the man
or the comedian It's a line Carlin is consciously
trying to erase "I want to get as close to being
myself on stage as 1 can It’s a structured, orderly,
professional self, but it's still me So, the more an
audience knows alxiut me personalty, the better "
It's this meld of person and comic that makes
it possible for Carlin to do his diatribe on Chris
tians, then turn around, go on the 7onigbt Show,
do a neat, very funny 10 minutes without a trace
ol controversy, and teel that, in both cases, he has
presented a valid side of himself ("And now, the
news A man, attempting to walk around the
world, drowned today "). There's a lot of death in
Carlin's Tonight Show material, but death has
never been a forbidden subject on television
"Tlie problem with doing the Tonight Show is
that so many people see you there that never see
you anywhere else A woman wrote me a letter
asking for her $10 hack lor the album She weni
through such a story, alxiut how she’d loved me
on the Tonight Show, and played the album for
her husband and friends, and got so embar
rassed I sent her the ten. That's not to set a prec
edent If it appears in this magazine, I’ll just deny
it
"Now, as far as the career goes ..." Carlin
warms to his favorite subject, his future. It seems
that he puts up with, no, encourages the hustling,
business side of himself, knowing that the payoff
is that he gets paid to do what lie loves most and
does best: talk. "On the new cable show, I’m
going to be doing a lot more characterizations, in
costume. Up ’til now, my characters have just
been supporting players. Now, I’m going to put
them in front. The show will have maybe twenty
minutes of monologue, and about forty minutes
of sketches, blackouts, vignettes, whatever.”
Touring? (“George sold out his last tour.
Added shows in Pittsburgh,” says Hamza.)
"Yes, I'm going out soon for 18 days in the
East, Midwest, and South "
The album -'
“h could have had a better December, but my
albums have always had good, solid, steady
growth They sell, they ve got legs And for a first
step in a new direction, it’s doing magnificently."
Legs’ Such a showbiz term for this anti
showbiz comdian But somehow, the paradox
never crosses into hypocrisy No one feeds Carlin
his lines. He knows about and oversees every as
pect of his career He's the one taking the
chances, he's the one mdrmg the decisions. If
anyone has to know about die business side it's
gutng to be George And charactertsucaliy, he's
mate than witling to talk about M.
Tvr been autonomous aff my career, all my
life That's done all the things for me that have
happened The fan that I made the choices.
When a posture of that type pays off so hand
somely. both in personal satisfaction and money,
it s harder and harder to pull away and let other
people in." But, with the cable show and other
"conceptual" projects, other artistic people will
have to be involved. "I’m taking it step by step. As
long as I'm the person doing the writing and act
ing, I can have others advise me I think I can
open myself to that now."
The photographer is ready for a few more
shots I ask Carlin how many photo sessions he's
had in his career
"One hundred and fourteen, exactly. Not
counting the ones that didn't come out."
As the pictures are snapped, Carlin does a few
liigts, gentle ones for a man bent on killing a bil
lion people: "Don't you hate it when you wake
up at night, and there's a spider crawling on your
pillow, and you don't know his name?" Brenda
laughs, and Carlin says, "Thai laugh. After twenty
years, that's still what it's all about
"I want to share the little wonders of the
world. Not the big ones, those are in the books
Just the little ones. I'm afraid to go out and fight
for justice, because I'm afraid it s a losing banle.
But 1 think ideas and comedy can co-exist. You
can be relatively smart and still be pretty funny."
As the session winds down, Carlin and Hamza
are talking 1 walk over with the tape recorder.
"Hey, Jerry, better watch that corporate stuff. The
recorder's on,” Carlin is laughing Then he adds, |
apparently in reference to their discussion, ’
Time Life The two things they know nothing *
about, they use as their name.”
Now everyone is laughing, a sound familiar to '
Carlin I ask him if he has anything he’d like to .
add before he takes off He's got an answer ready. |
After 114 photo sessions and years of interviews, ]
you better believe he's got an answer ready. Still,
he sounds like he means it.
“I'm happy, and I'm looking forward to what
ever happens to me next."
I
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