For once the eight-track didn’t have to be coaxed into not eating the tape, which meant we were ready to listen to the comedian we’d seen on a new show called Saturday Night Live. As six of us sat on my bedroom floor, the smoke of strawberry incense swirling around our heads, and black light posters glowing, George Carlin’s voice came through the speakers like an ice pick through the heart of polite society. We alternated between shocked and hysterical laughter as we listened to “Class Clown” and “Seven Words”. If one could actually die laughing the “Hippy Dippy Weatherman” would have done me in, that day.

 

How did we get here, George, to the end of your life and more than half-way through mine? 

 

Some things hit kind of hard.

 

 

Carlin wisdom:

 

“Always do whatever’s next.”

 

“Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.”

 

“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.”

 

“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.”

 

“Think off-center.”

 

“Weather forecast for tonight: dark.”

 

“May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.”

 

Good-bye George. Thanks for the memories.