(2005) "Life is filled with interesting things," as the late, great George Carlin said; and he was appointed to observe and report them to us, as in this live (though he's dead) HBO-produced stand-up comedy performance at New York's Beacon Theatre.

Stepping on stage with tombstone props and artificial snow, he has a short white beard, a balding head with small gray ponytail, black attire, rarely cracking a smirk at his own humor and wordplay; rapping and riffing for over 70 minutes, nonstop, Carlin's opening delivery is a Whitmanesque self-proclamation: "I'm a modern man…. digital and smoke free … I'm a high-tech low-life…. I'm an alpha male on beta blockers … a medical miracle…. I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond. I'm new wave but old school, and my inner child is outward bound…. interactive, hyperactive, and from time to time radioactive…. out of rehab in denial… You can't shut me up or dumb me down…. I have a love child who sends me hate mail.

Pussy farts, dingleberries (a Christmas decoration), and cornholes (a social activity in prison) lead into the subject of suicide: on average every 30 seconds someone somewhere in the world takes his life (four times more often it's a guy), but George admits: "I couldn't commit suicide if my life depended on it." Killing oneself requires planning, prioritizing, timing, an effective method (you wouldn't want to mess up and suffer humiliation or a nonfatal hole in the head), and finally a note (preferably blaming everyone who reads it for what you've done).

But suicide could become "the ultimate makeover" reality show - "Must die TV." He envisions mass suicide to capture ratings during the sweeps: homeless people (including half a million military veterans), condemned prisoners, self-selected depressed people with "hopeless minds," and the terminally ill. Sell it to the 18-to-24 male audience as "extreme living," featuring 500 of these losers "holding hands and jumping into the Grand Canyon," each wearing a hat with camera (for friends and family to watch the video afterward) and sponsor T-shirt. Perhaps fundamentalist Christians could be induced to "Jump for Jesus." If instead of cable TV you want the networks, go with advertising from Budweiser and automobile manufacturers (drink and drive responsibly) on FOX.

"This country is full of nitwits and assholes," exhales Carlin, "and they all vote." Assassination (often the victims are those who urge us to embrace peace and understanding), genocide, torture are what human beings do to each other, though we think we've progressed from human sacrifices and cannibalism. What about necrophilia? "Animals don't [not even rats] fuck their dead." So beheadings in Iraq didn't surprise Carlin: "They ain't cutting off heads in Oklahoma," so military contractors should stay there. Besides, can anyone explain the difference between beheading someone who volunteered to be somewhere he didn't belong and dropping a bomb on people in their homes, blowing women and children to bits?

We're still savages, says misanthropic George, beasts in the jungle, maybe semi-civilized beasts wearing baseball caps and carrying automatic weapons. "People are fucking goofy." America the beautiful has been turned into shopping malls with its citizens addicted to shopping and eating - "the slow death of fast food." George wonders aloud how obese people manage to shit and wipe themselves; how they manage to copulate, because they always have a pair of fat, dumb kids with them when they drive in their "big, fat, oversized, ugly SUV" to the shopping mall for more food and stuff to stuff into their big, fat, oversized, ugly homes.

"Politicians hide behind the flag, the Bible, and children," Carlin continues. We don't have freedom of choice, he declares, because the owners own us: "You and I are not in the big club." Most Americans seem to be "dumber than a second coat of paint" and "willfully ignorant," with parents leading the way. "I like things that are excessive," he says of natural disasters - "fun, interesting, exciting" - hoping the catastrophe will get worse while having "no sympathy for human beings whatsoever." Only once does he mention President George W. Bush, the decider who can't decide what to do during an emergency.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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