Monday, June 23, 2008

Carlin 

I suspect the under-40 American does not remember much of the days of the comedy album (or cassette, or 8-track), but for those of us who were early teens around 1972, George Carlin was the guy that gave you the "seven words you can never say on television", which when played on your crappy stereo in your bedroom caused howls of laughter and a furtive look out the door to see if Mom had heard those words. I had lots of music then, but this and Big Bambu were probably the two records I played most. When #1 son was a teen, we listened to some of Carlin's newer material and I was able to dig out the older stuff (I still have many of my albums) and we howled to Al Sleet the Hippy Dippy Weatherman. Did he become an angry liberal in the 1980s? Yeah, and so what? Even then, his routine on airplanes was sidesplittingly funny. (It's interesting how it evolved before and after 9-11; such was his humor.)

Gone now, a reminder of how time marches past as much as my teen now being in his twenties, and my Littlest starting high school in a few months. What humor will she hear that makes her giggle as much as Al Sleet? (She went camping this weekend with her youth group, came back with a picture of her friend playing "chubby bunny" which is a measure of how many marshmallows you can have in your mouth. Her friend got eight and a photo on MySpace. Good stuff.)

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