He was always my favorite rhetoric-ist. The most logical. The most reasonable. He was in effect my only access to what I now know as the Trivium.
In my first 25 years of life, George Carlin’s material truly made me laugh at what could only be defined as Carlin’s hyper-realistic perspective stand-up routine.
It was the most harsh and abusive form of truth intervention for the entire human species – and yet it was masked brilliantly as comedy.
At around age 25, I attended an event in Las Vegas that was the beginning of my own transformation and incremental arrival into the over-exposure of hyper-reality Carlin spewed. This event was George Carlin, live at the Bally’s Casino resort. How wondrously excited I was to see up close and personal one of my few Idols in life. And the show went on…
But something was different.
Something just didn’t feel right.
George wasn’t the problem, for he was delivering his material just as rehearsed-ly as he always had, mentally re-ciphering eerily associative memory poems with endless lists of material and anecdotal stories with an almost autistic flair.
No, the problem laid elsewhere… It was the crowd. And it was myself.
I realize now as I listen to archives of the HBO and large older productions of Carlin’s televised stand-up routines that the audiences were given a bit of help. Laugh tracks were used to either replace or augment the seemingly jovial nature of the large audiences. Years of working in Hollywood sound departments helped my ears confirm the false stereo and room placement effect of certain “callers” within the otherwise echo-effected hall – their outbursts were out of place and sometimes non-situational. In other words, fake laughing was added to create the typical sitcom fake audience.
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Fantastic post Mami
ReplyDeletethanks Griz, I sure look at his comedy in a different light now. He was a genius. RIP George
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