8/3/2019 George Carlin Reviews

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GeorgeCarlinIt's Bad for Ya( E A R D R U M )It's more than a littlejarring tohear GeorgeCarlin on his posthumously released album

proclaim,"You know what I'vebeen doing? Going throughmy addressbookand crossingout the dead people!... Kindagives you a feeling ofpower,of superiority tohave outlastedanother old friend." Carlin'smaterial grewincreasingly bit-ter, a nd It's Ba d for Ya straight-forwardly addresses agingandmortality.Admittedly, someofhisobser-vations ("Every child is clearlynot special")sound like 1990sBill Hicks rants,and even the

8/3/2019 George Carlin Reviews

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COMEDYC a r l h i C a r dGeorge Carlinwas doingstandup before Bill Maher learned how to smirk.From his early days of performing characters like hippy-dippy weather-man Al Sleet ("Tonight's forecast: dark, with scattered portions of lightby midmorning") through his battles with the FCC and the SupremeCourt over the "Seven Words You Can NeverSay on Television,"Carlin'scareer has been oneuninterrupted love affair with words.And his abil-ity to spontaneously invent sentences onstage never before uttered inthe English language ("Honey, let's sell the children, move to Zanzibarand start taking opium rectally!") is infectious.Having recorded Grammy-winning comedy albums and helping perfectthe HBO comedy special, Carlin entered his60s bytackling anewmedium:books. Brain Droppings a nd Napalm & Silly Putty, unlike tomes writtenby other standup legends (I'm lookingat you,Jay Leading with M y ChinLeno), were actually well-written. He returns to the printed page with hisjust-published W hen Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops ? (Hyperion), his lat-est studyof the declineof the English language. Here,he alternates betweensnappy one-liners ("When it comestoGod's existence, Fm not an atheist andI'm not an agnostic. I'm an acrostic.The wholethingpuzzles me.") andlonger essays."I've noticedAmericans haveaproblem with reality,"hewrites. "They pre-fer to avoid the truth and not look it in the eye." Thus, we talk about "post-traumatic stress disorder"instead of using more precise language: "I'd bewilling to bet anything that if we'd stillbeen calling it shell shock, some ofthose Vietnam veterans might have received the attention they needed,at the time they needed it."

AndrewMlnerGeorge Carlin performs Sat.,Nov.6, 7a n d 9:30p.m., $37.SO-$47.SO, Tow er Theatre,69th and Ludlow sts.,215-336-2000.