Tribune to a Genius: 7 Things I Learned from George Carlin

(An interview of George Carlin by Tim Russert in 2005)
Hello Fellow Seekers of Truth and Life,

I want to talk today about a figure who has influenced my creative life in a profound way. I remember the first time I heard George Carlin's material. I had just turned 18, and I found lots of points in the material. However, his material got very violent, which often disturbed me. I am the type of person who just hears about and sees horrible events happen in media and news, and it scares me, makes me mad or sad. It was almost as if listening to it too much would bring the catastrophes he was talking about into being. So I decided to give listening to Carlin's routines a rest.

Two weeks later, I was visiting my grandmother in Virginia. She had the TV on one Sunday morning, and the newscrawl underneath proclaimed that George Carlin was dead at 71 in Malibu. I remembered that was the same guy that I had been alternately amused, inspired and taken aback by just two weeks earlier. Although I didn't think much about it at the time, it turned out that this man's 50-year body of work would help give my ideas a framework, a means of expression that I hadn't known was possible.

First of all, the reason I am writing this is because we of the anniversary. Not only was this past Friday, the 22nd of June, the fourth anniversary of Carlin's death, but it would have been his 75th birthday. I meant to write this on Friday or Saturday, but it just got so hectic around here that I had no time until this afternoon to write. There are many passages I could write about the life and work of the late, great George Carlin. For simplicity's sake, though (or so I don't bore the hell out of you), I will make each of my main points in one of the following seven bullet points.
Here is my list of seven things I learned from George Carlin. To pay tribute to the common comedic form, I will present them from last to first.

7. Language is an amazing thing, have fun with it. Have you ever taken the time to take apart a word, and then wondered where it came from? The fact is, every word is an interesting and unique concept that came from somewhere. Language is something only humans can use and understand, it is the reason we don't spend all day grunting at each other.

Allow yourself to notice, and be amused by, the ways that words and concepts line up, contradict, make sense, don't make sense, sound similar, sound different, cover up and reveal things. Now if all this sounds too academic for you, remember that Carlin, the guy who took all of this language play into new territory, dropped out of school in 9th Grade. Clearly, you don't need to be an academic to do this.

To give an example, just yesterday, I was grocery shopping, and I picked up a bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. This name baffled me. First of all, what does the term virgin even mean in this context? Is it uncured, unsaturated, not heated up? And second, have you ever come across a bottle of virgin olive oil, because I never have. Your only choices in the grocery store are olive oil and extra virgin olive oil, which leads to the third point. What does the extra virgin mean? I always thought that something could be either virgin, or not virgin. There aren't degrees of virginity, it's something you have or you don't, it's that simple. My grandfather first brought the term to my attention, but it is little phrases like this that George Carlin made we who listened notice.

6. It matters which word you use to describe an object or concept. Whatever you may believe, the words you use actually do matter. One of Carlin's running themes was his love of tearing down euphemistic language. When some idea or thought makes us uncomfortable, we try to soft-pedal description of it, so we don't experience the full brunt of what is happening. This is a natural human urge, we want to protect ourselves from the idea of harm. Often, we also want to ignore the idea that we could be wrong.

While this is a natural urge, it does us great harm. It is dishonest, and it hides us from dealing with life as it is, and often, it keeps us stuck in a place that may feel comfortable, but robs us of life force, insight and genuine compassion. For instance, we love to say "I'm getting older," rather than "I'm getting old," because we don't want to face the fact that we will grow old and die too. Such a thought shocks and frightens us at first, but it could also help us treat others with honesty and decency. After all, if we are going to die, too, that means everybody else will die at some point, so we share this "marked" fate, terror, and sadness with everybody else.

I'll give you a macro-example from the Carlin files. After World War I, soldiers would experience a condition of terror, anguish over past battles, regret, and a mental fraying over what they had seen and experienced. This was called "shell shock." A simple name, that told you what you needed to know, with vivid language that gave you the sensation. After World War II, the same state was referred to as "battle fatigue." That name seems to hurt less, like you just need a good night's sleep for it. Then after Korea, it was called "operational exhaustion," a highly mechanical term for a human condition. When soldiers were coming back from Vietnam, they got "post-traumatic stress disorder." This word dilutes the original meaning with several superfluous academic terms, when "shell shock" works just as well.

In fact, such a convoluted term hides a key reality of war from us. Even if you survive a war, it takes a toll on your psyche. I'll always remember one line of Carlin's: "I'll bet if they were still calling it shell shock, a lot of those Vietnam Veterans would have received the attention they needed." Think about the soldiers coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq now. What do they have? P-T-S-D. Now they don't even bother to come up with names anymore, they just give it a meaningless collection of letters. Since about the mid-1990's, our language has gone progressively more and more toward abbreviation. This is an example of how dangerous it can be.

5. Producing violent media doesn't make you coldhearted or cruel. As I mentioned above, I was initially turned off by Carlin's repeated wishes for people's deaths. As I grew, I also grew to dislike movies that were excessively gory or violent just for the sake of being excessively gory or violent. This made life tough when everyone around me was thriving on movies like 300 or Inglorious Basterds, and playing war-themed video games, while these were a big turn-off for me.

However, Carlin was different in that he didn't mind if carnage happened closer to him, where there was a chance he could be hurt or killed. I later saw this and understood the conscious nature of what he was saying, and the conscious nature of the audience's laughing in approval. While it still scared me that people could be so blaze about such material, I knew that the intent behind it was to call our attention to something. There was something inherently violent and ignorant in our human societies, particularly in the United States.


Remember this segment from Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine? This had to do with the scapegoating of violent media and video games in the wake of that tragedy. The reason I included it is this discussion of whether violent entertainment is really the boogeyman everybody claims it is. The fact is, there has always been some sort of violence and cruelty out there. Are supposed to just not  talk about it, and hope that'll make it go away? Carlin spoke of the dark urge to see someone hurt in people. If we don't address that, how will we ever move forward.

Whatever you may think of Manson or his music, listen to the last thing he says."I wouldn't have said one word to [the Columbine victims]. I would've listened to what they had to say, and that's what no one did." The people you hear on TV are constantly telling you how to think, and what to do. When you get hurt, in a small- or large-scale way, there is always someone there telling you what to think and do ("You need this product," or "Violence is rampant, and this group is to blame"). This is all to sell a neat narrative about the world, that you must always accept. Because of Carlin, and what Manson said above, I don't think the problem is violent songs, comedy routines, or movies themselves. I think the issue lies in intent. There is being shocking to pander and boost sales revenues, and then there is being shocking to prove a point, and offer insight, which I will talk about in the next point.
4. Take the things that piss you off, and convert them into creative insights about life. You may have noticed a lot of "angry rants" on this blog of late. Believe it or not, I think anger can be very productive for solving problems and helping people in pain. The problem is that people rarely deal with anger in a positive way. Most of the time, people deal with it in the most destructive way possible, by choosing scapegoats, rallying around "heroes" pinning all the bad in the world on the scapegoat, and then taking out their anger on them.
Unfortunately, people either handle anger this way, or cut themselves off from the anger entirely, trying to deny or destroy it. Another way would be to look at the anger, and keep asking "What is behind this?" You could explore what it is about the things that bug you or make you angry. Sometimes it might be insignificant, but other times, there might be something behind it. Carlin routinely talked about things that made him angry, exaggerating the anger for comedic energy, and it usually lead to some insight about life that you hadn't thought of before. Some people were threatened by this, but for many people, including me, this was the insight I needed to grow.
I've lately began making lists of things that bug me. One thing is people with earbuds in their ears all the time. Going to college, I see this all the time, people walking around with those blank looks on their faces, with the damned white headphones in, as if to say "I don't have to pay attention to anything." What bugs me the most is when I see people with headphones on skateboards and bikes. Focusing on this singular annoying thing led me to some creative insights. It led me to think about how people shut down reflexively, was there anything I did that was an easy way of shutting down, getting stuck in my own world. Here, an annoying occurence became an opportunity to reflect and grow. By the way, the things you complain about also apply to you, as I will discuss in a moment.

3. All people are hypocrites, and contradictions in people are a part of life. What was interesting to me is that George Carlin's career grew out of anger toward the Vietnam War, and the culture of Reagan, where it became good to do evil and evil to do good. However, Carlin was not kind toward the people in the government, the corporations. He hoped they were hurt-the same thing he attacked them for doing. As I watched his material later, I saw he was also lashing out at causes and groups usually defended vigorously by the Left of the 60's. Earlier in my life, I had believed that you had to support one set of ideas or another, but this changed my mindset. I realized that my own gut feelings mattered, and I shouldn't ignore them, or try to stuff them into a conventional wisdom box.
I had also assumed that because Carlin had this rough-edged, biting persona on stage, he must have been just bad to everyone he met. Not true. At least, not according to his memoir (which was transcribed by a friend of his after his death). In his memoir, he had only positive things to say about his fellow comedians at the time, and often worked with them anonymously to help their careers. He certainly said what he felt at a gut level, but some of it was brutal, some of it was very insightful. It was all very genuine. I also learned how to disagree. You don't have to accept or reject some point of view across the board. I used to believe that people had one persona about them, and that was what guided their life. I now know that what we say, and what we do, think and feel, often contradict each other. I have begun using this as a part of my life, rather than rejecting or trying to bury it.

2. Beneath race, gender, class, religion, nationality, et. al., there is a common experience we all share. You may have noticed that under labels, I will often include the phrase common experience. This is what  that refers to. I don't know a great way to describe it in words better than this: there are things in life we all have to go through, trials, joys, heartbreaks, and most importantly, those little awkward moments, and the little things you succeed at that make you go "Yes!" Let me let the late, great Mr. Carlin do the explaining.



Truer words have not been spoken.

1. Life isn't nearly as serious as it pretends to be. In life, there are many things, concepts, ideas, entities and processes that pretend to be so important, the most important thing in the world, in history, ever. They aren't. Part of Carlin's buzzsaw approach was exposing life, particularly human life, as a game. We really aren't as important, noble, or paramount as we make ourselves out to be. There will come a time when everything that is here now is dust, invisible particulate matter floating around somewhere. The room you are in, the laptop or phone you are reading this on, your house, your body, all of your possessions, all of that will disperse, and the same is true of me. It's a scary thing, isn't it? It often scares me.

However, our egos have become so inflated by the things of the world that we believe we are the only important thing. What can bring us up, can also tear us down, so the highs and lows of our lives lead to the same illusion of importance, permanence. What George Carlin did was to tear down this idea that human well-being is paramount. Ironically, this urge came from a deep, deep anger over the injustice faced by many people, and it led to many people, including myself, actually discovering something in life. George Carlin once said that each person, by him or herself, is an amazing thing, but once they start to form groups, that's when the bullshit starts. Beneath that statement lies lots of truth. There has never been, and will never be again, something that replicates you. It is imperative that you realize both that you are not as important as you believe, and that you can discover more than you ever thought possible.

This is why I wanted to pay tribute to the late, great George Carlin on what would have been his 75th birthday. Because he took comedy into a whole different dimension. He used to to make us realize things that you couldn't just tell a person. If you tried to tell them, it would end up a confusing mess. If you use humor, that opens people up, and that gives them an experience they can remember, and they can think back and realize, "I had never heard that before." This is what I hope to do with you, dear reader, of this blog, in my own small, humble way. If I can give you that, and you take that gift, open it, and are amazed by what is contained inside, then this blog is worth all the work I put into it.
I'll have more good stuff for you to sink your teeth into soon.

See ya, and don't forget to live!

"Bully" Response: Tear Down These Walls!

Hi Fellow Seekers of Life and Truth,

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging for a while. This semester has proved to be much more hectic than I expected. But the strange thing is, I don't mind as much. It's a good kind of hectic. There are good kinds of hectic, and there are bad kinds. So I've been going to classes, volunteering for more things than I have time for, which is okay, because most of those things have not been given to me. Anyway, I'm back because I've got something important to talk about.

This film, the documentary Bully, came out a few weeks ago, and I thought it would be cool to see, but, as with most of these films, it was only playing at a few theaters in New York and LA, not here in Long Beach. Lo and behold, yesterday I discovered it was at a small theater here in town, so last night I went and saw it. It isn't an easy movie to see. Seeing it, I certainly thought back to lots of times when I had experienced abuse in school.

I remember one morning when I was in the first or second grade, in the late 90's. One boy turned to me and just said "Tony, you're a faggot." That was it. Pretty straightforward. No follow-up, nothing leading up to that, he just called me a faggot and that was it. I thought, "Huh, what's that all about?" I had heard that word someplace before, but I had no idea what it meant, or, more importantly, what it conveyed.

In the following years, I grew into an environment where statements like this were among the nice things that happened to you. Statements like "Have you seen the movie (whispering inaudibly) Gay People Say What?" (Calling toward you) "Hey, gay guy!" "Shut up, you're a fucking retard!" were a common thing.

Poster from a campaign against the phrase "That's so gay!"

I focused on gay slurs here because those were the ones that were used as invective weapons. I think those were especially damning among us boys, although I have only my male experience as a frame of reference for that. The two biggest lines of attack were gay slurs and slurs against mentally challenged kids. This was a mystery to me, because I had always been straight. There was never really any doubt that I was going to grow up to love girls, even though I had issues dealing with them. But, for some reason, I got more of the gay slurs than most of the other kids.

It seems like the kids most vulnerable to bullying are the ones who cannot or will not live up to their gender's expectations. For instance, one of the people shown in the film is a teenage lesbian who lived the "butch" role. She lived in a little town in Oklahoma someplace, so of course, upon coming out, she was radioactive. Former friends of the family refused to even talk to, or look at, them. So, if you're a girl who doesn't act and think the way a girl "should" you will be shunned and a social pariah, and if you're a boy who doesn't behave the way a boy "should," you will be intimidated, berated, and physically attacked.

The worst thing is that the adults in the film were dragging their feet to help, and often were not helping. The adults' attitudes and answers often implied, even if unintentionally, that the victims were to blame. They talk as if "kids will be kids," "boys will be boys," "kids are cruel, that's just how it is," implying that it is the kid's responsibility to fit in, to be accepted, and to be like the other kids. The flip side of this is that kids who cannot or will not "fit in" have it coming if they get attacked.

I certainly got messages like this when I was growing up. My parents would tell me things like "The kid who stands out, that's the kid that gets picked on," "You hide in a corner, and when someone picks on you, you go "poor me." Do you want us to pinch every penny and send you to private school?" I'm not blaming only my parents for this, because I love them. The sad irony is that this kind of victim blame usually happens when the event is so awful and that people are so horrified by it. This ranges from treasured young ones being bullied, to women being raped, even when the poor are shafted by a bad economy. Below is a video of presidential candidate Herman Cain discrediting Occupy Wall Street protesters last Fall, and telling the poor to "blame themselves" if they are in a bad place.



What all of this goes to show us is that we have a way of refusing to believe it could be this bad, by internalizing these absurd justifications offered by authorities, and sometimes the aggressors themselves. Most of us internalize these beliefs offered about this. I have internalized many of these things said about me. The worst part of all of this is that if someone can't stand up for themselves, they deserve what they get.

When you internalize these beliefs people throw at you, the terrible things they can do to you start to seem normal. You know, I've learned that about 90% of the way ads, TV and media work is at a subconscious level. You soak up so many things up without even realizing it. This is particularly true of children and teenagers, even in your 20's, this is still going on. Books, movies and so forth tell us that the only way that works to respond to bullies is to retaliate physically. However, this can have bad consequences.

One of the girls in the movie kept getting attacked by the other kids, so one day, she took her mother's gun onto the school bus. She threatened the other kids, but was subdued, arrested. Thank God no one got hurt or killed on that bus. But the sheriff's department held here on, as they determined, "45 felony charges" (this was in Mississippi) and would have faced more than a lifetime in prison.

They decided to have her see a mental counselor instead, but the message was still clear; she would take all the blame, and the kids who were doing that to her would be let off the hook. In this way, she was made to look like the crazy one. We don't know what those kids were doing to her. It could have been something truly terrible, something against which anyone would react strongly. When you've been horribly abused, is it insane to do something to stop it?

That said, I do not believe that anything you do to so-called bullies is okay. There are right and wrong ways to stand up for yourself. I never liked seeing people get hurt, that's why I had a problem dealing with people picking on me. I could never respond decisively, in the way that make bullies back off. However, there were a few times when I "lost my shit" so to speak. This leads to my next point about the movie. The movie focused mainly on a few episodes, around the country, where bullying tactics had led to kids snapping. It had little to do with things we can do about it, which is okay, because there, you get into harsh political territory, but I will throw out some considerations here.

In the last 12 or 13 years, since the Columbine Massacre, bullying in schools has become a political issue of heightened importance. Seeing people abused is a very personal issue for most people, because most people have been abused at some point themselves, but what can we do about it, as a society and as individuals? Well, first we need to look at our educational priorities. We must realize that when you're young, class is not the only place you are learning. You are also learning how to deal with people, how to relate, people are hopefully teaching you good morals.

We have to transcend this public school/private school debate. We have become attached to this one mode of public school that isn't working, or, alternatively, a charter/private school model where everyone has to be "effective" enough, or they will be cut. Life does not improve when everything is run like a corporation. However, our public school model clearly needs to be updated from the gigantic, impersonal model public schools have followed since World War II.

Here's the choice we've got: we could try to beat the Chinese and the South Koreans at their own game. In each State of the Union, Obama has held them up as the ones we have to beat. Sure, we could focus all on our test scores and grades, but we'd lose a lot of our innovative human potential. Here's the other choice: we could take a look at what the Finnish have done with their education system. Below is a report from The Young Turks about the steps Finland has taken in the last 30 years.



Now, I'm not saying we should do everything that the Finns have done, but their approach does touch on some of the concepts I've been ranting and raving about here for months. In the context of countering an environment of bullying, this is even more crucial to our success, and since a few of the kids featured were driven to end their lives, the stakes can be life or death. Now, you might ask, What does education policy have to do with bullying?

Well, a lot, as it turns out. The film showed school administrators insisting they would do all that they could, but then not doing much at all, besides offering words. In one instance, the principal even reproached the victim when both of them were caught in a scuffle. This shows that our school system must be a part of this change.

I remember, when I was back in school, I had to take speech classes because I was not skilled at communicating with the other kids. I don't think it's crazy to suggest that classes on communicating issues, complaints, wants or fears to other kids could be part of a curriculum all young students experience. As it stands, there isn't any standard course in school available on this until you get to college. That's why I decided to major in communication studies, because I believe that if we were able to work through our differences, a lot less pain would be in this world.

So some ideas that come to my mind are having some regular programs in place on conflict resolution, assertiveness, confidence, and responsibility for your own actions. This last one is critical, because it would be easy to assume, "Oh, it doesn't happen to me," even if you are yourself a part of the process. One of the kids in the movie recalled that when he was in second grade, he would join in the teasing and ridicule of the outsiders, but then in the third grade, he took resposibility for his wrongdoings, and that year, he decided he didn't need popularity anymore.

Even though I have been the victim of verbal attacks, I used to join in on jeers, pleasing myself with my inventive use of terms for "gay." I'll just say that now. I've said, thought, and done plenty of things I wish that I hadn't, that I would never do again. I have held racist, sexist and homophobic assumptions. Kids need to learn to accept those insecure tendencies we all have, to explore them without judgement, and take ownership of their insecurity, before the insecurity takes ownership of them.

This leads neatly into the personal goals. There is only so much the Departments of Education can do at a state and national level, or that school administrators can do. Ultimately, it is up to the child, with assists from their parents, to stand on their own two feet. The group of children must learn that being different is not bad. It is not good either, but it is not a sin. People are neither good nor bad, but rather, they are there. If children learned this from their parents' examples, think of how their growth would change. They would get the confidence to stand up for parts of them that aren't the "cool" things.

Now, all of the episodes in this movies happened in Bible Belt Red States, states like Georgia, Oklahoma, Iowa and Mississippi. I found out where these places are located, and all of them, with the exception of Sioux City, Iowa, are remote, rural towns. I guess that makes the bullying even more prevalent, when the town is so close-knit, everybody knows everybody, and outsider types are not welcome. In any area, it definitely is not seen as "cool" to be different. When everybody is faced with insecurity, the "different" ones are made the scapegoats. This is a very easy, human, and common pattern, but it is also very dangerous. When it happens to a society, the consequences can be deadly.

The bad news is that the scapegoat process of school bullying has gotten more dangerous and dire. With technology and the easy availability of weapons to anyone, the actions can be far more damaging. The good news is, the vicious cycle can be broken. When enough people rise up, and refuse to go through the motions of life, the school climate will begin to shift. People can set boundaries for themselves, bottom lines, refusing to do "whatever" to be cool and fit in. But that takes confidence, which a lot of kids don't have. Only bullies themselves generate it by hiding their problems and shame under their aggression.

So we need to set new criteria for what people confident in themselves do. Being confident comes from knowing that you are good enough. People who feel like they are good enough do not have to use others, berate them or physically destroy them, or destroy them inside. People who are good enough can learn from their past faults. The reason I mentioned the "Bible Belt" earlier is because this is a big thing among Christianity. Didn't some guy once say "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?"

Remember who Jesus spent all his time with? The crippled people, the homeless, the hookers, the lepers. Think of all the most disowned and disliked kids, the gay and lesbian teenagers, the transgender teenagers, the ones with learning challenges, the disabled ones, and the vast array of kids who feel like they can't talk to anybody. Nobody would listen to them. Nobody would care about what they like, who they are, their struggles, their state of being. If this sounds like I'm describing part of my life, it's because I am. I know that I'm not the only one this applies to, though.

Part of this may be a selfish thing, because I often became one of the abuse scapegoats. I think the worst thing in the movie, and the closest to home, was when they told the kid with the odd face issue, "Two to a seat, dumbass!" on the bus. That is the essence of what most bullying is; when someone makes a mistake, they destroy you, and most other kids never really give you a second chance after that.

I used to make all sorts of social gaffes, bear the ridicule, then internalize the shame about myself. But I am older now, and I know that I can get second chances if I do screw up. The final sequence in the film involves parents, children and teenagers holding rallies in their cities and states to bring awareness to this issue. One man, who had lost his son to suicide, implored to the crowd: "Reach out to that one new kid who has no one." The paradox is this: we need to be there with those kids for them to stand on their own. Because we have all been vulnerable, without anyone, at some time in our lives.

It's about time we did the non-normal thing and took a stand for someone outside, because once a critical mass of people does this, bullies will no longer be able to hide their own shame and insecurity behind beating up the helpless people, and they will have no followers to intimidate them. Then, we will all have to face our own insecurity and vulnerability, as the best human beings do. The solution to bullying is, ultimately, not to outlaw words or actions, it is to reclaim all of our humanity.

Please post a comment below, if you have any feelings, stories, or ideas about this issue. If you have been bullied, or someone you care for has experience with bullying, share whatever you feel comfortable with. The point is to show that more and more people have suffered, that you are not alone, that you don't have to "just get over it," and people will listen to you openly and nonjudgementally. I apologize for the sheer mass of this post, but I have had these feelings for a long time, and I have just recently gotten the words to express them. Thanks for listening, and please go see the movie Bully whenever you get the chance. I will have more interesting good stuff for ya in the next post.

See ya!