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I'm pleased to welcome James Sullivan he's with us tonight to speak on his book seven dirty words the life and crimes of George Carlin. Anyone concerned with comedy American culture censorship vulgarity politics or satire news about George Carlin. His name evokes that infamous routine. But author James Sullivan goes beyond the bit to reveal the man who changed not just the language of comedy but its future as well. Publisher's Weekly writes that in this Lennier summary of Carlin's career Sullivan dissects the comedian's classic iconoclastic routines probe's his working methods and successfully captures his rocka like ascent to fame from nightclubs in the 1960s community culture of Greenwich Village to television acclaim controversy and creative conflicts. A lot of alliteration in that and from Kircus reviews although volumes have been written about his contemporaries his predecessor and mentor Lenny Bruce before him and his contemporary Richard Pryor to name but a few relatively little analysis has been done about the late great George Carlin's mark on the 20th century and his new book journalist James Selvin delves deep into the seven

decade history of one of America's most daring comics. James Sullivan is a regular contributor to The Boston Globe. He previously served as a pop music and culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and has written for Rolling Stone and many other publications. We are thrilled to have him with us tonight. Please join me in welcoming James Sullivan. I want to begin tonight not by. Well I want to begin by doing a couple of things apparently my voice is being broadcast throughout the store so first thing I want to do is apologize to any parents who might be out there and the rest of the store looking at the children's books. The second thing I want to do is to read you know before I start droning on about my book and reading from it I want to play another voice I want to get to hear another voice really quickly. I got fired last year in Las Vegas from the front to your hotel for saying shit in a town where the big game is called crap. So kind of a double standard and I'm sure there were some Texans standing at the casino yelling

out CNN. Flying those guys in free. Time. Shit. Get as much trouble as you can slogan. It's a nice word. It's a friendly happy kind of way and the word. Middle class has never really been into shit. You know as a word. No not really comfortable yet completely and know not really relaxed when did you'll hear it around the kitchen or someone drops a casserole. She. Knows she. Can't say that. Just hear it. Sometimes they say. They can't get me in. The show it to shows.

So I've done this a couple of book readings people tend to enjoy it. Like I said rather than just listening to the author drone on it's kind of nice to hear Carlin's own voice because that's why we're all here obviously. I'll say a couple of quick things and then I want to read from the beginning of the book which kind of is a synopsis of the whole thing. This is my third book all of my books have been about wildly different subjects by design. I was up Poppea I wrote about pop culture for the San Francisco Chronicle for many years and I've been doing the same thing for the last five or six years for the Globe after moving back with my family from California to Massachusetts where my wife and I are both from. So my first book was about the history of the bluejeans industry. It was called jeans a cultural history of an American icon. It was about how blue jeans have represented American culture to the rest of the world for the last 50 or 60 years. My second book was about the singer James Brown. It's called the hardest working man. And then this book is about Carl and so

the thing about Carlin there's two things about Carlin that really have intrigued me for a long time and maybe want to write about him for years. One obviously you can tell by the title of the book is the dirty words thing. I mean that routine is not the actual Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television that routine. It's a it's a predecessor it's and it's an early draft I think of the seven words written that my book is named after but the Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. And a lot of you probably know came out in 1972 when Carlin was kind of going through this transformation from a clean cut relatively clean cut comedian in the 1960s making appearances on The Tonight Show and on Merv Griffin. And you know variety shows and things like that to sort of representative of the counterculture long hair you know bearded and to my mind that routine in 1972 is the watershed moment when we went as a culture from everything prior to that year

we swept our dirty words under the rug. They clearly existed. We we all. You know most adults use them but as far as children were concerned or and you know quote unquote polite company we pretended like words didn't exist and everything since Carl Carlin's routine sort of blew the cover off of what he felt was a hypocrisy. You know why if there's 400000 words in an English language why do we take these seven and stick them in a box over here everything since for better and for worse. You know we've clearly become a culture that's much more emphasized too. You know what some people call dirty words you know whether it's pop music on the radio. Pretty clearly you know using vulgarities or certainly cable-TV in the movie theaters you really didn't hear four letter words prior to 1972. But obviously you know even in G-rated movies or P.G.

movies for kids you know you hear at least you know milder swears at this point. You know the culture is essentially inundated at this point with dirty words. And you know to my mind Carlon really sort of broke down the wall for that to happen like I say for better or for worse depending on where you stand on the issue of language. But the other thing about Carl and obviously the book is just about one comedy routine. The other thing that's really intriguing to me about Carlin is that he represented 50 years of American comedy and comedy in our culture. He said it lots of other comedians say it probably doesn't get as much credit as an artform as literature. Movies television music but it should and Carlin more so than any of his peers any of his followers devoted his entire career to the craft of comedy. He realized early on that. He really wasn't much of an actor. He

sort of had an in his head when he was young and coming up that you know maybe I'll get a sitcom Maybe I'll become a comedic actor in films and pretty quickly realised you know what I'm a crappy actor. But what I am good at is expressing my own viewpoints and making jokes out of it. So he basically became a workaholic at the craft of comedy and spent 50 years doing it. So I did I've done this at a couple of other readings I kind of went through a long exposition about why I wrote the book and then read from the introduction and it was essentially the same thing. So I'm going to just now read read from the introduction and get out a little bit more of the heart of of of you know what intrigued me so much about this guy. You had to laugh in 20th century America. He went looking for the sublime and found only the ridiculous how could any thinking person see it otherwise. Born on the eve of World War II. He lived the atomic age up close working on bomber jets while serving in the U.S. Air Force. He experienced the cultural upheaval of the 1960s from its epicenter and he lived long

enough to experience the absurd excess and the inevitable colossal hangover of the end of the American century. It's called the American dream he said because you have to be asleep to believe it. In his lifetime laughter seemed like the only sane response. So George Carlin said about studying and studying it and creating it for 50 years he may well have produced more laughs than any other human being. He also rubbed his share of people the wrong way. If he hadn't he wouldn't of been doing it right. Carla knew that comedy is meant to shock funny doesn't happen without a sense of surprise and audacity the courage to say what you mean is critical to the art of making people laugh whether speaking truth to the powerful or telling fart jokes. Comedians by their very nature deal and taboo. Comedy bends the rules. Humor wrote in an early scholar of American popular culture is quote a lawless element. Every comedian is a scofflaw wrote another who could be charged with breaking and entering with breaking society's rules and restrictions and with entering people's psyches. George Carlin was a natural born transgressor. He saw

the line had been drawn and he leapt if he spotted a sacred cow God country children he went cow tipping raised on Spike Jones anarchy and beat generation rebellion. He heard it every time he got into hot water with the nuns and priests. The owner of the corner drugstore. His commanding officers. What are you a comedian. Yes he was wholly devoted to the craft he made every kind of comedy his own. Some comedians do self-deprecation some do surrealism some do politically political humor impressions or observations. Carlin did it all. He questioned everything from the existence of God and the authority of government to the military and the police to the accuracy accuracy of the phrase shelled peanuts. If you're close you have close. So if you're shelled you should have shells. Every comedian does a little George Jerry Seinfeld wrote in The New York Times upon Carlin's death. I've heard that my whole career Carland does it call and did it. Carlin did it eight years ago. Carlen often said that there were three main elements to his comedy The little world of everyday experience kids pets driving the store's television commercials the big unanswerable questions such as

race war government big business religion and the mysteries of the universe and the English language with all its quirks and frustrations lingo and faddish trendy buzzwords and catchphrases and Americanisms. In fact that covers just about everything under the sun just as no topic was off limits for Carlat no style of comedy was beyond his grasp. He was equally enamored of hokey puns. My back hurts I think I overslept and sly brainteasers if crime fighters fight crime and firefighters fight fire with a freedom fighters fight you did street corner insults and zent non-sequiturs he changed voices made sound effects whistled sang stuck out his tongue and blew raspberries. He was an outstanding physical comedian too with enough rubbery faces and herky jerky gestures to do an entire set and mime. Many comedians have distinctive voice but only a few are fortunate enough to develop one that's never been heard. George Carlin's voice was unmistakable in his younger years he had the mellow quizzical tone of a perpetually amused pot smoker. Later it edged into a hard earned rasp throughout his various stages this one of the convoy's quintessential New Yorker

representative Hippi reflexive contrarian spoke for a nation of dissatisfied idealists and for himself alone timing is essential to comedy and Carlin's personal time and could not have been more precise. The comic comes into being just when society and the individual freed from the worry of self-preservation begin to regard themselves as works of art wrote Henri Bergson in his famous essay on laughter born during the golden age of radio. Carland devoted more time to reading Mad magazine than to his Latin and algebra lessons. The standup comedy rebirth of the 1950s when performers including Lenny Bruce Mort Sahl Shelley Berman Jonathan Winters and Dick Gregory demolished the old order of vaudevillians shtick gave his early career its context and Carlin was at that crucial age of transformation 33 when he found he could no longer ignore the lure of the counter-cultural revolution. Comedy is the autodidact knew better than anyone is a constant voyage of discovery. Picking up the baton from the mitred Lenny Bruce he remade standup once the trade of strip club flunkeys and cheap tuxedoes for the Rock n Roll crowd. He took it to theaters turning the art of the joke into

a concert event. Then he brought his provocative routines into the home rejuvenating his career with an association with HBO that would last three decades. Some comedians can stretch a half hour's worth of one liners to last a lifetime. Carlin wrote an hour of NEW material for each HBO show roughly every two years. Younger comedians are awestruck by the sheer vastness of his productivity. No one else comes close. For most comics stand up as a means to an end. In the 1980s ten solid minutes got more than a few of their own sitcoms in the age of television. Carlin was a rare creature a comedian for whom stand up comedy was the mountaintop. I found out that it was an honest craft and that in fact art was involved he said. Like a master craftsman Carlin worked with words. He held them up to the light. He inspected them rubbed them and whittled them. He worshiped them in a way that he felt precious few products of the human mind deserved to be worshipped. His most famous routine seven words you can never say on television branded him as a vulgarian a foul mouth comic who worked dirty but the routine was much more than mere titillation. It was an airtight example of Carlin's belief in the one thing he truly believed in the

power of reason. Why exactly are these few words out of 400000 in the English language off limits. Who are they hurting. And how when Karlen reserve the right to use the whole language he sparked a debate about censorship that brought his 7 magic words. Shit piss cunt cocksucker mother fucker and tits into the halls of the Supreme Court. Decades later his questions are more relevant than ever in our media saturated culture. In his later years the unruffled hippie became known for a certain irascibility as he pointed out laughter is our response to injustice. The human race has one really effective weapon said Mark Twain and that is laughter. The old spritzes who played the Catskills told zingers about their mothers in law Karl and took the longer view. His targets were the massive institutions that supposedly civilized the species to Karlen American mediocrity was a real disappointment. We've sold our souls he said for cheap thrills and false beliefs. In his later years he cranked up the volume on his rants writing darkly comic pieces about the fate of humanity. I prefer seeing things the way they are he said not the way some people wish they were.

He became became a kind of oracle of disaster finding black humor in school shootings a few years before Columbine and in horrific calamities just before the planes hit the World Trade Center and even pre-supposing the government. Government bailouts of 2009 in a routine called the fund for the rich and powerful like a doctor searching for a swollen gland he pressed on any subject that made people sensitive at various times in his career it was the Catholic Church. Bodily functions the sanctity of children the emptiness of our sense of entitlement many casual observers thought he grew angry in his later years to Carland it was just an extended comic exercise. How far could he go. Common was it caught the comedy was a constant intellectual challenge and endless re-evaluation of received wisdom and grew up thinking he genuinely liked individual people. It was their collective belief he couldn't stand no matter how you define it he once said I do not identify with the local group how he stood above and apart from the world observing the human comedy chuckling over the eternal fraudulence of man. Another wicked American humorist once wrote of Mark Twain what a sharp eye he had for the bogus in religion

politics art literature patriotism virtue. When Carlin learned that he was to be honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Five days before his death as it turned out much was made of the comparison between the comic and the writer for whom the award was named. But Carlin had at least as much in common with HL Mencken originator of the above quote The Iconoclast tech journalist who saw the rampant misuse of the English language as an all too perfect symbol for the dismayingly low standards of the culture. No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people Mangham famously put it few things Twain felt as rare in American life as the act of a man speaking freely. Our constitutional commitment to free speech is a wonderful idea in theory and practice however we can speak freely only so long as we are willing to keep our most uncompromised thoughts to ourselves unequivocal free speech. Twain argued as the privilege of the dead the living are much too paralyzed by the potential social costs to dare utter unpopular convictions in a society and inescapably inundated with evasions false promises phoney Manor's fine print and outright lies. George Carlin never failed to say what he meant. Just when I discovered the meaning of

life he joked they changed it. If the meaning of laughter is the meaning of life is laughter. He changed it himself. So did the other readings that I've done. I've had lots of questions and lots of people who wanted to sort of tell stories about their own personal connection to Carlin or whatever so I'd love to leave plenty of time for that. What I'd like to do now if you all are OK with it is play a couple of more little clips. I think it's just fun to listen to him. You know what the big theme is going to be. It's going to be the attack the Indians finally making the Cowboys you wait for it to happen for an hour and a half you can see the clown standing on the hoop. Finally. It's over. This show is for 90 minutes now the Cowboys get ready for this attack. The way you get around the circle only be loaded to weapons. Anybody know what bands are going to send me when we get a dog that has a big house with a lot of sand. He never shows how the Indians prepare and it's their time to grow. Well the Indians are good fighters just because they started in Massachusetts and wound up defending Santa

Monica it doesn't mean they were bad. They were good fighters. If they were they must have been well organized they must admit a way to divide their manpower. It couldn't have been as chaotic as it looks in the movies with one old chief many moon comes out and a lot of guys running around naked. There had to be intermediate party. There must have been Indian sergeants normally can make it without that tough veteran battle hardened sergeant and the Indians are no exception. We're talking about the trees that they used to have in Iraq. You used to be out of line. Why does one in every village right now go out to play. I don't play that play with the Hawks is evolving given to be surprised by a feather dip in Eagle's blood. We want to right on the page but.

With the Fed in the upper right hand corner it's the upper right hand corner. That's your arrow head. Write your name last name first first name let name is running back right. Right. You got a middle initial please include such as Wolf howling w l. You guys have been asking me about promotion you like the make break second class. Get another guy up on your arm. Well I'm happy to say the results you rarely see countries are doing beautifully. Settlers hands everybody past imitating a coyote everybody Panch sneaking quietly through the woods everybody past except limping. However leaving X is being fitted with a pair of corrective magazines will be up and dancing in no time at all. I'm not completely sure but I think when the purge a few of the songs they call notes limbo to.

Promote it everyone's anthem to heaven and just cut them loose in space. Once a week. Father Russell would come in for him in the street. And you'd see all your weird questions for father answered. That you make up. Same question should take a whole week thinking of trick questions. God is all powerful can he make a rock so big he. You take a very simple scene and surrounded with the most bizarre circumstances you can imagine. To try to relieve the guilt and the sin would usually end up with the statement with that ambition then for. Those kids is an example. There was one scene not receiving communion during Easter time he had been performed at Easter duty had to receive once between Ash Wednesday and Pentecost Sunday.

And if he didn't do it it was a mortal sin providing for you and said yes OK I'm going to do it this year. Well any mortal sins on epic love guys went to Venus city on Easter Day. And so you would ask the priest you know. But then the guys would leave their hand up after they had called in. The presence of what are going the Statue of Liberty down gone far gone. Anyways. Why do you suppose that you didn't make it. I did. Sunday the last day and you're on a ship at sea. And a chaplain goes into a coma. But you're wanting to receive. And then it's Monday too late. But then you cross the international date line soon. I love words I think of hearing my words I want to say something about words that I think is important.

I love what I say in my work and my play that My Words really have really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid you know Mmm and in a word into a thought. And we're stuck with that word for that one. So be careful with words. I like to think the same words you know that hurt can heal. It's a matter of how you pick them. There are some people that aren't into all the words or something. Have you not use there are four hundred thousand words in the English language and there's seven of them you can't say on television what a ratio that is. Three hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety three to seven. They must really be bad. They'd have to be out Regis to be separated from a group that loves all of you over here in seven. And. That's what they told us they were

in a bad way. No bad words bad thoughts bad intentions and and. You know the seven don't you that you can't say on television. Ship this book talks like a mother fucker and tits. Those are seven. Of those little insect just so. You. Keep the country from winning the war on his fucking cocksucking mother fucking tits. Tits doesn't even belong in. Such a friendly sounding world. Sounds like a nickname. Tuts tuts.

Just looking towards the door to see if there were any moms like super Hardyman kids or so I would love to answer any questions that anybody might have. You know listening to that routine. For those of you who were not already familiar with it I hope it's pretty clear that you know Karlen sometimes gets pinned with the tag that he was the guy who sort of created all the Vulg. comics. You know all that you know lots of swearing and and comedy clubs and on TV in comedy. But clearly that routine is not just swearing for the you know gratuitously for the sake of swearing. Clearly it's about language and it's a it's you know it's a justifiable question about you know why do we fear these words when and he's just he's not giving an answer he's just asking the question why do we fear these words What is it about these words that gives him so much power. And for those of you who are not aware I don't think I mentioned it in the piece in the piece

that I wrote the routine itself ended up becoming the subject of a Supreme Court case that was decided in 1978 which still to this day has gives the FCC jurisdiction over radio stations. What happened was a not for profit radio station in New York played the routine on the air and a guy who represented a group called Morality in Media complain to the FCC the FCC reprimanded the station and the case went you know worked its way through the court system to the point where the Supreme Court had to decide on it and ultimately decided that radio should have restrictions on the use of Carlin's seven words. During the daytime or during hours when children were likely to be listening to the radio and you could only get away with it you know using those words in broadcast after hours and if you were you know typically if you're a listener supported station so you know obviously there's a

cultural watershed moment right there with the Supreme Court case a funny story about that is that although the Supreme Court decided ultimately decided in favor of the FCC gave the FCC agreed that the FCC has the jurisdiction to reprimand a station that plays these one of these words during the daytime. It's not really remembered that way most people feel like the whole Carlon routine was a victory for free speech to the point that when I was researching the book I spoke with an ACLU chapter head from California who was the president of the chapter 30 years ago and remains the president of the chapter and her chapter threw a party for Carlin or you know honored him with an event not long after the Supreme Court decision. I got I got her on the phone and was talking to her and she said I wasn't that a great victory for

us for our side. You know the free speech side and I had to explain sort of gently explain to her that I actually you know if you remember the Supreme Court actually decided five to four in favor of the FCC and she went no no no no no we we won that case. And I went No no no no no you didn't. And so I mean she's an ACLU you know long you know a lifelong ACLU representative and she remembered as being a victory for free speech. It just goes to show you the extent of you know whether whatever the Supreme Court might have to say about it shows the extent of Carlin's you know impact on the culture and with regard to you know our use of the whole language all 400000 words. So happy to take any questions. I've had people tell me funny stories about somebody met a woman who came to my lacerating met her future husband in line at a Carlin Show. She wanted to just tell everybody that story. So if anybody met their future spouse a you know wants to tell that or if anybody has any questions I'd be happy to answer them on what I hope to have done with this book is Put his work into context the

context of the comedy during each of the five decades that he was doing comedy. So if you think about it in those terms that type of humor was absolutely mainstream and pretty run of the mill actually in the mid 60s. You know today we think of it as offensive to Native Americans probably you know but in the end in that day that kind of you know broad stereotypical humor was was absolutely mainstream so that the point that you made about Carland being sort of a progressive you know he was iconoclast stick to the last. So in his transformation years when he first grew his hair long and was clearly on the side of the Vietnam protesters and that sort of thing yes you could say that he was probably liberal but he also he personally he helped lend his name and his celebrity to one political campaign for a guy named Jesse Unruh who ran unsuccessfully for it was a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for governor of California in

1970. And he found the whole experience so distasteful that he never not only did he not wasn't active in politics any more for the rest of his life and even vote again for the rest of his life. He made jokes about like saying go ahead and vote you know like what you're going to do. I give 300 people in this country. Go ahead and throw your vote out there. You know I mean he just basically didn't trust any institutions. So in his younger life you could easily make a case that he sided mostly with the counterculture. But politically I mean Carlin's main main underlying theme to all of his comedy was the fact that I mentioned I think I mentioned that and the thing that I read he loved individual people hated group think hated institution or any institution and felt like it was a shame that more people don't think for themselves as he would put it. And he you know politics was just one of many aspects of that. He you know as soon as you give yourself up

to a group of people thinking along the same terms and don't think for yourself he didn't want to have anything to do with that. So you know he he tweaked liberals in later life he tweaked liberals as much as you know people from the right. Anybody who was sort of thinking in lockstep with with a group he found something funny in that. Yes he sure did. He played Mr. Conductor in shining shining time station. Right. Which is where Thomas the Tank Engine comes from. So which is you know for several years was like the most one of the most beloved children's characters in the 90s. The story behind that show was created by a British producer and she was not particularly familiar with George Carlin's humor. And one of her co-producers they had Ringo Starr as the original voice of this little like sort of fairy kind of character who came out of the wall and talked to the kids and was

Mr. Conductor was his name. And Ringo Starr was the voice and then Ringo did a few seasons and was ready to move on and they needed another person to replace him on the voice and the creator of the show. One of her co-producers brought in a tape of Carland doing a routine a clean routine and he just said Listen to this voice. Listen to the warmth of this voice. He'd be perfect. And she said You're right it would be perfect and then she met him and got to know what it was all about. And you know she had a good sense of humor so she thought it was funny right. Carlin did a routine on one of his later HBO specials about the sanctity of children and how he sort of you know we do everything for our kids and he routine was sort of like look at one of these kids like you know you know some some of them smell and they don't smell don't smell so great and they're not that cute. You know like why do we put them on a pedestal. It was just doing it to tweak parents you know overprotective parents buttons basically. And he said and don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm Mr. Conductor. So you know

you know it's just. But but Jerry Seinfeld talks often about how and you know you don't think of Jerry Seinfeld you might not think of him as a typical Carlin fan because Carlin is known for swearing in Seinfeld never swears but he said he has said often that when he was a kid when he was a little kid he loved listening to Carlin because he said he was like you know your favorite uncle. Like tell like go and I'm to something a little bit naughty to tell you don't tell your parents I told you. And he just said the warmth of his voice. I mean just literally listening to him on these records is why I like to bring the records to the event because it's just great to hear his voice it's just an amazing instrument. And he knew that from a young age that he had this pretty amazing flexible instrument that he was working with and also a mind to match. And so he was perfectly suited for stand up comedy. And you know I mentioned often that you know one of the fascinating things about Carlin is that he did every kind of comedy under the sun the one kind of comedy that he shied away from was topical humor. So when Imus was trying to get him to you know tell some kind of a joke about specifically about whatever was going on in the Middle East you know that day that was in the headlines that

kind of stuff that Jay Leno does for instance you know ripping stuff out of the headlines column often said I shy away from that stuff because it's not it's not timeless. You know whatever happened in the news today is not going to be of interest two months from now and the jokes are going to be dead. So he would always bring the issue back to a much bigger pay you know look at the bigger picture like whether it was environmentalism or the you know the future of the planet or the you know absurdity of the human species for constantly getting into wars with each other or whatever he would look at the much bigger picture rather than saying you know well here's what I think of what you know Sharon said today or whatever. You know he wouldn't he would always take a back to the bigger picture so that it would feel timeless to him. Yeah. And a lot of people would do say all the time that he kind of lost them in the last few you know TV specials or just last handful of years. Carlin got really dark and bleak and depressing. And you know I think the fact of the matter was that he knew he

was living on borrowed time I mean the guy had started having heart attacks at the age of about 40 and he was at the end of his life. He was 71. So there were 30 years when he was living on borrowed time and he knew it. So towards the last few years I think what he was doing was just pushing you know he'd always pushed a little bit over the line you know comedy is about where's the line where's the line of propriety here and if you push a little over the line it's funny because you just kind of like you know like a little kid you know oh my god I can't believe you did that he went over the line and in the last few years of his life he was just pushing way over the line and seeing how dark how black he could get. And and you know like I mean his montra in the last couple of HBO specials was you know fuck hope you know like just literally you know antidote to Obama essentially you know and just to do it just to see what you know I mean he was always pushing people's buttons and you know you can't push him any harder than you know basically leaving no hope for the entire planet and humanity. You know and he was just pushing as far as you could experimenting with the comic form I think Carlin was one of a number of big name

comedians who all sort of came up parallel to each other. Richard Pryor was when Bill Cosby was one Woody Allen Joan Rivers all of whom were young comedians playing the nightclubs of Greenwich Village in the early 60s trying to get noticed. And weirdly they all knew each other kind of. They didn't buddy. None of them buddied around with each other really but they all kind of got noticed and recognized and started becoming nationally famous right around the same time you know end of the current Kennedy era beginning of sorry you know mid mid 60s or so weirdly Carlin and Richard Pryor occasionally shared bills they were kind of friendly. You know the folk clubs of Greenwich Village where they were working out their material and you know some of you might know that the clubs at the time in Greenwich Village were like sort of coffee shop type places where some of them had alcohol some didn't where you know you might see a young Bob Dylan. And then you might see like you know two people come out and do showtunes

and then you might see a comedian like a young George Carlin or Richard Pryor and you might see some guy come out and do juggling and then another folk singer like just a weird mishmash of stuff and they were they got there they got their start there and within weeks of each other Richard Pryor and Carlin got noticed and invited to go on The Merv Griffin Show which was kind of a big time at that you know. Wow that's national TV and you know it's an afternoon talk show and you know you're at your you're on a roll as soon as you get on there. Producers in Hollywood are going to notice you and you're going to start getting invited on to The Tonight Show and you know other other big shows. But Carlin and Pryor kind of watched each other's career through the 70s and into the 80s Carland as the great joke about their you know the comedians health sweepstakes in the early 80s which was you know Richard had a heart attack. I had a heart attack Richard. You know burned himself up trying to smoke crack and I said fuck that I'm having another heart attack. I have to say it was one of them. More entertaining research jobs I've done because you know

the guy was just so productive that really a lot of large I mean I did dozens of interviews with people who worked with him knew him were friends with him etc.. But you know a big bulk of the of the of the research was literally just watching every clip I could get my hands on of his listening again and again to the recordings of which there are dozens and watching again and again the 14 HBO specials which is you know it's just like a giant volume of of work and so to my mind doing this book you know I I've been calling it a critical biography So it's yes it's about the guy. But I mean he was such a workaholic that his whole entire life was about the craft of comedy. So you know he used his routines like I play the heavy Mystery's thing where he's talking about you know what it was like to be you know trying to adhere to the rule you know the strict rituals of Catholicism you know a lot of his routines were literally about his own upbringing and where his own personality came from and you know his family and so I mean he couldn't have been. He

was an open book. I mean he was he was. And in interviews he was you know about the most self-aware analytical subject you can imagine. And in fact I interviewed him about 10 years ago when I was with the San Francisco Chronicle and. Immediately sense that you know sort of went wow I'm part of my job was celebrity interviewing and I knew soon as I did that interview with him that you know he was such a fascinating character. For that reason that he was so self-aware and so analytical about his own art and work that you know I sort of had it in the back of my head all along from that point on that I wanted to someday get a chance to write about him. Yeah he had one daughter who's still around Kelly. She's kind of the keeper of George's flame at this point. Tiny family he had a brother Pat who's actually still around who was his big brother who was like six or seven years older than George and Pat was kind of like a

like George was always trying to help them find work as a writer in Hollywood and stuff and Pat was you know not especially successful in his life but the two brothers were extremely close and Pat still around and George was married for about 40 years to Brenda the mother of Kelly and Brenda died about 10 years ago. Like sort of had a lot of bad health problems that went through a lot of substance abuse problems together and stuff. And when she reached sort of late 50s early 60s she got went through some really rough health problems and eventually died and a lot of people seem to think that Carlin's you know bleakness in the last several last decade or so of his career must have been from the fact that he was distraught for having lost his wife but in fact he met another woman a couple of years later. And he loved his wife and was you know definitely dispirited when she died. But you know a year or two later he met another woman who spent the rest of his life with so he was contented in his later

life. He just you know like I said earlier he was just pushing the buttons as hard as he could because he knew his own time was was was short. You know there wasn't much left