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George Carlin: South Shore Music Circus, Cohasset, MA, 8/13/04Aug 14 '04 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line "This country is littered with assholes and idiots." Carlin speaks the truth, I listen.
Let's get something straight right now. With all due respect to the great Richard Pryor and the always thought provoking Chris Rock, George Carlin is, in my mind at least, the greatest stand up comic ever. When it comes to stand up comedy, I virtually worship this guy. Along with Rock (who I finally got to see last summer), Carlin is the one guy I've always been intent on seeing at least once, before he either retires or dies. The problem is, is that he would only come around the Boston area in the summer. With concerts taking up a lot of my money, Carlin was always put on the back burner. But with this summer's concert season sucking harder than Jenna Jameson, my girlfriend and I decided this would be the summer we'd go see the funniest man alive. And last night at a sold out South Shore Music Circus, Carlin had me laughing so hard that I didn't care how humid and sticky the weather was, or how sweaty and disgusting I felt, or how badly my poor ass was hurting from the uncomfortable seats at the venue. No opening act was announced, but I assumed there was one. I also assumed it would be a young up and coming talent who George had himself approved. I was wrong on the second part. The opening act was a 3 piece musical act called Chandler Travis. To sum up, this group consisted of an acoustic guitarist/vocalist who looked like an unwashed Phish fan, a Chinese trumpet player dude who looked high half the time, while the other half of the time he wore this weird little rabbit ears hat that made him look like a demented Chinese Peter Cottontail. And lastly, there was a guy who played bass on some songs, accordion on others, and he looked like he was about 25 years away from looking exactly like the dancing Six Flags old guy. They were terrible. Between writing songs about a dyslexic kid wanting to bang his elderly neighbor, or having the munchies, or whatever else, it was like watching a bunch of untalented Phish fans make music (Please note that Phish is very talented, they're just not my cup of tea. Their fans are just easy targets, that's all). At around 9pm, the lights went down and George rushed down the aisle to take the stage. He started with a skit called The Modern Man (which he promised would also be the opening skit on his next HBO special next year). This skit basically finds Carlin ripping out every popular word in our lexicon (i.e. politically correct, dirty bomb) and explaining how he is every one of them (or how he is not some of them). Besides being funny, it showed Carlin, even at the age of 62, to be a brilliant wordsmith. He made this sketch, which lasted a good five or seven minutes, flow flawlessly, an impressive feat, and those of you who see Carlin later on this summer or on said HBO special, will see what I mean. From here, Carlin asked a rhetorical question: "You know what no one talks about anymore? pussy farts." He then let the crowd know that he "doesn't do transitional material." If it wasn't plainly obvious then, well, that joke made it plainly obvious. Despite the humidity of the evening, Carlin was energetic and rarely drank his water. His delivery proved to be as effective as ever, and while this time around his material tended to be more offbeat than ever, it also proved to be very funny. He talked about reality TV, and how we probably aren't very far away from "The Suicide Network." Nothing but people killing themselves, 24 hours a day. He went on to explain that it wasn't such a crazy idea: "Oh come on! They have a 24 hour golf network. Have you ever watched golf? It's like watching flies fuck." Death was a popular subject for Carlin. He must of spent a half hour of his act talking about suicide in various ways, be it the TV network, how to do it ("...afraid of heights, don't own a gun, I guess I'll hang myself. But crap, that means I gotta go to WalMart and pay for some rope. Hey I know, I'll charge it and have WalMart be responsible for my death!), and how it's "interesting" to him. He then went on about diet, and how the smell of one's flatulence is directly related to how expensive a diet they have. "Have you ever smelled these Third World Countries' farts? If you're in the economy section of a plane from a third world country and someone lets one rip, it's the type of fart where 30 minutes later you would look around your house and realize all your plants are yellow. The type of fart where the Centers for Disease Control have declard your pants a level five biohazard." Carlin closed his show the same way he opened it: with what will be the closing piece of the HBO special next year. He started talking about how much he likes disasters because he likes seeing a lot of people die. He talked about hurricanes (they suck because you get two days warning), tornadoes (they're great because no one can find their cat), and earthquakes ("fuck this 8.0 shit, I want a 29.6 to hit California, with aftershocks lasting 3 years registering 23.4"). He then proceded to give a scenario where a giant fire engulfs the United States, starting out west, spreading through the midwest, to the southeast, and as it starts to head toward Washington, George Bush can't figure out if it's a national emergency yet or not, and soon it hits New York, where the New Yorkers tell the fire to fuck itself, so it goes to Long Island and Connecticutt, killing plenty of self important "golfing assholes,", and soon, the whole world is this great big ball of fire, and it begins to collapse upon itself, creating a type of black hole effect. The ending bit of this rant is great, and since I've spoiled a good deal of his current act, I'll shut up now. I can safely say that despite the fact my butt hurt worse than ever last night that I enjoyed myself immensely. If the opportunity arises to see George Carlin and you are any sort of fan, I highly recommend it. He is consistently engaging, original, and while a little out there, will have you laughing for a good portion of his 90 minute or so set.  |
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