Where Have You Gone George Carlin?

The peerless comedian, master grammarian, and free speech champion would have had a field day holding the mirror up to the country today. But is any of this new?

George Carlin

My very first Dallas Morning News byline didn’t come writing a hockey piece, or later when I wrote OP-EDS for the publication for almost four years. No, my first byline came after writing an obituary/tribute to George Carlin, one of the heroes of my youth, the week he died.

As I wrote in the lede of that 2008 column;

“George Carlin died Sunday. That’s how he would have put it. He wouldn’t have said expired or passed along, passed on or slipped away. The master wordsmith {spoke plainly and directly}, and didn’t care for the softening of the language.”

Did you know that we were one - just one Supreme Court Justice vote from being able to use profanity on (FCC regulated) broadcast outlets? That the case was centered on the airing of George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television in the afternoon on a local radio station? That a parent in his car with his young child heard this particular combination of vowels and consonants and complained.

The Federal Communications Commission v. Pacific Foundation (1978) ruling (5-4) allowed the political (and partisan) appointed (and not elected) commission to regulate “indecent though not obscene” speech on broadcast radio.

I’ve always thought it ironic, and in my view, ridiculous, that if two hockey players beat the absolute shit out of each other on the ice - no problem. We’ll show the violence - the carnage - cuts and spilling blood - cool. However, if in my calling of that fight I said that the two players beat the shit out of each other, I’d be suspended, the team would probably get fined, and who knows what else.

That’s crazy to me. And it was crazy to Carlin, who spent a life time dedicated to the premise that - if you don’t like the show - turn the channel. If you don’t want to hear something - turn it off.

Carlin was also dedicated to the proposition that the FCC is a chronically shifting partisan, and arbitrary body, regulating some - but nowhere near all - stations you watch and listen to.

His words then, resonate so much now.