George Carlin’s grip on popular culture may not be as tight as peers Steve Martin or Bill Cosby, but the reliably cranky comedian certainly puts himself on stage more than most.
Like Lenny Bruce before him, Carlin has consistently stretched the limits of free speech and held up our hypocrisies to the mirror. But unlike most legendary, aging entertainers, the 70-year-old stand-up refuses to sit down, constantly touring and churning out new books and HBO specials.
Here are five things you should know about Carlin in advance of his Saturday show at the Buell Theatre, a benefit for Colorado’s public television station KBDI-TV 12.
A litany of numbers. Carlin’s career spans five decades and various jobs, including disc jockey, actor, author and children’s show host. His 25 albums of original material have netted him 10 Grammy nominations and two awards. He boasts 14 HBO comedy specials and received the cable industry’s ACE award. At 70, Carlin still performs more than 100 concerts each year around the country.
East Coast beginnings. Carlin was born May 12, 1937, and raised in New York City by his single mother. He dropped out of school at age 14 and eventually joined the Air Force, where he unsurprisingly “earned” several rank demotions.
TV in mind. Carlin was the first person to host “Saturday Night Live” when the show debuted in October, 1975, although at the time the sketch comedy was called “NBC’s Saturday Night.” No stranger to television, Carlin had appeared on variety shows throughout the 1960s (“The Ed Sullivan Show”) and even guest-hosted “The Tonight Show” during the Johnny Carson years.
The free speaker. People call Carlin the heir to Lenny Bruce for more than one reason. Besides being arrested in Milwaukee in 1972 for his famous “seven words” routine, the comedian was actually present during one of Lenny Bruce’s arrests (he even rode to the station in the same paddy wagon as Bruce). In addition, a New York radio station that played a Carlin routine in 1973 was fined by the FCC after listener complaints, contributing to a Supreme Court case on obscenity later that decade.
Darkness at the edge. Carlin’s no softie, but in 2004 he went negative on an audience at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, where he had been headlining. Before leaving the stage, he berated the audience and the city he had performed in for so long. The hotel fired him, and, soon thereafter, he checked himself into rehab for drugs and alcohol.
“My history in Vegas is checkered, mixed and scarred,” he told the Los Angeles Times last year. Then again, Carlin has never been a stranger to dark topics, taking a page from Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and often joking about suicide and self-hatred.
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
George Carlin
Stand-up comedy. Buell Theatre, 14th and Curtis streets. Saturday. 8 p.m. $45-$75. 303-830-8497 or
