ElmoFromOK not a muppet

I just heard the news that George Carlin has passed away. He had a bad heart and it seems to have finally caught up with him.

This is very sad news. Carlin could say something so profound, and insightful and yet somehow make you think, " That's so obvious.. why did I not think of that?"  He pushed his audience to look hard at the world around them and question it. He taught us that we HAD to question it to survive.

And he did it with laughter.

I remember sneaking into the living room when I parents where not around and watching George Carlin on HBO as a kid. He was so risque and bawdy. It was a delicious and dangerous treat for my young bible belt mind. I reveled in the exquisite and skillful use of profanity that Carlin was known for. It was the forbidden fruit of 'fuck' and 'shit' that brought me in, and yet somehow I ended thinking about everything he said other than the profanity. Thoughts that would take me somewhere unexpected and new. It would open up a lane of traffic my synapses had not been allowed to travel before. Carlin was good at that, sending your brain down a path you had not imagined before.

I learned to question life from George Carlin and I will always be thankful for his sincere intelligence and honest conviction that there are some fucked up things in this world.

Thanks G.