The death of George Carlin is a sad day in American history. In the words of Rob Hiassem of the Baltimore Sun, ‘He was cool. He was smart. He was dirty. And he was relentlessly funny.’ Indeed he was. The departure of George Carlin from American comedy leaves the landscape rather empty. Carlin represented the elite of the US comedy industry with his wit, jokes, antics, practical examples and facial expressions.

On more a political level, Carlin is probably one of the few comedians who went far enough to stand by his vow of a free-speaking America, with his jokes and statements representing with a passion his views on relatively recent US politics, foreign policy, and the behated George W. Bush.

Carlin represented something for the American people that very few politicians has been able to represent; their undoubted belief in freedom of speech. One of the few public figures who actually voiced his opinion, and did it passionately, George Carlin discussed some of the most taboo subjects in America: Taxes, economy, foreign policy, Iraq war, Afghanistan War, racial discrimination and profiling, the bombing of countries with brown skinned people, and above all, the size of George W. Bush’s boner (or lack thereof, as Carlin implied at Madison Square Garden, NY).

At 71, though, Carlin’s heart gave way amidst his addictions to various drugs, but all said and done, he lived a life saying what he believed in, and trying to talk sense, reality and the truth to the hard-hearing population of the United States, whilst at the same time bringing smiles to millions of faces.

Indeed, a tragic loss for the world of laughter.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.