George Carlin's show at the Calvin this past May 2nd was the funniest I'd ever seen him. I brought my friend Katie along who had somehow never been exposed to his comedy. It was a thrill to give her a chance to see someone I knew was capable of changing world views, and I was praying George wouldn't do one of the more bitter and angry shows reviewers had been taking him to task for in recent years. Not to worry. I'd never seen her face that red or seen her completely buckle over in painful hilarity gasping for breath. The show was quintessential George. A perfect balance of outrage and acute observations about life and human frailty...or as he calls it, idiocy. Despite consistent assertions that people are fools and he'd had it with most of them, they were clearly very dear to him or he would not have studied them and reported back with such detail and accuracy. His funniest rant that night had been about getting old. "Go ahead, crap in your pants. They expect you to. They want you to." Carlin railed against euphemisms that are so widespread that no one can simply “die.” ’Older’ sounds a little better than ‘old,’ doesn’t it?,” he said. “Sounds like it might even last a little longer. ... I’m getting old. And it’s OK. Because thanks to our fear of death in this country I won’t have to die — I’ll ‘pass away.’ Or I’ll ‘expire,’ like a magazine subscription. If it happens in the hospital they’ll call it a ‘terminal episode.’ The insurance company will refer to it as ‘negative patient care outcome.’"Dave Barnum took pictures that night at the Calvin and his series above he called "Faces of George."
--Jim Neill
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