He’s the standup GOAT. So how did George Carlin do it? Some lessons to take from his life and approach (part 1, look for part 2 next week)…
Speak the truth of what you feel
Bill Burr:
[When he spoke,] you always felt like you were hearing the truth, or his truth. He was giving you the truth of what he felt, which most of us don’t do. It’s refreshing to listen to another human being tell you exactly how they feel, even if it’s 180 degrees removed from what you agree with.
(source: The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin)
Deliberately cross the line – in service of ideas
Carlin:
I like to bother people. [I try to figure out] where the line is drawn, and then deliberately cross it and drag the audience with you. And have them happy that you did it.
(Source: The Chris Rock Show)
I try to sense and know where the line is. Where the line we're drawing these days is. And then I deliberately cross it. And I try to bring them with me across the line and enjoy the experience. I do it in service of ideas. It's not just for its own sake, to bother or annoy or shock. I have ideas and though the logic sometimes is nicely twisted, there's a good structure underneath it. I use the language or the topics to vent this personality of mine that's out of step and really doesn't buy all this stuff.
(Source: Funny People at 92nd Street Y)
I like to figure out where their line may be and deliberately cross it, disturb them a little, make them uncomfortable and then bring them with me across the line and make them glad they came. That's what I do. I'm an entertainer, I'm not a doomsayer, I'm not here to preach, I don't do political tracts, but I do entertain. I do a lot of jokes, but I want you to feel a little in danger along the way.
(Source: Charlie Rose - 03/26/1996)
Roseanne Barr:
I think it was the substance of the things that he said. I mean, he really, you know, tipped over every sacred cow. He told the American people exactly the truth about themselves and their country and everything else. He was fearless and always, like, spoke the truth to power and to everybody else. He did it with just such great technical skill and theatrics. He was like nobody else. But I think the things that he said and the guts he had to say them, it was just, you know, breath-taking.
(Source: Larry King Live - 6/23/08)
Know your source “lanes”
Carlin:
For a long time my stand-up material has drawn from three sources. The first is the English language, you know words, phrases, sayings, and the ways we speak. The second source, as with most comedians, has been what I think of as ‘the little world’–those things we all experience everyday: driving, food, pets, relationships, and idle thoughts. The third area, is what I call ‘the big world’–war, politics, race, death, the social issues.
Source: Brain Droppings
Leave no meat on the bone
Jim Gaffigan on ripping apart a topic for jokes:
There can even be some that aren’t A’s, but within the context of other jokes they can survive. That’s how George Carlin did things. It’s about getting all the chicken off the bone.
(Source: Crafting a Joke: The Arc of an Act)
Jerry Seinfeld:
And he didn’t just “do” it. He worked over an idea like a diamond cutter with facets and angles and refractions of light. He made you sorry you ever thought you wanted to be a comedian. He was like a train hobo with a chicken bone. When he was done there was nothing left for anybody.
(Source: Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.)
Stay organized and keep ideas findable
Lily Rothman, Assistant Managing Editor, TIME:
“A good idea,” [Carlin estate archivist Logan] Heftel says Carlin learned early, “is not of any use if you can’t find it”…Over time, Carlin formalized that system: paper scraps with words or phrases would each receive a category, usually noted in a different color at the top of the paper, and then periodically those scraps would be gathered into plastic bags by category, and then those bags would go into file folders. Though he would later begin using a computer to keep track of those ideas, the basic principle of findability remained. “That’s how he built this collection of independent ideas that he was able to cross-reference and start to build larger routines from,” Heftel explains.
(Source: Discover George Carlin's Foolproof System for Organizing Ideas)
Carlin:
I'm extremely anal, so I have thirty five years of notes. Some of them are still on hard copy (crosstalk), actual pencil written notes. A lot of things are on discs now, but I've kept my files over the years and I'm very familiar with them.
(Source: Charlie Rose - 3/26/96)
The pieces take form in the files. Every time I look at my files, every time I add something, I'm forced to run it through my mind again. And the constant running through those neural paths, if you don't mind me getting a little high-minded sounding here, there is -- it is an actual fact, the more you are forced to think about something, the more connections the brain will make. The subconscious does all the work. All we do is skim it off really from time to time. So I let things fester. I encourage myself to read my files and to build on them as they're there.
Source: Charlie Rose - 11/23/92
Be enthusiastic, like you’re trying to amuse a child
Jerry Seinfeld:
As a kid it seemed like the whole world was funny because of George Carlin. His performing voice, even laced with profanity, always sounded as if he were trying to amuse a child. It was like the naughtiest, most fun grown-up you ever met was reading you a bedtime story.
(Source: Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.)
When I was a little kid -- you know, the way he would -- he had a way of speaking that was almost like he was reading you a story. You know, there was an exaggerated kind of excitement. He had this incredible enthusiasm whenever he performed.
(Source: Larry King Live - 6/23/08)
Find funny in righteous aggravation
Marc Maron:
There’s something about his righteous aggravation — it’s a rare point of view, and it’s rare that it’s a natural point of view. It’s not something you can pretend to make happen. Aggravation is not always funny.
Dave Itzkoff, culture reporter for The New York Times::
There’s a strange afterlife that Carlin enjoys, not just as a comic but also as a moral compass. Few of us care in quite the same way if our choices in life would meet the approval of Johnny Carson or Andy Kaufman…That Carlin’s work endures long after him is not only a testament to his talents; it’s a sign that his frustrations, which he expressed humorously but felt authentically, still resonate with audiences, and that the injustices he identified in American society persist to this day.
(Source: The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin)
Lower your expectations
Carlin:
If all I ever do for the rest of my career is fill up coffee houses on a Friday and Saturday night, I'll be happy. And when you're not reaching real hard for something — I think when you're not pursing something relentlessly, I think it may come to you a little more easily.
(Source: Funny People at 92nd Street Y)
Find a third-way truth
Carlin:
I have a talent to amuse and I have a way of finding the joke, a way of expressing things through exaggeration, interesting images, whatever goes in, whatever the parts are that go into making these things work...I try to come in through the side door, the side window, to come in from a direction they’re not expecting, to see something in a different way. That's the job that I give myself. So, how can I talk about something eminently familiar to them, on my terms, in a new way, that engages their imagination?
(Source: George Carlin's Last Interview)
Kelly Carlin:
The moment anyone gets in a group, gets together for meetings and puts on armbands, he instantly didn’t want that…[Today,] he would have schooled us on both sides and come up with a third-way truth that would have blown our minds, but not solved anything. He was never looking to solve the culture wars or solve America’s problems. He was always looking to show off what he’d been thinking about at home.
(Source: The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin)
Be an observer instead of a participant
Carlin:
I really have never felt like a participant, I’ve always felt like an observer. Always. I only identified this in retrospect, way after the fact, that I have been on the outside, and I don’t like being on the inside. I don’t like being in their world. I’ve never felt comfortable there; I don’t belong to that…I have maybe five phone numbers. I’m not in show business because I don’t have to go to the meetings, I’m just not a part of it, I don’t belong to it. When you “belong” to something. You want to think about that word, “belong.” People should think about that: it means they own you. If you belong to something it owns you, and I just don’t care for that. I like spinning out here like one of those subatomic particles that they can’t quite pin down.
(Source: George Carlin's Last Interview)
Walking some of the crowd is the price you pay
Journalist Sam Merrill in a profile of Carlin:
Typical September night in Las Vegas, as the early show went on at Howard Hughes' Frontier Hotel. A sign at the theater entrance read, WELCOME AWARD-WINNING SALESMEN. The opening act that night was a 32-year-old comedian named George Carlin…Carlin glared out at the audience with what appeared to be a combination of loathing and resolve, most people either didn't notice or thought he'd forgotten his contact lenses. When he opened with a dissertation on the number of ways to say "shit," the audience fell silent. Carlin's next routine was about Vietnam, and that's when people started walking out. Before he'd finished a piece on American business ethics, half the room was empty and others remained only to heckle him.
(Source: Playboy, January 1982)
Take psychedelics
What the acid did was to spring me past the frontier, to artificially get me to the next step. [LSD] pushed me over to see that 'Hey, I'm wasting my time with these people, I don't really like them, I'm sort of entertaining the enemy. They're kind of a safe, play it safe, middle-class audience and I'm playing it safe with them - and I feel differently inside, let me get it out of me!
(Source: George Carlin's introduction to the book Murder at the Conspiracy Convention and Other American Absurdities by Paul Krassner)
Don’t target underdogs
Michael Bonfiglio (co-director of George Carlin's American Dream):
He had deep core values that were good. Take care of other people. Take care of the planet. There was a sense of fairness and rooting for the underdog. Those would shine through, even in his darkest stuff.
Nikki Glaser:
There was never a cruelty to Carlin. He always seemed filled with empathy.
(Source: The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin)
Carlin (on Andrew Dice Clay):
[Clay’s] targets are underdogs, and comedy has traditionally picked on power — people who abuse their power. Comedy has traditionally picked on people in power, people who abuse their power. Women and gays and immigrants, to my way of thinking, are underdogs…I think [Clay’s] core audience is young white males who are threatened by these groups. I think a lot of these guys aren’t sure of their manhood, I think that’s often a problem when you’re going through adolescence...and the women who assert themselves and that are competent are a threat to these men, and so are immigrants in terms of jobs. I think that’s what is at the core of that experience that takes place in those arenas. A sharing of anger and rage at these targets.
(Source: Larry King Live - 1990)
Be interesting even without punchlines
Bill Maher:
Look, there's many ways to get a laugh. To me, this is the highest way. It's also saying something. If you took the jokes out of his act, it would still be a very interesting speech that made you think. Lots of laugh getters. [If] it's just about the laugh, it's a confection, an ice-cream cone. You forget it as soon as you leave the building. Not him, I mean this stuff stays with us….It is what I try to emulate. I try to do a show where if you took the jokes out it would still be an interesting speech. And that's where that comes from.
(Source: Larry King Live - 6/23/08)
Oppose authority
Carlin:
My own experience of authority is one of opposition to - not just questioning authority, but actively opposing it and trying to undo what it had in mind…I've always been sort of anti-authoritarian. And I really don't like arbitrary rules and regulations that are essentially designed to get people in the habit of conforming and obeying authority blindly. So I have always resisted that in my life as a child, as an adolescent and as a young adult. And so I held that attitude. That was the - that's the fertile ground for all of this.
(Source: Fresh Air - 5/20/22)
More Carlin next week…subscribe below to get it. 👇
And if you dig this kinda craft-of-comedy stuff, check out my other newsletter, Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian. You can sign up for that one below. 👇
Quickies
🎯 We need more baby formula in America. Otherwise future school shooters will have no one to kill!
🎯 School shootings keep happening because we never did anything about all those satanic messages in rock 'n roll. That pesky Satan!
🎯 "These offensive jokes will cause harm and the person telling them must be stopped!"
-The people who arrested Lenny Bruce and George Carlin
🎯 Did you know in other countries they rarely ask what you do for a living because they realize your job isn't actually the most important thing about you and that's why your employer has to PAY YOU TO DO IT?
🎯 She walked into the room like Fruit Stripe gum: Serious yet hilarious, and delicious but just for a minute.
🎯 When it comes to selecting flight departure times, Present Me really loves to screw over Future Me...
Present Me: "Sure, I'll wake up at 5am in order to save $19."
Future Me at 5am: "I will pay $5,000 to snooze another hour."
🎯 Men objectify women and women act like that's a bad thing. But the truth is men love objects more than people. Cars, gadgets, sneakers, etc. Those are things we put on a pedestal. Our friends? We insult them constantly. Being objectified by a man is the BEST CASE SCENARIO.
🎯 When the front desk guy asks one key or two, I always feel like what he's really asking is if I'm getting busy tonight or nah.
🎯 It's true, women have unfair body standards. But men have unfair emotional standards. We hold back tears, panic attacks, sexual fluidity, etc. Why? Because we think it makes us seem weak. If it's not waist to hip ratio, it's tears to rage ratio.
🎯 Considering how much we both love brisket, you'd think Jews and rednecks would get along better.
🎯 Confession: As a Jew, I have no idea what a deacon, a bishop, or a pastor really means. It all just sounds to me like Magic: The Gathering.
🎯 “Stablecoin,” eh? The coin doth protest too much, methinks.
🎯 Lord give me the confidence of white women who conduct Zoom work meetings in coffeeshops with their SPEAKERS on for everyone to hear. Megan, we are ALL on your marketing team now!
🎯 Growing up, I thought nacho cheese was gonna be a much bigger part of my life than it's turned out to be.
🎯 We are living in the age of self-obsession — at least that’s what *I* think!
Standup
See me live…
New Orleans - Comedy House NOLA - Friday, May 27. Two shows. 7pm tix and 9pm tix.
Chicago - Lincoln Lodge - Thursday, June 16 at 9pm. Tickets.
NYC:
5-spotted
🗯 “You think too much about other people.” Nayland Blake, 62, interdisciplinary artist on what Agnes Martin taught her (from the Letters to an Artist series):
I had a really amazing and very abbreviated studio visit with [the painter] Agnes Martin when I was a college student … . I had this whole rap about why I was doing what I was doing. I was making these very bad paintings, and I had all these justifications for why they looked the way they did. She came in and I ran my mouth at her for about 10 minutes. Then she looked around and said, “You think too much about other people,” and walked out the door. My jaw was on the floor. It shocked me. It was like that scene in the movies where people babble, and then someone slaps them to stop them. She wasn’t mean, but she was exactly right. I’d imagined that being an artist was like being a good student who could figure out the assignment and become a teacher’s pet. That visit made me a better artist.
🗯 Prominent YouTubers keep quitting the platform and then coming back. Why? YouTube brain.
Another, less discussed one, however, is something I’ve come to call “YouTube brain.” Compare it to “Twitter brain,” in which spending too much time on Twitter results in someone becoming argumentative and perpetually outraged, or “Instagram brain,” (image-obsessed and overly materialistic), or “TikTok brain,” (unquestioningly devoted to the latest slang or trend before moving on to the next one). YouTube brain, from the perspective of the YouTuber as opposed to the viewer, is what happens when you are both creatively and financially subject to the whims of other people’s attention spans for years at a time, weighed down by neverending demand for more content for dwindling returns.
🗯 Q & A with Jessica DeFino, beauty reporter. She explains how tanning represents classism and beauty standards.
So for a really long time, for much of history, it was desirable to have really white, pale skin because workers, the lower-class people and slaves were outside working, and they would get tanned by the sun. So having darker skin was a class marker. It basically showed you were of a lower caste, a lower class, you were outside laboring. And the wealthy people were indoors, protected from the sun and didn't have to do that type of labor. So pale skin became the ideal. And you can see that everywhere from the ancient Egyptians to Europe in the 17th century, women were powdering their faces with white powder to look as pale as possible. You see that shift after the Industrial Revolution, when that class dynamic really changed and workers were inside factories. And so the lower class people were inside. They weren't tan, they were pale. And the wealthy were now the leisure class, they had the money to go on vacation to leisure about outside to be on boats, Coco Chanel was kind of the first person to make the “tan” very fashionable. Now, it's very chic to have tan skin and pale skin is almost not desirable anymore. And that's a class marker. And I think that's such a great example because we see the beauty standards shift over time. So it's a great example because these things are not ingrained and human. They're not biological, it's not just humans by default love a tan. It really shows how social structures influence what we find beautiful and why.
🗯 Choreographer Martha Graham on why you shouldn’t judge your creations.
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.
🗯 Barnum Effect: The Reason Why We Believe Our Horoscopes.
Barnum Effect, also known as the Forer Effect, is the psychological phenomenon that explains why individuals believe in generalised personality descriptions as if they are accurate descriptions of their unique personality. Put simply, Barnum Effect refers to our tendency to think that the information provided about our personalities is about us regardless of its generalisability. This effect is critical in explaining the underlying mechanisms of our behavioural susceptibility to accept paranormal beliefs and practices like horoscopes, fortune-telling, and online personality tests.
Thanks for reading! I appreciate you.
-Matt
