Poker News

Len Butcher

I got an e-mail the other day asking me if George Carlin was worth going to see, as the writer had heard he’s “not that funny anymore, just angry.” My answer was, “Yes, he is worth seeing, just as he was 40, 30, 20, 10 years ago. He still is very funny, and yes, he is angry, but when hasn’t he been?”

For as long as I can remember, and I can go back to his early days on stage, Carlin has always been railing against the injustices and craziness in the world and our society. He makes no apologies for his views, and I’m sure he won’t when he appears August 11-24 at the Stardust in Las Vegas.

This Irish-American, who grew up in Manhattan, has always marched to the sound of his own drummer, and thank God for that, although Carlin the atheist would probably not appreciate me using the name God in a sentence describing him. Be that as it may, Carlin is definitely on the short list of the greatest comedians this country has ever seen. Born in 1937, he was raised by his mother who had left his father when he was two years old. At age 17, Carlin dropped out of high school and joined the Air Force, training as a radar technician. While stationed in Shreveport, Louisiana, he began working as a disc jockey on a local radio station. He and a new announcer at the station, put together a comedy routine and began booking nightclubs, but soon the act broke up and Carlin continued to work as a stand-up comic.

He first caught the public’s attention in the 1960s when he began appearing on television variety shows, most notably Laugh In. I still remember some of his skits: Indian war parties (”You wit’ the beads… get outta line”); and my favorite, Al Sleet, the hippie-dippie weatherman — “Tonight’s forecast: Dark. Continued mostly dark tonight, turning to widely scattered light in the morning.” This was funny stuff and still is. In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook, whom he had met while touring and the couple had a daughter, Kelly, in 1963. Although he was becoming more popular, when he changed his appearance from a nerdy looking guy in suit and tie to dressing like a hippie with beard and earrings, he lost a number of TV gigs, but over time, the public became more acceptable to his new look and welcomed him back. At 68, he still sports a beard and ponytail most of the time. It was during the 60s that he introduced his most controversial material, Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television, which offended a lot of people. You have to remember that these were the years of Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best, where you couldn’t even say the word “damn” on TV. The controversy over this routine only increased Carlin’s fame, or maybe I should say, notoriety. Unfortunately, some uptight law enforcement agencies didn’t think his act very funny and he was arrested in Milwaukee for violating obscenity laws.

A little trivia you may not know about Carlin is that he was the firstever host of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, debuting on October 11, 1975. In the 1970s, Carlin turned a little strange, becoming unpredictable. He would walk off the stage in the middle of a performance if no one laughed, and verbally insult the audience. And in 1976, he unexpectedly stopped performing when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely appeared and performed no stand-up. We later found out that he had suffered a heart attack.

But the 1980s saw what appeared to be a reformed Carlin and in 1993 The George Carlin Show debuted on Fox. But tragedy struck in 1997 when his wife of 35 years died of liver cancer. Carling disappeared from the public eye for a year before returning to the big screen in the film Dogma.

In 2004, Carlin was voted #2 of the “Greatest Standup Comedians of All Time” by Comedy Central behind Richard Pryor.

We were then a bit shocked to hear in December of last year that he would be voluntarily entering a drug rehabilitation facility to receive treatment for his dependency on alcohol and painkillers. Finished with his rehab, he is now back to work with his upcoming Las Vegas gig at the Stardust as well as a new HBO Special on November 19. If you’re in Las Vegas anytime between August 11th to the 24th make sure you catch his show.

Len Butcher, a 25-year resident of Las Vegas, is an online columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and a former Managing Editor of the Las Vegas Sun and of Gaming Today.

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