If America had philosopher kings, George Carlin would have been one.

Carlin looked at the same world all of us do, but saw it differently. He saw connections we didn’t, as in his famous comparison of football and baseball. He could boil down everyday life to an essence that eluded the rest of us, as when he talked about our stuff. He cut through the fog we often put around certain concepts and issues so we don’t have to look at what they really mean, as in his discussion of the sanctity of life. And with his famous “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television,” he went further down the road of obscenity than any comic ever had, up to that point, anyhow, and forced us to think about whether the concept of obscenity means anything at all.

When Carlin started in the 1960s, he wore a suit and looked pretty tame, and didn’t “work blue,” as it was called then. His most famous early routine was probably “The Hippy-Dippy Weatherman”. Another I remember vividly was his Top-40 radio station takeoff, “Wonderful WINO.” It doesn’t resonate particularly well anymore, as far removed as we are from the era it parodies, but it was the first Carlin bit I ever really loved.

Despite his reputation, Carlin was humble about his job. He once characterized it as “thinking up goofy shit.” Every once in a while, he said, he’d come around and tell what he’d thought up, then go off and think up some more. It’s sad to think he won’t be coming around again. And neither will anybody else like him.

(Cross-posted at The Hits Just Keep on Comin’.)