A brief explanation

While I started this blog back in April, you will notice that the second post did not arrive until June. In part I was too busy with the end of the semester. Mostly, however, I didn't have anything to say. What does one write in a blog?
In some ways I wish I had the sense of self-importance that would prompt me to write about whatever was going on in my life, as if anyone really cared. I never conceived of myself as the star of my own movie. I'm better a character actor, "one that will do to swell a progress, start a scene or two." So what to write?
Carlin sparked me. Perhaps because no one I generally talk to shares a reverence for his critique. Or more to the point, no one feels the profound weight of sadness and his descent into the darkness of despair. As an attempted critic myself, I understand the temptation, and am not always successful in fighting it.
I shall try to be more dilligent in my posts. We shall see...

George Carlin

On Sunday, of course, the legendary George Carlin died at the age of 71. I loved George Carlin. He made swearing a revolutionary act. As soon as any of the myriad of obituaries, both in print and on television mentioned the "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" any inquisitive mind immediatel wanted to know what those words are. Here they are:

1. Shit
2. Piss
3. Fuck
4. Cunt
5. Cocksucker
6. Motherfucker; and
7. Tits

(My favorite, I think, is Fuck. It's certainly the one I use the most, though cocksucker has a nice ring to it)

I can''t explain our use of language any more than Carlin could. But a good comic, and Carlin was a great comic, takes our silliness, our idosyncracies, our hypocrisies and throws them right back into our faces, showing how stupid and irrational and petty we can be. Carlin's brilliance was working with our linguistic follies, and he did this with such a musical precision that we would laugh and thank him for it. Like any good comic, Carlin was a social critic extraordinaire.

However, if you watch a progression of his commentary you are bound to notice that the lightness of the critique, the playfulness exuded in his facial contortions gradually descends into the deep dark world of bitterness that comes from a critic who not only delights in making the critique, but demands to be heard and heeded. The world never got better, not in any real way, and the most recent clips of Carlin betray his profound disgust at our inability to recognize what he recognizes. The joyful spirit of the critic too often gives way to the deep depression of the would be prophet. This must be guarded against for any would be critics.

And so it begins...

I sat around today and thought to myself, "What is it that this oversaturated electronic culture really needs? I know," I concluded, "another voice to add to the current cacophony!" So here I am, speaking without any assurance that anyone will ever listen. If I talked to myself like this in my kitchen, they'd come and take me away. Perhaps that is what awaits...