What I really remember most about George Carlin are not the “Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television” (cable excepted), the counter-culture satire, the HBO specials or the Saturday Night Live host appearances.
It was that he was a rite-of-passage comic for a lot of us.
Sure, he was the hippy dippy weatherman referencing that “Mexican High,” the Class Clown who nailed Catholic school dynamics and the semanticist who found humor and irony everywhere. But, more importantly, he wasn’t our parents’ generation. He wasn’t Milton Berle or Sid Caesar. And he wasn’t the over-rated Lenny Bruce.
Alas, his shtick ultimately became that of angry, old guy ranting. But for a baby-boomer generation, Al Sleet lives.