In the beginning, there were the Ancient Ones: Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, The Marx Brothers et al, and demigods of the court, such as the writers for Sid Caesar’s Show of Shows.
When I think of the Dawn of Contemporary Stand Up Comedy, I think of Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and Richard Pryor- the iconoclasts. Woody Allen had a foot in both realms, having been one of Caesar's writers, and moved on to flourish in the new light.
I wonder what people like Lenny Bruce and Jimi Hendrix would have come up with had they lived even another ten years. You can see Carlin, Allen and Pryor in old Ed Sullivan Show appearances. Try to peer into those eyes and see how much more was lurking in those shiny clean geniuses dressed in their Sunday best.
I wonder what people like Lenny Bruce and Jimi Hendrix would have come up with had they lived even another ten years. You can see Carlin, Allen and Pryor in old Ed Sullivan Show appearances. Try to peer into those eyes and see how much more was lurking in those shiny clean geniuses dressed in their Sunday best.
It’s an oversimplification, but you can also see a little bit of Bruce, Carlin, Pryor and/or Allen in every comic that has followed, right down to the newest larvae in every back room performance space. There is a movement to name a street after George Carlin and I wonder how that would sit with the man.
A while back, here in New York City, they renamed the seventy-six year old Triboro Bridge after Robert F. Kennedy, forty-three years after his death. Nothing against Bobby Kennedy, but the timing was just boggling. I envisioned forty-three years of red tape or one lone proponent badgering every mayor for four decades until somebody buckled.
We can’t escape being told about how bad the economy is and how funds have to be cut back for everything, every day, everywhere. We are also constantly being told how important tourism and commerce is to the city. I never see a dime of it, but let’s just play along.
Why, at this time, would anybody want to spend four million dollars (according to the NY Times) to confuse every tourist and truck driver coming into the city?
A little less known program is replacing all street signs, which are written in all caps, to first letter cap only. In other words, BROADWAY is being replaced with Broadway, etc. Why are perfectly good street signs getting tossed? Because some study concluded that, after over a century of driving, ALL CAPS is now considered harder to read and causes more accidents.
The 59th Street Bridge already had two names. Its fancy name is the Queensboro Bridge. Well, it’s neither now. It was just renamed after former Mayor Ed Koch. I actually heard him on the radio gushing about the honor. Of all people, wouldn’t a former Chief Executive Bean Counter see the hassle? Not to mention that this is going to make every copy of the Simon and Garfunkel song either a priceless collector's item or worthless.
Brand new shiny things are built in NYC all the time. You want to honor somebody? Name a new thing after them. You know who else would have had an exquisitely articulate rant about this baloney? Carlin.
Carlin was a bullshit filter. Yeah, he had an ego, as obviously present in his confidence, moodiness and tenacity. But would he want a shrine? He was a destroyer of shrines. If he was still here, I’d picture him saying, “You wanna rename something? How about renaming the fucking government! Yeah, replace each and every one of those fat, corrupt gas bags with somebody who doesn’t have their hands in everybody’s pocket.”
I guess we'll never know for sure. Carry on.
