George Carlin: comedian, entertainer, thinker–and alcoholic.
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Comedian George Carlin, dead at age 71 from heart failure. Carlin, who was raised by his mother after she left his very abusive alcoholic father when he was two years old, was a frequent performer and guest host on “The Tonight Show”during the three-decade long Johnny Carson era. He was the first host of “Saturday Night Live!”(October 11, 1975″he confessed to having been high on cocaine at the time) and had roles in a number of films, including “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”and “Cars.”He admitted that his drug addiction”a “54-year buzz,”as he put it”resulted in neglecting his business affairs, resulting in an IRS debt that took him almost 20 years to dig himself out of. He also said it made him a better comedian, because it forced him to stay on the road where he refined his routines. As is true of so many comedians (so many are addicts), he was liberal in his use of profanity (clue # 2 in the chapter, “A ‘Supreme Being’ Complex,”in “How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics”). When comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested on charges of using profanity in 1964 and police began questioning members of the audience, Carlin refused to produce his identification. After telling them he didn’t believe in government-issued IDs, he was reportedly driven to jail in the same vehicle as Bruce. In 2004, after Carlin was fired from his headline position by the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas for belittling his audience’s intellect, he announced he would enter rehab for his dependency on alcohol and painkillers. Carlin will be honored posthumously by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor this November. Like him or not, Carlin was an addict who channeled his symptoms into success by entertaining people while getting them to question many of their most cherished assumptions about politics, society and life.