Q+A: George Carlin

By Jerry Fink

Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007 | 7:08 a.m.

Who: George Carlin

When: 8 p.m., Aug. 9-12, 16-19, 23-26; Sept. 20-23; Nov. 22-25

Where: Orleans Showroom

Tickets: $49.95 and up; 365-7075

You'll never be able to accuse George Carlin of kissing anyone's (one of those words you can say on TV but not in a family newspaper).

The irascible comedian turned 70 this year and has not softened his tone about the government, about society, about words, about anything. After 50 years in show business, Carlin is more vitriolic than ever. He's not even above biting the hand that feeds him - berating Las Vegas and Las Vegas audiences.

But the more he skewers the world, the more fans seem to love him.

To commemorate his milestone year, MPI Home Video is releasing a 14-DVD set, "George Carlin: All My Stuff" - a nod to one of his most popular comedy bits, "A Place for My Stuff" - on Sept. 25. Carlin is busy working on his next HBO comedy special, which will air live in March.

For several years Carlin performed two-week engagements at the MGM Grand. Then he moved to the Stardust, and now that it is gone he is taking a shot at the Orleans, where he has several four-day engagements in August, September and November.

He recently took time out to talk to the Sun by phone from his home near Venice, Calif.

It's self-evident. I can't do a better job of describing it than people witnessing it themselves. Obviously the world is completely upside down from 50 years ago. Everything's different. Everything. What is there that isn't completely turned upside down since that time? I can't get into describing it because so much would be left out. Suffice it to say that all forms of popular culture have evolved and changed and metastasized and fragmented. There used to be one thing called rock 'n' roll and over the years there probably have been 50 subclasses that have developed. That's just one aspect of popular culture.

What are the differences in politics?

Technology changed politics completely. First of all, television had such an impact on the elections, on campaigning. Huge, earthshaking changes that television brought about and now you're getting into the era of the Internet and the incredible changes that has and will create. The problem is certain things haven't changed and are sort of obsolete, I think. The electoral college hasn't changed and that's a real problem for this country. I don't know, politics have changed because the mores of the country have changed. Gen. Eisenhower had just come back from the second World War, the country was at its peak in 1945 through 1952, I'd say, and I think has gone into a steep decline ever since. The country is playing out its last decades now I think and I welcome that. I think we've missed the boat. I think we long since blew it, the chance to be great, the chance to be really noble and great because with the great gifts we have and the great wealth we had, and we just completely blew that in the interest of profits and territory and power, so I just watch this all as a big joke and I kind of try to do my little comical number.

Has your audience changed?

Isn't the answer manifest in the question? What's not different about this country? HBO has allowed me to cut across many demographic lines so that age is not a factor in the length of my career versus the look of my audience. It depends on the venue as to how many teenagers, how many 20-year-olds are in the audience. Most cities, downtown, when I do concerts, we have a healthy mix of four or five different decades of people. People who have seen me over the years on HBO, they have access to my thinking and what I do. It's kind of like a ready-made advertisement for me. So have the people of Philadelphia changed? Yes. Have the people of northwest Washington state? Everybody's changed. There's nothing that's the same. That would be in keeping with nature. So I don't know how to describe the changes, I just know they are there.

Aren't people more conservative?

I really don't think that's true at all ... I think they've been bought off. I think they've been bought off with gizmos and toys and cheap prosperity at the cost of their souls, to be a little extra dramatic about it. I don't think they're more conservative by any means. I think they're stupider. I think they're much less smart. People are much more ignorant these days. There are much less educated people at every level. There are people with pieces of paper indicating how far they've gone in school and they don't reflect it at all in their thinking or their speech or their writing. I think it's an abysmally ignorant country and I think that's the reason we get into trouble. Here's a fake cowboy from Connecticut. Moves to Texas. Fails at the oil business. Fails at the baseball business. Daddy bails him out twice and then he gets the job of governor of Texas, which isn't a very active governorship. It's a very passive kind of office down there and he succeeds at that because he does a good job of faking this good ol' boy BS, this fence post talking (expletive). And the American people eat it up because they're stupid. They're just stupid. They don't have brains to see through that or to probe past it. They kind of deserve whatever they get. You got to say, whatever happens to Americans they deserve what they get and they usually get what they deserve, such as in Iraq right now. I think we're getting our comeuppance from a little group of people that don't even have uniforms.

Do you play Vegas as much as you used to?

No I don't. I used to come down for long two-week engagements. Really, it's not a good city for me. It takes a lot out of you spiritually. This will be good, four days at a time. I think I can handle that. I hope it's a good room for a comedian. I understand from some people it might be. Some comedians think it's a good room to play in. If that's true I'm happy. That's all I need is my little audience and I'm a happy guy.

Why do you say Vegas is not best for you?

Because if I go to Boston or Miami or Dallas or Seattle the tickets go on sale about a month before the show. Those people come out and you're the whole evening. You're Friday night. They come out to see you. Then they go to dinner. You're the centerpiece of the evening. But in Las Vegas that's not true. In Las Vegas you're an also, you're an afterthought. You're a "one of." "You want to go out and gamble?" "You want to go drink?" "You want to go eat at the so and so? Let's go see George." "OK, let's go see George." So you become one of many alternatives. And the audiences there are not hard-core fans, not all of them. You'll get some, but there are many, many, many in Vegas who are just dilettantes when it comes to following your comedy. They don't really know much about it, and it's easy for them to be thrown by some of the topics and by some of the things I say. So, that's the overall problem. Now, generally speaking, if it's a good room for comedy I can overcome the problems. That's what I'm looking forward to.