Casals of comedy doesn’t do jokes

Sam Morris

George Carlin performs at the Orleans on Saturday. The comedian says he writes in essay form, often connecting the parts, and focuses on broad issues instead of doing instantly dated one-liners.

By Jerry Fink (contact)

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It’s always worth checking in with caustic comedian George Carlin.

Carlin was full of surprises as he prepared to perform this weekend at the Orleans.

First surprise: Carlin says he will get the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the Kennedy Center in November.

“They’ve named me for this year’s winner, but it’s not even on the Internet yet,” Carlin says. “They had to approach me first to see if I would show up. I said I probably would.

“Those things mean something as time goes on.”

Second surprise: Carlin has softened (a bit) on Vegas audiences, which he has denounced in the past for not getting his humor.

Las Vegas audiences “are not exactly my core audience,” he says. “But actually the audiences are working out great (at the Orleans). People who do come that far (off the Strip) are committed fans. Whereas at the MGM, I got a lot of people who were just casual fans. They don’t really follow you. They don’t know what’s in your heart, what’s on your mind, what you’ve been doing for the previous 10 years. They’re not committed and when you get into some kind of material that’s a little bit challenging or risky, they pull back. That’s not true at the Orleans. The people that come out there are real fans. It appears the extra distance separates the casual fans from the hard core.”

You wait for the other shoe to drop.

“But most comedians will tell you Vegas audiences suck. And Los Angeles audiences are the same way. They’re just not good audiences. It’s just the way it is.”

Here are some highlights of the rest of the conversation with Carlin:

This is a political year. Have you been doing any political humor?

People who follow me know I don’t do political humor. I don’t do topical. It’s perishable, has a “sell by” date on it, and I don’t like doing things that I’m going to have to throw away a month later or a week later or the next day. I don’t like being expected to have something to say about something that happened that afternoon. I don’t like to work that way. I work in an essay form. I write these things that are five, six, seven, eight minutes long, sometimes longer than that. Sometimes they’re connected, there’s a connecting tissue. Like this last HBO show, most all the pieces had common themes that connected and went from one piece to another. So I work in the long form. I don’t work jokes. The jokes I do are built into the structure of the essays.

You’ve always worked that way?

I’ve always done set pieces. Never did joke jokes, one- and two-line jokes and change the subject every few seconds. I always did topics. Always did “and now this and then this and now this and then this.” Let me clarify the term “political humor.” The last five pieces in the HBO show were about things I questioned in America. I started with the slogan — these are civic customs and civic slogans — “proud to be an American” and I do a whole thing on why I question that. “God Bless America,” and I do a whole piece on why I question that. Then there’s a thing about taking off your hat when a flag passes by — a custom. Then there’s a thing about swearing on the Bible. And then there’s a thing about your having no rights. People think you have rights and I go into a little essay on why I don’t think you really have rights. Someone can look at that and say they’re political. But I never know what people mean by the word “political.” Whether they mean talking about Hillary Clinton or whether talking about anti-Bush remarks. Everything in the world is a political act. Going through a stop sign is a political act — it can be. I do things that some people may say are political, but I think of them more as social in nature. Social commentary.

You’ve been performing for more than 50 years. Is your audience growing or shrinking?

If I’m out in public, go into stores, a parking lot or a hotel lobby or whatever constitutes being out in public, I don’t go very long before someone tells me something very profound about an effect I had on them. So I think the audience is wider than ever. I do about 200,000 tickets a year. Most of my things are sold out. HBO gets the highest numbers of any of its comedy specials with my specials. The CDs do very well. The books have all sold. The three books I have done have sold a total of about 2.5 million copies. So the audience is very wide. I’ve been doing this 52 years now. The audience has shaped itself and formed with me. I’m sure I’ve lost people along the way who only liked the kind of superficial things I did at the beginning, people who took exception to some of the more critical things I’ve said more recently, over the last 20, 25 years. On the other hand my audiences are filled with people 15 to 30 years old. I have a lot of young people who like the attitude I have, which is one of defiance. Young people like that. They like people who question authority. My audience is fine. It has grown. I wouldn’t know how many there are out there.

Do you ever get bored and want to quit?

This is my art. This is what I do. You wouldn’t ask Pablo Casals ... let me tell you about Pablo Casals. I was going to mention Picasso but I said Casals by mistake, the famous cellist. He was considered the virtuoso of the cello, certainly the greatest cellist in the 20th century. He was in his 90s. Picasso was in his 90s and still painting and nobody asked him if he was going to put his brush down real soon. But Pablo Casals was in his 90s and doing an occasional — an occasional — recital, but he rehearsed three hours a day, regardless.

Someone said to him, “You know, Pablo, you’re in your 90s now. You’re a past master. Everyone knows you’re an accomplished cellist. Everyone knows you’re a virtuoso. Why do you still practice three hours a day?” He said, “Well, I’m beginning to notice some improvement.”

That says it all about artists. You’re never finished. There’s always somewhere to go. There’s always deeper to dig. Artists are never satisfied. There’s always a vague dissatisfaction going on that they haven’t really said it yet, they haven’t really found it yet. I realize I’m just an entertainer, but when you write your own stuff then you’re dabbling in art — because writing is an art — and you’re composing and creating from nothing, from just your impressions. I do this because I love it. I’ll probably do it for a long, long time.