Curious George

Preparing for his 14th HBO comedy special, George Carlin waxes philosophic on the freedom that comes from not giving a #%&@.

By Heather Havrilesky

Read more: Comedy, HBO, TV, Interviews, Arts & Entertainment, Heather Havrilesky, Arts & Entertainment TV Interviews

Feb. 28, 2008 | We're not accustomed to thinking of comedians as cultural commentators, but a performer as sharp and defiant as George Carlin is just the person to call this outdated separation of high and low culture into question. Carlin made a name for himself with comedic bits aimed at provoking conventional Americans, but he cemented his status as a pop-cultural icon by digging deeper, illustrating his gripes about American politics and culture with the imagination and insights of our most ambitious contemporary writers.

Over the course of 50 years in show business, Carlin appeared 11 times on "The Ed Sullivan Show," hosted the first broadcast of "Saturday Night Live" in 1975, and pushed boundaries with his classic piece "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." He's written three books and recorded more than 20 albums, but at age 70 his passion for his work hasn't dimmed. On Saturday, Carlin's live special "It's Bad for Ya" will air on HBO, his 14th performance on the cable channel since 1977.

Speaking on the phone from Las Vegas where he had performed the night before, Carlin sounded much friendlier than his peevish onstage persona would suggest, and his voice took an unabashedly romantic tone as he discussed his creative process and looked back with gratitude over the long arc of his career as a comedian and entertainer. Could this really be the same guy who claims that when the apocalypse comes, he'll be cackling happily from the sidelines?

Do you have any subjects that you regret joking about?

No, not really. I'm very happy with everything that's happened. That's a good way to feel. I've had a very lucky life. I've been very productive as a writer, and I've been able to produce a lot of material. You hear about writer's block and you hear about someone who says, "I have a great 40 minutes and I can't get beyond that." Well, it just turns out that's not my problem. I found that out along the way. Somewhere in the '90s, I found my voice.

In the '90s?

Yeah, I had a voice of sorts until then and it worked fine, but I really kind of matured into a craftsman at that time. But the writing also matured. You know, for many years in interviews I would like to point out that I wrote my own material, because a lot of people don't. Even people who you think write their own material don't. I always pointed that out. But around then, instead of being a comedian who wrote his own material, I was really becoming a writer who performed his own material. It's a very significant shift.

I noticed that, looking at the older clips, the newer stuff is much more playful and vivid and full of imaginative digressions -- that feels like inspired writing.

They're like essays, or set pieces. In school as a boy, I was a smart kid, I could master the material, but I was a showoff and eventually a fuck-up too. I was always getting into trouble for this or that and I didn't do my homework. I was a smart but not a good student. So now, with these essay-type things, the good student is doing his homework, and at the same time, the showoff gets to perform it. So I'm complete. I'm integrated. And it just feels like a sure thing. It feels really good to know that about myself because they always said to me, "Oh, you're on the wrong path. You'll never amount to anything. You're not using your brain." And I knew that I wanted to be a comedian, and I knew that I had a way of going about it, and it worked out for me. That dream started in the fifth grade, so it feels nice that I've come full circle and I'm getting good marks for my work.

Do you feel that, now that the good student is doing his homework, you actually enjoy the process of creating more?

Yeah, absolutely. It's so much fun. That's because you're doing something you love, that you're good at. Anytime you're doing something you love that you're good at, the only thing you have to add to that is recognition for it, and you've got the package for success or happiness or whatever you want to call it. It's just so great! And when word processing came along, that's what pushed me from Stage 1, I think, to Stage 2. To be able to move text like that, it's just such a magic feeling as things fall into place, and then you patch them up and you polish them.

Was there a time when the ends or the success overshadowed the process?

This has been a path for me, and I wasn't who I am now before, in the '70s when my first real burst of being hot and being famous happened. I'd had pretty good exposure on television all through the '60s, I was on 11 "Ed Sullivan Shows" and "Flip Wilson" -- all the shows. I had exposure and what you would call a history of success. But my real blast came in the '70s with the albums and "Little David," and that's when I got into the cocaine. And I was kind of operating on autopilot then. I was producing things in a very haphazard way onstage, and piecing them together. I didn't type them out or anything. It was kind of chaotic. And then that slowly began to change.

Do you miss the fun of the chaotic times now that your life is more sane?

No, no, no, no. I mean, it was artificial fun, really. It wasn't real fun. It was just doing what you could do, what you had to do at that time.

What everyone was doing.

Yeah, and it didn't feel like a way to live.

How many years did you live that way?

I probably screwed around like that for three or four years. It doesn't seem like long for a person, but it's a long period of time, because you have to adjust after, when you're coming out of it.

Next page: "I divorced myself from any stake in the human adventure"