George. Or...I Can't Find Anything Else to Blog About.

Since it's all anyone can talk about, I suppose I should say something about George Carlin.

A lot of people, and by "a lot," I mean millions of people, found George Carlin to be a comedic genius. I'm not sure I hold him in the same esteem. I mean, he had funny moments, and certainly a few funny lists, but I don't rank him anywhere near the top.

First of all, he was profane. I'm all for profanity, I use it frequently. Too frequently, perhaps! But when "fuck" is mentioned, in some derivation, four times in one sentence, that's overkill.

Second, he pledged no allegiance to anything: not to a god, not to our country, nothing. I couldn't care less about his lack of religion/spiritualism; hell, I applaud it. But no allegiance to our country? As a red-blooded American who's proud as all get out of being an American, I can't wrap my head around that concept.

Mexicans are proud of Mexico (so much so, in fact, that they'll fly their Mexican flags while they're [maybe] citizens of American living on our American streets), Canadians love Canada, Greeks love Greece...how does an American-born man, granted all these great freedoms, a man who is known for pushing the envelope of the coveted freedom of speech, not love America?

I don't know. I'm sad he died, of course, I'm sad when almost anyone dies. I'm just not as sad now as I was, say, when John Ritter, or Jack Lemmon, or Johnny Carson died. They were funny.