Blogging Cliches…

This blog is coming up on a year of existence now. So I take some preserve pride in the fact that I’ve managed to keep the clichés down to a minimum. A great deal of writing involves using archetypes, universal themes, all that stuff I had to study in AP English.

Blogging, which unless you’ve got a social, political or economic motivation becomes a hybrid of a journal/diary and a place to talk about interesting stuff you’ve seen online. Yes, you could certainly cut things a lot finer than that, but being semi-anonymous, I won’t.

But I’ve found myself at a bit of an impasse. I’ve recent had the chance to look back on what I’ve used this blog for in this last year. Amidst the good, the bad and the geeky, I’m starting to wonder if this blog is running out of steam. Not that I don’t have plenty to say. That’s not likely. Yet, I was reminded of something recently.

You are responsible for what you put out there. In all things. Yeah, you can’t please everyone and you shouldn’t try. If you’re doing it right (writing that is), you should cause a reaction. Get people to wonder if you’re right, if you’re biased, if you’re stilling working it all out or if you’ve got an actual answer.

And there are things that I own here that I’d never shy away from and there are things I’d claim with no small degree of humility because it was both impulsive and important only for that time.

Ownership and responsibility are two things that I must have over what is here, but when it comes to brass tax, I can’t. Not in the way that I’ve set things up. The aliases for myself and others… amusing or not, they’ve become half-truths. Just like much of my ideas hear are the rough first drafts, the stories I’ve told are incomplete and unresolved. Even when I come to honest realizations, I see how they can ring hollow because I’ve become the unreliable narrator.

In fiction, masks and lies are often the noblest of tools. They free the audience, giving them permission to suspend disbelief to be entertained or challenged, hopefully both.

But this isn’t fiction. This is my life. Or at least a slice of it.

Perhaps it is better to be completely unfettered with no audience than have people listen to restrained and protected thought.

I don’t know.

RIP George Carlin

Shit. Piss. Fuck. Cunt. Cocksucker. Motherfucker. Tits.

I’m not going to link to the AP obit on George. Or any of the other mainstream media announcements that he’s gone. I will however link to the post on AICN, where several of there writers talk about how big of an effect he had on them as writers, artists, people, thinkers and fans of comedy.

If you go here, you’ll find a piece from Esquire where Mr. Carlin talks about things he’s learned.

Now, after all this preamble, I should probably have something of my own to say…

For me, comedians… Good and talented comedians… are modern day philosophers. They use humor, intellect and cunning to point out our own social stupidities. They show us that the emperor has no clothes. They are subversives in the midst of the crowd, making both the oppressed and the oppressors laugh in equal measure. Truth wrapped in comedy is easier to take. Which is why horrible jokes about race, sex, disease, war and every other terrible thing we do to each other as humans will always persist. It is a coping mechanism.

George Carlin went above and beyond simply being funny and allowing us to deal with things that were uncomfortable. He challenged us. Made us realize that we not only had something to learn, but that we SHOULD question what was around us. That examining our world in a critical and comical way was necessary and good.

Better historians than I can talk about George’s role in counter-culture in the 60’s and 70’s, of his battles with drugs and disease and all of his changes.

For my money, sneaking my brother’s comedy tapes into my room at night and listen to Carlin’s routines over and over again was one of the best wrong things I ever did. Mainly because I didn’t get all the jokes at first. At age 7, I didn’t grasp all the linguistic tricks and twists he offered. But I heard the honesty. When you strip away all the bullshit you tell yourself because you want to believe, you can recognize someone who is being both funny and honest. So I paid more and more attention, studied the tapes (copying them so I didn’t have to sneak anymore) and looked up references I didn’t understand, going back to the routines with a better understanding of not only the joke, but the screwed up parts of the world that made the joke funny, that made our world ridiculous and made this man a genius of language and of wit.

On any given day, I’ll repeat a Carlin joke without thinking about it. If someone laughs honestly, it makes me respect them a little bit more. If someone gives me a knowing look, I take comfort in the knowledge that we had a mutual teacher.

Jon Stewart, another favorite of mine, said it simply. “I’m tired of people we need leaving us…”

Me too. But it just means we have to study the lessons that much more.

Thanks George, for being the funny, honest bastard in all of our lives.

And as the man said, Joke ‘em if they can’t take a Fuck.

A weekend outside of my head

I haven’t thought this weekend. I just did things, routine things. I needed to do.

It’s good to step outside yourself from time to time.