Last Words
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2009 Nov
Date: 2011 Oct 14
Modified: 2022 Nov 18
Rating: 4
Summary
This ebook features added multimedia content: an interview with George Carlin's daughter Kelly about life with her dad and a tribute video with interviews with Susie Essman, Michael Ian Black, Richard Belzer, George Wendt, and Jeffrey Ross, who talk about Carlin's incredible ability to make people laugh.
Last Words is pure, unapologetic, hilarious George Carlin. With 19 appearances on the Johnny Carson show, 13 HBO specials, 5 Grammys, a critical Supreme Court battle over censorship, and countless appearances on the international comedy circuit, George Carlin saw it all and made fun of most of it.
Blending his signature acerbic humor with never before told stories from his own life, this book is part comedy routine, part memoir, and all original. His journey to stardom began in the rough and tumble neighborhoods of New York in the 1950's, where class and culture wars planted the seeds for some of his earliest material including the infamous Seven Dirty Words sketch. Carlin describes his major influences as an up and coming comic, talking about the origins of some of his most famous stand up routines. The people he encountered on his rise to stardom reads like a Who's Who of 1970's celebrity, from Lenny Bruce who took him under his wing to Hugh Hefner who gave him his first big shot.
Carlin spares no details as he describes his life and career. He discusses his own battle with substance abuse, his turbulent relationships with the women in his life, and the politics that informed so much of his stand up. From the high points on stage to low points in the hospital, Last Words is George Carlin's life told with the brash, unblinking honesty that defined his comedy and made him one of the best loved comedians in history.
From Publishers Weekly
For more than a decade before his 2008 death, groundbreaking stand-up comedian Carlin had been working on his autobiography with writer Hendra (Father Joe), who finished it by distilling hours of conversations with the irascible social commentator. Armed with an eye for detail and a seemingly photographic memory, Carlin retraces his life in full, chronicling petty crimes and stolen kisses, escalating drug problems and the death of his wife with unflinching honesty. He applies that same precision to the mechanics of comedy, giving would-be comics a veteran's insight into the dynamics of crowds, the structure of a performance and the importance (or unimportance) of the social and political landscape. Tracing his evolution as a comedian from the first time he made his mother laugh to performing for an empty room in Baltimore to the series of HBO specials he made over the course of his career, Carlin peppers his narrative with the routines that have made him famous (though this is no gagfest, a la Brain Droppings, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, etc.). Throughout, Carlin comes off as a smart, humble everyman with a strong distaste for hypocrisy in all its forms; fans may be surprised at his discipline and drive, and anyone interested in comedy should find this autobio as illuminating as it is funny.
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Review
"Seven particular words are associated with the late comedian George Carlin, and sentimental is not one of them. But that's the surprising portrait that emerges from Last Words."
--Houston Chronicle