The late George Carlin, whose sense of irony was world class, would have appreciated last night's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor ceremony at the Kennedy Center, though it's not clear which rich irony he would have liked most.
And as a comedian who made an art out of blue language ("The king of raw," Maher called him) Carlin surely would have gotten some mileage out of the fact that only three of his "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" were actually spoken from the Kennedy Center stage. (Denis Leary alone accounted for three F-bombs.)
Carlin himself rematerialized in a clip to do the bit, though -- again, ironically -- the commentary on language and the absurdity of banning words was itself bleeped repeatedly by the Kennedy Center censor.
Even in death...not even this, huh? Even the man getting this prize in this place doesn't get to have his work spoken the way he wrote it. I guess the vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts at the Kennedy Center were worried about (the no-doubt vast) number of pre-teens whose ears might've been scalded.
(Thx Cor.)
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