George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing

“You know the best thing about necrophilia? You don’t have to bring flowers.” After a disarming start, which for me is the new standard of verbal diarrhoea (I would like to have a similarly rich vocabulary shortly before I turn 70), Carlin engages in colourful storytelling using words that no one has the courage to use today. He describes the issue of suicide from a practical perspective and reflects on our fascination with assassination, torture and mass murder. He doesn’t fail to throw in some caustic remarks about Americans’ self-destructive consumerism and offers his opinion on autoerotic asphyxia (“You don't know if you're coming or going”). Carlin then concludes his apocalyptic vision of a society gone mad and a decimated world with a story about bears on amphetamines. Of the Carlin stand-up specials that I have seen so far, this one is not only the darkest, but also warningly prophetic (wasn’t it the “Uncle Daves” who helped get Trump elected?). It only occasionally loses momentum due to the comedian’s inability to abandon a thought that has already been exhausted and move on. 85% (20.12.2016)