The Designer's Drugs

Medium: Literature
Stimulus: George Carlin with Tony Hendra – Last Words
Anno: 2009

“Sliding headfirst down a vagina with no clothes on and landing in the freshly shaven crotch of a screaming woman did not seem to be part of God’s plan for me. At least not at first. I’m not one of those people who can boast of having been a sparkle in his mother’s eye. A cinder comes closer.”

A year before every celebrity died and the world created a revolving door tribute to the dead, George Carlin stared down his own demise with more class and balls than anyone’s been treated with since. His last album, It’s Bad for Ya, was full of riffs about death and hell, delivered by a guy who had just turned 70, had a history of severe heart problems, and likely knew that his time was running out. Instead of shrinking away from inevitability, Carlin stared death right in the face and gave it the finger.

The title of Carlin’s posthumous (as he called it) sortabiography shares this morbid, devil may care approach to his own demise. Compiled from hours of recorded conversation with Tony Hendra (best known as Spinal Tap’s cricket bat wielding manager), Last Words is a coherent and comprehensive account of Carlin’s life, pulling no punches and as self-incriminating as it is gratifying.

There are three themes which run throughout: family, drugs, and Carlin’s search for his true voice. Family is a more pronounced topic in the early years, though it comes back when he discusses the later ravages of drugs. Carlin’s substance problems come to dominate the second half of the book, lingering (though lessening) even after he finds his comedic stance. That subject is likely the book’s most positive, with Carlin describing how his bland 60s period gave way to his coked-out revolutionary phase, which ultimately brought about Carlin’s renaissance in the early 90s.

As one would expect, Last Words runs through dark territory. Unlike his previous comedy books, this sortabiography only reproduces Carlin’s material for historical context. There aren’t many laughs to be found. Even in the end, when he finally gets off drugs and finds satisfaction with his work, Carlin describes himself as unbalanced and a bit lost. The book’s final chapter is both wistful and hopeful, Carlin describing his ideas for a Broadway show that never came.

Thus, Last Words isn’t really for everyone. It’s not the easily digestible entertainment of his stand-up and comedic books, but it has something far deeper. In his introduction, Hendra says this of his subject: “No one else understood better that comedy at its finest is a dark and beautiful art.” The same could be said of Carlin’s final work.