George Carlin

This is sad news.

I happened to see George Carlin perform live in 1973, at the height of the controversy over his language.

I was 14.

Let me set the stage.

My parents were planning a trip to Las Vegas. My mom Cookie called her friend Mildred. Mildred's husband, "Doc," was and is the elder statesman of hernia surgery. He invented the procedure they still use today during WW II by experimenting on soldiers. He's this brilliant, eccentric basset hound-like man, the king of all he surveys. People fly in from all over the world to get their hernias repaired by Doc. He's done 6 hernias a day, five days a week, for something like 50 years, so he's pretty much had his hands in everyone who's anyone's abdomen. When I worked for him as an office aide in 1977, the big thrill was that Karl Malden was a patient (and that his hernia was the size of a baseball, according to Doc's scribbles). But that's another story.

Now, it would come as no surprise that a Vegas big shot or two had gone under Doc's knife, and sure enough, Del Webb - then the owner of Del Webb's Sahara and who knows what else, was a grateful patient. A grateful patient with rumored Mafia connections. All it took was one call from Mildred saying that Doc's "sister" wanted to come to Vegas, and the next thing you know, our trip to Vegas was "arranged."

We had an elaborate kitchy two-bedroom suite on the top floor of the Sahara (this was in the 70's, remember, so kitch reigned supreme). It was a sultan's palace theme done all in purple, pink and gold fretwork. We had carte blanche at any of the Sahara's dark, sexy dining rooms, including their elaborate buffet in the center of the casino. And we had front row center tickets to two shows a night for three nights in a row. All comped. Oh, we were doing it big.

I'm not sure if anyone knew that a 14-year-old boy was part of the party, or if it just didn't matter, but if Del Webb said, "Do it," a little thing like propriety was incidental.

We dressed up for the two-shows-a-night marathon, Cookie in poly satin caftans in leopard print or paisley from Lane Bryant, Dad in a charcoal gray pinstriped suit and starched white shirt, and me in a gray poly jacket with either navy or maroon poly pants and a navy or maroon turtleneck - very Burt Bacharach - with a Libra medallion on a chain around my neck. I looked mature, but come on, it was obvious I was underage. I wasn't allowed to pause in the casinos when we walked to the buffets. If I stood still for a few seconds, a pit boss would shew me.

There were a couple of raised eyebrows from other guests when we would be seated in one extravagant theater after another. Whispers. Assessments made of mom and dad for bringing me to some of these shows, along with speculation about who were were to rate front-row seats. But the Maitre'ds didn't blink. I noticed our reservations were written in red ink - in caps - everywhere we went.

Honestly, my parents were worldly, well-read, but so naive, a combination that was possible in the Seventies. They were liberal-minded but clean living. Liberalness borne of intellectual open-mindedness, not experience. Anti-Nixon, anti-Vietnam War, they nonetheless wouldn't think of sparking a doobie or engaging in a little wife swapping. They truly didn't know what we were in for. Straight-laced liberals. Do they exist anymore?

First show we saw, front row center at the Stardust Hotel theater, was a bare tittie extravaganza called Lido de Paris which featured a helicopter, a chariot race, an Esther Williams mermaid number in a glass-walled tank, an adagio dance on a tiny ice rink, a prison breakout, a can can, a Ziegfeld number, an Elvis homage, a magic show complete with sawing a bare-breasted girl in half, a dog act, and more, with beautiful practically nude people (a wide variety of natural breast shapes, from boyishly flat to robust, in those pre-silicone days, and chorus boys wearing alarming amounts of makeup). The show shouldda been called Kitchen Sink. It was a burgeoning gay boy's dream come true, let me tell you. Vegas wasn't a family destination in those days. This was Hugh Hefner-inspired male fantasy time, full-out tackiness of the sort to feast on for years, as I certainly have. The hilarious part was when my mother would try to put her hand over my eyes when one of the tittie showgirls (they didn't dance - they just paraded in magnificent costumes with their breasts out) was standing directly over our table. Ha ha. Little did she know that I was more interested in the tiny g-strings on the boys. It's a surreal experience to sit in the front row of a show like that, anyway. You see the bruises under the body makeup. You see the darning in the fishnet stockings. You see the renegade pubic hair working its way out of the edge of the g-string during a high kick routine. And you get a face full of ice shavings when the skaters do their death spins.

Later that first night we saw singer James Darren, who was stunning in his "Gidget" days, immaculately dressed in a black tuxedo complete with Vegas tan and perfect white teeth, followed by the baudy Buddy Hackett, who spent his entire hilarious set grabbing his penis.

The next day, after a lox-and-bagel buffet breakfast and a trip to Hoover Dam, we saw Sergio Franchi (lucious baritone in a dove gray Nehru suit) and Milt Kamens, one of the old guard Jewish comedians who perfected their routines thirty years before in the Catskills and were enjoying a time of great popularity. Funny accents, punch lines, and a lot of finesse - old fashioned comedy, about to be anhilated by the likes of George Carlin.

The late show was Englebert Humperdinck, wearing a maroon velvet tuxedo and matching bow tie, with his blow-out Greg Brady perm and Elvis muttonchop sideburns. He did a whole number looking right at my mother, which embarrassed and thrilled her no end. And when he did a Tom Jones imitation by loosening his tie and bumping his crotch, the ladies in the house shrieked.

Our third day in Vegas was spent primarily at the pool - and the buffet. Then we dressed in our finest and went to see Joey Bishop, in a classic stand-up routine, and on the same bill, the fabulous Bobby Darrin. Oh my, he was great, and gorgeous, and put on a great show, but I was riveted on his crotch (he was standing about six feet away from me the whole evening). He was wearing a skin tight tan poly suit, and his "thing" was perfectly visible, aiming to port and bulging impressively. It was 45 minutes of dick watching with a background of great singing. Each number ended with a long-held high note to show off his voice, and when he went to hit it, Bobby would stand center stage, spread his legs, lean back, and push his crotch right towards me.

Vegas was turning out so great!!!

So then came the piece de resitance - the big show at Caesar's Palace. It opened with Petula Clark, a huge star then, who sang Downtown and hits from Broadway (I remember a rendition of "As Long as He Needs Me" from Oliver!), looking lovely in her sleeveless gown with a butter yellow chiffon skirt and her top covered in daisies. She was by far the most wholesome thing we saw. Lovely. During a short intermission, I could sense the audience getting excited about something, and as the waiters scuttled around refilling drink orders, I got excited, too. I had seen George Carlin a few times on Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas, he was very hot, and I thought he was so funny. But the buzz in the audience wasn't really about how funny Carlin was. It was about his controversial "Seven words you cannot say" routine, which had gotten Carlin arrested a few months before. This was his triumphant return to the stage, and in Vegas, he could do the routine. At the late show, not the dinner show. Most of the audience knew what was coming. Our little family group, sitting front row center, didn't.

Then the lights went down, and on came Carlin. He was wearing a loose-fitting t-shirt and jeans. His hair was long and scraggly to match his prodigious beard. He was loose. He made everyone we had seen prior to that seem all buttoned-up.

And he was great. Great great great. Funny, smart, a breath of fresh counterculture air. So different from the string of classic comedians I had seen over the last few days, the suited, joke-throwing, older gentlemen in their immaculate suits and cuff links and East Coast sensibilities. Here was a hippy - in fact, Carlin did the "Hippy Dippy Weatherman" routine, and alluded to marijuana smoking, and it was great. He did the "Violent Football vs. Sweet Baseball" routine, and sent a few barbs toward Nixon (this was at the height of the Watergate era).

And then he did the "Seven Filthy Words You Can't Say" monologue.

Well, it was sensational. Several people, maybe a hundred, walked out. People felt too uncomfortable to laugh. Some people made these barking sounds, as if they were caught by surprise. There were a few boos, a general murmuring, a sssssssing sound. It really wasn't funny ha ha, you know, it was shocking. Embarrassing. A theater full of uncomfortable - but exhilarated - people. People thrilled that they were grown-up enough to stay put and not walk out. People who realized that a line had been crossed. The audience was experimenting with filth, like they may have experimented with weed, but probably weren't brave enough to do so. It was all part of the Seventies experience. And my parents, who were both pretty foul mouthed (they met in the Navy), were beet red, mostly because they had brought a 14-year-old boy to the show, but they weren't going anywhere. My parents used words like shit and hell and Christ all the time, but not fuck or motherfucker or cunt. It was shocking to have a man on stage saying those words into a microphone, say them repeatedly, scream them. But my parents were Lenny Bruce intellectuals, and intellectuals aren't afraid of words. Still, you cannot imagine the ruckus in that theater. It was a happening. It was like going to see someone crap in a bucket, knowing full well that was what you were going to see, and still being freaked out about it. It was purposeful mind-expansion time, purposeful limit-busting time.

Gives me goosebumps just remembering it.

Right on, George Carlin. Rest in peace. Carry on, my wayward son.