George Carlin - Class Clown

December 29, 2025

The Black Moon Public House to which Vinyl Vogue is attached now has Narragansett on draft. There will be a two-drink minimum every time Lou stops by now. Come to think of it, Vinyl Vogue had the vibe of a comedy club last time he visited. For some reason, there were quite a few comedy albums in the bins. The Firesign Theatre for example. There were three or four of their albums. Gilda Radner’s Live from New York album was there, as was the Saturday Night Live album from the 1970s. Robert Klein’s Mind over Matter was in New Arrivals. Lou was happy to see two Lenny Bruce albums as well. When Lou worked at Second Story Books in Bethesda, Maryland, Ronald Collins would come in fairly often to browse through the stacks. At the time he was putting the finishing touches on The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon. Collins was deep into free speech and legal history, and Bruce provided a case history that had public appeal. We would talk about the Beats, particularly Allen Ginsberg and “Howl”. Collins would eventually write the book, The People v. Ferlinghetti: The Fight to Publish Allen Ginsberg’s Howl in 2019, years after Lou left the bookstore.

Lou could never get into Lenny Bruce. Lou has a couple Lenny Bruce albums and for him they are more historical curiosities than enjoyable comedy albums. They are no doubt important, probably the most important and influential comedy albums ever recorded. But they do not make Lou laugh. It is kind of like reading a legal brief. In fact, late in his career, Bruce would read his legal case on stage. Bruce is the Jesus of comedy. He died for our sins. Through Bruce we are redeemed and made free. Free speech and freedom of expression. Now a comic can say tits on Jimmy Kimmel. One of Carlin’s seven words, and the one word that really does not belong. Was it worth it, Lenny? Was being able to say tits on network television worth dying for. Lou rarely finds himself dying laughing watching Jimmy Kimmel. So, Lou went on YouTube to listen to Lenny Bruce again. Lou is a changed man. Lenny Bruce once seemed to Lou as an artifact of his time, dated in a way, but listening now, Lenny Bruce is more timely than ever. Bruce was before his time, and his time is now. His act was not about obscenity as much as hypocrisy. Lenny Bruce lives!!!

As documented on this blog, Lou did not listen to vinyl as a kid, with the exception of John Denver. And with the exception of Bill Cosby. It is politically incorrect to discuss Bill Cosby now, and rightfully so in some respects, but it cannot be denied that Bill Cosby was a masterful comic. At Lou’s father’s house, there was a Bill Cosby record that Lou listened to all the time. The LP must have been Wonderfulness because Lou listened repeatedly to two routines, “Go Carts” and “Chicken Heart”. Lou has not heard them in about forty years. So, grab a beer and give those two routines a listen right now with Lou. Let’s take an intermission.

Welcome back. Lou does not care what people say because this shit holds up. “Go Carts” is great, but the over twelve minute “Chicken Heart” is truly masterful. Listening to it again brings Lou back. “Fourth floor, arrrgh!!!” It gets Lou every time. There is nothing like that feeling of laughter and terror that “Chicken Heart” evokes. Due to public opinion, Lou will wait another forty years to listen to Bill Cosby, but Lou must admit it was good to hear “Go Carts” and “Chicken Heart” again.

As Lou grew up, he became a dedicated viewer of Comedy Central and something of a comedy nerd. Like many kids watching MTV videos, in the days before YouTube, Lou watched stand-up comedy clips on Comedy Central non-stop. After the Wonderfulness album, Lou’s first comedy purchase was Sam Kinison’s Louder Than Hell on cassette. Lou wore that cassette out. Lou bought all of Kinison’s albums: Have You Seen Me Lately and Leader of the Banned are the ones he remembers. Kinison was never as good as his first album. Louder Than Hell may be the greatest comedy album of all time. To this day Kinison remains in Lou’s heavy rotation. Rest in Peace Brother Sam.

A Sermon For Sam Kinison

Not much difference

Between a preacher man

And a comedian

Laying down wisdom

The best he can

Screaming in

The face of the Lord

Devil in the neon lights

You were running toward

Seeking oblivion

In the audience

To know you’re adored

A two-drink minimum

Of communion wine

Heaven in the shadows

Of the Hollywood sign

Preach it Sam Kinison

Brother amen

The spirit ran through you

Jesus in your heart

Cocaine in your veins

Like Christ you left us

But the legend remains

Your sets were Pentecostal

The faithful replay your act

Searching for the gospel

Homosexual necrophiliacs

Tammy Faye Bakker

World Hunger

You weren’t making

A punchline of Jesus

But praising your maker

Preach it Sam Kinison

Brother amen

Hopped in your car

To Houston

In 83

To pursue comedy

God no longer

Spoke to you

But you sure spoke to me

There were demons

In your dreaming

And you set them free

You were screaming

For your redeeming

A church or a night club

It’s still a marquee

Your faithful flocked

To hear you religiously

Preach it Sam Kinison

Brother Amen

On the road

To another show

Still obscene

But your heart ran clean

You met up

With what you left behind

An ironic end

To a wild ride

Laying under a starry sky

I don’t want to die

Did you see Jesus again

Do you they

Let you kill in heaven

With laughter

We can testify

I don’t want to die

As long as

There’s a capacity

For laughter

You will live forever

Preach it Sam Kinison

Brother amen

Lou was also a huge fan of Andrew Dice Clay. Sam and Dice. What a pair!! Lou also bought Dice’s first album on cassette and wore it out. When Lou went to college, he took his comedy cassettes with him and played them at full volume in his dorm room when his roommate was not blasting Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”. “Fight the Power” and Louder Than Hell. The whole dorm hated us. So much so in fact, that one day someone broke into our room and took nothing but those tapes.

During freshman year, Lou went with a fellow student to see Dice perform at the Centrum in Worchester. No comic was playing as big a venue as Dice. There was nothing like him and walking into the Centrum Lou had never in his life before or since seen such a collection of Massholes. Not even in Maine. It was crazy.

Flash to the present. Lou still watches a ton of comedy clips on YouTube. Dave Atell is a favorite. Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Dan Soder. Old Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy. The current comedy boom out of Austin, Texas around Joe Rogan and the Mothership comedy club. (Recommended: Watch Elephant Graveyard’s take down of the Rogansphere on YouTube. It is quite simply the best documentary Lou has seen in years.) In short, Lou watches a ton of comedy, but he always comes back to Norm MacDonald. Lou cannot get enough of Norm. Norm MacDonald, Sam Kinison, and Dave Atell. That might be all Lou needs comedy wise. But the truly heavy rotation is Norm MacDonald. From the stand-up to Late Night Update on Saturday Night Live to his radio and talk show appearances to his podcast with Holocaust denier Adam Eget, Lou must have watched all these clips dozens if not hundreds of times. And they still remain fresh. They never fail to entertain.

All this is a long way of getting to Lou’s next record: George Carlin’s Class Clown. Vinyl Vogue has a copy along with all the other comedy LPs. Like with Lenny Bruce, Lou understands and appreciates Carlin’s undeniable importance as a comic. Along with Bruce and Pryor, Carlin is probably historically in the threesome of most important comics. That said, Lou listens to Carlin rarely if at all. Class Clown is Carlin’s most important and influential album. It is the first album in which he says “fuck”. The closing track “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” might be one of the most known and importantcomedy routines of all time. The track before that, “Muhammad Ali – America the Beautiful” is political comedy at its best. There is a sticker on the album that reads: Warning: This record contains “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” Hearing it could infect your mind, curve your spine, and lose the war for the Allies. Maybe this is still true. Maybe not. Truth, science, and facts may be things of the past. But words still have power. Right? Listening to Carlin close out Class Clown brought Lou back to his childhood walking to school with his grade school friends, friends like Bill Cosby’s in “Go Cart”. And there was nothing like saying out loud those first swear words you learned on those walks. To be five years old and say, “Fuck”. Well, fuck, man, there was nothing like it. And now Lou can post these words on Vinyl Vogue’s blog. It is like the end of On the Road, when Sal Paradise thinks of all his travels and the bulging immensity of it, and “I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.” Listening to Class Clown and writing this blog, Lou thinks of Lenny Bruce, and he thinks of Lenny Bruce lying naked in the bathroom and Lou wonders if comedy and the world in general has not gone into the toilet.