George Carlin lived life on the edge

Only days before his death, George Carlin learned he would be honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

That he'll now receive it posthumously is just the sort of cosmic joke he would have appreciated.

Carlin came to prominence in the 1970s as a "counterculture comedian" and was most famous for his standup routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." Yet, Carlin was far more than merely a comic with a foul mouth.

Even as public standards grew progressively more liberal-minded through his almost half-century career, Carlin found a way to stay on the edge, from whimsical characters like Al Sleet, the hippie-dippie weather man, to his more confrontational riffs on obscenity to observational humor like "A Place for My Stuff" and "Baseball and Football" to his later satire laid out in 14 HBO comedy specials and three best-selling books.

More Coverage Stories George Carlin dies of heart failure at age 71 [6/23/08]Some of Carlin's one-liners [6/24/08] Video George Carlin in his own words Comedian George Carlin Dead at Age 71 Links The jokes ... at least a sampling "One of the things about him is just how constantly ahead and out-there he was," said Harry Teinowitz, afternoon co-host on WMVP 1000-AM, whose background is in standup. "Everyone else was making jokes about airline food and this guy was just tying the stars together."Along the way, he lent his talents to numerous TV shows -- including well over 100 appearances on "The Tonight Show" as well as playing host to the premiere episode of "Saturday Night Live" -- and he played Mr. Conductor on the PBS children's series "Shining Time Station." He acted as more or less himself in movies like "Bill Ted's Excellent Adventure," and the devout atheist (one of his routines was titled "There Is no God") delighted in playing a corrupt Roman Catholic cardinal in Kevin Smith's "Dogma." He went on to display more impressive acting chops as a put-upon father in Smith's "Jersey Girl."Yet, it was as a standup comedian that Carlin enjoyed his most sustained success and greatest influence."Overall in society we've seen the boundaries break down, and he certainly was involved in that," said Bert Haas, general manager of the Zanie's comedy clubs in Vernon Hills, St. Charles and Chicago.Carlin had an ornery, irreverent streak that served him well. The product of a broken family in New York City, he dropped out of school early and went into the Air Force, where he had a brief stint marked by discipline problems. Discharged, he went into radio, then joined with Jack Burns (later of Burns Schreiber) on a comedy team that made it to Jack Paar's "Tonight Show." They split, with Burns coming to Chicago's Second City and Carlin striking out on his own with more iconoclastic material. By the '70s he had adopted his trademark look of jeans, beard and ponytail."I think the fascinating thing about Carlin is the fact that he found his character," Haas said. "He started out in a suit and tie and working squeaky clean, and at some point he had an epiphany that, this is not my character, this is not my voice as an artist. And so he found his voice as an artist, he found his character, and that required a certain saltiness of language."Carlin had always had an interest in blue material. He was in the audience at one of Lenny Bruce's '60s busts and reportedly was arrested as well and sent to jail in the same vehicle.He was busted for obscenity at Milwaukee's Summerfest in 1972, although the case was dismissed on First Amendment grounds. When Baltimore station WBAI-FM played the routine "Filthy Words" from the album "Occupation: Foole" in 1973, the Federal Communications Commission cited the station.The resulting FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation court case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1978 with Carlin's material found "indecent but not obscene." The 5-4 ruling basically authorized the FCC to monitor the public airwaves, especially when children might be watching or listening."So my name is a footnote in American history," Carlin said, "which I'm perversely kind of proud of."Carlin's edge extended offstage as well. He developed what he called "a really nice cocaine habit" in the '70s and had three previous heart attacks before dying from a last one Sunday in Santa Monica, Calif. Comedy Central ranked him second all-time as a standup comedian ahead of Bruce and behind Richard Pryor. All three were known to be self-destructive.Unlike Bruce, Carlin never forgot that comedy has to be funny as well as outrageous. Even in his later, more misanthropic material -- firmly in the tradition of satirists like Jonathan Swift -- Carlin delighted in word play, gags and jokes and kept the audience amused even as he poked at human foibles."Aside from the groundbreaking, the other amazing thing is the longevity," Teinowitz said. "It's just so hard for a comic to retain that edge, the desire, the fire to go onstage and push that envelope. And he did it for 40 years. When things got more risqu#233;, he got more risqu#233;. When the political world was all hush-hush, that's when he started to talk about it."Jerry Seinfeld's awesome," he added, "but George Carlin was brilliant every time.""You're talking about a man who had a standup career of 45, 50 years, which is unbelievable," Haas said.Although Carlin could be hard on his audience, especially at its most comfortable, for instance berating a Vegas crowd in a famous 2004 outburst that got him fired from the MGM Grand and sent to rehab, Carlin was known as a supportive influence on other comedians.Haas said he would commonly stop at Rosemont's Comedy Cottage when it was open and he was in town. "Every comedian who met him that I've talked to has always spoken very highly of him," he said.Ron Stern, general manger of the Rosemont Theater, booked Carlin four times, the latest being in March."He was always friendly and respectful. He didn't bring a big entourage. Sometimes he just came with his manager. #8230; He really was the same person onstage as offstage. The person you would see onstage was who he was."Kevin Lampe of the Kurth Lampe public-relations firm in Chicago recalls a Saturday night in the mid-'80s at the old Durty Nellie's in Palatine when Carlin invited four or five aspiring comedians to talk shop with him after his show."We were a young group of struggling standups," Lampe said, "and we talked about jokes and we talked about life and he was open and thrilled and had as much time as we had to talk. He was so generous."Teinowitz said his standup colleague Paul Gilmartin, best known from the TBS series "Dinner and a Movie," once wrote to Carlin in Vegas saying he admired him and asking his advice. Carlin showed up at one of his sets.More recently, Carlin did two shows at the Raue Center for the Arts in Crystal Lake early last year -- shows delayed from late 2006 when he had to cancel the appearance after heart problems."He looked a little frail," Executive Director Richard Kuranda recalled. "People were a little shocked at how skinny he was."Then he shocked them with a blistering first set that sent some in the audience scurrying home. He altered his second show and "killed.""It was great to see the two shows and the two different reactions," Kuranda said. "He was still pushing the limits. It still was poignant stuff."Carlin's books like "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" and routines like "Baseball and Football" and "Seven Words" will last because they're preserved on the page and in albums and DVDs like the all-encompassing career retrospective released last year. But his legacy is there in every comedy club and every standup act on late-night TV."It allows people to break out of molds," Haas said. "For a long time, everyone was presenting standup comedy in much the same way. And now I think there's a lot of opportunity for people to use their own style."Yet there will never be another with Carlin's style and enduring appeal.