Mark Twain Awarded the George Carlin Award for Wordsmiths…

Well, that’s how I saw it. Sittin here with Gibbee watching the George Carlin ceremony to win the Mark Twain award for American Comedy at the Kennedy Center on WITF… What’s more funny than a dead Kennedy right? Carlin of course!

as I watch I am inspired to write… I dunno why. Gib is off having a smoke while giving me a moment to think and I decided to grab the laptop. Why? I dunno. I guess I am better on paper, err, in pixels…

What is it in the back of the throat that twists your heart in two and makes you decide to not swallow anything… air, water, nothing can get past the emotional throat choke. But when you don’t feel like crying or are with your uncle knowing you would look like a tool bitch crybaby for doing it while watching a comedy presentation… the complete opposite of why comedy is put on… at 35 I might add… that tight back of your throat is telling you something: As long as you don’t cry this will hurt.

Point is I feel like writing because I guess George always made me feel better. When I was younger and was going through my parents fighting or my parents divorce, or going to a new school where all the kids made fun of me or going home to a tumultuous home life of a sister crushing my spirit more than the kids at school did, I always had George to remind me to laugh once a day and get this shitty feeling to leave if even for a minute. George reminded me to keep my head up during the hard times and like Mike Hill he inspired me to find the funny in just about anything. When you laugh at natural catastrophes and humanity going to hell you know where your sense of humor is. Beyond the gutter, even beyond the grave. If that fictional place of hell had its own hell, there is where you’d find my sense of humor. In there, as a rapper named DMX titled his CD to remind you: It's dark and hell is hot.

I remember in 2008 just before George’s special for his twain award came on it was learned he passed away. I felt lost. I felt tossed out from the boxcar of life and tumbleweeded down the oily tracks and my world as I knew it stopped. I didn’t just lose my comic icon or the world’s greatest wordsmith… I lost my friend, my uncle, my reason for having my sense of humor… … … and the throat choke gets tighter… I remember I wore black for three days and sulked in my chair at work. People would walk past me, the weird quiet guy who didn’t talk to anyone at work, and asked what the problem was because I looked like my puppy died. I guess it was written on my face. I lost that voice in my head who reminded me to see whatever it was and find it funny… remember I am not even related to this man nor have I ever met him, he just reminded me that there’s more to life than people shitting on you.

What brought me out of it? Well, George of course. As I have told Christine Stanisec I decided one day (I guess the third day) that George needed resurrected. My savior from the hell I was living under needed saved himself… the throat loosens… so I threw in my collection from the VCR tapes to the CDs to their respective players and listened. I laughed, I cried, I felt emotionally discombobulated as ever, and at that moment I knew I was ok. I was back to “normal”, whatever that meant... I went back to orange or any other clothing I had on and decided the emotional feelings I was going through was done. I had to remember him in life instead of in death and go from there.

Remember to laugh at least once a day. They say “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”.  I say “A laugh a day keeps the psychologist away…”

Thank you Ge--- err, excuse me, Mr. Carlin.

III