Althouse: An amazingly obsolete observation — made by George Carlin 22 years ago.

October 17, 2018

An amazingly obsolete observation — made by George Carlin 22 years ago.

(Watch out: he says "fucking.")

Speaking of nostalgia, I'm nostalgic for the time when we had that to be irritated about.

31 comments:

BarrySanders20 said...: Ha. 10 minutes ago I took photos of the exterior of my home to include with a tax credit application. Uploaded to Walgreens 3 minutes ago and will have prints in 1 hour to mail today with the paper application.; 10/17/18, 12:02 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Speaking of nostalgia, I'm nostalgic for the time when we had that to be irritated about.

When were we ever irritated about fucking, and why would you be nostalgic for such a time?; 10/17/18, 12:03 PM
James K said...: Uploaded to Walgreens 3 minutes ago and will have prints in 1 hour

I also still use a local 'photo finisher' to make prints of photos that I upload to them from my computer. For a while I had a color photo printer at home, but it was too much of a hassle, and not a money saver.; 10/17/18, 12:12 PM
Bill Peschel said...: Marc: I was fooled by that, too, but it stops after 50 seconds.

I wonder if that observation would have annoyed me back then. The camera had a roll of film. Ten, twenty, twenty-five shots. You take a couple of pictures, but you have to wait until the whole roll was used up before you could get it developed. That could be weeks, months later.

I remember going to Europe in '77. Three weeks. I took ten rolls of 36-exposure film along. I wasn't used to my brother's 35mm camera and used the wrong setting for outdoor shots. All those shots, overexposed, and I didn't learn about it until a couple weeks after I got back.

Or I would have just laughed without thinking. I was a fan of Carlin back then.; 10/17/18, 12:17 PM
Ann Althouse said...: A precise section is clipped out.

I had a typo in the code in the first minute of this post, now corrected.; 10/17/18, 12:18 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I've taken tens of thousands of digital photographs in the last 15 years, and I don't think I've ever printed out a single one!; 10/17/18, 12:19 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: I do recall taking nonsense photographs, just to get to the end of the roll of film.

Such progress since the end of the last millennium, though! now we can take photographs and see them quasi-instantaneously on our mobiles; I wonder how Carlin would have mocked the 'selfie' and the 'selfie stick'?; 10/17/18, 12:35 PM
Fernandinande said...: Black guys are lamer than white guys.; 10/17/18, 12:48 PM
Achilles said...: George Carlin was exactly the type of liberal that is leaving the democrat party in mass now.; 10/17/18, 12:54 PM
Michael K said...: I remember going to Europe in '77. Three weeks. I took ten rolls of 36-exposure film along. I wasn't used to my brother's 35mm camera and used the wrong setting for outdoor shots. All those shots, overexposed, and I didn't learn about it until a couple weeks after I got back.

I went to Australia to watch the 1987 America's Cup series in Freemantle. I took my 35 mm camera not knowing that one of my kids had taken it to the beach and got it wet, which ruined the light meter.

When I got home all the photos were overexposed.; 10/17/18, 12:55 PM
Known Unknown said...: I've taken tens of thousands of digital photographs in the last 15 years, and I don't think I've ever printed out a single one!

"You used to take one picture and look at it a hundred times. Now, you take hundreds of pictures and never look at them again."

James Lileks (paraphrased); 10/17/18, 12:58 PM
Known Unknown said...: "Here is a picture of me when I was younger"

"Every picture is of you when you were younger."

-Mitch Hedberg; 10/17/18, 1:02 PM
buwaya said...: I once took a few rolls of Ilford XP one week at the beach, with a gang of very friendly girls.

We are talking a week of classic bikini babe shots here. Fine skintone gradients all over the viewfinder.

Ilford XP was the first super-mono film, a black&white film developed in the C41 color process, as with color print film. So I had to take it to the photo shop. I asked for C41 color process. But they developed it as B&W. Disaster.; 10/17/18, 1:20 PM
J. Farmer said...: Johnny Carson used to complain about what he called "comedian's disease." Comics after some years of success start buying the hype and believing themselves to be philosophers. I am not sure if he ever named names, but I always suspected he was talking about George Carlin.

Norm Macdonald, my favorite comedian working today, has similarly railed against this phenomenon:

"If you can tell me one funny, socially relevant joke I’d give you a million dollars. Comedians, when they get really good, and nowadays they don’t even have to get good, reach a point where they feel they should be philosophers. I’ve heard it said even that the modern-day philosophers are comedians. I read modern-day philosophers! I’m sure they’re insulted when they’re compared to people who work in smoky nightclubs and hit on waitresses for a living."; 10/17/18, 1:45 PM
Danno said...: Carlin wouldn't be PC in the world of "that's not funny". I sure he'd tell the PC types to go fuck themselves.; 10/17/18, 1:48 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: J Farmer - excellent point.

I had Sirius XM for a while in my car and I would tune into the comedy channel. The funny stuff was the stuff that stayed away from the preaching and the social commentary.

Comedy today is a lot of preaching, and it all tilts left.; 10/17/18, 1:54 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: I think Carlin is hilarious despite his preaching. He was good at it.; 10/17/18, 1:59 PM
Roughcoat said...: Moral instruction from a drug addict, as follows: we're cooler than they are; and, we're angry about it.; 10/17/18, 2:05 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Carlin was a crotchety old buzzard towards the end.; 10/17/18, 2:12 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Dickin'Bimbos@Home:

Comedy today is a lot of preaching, and it all tilts left.

I grew up on David Letterman and as a fan of late night. I also enjoyed Leno and never got all the hipster animosity towards him. I was too young for Carson. But to see pretty much the entire late night lineup descend into lame Daily Show clones is depressing.

I think Carlin is hilarious despite his preaching. He was good at it.

I agree. I was a fan of Carlin's as well. An event better example would be Bill Hicks. His material from his 1980s Texas Outlaw days was pretty funny but somewhere along the road he got hold of a Noam Chomsky book, tried to be "important," and instantly became boring and predictable.

For years I heard what a great comedian Lenny Bruce was. Then I went back and listened to some of his material. Ugh. Dull as dishwater.; 10/17/18, 2:13 PM
etbass said...: It is important to manage those photos. I tell my kids, immediately after you take a batch of photos, go back through them and eliminate all technically poor shots, all duplicated shots, all uncomplimentary shots, all blah shots. Then go back through and save only the very best of the best. A week later, do it again. Otherwise, in a year or so you will have so many photos, trying to find a particular shot will be like looking for a needle in the haystack. And save them on a USB drive, anything other than just the hard drive.; 10/17/18, 2:31 PM
etbass said...: As a new technology for storage develops, convert all the old technology photos to the new and save both for a few years, then ditch the old.

And print a lot of the ones you save. I still don't trust the computer storage technology. Not even sure about the printing technology since Eastman Kodak bought the farm.; 10/17/18, 2:35 PM
Dad Bones said...: Here's young George Carlin cracking up Jimmy Dean. He's doing jokes about Indians in westerns and likening them to soldiers who are issued their weapons and gear. Stuff that only George Carlin could come up with.; 10/17/18, 5:04 PM
RMc said...: I'm so old, I remember when George Carlin was funny.; 10/17/18, 5:29 PM
rcocean said...: Never thought fucking old, cunt faced, George Carlin was funny at all.

As for film developing. I can vaguely remember - in the 80s or 90s - dropping film off in a little roadside booth and getting developed the next day.

Whenever I see people laughing hysterically at his lame jokes - like the youtube video - I wonder how many of them were drunk or high.; 10/17/18, 7:54 PM
rcocean said...: But then huge numbers of people will laugh hysterically at anything.

I can't say remember how many movies I've been to , where some film character will do something so obviously lame and cliched like falling down, or farting, or swearing - and most of the audience will ROAR with laughter.

Its why all those crappy sitcoms are on TV.; 10/17/18, 7:58 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Jay Leno is hilarious.; 10/17/18, 8:07 PM
James K said...: Leno does good old-fashioned apolitical comedy. To me he has a bad habit of including one line too many in his jokes, as though they need explaining. Carson was a natural, not the funniest guy around, but consistent and likable. Agree with Farmer about Letterman in the early days, but he seemed never to have gotten over getting passed up to succeed Carson, and got a bit nastier. I also liked Carlin, but less as he got older too. He also got more angry.; 10/17/18, 8:35 PM
Ken B said...: Yeah, Lenny Bruce really wasn’t that good. It was the censorship that made him. The Streisand effect; she owes him royalties.

Carlin was funny for a long time. Newhart might have been the most skilled and adept. But Richard Pryor was the funniest.; 10/17/18, 9:14 PM
Ken B said...: Letterman is the distilled essence of everything baleful about his generation. What Farmer thinks was Letterman turning darker was probably just Farmer growing up.; 10/17/18, 9:17 PM
J. Farmer said...: @James K:

Agree with Farmer about Letterman in the early days, but he seemed never to have gotten over getting passed up to succeed Carson, and got a bit nastier.

Bill Carter's The Late Shift is fascinating reading for anyone interested in a behind the scenes look at that whole affair. Letterman in the early years was infamous for his constant shitting on NBC executives and later GE and was part of his rebel anti establishment cred. When he moved to CBS he owned the show and was clearly less constrained by the NBC higher up's whose input Letterman loathed. Although it gave Letterman more individual artistic control, he lost the symbolic "man" to rebel against. I think you've also seem the same dynamic in in Howard Stern's transition from terrestrial to satellite radio.; 10/17/18, 10:49 PM

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