by Jeff Axelrod

Created on: June 24, 2008

When I was being treated for a broken wrist at a medical center in Santa Monica, California a few years ago, George Carlin walked right past the open door to my examination room. It took a couple of seconds for that realization to set in - and by the time I'd made it to the door and looked down the hallway, he was gone.

I wish I'd had the chance to thank him for all the laughs, and for changing American humor forever. His brand of acerbic observational humor certainly inspired Jerry Seinfeld, who parlayed a more "family-friendly" version of it into the most successful sitcom of our generation. His fondness for finding humor in the English language - both profound and profane - showed the depth of his intellect. And his characters (as a budding radio professional, I was particularly fond of his "Wonderful WINO" sketches) were just plain hilarious.

I wish I'd had the chance to talk with him for a while, to figure out what made him tick.

But then I realized that I already knew.

George Carlin was one of those tormented souls who wasn't afraid to inflict his anguish and his anger upon the rest of us. If he was outraged by something, he wanted us to feel that rage, too. And the best way he knew how to do that was to make us laugh about it. If we were listening closely enough to laugh at what he was saying, he must have reasoned, surely we were listening closely enough to think about what he was saying.

It was a brilliant strategy. George Carlin slaughtered so many sacred cows that he was probably among India's Most Wanted. And once you'd listened to one of his rants, chances were you'd never feel the same way about the subject yourself.

When Kevin Smith was writing "Dogma," could he have found a more perfect Cardinal Glick? A character who exposes the imagery of Jesus Christ as a marketing scheme for the Church was right in George Carlin's wheelhouse... and he hit that one out of the ballpark. (Though, of course, he probably would bristle at the baseball analogy... preferring a more masculine football analogy instead!)

Perhaps the most fitting tribute to George Carlin, though, was the failure of his mid-'90s sitcom, "The George Carlin Show."

How could such a failure be such a triumph?

George Carlin was never meant to be mainstream. He was too smart to be mainstream. He was too controversial to be mainstream. He was too subversive to be mainstream. And being rejected by the mainstream validated everything we loved about him.

Rest in mother-f*ing peace, George Carlin. You will be missed, but your words - even the naughty ones - and your thoughts will live on forever.

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