George Carlin was one of my all-time favorite comedians, and I loved to hear him ridicule our institutions.
So I was seriously distressed to hear what he said about bicyclists in this short piece posted on YouTube a few years ago.
It wasn’t the profanity that got to me, it was his apparent unbridled animosity toward bicyclists.
Recently I was happy to read in his sortabiography “Last Words” , written with Tony Hendra, that Carlin enjoyed riding a bike when he was a youngster growing up in New York City.
Talking about all the parks in his neighborhoods, he mentions “… miles of paths for riding bikes. Not designated bike paths, not shared paths. Paths where pedestrians had to get the fuck out of the way.
“Actually I rarely rode my bike in the park — it was more stimulating when ridden in the streets, weaving adroitly through fast-moving vehicles. ‘Go play in traffic’ wouldn’t have been a put-down for us — just another glaringly obvious suggestion from an adult. Heavy traffic as an obstacle to play offers a level of stimulation simply not found on the farm or in nice suburbs where kids enjoy the innocent idyll of American childhood.”
Sounds like he could have given lessons to urban bike messengers.
Maybe Carlin didn’t hate bicyclists so much. Maybe, as the consummate class clown, he just said something about bicyclists that he knew would get laughs.
1 comments
Given its been ten years since you posted this i hope that was sufficient time to recover your hurt feelings lol I bike everywhere you’ve got to be prepared to be the punch line in life I used to be like this but weigh up how much positive has someone given you in comparison to the negative. In this case Carlin. I know he helped me with so much through his works and interviews.