15 more lessons on creating like George Carlin

Part 2: Challenge everything. Reinvent yourself. Pay attention to rhythm. Embrace aging. And lots more.

📰 This is the Rubesletter from Matt Ruby (comedian, writer, and the creator of Vooza). Sign up to get it in your inbox weekly.

Last week’s Rubesletter featured 15 lessons in comedy creativity from George Carlin featuring the words of Carlin, Bill Burr, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr, etc. Here’s another batch of Carlin-related tips…

Going low allows you to aim high

Judd Apatow:

The only aspect of his career that I probably didn’t spend enough time on was his silly, dirty, puerile material. He would spend an enormous amount of time on farts and boogers and pooping your pants, and oftentimes that was the first half of his set. Then he had more thoughtful political and philosophical ideas in the second part. So he had an approach to pleasing an audience and doing a lot of different styles of comedy within one set. That’s what is really amazing about him: He succeeded at high comedy and low comedy.

Source: Judd Apatow on Documenting the Legacy (and Fart Jokes) of George Carlin

Choose your words carefully and memorize them

Carlin:

I have a strong interest in language that is in part genetic and part then fostered by my mother. And I have always taken great joy in looking closer - more closely at language.

Source: Fresh Air (May 20, 2022)

Judd Apatow:

He would always have his set on little index cards and he would furiously be going through the index cards and it was all memorization because he wrote it like a one man show. He was not the “I write it onstage” guy. It was “Can I get these words down perfectly?” And you could tell it was a memorization nightmare.

Source: Jon And Judd Apatow On Why George Carlin Still Resonates

Tape every show

Carlin:

You'll try and try and try and try and one night by accident it will happen the correct way and then you'll save it…I tape every show. After a good show I stop and take a few notes and say, Listen to X, listen to Y, listen to Z. It's the audience plus me. But you know it from the audience is the proof that it works. But you know in your heart that's the way it ought to sound.

Source: Charlie Rose - 11/23/92

Challenge everything

Journey Gunderson, the executive director of the National Comedy Center, which is home to more than 25,000 items from Carlin’s archives.

[The ultimate lesson he had for us is that we have] the unlimited right to challenge everything, to never stop thinking critically about any source of power or any institution.

Source: The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin

Carlin:

Anything about religion and God and belief is good territory. You can hear the sphincters tighten as you begin. "Let's see how he's gonna handle this!"

Source: Funny People at 92nd Street Y

Combine self-expression with the outside world

Carlin:

Self-expression can be based on looking at the world and making observations about it or not. Comedy can also be based on describing one’s inner self—doing anecdotes, talking about your own fears. Woody Allen taps into a lot of self-analysis in his comedy. But I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive. I think self-expression is present at all times, and whether or not you’re talking about the outside world or your responses to it depends on the moment and the subject.

Source: George Carlin's Last Interview

Draw inspiration from artists in other media

Carlin:

The musicians I knew had gone through that transition. [Back then,] I'm listening to Bob Dylan and I realize these artists are using their talent to project their feelings and ideas, not just please people.

Source: The Early George Carlin 1956-1970

Create a unique stew

TV Critic Matt Zoller Seitz:

George Carlin could mix wordplay, social satire, religious and political commentary, personal memories, and even an extended fantasy about the destruction of the world and somehow make it all seem to fit. And if you didn't like one or another of these bits, all you had to do was wait a few minutes, and the comic would be on to something else.

Source: Why Is Louie Such a Remarkable TV Show? Because It Makes Stand-up Comedy Cinematic

Reinvent yourself

Judd Apatow:

He would do that every decade or so. At the moment when it seemed like he was out of gas, he would suddenly recharge and reinvent himself.

Source: The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin

Judd Apatow:

You're always terrified. Will I have the next idea? Do I have anything left to say? Am I repeating myself? Am I becoming a bore? And some people do run out of gas. We've seen them where we go, "Oh, how come all the good steps in this eight-year period and nothing is good afterwards." And that's why I'm always impressed by people like George Carlin who fight through that and stay current and edgy and interesting. And it really is about being engaged and passionate about what you're doing.

The lesson from Carlin is to keep pushing yourself and you're going to reinvent yourself. Don't fear that, don't stay in your comfort zone because you've had success, if that's not true to who you want to be for the rest of your career.

Source: Judd Apatow explains why George Carlin had 'the best routine about almost every subject in modern political life'

Don’t offer prescriptions

Carlin:

I’m happy to tell you there’s very little in this world that I believe in. Listening to the comedians who comment on political, social, and cultural issues, I notice that most of their material reflects kind of an underlying belief that somehow things were better once, and with just a little effort we could set them right again. They’re looking for solutions and rooting for particular results, and I think that limits the tone and substance of what they say. They’re talented and funny people but they’re really nothing more than cheerleaders attached to a specific wished-for outcome.

I don’t feel so confined…My interest in issues is merely to point out how badly we’re doing, not to suggest a way we might do better.

Don’t confuse me with those who cling to hope. I enjoy describing how things are, I have no interest in how they ought to be. And I certainly have no interest in fixing them. I sincerely believe that if you think there’s a solution, you’re part of the problem.

Source: Brain Droppings

Don’t sound like everyone else

Carlin:

If I'm going to call attention to myself, I want to show them something a little different from time to time. I want to find a voice that isn't like all the others. I just never want to be like all the other people, I just hate these, I could never do a Newt Gingrich joke or an OJ Simpson joke or any of the– Because you sound like all the other people and I just want to– Anybody who stands up wants to be different.

Source: Charlie Rose (03/26/1996)

Aim for jester, not philosopher

Carlin:

Sometimes the jester can traverse the cryptic, and if the jester says something funny, well, he's the jester, if he says it in marvelous language, we say, "Oh, isn't that a nice way to put that," then he's a bit of a poet, and if there's an underlying idea underneath the well put funny line, if there's a bit of a of a philosophy there, he becomes something else again, a philosopher. Now one doesn't sit down and attempt to do that, with everything he writes, but to know that that's part of the package. That you can do these three things in varying degrees.

Source: Charlie Rose (03/26/1996)

Pay attention to rhythm

Carlin:

I just knew that [with “Seven dirty words”] I had done a piece that summed up my position very well and sort of had a nice - it had a wonderful rhythmic - the reading of those seven words, the way they were placed together, had a magnificent kind of a jazz feeling, a rhythm that was just very natural and satisfying, the way those syllables were placed together.

Source: Fresh Air (May 20, 2022)

Appeal to all sides of the political spectrum

Dave Itzkoff, culture reporter for The New York Times:

He railed against police violence, championed prison reform and environmentalism and condemned organized religion. But he was also critical of Democrats and “guilty white liberals,” while he endorsed other ideas that conservatives supported.

Source: The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin

Live on the border between two cultures

Carlin:

And when you live near the border between all Black and all white, you don't have the attitudes that the people who are insulated and isolated in the center of those areas have. Those are people who are not in contact daily - day to day to day - with the opposite. But we did have contact all the time. And when you're on the border between two cultures, you sort of learn to live together. You have a common code of the streets in this case. And so I heard my language from the realistic people in the neighborhood…That's where I got a realistic feel and look at the world.

Source: Fresh Air (May 20, 2022)

Embrace aging and the richer data set it gives you

Carlin:

A 20-year-old has a limited amount of data they’ve experienced, either seeing or listening to the world. At 70 it’s a much richer storage area, the matrix inside is more textured, and has more contours to it. So, observations made by a 20-year-old are compared against a data set that is incomplete. Observations made by a 60-year-old are compared against a much richer data set. And the observations have more resonance, they’re richer.

Source: George Carlin's Last Interview

More great Carlin tips like these in part one:

15 lessons in comedy creativity from George Carlin

🪧 Did you enjoy this? Please share it online, tell a friend about it, or consider becoming a subscriber. And if you want more on the craft of comedy, check out my other newsletter, Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian.

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My comedy

Upcoming…

NYC: Misguided Meditation with Matt Ruby. A comedy show about mindfulness. Sunday, Jun 12 at 7:30pm. Tickets and info here. Use code “breathe” to get $5 off.

Chicago: Lincoln Lodge on Thursday, June 16 at 9pm. Tickets here.

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Quickies

🎯 Top cartels: 1) OPEC 2) Sinaloa 3) Whichever one makes it so you have to spend $50 min to get flowers delivered.

🎯 Dear anyone who waits in line for ice cream, you’re wasting your life. They have it at the supermarket.

🎯 Why do people negotiate with their children? I can't even begin to tell you how little my opinion mattered during my entire childhood.

🗯 Author Denis Johnson on how writing is like filming a parade of clouds:

It’s easy work. You don’t have to be high-functioning or even, for the most part, functioning at all… Whatever happens to you, you put it on a page, work it into a shape, cast it in a light. It’s not much different, really, from filming a parade of clouds across the sky and calling it a movie – although it has to be admitted that the clouds can descend, take you up, carry you to all kinds of places, some of them terrible, and you don’t get back where you came from for years and years.

🎯 5 years ago: I can't believe this person is taking a work call in this coffeeshop.
Now: Everyone in this coffeeshop is on a Zoom work meeting with the speaker on. We are all on your marketing team now, Megan!

🗯 A Position at the University by Lydia Davis.

I think I know what sort of person I am. But then I think, But this stranger will imagine me quite otherwise when he or she hears this or that to my credit, for instance that I have a position at the university: the fact that I have a position at the university will appear to mean that I must be the sort of person who has a position at the university. But then I have to admit, with surprise, that, after all, it is true that I have a position at the university. And if it is true, then perhaps I really am the sort of person you imagine when you hear that a person has a position at the university. But, on the other hand, I know I am not the sort of person I imagine when I hear that a person has a position at the university. Then I see what the problem is: when others describe me this way, they appear to describe me completely, whereas in fact they do not describe me completely, and a complete description of me would include truths that seem quite incompatible with the fact that I have a position at the university.

🎯 I get why flight attendants hated mask mandates. Think about how many jobs they already have to do: “Welcome aboard. I’ll be your greeter, server, security guard, bouncer, janitor, paramedic, cashier, bartender, and also, for some reason, I have to wear a scarf on my neck.”

🗯 The ‘E-Pimps’ of OnlyFans. Clever marketers have figured out how easy it is to “simulate online intimacy at scale.” (Related: Nothing sums up the internet better than the phrase “intimacy at scale.”)

Spend enough time on social media, and you’ll encounter young people engaged in all sorts of schemes: running drop-shipping companies, minting NFTs, pumping crypto, selling real estate in the metaverse. Many are based in Miami. It’s a place where young marketing types have embraced a vision of what the internet is actually for that is at odds with Silicon Valley’s: less a utopian escape from reality than an infinite expansion of its strip malls.

🎯 I know it's not the main problem with Trump merch, but the typography on that stuff is consistently awful. Time for libs to come out with an oppositional tote bag:

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Bonus content (for subscribers only)

Up ahead: Thoughts on guns and the tragedy in Texas, engagement photogs, Leonard Cohen's ungreatest hits, Adam Westbrook's advice for artists, second fridges, and more.