George Carlin: A Modern Man

Source:Official George Carlin showing George's 2005 modern man monologue.

"Legendary stand-up comedian George Carlin performs a piece on the contradictions of being a modern man for the millennium.

George Carlin returns to the stage in Life is Worth Losing, his 13th live comedy stand-up special, performed at the Beacon Theatre in New York City for HBO. Life is Worth Losing includes: A Modern Man, Three Little Words, The Suicide Guy, Extreme Human Behavior, The All-Suicide Channel, Dumb Americans, Pyramid of the Hopeless, Autoerotic Asphyxia, Posthumous Female Transplants, Yeast Infection, Excess: Fires and Floods, Coast-to-Coast Emergency." 

From Official George Carlin

“I’m a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multi-cultural, post-modern deconstruction that is anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been up linked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond!

I’m new wave, but I’m old school and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive and from time to time I’m radioactive.

Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, ridin the wave, dodgin the bullet and pushin the envelope. I’m on-point, on-task, on-message and off drugs. I’ve got no need for coke and speed. I've got no urge to binge and purge. I’m in-the-moment, on-the-edge, over-the-top and under-the-radar. A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistic missionary. A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps and run victory laps. I’m a totally ongoing big-foot, slam-dunk, rainmaker with a pro-active outreach. A raging workaholic. A working rageaholic. Out of rehab and in denial!

I’ve got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant and a personal agenda. You can’t shut me up. You can’t dumb me down because I’m tireless and I’m wireless, I’m an alpha male on beta-blockers.

I’m a non-believer and an over-achiever, laid-back but fashion-forward. Up-front, down-home, low-rent, high-maintenance. Super-sized, long-lasting, high-definition, fast-acting, oven-ready and built-to-last! I’m a hands-on, foot-loose, knee-jerk head case pretty maturely post-traumatic and I’ve got a love-child that sends me hate mail.

But, I’m feeling, I’m caring, I’m healing, I’m sharing-- a supportive, bonding, nurturing primary care-giver. My output is down, but my income is up. I took a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash-flow. I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds and I watch trash sports! I’m gender specific, capital intensive, user-friendly and lactose intolerant.

I like rough sex. I like tough love. I use the “F” word in my emails and the software on my hard-drive is hardcore--no soft porn.

I bought a microwave at a mini-mall; I bought a mini-van at a mega-store. I eat fast-food in the slow lane. I’m toll-free, bite-sized, ready-to-wear and I come in all sizes. A fully-equipped, factory-authorized, hospital-tested, clinically-proven, scientifically- formulated medical miracle. I’ve been pre-wash, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double-wrapped, vacuum-packed and, I have an unlimited broadband capacity.

I’m a rude dude, but I’m the real deal. Lean and mean! Cocked, locked and ready-to-rock. Rough, tough and hard to bluff. I take it slow, I go with the flow, I ride with the tide. I’ve got glide in my stride. Drivin and movin, sailin and spinin, jiving and groovin, wailin and winnin. I don’t snooze, so I don’t lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hearty and lunch time is crunch time. I’m hangin in, there ain’t no doubt and I’m hangin tough, over and out!”

From Good Reads

What George Carlin was talking about in 2005, are people who are called male hipsters today. People who I like to call modern left-wing hippies, or hipster leftists. People who politically claim to be champions of the underclasses, the underdogs, minorities, who claim to oppose the American establishment, while tending to be very overprivileged. And would be last people to ever give up their new technology, their coffee houses, imported wine and other alcoholic drinks, their 2nd homes, (which were probably 2nd lofts) etc, so the underprivileged can have more in life. 

If there was a male voter bloc that Vice President Kamala Harris and her 2024 presidential campaign targeted, it would've been the male urban hipsters. Not Blue Collar Joe and Tom who work as construction workers, or auto mechanics, who shoot pool, or go bowling, after work, while drinking beer and eating chicken wings. Instead, they would've targeted guys who live in and work out of urban and suburban lofts, who drink coffee all day from their favorite coffee houses, who eat veggie wraps for lunch and drink French or Italian wine after work, with French cheese. 

But the guys that George Carlin was talking about, were probably large part of his audience as a comedian. Along with left-wing, urban, hipster, feminists, who probably made up a lot of his female audience. People like this: 

"The term “hipster” is elusive and frequently wielded as an insult, yet it has a rich history. The first hipsters were young Black jazz aficionados in 1940s Harlem. Their hipster culture was appropriated in the 1950s by young middle-class whites of the Beat Generation. By the late 1990s, “hipster” had acquired almost wholly negative connotations, describing affluent, coffee-drinking middle-class whites living in gentrified urban neighborhoods.

The contemporary hipster refers to a late-1990s subcultural figure that first rose to public attention in select gentrified enclaves of major global cities. Brooklyn and the lower East Side of New York, Seattle’s Capitol Hill, San Francisco, Sidney, Cape Town, and East London. Today the hipster lives in all these places and more. The hipster trend is global.

The defining marker of contemporary hipster culture is fashion. The archetypal hipster male sports a beard or ironic mustache, flannel shirts, skinny jeans, and rides a fixed-gear bike. His female counterpart has retro tattoos and a top-knot hairstyle and wears vintage clothes with Converse shoes. These figures appreciate vinyl records, vegan food, slick digital design, artisanal coffee, and mid-century Scandinavian modernism.

Hipster culture is about taste, fashion, and being in the know. But like any cultural form, it has a material base. In coffee shops, record stores, bicycle repair shops, bars, etc. within gentrified enclaves of major cities and beyond.

Most importantly, hipster culture is intertwined with the material structures that define the global economy. In line with the “neoliberal” turn of the 1980s and the newfound primacy of the individual consumer, contemporary hipster culture is connected above all to an ethos of consumption. Within a global economy that “specializes in the niched mass production of consumer goods that cater to the needs of small, subcultural groups” (Maly & Varis, 2015) hipsterdom becomes primarily about rejection of mainstream “taste.”

The contemporary hipster has morphed into what Thomas Frank (1997) calls the “rebel consumer” — the target subject of the synthesis of business culture and counterculture, where the imagery of youthful rebellion is mobilized to market corporate products.

From The Collector

I imagine George Carlin was into hipster culture himself. He's considered a counter-culture hero. But I guess what separates him from let's say WOKE today (who are the modern political hipsters) is that he was an individualist. Who thought people should be free to speak and act for themselves And wasn't trying to take down "The Man", or dye his hair green or purple, to look more antiestablishment. But instead he was someone who wanted to teach people and tell people to think and act for themselves. And not get part of political cultural movements, simply to try to fit in and seem cool. 

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