George Carlin dead at 71--Change Agent for a New Kind of Comedy

Richard Zoglin the Time magazine writer has some insightful things to say about Carlin's career in reference to the Boomer era in an interview he gave to Pacifica Radio's Amy Goodman

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Geroge Carlin, how his style evolved, who he was.

RICHARD ZOGLIN: Well, in the late ’60s, when this country really went through a cultural revolution, you know, he was the guy, I think, who brought stand-up comedy into that cultural revolution. I mean, he was short-haired comic, sort of skinny-tie guy, who did sort of straight-laced material on the Ed Sullivan Show. He looked around in the late ’60s, and, you know, he was hanging out with musicians, he was singing with the protest movement, and he was seeing what was happening. And he decided he was doing material for the enemy. He wanted to talk to a different audience, the college audience. He wanted to go back into the coffee houses. And this was a radical thing for a guy to do with a successful career. So he started all over again, and he started doing material that really reflected the attitudes of that counterculture generation