Drawing A Line

First off I want to say that I truly enjoy watching George Carlin do his stand up, but that’s not what this blog is about. I want to try and define the difference between doing a stand up bit and just going on a rant. George Carlin comes pretty close to that line during his stand up acts. We watched a piece of this latest HBO special in class, and he was truly just rattling off words that really to me had no rhyme or reason to them. I saw absolutely no humor in what he was doing. I was impressed with his ability to memorize and speak quickly, but I could just listen to a rap CD and get the same effect. I felt like he was just getting rid of a lot of hidden aggression about the world out by spewing these words at the audience. This is how a lot of his stand up is to me, just a spew of his hate for the world. We talked about how life can be funny, and I agree about that there is just a point where it becomes a sad sarcastic rant. I am playing the devils advocate here because I personally enjoy his stand up and do think that he is funny when he is actually speaking in coherent sentences. That being said there are always places in his acts where he just seems pissed off at the world and it takes away from the humor of what he is saying. There is a specific example where he is talking about what people say when a loved one dies. I feel like this may have happened to him and he is trying to get closure by going on this rant that has the intention of being funny but instead it just comes off as a rant. Maybe this is just me being too touchy but the fact of the matter is that he comes close to the line between funny and seriously demented. That brings up a whole new point. Maybe he wants people to think that he is demented and that is part of the whole character. After all that I suppose I still haven’t found a definition of where the line is. I would have the say that the line is different for each particular audience member and one person cannot define the line.