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    Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin
    Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin
    Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin
    Audiobook10 hours

    Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin

    Written by James Sullivan

    Narrated by Alan Sklar

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In Seven Dirty Words, journalist and cultural critic James Sullivan tells the story of Alternative America from the 1950s to the present, from the singular vantage point of George Carlin, the Catholic boy for whom nothing was sacred. A critical biography, Seven Dirty Words is an insightful (and, of course, hilarious) examination of Carlin's body of work as it pertained to its cultural times and the man who created it, from his early days as a more-or-less conventional comedian to his stunning transformation into the subversive comedic voice of the emerging counterculture. Sullivan also chronicles Carlin's struggles with censorship and drugs, as well as the full-blown renaissance he experienced in the 1990s, both personally and professionally, when he became an elder statesman to a younger generation of comics who revered him. Seven Dirty Words is nothing less than the definitive biography of an American master who changed the world and also a work of cultural commentary that frames George Carlin's extraordinary legacy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJun 8, 2010
    ISBN9781400184699
    Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin
    Author

    James Sullivan

    James Sullivan was born and raised in Quincy, Massachusetts, and has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has written for The New York Times and National Geographic Traveler, the magazine. He lives with his family outside Portland, Maine, 3.4 miles from the birthplace of film director John Ford, who steamed into Omaha Beach on Plunkett.

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    Reviews for Seven Dirty Words

    4/5

    14 ratings5 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Got a little bogged down over the seven words litigation. Great for covering his early career and the changes in his career. Good job of covering the down years after Occupation Foole to the HBO years. Great insights.
    • 5/5
      It was so interesting how George got where he got. I recommend
    • 3/5
      nonfiction/biography. I admit that I wasn't listening attentively to the whole book (I like to use the playaways to read myself to sleep) but the parts I caught were interesting--a very remarkable and accomplished life, all things considered. I did notice some chapters repeated parts of other chapters, but in this playaway format it doesn't really matter.
    • 5/5
      I once heard it said that no matter how bleak or hopeless or terrifying the world may be, that you can always count on some of the greatest philosophers and their words will not only make sense but it will make the world, and nearly everything in it, more palpable. Not only that, but by doing so, they will help bring society to a better world.

      In modern day, I see some of the best philosophers to be our comedians. They have the super ability to look at the same things we all do and make it more palpable and that a better world is possible.

      Now, with this book, you get to find out how one the greatest modern day philosophers got to be just that. You learn how his childhood opened his mind to a new way of thinking, how he took that with him to every stop along his years in the military and first jobs, and kept believing in himself no matter what world put in his way. Through all that you can not help but end with a deeper respect for this man that you started the book with.
    • 2/5
      If you don't know why George Carlin is important, but want to, then this book will spell it out for you. Letter by letter, job by job, word by word. Sometimes that is done well, here, it seems a bit dogged and labored.