
Seven Dirty Words
The Life and Crimes of George Carlin
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Narrated by:
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Alan Sklar
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By:
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James Sullivan
About this listen
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 the 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.
©2010 Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff (P)2010 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Outstanding insight... Well read
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I nice pragmatic view of life.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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If you missed the HBO special, it's all here and it's all hysterical. George goes off on every subject under the sun and a few other planets too. Be the first one on your cell block to buy this great performance.
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Funny
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another classic Carlin
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Absolutely fantastic
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Parental Advisory
- Explicit Lyrics
- By: George Carlin
- Length: 53 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Okay, you might want to remove children under the age of nine from the room before listening to this brilliant album. When they turn 10, you might want to reconsider. Kids are going to learn this language sooner or later, so why not from George? It's Carlin's 12th comedy album, and most of it comes from his seventh HBO special Doin' It Again.
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George Carlin- The Greatest Observer of Mankind.
- By BusDriverNYC on 03-23-19
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All About Me!
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Wonderful and nostalgic
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Class Clown
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Comedian George Carlin's definitive monologue was delivered on this 1972 album, his third, in the form of Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on Television. The FCC and Supreme Court held the routine as the epitome of tastelessness, threatening to yank the license of any station that dare play it over public airwaves. So you know it has to be funny. Buy it today and shock your parents!
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Top 5 comedy album of all time
- By Kent on 06-24-08
By: George Carlin
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Napalm & Silly Putty
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- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Yes, George Carlin is here with more of what he did better than any other comic: uproarious observations, laser-targeted crankiness, linguistic legerdemain, and inspired weirdness. ("If the shoe fits, get another just like it." "When you sneeze, all the numbers in your head go up by one.") Napalm & Silly Putty is just what his fans have been waiting for—another generous helping of notions, nonsense, assertions, assumptions, mockery, merriment, silliness, sarcasm, and, to be sure, plenty of disturbing references and toxic alienation.
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Good, but not like the stand-up
- By Anonymous User on 10-10-21
By: George Carlin
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The Comedians
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In The Comedians, comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff brings to life a century of American comedy with real-life characters, forgotten stars, mainstream heroes and counterculture iconoclasts. Based on over 200 original interviews and extensive archival research, Nesteroff's groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past 100 years.
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Performance issues
- By E. A. Smith on 09-02-19
By: Kliph Nesteroff
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More Napalm and Silly Putty
- By: George Carlin
- Narrated by: George Carlin
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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A companion to the best selling Napalm and Silly Putty, George Carlin's More Napalm and Silly Putty picks up where the original left off, with more laser-sharp observations, tough questions, philosophical musings, linguistic legerdemain, and inspired weirdness in these unabridged excerpts from the thinking man's comic - and three-time Grammy winner!
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Entry-Level Carlin
- By Charles Elmore on 12-23-03
By: George Carlin
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What Am I Doing in New Jersey?
- By: George Carlin
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Overall
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Performance
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Here's George Carlin's 11th comedy album, recorded at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey, for an HBO special.
By: George Carlin
Critic reviews
What listeners say about Seven Dirty Words
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- Anonymous User
- 02-05-21
I miss George Carlin.
Great biography!! Narrator almost sounds like a Carlin character. I've always loved George Carlin, but listening to the book made me appreciate him and miss him so much. I really wish he was around today. Maybe the fact that Carlin is gone is another sign of our world's entropy.
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- M. Falcon
- 12-16-18
a fantastic rendering of a fantastic biography.
the narrator was fantastic. the only thing I could wish for would be to have a quick reference set of links to the works of George Carlin so I could enjoy them for myself :)
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- RRobinR
- 04-21-19
gotta love George Carlin
everything admit his life made is think, listen and notice stir we would have never pays any attention to. love the detail and insite.
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- Dubi
- 01-23-14
Carlin's CV with no Depth or Insight
There is nothing wrong with this book, it's just not what I wanted it to be. I love George Carlin and have quoted his bits my whole life (strange thing about hats -- wear one long enough, and it feels like it's not there, take it off ... and it feels like it's still there!). I was hoping to understand how he developed his unique brand of comic observation of modern life. But I discovered nothing remarkable and grew tired of listening to what amounted to a detailed long-form version of his CV.
It would have been fairly straightforward to have written in more of Carlin's actual comic bits, analyzing where in his history they came from. There are some short examples, like how he got his weatherman schtick from Bob and Ray, but not nearly enough, nor was it all that interesting. Again, nothing wrong with any of this, just nothing new for me, a big Carlin fan already familiar with is body of work as a stand-up, writer, and actor.
There is one section about halfway through that redeems the book -- the story of how Carlin developed his most famous act, the Seven Dirty Words of the title, and how that led to a Supreme Court case on First Amendment rights. That's what the entire book should have been like, achieving depth and insight into the analysis of the comedy and the fallout.
But even in that part of the book, I don't believe the author provided any fresh input directly from Carlin himself. Of course, Carlin had passed away by then, but even in quoting existing sources, or quoting Carlin's contemporaries, there is too little -- meanwhile, we get a full description of even the smallest roles in the worst movies he made, even some that were never released!
I've read similar books about other pop culture figures that I admire -- Woody Allen, J.D. Salinger, Harpo Marx, the Beatles, Paul Simon, Tiger Woods, Leonard Cohen, and others. I enjoyed all of those and anticipated a similar experience learning about Carlin's background and career. But this book feels like Carlin's sports reports -- "Here are some scores: 4-1, 3-2, 5-4, and a partial score, Baltimore 3." In other words, incomplete.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Jeffrey S. Eisenstein
- 11-19-20
A Great History of a GIANT!
The author took a subject that many people think they knew and shows them that they didn't.
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- Charles
- 12-23-13
narator sucks nothing new
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
if it was interesting and they audio didn't skip and was all in the same volume
What do you think your next listen will be?
sunny barger
What didn’t you like about Alan Sklar’s performance?
not produced
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
disappointment
Any additional comments?
proof listeners should be implemented
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- JustMe
- 12-08-18
Resume
This book doesn’t really get into who George was. It’s like listening to a resume being read with a quip thrown in here and there.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Alan
- 04-11-13
Very little news about Carlin here
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
If you're interested in a showbiz resume, this book gives the bare facts about Carlin's professional life
Has Seven Dirty Words turned you off from other books in this genre?
If a biographer does not have any special access either to the subject of the bio or to people who have inside information, then it's better to study the subject's own works.
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
I'm a huge fan of Carlin's work, so it was a great disappointment to find that there was so little new information about the man here.
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1 person found this helpful