George Carlin's American Dream Featured Marijuana

The new documentary series "George Carlin's American Dream" on HBO tells us much about the comedian, including his love for marijuana.  

Carlin's mother Mary fled his violent, alcoholic father with his older brother Patrick when George was just a baby. He grew up a latchkey kid with a single working mother in what he calls "White Harlem" (Morningside Heights) in New York City, spending a lot of time alone. He watched Danny Kaye, Bob Hope and Red Skelton movies and emulated Kaye's facile facial and vocal expressions, while listening to comedians like Jack E. Leonard on the radio and deciding he wanted to be one. 

It could be said of Carlin, and our society, that the Catholic Church no longer letting the wheat in communion wafers go moldy with ergot (my theory, confirmed by others) led to seeking the promised transformative experience of First Communion in other drugs. When he didn't transform in church, he began to question all authority. "I think I saw religion as the first big betrayal," Carlin said. At Corpus Christi school he was told, "You will be in the state of grace, and you will feel God's presence. When none of that happened, I began to see that they were lying to me."  

Carlin began smoking pot when he was 13 and says he smoked daily from the age of 15, including before all his TV appearances. He quit school in 9th grade and left home at the age of 17, joining the Air Force and working as a DJ until being discharged for "showing a certain amount of disrespect for an NCO."

Lenny Bruce was an influence, and Carlin was in the audience when Bruce was arrested for obscenity, also going to jail when he refused to show his ID. He began his comedy career with a partner wearing a suit and tie and playing goofy characters, already telling stoner jokes. He went solo with characters like the stoned Hippie Dippie Weatherman. "Tomorrow's high is whenever I get up," was one of his lines. 

Meanwhile he married after a whirlwind courtship with a hostess at a comedy club in Dayton, Ohio. Brenda went on the road with him as his manager, press agent and chief cheerleader. They had a daughter and struggled with finances until Carlin hit it big on the John Davidson, Merv Griffith and Dinah Shore shows. 

The family moved to LA and George began touring extensively, leaving Brenda to be a stay-at-home mom in a strange city with no role in his career and no work of her own. She turned to alcohol, with their daughter Kelly saying she eventually started ordering cases of wine for her mom. George later said his wife's alcoholism was a factor in him starting to do cocaine, which "changed everything," said Kelly. "Cocaine makes you feel like a new man. Unfortunately that new man wants to do a couple of lines," Carlin joked.  

After gaining enlightenment from LSD and mescaline, Carlin began to question his career path and became increasingly disenchanted with the variety shows he was doing. He talked his brother Patrick—who is interviewed in the film wearing a 420 T-shirt—into appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show with him, before which the two "smoked a whole lot of dope." One of his jokes from that appearance: "Anyone who is against censorship should be silenced forever."

OBSCENITY AND TRANSFORMATION

Carlin was fired from a Vegas gig for the joke, "I usually don't say shit. I smoke it but I don't say it." He went to Brenda and said he wanted to play only colleges and coffeehouses where he could be uncensored, cutting his yearly pay from $250K to $12K. She said, "I'll do your press kit." 

Carlin took his act to another level of self expression, no longer doing characters and continuing to do his amazing vocal techniques. Flip Wilson produced his first albums on the record label he started so that comedians could record their uncensored acts. Albums like "Class Clown" and "Toldeo Window Box" made Carlin the top comedian in the US. 

In the series, Stephen Colbert calls Carlin "The Beatles of Comedy" for his level of influence and the way he transformed from a "Love Me Do" kind of comedian into something else altogether. Also interviewed in the series are Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Patton Oswalt, Judy Gold, Stephen Wright, and W. Kamau Bell. Bette Midler, who appeared as an opening act for Carlin, is interviewed, saying Carlin's act (which required him being removed from the venue because of the crowd's reaction) was life altering for her. 

After Carlin was arrested for growing marijuana when police entered his home while following Brenda for drunken driving, the couple was interviewed about drug use. George said that all he did was "fruit juice and a little marijuana" which he called "really quite safe." Brenda said that if their daughter wanted to use a drug, marijuana would be the one to choose. "Perhaps she would trust us" if they were honest about their own drug use, George said, adding, "We're a drug-oriented society." 

When Carlin was arrested for doing his "7 Dirty Words" bit in Milwaukee, he was carrying weed and cocaine in his pockets. Brenda, being told backstage that the cops were there to make the arrest, went onstage and whispered a warning to George, who was able to dump his stash before being handcuffed. He was exonerated at trial for creating a public nuisance after an assistant DA who was in the crowd affirmed that not only did the joke not cause a nuisance, the crowd gave him a standing ovation. The bit lead to a Supreme Court case condoning censorship after someone filed a complaint with the FCC over it being broadcast on radio. 

Carlin was the first guest host on Saturday Night Live in 1975, when he did his football/baseball comparison bit, starting with, "In football they moved the hash marks in. Guys found 'em and smoked 'em anyway." Cheech Marin calling him "obsolete" steeled his resolve to become even more relevant. 

In Episode Two of "American Dream," Carlin transforms once more to an even deeper and more profound level of self-expression, starting with the first-ever HBO stand-up special. "The Baby Boomers went from 'Do Your Own Thing' to 'Just Say No,' and from cocaine to Rogaine," he observed. His manager said there would often be 20 joints on the stage after a show, because people would throw them in appreciation. "He took 'em sometimes," he added. 

Meanwhile, Brenda entered a treatment program and gave up alcohol, returning as his manager and producer. As shown in the series, George thanked her sweetly and profusely upon accepting one of many awards, harkening to the time she accepted a huge cut in his pay so that he could follow his dream, even though it meant losing the house they planned to purchase as their first home, already in escrow. 

Carlin's comedy took a darker turn in his later years, confronting death after Brenda died of liver cancer in 1997. He survived two heart attacks, leading him to finally give up cocaine and cut down on his marijuana use, too. In an interview with Stewart, Carlin said, "I have always a joint near me" and that he used a hit of marijuana to "punch up" his writing. When Roseanne Barr interviewed him, she tried to get him to admit he was an optimist. "Scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist," he said, admitting he was one. 

Four days before he died in 2008, it was announced that Carlin would be awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Kelly, who has written a book titled, A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up with George, was an executive producer on "American Dream." The series is dedicated to Patrick, who died three days before 4/20 this year. "My dear Uncle Patrick has moved onto the spirit world," Kelly tweeted. "He’s currently spinning tunes, smoking a jay w/my Aunt Marlane and shooting the shit w/ his brother." Many of Carlin's 14 HBO specials are viewable on the platform.