He may be an old duffer, but George Carlin still has fire in his belly.The much admired American comic was in fine form Sunday night. Small, wiry -- wearing a long-sleeved black T-shirt and jeans -- Carlin skewered everything from Dr. Phil to the practice of swearing on the Bible to people who imagine their relatives are in heaven watching over them.The last notion appeared to especially annoy the 69-year-old comedian."Your parents could be in hell right now," he growled in his trademark New York-inflected voice. "Your dad, for sure."Carlin delivered a 70-minute set of mostly new material, occasionally consulting typed notes on a table beside him. He seemed somewhat apologetic for not having everything committed to memory. But it was obvious Carlin remains in fine form; still able to conjure up outrage at hypocrisy and stupidity, still burning with a Lenny Bruce-inspired desire to upset the apple cart for the pleasure of seeing the apples tumble.The comic revealed his attitude from the outset. After explaining he's performing a new show, he said: "I hope you like it... but if you don't, I don't give a s--t!"And then, as a sort of palate cleanser, Carlin dispensed a few spurts of venom. Screw Lance Armstrong and his cancer-addled testicle. Screw Dr. Phil. And screw some other folk, too (only Carlin didn't use the word "screw").He lamented a world in which a 14-year-old school boy would have sex with his female teacher, then actually tell the police instead of inwardly rejoicing. He poked fun at being old. Carlin says aging doesn't bother him. He doesn't mind drooling pints of drool. He enjoys crossing the names of dead people out of his address book, although if they're good friends, he leaves them in for six weeks out of respect.There are plenty of things George Carlin dislikes. Among them: parents who yak on about their kids ("Let me tell you folks, nobody cares about your children except you!"), folks who insist on telling you about their weird dreams, those corporate answering machines that insist "Your phone call is important to us."No, says Carlin, it certainly is not.He expressed disappointment in a complacent age in which most people are content to fiddle with their electronic gadgets. As he put it: "Everyone's got a cellphone that makes pancakes."If there was a misstep in the show, it was a series of dirty jokes told mid-set -- including a couple of incest gags -- that seemed less than witty and rather arbitrary.Aside from that, Carlin was unrelentingly impressive, especially for someone poised to enter his eighth decade. If there was a unifying theme to his shtick, it was the importance of not accepting the status quo -- and especially authority -- without thinking critically."People don't question things," he said. "I miss that."Before he left, Carlin promised we'd eventually see a much smoother version of this show on HBO. There is no need. Decades of performing, dating back to the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s, have left the comedian with a comic chops any novice would die for.
