Paris, early 20th Century; a Dadaist reading performance (before the tomatoes were launched).'It’s not Dada that is nonsense--but the essence of our age that is nonsense.' ------ The Dadaists
***************
That was the most provocative question Saturday night when social commentator, aka comedian, George Carlin appeared locally. Some present got more than they bargained for. Or maybe not. Perhaps some who came, came not to listen, but to speak.
It seems the disenchantment for certain "oddience" members began when Carlin dismissed as just "another empty slogan" the phrase popularized one or two hundred years ago, "God Bless America!" That's when the first boos broke out.
While El Paso is a large city, that's no direct correlation to its mind size. This became more evident as Carlin postulated God probably doesn't extend most favorite nation status to anyone, even Americans. That really upset a few of the impression that God actually does.
I wasn't present Saturday evening. I just read the review in yesterday's paper. Apparently, this part of the monologue became so totally unbearable to one oddience member he eventually rushed the the stage, pointed at Carlin and shouted something (unintelligible to the reviewer), thus interrupting Carlin's monologue.
The thought that "military cemeteries are packed with delusional soldiers who believed God was on our side," was the launching point where Carlin's reasoning crossed into the outspoken protester's faith. And it was about then the first "F-bomb" was launched from another in the oddience.
But as the boldest among those was extricated, expunged or some form of "exed" (maybe "exited" is the word I'm groping for), the audience cheered. Carlin, unmoved, remarked, "Who cares, tonight he's in the minority."
Save for the missing raw eggs and rotten tomatoes, it sounded like an excellent few moments of "Dada."
4 comments:
I wish I'd been there. What IS it with these a-holes who feel the need to interupt an entertainment event to spread their personal ideology. The audience didn't pay to see them, they paid for Carlin, who is a known commodity, so it's not like they didn't know what to expect from him on stage.
I found your final Carlin remark most chilling ... "TONIGHT he's in the minority". I guess all we have is one night at a time.
I figure that most of the audience was from Fort Bliss. That would account for the rightwing bias of the audience.
¡yo soy Horsedooty!
I think we went collectively nuts eight years ago. Hopefully we're coming out of our illness. I am an old atheist leaning agnostic, but the god bless the ball game, god bless the dinner, god bless the war is all such horse shit. If god exists she probably thinks we're nuts.
Utah: I think I addressed recently how God(dess) might manifest in a parallel universe just one or two over from our own. (Actually, I think it was three over.)
Post a Comment