Carlin the rare comedian who makes people think

To keep them laughing is the goal of every comedian. To keep them thinking has been an additional bonus when the comedian is George Carlin. Onstage Saturday night for two shows at the Maine Center for the Arts, Carlin proved himself as nimble as ever when it comes to his outrageous brand of take-offs and put-ons.

Anti-abortionists and moral crusaders were the target of his first bit. He labeled both parties “anti-woman,” proposed that they see women’s primary role as “brood mare for the state,” and queried: “How come when it’s us, it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken, it’s an omelet?” The notion of “sanctity of life,” he added, is shamelessly selective. It doesn’t, after all, apply to the lives of other animals when humans are hungry, and whoever heard of a movement to “save the tumors?”

Standing on another political soapbox, Carlin took on capital punishment. It’s a waste to put drug dealers in the electric chair, he said, because they’re not afraid to die. It’s the bankers who laundered the money who should get the hot seat because it actually scares them. Carlin went on to describe how various forms of capital punishment broadcast on cable TV could be used to balance the national budget and lower taxes.

For nearly 90 minutes, Carlin soared through his routine at breakneck speed. The audience, which numbered 1,200 for the first show and 950 for the second, hardly had time to breathe between laughs. In addition to the political shtick, he zipped through the more secular topics of the oddities of the English language and the unspoken universalities of human experience (such as looking at your wristwatch and not being able to recall the time immediately afterward). He examined everyday expressions, such as “you know where you can stick it” (“Suppose you don’t? Suppose you’re a new guy”) and “more than happy” (“a dangerous mental condition”) and “fine and dandy” (“I’m never both of those things at the same time”).

Some 30 years into his career, Carlin is still a whirlwind of intelligent humor. Even when he repeated his ongoing and most famous bit of “seven words you can never say on TV,” Carlin was witty and skillful.

Dennis Blair, an L.A. comedian who opened for Carlin, was unremarkable with hackneyed jokes about the Bobbitts, politicians and pop culture. The audience seemed to generally enjoy Blair’s unoriginal brand of humor, but when Blair shouted out, “What do we watch?” one audience member mistook the words for “What do we want?” and replied, “George Carlin!”