Recalling those ‘seven words’

By JAMES GROB Courier sports editor

June 27, 2008 11:52 am

— I think I was in the sixth grade. My best friend Brian — who lived just up the street — knocked on the front door of our family’s house, and I could tell right away that he was hiding something under his jacket.
We hustled upstairs to my bedroom, unnoticed. I couldn’t wait to find out what he had.
No, it wasn’t booze, drugs or cigarettes. It wasn’t even a dirty magazine. Not this time, anyway.
It was a record album.
Half of us can still remember record albums. Before cassettes, before compact discs, before “music downloads” — whatever those are — there were these things called albums. They had cover art and were made of vinyl, they were big and black and shiny and round with grooves in them, and when they were new, they smelled good.
“You’ve got to listen to this,” my friend told me.
Our family record player was down in the living room — down where my parents were — so that was out of the question. My little sister had a record player in her room, where my sister was.
I gave her 50 cents to let us use her record player. I offered her another 50 cents if she would find somewhere else to be while we were using it. She held out for an even dollar. We compromised at 75 cents, but I don’t believe I ever paid it.
You hear that Sis? I still owe you three quarters.
I flipped the cover up on the record player — it was pink or yellow or something and had girlie stuff on it like dolls or unicorns, but we didn’t really mind at the time. Brian put the album on, and we adjusted the speed to “33.” Brian found the right groove on which to set the phonograph needle.
The selection was called “Seven Words.”
We listened, and we couldn’t believe what we were hearing — every dirty word we had ever known, plus a few we didn’t know, along with explanations of why those words couldn’t be repeated on television. It was hilarious. We laughed until our bellies ached.
That comedy bit by George Carlin became better known as “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV.” As kids, we memorized it and repeated it — when we were sure no parents were around. It became one of the most famous comedy bits of all time. It even became a footnote in United States Constitutional history about 30 years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court said that it was OK to ban radio stations from playing bits like “Seven Words” at times when children were likely to still be listening.
The entire world was trying to keep us sixth-graders from listening to George Carlin. Our parents wouldn’t allow it. Our teachers frowned upon it. Even the government of the United States was coming down on us.
So we felt like a bunch of rebels whenever we put that record album on. And we always laughed.
Carlin died Sunday of heart failure. He was 71. The news reminded me of my old friend Brian, that little record player of my sister’s and all the laughter.
It’s probably a shame that Carlin will be remembered most for that naughty comedy bit we listened to. His work was so much more than that. He was a master of humor and a master of the English language — classical speech as well as gutter speech — and he was a good guy with a lot of courage. He played games with language that no one had ever played before. Often, he made you think about things in a whole new way.
He could be offensive at times. Or he could be sweet and touch you deeply, just for a moment. Either way, he never held anything back.
His satirical bits went after a lot of the institutions people hold dear — starting with God and country, all the way down to family matters and potty training. I always figured that if my faith in a beloved institution wasn’t secure enough to withstand a little ribbing from a smart-mouth comedian, then it was my faith I needed to question, not the comedian.
My personal favorite Carlin bit wasn’t the dreaded “Seven Words” routine which made him a star. Instead, it was a routine he did that was squeaky clean — a comparison between the sports of baseball and football — how baseball is a “19th-century pastoral game” and football is a “20th-century technological struggle.”
“In baseball,” Carlin would say, “We have the seventh-inning stretch. In football, we have the two-minute WARNING. Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall — when everything’s DYING.”
I beg you to listen to the entire routine sometime. I promise you’ll laugh out loud.
Kind of strange, when you think about it. As kids, we risked everything just to laugh out loud. In sixth grade, we hid our George Carlin albums. We weren’t supposed to listen to them — we certainly weren’t supposed to have them — but we risked the punishment. We could have been grounded, spanked, belted, confined to our rooms — or worse.
We went to all that risk just for the promise of a laugh. Laughter must be pretty powerful stuff when people — even kids — will risk that much just for the promise of a laugh.
Seven words you can print in any newspaper?
Goodbye, Mr. Carlin. You will be missed.
Sports editor James Grob can be contacted at sports@ottumwacourier.com.

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