George Carlin Has Jumped the Shark
I have always admired the brilliant work of George Carlin. Along with Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce, he is the preeminent comedian of the last half-century. Though he started doing staid routines for supper clubs, 'round about '69 or so he realized that something was happening in the culture of which he wanted to be a part. And so was born the "hippy-dippy" Carlin persona that he stuck with until the early 80s, when he gradually reinvented himself as the world's funniest curmudgeon. The pinnacle of this new act came in 2002 with his HBO special You Are All Diseased.
It wasn't "vintage" Carlin - it was, amazingly for a man in his sixties, entirely new Carlin. But one thing remained, an iconoclastic and contrarian strain of anti-establishmentarianism that resulted in multiple, very funny jokes basically sticking it to "the man." Here's an example:
And what's with this shit about smoking cigars? Arrogant, yuppie assholes suckin' on a big, brown dick. And I know what you Freudians are going to say: 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.' Yeah? And sometimes it's a big, brown dick!
With this resurgence I eagerly awaited each of his next two specials, only to be grievously disappointed each time. The fire was out, and his crotchety old man act no longer seemed like an act. But nothing prepared me for what I received in my e-mail in-box last night, and what it seems to suggest about Carlin's state of mind. But first, some background.
Over the last month or so I've been posting videos to YouTube. Only one has been a real video, a filmed image of myself. The rest of them have consisted of groups of title cards on which I've written various jokes and bits of business. Most of them last no more than 20 seconds or so. One of them contained the following joke on two title cards:
"When two bald men sit together, they tend to make an ass of themselves."
I first heard this joke in a YouTube clip of an old (1972) Dick Cavett TV special that included an interview of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I assumed that, as per usual, Cavett was quoting some long-ago comedian from the golden age, like Groucho Marx or Jimmy Durante, and therefore felt no compunction about using the joke. The clip with the joke was up for just over three weeks, and got a whopping 109 views. The search tags for the clip were "Yul Brynner Telly Savalas bald men." The title was "Bald Is Sexy, Except When It's Not." And last night I got an e-mail from YouTube with the title "DMCA Violation." "DMCA" stands for Digital Millenium Copyright Act, so I knew it was serious. When I opened the e-mail I found the following:
Dear Member: This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by George Carlin claiming that this material is infringing:
Bald Is Sexy, Except When It's Not: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFloLib3AF4
Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide. [emphasis added]
I cannot for the life of me figure out how "George Carlin" (most likely one of his lawyers) found that clip. YouTube gets two million uploads a day. So how did they come across some schmuck who inadvertantly used one of his jokes without attribution?? I'm guessing that I was ratted out by somebody, but that's not the issue. The issue is that with this kind of pettiness Carlin himself has now become "the man" he has made a career of deriding. "Arrogant yuppies"?? How arrogant is it to report as "copyright infringement" the posting of a single (and very, very OLD) joke in a short clip? Very arrogant. Carlin has, at long last and sadly, become a braying hypocrite. But I suppose I shouldn't blame him too much. Eventually our system gets everybody.
It wasn't "vintage" Carlin - it was, amazingly for a man in his sixties, entirely new Carlin. But one thing remained, an iconoclastic and contrarian strain of anti-establishmentarianism that resulted in multiple, very funny jokes basically sticking it to "the man." Here's an example:
And what's with this shit about smoking cigars? Arrogant, yuppie assholes suckin' on a big, brown dick. And I know what you Freudians are going to say: 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.' Yeah? And sometimes it's a big, brown dick!
With this resurgence I eagerly awaited each of his next two specials, only to be grievously disappointed each time. The fire was out, and his crotchety old man act no longer seemed like an act. But nothing prepared me for what I received in my e-mail in-box last night, and what it seems to suggest about Carlin's state of mind. But first, some background.
Over the last month or so I've been posting videos to YouTube. Only one has been a real video, a filmed image of myself. The rest of them have consisted of groups of title cards on which I've written various jokes and bits of business. Most of them last no more than 20 seconds or so. One of them contained the following joke on two title cards:
"When two bald men sit together, they tend to make an ass of themselves."
I first heard this joke in a YouTube clip of an old (1972) Dick Cavett TV special that included an interview of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I assumed that, as per usual, Cavett was quoting some long-ago comedian from the golden age, like Groucho Marx or Jimmy Durante, and therefore felt no compunction about using the joke. The clip with the joke was up for just over three weeks, and got a whopping 109 views. The search tags for the clip were "Yul Brynner Telly Savalas bald men." The title was "Bald Is Sexy, Except When It's Not." And last night I got an e-mail from YouTube with the title "DMCA Violation." "DMCA" stands for Digital Millenium Copyright Act, so I knew it was serious. When I opened the e-mail I found the following:
Dear Member: This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by George Carlin claiming that this material is infringing:
Bald Is Sexy, Except When It's Not: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFloLib3AF4
Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide. [emphasis added]
I cannot for the life of me figure out how "George Carlin" (most likely one of his lawyers) found that clip. YouTube gets two million uploads a day. So how did they come across some schmuck who inadvertantly used one of his jokes without attribution?? I'm guessing that I was ratted out by somebody, but that's not the issue. The issue is that with this kind of pettiness Carlin himself has now become "the man" he has made a career of deriding. "Arrogant yuppies"?? How arrogant is it to report as "copyright infringement" the posting of a single (and very, very OLD) joke in a short clip? Very arrogant. Carlin has, at long last and sadly, become a braying hypocrite. But I suppose I shouldn't blame him too much. Eventually our system gets everybody.
posted by Unknown | 10:59 AM
3 Comments:
A quick Google search doesn't turn up any references to this joke in association with Carlin. Did the notice include any details on what material you were supposedly infringing?
It might be interesting to challenge to claim if you can do so without spending any money. Or maybe the Electronic Frontier Foundation would lend assistance.
The joke certainly seems generic enough that Carlin would have a very hard time proving genuine copyright infringement. Of course the whole point of the DMCA notice is the expectation that most people don't want the bother that a challenge would take.
Hi Creosote,
Thanks for the advice and encouragement. Countering a DMCA infringement complaint at YouTube is EXTREMELY onerous. Really just a pain in the ass. So I simply sent customer service an e-mail explaining that I was unaware that it was Carlin's joke, and inquired as to whether it was actually Carlin who made the complaint. Still waiting for their reply.
If I had to venture a guess, it sounds like George Carlin (who's my effin favorite) somehow came across it and was worried that people would think him a ripoff artist based on that one joke. Sad. I hope he didn't think that lame-ass joke was his crowning achievement or anything. He's got way better shit than that.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home