George Carlin, the recently deceased comic, was a national treasure. I know that because the many accolades published this week told me so. One of them directed me to this video of a show Carlin performed earlier this year for HBO. This was his opening:

I’d like to begin by saying, fuck Lance Armstrong. Fuck him and his balls and his bicycles and his steroids and his yellow shirts and the dumb, empty expression on his face. I’m tired of that asshole. And while you’re at it, fuck Tiger Woods, too. There’s another jackoff I can do without.

I’m tired of being told who to admire in this country. Aren’t you sick of being told who your heroes ought to be? Being told who you ought to be looking up to? I’ll choose my own heroes, thank you very much.

And fuck Dr. Phil, too. Dr. Phil said I should express my emotions, so that’s what I’m doing.

Tee-hee. Yeah, ol’ George was a funny fellow. Those are some rib-ticklers all right. But why am I wincing, instead of laughing?

I’m wincing because by the end of his career, Carlin had come to personify the evolutionary arc of stand-up comedy. At first, he was funny. Then he was funny and raunchy. By the end, he was just raunchy. All the humor had been leached out, replaced with free-floating anger and paranoia.

I have to wonder, as I read his words above, whether Carlin wasn’t secretly contemptuous of the people who turned out for his shows and guffawed at such knee-slappers as “fuck Lance Armstrong.” After all, he was much-admired while still alive, a darling of the media — yet there he was just a few months ago, declaring his disgust with a celebrity-obsessed society that jams “heroes” down our throats. Unless Carlin was so utterly lacking in self-awareness so as to not know he was one of the very people that others are told to admire, then he had to be sourly and privately amused by the adoration accorded him.

Then again, maybe Carlin was devoid of such self-awareness. Maybe he made no connection between his career and his words. If so — that’s funny.