It was only coincidence that I was watching this special the day after George Carlin died recently. I know there is a sudden rush now to see all his old stuff as if he was a relative who we never spent enough time with but for me it was just something that I had recorded and had taken my time getting round to. I'm not a massive fan of Carlin but I have seen parts of his career that I have thought were really smart, insightful and funny.
Although it has its moments and plenty of energy, You Are All Diseased is not among his better word, indeed it is surprisingly weak. The only other review on this site that has pointed this out has been roundly slated via the "useful" voting system and I imagine it will be worse now due to talking ill of the dead but it is hard to avoid seeing the show for what it mostly is. And what that is is an angry rant that is surprisingly weak in validity and humour. I'm all for angry comedy and I think the more acerbic the better but I need to be able to understand the point being made behind it, even if the routine ends up in extreme examples, if it is built on a good point then it works.
Here though too many of Carlin's rants are built on unreasonable points from the very start and it takes away from how interesting it is to listen to. It begins at the beginning with a rant against hygiene. In that he rails against the basic hygiene habits everyone should have and it risks losing him the viewer as one starts to think "well, hang on a minute" about what is being said. Here and there he makes really good points in his angry rant but too much of it seems to be anger for anger's sake with illogical arguments and (in some cases) hypocrisy, as the basis. What is worse is that a lot of the humour seems dependant wholly on swearing, shock value and energy to carry it. Of course this is not wholly a criticism because he does work this angle really well and the crowd do love him for it, just for me I was laughing at this and I didn't think the crowd were so much as they were "reacting" to the delivery.
Carlin may be gone but he has left behind him some very work from his career; problem here is that I don't consider You Are All Diseased is among it. Many will disagree and I salute them for it and think them lucky to have had more fun than I, but for me this is quite weak stuff from someone capable of much more.
