How Jammin’ in New York holds up 25 years later

In the wee minutes of his Jammin’ in New York standup concert, George Carlin referenced the novel news coverage assets of the time. Fittingly enough, through the show’s structure, he unwittingly built a wise suggestion for ingesting the type of dominant media that would follow and maintain firm root long after his 2008 death.

Carlin performed Jammin’ in New York on April 25, 1992. At the time, America was preparing for an election with an incumbent president defending his office in the wake of a war.

Of that Persian Gulf campaign, Carlin told his live theater and HBO audience, “It’s the first war we ever had that was on every channel, plus cable.”

From there, he would stay on the lone time-specific topic of the show for seven minutes, then move to a varied stream of pacifying and provocative substance. Nearly all of it remains relevant in 2017, and much of it is more apparent because cable has proliferated since the ’90s.

Moreover, the way he put the peacemaking part in the de facto middle third of the program warrants as much contemplation as the edgy, yet equalized, sociopolitical content that he closed with.

With nearly every cable subscription now bearing a triple- or even quadruple-digit channel count, there is plenty more new programming than just metaphorical and literal war coverage. There are also the segments and outlets where one will realize nothing has changed since, in Jammin’, Carlin observed, “People add extra words when they want things to sound more important than they really are.”

Through media and through firsthand experience, one with a keen-enough ear cannot go long without hearing one of Carlin’s numerous examples. To wit, he said in the same bit, “Weathermen on television talk about shower activity. Sounds more important than showers. I even heard one guy on CNN talk about a rain event.”

Entertainment network promos likewise recycle the phrases “premiere event,” “series event” or “movie event.” Ads for shopping centers are prone to touting a “sales event.”

Even without Carlin in the picture today, he pointed us to reliable spots for short-order comic relief amidst an otherwise psychologically draining media landscape. In the same undertaking, he certified the importance of political discussion by not shying away from it.

In his posthumously published autobiography, Last Words, Carlin reflected, “Jammin’ in New York has always been my favorite HBO show, but it was more than just a favorite. It lifted me up to a new plateau, a good plateau. It became my personal best, the one I had to beat, the template for future HBOs in terms of artistry, craft and risk taking.”

By venturing into the more topical, touchy realms as he did through this show, Carlin could have illustrated the adage that one’s greatest risk is not taking one. Instead, he balanced his boldness to fulfill his stated mission to draw laughs while encouraging critical thinking.

Of the opening rant on the Gulf War, he insisted in Last Words, “There was less an unpatriotic ring to it than a loud dissenting one.” He was also apt to remind everyone that, in the midst of vulgarly critiquing the invasion and the concept of war in general, he mixed in a proclamation to slake the jingoes. There was a time, he noted, when our armed forces mobilized against Germany to stop it from stealing “our job” of ruling the world.

Seeing how military action has hardly ceased to be a polarizing hot-button topic, one need only update a few proper nouns in Carlin’s speech to fit it into some current events. Naturally, the evergreen and historical touches would be just as relevant.

We hear the same classic equal-opportunity offenses when Jammin’ in New York‘s latter one-third hour addresses domestic issues. The term “conservative” gets a borderline pejorative connotation when the topic is homelessness. The adjective “liberal” receives the same treatment when the subject shifts to environmental protection.

With that much unwavering evenhandedness, Carlin comes across as infinitely more flexible than most politicians are perceived and portrayed (sometimes rightfully so). But even for those who cringe at half of the topical material, solace comes through a simple reminder that this is an overt comedy act.

Moreover, in the middle of Jammin’, Carlin epitomized the “craft” he wrote of in his self-assessment. Rather than continue to rotate the heat lamp between the two political wings of his audiences, he gave it a rest and cooled the air with nearly 25 straight minutes of day-to-day common threads in American life.

He would employ this same basic tactic — even repeating its middle positioning in the show — in his post-9/11 standup special, Complaints and Grievances. And today, cable-news consumers are wisely watching their health if they emulate the pattern. With inevitable aggravation coming from any network of any leaning, one must click over to a game show, sitcom or sportscast for periodic politics breathers.

Those who follow this formula never turn their backs on the important content altogether. They merely prepare themselves to absorb the next serving with less mounting anxiety and anguish.

What do you know? Carlin was laying out the ideal TV timetable and pyramid four years before CNN had any major company in 24-hour news. And he garnered a Grammy and CableACE Award in the process.

As it happened, after Fox News and MSNBC came along, Carlin would appear on both networks. With each interview, he reinforced his commitment to, as he said that 1992 night in his native Manhattan, “Stirring up the (stuff) is something I like to do from time to time, but I also like to know that I can come back to these little things we have in common.”

And we like to know that we can keep going back to the rich trail of talk he left us.