"My God has a bigger dick than your God."

Which is the reason we fight wars, and isn't that the truth.

We don't really need another remembrance of George Carlin, especially from someone who did not know him personally. But I can't help it: he is my moral compass in times of doubt and uncertainty. What do I think about war? What Carlin thinks. About abortion? What Carlin thinks. About our arrogant self-importance? What Carlin thinks.

I know Carlin better than I know Richard Pryor (two of the stand-up trinity, see below), mostly because of Carlin's HBO work. I first saw Pryor in Live on the Sunset Strip and after it was over, after I had left the theater, I heard for days and days—still do, actually—Pryor's crack pipe talking shit. That was one seductive pipe. For me, this is the holiest piece (moment, sketch, bit, routine, whatever) of stand-up, ever: Pryor the junkie, scorching himself at the alter of his funky and funny and possessive pipe, and Jim Brown, hovering, unmoved, asking, "Whatcha gon do?" Pryor talking shit to Jim Brown. "Whatcha gon do"?

Pryor headed to the movies; Carlin, to HBO. Yes, Carlin was in a movie here and there, and he famously hosted the first ever Saturday Night Live. But I got to know him from "Playing With Your Head," "Jammin' in New York," "You Are All Diseased," and most of his other HBO specials, fourteen in all.

I missed Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce and don't have the energy or inclination to excavate their work. They seem too tightly imprisoned by the newspaper headlines banging around in their respective intellects.

Of course I saw, before I saw anyone else, Rodney Dangerfield. That was my time—Ed Sullivan and all that—and my age. And Dangerfield was funny but, pardon the pun, not dangerous. Dangerfield kicked in doors for many comics but he never really walked through the one that mattered: his career is significant mostly as a career-maker.

I know of only three stand-up comics who either were (Pryor, Carlin) or are (Chris Rock) dangerously funny, without-a-net funny. And it's not just because they tell the truth. Lots of comics do that; but they lack the sheer truth-telling ferocity of these three. Mostly, they lack the ability to see the shit-house crazy man behind the curtain, pulling all these absurd levers. One minute a man dives into a river and saves three drowning children; down the street another fine citizen rapes and tortures and then murders a young boy. As Carlin would say, "you can't make this shit up." True. And you can't discern it and make it funny unless you're a special kind of genius, like Carlin.

[Note here: what and whom we find funny are highly subjective. Dave Chappell may be as talented as anyone, but I view him as a sketch comic. His stand-up is funny as hell, but I haven't seen enough to place him in this threesome. He'd be the next logical choice, I think. Others might offer up Bill Hicks or, say, Lewis Black. Or maybe Sam Kinison, who is laugh out loud funny, but his comedy is mostly volume. I also realize a case could be made for Eddie Murphy, but he, like Pryor, is an actor and not a standup comic anymore. Robert Klein. Jerry Seinfeld. Both funny, but they don't make you feel uneasy.]