Class Clown finally Graduates

I remember when George Carlin's album "Class Clown" was the ultimate hoodlum accessory. If your parents owned a copy, you snuck it out of the cabinet and took it downstairs to the basement when no one was looking. You played it on your portable record player with the volume turned way down, and snickered a quietly as you could. Then you recited the parts you could remember to your friends on the playground, solidifying your bad boy street cred.

At least, that's what I did. I was only 7 or so when "Class Clown" hit the streets, but even at that tender age I knew about it. My step-father was a big fan of stand-up, and I cut my teeth on his collection of Bill Cosby albums. The Cos was funny, but nothing prepared me for the scathing political content and blasphemous profanity of George Carlin. I had never laughed so hard.

He stood on the shoulders of Lenny Bruce, and pushed the envelope to a new, funnier, more honest place. George Carlin didn't invent profanity - he just made us own up to our daily use of it. I, for one, am fucking glad he did. He'll be missed at the Black Vatican.

Fisher Resigns

Bobby Fisher, the most flamboyant of American Chess Masters, is dead at 64. No cause of death is listed at this time, but he was reported to have been ill for some time.

My career as a chess hack began when I was 5 (my step father taught me the game) but I actually got interested in playing better when the Fischer/Spassky championship games were taking place in 1972 - I was 7 at the time. Fisher was a certifiable rock star - you could watch the games on TV, or listen to the move updates on the radio. My uncles had set up a small board in the living room and kept up with the games as they progressed. He was that famous.

Unfortunately, his genius consumed him. He was petulant, reclusive, dismissive, and in his later years, increasingly antisemitic. His vice-like grasp of Chess strategy was the opposite of his tenuous grip on reality; among other things, he believed a world-wide Jewish conspiracy was out to destroy him. His life provides us with a lesson about balance. His dedication to chess made him the greatest player in the world and maybe the greatest player ever, but it appears to have cost him dearly.

If you're a chess player, today would be a good day to get out your board and play a game or two...