A Carlin Home Companion (39 page)

“And for all of you who have already said, ‘If there is anything that you need, please ask me'—well, I now have all your phone numbers, and you will be getting a call from us in a few weeks. I'm sure I can find something for you to do around the house.

“Okay, enough of that shit. Let's start with a little video.”

The afternoon was filled with videos of Dad's most epic career moments, and with people talking about how much he had touched their lives. Jerry read the instructions Dad had left for the memorial, and talked a bit about their forty years working together on the road. Theresa got up and told a funny story about accidentally seeing my dad naked one day, and how she'd never seen an ass so white. Patrick talked about how Dad was always the hippest guy in the room, and the most generous brother you could have. Bill Maher talked about how Dad was the rabbit that he'd always chased in his career—how Dad always was out in front—and how he didn't know what he'd do without that rabbit now. Dennis Carlin talked about the things my dad had taught him about life.

Jack Burns stood up in the beautiful sunshine-filled backyard and started with, “The family would like to thank you all for braving the brutal weather today,” and got a huge laugh. Both Lewis Black and Garry Shandling shared how their own courage to move forward in their careers had only happened because of the kind words my dad had said to them about their work. Kenny Rankin managed to sing “Here's That Rainy Day” even though he was crying. And Spanky not only sang the blues, but also told a great story my dad had shared with her decades ago. He had told her about being at Ed Sullivan's apartment for a party in the sixties, and taking a big shit in the bathroom. He then explained that the shit was so big it wouldn't flush down the toilet, and Dad, not wanting to leave it in the bowl, took his eyeglasses off and used them to break the turd up. I think the audience was a bit shocked by the story, but it was raw and very funny. My dad would have loved it.

Sally, having pulled herself together beautifully, shared her charming and funny self—the Sally my dad adored—while telling a few sweet stories about their life together.

Then I got up to speak. Here are my words from that day:

“I have gotten countless emails this past week from fans—friends and complete strangers around the globe. Many have talked about how my father changed their lives in some way—helped them wake up, made them laugh, and one woman even said that Dad had converted her Catholic mother after only one listening of
Class Clown
.

“There were also some messages that said something like, ‘The world has lost a great man, but you have lost your dad. Thank you for sharing him with the whole world.' These took my breath away. I had never really thought of it that way before—I was sharing him with you. This brought me solace and peace. When you grow up in the glow of such an immense force like my father, someone who has made such a huge dent, you start to think that his public impact is the only thing that he was really here to achieve—I know, a fucked-up thought, but it is where the mind can go at times.

“But this week I got a complete reframe of my whole life. I now get what the whole world got to have of him and his impact. I, of course, got that part of him, too. I, too, loved his work, cheered him on when he said the things that I wished I had the balls to say, was shocked by him, scolded by him, and profoundly amused by him.

“But here's the shift for me—that what I got from my dad, no one else could ever get. I was his daughter, I was his only child, I was it, the receiver of something most precious—his fatherly love. And so I thought today I would share some of the gifts that came through his fatherly love. I guess I'm used to sharing him with others, and don't worry, I know that these gifts are for me.

“Here are seven of the seven thousand things he taught me:

“Number one: It's okay to eat pancakes for dinner. When I was really young—four or five—and Mom wasn't around, Dad would make for dinner the only thing he knew how to cook—pancakes. And I remember it impacted me in the same way as if he had just magically turned night into day. He taught me that anything is possible.

“Number two: Music. Some of my most vivid memories from childhood are of Dad teaching me about music; starting at around four years old, hanging with Dad in his office or wherever while he worked, music was always playing—early Stones, Cream,
The White Album
. He traveled on the road in those days with vinyl records and a small turntable. His vinyl collection was huge—hundreds of albums. He always said that it was
my
collection. He made good on that about seven years ago when he gave it to me. It is one of my most treasured possessions.

“He was so passionate about his music if I woke up in the middle of the night and noticed that he was awake, I would join him in the living room. He would take off his headphones, say to me, ‘You have to hear this,' and put them on me. One night he sat me down and played the whole album of
Tubular Bells
for me. I had no idea what it was, but it blew my mind.

“Number three: Of course my dad would be remiss if he didn't teach me what I'm sure every comic teaches their child.…” I then crossed my eyes, patted my head, rubbed my stomach, and moved my feet crisscross across the stage. And then I did an artificial fart under my arm.

“Number four: Walk down the street like you own it. Coming from the rough streets of New York, this was a lesson of paramount importance to him. I remember being eight years old, and we had just moved to Venice in 1971, and it was a neighborhood filled with nothing but bikers, hippies, and Russian immigrants. So Dad took me out for a walk the first week we lived there and taught me—actually demonstrated—how to walk down the street so, as he put it, ‘no one would fuck with you.'”

I continued. “Number five: It is pronounced
prim
-er, not
pry
-mer, and
fort
e, not
for
-tay.

“Number six: Treat all people as equal. Another huge lesson, and it showed up in many forms. Two of which are: history lessons about the struggle of black people in America; and him modeling kindness and respect to all people, especially those who may be helping or serving you. He physically showed me how to properly tip a person—how to fold up the bill so it is a nice little sliver, and then just let it stick out enough so the person can see it coming and receive it with dignity. If anyone needs more details, see me later.

“Number seven: You can say the word ‘fuck,' but not at school or in front of other kids' parents. Yes, he was a man who loved to cross limits, but he didn't want it to ever hurt
my
way in the world.

“I just want to finish here with a few words about legacy. Now, I know that part of my dad didn't think about things like legacies, and yet I also know that a part of him did—I mean, he was only human. And I don't know what he would think about me talking to you about this, but he's not here to make sense of this for me, so I am doing the best I can.

“So here is what I have to say about it:

“First, being my father's daughter, I looked up the etymology of the word ‘legacy' the other night. The first thing I found was that it was from the Old French, circa 1375, meaning ‘a body of persons sent on a mission.' I really like that. It's not about him. It's about us.

“Each of us knows in our hearts what that mission is that he has sent us on, that he has been such a model of. It may be to speak your truth, or find the line and cross it, or be kind to everyone you meet, or just make someone laugh. You choose.

“And make him proud.”

A warm sense of satisfaction filled me up, and I knew that if he'd been there, he'd have been proud of me and of what I'd said. I felt complete. But there was one more piece of business.

I resumed. “As much as I would love to have the last word here, I feel it's only fitting that we let my dad have it today.” We then rolled the clip of him doing “Modern Man.”

As I watched him perform, it hit me again what a genius he was. His insight, artistry, poetics, and showmanship were unsurpassed. The world was going to miss his unique contribution to the big conversation about what is real and important and funny about life. As the video came to an end, it became clear how poignant the ending of the piece was when he said, “I'm hanging in, there ain't no doubt. And I'm hanging tough, over and out.”

And then he took a bow.

Over and out—yes indeed.

*   *   *

It was perfect. I knew that we had sent my dad off in a beautiful way. There'd been a funny story about shitting, Bill Maher had gotten emotional, and there'd been a few mentions of the “Big Electron,” but not a single one about God.

Now was the hard part—the rest of my life without him.

Feeling not quite ready for that to start yet, I invited my close friends, family, and Spanky and her band to come down to my house for the after party. I mean, this was a Carlin memorial. There had to be an after party.

We brought the leftover food, and we had some drinks. My uncle rolled some joints, and we all gathered in the studio space in our backyard. Spanky took a chair in the center of the room, and she was flanked by her guitar player, John, and her daughter, DeeCee. She and the band began to play and sing some songs. She sang the blues, some standards, and then some sixties classics. I knew there was magic happening when everyone sang along to “California Dreamin'” in perfect harmony. I was in my bliss.

Then Spanky looked at John and said, “Should we do ‘Sunday'?”

I looked at her and said, “You must. It will kill me, but you must.”

As she began to sing, “I remember Sunday morning…” I sat on my knees at the foot of her chair, and she held my hands. Time spun backward, and I was four years old again singing those words with my daddy in our living room on Beverwil Drive. The space crackled with an aliveness. Spanky and I belted out the chorus, “Sunday will never be the same/I've lost my Sunday-song/He'll not be back again.” I wept, she wept, everyone wept. It felt like we were all in a spaceship beyond the space-time continuum. We were love and grace and light.

All the love that flowed out of Spanky wove itself into my heart, and it shattered, and I finally let myself feel the pain and reality—he was gone forever. My daddy, the center of my solar system, the latchkey kid who taught me to walk down the street like a New Yorker, the rebel who taught me the “Seven Dirty Words,” the picky eater who never made me eat my vegetables, the protector who shielded me from my mother's alcoholic rage, the artist who stood on a stage and challenged my comfort zone, the cool dad who bought me horses and cars and weed, the dreamer who taught me that anything was possible, the teacher who corrected my grammar, the seeker who saw me as his shaman, the comedian who taught me what was funny, the warrior who taught me what was just, the dad who called me “Kiddo” and asked me if I was his “Stinkpot or Baby Doll,” my hero, my father, George Denis Patrick Carlin, was gone.

 

CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

Ashes to Ashes

D
AD, ALWAYS ONE TO CROSS
an item off of a to-do list as soon as possible, gave me thirty days to disperse his ashes. I was a bit irked by the limited timeline. I'd quite enjoyed taking my time with my mom's ashes, spreading a bit here and a bit there, as the whims of life took me to different places. In fact, I still had a small baby food jar full of them left on a shelf that I'd turned into a minishrine to her. I guess I'd been waiting to determine her final resting place.

I did not have the luxury of whims with Dad. I had less than thirty days to figure this out. After the memorial my mind was such a blender of feelings, thoughts, and demands I couldn't imagine that I had enough time to do this right. Dad had once joked that he wanted his final resting place to be determined by throwing his body out of a helicopter and leaving it wherever it landed. I knew that wasn't an option. We'd cremated him. Once I sat quietly with myself, I knew exactly what to do with dad's ashes. They were going to New York City.

But first I had a guru to meet.

*   *   *

A week before I was going to New York, my friend Jon, the one who'd helped Dad move along to the “other side” the day he died, called me to say that one of his teachers, Swamiji, was in town and asked me if I wanted to meet him. I'd never met an Indian swami. My practice of Zen Buddhism had steered me away from the whole yoga/yogi scene. It all seemed a bit creepy to me—bowing to the guru, treating him or her like a living god. Not my cup of tea. But over the decades I'd always admired one proponent of that path—Ram Dass. He was a nice Jewish boy, Richard Alpert, from Boston who during the early sixties while studying at Harvard, dropped acid, went to India, and came back as Ram Dass. Between his book
Be Here Now
and the many lectures I'd heard him give about Eastern philosophy, he'd always held the perfect balance between the guru and the clown. I admired him greatly. So I thought,
What the hell. Let's go see this guru Swamiji. Maybe he'll have some words of wisdom for me
.

I arrived at a house in the hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley. I was glad that this encounter would be an intimate gathering in a private home. My nervous system felt as if its sensitivity dial was stuck at eleven, and I was not up for a horde of worshipping types. I walked in, saw everyone's shoes by the door, and immediately took mine off. The kitchen was filled with people cooking what smelled like delicious Indian food. Many were dressed all in white, and some in more colorful orange saris. The atmosphere felt cushioned by love and acceptance. Although I felt awkward as the outsider, I trusted that if I just relaxed, this evening would at least soothe.