George Carlin died last night at the age of 71. He would be the first to point out that he didn’t pass away, or “go to a better place”, he died. And that’s bad. To use pleasant words to make his death less real, would be an insult to the man who never masked his words or his thoughts.

As a comedian, Carlin was loved by some and hated by some, but no one could argue that he didn’t believe in what he was doing. While many comedians go blue for shock value alone, Carlin embraced the harsher points of our lives and the English language, not for attention, but to force us all to face the uglier parts of life instead of patching over them with pretty words. His fight took him all the way to The Supreme Court and eventually to be our host one evening in 1975, introcuding us to a new kind of television called Saturday Night Live.

Pull out your Bill & Ted DVD today.