Carlin’s last recorded concert out on CD

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 | 1:14 p.m.

"You know what I've been doing? Going through my address book and crossing out the dead people. It gives you a feeling of power, of superiority, to have outlasted another old friend." That's the late comedian George Carlin, riffing on what turned out to be his last recorded concert and comedy album.

Released just over a month after his death, that standup set is available on CD today. Called "It's Bad For Ya," it features the same material as Carlin's final HBO special of the same name which aired in March of 2008, according to AllMusic.com, but it's a different recording from a much smoother performance.

The CD isn't available on iTunes yet, but you can order it from Laugh.com, a Tarzana-based record label co-owned by Carlin, along with "legendary comedians Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle, Red Buttons, Phyllis Diller, Bill Dana, Rich Little, Shelley Berman, Jackie Martling, Norm Crosby, and some money grubbing Internet-savvy engineers, lawyers, comedy professionals, ordinary accountants, and shipping monkeys," according to the company website.

"You've got to be comfortable with the ideas of no God, kids suck, and that America is corrupt to the core," continues the AllMusic review, "but if you can sit with that, "It's Bad For Ya" is about 100 laughs heavier than his previous effort, "Life Is Worth Losing." The only thing left to mention is the packaging which looks cheap and divides the set into way too many tracks before redeeming itself by acknowledging Carlin's death with a Zippy the Pinhead quote, a touch the anti-almost everything comedian would have loved."