Growing up in Brooklyn, NY was pretty cool. I had about 3,000 kids on my block to play with, and we had tons of fun. I never needed Cable TV. When we moved to Staten Island, I didn’t make too many friends on my block, mostly because there were no kids on my block. So my parents decided to get Cable.
I would watch Cable for hours at a time, days would be wasted just sitting in my living room. One of my favorite channels was Comedy Central. MST3000, Short Attention Span Theatre, Gallagher specials seemingly on loop, Really early Daily Shows (back when the “Moments of Zen” were funny). I really fell in love with stand-up comedy though. By the time I was in 4th grade I could recite jokes from every comic who appeared on Dr. Zatz. I knew Margaret Cho before the ABC flop, and Tim Allen when he was performing HBO specials from Dangerfields (though those were always old footage. Well not the one where the set looked like Dick Tracy, where he introduced the “Home Improvement” material.)
It was a golden age for me. I never really wanted to be a comic (and probably never really will) but I enjoyed comedy so much. My mother would sit and watch Comedy Central with me and one day told me about George Carlin.
“You mean that guy with the show on FOX?” I asked.
“Well… yeah.” My Mom replied.
I fell in love with George Carlin. Too young to know Lenny Bruce, and too naive to really get Richard Pryor (whom I only really knew from bad movies), George Carlin really appealed to my “anti-authority” attitude. (For the record, I didn’t know what “anti-authority” was. It was just a term my teachers used because I would always question their motives.)
George Carlin, in all reality, helped shape me into the cynical, non-trusting, inquisitive, self-deprecating, communist(lol) who loves to make fools of people in charge by using their own logic against them (a tactic I still use today).
Anyway I want to cut this short before I get long winded. Rest well George, and Thank you.
Tags: cable, george carlin
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