A quick post to congratulate the Carlin Family on the dedication of George Carlin Way yesterday. It was great to see Kelly Carlin (daughter), Patrick Carlin (brother) and Jerry Hamza (George’s long-time business partner, he always reminds me to squeeze the word business in there).
There was a nice showing of comedians around including Dave Attell, Robert Klein, Gilbert Gottfried, Judah Friedlander and I’ll cross-promote Costaki Economopolous whose show Quick Snaps runs on my Alt Sports Talk Radio. (Hey, the purpose of this blog is to promote myself).
I was honored that Kelly invited me. It meant a lot to me because when we put together Carlin’s Corner radio (shout-out to Chris Colbert) we really wanted to get it right and capture George’s spirit.
One of the tips I got from Jerry was to construct the station the way George constructed his set. Whereas the other SXM comedy channels were mostly short clips (five minutes or so), our agreement with the Carlins allowed us to step outside DMCA and do some neat things.
The station flowed the way George’s set would. A quick joke to open, rat-a-tat-tat (if we were in the room right now I would quote a Carlin joke about abortion, but me writing it won’t do it justice). Then, as Jerry explained, slow it down and go into a long monologue…so the middle of an hour on Carlin’s Corner would have a long-flowing piece from somewhere in George’s collection. Then finish up fast and quick again. (all with non-hacky, era appropriate production by Sal D’Aleo).
And who better to illustrate this than George himself. Congrats Carlins. Enjoy…