WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has a great piece on George Carlin’s early years, including clips and audio.

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog: “The Early George Carlin 1956-1970”:

“The musicians I knew had gone through that transition … I’m listening to Bob Dylan … and I realize these artists are using their talent to project their feelings and ideas… not just please people … I was in the wrong place. In 1967 … I was thirty. I was entertaining people in nightclubs who were forty. They were at war with their kids who were twenty. There was a generation war. I was in the middle of it. I said ‘what the fuck am I doing over here?’ [The twenty year olds] are the people who will understand me and give me a chance … I took two years to change and it happened on television … happened on … shows like Della Reese, Virgina Graham and Steve Allen,” He added, “Virginia Graham was a real shit stirrer. She just loved to get me to talk about smoking pot and Henry Mancini… she got Henry Mancini to cop out to being a pot smoker on TV … I went on there … my beard was growing … my attitudes … were changing. And I talked about my changes on the panel… a lot.”