Word: carliner
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...Carlin was never a teenager on stage until 1970, and he had lots of repressed conflicts to tell about. Carlin grew up in Morningside Heights in New York City during the repressive '50s. His was a working class Irish-Catholic neighborhood ("We were a National League neighborhood," he adds), and Carlin's archetypal second-generation Irish street-guy was roaming the trashy streets at night mad, contriving ways to defy whoever crossed his path. Unlike many of his friends, Carlin went to a "progressive Catholic school" and was spared such stimuli as corporal punishment and uniforms. He looks back...
...used to play at Columbia University (right next-door to Carlin's neighborhood). We could go anywhere in Columbia in the underground passageways from 116th St. to 121st. We had been in all the classrooms and laboratories, we had vandalized and stolen, we had also gone there with some respect sometimes, and watched classes and slide presentations...
...Carlin clearly believes his contact with Columbia's students and bohemians during the smoldering '50 shaped both his humor and intellect. "There was all kinds of ruffian elements in our neighborhood, and then we had the college kids, intellectuals...'faggots'. I can't believe that whole spirit of erudition just passed through our existence. I'm sure it was a force on our lives--it can be measured some day when we have the right instrument...
...parents and grandparents were fascinated with words and poetics, and fostered that same affinity in their family. "I'm sure there's cellular truth to this, too," Carlin interjects, "but my mother's father was an original New York cop, and he had written out long-hand all of Shakespeare's written works--he quizzed my mother at the dinner table. And my mother was always careful to let us know how we could free ourselves through expression...
...Carlins's mother bought him a tape recorder when he was in the eighth grade and he started recording short comical skits--"news, sports, all the stuff that established my comedy"--and visions of radio and music and discjockey slick distracted Carlin from his studies. He eventually quit school...