October 14 – Monday – George Carlin – FM & AM

Up until that moment I hit the start button on the turntable, it was still iffy whether I could do this or not. Oh the dilemma of exercising to an album devoid (mostly) of music. Wouldn’t it be nice if all of life’s dilemmas were of this magnitude? But, if not for this very George Carlin album, if I had just said from the get go – no, no, I cannot exercise to a comedy album, and had respectfully bypassed it, I wouldn’t have considered the albums relegated to the end of the collection as they really had no business hanging out with their rock n roll related counterparts. They are now interlaced throughout the collection and though Camelot was a bit of a snoozer, I will forge ahead because I did hit start and did exercise without music.

FM & AM came out in 1972. What a difference 12 years makes. I had many loves between the days of Camelot and my hippy-dippy years. The vast majority of those loves were as unrealistic to attain as those of my post-toddler youth. I managed to zone into the memories of the album, remembering back to the condition we were in when we would listen to it and how funny it was. It is dated now, and tame considering the shock value of George Carlin’s humor and his transformation from his appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show in the sixties to his hairy self of the seventies and until his passing.

I learned how to mimic voices from this album as Carlin demonstrated his ability to imitate Ed Sullivan, in a nice little tribute to Ed, by using a cue phrase. I could do a mean Ethel Merman by belting out the word “WHY” as Ethel might, but mostly I would imitate people I knew. Like Old-Lady Beck, as we called the busybody next door as kids, with her phrase – “oooh hoo, Arthur.” Once as a teen when I felt no particular warmth to my neighbors I called out the phrase she would use to summon her husband, only to hear him moments later at their back door saying “Did you call me, Ann?” It wasn’t nice, I know, and I’m not proud of it, except for my impeccable imitation.

I think I will keep this album in its place in the C’s as it complements the genre of the collection and out of respect for a very funny man.