How George Carlin Showed His Hair

New York — "What you see now is what was inside there all the time. I always had long hair only I used to keep it inside my head. Now I've let it come out where people can see it. What you used to see was only what I showed..." George Carlin was in his eighth floor hotel room with a view of Central Park, talking on the phone to a woman who said she knew him from the old days growing up in White Harlem — Morningside Heights.

George didn't remember her but she remembered him. She remembered him from his guest spots on the Merv Griffin Show when he would come out in a tie and jacket as the fast-talking Cousin Brucie-styled DJ of Wonderful WINO radio. She remembered him co-hosting a summer replacement series for the Kraft Music Hall, with Buddy Greco, called Away We Go. She remembered that one day he was on TV and had an album out and one day he was gone.

George is back on TV and has another album out, but he sure looks different. The ties, jackets, and tuxedos have been replaced by T-shirts and jeans, he has a long pony tail where his hair used to stop, a gold earring is sticking out of one of his ears, and his eyes seem suspiciously blurry. Actually, his eyes always looked like that only nobody noticed. Anyway, this woman wanted to know how come, at age 35, he's suddenly turned into a hippie. So, for the thousandth time, George explained this phenomenon.

"Well, the reason that I only showed what I used to show was because I thought that would help me get what I wanted, which at the time was a half-hour TV series. And, oh yeah, I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to get all the movie roles that Jack Lemmon turned down. But then I decided that I'd really rather be myself. Which is what you see now.

"Listen, I'd like to keep talking to you but I'm in the middle of an interview and I'd like to get back into that. OK. Well, thanks. Yeah, it's nice to say hello again even though I don't remember who you are."

When he was off the phone I asked him whether it wasn't tiring to have to explain his new appearance all the time.

"No, not really. I enjoy the challenge of trying to discover different ways to say it. It's natural for people to distrust what appears to be a change. Especially from entertainers. They assume you're trying to trick them somehow. That's because they've been tricked and shucked so many times already."