Would you like to hear an interview I did with George Carlin when I was 16? Well, so would I. And after a discovery I made last week, we both might.

I was going through a file cabinet last week, came across an old 3″ tape recorder reel, and suddenly thought—could this really be what I think it is?

Back on June 23, 2008, I told you about an interview I did with Carlin either in 1971 or 1972, and showed off a picture I had my father take of the two of us. There’s a tape recorder in my hand, and I always intended to transcribe that tape and publish the interview, but never did. Holding the reel, I had a sense that it might not be too late. The problem is, I no longer own a tape recorder.

So I put out a call on Twitter and Facebook for someone with an ancient tape recorder who could check whether the tape was indeed my Carlin interview, and Analog writer Tom Ligon stepped up. I shipped it off to him this morning, and who knows, a never-before-heard George Carlin interview from the early ’70s may suddenly appear.

As for where I’d intended to publish the interview, check out the images below.

I’ve already told you about my early ’70s fanzine Call It … Fate and shared the covers to issues #2-#4. That’s the cover of issue #1 to the left, and as you can see to the right, in an ad for the fourth issue, which was never published, I promised that George Carlin interview as a highlight.

And if you’d like to see how my high-school friend Doron Ben-Ami’s artwork has improved over the decades, visit his site.