Disjointed Digression

I think I had heard some of Carlin’s material before I bought Class Clown, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it.  I was a young college student, who pretended to be offended by how many times Carlin said fuck as a friend played one of Carlin’s tapes in in my friends mother’s van that we borrowed to go to Louisiana to see a comic book writer, but I digress.  A few months down the road from that fake offense, I decided I’d give ol’ George a try. My parents had mentioned “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television”  before, so I looked at all the Carlin comedy tapes in the music store in the mall and found one that had that on it.  Class Clown.  The copyright was from the year I was born.  I played the tape on the way home from the mall, and remember laughing out loud through most of it.  After that I bought many of his tapes, or borrowed them from friends (I was a poor college student).  One year, in the early 90′s for my birthday, a friend gave me front row tickets to see George when he came though my home town.  I remember that the next two days after that show that my face hurt from smiling and laughing so much.  I can’t say I was a rabid Carlin fan, but I really dug his work.  I thought he was great in Dogma, how ironic that someone who said “Religion is just mind control.” played a Catholic Cardinal.  I still need to watch Jersey Girl, I hear he is good in that too.  And there all those HBO gigs that he did.  I remember reading once that he performed something like 320 nights a year, and this was around 2000 or 2001.  In my opinion he was the hardest working comedian out there.

Carlin had, for lack of a better term, a way with words. He once said “I want to tell you something about words that I think is important. They’re my work, they’re my play, they’re my passion.” I believe that they were also his art.  He was a word artist of the highest caliber.  The way he thought and talked was amazing.  Sometimes he came across as coarse or possibly offensive, but he was always funny.  Using his words as a rapier to pierce thought the absurdness of life and point out the funny truth.

 A true comic legend, George Carlin will be sorely missed.

I’m sure he’s having some good laughs wherever he is.

R.I.P George

So I was reading Digg the other day, and came across an article about a suspected serial killer that was leaving a smiley face as a calling card. 

The Article, which I must admit I did not read the whole thing (more about that in a minute), is about  how there is apparently a serial killer in the north-east and north-central(?) who is killing white male college students and leaving the smiley face somewhere at/near the body.  Since I figured my curiosity was as morbid as the next persons’ (unless that next person is Candy, which is usually the case, who has shelves of books on serial killers and crime) I clicked on the link and started to read the article.  Near the top of the article was a link (the second link next to a picture showing one of the victims in the prime of his life) Interactive Map of victims possibly linked by the investigation. It’s using Google maps as the basis for the interactive map, and they have added pictures of the victims to it.  But, and here’s what gave me the creeps, it also has (and I don’t know if it is just something they could not turn off, or if they put on there intentionally) driving directions to the locations the bodies were found.  I didn’t read any more once I realized that you could plan a whole trip around visiting sites where a serial killers victims were found. Not that this has not been thought of before… anyone else remember that movie in the early 90′s with David Duchovny, Brad Pitt, and Juliette Lewis… Kalifornia?  Where Duchovny’s character and his girlfriend were trekking across the US to sites of famous serial killings for a book or something and Pitt and Lewis joined them as the result of some paper thin plot device, only to find out that Pitt was a serial killer.  That was the first movie I remember seeing Brad Pitt in, and I thought "What’s the big deal? Why are the women so crazy for him?" But I digress…

Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age or something, but I just found it distasteful that you could use a website to get driving directions to where murder victims were found.

From the What the Fuck?! department.
Apparently British forces are being blamed for bringing giant, man eating badgers to Iraq. At least according to this article. Which has a pic and a link to a youtube video. I haven’t watched the video yet.

Some of the interesting parts of the article:

British forces operating around the southern Iraqi city of Basra are being blamed for the arrival of a plague of vicious badgers that stalk the streets at night, attacking livestock and even humans.

Local farmers have caught and killed several of the beasts, but this has done nothing to dispel rumours of a bear-like monster that eats humans and was, according to the local rumour mill, released into the area by UK forces to spread panic.

“They are native to the region but rare in Iraq. They’re nocturnal carnivores with a fearsome reputation, but they don’t stalk humans and carry them back to their lair,” Major Gell said.

So far neither the scientists nor the soldiers have been able to calm the populace’s fears.

“I was sleeping at night when this strange animal hit me on my head. I have not seen such an animal before. My husband hurried to shoot it but it was as swift as a deer,” said Suad Hassan, a 30-year-old housewife. “It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey. It runs so quickly.”

Sattar Jabbar, a 50-year-old farmer from Abu Sakhar north of Basra, believes the badger can tackle even large prey. “I saw it three days ago at night attacking animals. It even ate a cow. It tore the cow up piece by piece. I tried to shoot it with my gun but it ran away into the orchards. I missed it,” he said.

Major Gell said: “We have not released giant badgers in Basra, and nor have we been collecting eggs and releasing serpents into the Shatt al-Arab river.”

What the Hell? I can possibly see someone describing a badger as “the size of a dog with a head of a monkey” if they have never seen one. I can even believe that a badger would attack animals, but a cow?! Unless it was a small cow, I just can’t imagine a badger tearing across a field and taking down a cow. Well, I couldn’t imagine it until now.

Of course when I first read this, I thought that the badgers would be eight feet tall, and eating humans exclusively. That sounds like a really cheesy sci-fi movie “Attack of the Giant Badgers!” But I digress… Honestly I sort of figure that soon someone will come out and say that this is a hoax. What the hell did that British Major meant about releasing serpents into the river? If somewhere in the story it mentioned mushrooms, I’d say for sure it was a hoax that was tipping its hat to that flash animation badger, badger, mushroom, snake.

Here’s a headline that makes you wince Cops Raid Wrong Place, Kick Man in Groin.  Apparently the police burst into the wrong apartment, denting the front door and using flash grenades that left two large stains and “subdued” the two people in the apartment. 

From the article:
Police spokesman Hal Dalton said something must have gone amiss in the briefing beforehand. “We don’t know how the mistake was made,” Dalton said.

Silvia Bernal, 30, told The (Annapolis) Capital that about 15 officers burst through the front door of her apartment while she was cooking dinner about 8:20 p.m. She said the officers kicked her husband in the groin while she fled into a bedroom and barred the door with her body.

Then she said both of them were taken to the ground and handcuffed. The Capital said a police officer went outside and realized they had raided the wrong residence.

Dalton said they were supposed to have raided a different apartment and said the incident was regrettable.

What kind of threat do you have to pose to a police officer for him to kick you in the nuts to take you down?  My guess is that the cops were so pumped up that anyone in the apt was a threat in their minds, so the took everyone down and asked questions later.  At least they didn’t shoot first, then ask questions. 

Also from the article:
When officers and the city’s tactical squad went to the right unit, they said it was empty.

No shit? What criminal would see their neighbors apartment getting raided, and say “Sucks to be them, I wonder if they meant to come here?”  I bet they took off as soon as they saw the police cars gathering in the parking lot.

I know not every police officer is represented by this behavior, some really are here to serve and protect, but it seems that more and more often we are seeing stories about police doing things like this… 

As they said in Hot Fuzz “there is no way you can perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork.”

Some of you may remember when childhood pranks such as wrapping (aka TPing) a house were considered innocent.
Apparently now it’s a felony.
Mom tracks down toilet-tissue pranksters
“Teenagers who toilet-papered and damaged a home now face felony vandalism charges because of a mother’s extraordinary sleuthing.”
“She found damaged landscaping and light fixtures as well as ruined finishes on two cars.” The woman tracked the kids via the store where they bought the toilet paper, cheese, dog food, flour and plastic forks.
“The information was eventually sent to the district attorney’s office and prosecutors confirmed that about six youths were now facing vandalism charges.”
Back when I was a kid, and we did stuff similar to this, when we were caught, we had to clean it up. One time when a car needed a paint job because of the “damage” (I use quotes because the car needed a paint job before anything was done to it.) The kids who did it, had to pay for the paint job. I don’t ever remember when someone pressed charges over shit like that. We used to get into egg fights (throwing eggs at each other) with our neighbors. When I say we, that included my parents and the neighbors were in their late 20s.
It just seems that the world has changed a lot, things that used to be harmless are now federal cases. When did this happen? Why not just talk to the parents of the kids who did it, and get justice that way?
Sometimes I wonder what’s going wrong with this world…but usually I just shrug and move on

From the “How insensitive is that?!” files:
This past Sunday the New Orleans Saints played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa Bay.

Normally I could not care less about football. But this little news item caught my attention:
During the half-time break, the Buccaneers cheerleaders danced to a song that had been in their “routine all season long”…
The Scorpions hit Rock You Like a Hurricane.
Bad taste? Or just an oversight?
My guess is that it was an oversight…

On Wednesday afternoon, a Buccaneers’ spokesperson apologized for the song, calling it an oversight and saying it was not their “intent to offend anyone.”

The team officials noted the song was part of a dance routine the cheerleaders have performed to all season. He says the song, “Rock You Like a Hurricane” will no longer be played at games against the Saints.
I don’t think the song was the cause, but the Saints lost the game.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has been in the news quite a bit lately and today it has been announced that the ESRB (Electronic Software Rating Board) I changing it’s rating of GTA:SA from “Mature 17+ (M) to Adults Only 18+ (AO)”

Rich people can do whatever they want, but if you are rich and famous you can molest young boys!

A very sad day…
Comedian Mitch Hedberg dead at age 37

I know that living in a civilized society means giving up some freedoms, but this is a bit overboard.