Nailbunny's blog: "My blogcrappings"

George Carlin mourned as a counterculture hero By KEITH ST. CLAIR, Associated Press Writer 26 minutes ago Acerbic standup comedian and satirist George Carlin, whose staunch defense of free speech in his most famous routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, has died. Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. He was 71. "He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press. Carlin's jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance. When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening. "So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year. Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 — noting on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long" — and appearing some 130 times on "The Tonight Show." He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989 — a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (and sometimes hitting all points in one stroke). "Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?" he once mused. "Are they afraid someone will clean them?" He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS. Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s. "We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction." That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years. "The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have." Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site. While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston. "Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says. From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle. In 1960, he left with Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show." Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times. Only problem was, it didn't work for him, and they broke up by 1962. "I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya." Eventually Carlin lost the buttoned-up look, favoring the beard, ponytail and all-black attire for which he came to be known. But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit "Cars." Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin. ___ Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed to this report.

Casper/Mills/Evansville, WY... The coolest things about it (so far) are that my friend RyotGrrl lives out here and that I noticed a sign that said "NERD" as I was coming into the airport. The job is ok, but I'm lacking some skills with one of the welding processes and it's holding me back in pay. The living situation is a wholly different story. In the week plus days that I've been here, My crew has been to four different hotels: Shilo Inn, Ramada Inn, Showboat, and Westside. At the Ramada, they booked me and two others in the suite under MY name, and then one of the others spent $200 on long-distance calls. I get nothing back. In fact, the flight, hotel, $100 advance and tools ALL come out of my checks at a max of $300/wk. Mind you the pay is good, if I can get the overtime, but still.. What with an apartment back in Seattle, the hotels here and the money coming out of my checks, I expect to lose about 10-20 lbs. In other news, my camera has turned up missing... Up ahead in this hour of Arthur Bitches: Piercings gone terribly wrong, My anus is bleeding, and Dear God, where's my beer? ... I had a strange dream night before last. I was going to die. The how was unimportant, just that I WAS going to die. There was a "Living Wake". All my friends were there, including some long since passed. My ex, Erica, was also there - Erica being the one whom I had a REALLY bad breakup with (see "Worst letter ever received".) Everyone was happy for me, acted like I was to be celebrated for the things I'd done. I was confused beyond measure, as I've yet to reconcile some of my heinous history. I remember falling to my knees at Erica's feet and blubbering a most sincere apology. In the way she sat and the way the lighting caught, she was a queen. She simply smiled and hugged me, saying, "Everything is going to be alright. Don't worry over pettiness of our pasts." It was too much to bear. I went over to the podium, where Ty (ex-bf, deceased 2002) was giving a speech. My friend, Jeneca, and her youngest sister, Kelsey, were there next to me. I picked up Kelsey and she laughed and hugged me tight. Again came the words "Everything is going to be alright." In a few moments, where everyone stood around me, smiling, eyes wet from joyous tears, a casket appeared from the floor. As I lay down, Pachelbel's Canon played. My eyes closed, and warmth engulfed me as I thought to myself, "Everything is going to be alright." I woke to a soaked pillow and a refreshed feeling such as I haven't had since I left Portland.

->Ick-R-Us: that's a good quote... i like that much Ick-R-Us: -or write one. I hear that. I learned late in life, that the nail that sticks out gets pounded down. ->Ick-R-Us: a teacher and a counselor who have nothing better to do than to prescribe meds for kids who can't sit still or focus on just one thing at a time. you would be amazed at how many mentors will get upset if you do all your school work in class and still have time to read a book or two Ick-R-Us: What determines social IQ? I don't remember that test. ->Ick-R-Us: or by lack of social IQ Ick-R-Us: and it means welderman Ick-R-Us: I'm starting to think genius is mostly arbitrarily determined by genetics and head trauma. ->Ick-R-Us: nearly none of the necessities are necessarily normal, nor are the number by which nimbic genious is achieved Ick-R-Us: How can we be sure of such a statement? What qualifications and pedigrees do I have available to prove the contrary of my impudence? ->Ick-R-Us: insolence. impudence implies indolence, and you, sir, are not imbecilic Ick-R-Us: ah, yes forgive my impudence for not remembering the " " 's ->Ick-R-Us: hehe nope it's just "Arthur" Ick-R-Us: Your name is Arthur too?

I love you I spend my days thinking about you when you aren't there. I spend my time thinking of you when you are. But my favorite moments are when i think of you because I know you love me. Those are the moments when nothing matters. When everything else is nothing but a song on the wind. The how's the why's and the rather's All pale on what will be, what is, and what might have been. Several times, I want your voice daily, It helps me sleep. More than that, I want your heart, As mine to keep. My very life I give to you, if you want it But, if creep you feel, then I'll be shit. It does not pain me this devotion. Please don't ever kill my devotion. -Arthur

Oh No... By Arthur Bartlett It's happening again, and it's killing me Second by crawling second Minute by inching minute Hour by watch-watching hour Day by Dreadful day Year by youth-taking year Two decades have given the slip and then some, but I caught those A life full of uneventful happenings, irrelevant to this timeline Or, that's how it would look if I weren't me I see that not many care about hospital trips and bed-ridden laments They just want me to fix their problems, tell them that their behinds are perfectly fine And I get to smile at other users and be their best friend when giving advice, And stifle my anger at fellow surfers' taunts of "EAT IT," and "Everyone else is worse." The cries of one I've never met, and cooings of one I'll meet yet These cause me ponder I wonder at how I've survived. I remember asking someone if they loved me, and she said yes As she was packing to live with someone else I remember another, who said the same, At the same time telling how terrible I really was. I remember before that, when everything about her was perfect I remember why we broke up, but not the event. I remember the sweetest guy I've ever been more than friends with And then I remember what took him away Oh yes. I remember running nearly half the country's span Just to find out if the rumors were true I remember too, when that same thing took away three years And I remember one who wanted to take the rest. I remember nothing of the hospital, nor the fall But I do recall the doctor who tried to break my all I remember leaving home, but not what drove me And I remember how I was let down by those who most wanted me to succeed Crying in her arms, as we sang to those more worthy of their success And in the same place before, as the others teased me about my grandmother's passing I recall vividly the matching T-shirts My brother and i wore them on our first day at Middle I remember how much trouble I got into When my feet just wanted to move I remember the one I nearly killed And not knowing what "Epileptic" was I remember reading things no one else could I remember screaming at the actors on TV As they walked into a German trap I remember asking Papa to marry my mother But there it stops. I search and wander those caverns, but each has a block A wall, a door. As though someone had taken an eraser to it And named that eraser Abuse. Am I doomed to repeat the prior existence? Should I revert, or retreat? Haaaappy Birrrthdayyy toooo meeeeeeee.....