We have lots of relatives of the more mature variety (read: "older than dirt") that read the obits section of the newspaper every day, expecting to come across the death of a friend or acquaintance.
Your momma and her ilk are part of the first generation, I think, where TV and the internet and global communication has made "friends" and "acquaintances" of almost everyone.
When my homepage opened up first thing this morning, I got the news that George Carlin was dead. I padded out to the front room where daddy was on his computer, and before I could even finish, "Did you see who..." he responded with, "I know."
It sucks! This whole death thing. Especially lately. I was wondering when this would start to happen. When the people I grew up watching on tv or at the movies, or listening to on the radio or my turntable, WHEN exactly would they start dying in droves?
Well, I think that time is NOW. They're dropping like flies, I tell ya. All in the past few weeks:
George Carlin. And Stan Winston, Cyd Charisse, Tim Russert, Yves Saint Laurent, Jim McKay, Bo Diddley, Harvey Korman, Sydney Pollack, Dick Martin, Richard Widmark, Charlton Heston.
And this guy:
Jim Hager. He's the twin on the left. They used to be musicians/"comedians" on that old show, Hee Haw. I used to crush on these guys, as well as Buck Owens (also recently deceased) when I was very small.
Wha?
True... all these people were getting up there in age. But it just points out the fact that, AREN'T WE ALL.
Gah. I need a hug. I'm stepping away from my computer now and comin' to get one, you little shits.
1 comment:
Jake and Wavy,
Here's a little more info on George Carlin, who was a hero to your mom and countless others, including myself.
In the early '90s, George spent the daytime as a train conductor, had a tendency to loaf around at work and tell kids stories about trains that could somehow talk without moving their lips, and for some strange reason, George shrunk himself down to the size of an Iron Man action figure.
Then by night, George would grow back to the size of a normal person and get up on stage in front of packed crowds and tell hilarious stories about the deceitful American government, hypocritical priests, annoying yuppies, screwy bodily functions, and sports that shouldn't be considered sports. Inside the theater, George got to say certain words that he couldn't say inside the train station. And it was awesome!
I was glad when George stopped being a train conductor. He was weirding me out with his watered-down language and unexplained doll size. Word on the street is George was fired from the train station because they didn't like their conductors to be constantly hooked on Vicodin and wine.
Personally, I find George's stories about politicians, priests, yuppies, farts and wimpy sports to be more enjoyable than the tales about the talking trains. You will too when you reach junior high.
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