Death of an Icon & Being a Good Samaritan

woke up this morning to the news that George Carlin had passed away. Here is an excerpt on the details:

LOS ANGELES - Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. Some People Are Stupid. Stuff. People I Can Do Without. George Carlin, who died of heart failure Sunday at 71, leaves behind not only a series of memorable routines, but a legal legacy: His most celebrated monologue, a frantic, informed riff on those infamous seven words, led to a Supreme Court decision on broadcasting offensive language.

The counterculture hero's jokes also targeted things such as misplaced shame, religious hypocrisy and linguistic quirks — why, he once asked, do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?

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 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.

The actor Ben Stiller called Carlin "a hugely influential force in stand-up comedy. He had an amazing mind, and his humor was brave, and always challenging us to look at ourselves and question our belief systems, while being incredibly entertaining. He was one of the greats."

Carlin 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 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.

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He was the funniest comedian ever (in my humble opinion). He will be greatly missed by me.

Work was a bit of a hellstorm. It was one problem after another to fix. If they don't do something about the people in reservations and the front desk getting things screwed up and backwards I don't believe I'll have my sanity much longer. Ontop of catering billing issues and golfing...sigh

today after work Joe and I decided to walk along the trails in the Busse Woods/Forest Preserve. You might not beable to see the deer (i tried to show you where in the pics) but we saw a baby deer and took its picture.





And then as we're going along our merry way we come acrost this older woman all by herself trying to stop people and they are just riding/biking/running/walking past her...completely ignoring the fact that she's alive... we almost did ourselves and instead we stopped and talked to her. She was a little ole mexican woman left alone by her son in law and some others while they went to ride bikes, that was at 3pm. we found her at 6:30. she'd been out there by herself for 3 hours. she didn't know any english at all so atfirst i called one of the girls from the spa that's mexican. and thankfully ended up running into another man who knows spanish. I called 911 and the officers that came out thanked me for calling them. They said they couldn't imagine (but i bet they could) what would happen to her alone at night lost in the woods. It was the only thing I could think of was to call for help. I couldn't just leave her there alone and scared. She was crying. I feel horrible for her.

I had tried talking to one of her kids on the phone (a daughter in new york) and she kept sayin over and over (because she couldn't understand english well either) "my mom is with brother in law" over and over again, she couldn't understand that i was trying to tell her that her mother was lost and abandoned. the police officers said that they will take her home and find out WHY they left her there alone. I wish one of em would call me and let me know how it turned out but I guess they don't do that.

So we did our good citizen deed today. then came home and made some nacho type stuff. it wasn't bad. now we're just chillin. i'm off tomorrow (thank the gods) and i'll be cleaning and doing laundry, etc.

..........I really hope they can help that lady and if she's in a bad situation help her get out of it, maybe send her to her Daughter in New York. What kind of people just run off and leave an old person alone by themselves in an area they obviously don't know?! Said woman and her family live INSIDE chicago, not in the suburbs where we found her...... Fucking Idiots I wanna beat them down.