Weblog Sin Pies

Or, “Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits”: How George Carlin’s death affects me

By Charley Daniels

Within an hour of word spreading that George Carlin has died tonight, the blogosphere lit up with posts reporting the news and commemorating the man. So I thought I would spin it forward and talk about how his death (and the death of other celebrities at odd, non-business hours) touches me.

See, I’d barely finished my treatise on summer planning and had settled in to browsing through sites on Project Wonderful, when at around 10:45 or so my cell phone rang, which is never a good sign. Assuming it was someone with a correction for one of the recently posted stories at THR.com, I answered hoping that whatever was wrong was not my fault. You get this feeling a lot when you’re an editor.

But there was no correction. What had happened was someone had died, etc., and so I switched into work mode and did what I needed to do. It didn’t take long, but I’m beginning to notice a troubling pattern.

I’ve been working at THR for about six months now, and it seems like there have been an abnormally large number of celebrity deaths in that time. I don’t know if I’m just more aware of it now, or if it actually is more than normal, but one thing is certain: Most people don’t die during regular business hours.

Has there been a study done on this? Is it built in to our DNA after years of “work weeks” that we need to die at a time when it’s most convenient to drop everything?

Now, it may seem insensitive to be talking about people’s deaths being extra work for me, but that’s because you’re not thinking about it from the right perspective. You just see, “Blah blah blah, doesn’t it suck that someone’s death gives me extra work, nyah, nyah, nyah, I’m a jerk.” That’s all it sounds like to you, but if you look a little closer what you’ll see is that I’m just extra saddened by the death of celebrities during off hours. Don’t you get it? I’m more pained than I would be otherwise.

That’s right, it’s super sympathy — not only for the dead guy and his family and friends but for the myriad on-call night editors working for news organizations everywhere. We all feel the pain just a little more sharply when someone as talented and giant as George Carlin dies at some odd hour of the week.

By Charley Daniels

I really want to make a list of the things I should accomplish this summer. The trouble with a list is it puts a lot of emphasis on the actual doing of things, which can be dangerous when you’re unmotivated and easily distracted. A list implies the potential for success or failure, tangible failure. Or tangible success. But no one’s worried about tangible success. No one normal, at least.

See, that was rude. My insecurity about listing summer goals has caused me to lash out at people with psychological problems, namely the fear of success, which is surely a form of mild retardation or at the very least a mental disability on the level of bipolar disorder or syphilitic dementia.

Wow, there I go again. Lowest common denominator, that joke is. Wait, that’s a joke? Like it’s funny to have dementia just because it’s caused by a sexually transmitted disease? What else is funny? AIDS? Who am I, Kiala?

I digress.

Listing the things I’d like to accomplish would be a great way to start this summer out, and here it is, day two or three or whatever of the new season. So it’s now or never. Where to begin…

Maybe I should ease into this by just outlining the best way to create my list. A little meta-tation. Get it? For instance, will I number the items? Will they be ordered in some way or just random? Is the list on paper or is it digital? Or both!? What will be my method of crossing things off the list? Strikethrough? Erase completely? Add a little star? Will my list be color-coded? What will the codes be distinguishing? Will I have a key to decipher my list and if so, where will the key be? In its own document or on the same document? Font? Should the list include only possible things or should it be a list of all the things I’d like to do, whether possible or not (like catching a yeti, etc.)? If I catch a yeti and it escapes, does that still count? At what point is a yeti captured, anyway, and who would profess to be an expert on that topic? College or wide rule?

You see, there’s a lot more to this than simply deciding on a few things and writing them down or remembering them. I need to get to work.

By Charley Daniels

The turtle is nature’s helmet.

By Charley Daniels

“In a world gone soft, someone’s got to be hard.”

– The ad agency responsible for Mike’s Hard Lemonade’s latest campaign, positioning a sugary, fruity malt beverage as the choice drink for a real man’s man. Presumably non-ironically.

By Charley Daniels

My physique is very, very similar to the Hulk’s. Ha ha, just kidding. I’m not green, I’m sort of muslin-colored.