The Daily Grill

Time Reduces All Wounds

In another landmark decision by the US Supreme Court (see previous item for another...), they went 5-3 on reducing the original $5 billion award from the 11 million gallon Exxon Valdez crude oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound 19 years ago. Now ExxonMobil only has to pay $500 million damages -- which is about the amount they're skimming off us at the gas pumps every couple of months. Judge Alioto stepped aside on this one, seeing as he owns Exxon stock. I don't know that the label "Justices" really fits these black-robed clowns any more. How about Supreme Court Dunceses?

Would Waterboarding Be Okay?

The US Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 ruling today (been a lot of those this session...), declaring that the death penalty cannot be sentenced in cases involving the rape of a child. It seems such punishment would "violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment," to use the judges' words. Unlike molesting a child, one supposes, goes their thinking. Not that it really matters -- from what I hear, someone found guilty of that particular crime is even rejected by their newfound neighbors in prison. To the point where they don't tend to go very long before having an fatal "accident". Justice will out, it seems, even in the joint.

The Terrorists Are Nuts

I was on a Northwest flight last Saturday, from Minneapolis to San Francisco. The head flight attendant had a foreign accent that I couldn't place but it was so thick it was hard to understand everything he was saying in the upfront rigmarole. He concluded by saying that we were prohibited from eating or even opening any snacks that might have peanuts in them, for fear that it might set off some passenger's peanut allergy.

At least that's what it sounded like to me. I looked around at the other passengers but no one else seemed to take notice of the strange addition. Too used to tuning out the safety warning or had I been missing out on some vital public health tidbit all these years by tuning it myself?

Just my luck the only snack I'd smuggled aboard was a big ol' bag of trail mix. I debated ripping it open and flinging handfuls up and down the aisle but I didn't want to risk getting body-checked by some over-zealous passenger covered in hives.

RIP George Carlin

"Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things."
— George Carlin

I just saw that GC passed away of a heart attack over the weekend. 71 years old. He was going strong right up until the end -- he just performed a live one-hour special on HBO back in March. I'm really going to miss the guy, too.

I was weaned on comedy albums during my formative years. My parents had a fleet of LPs -- from back when comedy albums were popular to listen to at adult parties -- that included Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart, Vaughn Meader and Carlin. It was such a steady diet that it is, no doubt, what subtly led me into an ongoing career in comedy, from booking shows to performing improv and writing sketch comedy to this day.

Carlin's career in the 60's and 70's mirrored a shift in consciousness that was happening in America. He went from being a buttoned-down, necktie-wearing, straight-laced funnyman to a long-haired, blue-jeans-and-t-shirt hilarious counter-culture dude in the course of a decade. The comedic voice for an angry generation, Carlin's "Seven Words You Can't Say On TV" was the most popular tip of an devastating comic iceberg that wasn't afraid to sail full-tilt into whatever social conventions stood in its way.

"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."

The heir apparent to Lenny Bruce, he helped to push the door open wider for comedian-philosophers to step out of the darkness and onto the comedy club stages. Performers who had a message but, like Carlin, wanted to wrap it up in a way that would make it not only palatable but in a form that would be passed along at the water cooler, or on the way to work.

In his later years, his anger seemed to turn more inward but his observations were no less relevant. Less political perhaps but still biting, sarcastic and razor-sharp as he held his sardonic mirror up to society's foibles and screw-ups. He slowly evaporated from the mainstream comedy flow as younger performers, now able to more freely access the Seven Words that Carlin had helped to liberate, used them more and more gratuitously. Robbed of their shock value, those words became more or less the punctuation in a comedic language that's become more formula than content.

Carlin, having countered the culture he opposed, stayed funny lampooning the political correctness and other inane social structures that our culture had morphed into. His anger and commentary had, in the past 10 or so years, become a draw in the casinos around the country -- an ironic counterpoint between his message and the excesses going on in the very places he was performing.

Like most performers in comedy, Carlin was never one to take himself very seriously. The few times I'd had the pleasure to meet him, he was always gracious and friendly. I think he should have been celebrated more but today's media wants to only make room for what they perceive as young and hip -- when they consider someone older they only think hip replacement.

I believe that as time wears on, George Carlin's quotes and observations will continue to surface as timelessly funny, sardonic and wise commentary on the human condition. A generation -- or two -- has lost their spokesman.

"The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere,
someone said to themselves, 'You know, I want to set those people over there on fire,
but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.'"

Tubulocity

Pardon my ignorance but up until yesterday my only sighting of Minneapolis was during the opening credits of the old Mary Tyler Moore show. Now I'm here for a couple of days and I never knew a major chunk of the downtown area is interconnected with a matrix of skyways that are a couple of floors above the street. Running north to south you can go 12 blocks without your feet ever hitting pavement. It makes sense in a  city where, in the winter, the temperature hovers between 0° and -20°. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have made this observation, but it's a little like scurrying around in one of those old hamster Habitrails. And every so often I have to pause to gobble down some pellets and take a pull or two on these big water bottles they have strapped to the buildings...

The view from the 50th floor of Minneapolis' IDS Center

Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies

Dana Carvey's new HBO special, Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies, premieres this Saturday night (June 14)  on the cable channel. The show's hilarious and, if you get a chance to tune in, there's a tiny bit of footage of the audience coming in shot with a handheld camera right at the top of the show that I shot. And I also shot this bit of web promo that HBO put up on YouTube to promote the special:

Dead Head Fed

Got Gas?

Since it's obvious that gas prices aren't about to go down any time soon, let's think about changing something we can affect: the names of gasoline. The price has gotten so high that no longer do monikers like Regular, Special and Premium do the precious liquid any justice (let alone that gran cru of petrol, Diesel.) So it's time we slap some new appellations on our go-juice. I'm kicking off the trend with Insane, Ridiculous, Super Ridiculous and Diseasel. It won't do anything to change the prices but, unlike gas itself, calling it names is free.

Porn Karma

I'm in Los Angeles this weekend and had a chance to go to a housewarming party in Culver City. Hadn't been through there for a while and got a laugh when I got to the intersection of Robertson & Venice Boulevard. It used to be the headquarters for the Culver City Meat Co. (which has apparently moved to the suburb of Vernon.) The tagline for the company is "You can't beat our meat," which is emblazoned on their trucks tooling all over the Southland . So it seemed fitting that now standing the their previous location is Skin, a "gentlemen's club". Scanning the web I find the changeover happened about a year ago, and with quite a bit of controversy. I can see why, but it's still pretty funny.