George Carlin

Dammit. We’ve lost another dark humorist. George Carlin died at 71 from heart failure. He’d had heart troubles for a long time, and they finally caught up with him.

Here’s a link to a YouTube video obituary, highlighting just a few of Carlin’s bits.

Rest in peace, George.

Found on the internet…

Since stumbling upon Counterscript some time ago, I have been on a relentless campaign against telemarketers that enter my home through the telephone. My campaign is called “Reactive Telemarketing”.

Whenever a telemarketer calls, I immediately begin asking them questions as listed on the Counterscript (though I do not follow it precisely). Most of the time, the telemarketers don’t mind spelling their name, or telling me how long they’ve been in ‘the business’ (I am surprised at how often their reply is, “this is my first day!”), or offering their opinion about their job, but generally start resisting when the discussion of their income comes up. Several telemarketers have laughed aloud as I ask the pointless questions. Only a few make it through the discussion of the importance of dental health into the promised land of “what toothpaste would you recommend?”. I heartily thank those few that make it that far, wish them well, and hang up the phone – almost certainly leaving a laughing, confused telemarketer on the other end.

I feel that the most important aspect of the Counterscript is to play it straight. Be completely earnest in your pursuit of “completing [your] study”. When they ask what the study is about, I depart the Counterscript and tell them I am studying the “effects of reactive telemarketing”. Sometimes, that answer seems to satisfy them. Other times, not so much. The more serious you are, the funnier.

A couple times, the telemarketer has bounced me up to a manager and this is where playing it straight really becomes important. I generally take the approach that the manager is an equal to my position on my “study”, and approach them with, “Can you help me? Your telemarketer isn’t giving me the requested information. I’ve already started to complete this study form and can’t just throw it away. Can you answer these questions on behalf of the telemarketer?”. Sometimes they do, but frequently they do not and I ask for someone else — “perhaps someone with more authority,” I say — who would be able to answer on the telemarketer’s behalf. This is usually when they hang up on me.

This approach feels less aggressive toward the telemarketers (though my wife disagrees — “just tell them we’re not interested and hang up,” she suggests) and an enjoyable way to get the point across that we don’t want their calls.

Gotta go — the phone is ringing!

 

Revised: 03-October-99

Douglas Coupland, born December 30, 1961 in West Germany, is the author of several books: Generation X, Shampoo Planet, Life After God, Microserfs, and most recently, Postcards from the Dead.

Coupland’s work is the voice of a generation. His views and ideas represent those being felt by the kids of the ‘lost’ generation - Generation X. His books are at once disturbing, funny, shocking, and astoundingly insightful. When considering his works, one is reminded of the prose that will sneak up on you and ring clear and true like a bell.

From Shampoo Planet:

I will mention at this point, though, an incident that happened at the dinner table the night Grandma and Grandpa came over. Just before he left, Grandpa started coughing — real tubercular lungbusters — and we could only sit politely waiting for the coughing bout to end. When we thought he was finished, we were standing up, leaving the table and heading for the door, when suddenly Grandpa made one final last 1,000 kiloton looger, right into the sandalwood candelabra Jasmine bought at the Snohomish craft fair, extinguishing all three candles. We then proceeded to the front door and said our good-byes to him and Grandma. Then, while Jasmine, Grandma, and Grandpa were walking down to the soon-to-be-repossessed Lincoln Continental, Daisy, Mark, and I walked back to the dining room table and looked at the candelabra in silence. While Daisy and Mark stood by the candles, I fetched a box of decorative matches from the fireplace, returned to the table, and relit the candles. Once these candles were all burning fully, the three of us move in on them, and without speaking, we blew them out together,
just as Jasmine was walking back in the door.

“What are you kids doing?” she asked us, but we never replied, and she walked into the kitchen.

The moment was not one that could be talked about. The moment was entirely ours. As brothers and sister we knew instinctively that if we were going to stand in darkness, best we stand in a darkness we had made ourselves.

Want to know more about Coupland? Check here.