It's been 3 years since George Carlin died of heart failure after surviving 3 previous heart attacks. When I heard of Carlin's death, it was the first time I'd ever felt sad about a celebrity dying. My usual reaction is to just think Well, shit happens. It made me sad because I had to deal with depression (still do, sometimes) for most of my life and when I found an online radio station that played comedy tracks (Go, Social Crime Radio!), it really helped me. I would look forward to tuning in every day to yuk it up. I became a comedy connoisseur, if you will. I began mentally sorting which comedian/ennes were most suited to my sense of humor. One day I came across one of Carlin's HBO specials and could not stop laughing. I started looking forward to more of his material and later managed to get every special he's recorded. I loved his to-the-point humor and observations on silly language and euphemisms that I had always questioned when I was younger. I ended up updating Urban Dictionary with a couple of words from his Incomplete list of impolite words. I could go on about how much joy it brought me to listen to not only his humor, but that of Louis C.K., Patton Oswalt, Robert Schimmel, Maria Bamford, Ricky Gervais, Eddie Izzard, and many others, but instead I'll just give you a few tips to keep people on their toes:
- Go into a gift shop and ask for your gift
- Next time you're at the photo mat, ask if you can buy the pictures of the other people. "How much for that heavy-set couple in the window?"
- Stand in line at the bank for a really long time, and when you finally get up to the teller, just ask for change of a nickel
- Go to the cleaners. Ask the man if he can take the stain out of one pair of pants and put it in another.
- Go into a laundry, hand them a shirt and ask them to rotate the buttons.
- Go into a bakery and ask them if they can bake a cake in the shape of a penis.
- Next time you're at a wishing well, ask for the manager. Say "I've been coming here for years and none of my wishes have come true. Either you give me my money back, or I'm shittin' in the well!"
- In a bar, if someone asks if they can buy you a drink, say "No, but can I have the money instead?"
- Back out of a drive-in bank
- Walk up to someone and say "Pardon me, I have nothing to say!"
- If someone asks you what time it is, say "Well...it's either 6:15 or Mickey has a hard on."
