Death of a Snowman

You might as well cry because it looks like he won’t be back some day.  I just hope he wasn’t alone when it happened.

So Damned Sad

The Incomparable Calvin and Hobbes

Timeless.

Originally Published 2/16/1992

A larger version can be found here.

Thanks to Bill Watterson

What has happened to me?

Today the mailman dropped off my January edition of Cooks Illustrated.  They also accidentally delivered someone else’s copy of Maxim, featuring the beautiful Olga Kurylenko, the newest Bond girl

As I sit here, I am reading the Cooks Illustrated.

Large Hadron Collider

If you need to know if the Large Hadron Collider has destroyed the earth yet, you can go to this website for an update.

Name that Joke

And the punchline is:

“So they can both watch the Hockey Game.”

Quote from an AP story about the recent deaths of Norman Mailer, William Styron, and Kurt Vonnegut.

“Vonnegut was the American Mark Twain. He even looked liked him. Everybody loved Vonnegut, whereas Norman was a much more controversial figure,” says J. Michael Lennon, the literary executor for Mailer, who died Nov. 10 at age 84.”

I realize he was from Missouri but still, wasn’t Mark Twain, America’s Mark Twain?

Actually, if this guy is Vonnegut’s Agent, he’s probably chuckling to himself that they actually published his quote.

One and Two and Three and Four

I may not have learned everything I needed to know in Kindergarten, but I did learn how to do Jumping Jacks.

Apparently these guys didn’t.

These are Iraqi Army Trainees being led through warmups by an American Soldier.  It makes me laugh every time I watch it.

Big Butter Jesus

Have you seen the Big Butter Jesus?

It a 60 foot tall Jesus Statue in southern Ohio just north of……Well, I think the Heywood Banks song explains it better than I can.

Plenty of pictures on flickr

Richard Jeni

More on Richard Jeni’s Death.

Richard Jeni

The great comedian Richard Jeni is dead. He reportedly took his own life this past Saturday.

I was fortunate enough to see him live, a few years back. A bunch of us went out to see him at Charlie Goodnight’s Comedy Club in Raleigh, NC. We had bought tickets in advance on the advice of my room mate.

“C’mon, you don’t remember Platypus Man? We gotta go see him, he’s hilarious.”

Then 9/11 happened.

The show was three weeks later and the country was still in a somber mood. We had so many questions, sitting, waiting for the attack we were sure was going to come. Everyday tasks seemed especially mundane when compared with what tomorrow might bring.

Due to the prevailing mood, everyone at the club seemed especially excited about the upcoming night of comedy. But behind that was an undercurrent of trepidation. How would the three comedians address the tragedy? It was the only thing anyone had talked about for the last three weeks, it seemed impossible that the topic wouldn’t be broached that night.

The two openers made little mention of the hijackings, maybe a muttered comment or two. I don’t remember anything about them. I have no memory of their sets or what they even looked like.

After the break, Richard Jeni came out. I immediately recognized him from television. He was dressed in this great black suit and he honestly froze the room with his presence as he walked up and spoke into the microphone. His timing was perfect.

“There are two things I hate. Racial Profiling and Arabs on my airplane.”

He did it. He hit exactly the right chord. The room burst into laughter as he launched into his piece about the hijackings. He discussed the fact that he felt compelled to talk about it and how meaningless it was to make fun of things like celebrity gossip or and how this was a chance to talk about something that mattered, something that needed to be discussed.

It was absolutely cathartic. He gave us exactly what we needed, a chance to deal with things as Americans tend to do, with humor. People laughed, people cried, and they did it all together.

It turned out to be one of the most memorable evenings of my life.

Thanks Mr Jeni. Rest in Peace.