The Dead And Profane

Touching tributes abound this day, as George Carlin, 71, and The MZone, 2, almost three, kick the bucket.

I was the perfect age to understand George Carlin as the guy who played Rufus in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, -- the greatest thing in the entire world when I was ten -- so the concept of him as, well, this guy...

...was a continual surprise and amazement. He was never the guy trying to be Johnny Cash to me. I saw Carlin once in concert and his act was all about the weird linguistic tics of English with a fair smattering of manners and other assorted pieces of bullshit that float through your adult life. He reminded me of the sort of computer guy who is way into open source and hacking -- hacking like "turn your XBox into a DVR/juicer" -- and can't deal with authority, man, and is very OCD about certain things. He was basically a big dork, which can be the only reason anyone would agree to be Rufus.

Here is your tenuous justification for the widespread eulogizing going on in the college football blogosphere. After Carlin's famous dirty-word related arrest in Milwaukee, he hit the talk show circuit:

When Carlin appeared on "The Dick Cavett Show" shortly after his arrest, he walked out to the sounds of "On, Wisconsin!"

I briefly wondered why Carlin was getting attention that, say, Tim Russert did not and then I remember that he was a word nerd who got off on saying "shit," "piss," and "fuck" in front of people and all was clear.

Meanwhile, Seminal college football blog The MZone has eaten it. Seminal? Do you have an entry in the Urban Dictionary?

1.	buckstache	61 up, 16 down
	A mustache adorned by fans of The Ohio State University. Sporting a buckstache often leads one to a life of crime and perversion. The buckstache was made famous by the Michigan Wolverine based blog The M Zone. A cousin to the Buckstache is the Warstache, a mustache worn by Auburn fans. The Warstache will lead one to a life of bestiality. Paul's life took a turn for the worse when he decided to grow a Buckstache.

Didn't think so.

The MZone was also the first blogspheric victim of Colin Cowherd's douchebaggery; they indirectly set off the very first blowup between the internet and real people and eventually dragged an apology out of Lord Douchebag himself. Also, rumor has it one of the guys at the MZone was the dude in the GEICO "tiny house" commercial. They've accomplished more than you ever will, and now they're dead.

I can think of no better tribute than that put forth by Maize 'n' Blue Nation:

Godspeed. It was pretty awesome. (Maize 'n' Brew also takes a swing at goodbye.)