The most annoying commercial on radio

runs on Los Angeles' KRLA for Forest Lawn Cemetery. If you listen to the station at all you've heard it--the one where "the kid" and "Grandpa," who are surfers, have just finished surfing and now discuss Grandpa's funeral. It has the lines, "You were shredding today, Grandpa!" and, "When the Big Kahuna calls for me, you call Forest Lawn."

Just typing those lines makes me suicidal. Really, how can I, how can anyone, stand to live in a world where such lines have been written? Humans are scum.

It's even worse than that. Exposed to writing so disturbed, one naturally seeks emergency mental services and moves on, doesn't one? But what makes this commercial really unbearably awful, so awful each hearing of it literally shortens one's life, is "Grandpa's" voice.

Look, I can't describe it, but no old man ever talked like that in the long, long history of old men. It's a young man who either has never heard an old man speak or was abused by a series of old men who had recently undergone tracheotomies. Can you surf with a tracheotomy?

Anyway, here's a link dump of Forest Lawn related junk, because this post sure ain't going anywhere.

The Shadow magazine, which has nothing to do with Forest Lawn, but which I hotlinked for the Al Lewis cover. Just lefty bull, and nowhere near as fun as MIM.

A mid-level Forest Lawn flak on funeral etiquette.

The celebrities buried in Forest Lawn. (It takes a couple of clicks.)

The Death Care Book Shop page, currently featuring Forest Lawn CEO John F. Llewellyn's unsettlingly titled A cemetery should be forever: The challenge to managers and directors. Llewellyn is also "a third-generation cemeterian."

The slightly strange William Arthurs' eclectic site, with links to all kinds of stuff related to Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death and Forest Lawn.

A New Times (Los Angeles) piece that misspells "cemetery" in its title. The New Times (Los Angeles) is defunct, by the way.

Update: Yes it scares me that a station I listen to runs commercials for a cemetery. And hair restorers. And Christian thrillers. And gold, gold, GOLD! Somebody help me.