It's time for a “True Hollywood Story,” except that it's set in Denver. But it's a true story, so I've got that going for me. Back when I was working for MyTrafficNews and writing the daily edition of an e-mail that delighted entire tens of people, I was informed by my esteemed editor of a word that would never see the light of day in that forum, after I tried to use it a couple of times. (He had to be explicit like that, because I'm rather dense.) The word was “pimp.”

Now, I was not referring to the traditional meaning of the word, but rather the more modern meaning found in phrases like “pimp my car,” “pimp my house,” or “pimp my piano.” Basically, I was referring to the modern practice of putting way too much money into a worldly possession, usually to the point of being garish and comical. However, my editor was not willing to divorce this new meaning of “pimp” from its original meaning, so it became “The One Word You Can't Say on the Web.”

When MyTrafficNews bid farewell to Denver and I bid “hello!” to DenverPost.com, I had a number of questions for my future boss. One of them was whether I could use the word “pimp” in the “bling bling” sense. She said “Go for it.” Since then, I really haven't used it, but at least I know it's there.

Long story short (too late!), such was the addition placed for me on the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” Not that I could ever add anything to the genius of George Carlin, who tragically passed away on Sunday but he will always be in my heart. And you'll note that, thanks to him, I've never used words like [censored] or [redacted] in this blog. Heck, I've never even used [text omitted for the love of pete!] for goodness sake!

Meanwhile, the Denver Center for Performing Arts offers classes like tonight's “Stand-Up Comedy for Beginners” at 6:30 p.m. If you're the next George Carlin, and we can always use people with insight like his, this might be the first step.

As an afterthought, I'm tired of “famous people die in threes” thing, and I'd officially like that to stop. Having to deal with the death of Harvey Korman, Tim Russert and George Carlin all at once is a bit much for me. Famous people are trend setters, so please, set a trend and spread out your life cessations. Or buck the whole “dying” trend; live forever! I know that might be tough, but groundbreakers like you have had difficult things to tackle before; how is death any different?

So I'm a little bummed by Carlin's passing, and the fact that, besides a circus at the Coliseum, there's not much going on in the Denver area this evening.

Thus, it appears, I'm ending on a downer. Sorry folks, I'll try to do better tomorrow. Until then, thanks for reading!