Go To H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks

My sons have developed a fascination with swearing. I don’t swear around them and neither does their mother. That lack of exposure has led them to be curious about the social constraints regarding swearing.

They don't actually swear, but they like to point it out when they see a bumper sticker with a curse word on it or when they see an ad promoting "Kick-Ass 2." Sometimes that can be amusing, such as when I heard them arguing about whether shit was the ‘S word’ or the ‘SH word.’

The other day, and not for any other reason than sometimes I say things like this, I said, “What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks was that?”

Casey looked at me quizzically and said, “What does that mean?”

“That I don’t understand why that person just pulled in front of me,” I explained.

“No,” he said. “What does H-E-double-hockey-sticks mean?”

Suddenly, I was in a parking lot trying to explain to an 8-year-old kid that hockey sticks kind of look like L’s…even if it’s just barely...so I was kind of spelling hell instead of just saying hell. As my sons are wont to do, he immediately told his mother about his newly found knowledge at the earliest opportunity.

The troubling part is that I inadvertently added spelling as an option for swearing. I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time before I hear, “Why don’t you go f-u-c-k yourself?” coming out of his mouth.

Casey has already amped up his use of substitute words like ‘heck’ and ‘fricking.’ I thought about trying to get him to switch to ‘frack’ instead…you know, to at least give him some geek cred…but then I would’ve had to borrow a season of “Battlestar Gallactica” from a friend and then try to explain the socio-political undertones to him.

Grown-ups didn’t swear around me when I was a kid, at least for the most part. I learned about profanity the old fashioned way…from comedians.

While the generations prior had learned various naughty words from listening to Red Foxx albums when the adults weren't paying attention, I was at the forefront of using bad stuff from cable television.

My older sister was the first person I knew who had cable in the mid-1970’s. She tapped into the new medium early enough that HBO wasn’t even in existence when she first had it. When the premium channel was first added to her lineup, the now titan of the entertainment industry wasn’t even broadcasting full-time yet.

Thanks to HBO, I was able to learn George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine around the time that I was Casey’s age now…making me, I believe, one of the first of a new generation that heard Carlin’s routine for the first time while watching him say those words on television.

I didn’t even know what two of the words meant (hint: one rhymes with hunt and the other had something to do with a rooster lollipop). When you’re watching Carlin on the sneak, you can’t just go off asking people what the words that he used mean.

 While that earned me an unending appreciation of Carlin – when I saw him live for the last time before his death, he was still closing some shows talking about words that you’re not supposed to say – there was another comedian had a stronger influence on my thinking regarding profanity.

Freddie Prinze – not the Sarah Michelle Gellar/”Scooby-Doo”/”I Know What You Did Last Summer” one, but his father – was an actor who I liked on his sitcom “Chico & the Man.” Then I saw his stand-up routine. Suddenly, the sweet and safe generically Hispanic guy from the sitcom was a cocksure New Yorker who hung out in comedy clubs. Instead of the pat lines produced by necessity by network sitcom writers, Prinze on cable seemed inclined to say whatever he felt like saying.

When you’re eight, having the realization that you can be two different people if you want – one in polite society and another if the setting is more relaxed – can be pretty liberating.

 

However, I’m finding it hard to teach that to my own children. It’s probably just one of those things that they have to learn on their own…but I’m impatient and would just as soon help them figure it out quicker. Of course, there’s a possibility now that I might need to rethink my lessons on patience.

If you can’t teach your kids the “Seven Words That You Can Never Say on Television” – most of which now get said even on network broadcasts with regularity – you might as well find something else to teach them.

Not to be overly sappy, but I still remember where I was when a newscaster announced that Freddie Prinze had shot himself (he died the following day). There’s a scene in the movie “Fame” where the high school student that wants to be a comedian talks about Prinze’s influence on him...that scene almost made me cry when I first saw it as a kid.

 

It’s not every role model in your life who teaches you about freedom, death AND the skillful use of profanity.

Here’s a clip of Prinze’s HBO special from when I was a kid:

(Disclaimer: One, yes, I realize that he doesn’t actually swear all that much in his routine, but I was eight when I saw it. Saying hell a few times would’ve qualified to me. Two, I also realize that the routine would now not be considered politically correct. It was 1976. There was no such thing as politically correct. I apologize for not being able to go back in time and adjust the social mores of 40 years ago.)

For those wondering about the debate from the opening paragraph, the floor eventually resolved that since they couldn’t figure out another ‘S word’ that the more streamlined designation would be used instead of ‘SH word.’ It’s so nice when profanity can be used as a civics lesson.

Swearing Addendum

There was a story from my youth that came up in the writing of the post about profanity that subsequently didn’t really fit in. However, never one to edit myself down, I decided to just include it separately.

When I moved to rural Michigan as a youngster, it was because my mother married a jackass who was originally from there. Now, you might be thinking that you’re not supposed to say anything if you don’t have something nice to say about a person. While I normally appreciate that line of thinking, the fact of the matter is that the guy my mother married was a jackass…empirically.

I did not swear in front of my family when I was young. I don’t really swear in front of my family now. In an Irish household growing up, using the Lord’s name in vain (“Jesus!”) was infinitely better than telling someone to fuck off.

One evening when I was around 14, I was sitting on the floor watching television while my mother and her jackass husband were behind me. For reasons that I have no recollection of, her husband began flicking me in the back of the head. Perhaps I had done something that annoyed him, or more likely he was just doing it because he was a jackass.

He seemed to have it in his head that he was going to get his shots in on me while I was still skinny as a rail and before I grew to the stature of my brothers…who are 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-8, respectively.

That’s the kind of person that he was; only pick on someone when you clearly have the upper hand.

I started out casually saying, “Quit it.” When that didn’t work, I
upped the volume of my “Quit it!” as the anger built.

Finally, I reared around and yelled, “Keep your fucking hands off of me, old man!”

As soon as I realized what I just said, I took a look at my mother
whose back had stiffened at the offensive language. For a brief
second, it looked as though she was going to explode at me.

Then our eyes met. I’m not sure what expression I had on my face, but I watched as my mother became less sure of what she wanted to say, eventually deciding not to say anything and then finally moving her gaze away from mine.

I went back to watching television and her husband kept his hands to himself for the rest of the time that I was sitting there.

That didn’t last, of course. Being a jackass there were plenty of
other occasions where he tried to pick fights with me, but I learned quickly that it got me nowhere to take the bait and figured out how to control myself.

That actually led to one of my favorite stories about him, even if it
doesn’t cast me in the best light. One time, I thought that the
fighting between he and my mother was progressively escalating into something that might become physical. So, I waited until a point when it was just the two of us – he and I – and said, “You better make sure that you keep your hands off of my mother.”

He sneered and said, “Really? What are you going to do about it if I don’t?”

Quite calmly I looked at him and said something along the lines of,
“I’m not going to do anything by myself. The first phone call I’m
going to make will be to my brother-in-law explaining the situation and asking him to arrange for things. Then I’m going to have him fly out here with my 6-foot-8 brother – you know, the crazy one – and I’m going to tell him that you hit our mother. We’re then going to lock the two of you in a room for a little while and let him do whatever he wants to you. Once he’s done, we’re going to bring in my other brother – you know, the 6-foot-4 one with all of the military training – and let him finish the job. He’ll then tell us how to clean up and dispose of you so that no one ever knows what happened. Then we’ll all go back to our normal lives and forget that you ever existed. That’s what I’ll do.”

By the time that I was finished, he wasn’t sneering anymore.

Funny thing…he also didn’t act like he was going to hit my mother any more after that.

Robin Thicke Has a What?

Let me first start with this...while this is normally a family friendly -- mostly -- blog, this post is a little bit less so. So, what I'm trying to say is that my own sons should stop reading now.

One of the dangers of being single and unemployed is that you can also become a little bit out of touch. And, sure, being a dad seems to automatically veer you towards the clueless.

When a friend asked yesterday if I had seen the video for Robin Thicke's song "Blurred Lines," I had to admit that I had not. Heck, I hadn't even really paid that much attention to the song the couple of times that I had heard it. I vaguely remembered reading in Entertainment Weekly about the controversy over the lyrics and Thicke's comment about "what a pleasure it is to degrade women."

Since it's Robin Thicke, son of Alan and from a lineage that produced the theme to "The Facts of Life," I didn't worry too much about it.

It wasn't until later that I learned about the copyright controvesy, with Thicke suing the estate of Marvin Gaye and Funkadelic/George Clinton in order to prove that they didn't steal from Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" and Clinton's "Sexy Ways."

That isn't what this post is about, but just to give my two cents, "Blurred Lines" does sound like "Got To Give It Up." However, it wasn't so obvious that I immediately thought of it. And, if you're going to steal, stealing from Marvin Gaye and George Clinton at least shows that you have taste.

No, the only reason that I bring any of this up is because of the video. My first thought in watching the video -- well, right after "those are certainly nice boobs" and who's the other guy besides Thicke and Pharrell Williams (so sue me...I couldn't remember T.I. right off the bat) -- was, "Is this video an homage to Robert Palmer or George Michael or both?"

For comparison's sake, here's Thicke's "Blurred Lines" video:

 

 

(If you want the full on nudie version instead of the cleaned up version above then feel free to click here.)

 

Here's the video for Palmer's "Simply Irrestible":

 

 

 

Finally, here's Michael's "Freedom 90":

 

 

 



Let's see...we've got Thicke, Pharrel and T.I. in evening attire while models wear vapid expressions. That points to a tribute to Palmer's iconic mid-80's videos...including his breakthrough hit "Addicted To Love."

Depending on the version, the models are either pretty naked or really naked. While there aren't out and out nipples in George Michael's video, there are some really famous super models (Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, etc.) that aren't wearing much...or in the case of Cindy Crawford are enticingly nude, although strategically filmed.

By the way, if you forgot about what we all thought about Ms. Crawford back in the day, watch the video and I'm sure the memories will come flooding back.

In Thicke's video, the models show that even really beautiful women can look kind of goofy dancing naked. In Palmer's videos, the models also move in a uniform, automoton way...making them look kind of goofy.

Palmer's videos and "Blurred Lines" are both set against fairly generic backgrounds.

Double points to Palmer.

George Michael doesn't even appear in the video for "Freedom 90," let alone hashtag his own name as Thicke does nor did he use inflatable letters to brag about the size of his appendage.

Then again, maybe neither Robert Palmer or George Michael felt like they had to brag about their manhood.

So, while others will debate whether Thicke and Pharrell plagarized "Got To Give It Up," I will continue watching the video for more clues about who they were ripping off with that.

Purely scientific. Nothing at all to do with the boobs.

While it seems unlikely that there might be someone reading this that doesn't actually know Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up"...well, one you probably do and just don't know that's the title. It gets played on every Lunchtime 70's radio show in the country and was in both "Boogie Nights" and "Menace II Society." If that doesn't help you, then here's a clip of Gaye performing the song on "Soul Train":

New Life

If you’ll take a look at the post history of this blog you’ll notice that there is a significant gap between the previous post and this one. What was I doing, you might ask?

Well, even if you didn’t ask I’m going to tell you because this is, after all, my blog. The primary reason for the break in a blog about the joys of my domestic life is that I got a divorce. Since the point of the blog was that my life as a husband and father frequently resembled the sitcoms that myself and many of my friends either write for, wrote for or tried to write for, suddenly not having a wife presented a problem.

Turns out that I didn’t think much of anything was funny about the divorce.

Having had about a year to digest it all…well, I still don’t think the divorce part was funny. I’m pretty sure that there aren’t too many worse things that you can have happen to you than to believe yourself to be happily married only to find out that only one of you feels that way.

With time, though, you start to find more things funny. Little by little, I’ve started to find the humor in life again. Like when my cousin seemingly forgot how to talk after an afternoon of drinking beer in the sun. Of course, first we had to verify that he wasn’t having a stroke but once we were sure that it was just the demon booze it quickly became funny. The paramedics might not have thought so but I did.

Just as things had seemingly settled down from the whole divorce brouhaha and kids were settled into a routine of going back and forth between parents, I subsequently lost my job. Unlike the divorce, that one I kind of find funny.

I didn’t particularly like my job. I was an empty suit in middle management not really doing much of anything of use to most people. It’s hard to feel bad when you loose something like that. The only problem is that I’m an adult with responsibilities…I have to pay child support now for God’s sake. I might have hated the job, but the fact of the matter is that I wasn’t just working as a drone for the fun of it. They paid me real money for kind of, sort of doing some things.

When I was younger and was a struggling writer in Los Angeles, not working a real job had a certain amount of cache. You were working on your material. You were available for meetings any time that your agent or a producer might want to see you. The fact that no one ever wanted to see you was irrelevant. Plus, it’s easier to go see movies by yourself in the afternoon…and you probably won’t be alone for long once you spot three or four of your “struggling artists” writer friends taking their own mental break to see a matinee.

Being single and unemployed as a 45-year-old dude in the Midwest is a lot less fun. I can try to call myself a struggling artist around here, but the more official term used by the local citizenry is “bum.” I can’t even ride the rails and upgrade to “hobo” since I still have to care for two children.

However, if being Irish has taught me anything it is this: When life hands you lemons, go trade them for some beer and get pissed.

I’m going to go back to looking at the bright side of life, as Monty Python famously taught me as a youngster.

You, gentle reader, are invited back to partake of my ramblings and amusing stories about my life, many of them tied to the darndest things that my sons continue to utter. And, if you happen to know of anyone hiring empty suit, middle management types that are also failed writers...well, I'm easy enough to find and less picky than a chess club geek on the eve of prom.