This is dedicated to my friend from Chicago (and for the sake of protecting his privacy, we'll simply refer to him as D. Olson). Actually, that might be a little too obvious. How about Don O. instead? No. Let's say his name sounds like Shawn Folson.
He proved to me over beers late the other night that there are pulsed-people reading this stuff and that some of them even pretend to like it. For a hack writer, that's living in Sarah Palin's body the day she was told "you have what it takes to make it as an Analyst on Fox". BAM! Sign there, go get a new wardrobe, announce the new gig, move from Alaska to NY or LA, have an espresso, look at Russia one last time, read some periodicals, BAM! I'm on it like that. Happy style. Ready to Rrrrrock!
Now, the point.
I love a good retrospective list. Here are some of the best I've seen during the Decade switch:
-The Top 101 places to eat in America that will KILL you.
-The Top 11 Thwarted Terror Attacks at the Newark Airport. Yesterday.
-The Top 91,234 Women Who Cut Their Hair Like Kate Gosselin only to have to grow it or buy extensions to feel alive again.
-The Top 1,124 Celebrities that died in November and December
-The Top 6 of 8 Albums of the Decade produced without a "voicebox thingy"
-The Top 43,295 Reality Show stars who double as meathead assholes in "reality".
All loads of fun, there was my favorite, an internet fueled list of words or phrases that needed to be retired from the vernacular immediately because of their overexposure in the recent past. These are the phrases that sound great until they are beaten bloody and senseless by local newscasters, bloggers and your own Grandma. Once Granny starts chirpin' on about OchoCinco's latest Tweet, its time to stop following him. And Tweeting. It may even be time to look for an alternative to cell phone usage. Smokesignals, ya'll?
Words and phrases like, "Too Big to Fail" and "Change" got wiped from the common speech pattern. So did, "Spending Money" and "Put it on the Visa".
Gone are the terms, "Vetting", "Hockey Mom" and "Bailout". Of course, if the McCain camp had done the proper vetting of a certain Hockey Mom it chose to front the campaign for them, they wouldn't have had their ass whipped so badly...bailout and stuff.
Sarcastik!
Anyway, I wanted to dedicate a little cyber-space to retiring some real phrases we tend to use in everyday speech that are starting to make me angry. I want them swept into the past like the words that these net-hipsters destroy every January in order to make room for fresher, more ridiculous words for people to beat to death. These are phrases that have been with us, in some cases, longer than the Moon has, so it may be tough. Bottom line, though folks...you can't say any of these things ever again.
I have that much power.
The Top 5 Things I Have Banished From Common Speech (and why):
5. "Are you Serious?"
As in:
Person One: "Wow. I woke up this morning and my neighbor was being dragged out from his house by a giant vulture. He was screaming and holding a cup of coffee...trying to reach his paper, too...but really freaking out. It was crazy. I'm not sure why he still gets the paper, since he's 27."
Person Two: "Are you serious?"
Either the guy is making all this up while trying to pull your chain and/or make you laugh and/or get you to look away from your muffin long enough to steal it, or he's being serious and a vulture ate his neighbor. Either way, you don't need to ask if he's serious. I've never heard anyone answer the question, "Are you serious?" with..."Ummm. Sort of?" They either are or they aren't. Your ability to discern that fact is paramount to your ability to survive the next cut in the survival of the fittest. Along with this saying goes, "Ohh....you're kidding!"
4. "Have a good one!"
The great George Carlin said it best...when someone said "Have a good one!" to him, he'd say, "I already have a good one...now I just need a longer one!" That was George's way of ridding this world of the weakest attempt at parting shots we have. There's nothing honest about this saying at all...it indicates laziness and inability to keep time.
"Have a good..." (oh shit, is it morning still, or afternoon...hurry! Think! Oh well....)
"One!" (Good! That covers morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night, day, week and life! I'm great at saying goodbye to people!!)
I use and despise this saying. Its so easy and it sounds so familiar that we fall in love with it. But its hollow and lazy. Buy a watch. Anticipate the next time you'll see the person. Have them in the forefront of your mind as you say goodbye. Having a good one will always insinuate possessing a great package as far as I'm concerned. Thanks a lot, Carlin. I miss you.
3. "The Moment We've All Been Waiting For"
Oh, I want to puke when I hear it.
Is there anything worse than trite hyperbole? Its like "The Time of Your Life" or "The Greatest Show On Earth" or "The Coolest Blog Ever Located At www.chriskeefe.blogspot.com EVER!".
Including me in the phrasing is insulting. How do you know that this is the moment that I've been waiting for? MMA guys crushing each other's faces and nuts is cool...but the moment that I, personally, had been waiting for was that Keystone Light commercial where the short slacker dude offers to get the chips for the helpless hottie in the grocery store and he makes her hold his 30 pack of Key Light while he destroys the store with row-dominoes. That was the moment I had been waiting for, so don't assume anything about me.
Wait until the Olympics or the next election...or 2012. That's when this one will get bludgeoned. I want it replaced with:
"And now, the moment that some of you may have been waiting for...."
Accurate and trite, but not hyperbolic anymore.
2. "Oh well. It is what it is..."
Really, Aristotle? So you've solved the meaning of life, the space time continuum theory and explanation for Kim Kardashian's fame with one little convenient phrase? Lazy and underdeveloped.
Whenever you sit around with people you're afraid to challenge or don't know the mental capacity they have you tend to resort to this one...
Person: "Nice to meet ya. I see you drive a Jeep. I reckon you like to hunt and hate the President. Y'ever read the TARP act in full? Whaddya think about Harry Reid or the latest stimulus package? You got theories about the next season of Lost?"
You: "Well............It is what it is."
(Guns go off in the background)
Person: "YES!"
Grow a pair. Like or love something (yes this one hurts me) and choose a side. Don't cop out. To be sure, we can never use the commonplace way of describing a thousand baby seals being slaughtered by encroaching glaciers by writing it off with..."Well, it is what it is" ever again.
1. "When I was a kid....."
I swore as a kid I would never say this. Its just as dumb to equivocate 1976 with 2006 as it is to equivocate an Atari with a Wii...
(in a fat chinned, guttural-yet nasally voice with your lips stuck out like you never left the couch in high school and you're all pissed that you wasted EONS of cool gaming time on Pitfall)
"When I was a kid, we had Pong and Donkey Kong. That's it! And only three levels of DK. We got callouses from that joystick."
(Slobber comes out of your mouth as you remember how awesome Atari was, even though you have to feign hatred for your ungrateful offspring.)
"When, when (slurp) I was a kid we had to eat rocks and ride the Model T to school and there was no moon and toilet paper was made of leaves and there were no words.."
Just give it a rest you old bastard (and I'm self-referencing). Join the crowd. We get born, we get old and we get bitter. We watch technology and snowfall and social mores pass us by and we get angry. That's how it is, and nobody cares what it was like when you were a kid. Not even, in your heart of hearts, you.
So there you have it. Find some thing else to say during your next casual conversation.
Maybe you'll mean it when you say, "See you at another time I can't predict!"
