A while back, I wrote about our country’s collective potty mouth, and a professional group who travelled around and performed cussing interventions at companies, to teach people not to swear.
And I myself have quite the colorful vocabulary. I think most writers do; it doesn’t come from lack of linguistic ability or slow intelligence or being a dullard. Instead, most of it comes from channeling our own frustrations, so that we don’t run outside and beat someone with a baseball bat. When those little unexpected calamities arise during the day – say, when you drop a 2-liter bottle of soda square on your foot and break your toe – sighing and exclaiming “oh, shoot” just doesn’t do your emotions justice. It helps to choose a few four-letter words, and weave them into an intricate oral tapestry.
Comedian Lewis Black says there is no such thing as “bad” language today. Not with all of the things currently going on world-wide. I wholly agree. Black had been asked to perform one of his HBO specials at the Kennedy Center, but abruptly had to move it to the Warner Theatre in D.C. after someone at the Kennedy Center watched a tape of his show and realized that he had said the word “f**k” at least 40 times.
Then, he was asked to perform his act at a Congressional dinner where Dubya and Dick Cheney would be seated right to his left. The only stipulation? He couldn’t use any “bad” language. He told them, “Well, it’s going to be a short evening.”
The fact that they wanted to censor his colorful cussing in and of itself is ridiculous. Black was right to be offended; these people after all truly are out first line of defense against the War on Terror, and as he put it, the word “shit” makes them cry.
So I assume everyone had their hankies out a few days ago when President Barack Obama became the first president in history to use the word “ass” in a formal interview setting on national television. He told Matt Lauer in a spot on the Today Show June 8 that he was trying to figure out “whose ass to kick” over the BP oil spill crisis in the Gulf.
He’s mad, just as the rest of us are. That was an off-the-rolled-cuff comment and it was beautiful. Political experts surmised that he was channeling the electorate’s emotion over this Full F**k Up by BP, which seems never-ending. (To channel my feelings over the oil spill would require a stronger word than “ass,” but it’s a start.)
And people are shocked over this? Why? Because Fox News told us we should be? Pffffft! In my eyes, the President just went up about 30 approval points. Good for him. The rest of the Congressional body ought to thank their lucky stars that I’m not the president. I’d have Lewis Black as my VP, and conjure up the late George Carlin to be press secretary.
They’d spend a lot of time crying, believe me.
