Ruminisms on Euphamisms

Not since The Popsicles have I seen a band with as much pageantry and positively electric stage presence as The Khrusty Brothers, who I saw last Friday night at the Crosstown station at the same time as such friends as Jill and Lucas and Moe Didde and John Raux and Dan Farmer and Bet(h) Mercer and well, half of Jacob's Well, really. Saying it's a great show is an understatement. Good songs, good theatre, good performances. Good. Their upcoming show at the Bottleneck in Lawrence has been postponed, but when they play next, you should see them. Even Jill loved the show, and she's not such a big fan of concerts. They're kind of a Beck-ish rock band with two drummers and an announcer named Cowboy Jesus who dances through the whole set. I'd dance to them. I did dance to them.

They've got a line in their song 'Sympathy for Jesus' where a man with a "hot gun" stumbles into church to tell Jesus his demands. But some angels are acting like Jesus's secretary. The man calls Jesus out on this, and then Jesus calls him out right back and says to him, "so address me to my face, if you think you've got the balls." The man "tries hard to remember every shitty circumstance" to tell Jesus to try to vindicate himself. Jesus tells him he "appreciates [the man's] kind and pours himself a drink," and then kind of goes off on a non-sequitur, telling the the man that that Jesus is "saddled with the job, you know, interpreting [his] dad to a bunch of frightened people. Frightened or just mad." Then he says "I got my fiancee; she's supposed to speak my mind; sometimes she's just chicken, and she meses it up other times," which is referring to the church as you know. Maybe even suggesting the man should have been helped by the fiancee.

It's a great song, and you can listen to it here if you want. I'm a big fan of using art to recast things that are commonly known into new metaphors. So calling the church Jesus' fiancee is pretty boss. another good example would be Page France's 'Chariot', where the singer refers to Jesus as "the blushing circus king." I need more artists with good imaginations like this.

Ok, even though I think it totally fits the song, and the concept, and I think I like how it works in the song, I've got to say here, just so you know, that 'shit' is my least favorite word.

That's what I'd say if they asked me on Inside the Actor's Studio. I might even say "the s word" when asked. By the by, 'bastard' is my favorite swear. It has a really good ring to it.

Here's how much I hate the word, though. If I were reading this aloud to you, I'd substitute "the s word" for the s word. Ridiculous, I know. I don't even want to write it more than once. Even though it's powerful and specific. My morays getting in the way of my literary aspirations.

I only bring the specifics of the lyric up because I've been present in a number of conversations lately that have been about swearing. The general consensus seems to be that Christians should swear when the situation would warrant it, because that's the honest and non-hypocritical thing to do. Even Shane Clairborne in Irrisitible Revolution talks about how there was a youth pastor driving these inner city kids to a youth camp, and on the way, the van broke down in a particularly annoying fashion (storm or summat), and he let rip a fine string of obscenities while getting the van up and running again. The story goes that a bunch of the kids that rode up in the van decided to follow Jesus that weekend, and when the pastor asked one of them why, the kid said that if a guy who could get angry and swear like that could follow Jesus, maybe he could too.

And then Steve said the other night (on the porch at the guy's house. Again, yay porches.) that when you say 'heck' and 'darn' and 'shoot' and what-have-you that that's also dishonest, not just ingenuine, because you're thinking to say something else, and we all know what you meant, really.

Earlier today, my friend Zack dropped the f-bomb in response to something I was saying about human trafficking, and then he quickly apologized because he had forgotten that I was the sort of person who did not like swearing. I'm not sure I've ever told him this. Maybe it's my "Christian-ness", whatever that means. I thought it was appropriate, honestly, considering the nature of human trafficking.

Here's my deal; I grew up hearing that swearing meant you didn't have a strong enough vocabulary to express what you meant. My parents actually said the alternate words and phrases (with the very rare exception) and so that was what I thought one said in those circumstances. Not that I didn't say 'crap' or whatever mid-range swearing is out there (list includes bastard, but not gang, darn, shoot, or rats, in my opinion), but it actually came as a surprise as I got out into the world that other people really used words like 'damn' (and worse) in non-cinematic conversations.

So I feel a little guilty when I say things like 'for crying out loud' or 'what the heck' because I don't mean 'for Christ's sake' or 'what the hell,' and I'm sure it sounds like I'm inauthentically censoring myself, but I'm not thinking those other things in my head, and then modifying them for the audience, that's what I mean to say.

I wrote a short story my junior year where most of the substance came from the irony between the characters names and what actually happened in the story. For example there was this character Anne, whose name means 'grace', and she was very ungracious to people. Get it? Do ya? Ha! Yeah, it sucked. I also put some swearing in it to make it seem more realistic, because most all the people I knew were swearing types. Teena Winter, who was my very good English teacher at the time, said that among the many faults of the story was that my swearing didn't seem authentic. Tacked on, as it were.

Although, once in a great while, I'll think a swear when I've been reading Stephen King or watching Boondock Saints or whatever, I'm not tempted to say them. What does that mean for authenticity? I think some things I don't say, but I don't consider those thoughts things that I'd actually say. Like, I think about skateboarding ala tony Hawk all along the pews and front of the stage EVERY time we go to Olathe Bible Church, but I'm not going to even try. Also, I can't skateboard.

Of course, I do take way too much pride in the fact that I've never sworn using the "bad words". Yeah, I've quoted people who swore, and I'd be lying if I told you that the Jill and I hadn't reclaimed some colorful terminology for our own, non-vulgar, usage, but I mean, in anger, I've never said . . . well, you know . . . all those words that most people say. I think back the angriest I was in my entire life, and my exact words were "Oh for crying out loud. You're got to be kidding me." I have said "freaking" (sung that at church, even) and "bastards all" and "load of crap" and "full of it" (with no intention of 'it' meaning anything but the pronoun) and even "freaking bastards" (most of this in response to anecdotes concerning corporations who have screwed people over, if ya believe it), but never have I said any of these at someone. Even when I'd say I've had good reason.

Like I said, too much pride.

Jill has said this is an example of my non-emotiveness. I'm not sure what she thinks now. But that was a point of contention for a while there. Which, she, ironically, expressed using such language. One of her favorite swears is my least. Go figure.

Maybe I'm just coming in to you, like you're Jesus in that church, hot gun in my hand, and trying to vindicate the fact that I don't swear, and that's dishonest. But maybe the point of writing this is to try to say that it's not dishonest for me. But then again, maybe I've betrayed the opposite.

To others of you, I think I'd have to come in and justify for the little swearing that shows up here, since it likely, in your mind, falls under the "coarse jesting" or the "let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth" bits of the New Testament. And let's not even get into the whole, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no" business, which shows up in these conversations.

That's all I've got. I'd say something clever, swearing for ironic emphasis, but I don't feel like it. See, not even for the irony.