Please Refer To The "Ascertain" Sketch By The Kids In The Hall

Paying attention to language in our culture can be frustrating. My advice is to refrain and roll with it. Because if you are paying attention, you’ll begin to notice that we love to grab and hold onto words that we think sound cool, make us feel more unique, or for some intelligent for saying them.

I had my fill of 80’s slang as a kid and I participated, as all kids do. But somewhere in the early 90’s I noticed that adults were using slang intended for their kids in regular conversation. This has to be a first in America. I can’t imagine my grandmother in the seventies calling things “groovy” or “solid” or “far-out”. However Katie Couric used “What’s the 411?” and “True that, peeps” and sounded borderline delusional.

I don’t want to get into slang as much as I want to write about the love affairs Americans have with a few terms. Sometime in the early nineties, the word random hit a spike in usage and has never looked back. For my first twenty years I used random maybe three times and heard it used (outside of math class) about four times. It was always in the phrase “at random” or “randomly”. It always was a description of mathematical possibilities. But somewhere along the line it became a synonym for strange and unique and a replacement for “out of the blue”. Although it sounds bizarre to me to refer to someone as “a random guy” or to use the phrase “How random!” I guess I was cool with it. Except, we do have the words strange, unique, odd, suddenly, stranger, et al; and the phrases “out of the blue” and “one of a kind”. All of these have been pushed aside for the word random and to me anyway, it’s not that much of a word. That one has clearly left the barn and is on its own in the world.

A few more word phrases are out there pretending they are the shit. Paradigm is another word people use far too much; particularly because it basically means situation, which is in itself a marshmallow word. Fierce is completely sucked dry. There is a phrase in business right now that is so perversely anti-English, illogical and clunky I hate to even repeat it. When there is an attribute or a function that can be added to a process or a program, it is commonly referred to as a “Value add”. What the ever-loving hell does that mean?

Instead of the phrase “Does this add value?” they say “Is it a value add?” See, this is what happens when MBA’s and computer science majors are running the show. All documents sound like a sixth grader wrote them because those people could not care any less about syntax, flow, coherence and basic grammar. It’s simple. Value is a meaningless, fat, stupid word. It needs friends to give it value. (See?) Try these on for size next time you want to butcher a work document: Increased value, decreased value, valuable, hindrance, loss, gain, and worth. And what about the intent behind the atrocious phrase value add? That is what we English speakers call a benefit. Use that instead. It has that sweet little “bene-” which mean “good”. Plus, it doesn’t sound mega-retarded.

Also, you can’t just let the word “add” out there all by itself. It doesn’t look natural.

Can a word be wrangled back in before it runs wild out there in lazy speaker land? I wish it were so. I’d go after robust. When I was a kid, robust was used to describe Maxwell House coffee beans. That’s it. Some IT guy a few years ago probably thought he was a bad-ass when he described the new version of a program as “more robust than version 2.0” or something and robust was off to the races of over usage. Now it’s everywhere describing everything.

I kind of like robust. But the problem is that when it’s out there in every third paragraph and every fourth conversation it loses its strength. It could mean something but it probably will never have a fighting chance. That is a shame. It’s a strong sounding word; it’s powerful and impressive, striking and imposing. All of which are synonyms for robust. They already float around our very fierce, robust, random language.

Above and Below The Influence

Here’s where I got the idea I’m about to rip off.

There has been an argument in my brain the last few months about what to teach my kids. I want them to experience their own journey and learn what they need to on their own. A lot of parents are like that these days. They have an enormous amount of self doubt about religion and morality and they aren’t sure if they are the best resource for a child to use.

The problem is, that is, in itself, influencing them.

Your kids learn from you and no matter what happens, they will be influenced. You can’t stop it. Unless you live in a bubble and never speak to the, your kids will get a pretty accurate idea of the things you treasure. We want our kids to live free of our screw-ups and failures but they are human. We are supposed to influence them. What we do is try to be honest. No matter what comes out of your mouth, it is slanted toward your own belief system. So, do you believe in your crap or don’t you?

My kids know I do not subscribe to religion at all. I never had a meeting. They just know. They know that their mother never had a subscription and that mine lapsed when I was about 12 or so. There’s no harm in that. It is the truth. But I can’t hide it from them, no matter what I do.

So I use the influence to teach them respect and tolerance. I believe that friendship and kindness to your fellow man, especially your loved ones, trumps everything. It is bigger than competition, money, drive, will and even religion. So it goes: “Believe what you want, but don’ be a prick to anyone who believes otherwise.”

Even the little things are an issue with me. My sons are getting into movies and TV and music now and they basically like all the things I like. I don’t mandate that; they just are using me as a starting point. There is a reason I have shelves full of books and 400 CD and records. I want them to explore and have a nice base to jump off from. They are starting to weed through the collection and poop on this and that. It’s what they are supposed to do. I just served as kindling for their intellect. Not a bad gig.

Years ago, the father would dictate the lives of his kids. The jobs, the school, the address and how he spoke and carried themselves in public. We are now a society that doesn’t mind individualism. It’s nice to think you are unique, even for a short period of time. Soon enough we all learn that everyone has the same problems and our ideas aren’t all that new or interesting or poignant. Getting there is what enables us to crawl out of bed in the morning. It is the hope that one day we will figure all this dumb shit out.

Here is the big difference between Eric’s story with his little Drew in the backseat and my conversations with my kids versus the typical scenarios when we were little boys: If we opened our mouths in the car about God, the metric system, whether Mello Yello was a good beverage or if Keith Moon was the best drummer, we would get something along the lines of: Shut the hell up back there, I’m trying to drive.

Difference? We listen.

Acclimation

Adjusting to the weather of Oregon from a life spent in Florida took me about a week and a half. Okay, truthfully, I needed to run through all of the seasons, but I was comfortable at the end of the first week. Trading the humidity and sweltering heat for breezes and air I could breathe was not difficult.

Soon I had to adjust to the prices of groceries and not pumping my own gas. Fine. The traffic was more tolerable and the layout of Portland and the west side was easy to understand. All that aside, I had to come to grips with my biggest challenge: the People.

I spent my last twenty-five years in a place where I never felt welcome. Not one day. My sense of environment was always somewhere else; in a third area. Not my birthplace in Upstate New York, or where I grew up in the panhandle of the American South. I always imagined I’d find a place where I could have what I wanted. Green like Florida but with actual weather, like New York. But not as much snow. And less red-state rednecks. And fewer tourists, because I tired of them a long time ago.

Then I moved here in 2005. And I got all of that shit.

The people here are different. Those out there who feel that people are the same no matter where you go are just wrong. People are like homemade spaghetti dinners. Everybody has the same basic ingredients, but it all ends up on the plate a little different than the neighbors. Oregonians are as laid back as human beings can possibly be without forgetting how to breathe. The angst and tension I felt on the east coast my entire life just is not here. They don’t have the same motivations. They aren’t pushy. They aren’t fast.

They are supportive and mostly broke. They have pride in their community but they don’t brag. They like sports but they refrain from being pricks about everything. As my friend Dylan pointed out, they are friendlier but not as polite. Politeness is what you need in a society that is tense. It is the grease that keeps the gears running smoothly. If everybody is cool with everything, you are less likely to get in a fist fight with a jerkoff whose Nike’s you just stepped on. It’s unexpected and refreshing.

The problem? Well, I’m not cool with everything yet.

I do find myself wanting people to move their asses in traffic. Everyone here is a safe, conscientious driver who coasts along at the speed limit. Well, I’m not used to that and sometimes I want to get somewhere! Not every day is a leisurely trip to the city park to knock around the hacky sack!

Also, I grew up in a place where the Klan had footholds and there were abortion rallies and protests about gays visiting Disney. Here, there are more transvestites and cross dressers than you can shake a genuine or prosthetic stick at. I’ve worked alongside both men with C-cups and ladies with full Billy Mays beards. Rainbow stickers, marches and gathering in the center of town. And everyone from the old woman throwing crumbs to the ducks to the young Kindergarten teacher has a tattoo. Somewhere.

They are accepting here. They don’t judge anything. Unless you try to build a Wal-Mart too close.

I love all of this. I want to eat it and digest it and breathe it in and be a part of me. I want my kids to grow up in this atmosphere.

But, what I really wish for is to feel like part of this place. I didn’t like being a Yankee in the south. I don’t wish to be a foreigner anymore.

I guess I should ask around. They may have already accepted me.