Swearing

Isn't swearing great? I mean, I know it's rude, bad mannered, and just poor behavior, but goddamn it feels great! What's really odd about swearing is everyone does it, and just about everyone looks down on others when they do. We all like it, but reflexively we all cringe when we hear it. Say them. Go ahead. Say the “7 words you can't say on television.” We all know them, and we know more than just them. Hell, I make up my own - asspipe. I love using asspipe. “What an asspipe.” An asspipe is a big asshole, because a pipe is really just a hole stretched out. Asswad, there's another one. I don't use it too often. I've been quite enamored with asspipe for awhile, but asswad is just buttwad assed up. Buttwad was what we used as kids because we were not allowed to say asshole. Buttwad is juvenile for asshole. Still, asspipe is my current favorite. Especially when some asspipe does not know how to navigate a roundabout. Sorry, if a roundabout gives you trouble, you're an asspipe. Actually you're a dumbass. An asspipe is the one who does not yield when entering the roundabout. Asspipes are self important. It's also gender neutral. A woman is just as capable of asspipery as a man is. In fact, we should just call a woman an asspipe, or asshole and put the bitch term to rest. Besides bitch is more whiny and complaining than it is being an ass. Bitch can live in veterinary world just fine as it was intended. Why call a woman a bitch, when she's being an asshole? If you're behaving like a self important jackass – man or woman – you are an asshole.

Dammit! We all love that one. It's the one swear you can probably get away with in church. Just dammit though. If you put God in front of it, you may as well drop the f-bomb in church. “Dammit, where are my keys?”

Shit is really useful. It's the oxy-clean of swearing. When you're angry, surprised, happy, laughing you use it. It mixes with other words too. Shithead, shitface, shit for brains. Did you ever try to use poop as a substitute? It's kinda funny. “Oh poop.” Almost helps yo keep whatever you were saying shit about in proper context. Crap is not as good of a substitute. May as well just say shit. Poop is way better. Maybe it's the long vowel.

Douchebag, and douche. These are fun. They're enjoying a renaissance. More impolite than a full on swears. Probably because we all know the utility of the douchebag. It's also gotten a lot of play lately. Jersey Shore? Dunno. I don't watch that dumbass show anyway. They all seem like self important assholes to me. That may sound redundant. Assholes are not all self important, but a self important asshole is an asspipe. Back to douchebag, it's more of a small asshole, with a bit of stupidity. A dumbass/asshole cocktail as it were. Douchebag really works well in politics, or even plain douche. It's a great ironic use like “Douchebag of Liberty” a-la Jon Stewart's name for Robert Novak. Douche is general inappropriate, immaturity. Which makes it fit Jersey Shore anyway. “What a douche.” I like douchewad. Not sure if I heard it somewhere or just threw them together.

Then there's the word we all love to use, and love to hate – fuck. George Carlin put it best - “It's the word that hangs them up the most, because it's the act that hangs them up the most.” And it is ironic that a euphemism for lovemaking is the big daddy of swear words, but there it is. And we use it as much as any well worn swear word like shit, or ass. In fact if you hurt yourself in a home-improvement project you'll probably run them on in no particular order with a few sunuvabitches thrown in for color. You never hear douche in this context though. “Sunuvvabitch, douche!! My finger.” Doesn't work does it? Injury needs some strong emotion. Douche even detracts. Just say sunuvvabitch. But I digress. Back to the f-bomb. It's a verb “Fuck that.” It's a noun “That dude's a fuck.” Adverb and adjective. “Fucking fast.” Fucking awesome!” Interjection “Fucking-A!”You can mix it with other words fucktard. That's someone who is really stupid. I mean painfully stupid, or willfully ignorant. To be honest I use the f-word less and less but it is a most useful swear. Like I said, I really like using asspipe.

Wad is a pretty useful swear suffix; asswad, dickwad, fuckwad, douchewad, cockwad. I could go on, but you get the point. There are other endings to throw on swears too. Hole fits on any of the above, and I'm sure you can think of others. Pipe, ring, face, head. I've heard these words thrown on the back end of a vulgarity, and they all work to some degree. Then you can add in some non-swear adjectives like rusty, dirty, smelly, festering, rotten. “Rusty asspipe.” Love that one. Swearing really is a form of verbal art.

Some words I avoid, or choose not to use. The C word – not for me. I've never used it – ever. I've felt that strongly before, but there are just more colorful ways to swear. Besides, just as in bitch, that word just carries a built in response when you use it. I mean, if you're goal is to just be offensive, or hurt someone's feelings use it. It's only a noun. There's no flexibility to twist it into a verb. Besides, I don't swear to get a response. I do it because that's how I'm feeling at the time, and sometimes it gives me a giggle, and opportunity to refocus. “Asspipe – that's funny.” It's genuine, and I guess the point is we're all genuinely feeling something at the time we use this. So, what's the problem? I guess it's just peculiar to me that we all use these words, but we all cringe when we hear them. Maybe you're not supposed to notice these things, and just go along with societies flow. Use them in private, and be shocked in public. Of course if they were common place they'd lose they're value. How would you know someone was really, really angry in public without the extra emotion these words carry? You're at an event, and there's always commotion, but as soon as you hear some colorful language drop, it's kind of an alarm. I just like to swear. We all do, and in the end it's pretty useful.

The Last Great Rock n Roll Sax man

Clarence Clemons passed away last week. With his passing passed the saxophone solo.

Long ago the sax gave way to the guitar as the solo instrument of choice in rock n roll but the saxophone was one of the great vestiges of the jazz influence.

What would Born To Run be without Clarence? I would be greatly diminished, and would not be Born To Run. In fact the Born To Run album - the album that made Bruce Springsteen - would not be without Clarence Clemons. He emphasized the raw passion of She's The One. He captured the hopefulness, and romance of Thunder Road. Throughout the body of work of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band Clarence Clemons' saxophone was the punctuation.

For most, the emotion of rock and roll is captured by the solo. The guitar lick was base built from the blues, and the solo was the free hand of jazz improvisation. Rock and roll history is replete with guitar impresarios; Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Duane Eddy, Eddie Van Halen, Peter Frampton, Eric Clapton are a few notables. The list of great rock saxophonists is shorter; Clarence Clemons.

Demand Side Economics

Isn't economics just that - economics? Conservative economics? Liberal economics? Isn't that akin to conservative biology, or liberal physics? I mean the science is the science: supply and demand. cost of goods and services, markets, money supply, profit and loss.

I don't remember a single professor in college telling a class that supply is more important than demand, or vice-verse. In fact balance between the two was the emphasis. When one moved on way, movement in price could be predicted, and movements in both yielded the same ability to predict price. What's with "supply side" economics? I've never heard of "demand side" economics. Not once. Ever. Where are all the talking heads telling us to slash taxes on lower income brackets to unleash the demand latent in the economy and let it all trickle up? Oh wait......we have had that. In the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, when the middle class in the United States grew exponentially we had that. Businesses grew and grew in those 5 decades. Recessions were typically brief. Manufacturing in the United States was foremost in the world. Poverty declined. Living standards here were vastly superior to the rest of the world. Innovation flourished. We invented among other things: radio, television, color television, computers, the internet. Our automotive manufacturers boomed relative to the world. Our media, print and broadcast, developed and reached all demographics with increasing accuracy for advertisers to pass the word - thereby funding further growth in media, and the manufacturing they fed. And everyone - I mean everyone - made money. Everything we could make we also bought, and what we didn't buy, we could sell abroad.

Then in the 1980s we decided that wasn't the right model. I don't know why. I mean, I remember the energy crises in the early, and late 70s. I remember the manufacturing in the far east - especially Japan developing and competing with the opportunity of the same energy crises. Since then we've lowered taxes on upper brackets under the mantra that this "frees money up for innovation." That it will "trickle down." Except it hasn't. The growth since then has been concentrated in the top 20%, and even greater concentration in the top 5%. Where's the trickle? Why did we buy it? Why do we continue to buy it? Why is a return to that labeled "socialist?"

The trickle down is not money you feel.....