Like, Totally
Worry, why do I let myself worry?
Wond'ring what in the world did I do?
--Crazy, Patsy Cline
And bring back Springsteen, Madonna, way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie and music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school they tell her that she's uncool
'Cause she's still preoccupied with 1985
--1985, Bowling for Soup
I love going into like clothing stores and stuff
I like buy the neatest mini-skirts and stuff
It's like so BITCHEN 'cause
like everybody's like Super-super nice
--Valley Girl, Frank Zappa
_______________
Wond'ring what in the world did I do?
--Crazy, Patsy Cline
And bring back Springsteen, Madonna, way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie and music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school they tell her that she's uncool
'Cause she's still preoccupied with 1985
--1985, Bowling for Soup
I love going into like clothing stores and stuff
I like buy the neatest mini-skirts and stuff
It's like so BITCHEN 'cause
like everybody's like Super-super nice
--Valley Girl, Frank Zappa
_______________
O.K., so we're like, in Jacksonville near the Naval Air Station, and we were privy to overhearing a group of six young Sailors yesterday -- all clean-cut, nice looking young people, but their verbiage was notable -- like, totally. A short transcript follows, in media res:
"So, like, I was in the garage and it was like, totally, y'know, AMAZING that um ..."
"Yeah, right, like where did that come from?"
"Oh, right, like, I dunno, like, maybe he (indecipherable) ..."
(Pause)
"OK, so like, last night that girl was working at ..."
"y'mean, what's her name ..."
"Yeah, that one, and it was like crazy like I was with (whomever), so like it had to be THAT night that she was there, and like ...."
______________
O.K. -- so, you get the idea. Otherwise sound-looking young people unable to form a coherent sentence, yet seemingly telegraphing unvoiced sentiments, resulting in a lot of gesticulating and fallow ideas. We sensed a faint trace of confusion amongst them, but their unwilling to endeavor, or perhaps their inability to do so, left them adrift in what seemed a welter of unsatisfied expression.
I dunno. We @ Ranger have been mulling over the concept of metrosexuality and emo boys lately -- whassup with that? This is not hella good for the state of manhood in the near future.
So, do you, like, have any thoughts on the matter?
Labels: commo today, emo boys, metrosexuals
posted by Lisa at 10:11 AM
8 Comments:
I had to look up "metrosexuality" and "emo boy." Guess I'm behind the times.
So I guess I'm not sure what we're confused about here.
That young men are inarticulate?
That the state of the English language in the United States is pretty degraded?
I'll bet that if you'd have led those youngsters to the local strip joint you'd have gotten a taste of how "emo" and "metrosexual" they were.
Just because the young dogs don't bark as snappily as we do doesn't mean they aren't just as obsessed with burying the boner.
Relax, gang. The kids are alright. Or as alright as any of the rest of us are, here riding on the Train Back To Gilded Ageville.
Dear Chief,
We do love you here @ RAW, and you gave a perfectly acceptable Ranger answer.
'Ceptin for me, the question is beyond whether the dogs will eagerly bury their bone ...
Oh yes, genital friction feels good, a given. Our concern is, the quality of the issue from that sexual congress; therein lies the rub.
Will the young 'uns be, like, totally, OK? Y'see, I think you and Jim are just fine (Jim ... generally speaking :)), but I am concerned about the BIG STUPID that I see engulfing so many people today. The Who might tell us the kids are alright, but who are they to say?
I've witnessed over almost 5 decades here the social engineering that makes rational thinking less required. Schools that eliminate the need for proper grammar, or the need to write in script, etc. Oh yes, computers make this all passe, or do they?
Like, whats it matter ?
Like soon we're going to push the big rset button anywho...
spud,
I'm with Mr. Churchill:
Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small ...
There are things which we have control over and those which we don't. The reset will occur beyond our control but the continuence is up to us.
Well, Lisa, your post suggested that one of the big reasons that these lads were so inarticulate was that culture or society or something had "de-manned" them, turned them into gawky emo metrosexual girly-men. Not sure that the one follows the other but I'll bet that they'd be just fine under the right circumstances, hence the observation.
As for the connection between their language skills and the Big Stupid, well...David Brooks and Rush Limbaugh are as articulate users of the English language as anyone I can think of, and yet the unadulterated crap that comes out of their pieholes is as Big and Stupid as multiple bags of hammers. So there's that.
And I'm not sure whether it's useful to draw a straight line between casual conversation and either intelligence or learning. You know me; man of the world, bon vivant, raconteur, master's degree, all that hoo-hah? Well, upon coming across something my children had destroyed the other day my comment was, verbatim; "What the fuckety fuckadoodledoo is this fucking disaster?"
Not exactly Shakespeare, no?
And let's think about this; fifty years ago a hell of a lot of Americans never finished high school. Probably half again as now were actually illiterate. You had people who believed shit just as goofy as astral projection and trickle-down economics. Tons of these idiots voted for people like George Wallace or Richard Nixon. I guess what I'm saying is that there has ALWAYS been a pretty huge chunk of the U.S. Public that lives in the Big Stupid. I don't know if what we're seeing is as much a problem of young people getting stupider as it is old white people buying the con that rich old white people are selling about how cool it would be to live in 1902 again.
Chief,
What I love about you -- beside your erudition, powerful sense of conviction, care, and all the rest -- is your sheer humility :) And to think you're not a man of god.
I find myself between two poles: Many young people are obtaining educations -- skewed more to the STIM sectors -- and many in general are just as fine as any of their forebears to come down the pike.
However, our techno-addled world has subtracted time and energy for some ineffable thing which humanizes; it will play itself out. I vote for a shift to "Idiocracy", though it does not please me.
Per "old white people buying the con that rich old white people are selling about how cool it would be to live in 1902 again", I'm not sure what this con achieves (?)
I mean, it's not going to be 1902 again. Life is better in many ways, but perhaps not everything has improved. Perhaps the things we risk losing may not be vouchsafed by technology.
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