PureSchmaltz

Rendered Fat Content

Rocky Mountain Oysters

20 08, 15 15:57 Filed under: MorningMissive
baseonballs
The Colorado Rockies baseball team has a lot of balls. Their pitching leads the National League in walks, clear evidence that the team has more balls than strikes. One of the food stands at the ballpark even serves rocky mountain oysters, also known as bull testicles, a narrowly-appreciated delicacy common to cow country—well, to steer country, anyway—and a revered sacrament of cowboy culture; a smirk food. Last night’s pitcher favored the cutter, perhaps in attempt to castrate the visiting team? This metaphor failed, though, as he more effectively delivered dirt balls. The home plate umpire and the Rockies’ batboy spent the game trading bruised balls for handfuls of new ones.

I revere the humbled double-entendre euphemism above all other forms of language. It stands before us with it’s ‘flag at half-staff’ threatening without attacking propriety. It lives well South of obscenity and slightly North of innocence, implying more than it declares, leaving the listener culpable for any bad taste lingering after. It can relegate a promising politician to an alternate career ‘hiking down the old Appalachian Trail’ or sideline another into an eternal ‘wide stance’ without leaving any fingerprints at the scene. Properly employed, the messenger strolls away whistling from the crime scene without even a shred of toilet paper stuck to his shoe. Everyone knows full well he did it, but nobody ever lays a finger on him.

The best double entendres are angelic choir boys just beyond even the longer arm of any threatening priest. Their farts, silent but nonetheless deadly, their innocence preserved in spite of crystal clear intent. The joke never lands on them and nobody carries grudges away from the experience, but admiration instead. Such obviously clever usage deserves and almost aways gets a nodding appreciation. The euphemizer successful employs a technique common to every magician: misdirection. He points north while describing south, deliberately mangling an otherwise unwrinkled metaphor.

The euphemism might just be the most powerful way to say one thing while meaning quite another, and because of this, I worship these babies. Of course all speech employs metaphor and subtle simile, but no other usage quite so pleasingly, though even this noble form harbors a darker side.

Political correctness, a common euphemism for weasel talk, thrives on euphemism’s lowlier forms. In this shadow world, nobody ever dies, they ‘fade away’ instead. No booze can be found on the endless shelves of adult beverages. Nothing merely falling off a truck could ever be considered stolen. The powdered nose never shits. The lumberjack sawing logs never really rests. Between jobs, one might find a perfectly comfortable home on the streets, and anyone arrested receives beneficent accommodations in a handy correctional facility before reintegration into society.

We can, if willing and able, completely blunt any experience into mere powder puff. The lipstick on this particular pig beautifies nothing but serves instead to subtly separate selves from selves. Packed in cotton, suspended in inert fluid, we avoid a life as if it were simply too painful to live. Of course we’re living anyway. The reflection won’t just slink away. We look, instead, without seeing, love without feeling, cry without tears, and can leave without ever touching the place. Or being touched by it.

Is it really just too painful otherwise? I believe a world of difference lies between the clever, sardonic deployment of the noble euphemism and the cowardly, cynical use of it. The clever use enhances experience while the cowardly distracts. The clever increases while the cowardly subtracts. The clever engages while the cowardly flees. When consulting, I often find people so buffered in protective euphemism that they cannot choose for themselves; their worldview so shriveled into a tiny dialect of permissible characterizations that they cannot see beyond their protective clown noses. My job then, of course, becomes to talk about whatever’s not supposed to be talked about, an outrageous and wholly unwanted intrusion into what’s explained as safety but experienced as insidious imprisonment.

It serves no one to respect these boundaries. They silently scream for verbal violation. I never care to inflict, but I inflict because I care, because they asked me to help never expecting that they could probably better help themselves if only they had words to describe what was happening. The infliction tends to be better than the affliction, though. I casually call that spade a spade then see what happens. Almost always, I hear an extended sigh of relief returned. An unspeakable rendered no longer unspeakable. One more sorry balloon burst.

Jerry Weinberg referred to these overly-protective euphemisms as Lullaby Language because of their narcotic effect. They put us to sleep. The wake up call need be neither jarring nor insistent, merely present. In that moment. It seems important to mention that these euphemism busters seem to work best when spoken from the perspective of ‘I’ rather than the point of view of ‘you.’ What they do is their business. I might offer my interpretation without assaulting theirs. What they don’t mention, I simply feature that just as if what is there is there.

There once was a man who couldn’t say “shit,”
and found himself absolutely covered in it.
When he tried to explain the source of that smell,
he could not tell, couldn’t even tell what he could not tell.
He lost several friends because if it,
you know, that it he could make no mention of, shit,
so he quit to become a hermit, who
wouldn't have to have any explaining to do.
The you-know-what he could not say
abides all over him to this day.

©2015 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved











Tags: ,

blog comments powered by Disqus

Good For A Goose





PureSchmaltz Archive Search


November 2024
October 2024
September 2024
August 2024
July 2024
June 2024
May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
© 2006-2024 by David A. Schmaltz all rights reserved

Made in RapidWeaver