Ranting

I’m kind of a whiner. You may have noticed. My friend Stacie says, “Cool people don’t whine, they express themselves in an alternate tonality.” So, allow me to correct myself: I do not whine, I rant!

I first started ranting, I think, when I was in grade school. When I got sick and had to stay home from school, I had to stay in bed all day. It was a rule—part of the deal. When my older brother came home, he would stop in to see how I was doing. So, I told him—in my sarcastic and thorough manner. The more he’d laugh, the more I kept going. He used to say he liked me better when I was sick. You gotta love siblings.

I enjoy comedians that rant, too. George Carlin was a genius ranter. Sam Kinison was good. Dennis Miller has his moments. I especially like Dennis Leary. Of course, all of these guys swear up a storm when they rant. I would not classify Richard Pryor as a ranter. But, I laughed my fool head off listening to him. I can barely remember any of his routines, but I do remember his extensive (and might I say pioneering) use of a word that rhymes with mother duck. He is a comedic legend, but it’s the swearing that sticks with you.

It takes more than swearing or cursing to be funny. But, it can take you pretty far on its own, apparently. It seems to be a prerequisite, now. If you expect an audience to pay good money to sit and listen to you for any considerable length of time, you better swear at them. They want you to. Apparently, they just don’t hear enough of that in their everyday life. Strange, says I, since so many people can’t form a complete sentence without every other word rhyming with duck, ducking, ducker, or ducked. I haven’t yet determined if they can’t relate to a comedian that doesn’t talk like them or if they feel repressed in their own expression and want to hear someone say the things they cannot. Either way, it has become a crutch for both the entertainers and the entertained… unless you’re in to that kind of thing. It seems to be working, either way.

For the record, I would hope that those who know me would describe me as someone who does not swear all the time. But, I can’t say I never do. I have a short temper and general impatience that do get the better of me. Those same people would probably admit that they have heard me curse—even “the queen mother of dirty words” as Ralphie defined it in A Christmas Story. And, for the record, I’m not the guy who is going to jump down your throat if I hear you get your duck on. I will even laugh along with you—which is often why you are saying it—or commiserate, as the case may be. I visited New York City when I was 21 and picked up an accent within an hour. I couldn’t help it. It was a strange phenomenon for me, and I now realize that I do that wherever I go without trying to. So, there ya go.

There was a time when the only Dennis Leary I knew was this guy that did MTV commercials. There he was with his cigarette unleashing more words in 15 seconds than most of the audience watching had ever written in their longest school papers. Brilliantly funny. And, of course, since this was not premium cable, he could not swear. But, you got the impression that the repression was about to cause him to explode. He paced and he sucked on that cigarette the way most of us would have to inhale throughout such a monologue. And he just RANTED. I don’t remember any of it, specifically. I just remember the style. I DO, however, remember when he reprised the shtick for the movie Demolition Man. He had the ultra-cool role as the “leader” of the underground (literally). Which, is to say, that he was enemy #1 to the powers that be, but was actually the person you really wanted in charge. I had that monologue recorded and memorized at one point in my life. I also owned his “Lock n Load” cd at one time. These days, he has a major role in a critically acclaimed drama on cable that I haven’t seen, but he also does voice-over work for Ford Trucks that remind me of why I like him.

Dennis Miller actually had an “album” called “Ranting Again” which I owned. What I really liked, though, was the one episode of his talk show that I remember where he ranted about the f-word itself. Genius. I can’t repeat any of it. Did you ever see the movie, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles? Steve Martin has that classic scene born out of extreme frustration… “You can start by wiping that f’ing dumbass smile off your rosy f’ing cheeks. Then you can give me a f’ing automobile! I don’t care what f’ing color…” LMFAO.

Mark Twain is quoted as saying: “Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” I completely understand. On the other hand, I happen to know that prayer is way more effective. Actually, it’s almost a stretch that we even call it “cursing” and “swearing.” A curse is something, say, a voodoo witch would do. They "put a curse on you." They call down the powers of evil to cause negative things to happen to you. And that is the problem, right there. Evil powers do actually exist and if you are calling on them… well, God has a problem with that. I don’t do that. I don’t want that for anybody. At least, not that literally or with such malice. Yet, for some reason, I tend to curse THINGS. Like, when tools don’t work or stuff breaks at work or at home, I think or say stuff that might give onlookers the impression that I believed the thing was alive and deliberately mocking me. The most pathetic part of all of this is that it suggests that I must believe all that cursing will make the thing “behave” more properly. What does a hunk of steel care what I think about it? Actual swearing is like taking an oath you could never really deliver on. People “swear on their mother’s grave” or “swear on the Bible” which is supposed to convince listeners that what they are saying is not a lie. For the record, I’m almost never convinced. How do you know if someone is lying? Their lips are moving. But the Bible calls this practice “swearing” and advises to simply not do it. Let your yes be yes and your no be no and stop trying to give more weight to your words than they deserve (to paraphrase James 5:12.)

I have said before that since stress is so unhealthy and physiologically damaging, I use sarcasm strictly for medicinal purposes. I happen to think sarcasm is funny. Some people don’t. Usually, I see a correlation that they are not particularly funny or even fun people. It could just be a personal preference, I don’t know. I DO know that not everyone “gets” a joke all the time. I pretty much think people that don’t like sarcasm just lack the proper sense of humor. Pttthhbbbb!

What I’m saying is that I don’t swear to give my words more weight. If anything, I “swear” to lace my words with more humor. I’m not trying to make you sick like me, I’m trying to make you laugh about me being sick. Hey, whatever makes you laugh…