Movie Quiz

Movie Quiz

Sleepy, but can't sleep. Here's the movie quiz from here, by way of Sheila....


The answers may change in the morning....but these are Tommy's insomniac answers, this night in August....

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1) Your favorite musical moment in a movie

Oddly enough, what keeps popping to mind is John Williams' score just as Grant, Sadler and Malcolm have first seen the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

Although, I should mention in fairness that I know all the songs from The Muppet Movie, whether I want to or not.....

2) Ray Milland or Dana Andrews

Ray Milland, but not because of his incredible body of work. Mostly because I recognize him from from Escape to Witch Mountain.

3) Favorite Sidney Lumet movie

Can't go wrong with 12 Angry Men.

4) Biggest surprise of the just-past summer movie season

That Heath Ledger hit the nail on the head as The Joker. Favorite comic character of all time...this despite nobody ever having gotten it exactly right, in any medium, ever. A few have gotten close. But Ledger got it. I didn't dare get my hopes up.

But Damn. Just Damn.

5) Gene Tierney or Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth. Come On.



6) What’s the last movie you saw on DVD? In theaters?

I popped in Major League the other day, when I was getting ready for work.

My buddy Chris and I went to see Tropic Thunder when I was on vacation. That's another kickass flick...

7) Irwin Allen’s finest hour?

I'd have to say appearing on the pages of this blogamathing.

8) What were the films where you would rather see the movie promised by the poster than the one that was actually made?

They don't make creepy movies here lately. But if they could make a movie even a quarter as creepy as the poster for One Missed Call...Hanes' & Spray n' Wash's profits would rise based on my business alone...



9) Chow Yun-Fat or Tony Leung

You know, based on little more than my insane crush on Mira Sorvino back in the day, I'm going to have to say Chow Yun Fat. (You get two bonus Tommy points if you can tell me why).

10) Most pretentious movie ever

I don't know about ever, but the first one that pops to mind here lately is Revolver. Two hours of incompetence shrouded in a blanket of Pop Art. That one's some slaw, folks.

11) Favorite Russ Meyer movie

Without opening the curtain into Tommy's hornball past too wide, I think I'll say that Up! has a trippy vibe, but extra credit's given to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls just because Roger Ebert helped write that turd....

12) Name the movie that you feel best reflects yourself, a movie you would recommend to an acquaintance that most accurately says, “This is me.”



Especially the fight with Keith David and Roddy Piper. Especially.

13) Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo

Garbo

14) Best movie snack? Most vile movie snack?

The Best? A Wendy's Double Cheeseburger that you sneak in in your coat.

Runner Up? The popcorn with the yellow not-quite butter, not-quite cheese dust that they used to put on the popcorn at the Midway Drive-In, when I was growing up.

The Worst? Red Twizzlers. That's some vile, regpugnant shit.

15) Current movie star who would be most comfortable in the classic Hollywood studio system

Julia Roberts

16) Fitzcarraldo—yes or no?

Never heard of it, but based on what I've read just now, Hells yes.

Tommy just put it in his Netflix queue.

17) Your assignment is to book the ultimate triple bill to inaugurate your own revival theater. What three movies will we see on opening night?

Hmmmm.....

Actually....I'm gonna sleep on this one....

18) What’s the name of your theater? (The all-time greatest answer to this question was once provided by Larry Aydlette, whose repertory cinema, the Demarest, is, I hope, still packing them in…)

Big Stupid Tommy's House o' Wonders....

19) Favorite Leo McCarey movie

Duck Soup

20) Most impressive debut performance by an actor/actress.

I don't have a good answer here. I'll say Jeff Anderson, in Clerks, because there's a weird part of me that still digs Randall Graves.

21) Biggest disappointment of the just-past summer movie season

Eh. I knew better, but I wanted the X-Files movie to be cool. Really, really wanted it.

Dear Tommy:

It ain't 1995 anymore, bud.

Sincerely,

That voice in your head.

22) Michelle Yeoh or Maggie Cheung

Oooo....Michelle Yeoh.

23) 2008 inductee into the Academy of the Overrated

Dunno about overrated. Just a little burnt out on Jack Black, is all. Tropic Thunder almost broke me out of it. But not quite.

24) 2008 inductee into the Academy of the Underrated

Baby Mama made me finally turn the corner on Amy Poehler. That chick's funny.

25) Fritz the Cat—yes or no?

Sure.

26) Trevor Howard or Richard Todd

Couldn't tell ya. My movie snob pants aren't as long as yours, I reckon.

27) Antonioni once said, “I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.” What filmmaker working today most fruitfully ignores the rules? What does ignoring the rules of cinema mean in 2008?

You know, I'm almost tempted to say M. Night Shyamalan, because he keeps pumping out whatever the fuck he wants to pump out, despite what people tell him, and despite the law of diminishing returns we've been seeing on his flicks since Sixth Sense. I like that he's writing and producing his own stuff on mass scale, and I like that it's done without throwing himself at the mercy of Focus Groups and the Advertising Monster.

But dude, I fell off the wagon with The Happening. And I might have been the only one on the hayride at that point.

28) Favorite William Castle movie

You know, without knowing exactly who he was, the first flick of his I ever saw was his version of 13 Ghosts. Still stands up today. I dig that flick.

29) Favorite ethnographically oriented movie

I don't have a good answer, except to say that I like movies starring Luchadores, generally speaking.

30) What’s the movie coming up in 2008 you’re most looking forward to? Why?

Stealing Sheila's Answer.



Because The Coens, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand and John Malkovich all raise Silly to a new level.

I'd like to see Tilda Swinton thrown into that. She's quickly become a favorite.

31) What deceased director would you want to resurrect in order that she/he might make one more film?

I wish the George Lucas that made the original Star Wars hadn't died when he was eaten by that horrible monster that now wears his skin like a sausage wrapping...you know, the one that affords his need for sustenance of Gold by running his merchandising machine like Satan's wood chipper.....

32) What director would you like to see, if not literally entombed, then at least go silent creatively?

How does Paul W.S. Anderson get to keep making movies, but I don't?

33) Your first movie star crush

I can't think of a movie star, but I always dug the chick who played Maria, on Head of the Class. I was probably 10 or 11, and that was the first girl I ever paid attention to simply because I thought she was pretty.

Gustav...

Gustav...

Lotta cars on I-75 today, the stretch of road I drive between Cleveland and Athens an a damn near daily basis. Found myself irritated. At first glance, I figured it was holiday traffic. Slow. Daunting. Especially when I've been standing up for 11 hours and just want to wander to that building where my bed and teevee is. Why do they have to drive 68 in the passing lane? I'm hollering.

Then I notice there's a lotta folks with Louisiana and Mississippi tags. And while there's a selfish part of me that says that maybe they wanna drive a little faster away from the storm, it kinda puts that rising road rage in perspective. Cooled my ass down, a little bit.

Not a lot else going on. I work. I sleep. Judging from the scratching, I'm eating WAAAY too many peanuts....

Classic...

Classic...

I laugh at this every time I see this.

Sometimes, I pee a little.

Bookends

Bookends...

Sometimes, it's the little things.

We held our fantasy football draft tonight.

It was 22 rounds of football, derision and utter idiocy.

With the first pick of the first round....I opted for Adrian Peterson.

With the last pick of the 22nd and final round....I opted for Adrian Peterson.

Didn't really plan it that way. Took Minnesota's version over LaDanian Tomlinson...basically a coin flip. Wasn't even thinking of the other...never popped into my mind until around round 17 or so, and saw that Chicago's version was available....

Yeah. Maybe won't make anybody else smile, but some days, it's the little things that make me grin.

In which he tries to shake off a little blogger malaise....

In which he tries to shake off a little blogger malaise...

I think your old pal Tommy's been suffering from a little blogger malaise. And, looking around the blogoverse here lately, I don't believe I'm the only one.

What you have to consider is that I've been keeping this little booger alive for almost six years now, and it's very possible that I hit the high water mark for Tommy's brand of inanity somewhere in the fall of 2003.....

I dunno. Truth is, I'm working like an asshole for 50 to 55 hours a week. Add to that the 8-10 hours a week I'm devoting to a commute. Add to that the price of gas, and I'm doing what I can to not feel like I took a five grand a year pay cut.

Add to that I just took on six hours worth of classes toward an eventual teaching degree, which means added reading and writing on top of the logistical issue of actually heading to a classroom to sit for that time.

Add to that the fact that I've gotten the bug up my ass that I really do want to be a writer, and I'm devoting at least an hour and sometimes however feels right above and beyond.

Add to that the fact that despite being a quiet and not quite flashy guy, I do like to get out and do things with friends from time to time.

Sometimes, blogging just ain't a priority.

Neither is sleep, apparently. Which is a pain...

And, truth be told...my mood's just not been the greatest here lately. Probably my biggest flaw in life is the fact that I tend to take shit too seriously. That was what I liked about the blog...I could come here and be silly, and not get too much shit about it. For the most part, I try to keep it light here. And lately, the stuff I start writing here, it comes out gripey. So, I just leave it be.

Which kinda sucks, because I do enjoy it when I get a chance to go out there and write about whatever.

So. My point?

Aside from the one at the top of my head?

I gotta think blogging's gonna be light around these parts. For the next little while.

But, I'll still be around. Bear with me....

Shit I don't like....

Shit I don't like...

Just a little bit of free floating hostility, this morning....little things that are bugging me about my personal life, about life in these here United States, about life and living in general...

• I don't like baseball in the Olympics. Never really have. Never could get into it. And there's part of me that thinks it's the fact that the car salesman ostensibly in charge of the game doesn't let the best players in the world out to play. But the other part of me thinks it's the whole tournament format, and how it doesn't suit baseball. Baseball, maybe more than any other game, is a game of averages. Any team can win any given game, but the truly best talents rise to the top over the course of a series....now, how big a sample size you need to decide the truly best teams in the world, I couldn't tell you. But I gotta think it's a touch larger than what you can fit into 16 or 17 days. All you have to have for the Olympics is one team (Cuba) having played together for a little while and coming in hot. I dunno. Maybe I'm not making sense, but the whole one-and-done format after pool play doesn't seem to bring out the best, all the time. It's like Christmas...it can't be the seventh game of the World Series every day.
• Yeah. There's a snide part of me that still wants to see the very best in the world play each other, and I suppose the World Baseball Classic is maybe a step in the right direction. There's part of me that wouldn't mind a 148 game season one year, while baseball took a break for the Olympics.
• There's another part of me, which likes having the Cubs in first place, that understands that a 3 week break for the Olympics would likely KILL any momentum you'd want to have, leading into the stretch run. (Although, on the bright side...wouldn't it be great to have EVERYBODY healthy leading up into the last month of the season?).
• But on the whole, I think I'd rather have baseball not in the Olympics. And it looks like I'm getting my way.
• Lady's softball though? That should stay. If I were King of the World, I'd tell them to leave it. I don't like that they're taking that out of the Olympics.
• Outside of the Olympics? Ol' Curmudgeonly Tommy doesn't care for the idea of Instant Replay in baseball. Call him a fundamentalist. It's not a time thing. It's a human aspect of the game being taken away that bugs me. I like the fact that umpires are wrong, from time to time, even if it screws you. I like the fact that a manager can get fired up, and fire up his team to argue a blown call. I dunno. It's the whole thing we seem to have, especially here lately, that the most important thing in the world is To Be Right. I realize that, yeah, it's a contest, and that there are millions (and even billions) of dollars in play, here. But there's an aesthetic that's being lost. I like the fact that in 1922, you'd have the same argument that you have in the year 1943, or 1971, or 2008. The history and connection to the past is something I dig. Same with the DH or all these games starting at 8:45 at night....
• I hate the Designated Hitter. Hate. It.
• I realize it's a couple months after the fact, but Hank Steinbrenner should be lobotomized and thrown into foodservice for that bullshit comment he made a few months ago concerning the DH. Pitchers have hit for GENERATIONS, Hank...Chien Mien Wang could have just as easily hurt himself fielding his position as running the bases. I'm sure that he ran bases playing the game growing up...
• Timeliness, and my lack of it, pisses me off.
• The fact that so many people in Athens aren't registered to vote, pisses me off. Call this one a teaser for another post.

Just a few things. Surprisingly. Heading down to the Southern Brewer's Fest down in Chattaboogie today. Maybe that'll mellow me out a little.

Today's Damnedest Thing

Today's Damnedest Thing

From the things that make you go "huh?"

A half-ton woman is going to be tried for murder...

The Flannery O'Connor fan in me really digs a story like that.

What the Heck?

What the Heck?

I dunno, folks.

I just ain't felt like bloggin'.

Couldn't tell you why.

I've been writing some, though it's disjointed, and it doesn't feel like it's any good.

Keepin' trucking, though.

Did manage to find a pretty gruesome sunburn this week. Sun ate through the sunscreen. Back of my neck's rough. Feel like I'm a car on blocks away from being the punchline to a Jeff Foxworthy joke.

Also? I need to write about my attempted foray into local politics. It's a long, boring story that ends in little more than frustration for yours, truly. But it's a story worth telling, all the same.

And? If you haven't seen Tropic Thunder...do yourself the favor. Comedy getting the short end of the stick in the Academy's eyes, I doubt Robert Downey Jr will get the recognition he deserves for his performance.

Also? Tom Cruise wanders into "The Shit" territory.

Anyway. Gonna go find some sleep. Y'all take it easy.

Weekends, and what not.

Weekends, and what not

Wandered camping this weekend. There will be pictures, I suppose.

On my way out to a little peace and quiet, though.

In the meantime, I offer you this:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Emineminem

Emineminem

For my three thousandth post, I offer to you this...

Tomorrow, there will be a press conference during which evidence of Bigfoot's existence will be offered. The proof? A body, apparently.

I think I'm going to take the day off work.

Monday...

Monday

Had the Monday off. Three days out of the last four. Managed to pull myself back from the screaming asshole frame of mind. A little refreshed...a little reminded that there exists a life outside of those four walls. Just needed a reminder.

Gotten a little stressed here lately. Feeling a little better now.

Not so prone to snapping and killing a customer when they holler at me because of the price of a 12 pack of Cokes....

I'm still prone, mind you. Just not so much. Yes, I know Cokes are expensive.

Anyway....

Earlier this month, I said I was going to follow the NaNoWriMo pattern for August, to try to write a 50,000 word piece in 30 days. The thinking was, August is an easier month to undertake such a project, working in the business I do. November is generally the month for such things, and let me tell you, if I'm bitching right now about lack of free time, November's a horse of a different color.

Still, true to form, life's little inconveniences take hold, and I haven't found the energy to sit and write.

Got pissed at myself today. Really pissed. Not quite Bluto singing "I'm Mean, I'm Mean, I'm Mean" pissed, but the orchestra was warming up.

Got pissed, and made my ass sit and write.

Pumped out 5,500 words.

Maybe not high quality. But if I can kick my own ass into doing something today....

Lines....

Lines...

I heard this bit of dialog in a radio snip the other day...and I smiled. I knew I'd heard it, and that I'd seen the movie it came from. But, for the life of me, I struggled to remember the flick....

"I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast."

"You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?"

I giggled. Not a bad line.

Had a to do a google search.

Now I know, and I have to admit that I was a little disappointed to realize where I'd heard it. It's not a bad line. Piece of shit movie, though.

Anybody out there reading? Anybody know where it came from?

Letters....

Letters...

In lieu of getting out there and playing in that downright torturous heat out there, I'm going to spend a little while playing over here.....

So far, I've gotten 16, plus I cheated to get the "G" and the Question Mark.

Bernie Mac

Bernie Mac

Dang. Is somebody just offing celebrities?

Bernie Mac was a funny dude. One of the better standups to come along in awhile.

Sorry to hear that he died today.

Favre....

Favre...

It was with a small bit of relief that I read the news, this morning, that Brett Favre had signed with the Jets.

Not because I'm a fan of the Jets, or even of Mr. Favre. Mostly, it's because I'm worn out of the whole subject.

In any sport, be it baseball, football or nude busty curling, I'm not a big follower during the offseason. I'm vaguely interested, but unless it's a game, that counts, during the season, I could take it or leave it. And when it's forced down my throat (like the NFL's draft, or the Hot Stove anywhere from the end of the Series to Opening Day), it wears me out.

Add to all this, I've viewed the whole Favre/Packers thing the same way I would the marriage of neighbors who share a wall with you. I'm relatively fond of the Packers. I'm relatively fond of Brett Favre. Kinda like I'd be relatively fond of the aforementioned, hypothetical couple next door....

I vaguely like them both, and it's hard to separate them in my mind, since they share an identity. However...when they fight...and fight...and fight, screaming at the top of their lungs, hurling insults and (on occasion) asking me to take a side?

Fuck that.

After a while, it gets to be too much.

Shut up.

Quit arguing.

Leave me be.

I just want a moment's peace. You're throwing what should have been an internal situation out for the world to regard. And the truth is? The majority of us don't like you enough to truly give a damn one way or the other.

And while it's sad, in a way, to see the marriage end....you're just happy to have a little bit of quiet for once.

At least now, I can watch my SportsCenter in peace.

Storms

Storms



I like that video, which I found at Goatriders, via Fark.

I dig it for a few reasons.

1.) I'm the guy who holes up in the house watching Storm Stories, from time to time on the Weather Channel. Weather fascinates me, and thunderstorms are the bee's knees, ya'll. The bee's motherhumpin' knees, yo.

2.) It happened at Wrigley....during a game I'd hoped to watch last night...

3.) I like the siren that's going off for the weather warning. It reminds me of the siren that would sound at MTSU, back in the day. The one that sounded like the Banshee from Darby O'Gill & the Little People.

Strange what you get nostalgic for....

Skip

Skip...

I spent a lot of my youth in a house back in the woods with no cable and woods too dense to get a satellite signal in. I was pretty much without WGN, TBS, ESPN or any other source of baseball on TV for a good long while. The only access I had was when Fox or somebody would televise a game nationally. I think it's from that lack of access that comes my irritation whenever Bud Selig decides to throw a game of importance to a cable network.

I can remember complaining about it once upon a time, and somebody commenting on the Blog, like I was the biggest idiot ever: just turn to TBS, they're on there.

There's still an area of folks who don't have easy access to such stuff, but who could still be reached out to.

(The same person who made the comment threw his hands up in disgust when the NFL network was showing important games last year....same rule applies, but it's different when they wear the shoes, I guess).

Anyway, the point to this little post. I get online this morning, and Steven's e-mailed me to let me know Skip Caray's passed away.

It's a bummer. I knew he wasn't doing well with his health...but still, it's sad news this morning.

Living out in BFE like I did, we weren't completely cut off. We lived like the 1940's, and had baseball on the radio. Lots of Braves affiliates in this neck of the woods. They'd change every year, and sometimes you'd miss a Friday game for high school football...or a Saturday night game because playing the Oldies Show was a little more profitable.

But I've listened to a goodly number of Braves games on the radio. For years, the core for TV and radio was Skip, along with Joe Simpson, Don Sutton and Pete van Wieren, with occasional visits from longtimer Ernie Johnson. They're not a bad bunch to listen to for a ballgame.

I've said it before about a couple other announcers (Steve Stone, among them)....they may not be technically the greatest, but listening to them's like going home all the same.

Skip was one of those guys.

Good baseball voice. Very dry sense of humor. Once spent an entire ballgame ragging Joe Simpsons after he spoke the words "the second base side of second base." And entire ballgame. Once got his Dad to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch, one weekend when the Cubs were visiting Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. And there were more than a few times he sounded like he'd had one or two too many oat sodas during the game.

I've always said a good baseball announcer is a guy (or a gal) you'd like to watch a ballgame with.

Skip was one of those guys.

And there aren't going to be too many of them like that, anymore. Look at Chip...he's as homogenized as they come. Skip had his own voice. You gotta dig that.

Anyway. Thanks, Skip. Sorry to see you go.

August Story...part 1

August Story...part 1

Attempting to do a NaNoWriMo thing in August...not an official thing mind you, but following that pattern. November just doesn't work if you work in the grocery business. Trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Got about 900 words in Friday...got another 2000 in this morning. So, I'm a little behind. But I have a few mornings off this week. So I got that going for me.

Anyway...here's a taste. Surprised at how out of shape I am, here. Not all that I've written. Just a taste.

A Word on Small Town Synchronicity

I’d managed to learn a new word, the other day, in the midst of an argument with the neighbors across the way. The word was Ennui, and I thought it was a hell of a phrase to hurl at a man recovering from a night of overindulgence.
The Maynards were selling their house, and they were worried my yardkeeping skills (or lack of initiative regarding) were hurting their re-sale value.

“Who the hell wants to hear a lawnmower on Sunday morning anyway?” I answered in retort. With the grass tickling the back of my calves, just under my knee, I mustered up the reserve to say: “My grass ain’t bothering you folks. Get your realtor to come mow it if it’s an issue.”

This was a singularly bad choice of words, considering the Maynards had taken the services of Sherry DeHaven, perhaps our little town’s biggest celebrity, subject of pieces on both the Today Show and Oprah Winfrey. Figuring it’d be a little difficult to start and operate a pushmower in a mechanized wheelchair steered with what little movement she could muster from her left hand, I considered that I’d just destroyed my own war effort that hot Sunday morning with a shell from my own cannon.

After a stunned beat on both our parts, I conceded defeat, and told the Maynards, who’d wandered out in their church clothes to berate me, that I’d get the yard mowed later that day, as soon as I’d had time to wake up and get some gas in the mower.

David Maynard thanked me for my prompt attention. I turned to go inside, soak my wounds and look up just what the hell Ennui meant, to find out why I and my neighbors needed to find wherewithal enough to break my small-town’s Pabst Blue Ribbon fueled version of it to mow my yard. I made it maybe three purposeful steps back toward the homestead when I caught my foot on the metal bar connecting the head and motor of my weedeater, itself a subject of a little lawn’s vengeance, and went sprawling headlong into my yard.

I hit my head on the birdbath that my Uncle John had put up, once upon a time. Hit my head on the base, knocked the basin off, and had it crash to the ground, mere inches from my face. The basin, which held no water due to this summer’s bugger of a drought, and had served no useful purpose besides an occasional bed for my cat Roscoe, shattered. And despite it’s lack of function, I still cussed its demise.

I stood, holding my head, and saw both Maynards looking completely gobsmacked on their lawns, David in his grey and white suit, Sylvia in her blue dress with the sunflowers on it, mouths agape at the stream of obscenities I’d just unleashed upon a lawn decoration.

I looked from them, down at the shattered remains of the birdbath.

“And you’re ruining the Maynards’ property value, too!”

With that, I strutted up to the house.

After pulling a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer to put on the quickly rising pump knot on my forehead, I pulled the big, heavy, bug crushing dictionary from the shelf, and looked up the word that I’d figured was something of an insult from the Maynards….

Ennui: from the French, it referred to a weary and dissatisfied sense of boredom.

I leaned back, frozen Food Land peas on my forehead, and considered the ramifications of the accusation.

I considered that there was a grain of truth to what the Maynards had said. Since taking over Uncle John’s property down at the mouth of Woolly Holler, I hadn’t had need to accomplish much, but had derived very little sense of satisfaction along those lines. The thought that Maynards had been right was only a source of sharper irritation. Like the sandpaper had managed to remove the first layer of skin, and they’d moved to iodine.

That day, I managed to find the gas can, wander to the Shell station up the street to buy gas, and I’d mowed the yard.

During the mow, I managed to find three empty 40 oz. Beer bottles…somebody tossing their empty before they got home, I reckoned, probably throwing in a few pieces of strong mint gum, to hide the smell so the wife wouldn’t find them drinking cheap beer on their drive home.

I also found my 2 lb hammer (only a little rusted), the remote control to my satellite dish, that I’d had to order a new one for, the paperback novel I’d hurled into the yard after a particularly far-fetched bit of writing got my dander up, and seven golf balls, on the far end of the yard. Most of these were found with the blades of the mower, and hurled in new directions and fantastic distances never achieved off my driver. The sixth of these shot across the road into a tree across the way, into the Maynards’ yard. I did not put that particular math problem together until I saw David later that day, with a birdhouse resting on the fence, trying to pry a golf ball (presumably with a divot taken from its shell via my mower) out of the hole of the See Rock City birdhouse Sylvia’d had hanging from that particular tree.

Anyway, my point here was this….I learned a new word.
And thereafter, for a couple of days, I couldn’t read a news story, paperback mystery or breakfast menu at the gulp n’ go without finding the word Ennui.

In cases like that, I never know if the words have always been there, or not. I assume they had been, and in my day-to-day rush of everyday life, I’d glossed over, using context instead of actual wherewithal to find the meaning of the word.

I suppose it’d be the acme of self-centeredness to think that the word had only started popping up because I learned it.

But what if everybody else had learned it around the same time, and starting using it too?

That was a conversation to be had over a few beers, I believed, the next night I wandered out to tip a couple back.