Cheney Said the F-Word, Cheney Said the F-Word
Washington Child's Nursery Rhyme
No, hell, he didn’t. Mr. Cheney said \”Fuck You\”, and to a real live United States Senator. And he didn’t apologize. The ‘fuck you’ all by its lonesome was great; the refusal to take it back was absolutely delicious.
And a majority of red-blooded Americans are glad he did. It was the most exciting thing to take place in the Upper House since before the 2002 election. Maybe longer, it gets a little confusing sometimes. We live in the era of a do-nothing Senate.
In a PC-crazed world, the Veep has struck a blow for individuality, common sense, the First Amendment right of freedom of speech, and good old fashioned plain talk. \”Fuck\”, you see, most likely derives from an old Anglo Saxon verb meaning ‘to plant a seed in the ground’. Seems pretty logical that the word has an innocent, agrarian genesis. In the way-back-when \”Fuck You\” simply meant, \”Get busy, Abercrombie, it’s time to get the crops in. So plant a seed in the ground, yourself, dude, eh?\”
With all due respect, White guys use the word more effectively that either Blacks or Hispanics. Of course they do, it’s part of their ancient and honorable heritage. You know how Black people frequently use the word ‘nigger’, addressing it to one another. But let one of the rest of us use it and it can start a fight, or institute a mugging, or race riot, whichever applies. Well, we white men can claim ‘fuck’ as our own. One WASP (WASC if Catholic…maybe even WASM, if Muslim or WASB, if Buddhist ) saying ‘fuck you’ to another carries with it millennia of meaning, tradition, oppression, rejection, and all those factors that eventually turn us into a privileged, victimized segment of a modern society that owes us big time. Sort of like modern Democrats’ philosophy that we are all victims of something or another.
So when Cheney unloaded on the Vermont Wad, he was simply exercising his rights as a citizen of the United States coupled with an especial boon earned in verbal conflict over the course of the entire historical continuum. Well done, Dick.
African Americans most often misuse ‘fuck’. In the ever popular Ghetto patois, oft imitated by callow white youth, it simply does not come out right, unless, of course, the individual attended a mostly white college and lives in the integrated ‘burbs. Too often do they add a \”bro\” or \”know what I’m sayin’’\”or \”here’s what I mean, nigger’’ to the phrase which detracts from its purity and sanctity. ‘Fuck you’ is most properly a stand-alone epithet and was thus indeed properly employed by the heroic Vice President. Coming from the mouth of most African Americans it simply lacks the kind of force that comes from long use and inner strength.
Hispanics use ‘fuck’ all the time. At least the guys who work with me way back in the sweaty kitchen of DOS COJONES. But like the Black Citizens of this fair city, they don’t get it right either. Now in certain cases that the INS would probably like to know more about, it is among the very few English words known to the speaker. But its simple, rugged, full-stopped simplicity loses effect when uttered in the softer, more sibilant, high volume south-of-the-border speech patterns.
Quakers and certain other religious groups addicted to biblical speech of the King James genre tend to say \”Fuck Thee\”, but without rancor or real conviction. They are pacifists after all.
Asians? Wow. They are the great exception to the general rule. All the way through high school we had a large number of very smart Asian kids in class. They were excellent, hard working students, who, for the most part, spoke English much better than the average White or Black Georgian. Their use of ‘fuck you’ was excellent and accurate, if a little restrained. And the guys at HUNAN HAL’S, the other restaurant where I work, use it with good effect. They are mostly from South East Asia and are following the American Dream to a better life. Gotta love it.
\”You’re a Wop, Luke, how can you defend ‘fuck you’ as a non WASP?\” Question anticipated so save yourself a stamp. True, on my birth father’s side, we are all Italian and can trace our lineage back to Romulus and Remus. But, my mother, who abandoned her only child when I was twelve and is now living in a seaside mansion way up in Nahant, Massachusetts was almost pure, White, Anglo Saxon Protestant. Of course there was a little Norman French thrown in following the battle of Hastings, and some American Indian from the time when mom’s forebears were raping and pillaging Native Americans during Colonial days. When using such words, I consider myself one hundred per cent WASP.
Yours truly is still learning the fine art of cussing in Italian. Now there is an eloquent language.
Some may think me a misogynist, but few women say ‘fuck you’ the way it was intended. For the most part, they are too tentative, too hesitant to get the full-blown effect of the term. When a guy says it, if he’s a real man, he sticks his face in the other dude’s mug, and without shouting or losing his cool, intones '‘fuck you’ firmly and distinctly, and keeps his puss in place not yielding an inch. A woman might say the same word, but when she does, she retreats and shrinks back very much the same way she does when she slaps your face for making a comment about her mother’s cooking. Slap, retreat, withdraw, probably cry. It’s all the same: ‘Fuck You’, retreat, withdraw, weep. It’s a guy thing, re4ally, and no amount of androgynous, politically correct unisexism can change that. Sorry girls. Facts are facts.
So. Vice President Cheney, we thank you. Your ‘fuck you’ as a splendid example of all that is right, good, true, and beautiful in this old world. And besides, many of your Washington fellow travelers consider the aforementioned Senator from Vermont the prime example of a low down dirty, snake-in-the-grass, two faced, double dealing, back stabbing, unpleasant member inside the flaccid, elite Senate Club. \”There is none worse,\” chided one Midwestern Democrat who insists on anonymity, \”he’s the pits. Besides he has bad breath.\” Others were considerably less guarded in their comments.
The most amazing event took place in the early hours of this morning. Two days early the United States yielded sovereignty back to the duly constituted government of Iraq.
The move took Al Quaeda and the other terrorists by complete surprise. It also caught off guard Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and the entire Democrat party.
This morning on CNN a regular contributor and talk show host named Mike Mulloy was complaining that the transition was underhanded and done by sneak and stealth, ‘in the dead of the night’. It had to be pointed out to the good bleeding heart that ‘dark of the night’ in Atlanta Georgia in this case meant middle of the day in Iraq.
It would appear some of our left leaning friends have not yet learned about the rotundity of the earth.
Anyway, way to go, George. Didn’t think the GOP had it in them.
A little short this week. Very busy here. Have finished two articles for THE ELEVENTH HOUR: the first taking the mayor’s mismanagement to task; the second suggesting that our other elected representatives become more visible at family-friendly community events. Hizzoner is pissed, apparently, and has hired a PR guy from Atlanta to help improve his image. So, one day last week, the PIE (Personal Image Enhancer) called my editor and arranged a one-on-one sit-down with your humble correspondent. We have an afternoon together tomorrow, just The Mayor, his PR guy, and me. Hey, not bad for two articles.
Next week HUNAN HAL’S is laying me off…for seven whole days. Why? Did I do something wrong? Did I confuse Oyster Sauce with Wasabi? Did I feed the customers cat meat? No? The restaurant operates only as a take out for a week after The Fourth of July, giving everybody a little break. The other kitchen guys will stay on and do cleaning and painting; Luke has an enforced one week vacation, sort of like being suspended from school, where I still hold the state record.
These places always get rid of the white dudes, first. Sigh.
Luke Angelo Macon, GA
Luciusson@yahoo.com
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Luke Angelo, Cyberbrat Out Of Hell, lives in Macon, GA, where he regularly causes trouble and proves that the pen is far mightier than the Mayor
