Truesday: Words And The Frisbeetarian

in•de•cent ɪnˈdi sənt - [in-dee-suh nt]
–adjective
1. offending against generally accepted standards of propriety or good taste; improper; vulgar: indecent jokes; indecent language; indecent behavior.

The dictionary definition is the dictionary, the song quote above is Waits. I’d heard it several times before Sunday, and though the lyrics aren’t, within themselves, particularly biting (as anti-war / pro-human songs go), the depth and sharpness of the song comes from Waits’ delivery: single spotlight, stage centered with Waits motionless as he gruffs out the words, staggering just behind the beat with extra air in his voice, almost as if someone were standing on his chest. There’s a specific longing and wisdom that he uses when it’s performed. The same wisdom and regret you would assume a person on a battlefield would have concerning the frailty of self-destructive human existence as a whole, and the true tenuousness of our individual ability to act on free will.

And for my part, there is no better way for me to describe the work of George Carlin.

Shit motherfuckin’ piss I’m going to miss that man.

There are few things that I believe I would defend to the death. On and amongst that list, depending on the mood you caught me in, I would likely include:

- single barrel whisky
- tire swings that seat at least three
- freedom of expression.

I don’t believe that I fully appreciate just how liberated we are as a country since I’ve never lived where I couldn’t swing on a tire with two other people, sharing careless pulls from a bottle of Wild Turkey while belting out witless diatribes about how our current White House staff is more reminiscent to the cast of Hee Haw than it is a formal, responsible governing establishment.

Even though there’re likely better things we could do with our time, and perhaps we’d be seriously lacking in taste, we’d still be well within our rights to act as we approve. Swinging, slamming, and slamming.

Not that Carlin or Waits are men who would condone my particular behavior, or anyone else’s for that matter. No, not so at all. In fact, I would go so far as to claim that both men only ever condoned their own behavior, and even then: only moderately so. Both spend considerable effort in self-slapping. After all, it’s always been their fans who do the vast majority of condoning. Entertainment through self-deprecation is a tricky art form, and only really works when it causes others to come to your defense, rather than simply agreeing with your negative self-assessment, when the need turns urgent.

And in many ways, though they never knew it, through their respective works in words, both men have come to my defense when my need turned urgent. They are both the purveyors of ideas and concepts that I played close to the chest long before hearing them played on stages, even though they wrote their words long before I was born. It is reaffirmation that some ideas, no matter how personal, aren’t alone. Aren’t singular or distant-moonish in solitude. That there’s a whole galaxy of odd and contra-anti-thought out there.

Not that everyone will appreciate all within said galaxy. Some of Carlin’s earlier work is saccharine and Diseased comes off as little more than a bitter old man ranting about how the world has gone to shit during his lifetime*. And Waits, well, he’s still pretty golden to me, but I suppose I could say that Big Time was hugely, hugely, HUGELY ironic in its name.

If you couldn’t tell by the number of back-peddling “not that ___ was perfect by any stretch” statements, regardless for my affection toward those whose work I respect, I’m not big on idolization. I find idolization to be a dangerous mental exercise. An exercise in projected imagination which the subject of adoration can never hope to live up to. And that’s just not reasonable for anyone involved. But recognition is something I’m totally cool with. I can get behind that. Like when a man drops a highly lucrative career as a dancing monkey to try and explain to the world how disturbed it is, and he ends up in jail just before being cross-examined by the government through the FCC.

And found to be indecent.

Indecent?

INDECENT!

Indeed.

Ahhhhh, the freedom to be indecent. Feels good. Feels REAL good.

Fare thee well on that big rooftop in the sky, Mr. Carlin. In the back of my mind, Waits sings your dirge, lone spotlight, in a gruff and break-trembling timbre. Your motherfuckin’ slut dirge.

* a tired and intellectually lazy routine, regardless of how fervently tethered to fact.