Slang and drunkenness

Whenever I discuss examples of slang and informal language with students, we're always collectively and pleasantly struck by how many slang expressions exist for the standard "drunk" or "drunken."  As far as I know, and I'm no linguist, there's really only one standard or common word for the state of being intoxicated by alcohol: drunk. There are a few more formal ways of saying this, including the aforementioned "intoxicated" and similar terms like "inebriated."  But there are perhaps hundreds of informal or slang terms milling about. Naming just a few from the top of my 45-year-old brain (and young people tend to be the main purveyors and inventors of slang), we might say a drunk person is wasted, slammed, lit, shit-faced, fucked up, hammered, plowed, or happy.

Each of these words perhaps suggests a different degree of drunkenness, although most slang terms for drunk connote a state of inebriation that is beyond being simply buzzed or pleasantly affected by alcohol. Indeed, most of these informal terms, which often involve figurative language, are designed to conjure images of the drunk person being out of control (George Carlin had a great bit about "shit-faced" in particular), and the words exist in order to convey something more out of control than drunk.  He wasn't just drunk; he was wasted.  Some words seem to imply a happier state of inebriation, as well. Personally, I'd rather be "lit" (which has a nice connotation of warmth) than "wasted" (which suggests being poisoned or damaged).

In spite of this, these informal terms are mostly used in the spirit of celebrating or poking fun at the exploits of good friends.  We don't normally say, "She was so wasted she had to go to the hospital."  Instead, we say, "Oh my god, she was so wasted!" when attempting to convey the idea that a good time was had by all.

Blue Moon beer (original photo)

It's interesting that we have so many words for such a common, if rather unfortunate, human condition, but I think that's just the point.  My theory is that because drunkenness is such an ordinary and rather pathetic human failing, we tend to make it more colorful through language.  The words are varied because the experience itself does not lend itself to all that much variety. Yes, people do lots of different things while drunk, but drunk is drunk, and watching someone be drunk, in spite of what sober people may say, is never quite as interesting as these colorful words imply.  Yet the human love affair with alcohol continues, as does the never-ending march of words to help us identify and describe the condition of having had one too many.
     

The Game is Seven-Card Stud (edited)

My younger sister is a professional poker player.  I say this not to brag but as an introduction to my blog topic, but I mostly mention it as a way to boost my page views via Google searches, since she is the closest thing we have to a famous person in the family.  

She is one of the relatively few female professional poker players, as far as I know. Poker has traditionally been a male-dominated game, even within amateur ranks, where it is typically viewed as a male-bonding activity, an alternative to the all-male Tuesday-night bowling league or barfly softball game. Compared to those games, it is a more sedentary game and tends to attract a slightly rougher crowd, those inclined to drink beer, smoke cigars, and tell dirty jokes in the dark. Poker also rewards slightly menacing, duplicitous, and mysterious behavior, as your goal (to put it crudely, since I'm not a poker player) is to fool your opponent and take his money, regardless of whether your hand is better or not.

My sister and I have had a few conversations about whether poker constitutes gambling or not, and I won't rehash those friendly debates here, but suffice it to say that while poker, like all card games, involves the luck of the draw, it is mostly about psychological domination and strategy, or how you play those cards. This is why poker is such a natural symbol for the aggressive nature of modern life and a specifically American view of individualist success.  You are dealt a certain hand, but what matters most is how you play those cards. Poker is a modern game, and it aptly represents the "winner-take-all" strategy for success in a cut-throat American capitalist society.  In that way, poker is a perfect symbol for a naturalistic view of life. This is one reason poker figures so prominently in a number of Jack London stories and novels, including Burning Daylight.

Poker also emerges as an important symbol in Tennessee Williams's masterpiece, Streetcar Named Desire.  During the play's famous poker night scene, to which the women are pointedly not invited, Stanley erupts in a display of violence and physically abuses his wife.  The poker game serves as a display of masculine male power, and this patriarchal power structure remains closed to women, although they receive the brunt of its ugliness.  The play ends on the line, "The game is seven-card stud," suggesting that, as Blanche is carted off to the asylum and Stella submits to Stanley's power, the structure remains firmly intact. The game continues and women remain oblivious to its rules, even as they are subject to its power. This is one reason my sister is cool, because she has infiltrated this game, questioned its traditional male power, and benefited from the outcome. 

Excuse Me

I'm a big champion of manners and politeness, as I think these are the oils that keep the engines of society running smoothly. Still, even though I've been in Houston forty years, I'm a little uncomfortable when students and others say, "Yes, sir" to me.  This is a very Southern custom, and while I appreciate the gentility of it, and I'm not offended at the idea that I'm old enough to be called "sir," I am always secretly worried that they might being slightly sarcastic, as in "Yes, sir!"  Since this is the South (or Texas's version of the South), however, I am mostly sure they are just being polite in the way they were brought up to be.

It's an interesting problem or paradox, this perception of politeness as rudeness or aloofness. I've noticed something similar when I say "excuse me" as I'm trying to get around someone in a crowded situation.  Sometimes, people will take the "excuse me" as a euphemism for "you're in the damn way."  It's annoying that people would take my attempt to be polite as code for "get out of the way," since of course I'm trying to avoid being rude, but maybe polite language often disguises something less polite, a less noble motivation or a hidden, nasty thought. After all, what Northerners sometimes dislike about Southern politeness is its lack of directness or perceived lack of honesty. Similarly, while I tend to be overly polite with people I don't know well (my being introverted and hard of hearing compounds this effect), some people take this as a sign of aloofness or unwillingness to be social. 

This paradox is also a great source of tension and conflict in Streetcar Named Desire, as the working-class and very direct Stanley confronts Blanche about her secrets and lies, which she conveniently covers up with her upper-class veneer of propriety.  She says Belle Reeve, the family plantation, was "lost" -- a romantic and mystical way of obfuscating the fact that the plantation was foreclosed upon.  She refers to her indiscretions (another polite word) as "meetings with strangers."  When she is forced to be honest, the result is ugly and violent.

So yes, it's a human balancing act, this ongoing struggle between honesty and politeness. Being honest (or direct, as its sometimes referred to by people who are probably too blunt and impolite in their communication) is not always the best policy, in spite of the common saying. Yet being polite when the situation calls for more directness should also be avoided. Perhaps when I want to get around people, I should simply say hello and ask them if I can't get around them, instead of using a curt, standard expression.  But I'll probably keep on saying, "Excuse me."

Supertramp, then and now (updated)

Last night, while my wife was at work, I took the opportunity to watch a Blu-Ray concert video I had ordered recently called Supertramp's Live in Paris. This is a film made during the same concerts that formed the basis of the best-selling live album by the same name, Paris, released back in 1980 on the heels of the huge hit Breakfast in America.  (We forget what a big hit that album was; it was the No. 1 album for four weeks in the U.S. and also topped the charts in several other countries.) Apparently, the film reels were found in the barn of drummer Bob Sienbenberg a few years back, and it took quite a while to convince the current band leader Rick Davies to allow them to be released. 

I realize liking Supertramp has become a mark of shame in recent years, at best a guilty pleasure, since this once-progressive band had ended up one of the biggest radio-friendly bands by the late 1970s. For whatever reason, this mostly faceless band has become a convenient symbolic punching bag for everything that was wrong with AOR rock at the time; one critic even said Supertramp epitomized the need for punk to come along and shake things up.  Supertramp has been the butt of a few jokes on "The Simpsons," mostly standing in as a convenient example of a hopelessly dated rock band from the 1970s.

I don't see the need to defend Supertramp, which has always been dismissed by certain critics and ridiculed by others.  I can tell you that I hear "Take the Long Way Home" or another song from that album almost any time I listen to the classic-rock station in the car for more than a few minutes or so, and it always gets my fingers tapping.  "Give a Little Bit" has become a universally recognized tune that almost isn't associated with the band anymore. The Goo Goo Dolls remade the song, and it has been appropriated for TV spots for products such as Coca Cola and The Gap.  Commercialized? Yes, but there's something enduring or resonant in a song that continues to be so accessible after almost 40 years.

Watching the concert video was an amazing experience, and I recommend it to anyone who's interested. The film (original shot on true celluloid) and sound quality are quite good, with lots of close-ups and interesting angles.  I'm surprised at the level of quality considering it was sitting in someone's barn for several decades.  More importantly, it's just an astonishing experience of cultural time-travel to watch the classic line-up perform, especially for someone like me who only had the chance to see the Rick Davies-led version of the band tour in 1985 for its album Brother Where You Bound (which I very much liked on its own terms).

It's gratifying to see this band working together (albeit only in the past) in such a cohesive and tight fashion, especially given the unending disputes between the two main songwriters and singers, Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson.   These feuds make the press in Europe, where the group is still very popular (they continue to play to large crowds in France, Germany, and Spain in particular), although we don't hear much these spats in the United States.

The linked article (with plenty more where that came from) details the source of these ongoing tensions, which mostly have to do with the band continuing to play Roger Hodgson's songs.  I understand his frustration, since solo stardom has eluded him, but we can also point out that plenty of old bands (like Journey, Yes, and Fleetwood Mac, to name a few) have continued to play their biggest hits even after key band members or songwriters have left. It's just not that unusual, and the public (mostly casual fans) seems to be willing to ignore the semi-fraud in order to have fun at a concert. (I even have one friend who said he thought the new singer in Journey sounded better than Steve Perry. And that's Steve Perry, "the voice.")  It isn't so much that people are being fooled as that they are agreeing to be fooled. Whether Rick Davies agreed not to play these songs or not (and I remember him telling the press in the 1980s that they didn't plan to play them), he gave into fan pressure and has kept a lot of musicians and other folks employed as a result. (Hodgson also gets royalties, I'm sure.)

Hodgson's side is also a bit hard to swallow because he and his fans have continually downplayed the importance of the other band members.  He has basically insinuated that since he wrote and sang most of the group's biggest hits, he is essentially the most important member of the band, its visionary and artistic leader. Without him, he has all but suggested, the group should not exist.  He has even called the Rick Davies-led Supertramp a kind of solo project that has very little connection with the classic band. His fans insist he *is* Supertramp. (In more recent interviews and during interviews when the band was still in its classic lineup era, he seemed to acknowledged the importance of the tension and interplay between the two songwriters.) As much as it must be frustrating for Hodgson, this was a band that was once called "faceless," and nobody is owed a solo career. 

All of these claims, besides sounding petty, undervalue the importance of the group dynamic and ignore the important contributions of the other members in creating the group sound. Davies's rougher blues tendencies tended to keep Hodgson's more ethereal qualities in check, just as Hodgson's musical leanings helped make Davies's music more appealing and palatable.  This give-and-take approach is especially apparent on Crime of the Century, as many have noted, but it's also quite apparent on the more pop-oriented Breakfast in America, which is built around a kind of tense dialogue between the two singer-songwriters.  Not only did Hodgson and Davies manage to work around their artistic differences, but the artistic differences were essentially what made the group work.  I'm sure that's true of many bands, though it's especially important in this quirky band  that lacked a true star or frontman.  (All one really needs to do in order to gauge the importance of the band dynamic in this case is to look at the solo and Supertramp records released after Hodgson left the group; all have been lackluster at best, except for Brother Where You Bound, which seems to suggest that Davies was really itching to get that one out and do a certain kind of job on it.) 

This concert video showcases Davies in particular as a virtuoso piano player and multi-instrumentalist (he plays the harmonica on "Take the Long Way Home," for instance); he also stands out as the obvious leader of the band at least in live performance, as can be seen conducting and orchestrating the various elements. All of this is to say nothing of the contributions of the other band members, all outstanding instrumentalists in their own right who helped to put their own stamp on this music when it was first put to record.  It may sound obvious, but bands exist because together, these musicians are able to do things that they cannot do alone.  Live in Paris reminds us of the legacy of one often-overlooked band, but it also reminds us of the importance of artistic tension and the special musical chemistry that results when certain talented musicians combine their efforts.

Writers and Cats

Although it doesn't seem that long, it's been five years since I had my original cat put to sleep. She was suffering from a type of blood cancer and had lived a relatively long life. Recently, however, we have adopted another cat, an independent and "willful" (as the vet put it) one-year-old with black-and-white spotted fur.  I suspect she lived as a stray from some time, since she came from a cat-rescue group and still seems wary of our attentions. She spends most of her time on a chair in the kitchen, taking in the sun from the window. All of this has led me to think about cats and their place in the human world.

I always feel a bit embarrassed talking about my cats. Something about the male ego and insecurity wants us to be apologetic about cat ownership, to say, "Oh, there's this cat, but I really like dogs," or something along those lines. The generous explanation for this gender difference is that men enjoy the scruffy rowdiness of dogs as well as their loyalty and generous spirit.  The less charitable explanation (as I saw it put on a message board once) is that men are looking for their pets to be loyal slaves. In the movies, cat owners are often evil, corrupt, or exotically dangerous (see The Godfather), whereas dog lovers naturally come across as loyal and good-hearted, even if the character is a bit of a reckless loner. In America, especially, we tend to associate cats with crazy old ladies and lonely spinsters who live in apartments. At the risk of sounding defensive, ironically enough, I'd like to meditate on the special quality of cats and also comment on the interesting relationship between cats and writers.

From what I've read (I won't bother to provide a citation), the relationship between domesticated cats and humans is much more recent than that between dogs and humans.  Thus, while dogs have become known as "man's best friend," the relationship with cats remains a bit more guarded, not as bone-deep in its intimacy or natural in its closeness. I think the level of closeness can vary a lot depending on the individual cat (or dog, for that matter), but the stereotype of cats as aloof and less friendly rings true enough. We can assume, although it's impossible to prove, that cats were originally domesticated because they kept pests away, and they stuck around for the protection and supplemental food provided by humans.  So, originally, it was just enough to have a cat around. Dogs, on the other hand, seem to have evolved as guard animals, so by definition they needed to be physically closer and more trustworthy and trusting in the bond they shared with humans.

The aloofness of cats provides part of their cool charm, of course. They don't really "care" to interact with humans (although that's personifying them to start with), and they are content to do their own thing, which mostly involves sleeping and catching lizards. Whereas the dog clumsily displays his love in the most obvious ways, the cat keeps himself guarded and mysterious. You have to figure him out, and that takes a while. In the photo above, you can see the way Ernest Hemingway watches the cat.  Being closer to their wild counterparts, in some ways (although again this is all quite unscientific), cats remain fascinating to watch as animals. They behave very much like wild cats, pouncing and stalking mostly invisible prey, sleeping in that half-awake way (as the term "cat-napping" suggests) that allows them to hunt or defend themselves at a moment's notice.

Writers and readers love cats because cats don't interfere with those activities. They aren't noisy and do not demand attention. They either stretch by the fireplace or sleep nearby while one thinks, reads, or writes. American writers especially enjoy a long history of cat ownership and mutual admiration.  The irascible Mark Twain was fond of cats; I like to think they had a calming influence on his cantankerous spirit. One of his cats was called "Sour Mash" (like the whiskey).  Edgar Allan Poe recalls a "wonderful" tortoiseshell cat curling on his wife's chest as she lay dying.  The hipster beat writer Jack Kerouac movingly wrote about the death of a favorite kitten in his autobiographical novel Big Sur. Ernest Hemingway, with his famed brood of six-toed cats, emerges of course as the most well known of American cat lover-writers. Hemingway hunted game in Africa, and he admired the stealthy and wild-like movements of the domesticated cat.

One of Hemingway's cat descendants (allegedly) in Key West (original photo) 

Male writers appreciate cats, as I have said, because they are interesting to watch (and writers are observers) and quiet companions who do not demand too much from their owners. Writers, too, as artists, do not seem to worry too much about whether being fond of cats is unmanly or whether others would approve. They simply enjoy the company of their cats and go about the business of writing and living.

Writers and Drinking

Many of us associate the romantic image of the writer with drinking, and that probably isn't a healthy connection overall for aspiring writers. As the late and brilliant "This American Life" contributor David Rakoff once put it (and I'm paraphrasing), "there are real writers and those who just drink about it."  Too many writers of note could be termed serious drinkers for me to name them all here, but suffice it to say that some of our most famous and beloved American writers (Hemingway, Faulkner, Carver, Poe, London) knew the bottle intimately. To what extent drinking helped or hurt these writers' careers, to what extent they drank because they wrote or vice versa, is difficult to say. In Hemingway's case, his publisher at least said he wouldn't "have been the same person" or writer without drinking (I'll have to get that citation later). Certainly, for most people, drinking probably doesn't help you gain the clarity or maintain the intellectual rigor necessary for writing.

I think it's interesting (and this is by no means an observation unique to me) that we term alcoholism a disease, but continue to blame drinkers if they are not helped by treatment, assigning their inability to get well (sober) to a moral failure of the will (not wanting to stop drinking badly enough).  It seems we really only reserve the term "illness" for alcoholics who have stopped drinking, thereby allowing those former drinkers to shirk from the blame for misdeeds while drinking (since it is, after all, an illness). There's a lot of truth to that bit of bumper-sticker/t-shirt wisdom, "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a drunk. Alcoholics go to meetings."

It's impossible to say why these particular famous writers were given to drink, whether it was the romantic notion of a tortured soul self-medicating or the sign of an egotist who couldn't live with himself in real and sober terms. Perhaps, though, like all alcoholics who continue to drink, these writers deserve some sympathy instead of judgment, some allowance for their humanity, as well as an acknowledgment that their humanity (including perceived character flaws) allowed them to be better writers and artists.   

We are all touched by Andres Segovia

I have been playing guitar, or attempting to play it in a fashion, since I was about 12 years old.  My mother tells me that even as a young child, I was drawn to the guitar, fascinated by it.  In other words, on some level, I always wanted to play the guitar, even before I started taking lessons and learning first-hand of its challenges and difficulties.

When I was in college, after years of playing rock music and writing my own songs, I found myself attracted to the intricacies and beautiful mystery of the classical guitar. The classical guitar, then as now, seemed apart from other guitar styles and apart from classical music. One man, especially, has been given a lot of the credit for helping to bring credibility to the modern classical guitar: Andres Segovia.  I learned who he was just barely before he died, in 1987.  My own studies of the classical guitar, if such modest attempts can be called "study," began with Mel Bay's Classic Guitar Method and with a few lessons through extension learning at the University of Texas. Since that time, I tried to practice a few pieces, and bought a nice, handmade classical guitar from the Croatian guitar prodigy Ana Vidovic, but mostly I languished as a classical guitarist, and I also did not do much with my other guitars, being mostly preoccupied with the business of living life and trying to get by.

In the last couple of years, I have picked up the classical guitar again, and tried to pursue it more earnestly, with the help of my current instructor, John Kiefer, who teaches guitar at the community college where I teach writing and literature. With John, I have tried to expand my repertoire, learn new skills, and break old habits.

Concurrent with the new routine, I have been reading more about classical guitarists, including Segovia, Christopher Parkening, and John Williams. In reading the Wikipedia entry on Segovia, I was taken aback by the statement that "practically all living classical guitarists are students of Segovia or students of his students."  This seemed implausible, until I began to research it a bit. I asked my instructor, and he nodded and said that his own instructor was a student of a Segovia protege. A little more removed than suggested by Wikipedia, but still pretty interesting.  Then I discovered, quite accidentally, that my first classical guitar instructor, someone I had only taken a few lessons from -- a Spanish guitarist named Maria Cortes -- had studied with Segovia.  I had found two links to me, an amateur guitarist living in suburban Houston, seemingly far from the influence of Europe and Spain.  Not bad.

Segovia's influence cannot be overstated, perhaps, although music writers have noted that there were other guitarists during Segovia's time (such as Ida Presti) who were just as talented and brilliant.  Yet Segovia had the gravitas, the dedication to the guitar like no other, and he had the studious, romantic image that conveyed something important about the guitar. (It also helped that he kept at it for so long, from the 1930s to1980s, giving continuity to his efforts.) Guitarists working today perhaps think of Segovia as too serious, too shut off from other genres and styles (several recent guitarists have made wonderful hybrid albums with the electric guitar, for instance, something that likely would have made Segovia shudder).  Segovia gave the classical guitar what it needed at the time, in order to be taken seriously by the classical music world, and his contributions made all that experimentation possible. And of course, he continues to, indirectly through his teaching and inspirational legacy, influence all students of the classical guitar.