EZ on the GD

I used to know a guy in the dorm who would say that. His name was Chad and he sold Amway and he was a bit of a jerk. We had a falling out when he said some unkind things about a female friend of mind.

And I told her about it, and Chad wouldn't play chess with me anymore, which in hindsight wasn't that big of a loss.

I mean, he did insult my friend right in the common study room for my floor in front of my other friends.

But any way this blog entry is not about Chad, it's about GD.

Specifically it's about the word "goddamn," which to keep my blog from being censored, I'm going to call GD.

About fifteen years ago when I first decided to become a writer, I decided my "craps" and "dang it's" were weak sauce. I sat down and thought about it, and realized that the strongest swears combined a religious name with a traditional swear word. (Incidentally Robin ran to close to a semi truck one time while she was driving and I let fly with a "Holy Mary Mother of F---." I still don't think my brother-in-law has quite recovered.)

When I was a radio host at WRFL I had a segment that marked the exact moment were culturally you could play GD on the radio. Then the incident with Janet Jackson happened at the Super Bowl, and the FCC began to crackdown on decency, levying giant fines left and right.

With my children, I've always told them that it's okay to sing a "bad word" as part of a song. Mainly because I once wrote a short story for class laden with swear words and when it came time to read it in the lobby of LCC it sounded ridiculous. One of the professors took me aside afterwards and told me that I shouldn't censor myself.

When I play guitar and sing there are certain songs on which I won't censor myself. Counting Crows "Marjory" and Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" are both sacrosanct to me. Besides, songs like "Uncle John's Band" and "Ball and Chain" are useless with the GD removed. It's the word that gives the song power.

An old Scoutmaster I met at McKee (I think he was Camp Commissioner) took me aside one time and told me that swearing implies a lack of intelligence - his point was that a person who swears couldn't think of the right word or combination of words.

I agree with that thought - if I didn't want to be thought of as stupid, I would have to come up with increasingly complex and creative insults. Nothing as mundane as my Sister-in-Law who says, "Piss," for everything.

So with the Republicans trying to create a functional Theocracy in the U.S. to unseat Obama, I am in great fear for the 1st Amendment and the guarantee of free expression. If we can't say GD on the internet, how long before we can't say it in real life?