"To the people who think, the world is comic.  To people who feel, the world is tragic." Horace Walpole

"Sometimes I am thinking, and sometimes I am feeling." Ralph Maltese

"Sick people have such deep and sincere attachments." Blanche Dubois

 

Firetruck Bombing

by | Aug 31, 2022 | Uncategorized

Firetruck Bombing

Do you ever feel like you have embarked on a journey, entered a path through the woods, traveled hundreds of miles only to find yourself right back at the path’s entrance?  That is how I feel about television.  Growing up I had the choice of watching three networks (and later four—UHF).  Then along came cable and HBO and Prism.  One of the great selling points of these platforms was the elimination of commercials, those pesky interruptions of drama and adventure in order to sell soap and gasoline (when was the last time you saw an ad for Texaco Star?), and Chia pets.

Then the platforms multiplied like rabbits:  Hulu, Brit Box, Acorn, Paramount, Paramount +, Discovery, Apple, Disney…..and on and on.  Now when I want to watch episode 65 of the 3rd season of The Cockney Murders, I have to remember which platform it was on.  The advantage to this structure is that I have plenty of choices.  But I also have to sit through commercials on some of those platforms.  So I have come full circle, once again on the opening to life’s path.

Yet one element has changed, and that is the language used in the newer shows, particularly crime series.  Before I walk down this trail, I must point out a couple of truisms that line the path.  I attended a predominantly male college and adopted a linguistic addendum befitting a student living in a men’s dormitory.  Conversations with my classmates were appropriately adorned with fine tuned profanity known for its witty placement as well as its alliteration. We English majors also managed to slide in some Shakespearian curses which not only supplied clues to our course of study, but elevated the classiness of the conversation.  One profanity that did exist and was used, relatively sparingly, was the f-bomb….You know…begins with F and ends with K…..firetruck.  For some reason it was used sparingly perhaps only to denote total abandonment of any high class civility or to signal great depths of despair. And there were unwritten norms.  “Firetruck” was not to be used on dates, lest we offend the delicate ears of young ladies whose dormitory language, as with so many other traits of the opposite sex, were completely unknown to us.

There was always the danger that on some Junior Weekend Dance or prom the highly offensive “firetruck” would spill out, and our dates would recoil in horror.  Every one us knew the Thanksgiving Day cautionary tale about the family gathering around the roasted turkey. Freshman Joey, home for the holidays, is asked to lead the blessing.  “Thank You for all this bounty You have delivered to our grateful hands.  Amen.  Mom, please pass the firetrucking potatoes.”

So, I assure you that my upbringing was neither delicate nor naïve concerning the linguistic expressions of the frustrated and angry.  But the shows we are currently watching utilize profanity beyond the line etched by verisimilitude and common sense.  There are just too many firetrucks, and the frequency of these words is so great that I tend not to hear them.  They dull my senses to their usage and thus lose whatever potency they might have possessed.

Crime shows, mystery dramas that we have inherited from the British Isles seem to fit this pattern more than other programs. Those British mysteries, whether their origins be Scotland, England, Wales or Northern Island appear to share a number of commonalities (the Scandanavian crime shows share many of the these as well—particularly those under the heading Nordic Noir.)  The protagonist is always crimped professionally by a background that includes excessive drinking, a daughter who torments her parent by her annoying ODD, a family member who is an addict/drunkard/obsessive gambler, and a disturbing inability to make a logical decision.  (“There are seventeen bad guys in that warehouse armed to the teeth with AK-47’s, grenades, Glocks, and the occasional bazooka, but I have my trusty whistle, so I won’t wait for backup”).  The detectives in these series also dress rather casually. In Law and Order, Phil Cerrata, Lennie Briscoe, Ray Curtis, Joe Fontana, Nick Falco, Cyrus Lupo, and Kevin Bernard all dress in two piece suits and ties, like te neat little detectives they are.  In the European crime dramas, all the good guys look like they got their apparel from rolling homeless drunks.   Now in the heat of an exchange of gunfire and explosives, I can accept an inordinate number of firetrucks in the script; when the battle is over and won, I can forgive five or six expletives.

But even in the commonest, most mundane of situations, the dialog is festooned with curses for no reason.

“Good morning, Chief O’Donnell.”

“Good morning, Sergeant.  Would you please get me a firetruck cup of coffee with two firetrucking sugars?”

“Right firetrucking away, Chief.”

Detective Inspector Ron McDonald enters the Chief’s office.  “Morning, Chief.”

“Good firetruck morning, Mc Donald.  That was some firetrucking raid last firetrucking night on that firetrucking warehouse.”

“Yes, It firetrucking was.”

And these are shows that try to be gritty and earthy.  Even the shows that are not crime dramas seem to sprinkle the expletives liberally.  There is a show about a family, mother, father, son 8, daughter 5.

“C’mon.  Gonna be firetrucking late for firetrucking school.”

“Now firetrucking hurry up, or you will be firetrucking late for the firetrucking school bus.”

At night, the mother reads to her children while they lie in bed.  “And so, the firetrucking three little pigs drove the bad wolf away.”

“The bad wolf was a sh____ty person, wasn’t he, mommy?”

“He surely was a firetrucking as_____le.  But you should not use that language, Ben.”

American trends, especially on cable television, have inherited this legacy from our linguistic partners from across the Atlantic.  One program features the fast paced life and drama that characterizes a small restaurant.

“Chefs!  First firetrucking serving in one hour!”

“Right Chef!!”

“Right Chef!!”

Right Cheff!!”

“Chef Are the firetrucking braised beans ready?”

“Firetruck braised beans are ready chef!”

“Chef!  Corner!” Chefs announce they are rounding a corner to avoid collisions with other chefs.

“Chef!  Firetruck corner!!”

“Firetruck corner, chef!!”

“Chef!  Firetrucking angel food cake ready?!”

“Firetrucking angel food cake ready, chef!”

After the last customer has left the restaurant, the same sort of dialog persists.

“Chefs, we did firetrucking good tonight.  Firetrucking good!!”

In unison. “Firetrucking good chef!”

One of the chefs in this show has a blind date with a pleasant looking, innocent, young lady.  Sitting in a fancy restaurant that caters to the upper class, the chef and his date sit at a small round table, a glass of Chardonnay and a martini in front of each.

“So, I says to Chef Mook, ‘Hey, Mook, clean up your firetrucking station before the firetrucking cockroaches start sticking their dicks in your Bolognese firetrucking sauce.’  You know what I firetrucking mean?”

He snaps his fingers.  “Hey, waitress, can we have a firetrucking menu over here?”  He smiles at his blind date.  “Sometimes you just have to kick these firetrucking guys with your firetrucking boots.  You know what I mean?”

The young lady looks down at her place avoiding his eyes.

“So, Jane.  What firetrucking enterprise are you in?

Jane looks up.  “What do you mean?”

“Job.  What firetrucking job do you firetrucking have?  Or do you live at firetrucking home with your parents?  Want a firetrucking cigarette?”

“No, thank you.”

“Hey, waitress.  Come here.  My date wanted two firetrucking olives in her firetrucking martini.  “Didn’t you say ‘two?’”

The young lady nods sheepishly.

“See, get her another firetrucking olive! Now!”

In many of these shows, even successful businessmen, artists, heads of state, kings and queens seem to insert words that were formerly excluded from conventional conversation.

“Hi, I am George Greenhold, owner of this here company.  Did my assistant Erwin here give you the grand firetrucking tour of the refinery?  Good, sit your firetrucking asses down, make yourself firetrucking comfortable, and we’ll talk about a sale price.  You can’t have firetrucking Erwin here.  He goes with me…ha ha ha ha firetrucking ha!”

Two families meet on the street of Maybury.

“Hello. Darling this is Josephine and her husband Fred and their two children, Joseph and Lilllian.  This is my husband Hank.”

“Hi.  I am Henry Stanford.  You all can call me ‘Hank.’  Just left church and going up to the firetrucking cemetery to lay a wreath on her parents’ firetrucking grave. Wasn’t that a firetrucking sermon the reverend breath-fired us on this morning about firetrucking verbal abuse?”

There is a Monty Python episode in which several performers are playacting as children talking to an adult.  The adult asks them several questions, and, as children often do, they answer hesitantly, shyly.  One “boy,” pretending to be five or sixt, in a low voice contributes to the conversation by saying, “Potty.”  All the boys giggle. I like the sequence because it reminds us of those wondrous moments when children discover the magic and the power of words…the power to shock, the child’s realization that saying something can ignite a reaction in adults.

The writers of those shows laced with unnecessary obscenity deprive us of that magic through overuse.  Are they so immature as to believe that incorporating firetruck six thousand times in an episode is boldly pushing the linguistic envelope?  Do they consider this inclusion of so many firetrucks a step in the direction of artistic freedom?  Worse, do they really believe that using the terms a zillion times in the script has shock value?

One of my summer jobs as a youth was working on the docks in New Jersey.  Every guy in my crew wore a faux fur collared coat and carried an iron hook on his shoulder, guys that would blend in with the actors in the movie On the Waterfront.  Their speech patterns were guttural and when they spoke the endurance and woes of such a hard-working life were heard in the silent pauses.

If the writers of the shows I referred to think they are capturing the language of the meek and the powerful, the reality of every day conversation, I would suggest they spend a day or two working on the docks absorbing the banter of longshoremen or listening to two people on a blind date, or a family returning home from church.  If the writers think I am being too prudish about all this, well, firetruck them!