Dear Vice,
Last night I was watching Winnebago Man for the several thousandth time and you know that part where he goes "I don’t, er, make any difference to me, at this juncture"? It occurred to me that the only time I’ve ever heard the word "juncture" used in actual conversation was when the person saying it was at the outermost brink of losing his or her shit. It’s basically a one-word "I statement," total overcompensation on the part of whoever says it to convince themselves that they’re keeping it together—sort of like when a boxer takes a punch and shakes his head to be like "that didn’t hurt," when if it actually didn’t hurt he would just keep fighting. Except people do actually use the term "situation at hand" outside the context of fighting, whereas "juncture" has become the sole provenance of the boiling mad. Anyways, that got me thinking what some other inadvertent anger flags‚ĶThe granddaddy of them all, of course, is "disrespect," used as a verb. I wish I could tell every chest-thumping dipshit who has ever barked this term that they have just fancied up the expression "You’re hurting my feelings."I’d even wager "disrespect" was actually coined in the heat of rage, cause when you really think about it, it makes fuck-all sense. Obviously you can "respect someone," but you don’t do it in the same sense, where you’d be like "Oh, hold my drink, I’m going to go respect that guy on the set he just played." Telling somebody to "stop disrespecting me" occupies the same level of logic as saying "quit unadmiring me" or "cease counteresteeming me."Anyhoo, those two are all I could come up with on the fly, but still thought I’d share.Peace,
MICHAEL BOWERY
Last night I was watching Winnebago Man for the several thousandth time and you know that part where he goes "I don’t, er, make any difference to me, at this juncture"? It occurred to me that the only time I’ve ever heard the word "juncture" used in actual conversation was when the person saying it was at the outermost brink of losing his or her shit. It’s basically a one-word "I statement," total overcompensation on the part of whoever says it to convince themselves that they’re keeping it together—sort of like when a boxer takes a punch and shakes his head to be like "that didn’t hurt," when if it actually didn’t hurt he would just keep fighting. Except people do actually use the term "situation at hand" outside the context of fighting, whereas "juncture" has become the sole provenance of the boiling mad. Anyways, that got me thinking what some other inadvertent anger flags‚ĶThe granddaddy of them all, of course, is "disrespect," used as a verb. I wish I could tell every chest-thumping dipshit who has ever barked this term that they have just fancied up the expression "You’re hurting my feelings."I’d even wager "disrespect" was actually coined in the heat of rage, cause when you really think about it, it makes fuck-all sense. Obviously you can "respect someone," but you don’t do it in the same sense, where you’d be like "Oh, hold my drink, I’m going to go respect that guy on the set he just played." Telling somebody to "stop disrespecting me" occupies the same level of logic as saying "quit unadmiring me" or "cease counteresteeming me."Anyhoo, those two are all I could come up with on the fly, but still thought I’d share.Peace,
MICHAEL BOWERY