Music Blog

In this world of political constriction, there are words we can no longer say. And the fact that we never should have used them to begin with is lost on some folks.

There are phrases that embody racism, sexism, abuse, and hate. And there's no getting around it. We consider some words so insidious that we only refer to them with the letter they begin with. You know: the F-word, the N-word,the C-word, and so on. However, spewing these abbreviated words is cheating and just causes the listener to say it in his or her head, thus defeating the purpose of trying to clean things up. It's rather peculiar. I bet if you approached a woman and said, "Hey, C-word," you'd wake up with a crowd standing around you and a mouthful of loose teeth.

I'm not advocating censorship, no. I just want to keep you aware of what you're saying and the origin of the words or phrases you use to frame it. Some words aren't outwardly hurtful; take, for instance, the avocado.

The Aztecs considered the avocado an aphrodisiac and called it "ahuacatl," which means "testicle." Come on and have a ball.

I've had the pleasure as a music critic to write about music I love, like gypsy jazz. But wait: that's a slight at the expense of the Romani people. Known mostly as a nomadic race in Europe, the Romani were mistakenly thought to have first come from Egypt, and have been unfairly characterized as swindlers and thieves. Not to impugn his work, but as much as I've written about Django Reinhardt and his ilk, I've always referred to the music as gypsy jazz. So from here on out, I'll be referring to gy--(there's that word again) as being Django-esque.

And I've got a feeling that the PC police have their eyes on the phrase "girl group." Since we're on an "-esque" kick, how about "estrogen-esque"? I'm not sure it'll translate with punk and metal, though.