I have been surrounded lately by people not saying what they mean. For example:
Last night. The Shiv. Her show was a finger-snappin' delight, as usual. She was a vision, as usual. In truly rockstar feathered-hair style, no less. After her show, Two Chicks and a Casio started playing. Gyrating nearby, in charge of the video camera, was...someone icky. A hairy wrinkly creepyman who apparently is connected with the band (which consists of two very funny chicks and...well, and a Casio. I suppose I need not have explained that). He kept making very strange noises and dancing in the way that old people dance when they are pretending to be young people. Witnessed. At the end of the show he grabs a microphone and, in what was, I can only assume, intended to be a funny way of getting you to buy their CD ("You wanna take home Two Chicks and a Casio? Ten bucks!") instead sounded very creepy indeed. Particularly because he was not being truthful. Liar, Liar! What he truly wanted to say was, "I want to take Two Chicks home with me, so I will joke about it and then it's almost like I did! Ha ha!"
Again: A meeting this morning. About 401(k) plans. The sort of meeting that makes one want to scoop out one's own eyes with a melonballer and shove them into one's ears, just to stop the sight and sound of the interminable slideshow droning from entering one's brain. The kind of meeting where one wants to scream, "Stop trying to make jokes using financial-based puns! They are NOT FUNNY! And additionally, you're ugly." At one point, the presenters were discussing possible "investment scenarios" or some such term. One of them said, "Given the possibility of a geopolitical conflict with Iraq, something something." Geopolitical conflict. He used the same phrase several times, actually. Liar, Liar! What he meant to say was "war." A geopolitical conflict sounds like something I have with a roommate over where we store the coffee mugs. Refrain from using toothless phrases like that because you are afraid of a real word, please. Thank you.
And again. On the subway this morning, a man was talking about his life to someone. Talking about his youth, particularly. How he went to performing arts school and all that, because when he was young he wanted to try out the "acting thing." And how when he was done, he said, "I thought I'd go out to L.A., get some headshots, see what happened. You know, just for shits and giggles." Liar, Liar! Nobody tries to get into acting in L.A. just for fun. What you meant to say was, "I wanted a life in acting more than anything in the whole wide world and it didn't work out, so now I'm back in New York 20 years later with a job at a bank and I have to downplay the dreams of my youth as just a silly whim. Isn't that the saddest thing you've ever heard?"
Come on, people. Stop sitting on a telephone wire. Give them back to the pigeons.