My childhood best-friend was named Jordan Blizzard and he had both cable and a television in his basement. This was a glorious thing since it meant that we could totally get away with watching Skinemax latenight and also that we could kill a case of Coca-Cola Classic and play Nintendo for ungodly stretches of time. It was at his house that I first saw many of the more questionable televised moments in my formative years. One such thing was Eddie Murphy "Raw" which we both became obsessed with.
I was watching the Giants and the Cubs on WGN as a kid (so odd that we had WGN in West Virginia, but we did)*. It was late in a close game that, for once, the Lovable Losers were actually winning and the Giants were up to bat in the bottom of the inning when Kevin Bass got beaned on the forearm by a pitch and started towards first to take his base. Only the umpire didn't see the beaning. Even the announcers did (I mean it was blatant) and were sort of baffled when the ump called Kevin Bass back to the plate**. Kevin Bass was most taken aback and pointed to the visibly rising pump-knot on his forearm and said "What the fuck is that?" The umpire screamed something like "You didn't get hit by that pitch!" and then turned away from him and Kevin Bass barked a bit but had to continue the at-bat, but that is no matter, since this moment isn't memorable for the umpiring gaffe. Rather, it was the first time I'd ever heard an adult say 'fuck' outside of movies and Andrew Dice Clay routines on HBO***. I mean, the audio was crystal clear. It was both amazing and horrifying to me. I was raised in the church and felt certain that saying 'fuck' in the real world**** surely meant God would strike you down. But Kevin Bass didn't get struck down by any God (after all, the Cubs were his opponent). He did, however, end up striking out, and rubbing that mouse burrowing under the skin of his forearm as he sulked back to the dugout.
*It may also have been TBS, since it was years and years ago and the memory does fail, but my gut says WGN, so...
**The thought of Harry Caray noticing a beaning from the booth should tell you something about its obviousness as by this point he was so old and so typically drunk during telecasts that we all felt he'd die by falling from the broadcast booth during the 7th-inning-stretch as he sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" to the half-cocked fans greasing the seats in Wrigley.
***"Hickory Dickory Dock. This bitch was suckin' my cock. The clock struck 2, she swallowed my goo, and that's 'The Dice-man' in a nutshell."#
****It is worth noting the oddity of this particular distinction on my part, in that I was certainly told that saying 'fuck' in a movie of a comedy routine was a bad thing to do, and there should be no reason for the offender to get off scot-free, yet in my mind hearing 'fuck' uttered on cable was not the same as hearing it said in real life. And hearing it said in real life by an adult, as opposed to hearing it said by the creekers in the back of the bus, meant even more.##
#My childhood best-friend was named Jordan Blizzard and he had both cable and a television in his basement. This was a glorious thing since it meant that we could totally get away with watching Skinemax latenight and also that we could kill a case of Coca-Cola Classic and play Nintendo for ungodly stretches of time. It was at his house that I first saw many of the more questionable televised moments in my formative years. One such thing was Eddie Murphy "Raw" which we both became obsessed with. Looking back, Murphy in skin-tight purple leather and high-heels shouldn't have come across as hyper-masculine and cool, but it was 1987 and I was 11-years-old and my god he said 'fuck' so many times and he even made a joke about how people thought that saying 'fuck' was basically all there was to his routine (which was actually true of Andrew Dice Clay). I mean, it was the time of Prince in bubble baths with doves flitting towards him and writhing on top of the clearly taller Appolonia$, so Eddie's get-up was cool as hell to us and after a while Jordan Blizzard and I began to openly wonder just how many times Eddie Murphy had in fact said the word 'fuck' during his routine. And so we counted each instance. We were diligent. He'd sagely recorded the routine on his VCR and so we were able to stop when needed and rewind the tape when we were laughing too hard. In the end, I cannot recall the number of times Eddie Murphy said the word 'fuck' but it was a lot.$$
##The first time I heard it said in person by a real adult was also a moment that occurred at the Blizzard's house. Jane Atkins, a friend of Dan and Sara Blizzard and the wife of a local doctor, said it while sitting on the couch in the den on the main floor. The Blizzards had frequent guests and it was a tradition to sit in the den after eating and visit. Dan sat in his recliner and Sara on her corner of the couch and they both smoked and let us talk like grown-ups as long as it was with-in reason. On this night, Jane Atkins was half-cocked on some sort of mixed drink that she and Dan were having and, between drags on a cigarette, she said 'fuck' like it was the most ordinary thing to do, really. This literally blew my mind. The fact that Jane Atkins was also hot and from Canada simply added to the effect.$$$
$ And then a few years later showing up to the 1991 MTV Music Awards with ass-less pants while the bulk of American clustered around their televisions in awe and horror.+
$$I'd very much like to say that it somehow involved the number 47, as I have always been obsessed with that number and it is the default number I always use when I am being hyperbolic about something (ex: There must have been at least 47 chiggers in there and it only got worse when I my dad put on his pants before the nail-polish had dried and they got stuck to his ass and my mom had to tear them off and he pouted for the rest of the evening and my sister and I couldn't stop laughing.), since it would be really cool to trace that obsession back to the counting of 'fucks' uttered in Eddie Murphy "Raw."
$$$It goes without saying that one of my frequent fantasies during pubescence was to have sex with Jane Atkins on the blue couch in the Blizzard's den while she whispered 'fuck' into my ear and smoked long, minty cigarettes. Needless to say, that never happened.
+I would like to take this moment to publicly declare that Prince > Michael Jackson and if you don't agree with that then you have awful fucking taste or are too young/old to know any better.
Jacob S. Knabb's double life as editor for Another Chicago Magazine and THE2NDHAND and lecturer of composition have led him to cast his demons into a herd of swine he saw milling about near a ravine. He is still waiting to hear them hit bottom.
