Hornswaggler | The culture, the humor, a bit of the sports, not so much the politics, and the workplace distraction
Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of
hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my
pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" --
"I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers,
bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits,
vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers,
buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train
robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!"
Waiting for Conan last night I caught the end of Leno and The Counting Donkey Punches were playing. The chorus to their dumb fucking song went something like this: "It's true what they say, 'Don't know what you got until it's gone' " and then "Paradise was paved over for a parking lot."
Two dumb fucking cliches one after the other. If you're simply going to reiterate the message of that horrible late '80s/early '90s hair rock ballad (Cinderella?), you'd better give a more knowing acknowledgement than "It's been said before" or "It's true what they say." You've got to say something like, "I know it's a horrible cliche that a bunch of idiots have drooled out in the past, but we're going to say it anyway."
The concept of "Paradise paved over for a parking lot" has also been done before. To wit: "Nothing But Flowers" by the Talking Heads, a multi-layered and ironic song in which a person living in a world in which suburban sprawl has been replaced by a verdant Genesis-type paradise waxes nostalgic for the trappings of suburbia: 7-11, Pizza Hut, billboards, highways, and yes, parking lots.
After the song, Duritz rushes over and talks with Leno. Is Duritz the only person in the band? Does the rest of the group get ushered out an emergency exit? Typical.
