What is it to be vulgar?

As with most things the dictionary definition is not what comes to mind. Rather it is associations. When we think of people being vulgar we imagine swearing, or sexy talk, or sacrilege.

Yet, when I look around. When I look around to see everybody and their grandmother dressing like they just raided the GAP then got their hair styled by a Bauhaus band; I feel that it’s something deeper.

Well, you shouldn’t judge people by their appearance. Short men, tall women, folks with big ol kazoo noses, and the Irish, these people get a pass. That is until adults unironically dress like a 90’s latchkey kid who stole his father’s whiskey. It’s even worse when they do it ironically.

Yes, when I look around and see this I begin to think that the problem is far deeper than the words and giggles that make WASPS and Yentas join hands in one great verklempt kvetch of a kaffeklatsch about the youth.

They will of course always miss the point. Yes, they’ll meander round the target. The destruction of the nuclear family, the lack of Jesus, Torah, or Allah, EDUCATION, gay frogs, etc. These are all certainly valid indicators and contributors but I think the problem is even deeper than the dictionary or vernacular expectation.

To be vulgar is to lack fine feelings.

Ah! I can already hear the vast Mongol hordes of eLibertarians, muttering darkly about feels and reals, as they sharpen their double-edged snark swords to teach me a thing or two about fortitude. Growing up in the burbs reading Ayn Rand is the epitome of boot strapped, barrel chested, Marlboro manhood I’d better tread carefully. Lest I be called a snowflake.

To be honest I am a snowflake. Or rather quite a lot of snowflakes. I am in fact an avalanche of acerbic, unabashedly elitist, classically authenticated disdain.

It’s the bloody boomers you see! And the millennials, and Gen X, THEY DID IT! Well, no that’s not it at all Doctor YouTubus Polemicus.

No, the problem lies in the fact that one can’t sit down to a listen to a bit of Bach without feeling pretentious. Where’s my Rush mixtape god damn it…I need to feel Earthy…no wait that’s classic rock….fuck ahh ok…thank god it’s Limp Bizkit…now I am one with the Volk.

I am honestly very eclectic in my own manners and styles. I do not begrudge appearance itself. If you want to be a corporate lumberjack, who plays ukulele, while day trading be my guest. But for Christs sake follow the patron saints of Yup and ‘Let it Be.’

The problem is enforcement. Don’t believe me? If you are male and over the age of 21 and dare. Dare! To put on some slacks and a button up for no other purpose than to go to a stroll or some casual (church included) function…well by god won’t you be the wanky oddball?

Put on a tie and by Jove what are you some sort of man!

Well..where’s your billions! Huh. You can’t possibly like dressing like an adult. You are lying to women… trying to intimidate manlets! You great bully. You great lie. You poser! Put on some plaid for the sake of all that is holy! We are at the mall getting lattes! Surely you didn’t forget to bring your wool cap?

Try to say any word containing more than three syllables and you’d better be ready to get psychoanalyzed by an impromptu Oprah panel. You’re so gauche!

No one would have an involved discussion without some darwinian ulterior motive. There is no such thing as passion, or understanding the words you read, and using them in conversation. No, you are being gauche and they would know – they after all went to college. These are the times when English majors in American universities are unfamiliar with Emerson you see. So wax that beard don’t wax poetic.

No, the current situation is something far worse than mob rule, far worse than the bovine bleating of the sheeple, it is the tyranny of malaise.

Malaise leads to atrophy. And you can’t write the next great American novel, be John Williams, or Louis C.K. if everyone’s eyes, ears, and wits have rotted clean off.

This article is an opinion piece of the sort I write as a kind of literary yoga where I stretch wordy ligaments so as to remain limber for more serious work. This is not an apologia for anything written above. Merely a reminder that the journal isn’t a one trick pony. Thanks so much for reading. Feel free to comment. I don’t bite unless you’re into it.

Verklempt? | mellow.mission.productions@gmail.com