'Time Bomb'
[NAFDA] "There will be an occasional happy, so that it might be crushed under the boot of the writer." From Zorro to Angel (including Wonderfalls and The Inside), this is where Buffistas come to anoint themselves in the bloodbath.
I wouldn't go there with wop.
You bet your ass you wouldn't. Nor guinea, dago, ginzo, guido and goombah. My father still gets the racial slurs, and I get them, from friends and acquaintances who think it's "cute." It's demeaning, yet I'm being uber-sensitive when I ask them to cease and desist.
I might joke with an Irish person about being a mick - I wouldn't go there with wop.
I gotta say...I would probably get pretty pissy with someone who made a joke like that with me.
Nor guinea, dago, ginzo, guido and goombah.
Goombah? I thought they were those guys in Super Mario Brothers.
Goombah? I thought they were those guys in Super Mario Brothers.
They are. "Goombah" is the bastardization of the word compare, which means a close friend. Second-generation Italian-Americans who only knew certain words and phrases of Italian, as well as lacking the accent to pronounce them properly, invented their own pronunciation which transformed them into wholly Italian-American words. "Rigot'" for ricotta, and "fungool" for vafunculo are just two examples. Italians have no clue what is being said when their relatives from the States use these words.
Edited to fix formatting.
Goombah? I thought they were those guys in Super Mario Brothers.
They are.
Oh, der.
smacks forehead
I was, of course, talking about Super-fucking-Mario Brothers.
"Goombah" is the bastardization of the word compare, which means a close friend.
Huh. Do Italians make it a habit of jumping on the heads of their close friends? That's not very genial.
Do Italians make it a habit of jumping on the heads of their close friends?
Only on special occasions. Like when they don't have fireballs.
I was, of course, talking about Super-fucking-Mario Brothers.
See? Compare is a word that is used for very special relationships. It should not be describing the lowest level of fiends in a video game. Especially when Goombah carries additional negative connotations.
It's odd where lines get drawn amongst the familiar.
During a particularly stressful time before an event a few years ago, Maya and I got a little heated at each other.
Maya said, "You're just being a bitch because I married a Black man."
I said, "Sluts like you muddy the race."
And we fell apart laughing at the stupidity of the entire argument.
I don't presume that I could have that exchange with anyone else.
I don't presume that I can touch ita's hair, though I love her and she knows I mean no harm, for example. There's a boundary. Maya says to me, "YOU can go there." Someone else can't. There's the understood.
It's an interesting thing.
And by a strange coincidence, in today's Boston globe, something semi-related to this discussion.
I was just going to post that, Frank!