Seven Dirty Words & Buddy "No. 6" Guy

(926 words)

I don’t know why I feel compelled to defend amplified profanity at the Pittsburgh Blues Festival in a forum that is the blog equivalent of the “Peanuts” comic strip.

We're both innocuous, family-friendly and never resort to profanity.

So the key difference is that “Peanuts” earns millions while this blog earns peanuts.

The closest I get to "going blue" is when I remind people the only time bitch, bitch, bitch turns into something productive is when you’re running a thriving dog-grooming business.

What’s funny is while I rarely type a profanity, I spew them verbally near ‘round the clock.

I try not to say swear words around the kids, but don’t lose sleep whenever I do.

In fact, I often do it with the intention of being funny.

That was the case just last week when one of the Showcase Showdown “Price is Right!” prizes was an all-expense paid trip to Phuket, Thailand.

Now, you sophisticates understand the resort town is pronounced FOO-ket.

I told the girls to pay attention. I said I wouldn’t want them to ever be in the position of having host Drew Carey say, “Do you want to bid or pass?” and have them be misunderstood when they say FUK-it.

I bring all this up because renown Pittsburgh blues promoter Ron Esser, owner of Moondog’s blues club, took it upon himself to scold blues great Buddy Guy for using swear words from the stage. It was a big local story.

Esser — and he is beloved in the ‘burgh — is a nationally-renown blues curator. I’ve been to his club numerous times and spent a great Fourth of July afternoon drinking and talking blues with him when he'd come to visit my good buddy Bill at his bar, B.C. Kenly's, in Latrobe.

So Esser knows the blues. In Pittsburgh, you could say he is the blues.

That’s why the idea of him scolding blues legend Buddy Guy has me saying, “What the, er, heck?”

You see the spot I’m in. I want to share the nitty-gritty of some great profanity, but am shackled by feelings of propriety.

I don’t want to run afoul of the FCC-based guidelines so memorably lanced by George Carlin in his “Seven Dirty Words” routine.

The only solution is to provide a sanitized numeric key for the remainder of this post.

Here it is:

No. 1, manure; 2, urine; 3, from the Dutch word for “to penetrate;” 4, rhymes with “punt;” 5, a three-syllable pejorative for any male or female who does something most men find very appealing (hint: its initials are “c.s.”); 6, a person who does this to the maternal woman who gave birth to you, but is not your father; 7, a word that’s fine when farmers use (and squeeze) in relation to barned livestock, but improper when used to describe the same functioning part of a woman.

So on Saturday, Buddy Guy said good-naturedly to a fan who was pestering him about playing a song, “Will you shut the No. 3 up for a minute?”

When the crowd reacted to his use of No. 3, Guy said, “I know some will say, ‘My kid’s never heard that word.’ If they ain’t, then they ain’t got a No. 3ing television.”

This is what No. 2ed Esser off. He said there was no place for that kind of No. 1 at a benefit concert.

What’s funny, and what Esser must know, is Buddy Guy’s nickname is No. 6.

It’s true. He’s Buddy No. 6 Guy.

How do I know?

I heard it from Mick No. 3ing Jagger.

On the “Shine a Light” Stones concert film from a few years back, Guy steals the show with a blistering version of Muddy Waters’s “Champagne and Reefer.”

They play the song and at the end, Mick urges Guy to take a bow and says, “Buddy Guy . . . Buddy No. 6 Guy.”

I first thought Mick was just being a disrespectful No. 5.

Then I heard Guy tell a story about once when he was waiting backstage to meet Mick. The security guy probably had no idea who this great man was and was probably more interested in impressing all the girls with the really nice No. 7s.

But he says something like, “Don’t talk to Sir Mick. Do not make eye contact. He’s preparing for the performance and doesn’t like distractions. Be respectful to Sir Mick.”

So Sir Mick walks by and first thing Buddy says, is “What’s up, No. 6?”

And Jagger hugs him and says, “No. 6! How the No. 3 are you!”

Unlike the No. 5ing security guard, it shows Sir Mick can take a No. 3ing joke.

Guy says the nickname, in fact, goes back decades to when he was the session guitarist at Chess Records in Chicago for Muddy, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter and all the greats.

He said: “Back then at Chess Records, everybody was a No. 6. They’d say, “Hey, No. 6, you’re playing too loud!’ I’d say, ‘I thought my name was Buddy.’ But after about six months of that, someone would say, ‘Hey, No. 6!’ and I’d look up just like everyone else. That’s how I became Buddy No. 6 Guy.”

And that’s the straight No. 1 on what happened on the Pittsburgh blues scene this weekend.

I relate all this so if anyone asks about it, you won’t feel like a stupid No. 4.

Nobody likes that.

I mean, WTNo.3?

Related . . .

I’m so @#$&* sorry

A profane discourse on barbers & bartenders

In praise of profanity

The blacks, the blues & me

RIP Bobby Keys: Is this his last song?

Mick Jagger: An appreciation

In praise of profanity

At least once a week I regret my vow to make this a family-friendly blog. See, I’m pro-profanity. I love to swear and my life is enriched with ample provocations to do so.

Happened just this morning.

For reasons of economy, taste and snobbery, I’ve pretty much kicked the fast food habit.

But sometimes the body simply needs fuel. Today I wanted to accomplish a lot in a little time so I swung by the nearest McDonald’s and ordered a sausage biscuit with cheese. The place is notorious for its inefficiency and I hadn’t been there in probably two years.

I zipped through the drive-thru and made it back to my office in under two minutes.

I was pleased to think that maybe my faith in humanity was being restored in that they’ve evolved and learned to work together more efficiently and, yeah, I gave all the credit to Barack.

That will please conservatives because of what happened next.

I unfolded the paper and inside was just the biscuit with cheese.

I’d been awake barely 20 minutes and I screamed my first profanity of the day.

My entire order was just four words long: “sausage biscuit with cheese.” And only three of the words involved food.

I understand in these busy times that many people are distracted and that many of our attention spans have shortened to jiffy fractions. So if the wrapper had contained just a sausage biscuit, I’d have understood.

But how Person A says or prints “sausage biscuit with cheese,” and Person B omits the sausage is incomprehensible.

It is the very essence of any sausage sandwich. I’d wager in the history of McDonald’s history no one’s ever said, “I’d like a biscuit with cheese.”

So now I’m on a mission. I grab the inedible mistake and dash straight back to the drive-thru determined to keep my cool.

I like situational profanity, but using it at someone always makes me feel small. Plus, the store was clearly staffed with idiots who’d have responded to my barbs with either gunfire or dumbfounded stares.

I politely explained to the girl I needed to see the manager. She said, sure, and asked me to pull up to the second drive thru.

No, I’ll wait here, I said.

It was a small act of civil disobedience, but I have a pet theory about the progression of drive thrus and here was an opportunity to perhaps further its potential.

See, there were no drive thrus when I was a boy. Now each restaurant has two. My theory is that in 20 years it will take four drive thrus to screw up each order.

The manager, a sweet grandmotherly lady, approached and heard my complaint. I said I wanted a new sausage biscuit with cheese and compensation for the inconvenience.

“Well, we don’t have any gift certificates here, but I can give you some pie!”

Pie?

As I said, I’m not a frequent patron so I don’t know what McDonald’s breakfast pie would entail. I’ve had and enjoyed quiche, which is a pie-shaped entree. But I’d already ordered my breakfast entree.

I said no thanks. She took my address and said she’d send some gift certificates. Soon she handed me a sack and said, “Here’s your sausage biscuit with cheese -- I put a free hash brown in for you!”

She said it in a way that led me to believe this gesture led past disgruntled customers to emerge from their vehicles and do handsprings around the parking lot.

I just said, “Thank you for your consideration.”

I get back to the office. Opened the sack and unfolded the wrapper. Know what was inside?

Biscuit with cheese, egg and bacon.

I shouted the day’s second profanity with such a reverberating gusto that I imagined flocks of birds simultaneously lifting off from branches all across distant savannahs.

It helped relieve the strain.

That brings me to Joe Biden’s profane gaffe. I was so pleased to see it didn’t inspire the usual holier-than-thou back and forth that’s become so common in our over-heated political climate.

We’re all becoming more comfortable with profanity.

It gives me hope that someday I’ll be able to use all my favorite swear words right here in this family-friendly blog.

And on that day, I’ll tell you exactly what I thought when I bit into that bacon mistake I was too furious to return a second time.

“Hey, this is pretty #@$*-ing good!”

I’m so #@*%! sorry

It’s come to my attention that a certain number of impressionables are occasionally checking in on this blog and that means I’m going to regretfully have to renege on a previous promise.

When I was sketching out the likely future of these writings, I’d broadly hinted that they would contain lots and lots of profanity. There’d be, I’d said, ribald references, double and triple entendres, and the kind of straight blue profanity you hear in foxholes and on construction sites.

Not now.

I don’t want to risk corrupting any of the youth with language they’ve been warned repeatedly against using by austere authority figures at home, school and in their churches. Corrupting morals in the cyber way is such a tawdry business.

Especially as long as I still reserve the right to enjoy doing so in person. One of the great thrills of corrupting an innocent is seeing an alarmed and electric look steal across their faces when they realize that always being good isn’t always the only option. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to drop an unexpected f-bomb in an inappropriate place like, say, a classroom of higher education.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been asked to teach undergrad and grad journalism students at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. One of the first things I always do -- right after urgently advising them against having anything to do with journalism -- is to announce that the class will include profanity.

I do this because you can see the jolts of increased enthusiasm ripple through their postures. I may only do so two or three times the entire semester, but the announcement gives me a license to swear, sort of making me agent “Double Oh S---!”

I don’t know what it is about forbidden words that makes them so deliciously enticing, but that’s simply the case with so-called swear words and any of the other fruits we forbid. Just try watching the sanitized version of “The Sopranos” on A&E.

I cringe for the franchise whenever I see an enraged Paulie Walnuts about to ventilate some hapless bookie and having the puritanical censors dub in place of a stream of vicious profanity, “You bad stupid man!” before he commits a more ballistic sort of obscenity on the person.

Val and I are enormous fans of Seinfeld-creator Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” It’s loaded with wonderful, over-the-top profanity that always keeps us cackling.

Alas, it’s a topic with which our 8-year-old daughter, the product of two profanity-spewing parents, is beginning to struggle. She’s forever narcing on one or the other of us for saying words she’s apparently heard forbidden in the second grade.

For me, it’s been fun watching her learn about rudimentary profanity from her mother in traffic, her mother at card-gobbling ATMs, her mother running late and her mother whenever her father’s too hungover to do simple household chores like brush his teeth.

Two years ago she enlivened the Thanksgiving Day table by matter-of-factly announcing “The f-word rhymes with Chuck.” My white-haired mother’s reaction was as compelling as anything ever produced for “The Waltons.”

But I didn’t flinch. I’ve told her many times there are no bad words. There are only bad times to say some words like, for instance, right after the Thanksgiving meal blessing. Still, it dismays me to see our societal revulsion of some of these great, colorful words is so formidable that she is being coerced into thinking that some words are too powerful, too awful to ever be uttered.

To that I ask the universal question (but will paraphrase in keeping with my pledge to sanitize this forum), what the heck?

A perfectly timed blast of profanity is always a welcome addition to any otherwise stoic conversation. It frees up the minds. It expands the boundaries and bestows a sort of democratic camaraderie that brings noblemen and peasants to the same level.

For my part, I will continue to shout profanities from the rooftops, in the classrooms, on the golf courses, from atop my bar stool and anyplace where a single well-timed profanity might jar free men and women everywhere into realizing that we all lose when language is shackled to a caste system of good or evil.

Because the judicious use of profanity doesn’t denigrate man, it ennobles him.

I swear.