I know I'll $#@! it up. The Word Nazi Proliferates. When you say Budweiser.

Who knew that slipping into a pair of pants could feel like a victory lap? Nine months post-hip replacement, I hit this personal milestone, and it's got me thinking about the resilience we muster as we age and the humor that arises from life's most irksome moments. Picture this: a botched attempt at palm tree trimming leads to an unexpected bonding session with the locals, proving that sometimes, professional help isn't just a convenience—it's a necessity. Meanwhile, I'm eyeing a DIY irrigation project with a mix of thriftiness and dread. Join me as I share these tales and explore the delicate dance between self-sufficiency and knowing when to wave the white flag.

Now, let's talk about the words we toss around like confetti—have "crazy" and "surreal" really lost their punch? I'm unpacking the frustration with our diluted vocabulary and the craving for something more. And for a dash of whimsy, we're shifting gears to manual transmissions and waxing nostalgic over the ephemeral delight of Juicy Fruit gum. I'll take you through a musical reverie, longing for a Sirius XM channel that plays the soundtrack of our lives—not just the folk tunes that don't quite scratch that itch. From linguistic quirks to the love of a good stick shift, this episode promises to resonate with both your heartstrings and your funny bone. Join me for a journey through the small triumphs, the irksome moments, and the tunes that define our experiences.

Transcript

Blade: 0:13

Monumental day today. I was able to put on a pair of pants without leaning on the wall. I mean, it's been nine months since I've had a hip replacement surgery and it took one day. You're in and out when you do it in one day. Put this spherical little ball I mean, it's been nine months since I've had a hip replacement surgery and it took one day. You're in and out. Do it in one day. Put this spherical little ball and stick and you're in there and it's supposed to help.

Blade: 0:34

And everybody says why didn't I get it done sooner? But anyway, I was able to do that without the risk of falling down. And I'm reminded of the old television commercial I've fallen and I can't get up. That the old people Alert Are you okay? I've fallen off the ladder and I can't get up. Uh, you know, have that. I pressed the button. I've fallen and I can't get up. And we made fun of that then. And now it's me and uh, anyway, that's a big day today for me. So I'm happy that I was able to put on a pair of pants nine months later.

Blade: 1:07

It takes a year to get over these uh hip things. They say uh, and so as you become older, you know, all these little afflictions start to happen. But uh, I mean, that's okay, I guess I'm okay with, but I have become irritable. I'm an irritable bastard. I am, so much so that I live in Arizona and so I'm brushing up on my Spanish, so much so that I now know how to say it in Spanish Sale de mi césped Get off my lawn is what that means. Sale de mi césped. So you have to say that from time to time. A lot of people don't speak English here Mexicans and I uh bought a chainsaw. You know one of those things way up there you can get six feet up.

Blade: 1:50

The other day and I was cutting down the palm trees of my palm tree that I have in the yard, and hoa gets on you because those things get ugly, palm trees get ugly. I was having a hard time with it and two mexican guys stopped buying a truck and and I'm telling them in spanish, um puedes ayudarme, necesito tu ayuda, probablemente in spanish, which means basically, um, you could help me, possibly. And they said sure, and I came out and I gave them 40 bucks and they looked at my chainsaw and they said so I put the chain on, backwards on. I'm just one of those kind of guys that I can't do that stuff right. My dad was so great at it, great with his hands. I didn't get that from him, but I got other things from him, his flowery language, for example, and his bad temper, for example. But he was funny. He was a funny guy and, as I always say, funny trumps everything. Anyway. So they, in five minutes they cut my palm tree down to absolutely nothing, you know.

Blade: 2:55

And then I got a estimate from the guys because I want to get an irrigation system in my front yard. Right, I want to put some cacti there, because I love cacti like you don't even know, uh, and I love these bushes in the desert, because I love the desert so much. And and he tells me in a text message it's two thousand two hundred dollars. And so I think about that and I have this absurd thought no, I'm going to do it myself, and I know I'm going to completely fuck it up. I know I'll buy the the wrong tubes at Home Depot and the wrong T-connector and I won't be able to program the Hunter, you know, computer system for timing and all that. But it's not that I mind the $2,200 estimate for putting the irrigation system in, because that's about the going rate out here. It's just the fact that the Mexican guys are don't take cards here and they don't speak English and they don't take cards, you know. So that means I got to go to the bank and withdraw two thousand two hundred dollars and that's getting in the car a pain in the ass. So I'll do it myself. I, you know I don't want to go to the bank, and you know. So I'll do it myself and I'll let you know how that goes. But it's going to be a complete cacophony of errors. I can just just promise you that. But you know, and so get off my lawn. You know, and the older you get, the more irritated you become, because things repeat themselves and they don't get any better.

Blade: 4:17

And part of it is me turning into a word Nazi because people say the same things. I read a lot, I watch TV a lot and you know I look at YouTube stuff and internet stuff and all that. People use the same words and you know, word Nazi, when you said these particular words, you've said nothing. Okay, and everybody says them nowadays because people are lemmings. They copy each other.

Blade: 4:47

The local news channel, by the way, for those of you in Raleigh-Durham appreciate what you have. I just want to say that. And so there's this huge pileup on the I-10 out here, which is just a disastrous two-lane road, and it's just these horrible accidents. There's a nine-car pileup and lives were lost. And the news team goes out in their 22, 22 year old hotties and they get an eyewitness account and a guy says, yeah, it was crazy. Nine car pile up, lives are lost and he calls it crazy. Okay, I, you know, I understand the fact that. What are you going to say with cameras stuck in your face? But the news team airs that and it's like why do you do that?

Blade: 5:21

Word nazi, the word crazy and my, my disdain of the word crazy. It's well documented. Go back and review some of the other you know podcast videos that I've done. And here's another one. It's the word surreal. People use the word surreal constantly. When it's just, it's not surreal, you know they don't know what else to say. It's like, you know, sandy Hook in 2012. A guy goes in and it was surreal. What have you said? You, you've said nothing. You know words. You've used that. When you've said them, you've said nothing.

Blade: 5:53

The word strange is another one. People use that word so much these days. Oh, it was strange. Well, you know, case in point the Grateful Dead. They used that a long time ago. The Grateful Dead, what a long strange trip it's been. What have they said? Nothing. Strange, first of all, it's the grateful dead. How strange can strange be? Strange is every day, so that's not strange, it's commonplace if you think about it. And when you said strange, you've actually absolutely said nothing. You know, strange, okay, it's a little bit different. Okay, I guess you're saying you know it's not the same, which is another one that I hate. Oh, it's just not the same. Well, of course it's not, it's a little bit different.

Blade: 6:30

You know, and and and the word surprised uh, basketball game the other night and some fan knocks out of another fan, you know, and they interview one of the players. Did you see the knockout in the stands? And the guy says yeah, I was surprised, whoever the player was, nuggets. The guy says, yeah, I was surprised, whoever the player was, Nuggets, lakers game or something. And I was surprised. He says, well, what does that say? Nothing, you know it doesn't say anything. You know what it is is like you're either aghast and you're shocked. Couldn't believe you saw that because that's the real answer, right? Or it's like, yeah, and you loved it because the guy deserved it. You know it's not. I was surprised. You know, unbelievable yeah and and and.

Blade: 7:14

For some reason I got out of the shower today and I was thinking about you know, when you've used these words, you've said nothing. And this commercial I think it was a commercial popped into my head. When you say, blank, you've said it all, as opposed to you've said nothing, you've said it all, what was it? It was Budweiser. I had to look it up, I couldn't remember. You know, when you say Budweiser, you've said it all. There is no other one, there's only something less, because the king of Venus is leading all the rest. When you say Budweiser, you've said it all. When you say Budweiser, you've said it all, see, when you use the four words I've talked about, you've said nothing. So the next time you get interviewed or the next time you have a quote, why don't you say things like, wow, that Sandy Hook thing that was Budweiser? Because you've said it all.

Blade: 8:21

Next time you write a song, say what a long Budweiser trip it's been Because you've said it all. God, he knocked that guy out in the stands. Next time you write a song, say what a long Budweiser trip it's been, because you've said it all. You know, god, he knocked that guy out in the stands. What do you think about that? Oh, it was Budweiser. Look, you're not going to get that phone out of her hands. You're going to need the jaws of life. I don't care if she's got a 3.2 alcohol content body content and she's laying on the stairs passed out. You're not going to get that phone out of her hand.

Blade: 9:03

Things I do love, as irritable as I am, irritable, bastard as I am, that I still love, 60 years later, manual transmissions. God, I love manual transmissions and they don't make them anymore. I guess I understand why Automatic transmissions take all the fun out of driving. I had a 2009 FJ Cruiser. It was a Toyota and I loved that thing Six-speed, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, six-speed. You know, if you want to really go back into the old days, those column shifters, those trucks, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk. Three speeds, that's it, manual transmissions. I still love them to this day.

Blade: 9:51

And I love juicy fruit gum. Still to this day, I see juicy fruit. I grab a pack. No, I grab two packs, because everybody knows that when you eat those wrigley's gum sticks, the flavor runs out in six seconds, maybe less. So you just pop in two, maybe three, you know, and then you get 14, 15 seconds of flavor, but juicy fruit out of all of them. And I do love the. What is it? The Doublemint Twins Love them, you know, spearmint and all that, but it's juicy fruit where it's all at. It's what it's all about. Things I still love 60 years later Deep Tracks on Sirius XM.

Blade: 10:46

Djs are older than me, they're like 71 or 72, and they're slow and they're boring. And they talk about Joni Mitchell with a Hendrix session, and then there was so Greg Allman on Dobro when they did this song in 1970 and you know, and it's this version in the studio. And then, yeah, and they have all these facts and they're boring, as can be completely boring, and the songs they play suck, you know, they just suck. It's all the folk stuff because they're too old. What you want is a deep tracks channel where they play like late 70s deep tracks and on, you know, not deep tracks from the folk era hot tuna, you know, and these old Bob dylan songs that you've never heard of you're like?

Blade: 11:28

I don't think so, because when you say budweiser, you've said it all. I think so. Hmm, because when you say Budweiser, you've said it all. I need that. I wobbled in my walk and I'm trembling, that's right, you got me shaking. When you take me in your arms to talk romance, my heart starts doing that. St Rita dance and I'm dancing. Oh, and I'm shaking, early in the morning time, late in the middle of the night, whenever this chill comes over me. Outro Music.