May 2014: Loogid! Lt. Moxie had a Conniption Fit

People often ask where the topics for my monthly letters come from.  This month, I am on a thread of words that I used to hear a lot when I was a kid but seldom hear anymore today.  I heard one of these terms in a movie and it triggered the recollection of others.

Moxie:  Back in the 1980s, I had my first supervisory position as Manager of Total Quality Management.  With two managers having left the company, I was given my department and the other manager's department to manage.  Needless to say, I was familiar with the people and responsibilities of the department I was working in.  The other department was Quality Auditing.  Most of the men (yeah it was in the days of all male engineering departments) in that department were older than me.  They were actually close to retirement.  Their job was to travel to our plants and those of our suppliers to ensure all were adhering to our quality standards and protocols.  Given their age, my age, and me being a management newbee would have made this a bit of a challenge for me.  The nature of their jobs had these guys traveling about 60% of the time.  As a result, I had some direct reports that were also incredibly independent and not entirely disposed to take direction from anyone let alone me.

One of these auditors was named Jack.  Jack was probably close to my Father's age and, the best I can explain it, is that Jack looked like a cross between William Powell in visage and Sydney Greenstreet in physique.  Jack and I had lunch every once in a while well before I was his interim manager.  Mostly Jack would pontificate in a most entertaining way about business, quality, the good old days of American business, and what the heck was wrong with business, society, and the government of those times.

Jack came into my office to congratulate me on being named his interim boss and bring me up to speed on his activities and travel plans.  At the end of the discussion, he looked me square in the eyes said he appreciated my attitude which he noted was different than others my age and younger.  Then, he said, "You know what this upcoming generation is lacking?"  I said, "I am not sure, tell me."  I had no clue what he was going to say.  Part of me hoped it would be wise and enlightening.  Jack leaning forward, very serious, staring me straight in the eye and said one word:  "Moxie."

Really?  Moxie?  I had not heard anyone use that term in years.

I was not sure what it meant.  I thought it was a combination determination with a dash of independence and a sprinkle of sass.  From somewhere in the recesses of my memory, I also thought it was, of all things, a soft drink brand.

From dictionary.com

moxie—noun Slang.

1.        vigor; verve; pep.

2.        courage and aggressiveness;

3.        nerve.
skill; know-how.

1908, popularized by Moxie, trademark name registered 1924 for a bitter non-alcoholic beverage; the word was used as far back as 1876 as the name of a patent medicine advertised to "build up your nerve," and it is perhaps ultimately from a New England Indian word.

Moxie was indeed a soft drink brand.  It began in the 1880s and mirrored the history of Coca Cola.  In fact, Moxie outsold in Coke in the 1920s.  It was created by Dr. Augustin Thompson.  Many of the first soft drinks were elixirs that touted health benefits.  They often included ingredients such as cocaine to provide the “vim and vigor’ touted in the advertising.    Dr. Thompson created a drink without any harmful ingredients.  The secret ingredient he used is gentian root and was supposedly brought back to the US from South America by one, very fictitious, Lt. Moxie.

In the 40s and 50s, Moxie’s decline was due to a variety of factors.  It had a kind of bitter taste that was only popular in the northeast.  In 1939, Frank Archer the mover and shaker that ran the company and grew the brand passed away and the company never had the same caliber of leadership.  In the 1940s, they reformulated the drink and launched “New Moxie.”  It was a total failure.  Apparently, Coca Cola did not learn this lesson with their launch of New Coke almost 40 years later.

Moxie is still around.  They even have a website where you can learn more about the history of the soft drink:  http://www.drinkmoxie.com/.   You can buy a Moxie t-shirt that says: 

You’ve either got it or you don’t

Moxie

In World War II, the company had a slogan:  What this country needs is plenty of Moxie.

I do believe that is what Jack was trying to get across to me.  I do believe he was right… when he made his comment to me, not too many people had any clue what Moxie was.

Conniption:  Having forayed down the Moxie path, I was thinking of other terms that are no longer in vogue.  That is, I was thinking of terms my parents used when I was a kid that I no longer hear anymore today.  People had a lot more conniption fits back in the day than they have now.  Today a person having a conniption fit would more likely be labeled as having Road Rage, Freaking Out, or some other youthful slang that I am not familiar with.

From dictionary.com

Often, conniptions. Informal. a fit of hysterical excitement or anger.

Also called conniption fit.

Origin: 
1825–35,  Americanism; origin uncertain

This definition was rather unsatisfying.   The dictionary.com people must have thought so too, so they included the following which sheds a bit more light on this connipitive thing. 

For a word that has such an official ring to it, there is surprisingly little information on where the terms conniption or conniption fit originated from. The word did not appear until the 19th century and is virtual unused in the United Kingdom, leading most scholars to conclude that the etymology of conniption fit lies in the United States. According to the Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins by William and Mary Morris, the word conniption is most likely the creation of an imaginative American who coined the term in an attempt to sound educated with a bit of pseudo-Latin. The folks over at Podictionary did a pretty cool podcast about the etymology of the word conniption last year that suggested that the word was first used to describe a woman by the name of Aunt Keziah who lost her cool in the 1800s. She and the rest of her neighbors in a small town of New England were waiting for a scheduled visit by President Andrew Jackson that was canceled with very little notice, at which said conniption fit did ensue.

Copacetic:  Here is another word that seems to belong in black and white B-movies of the 1940s and 50s.  “Everything is copacetic.”  That is the only way I have ever heard this word used.  Everything is just fine.  A-OK.  Copacetic sounds so high brow.  It is like the combination of two Latin words copus and cetus meaning A and OK or vice-versa.  But no, this word too is slang.  Again from dictionary.com

adjective Slang.

fine; completely satisfactory; OK.

Origin: 
1915–20, Americanism; of obscure origin; popular attributions of the word to 

Louisiana French, Italian, Hebrew, etc. lack supporting evidence.  

Last time I heard this word was in the movie Notting Hill.  I have never really used this word though I do hear others of my generation use it every once in a while.

Discombobulate:  This is the word that heard in a movie.  It was in 42 the film that documented the baseball life of Jackie Robinson.   Early in the movie when Jackie was playing for the Montreal farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers, they played an exhibition game against the Dodgers.  Jackie was walked because the pitcher refused to give a black man a pitch he could hit.  Jackie promptly stole second and then third base.  He took a daring lead off of third to the point that the frustrated pitcher dropped the ball and was called for a balk.  Robinson was awarded home plate and scored a run.  A young boy in the stands told his mother that Jackie “discombobulated the man!”

These days’ people are confused, in disarray, or disoriented these days but seldom discombobulated.  We have a more official definition thanks to dictionary.com:

verb

to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate:  the speaker was completely discombobulated by the hecklers.

Origin:

1825-35, Americanism, fanciful alteration of discompose or discomfort

I had a Uncle that loved to use this word.  Until the Jackie Robinson movie, I had not heard discombobulate used for years. 

Groovy:  My generation is not immune to having coined or used terms that are no longer used.  Back in the heyday of Hippiedom and the counter culture, the word groovy was bandied about with irritating frequency. 

Slang. 

1.  Highly stimulating or attractive; excellent:  groovy music; a groovy car.

2.  inclined to follow a fixed routine.

I never liked this word and I am not so sure why.  Out of all the slang, jargon, and blah blah of those crazy days of adolescence and coming of age, I just found groovy irritating.  I did not like the way it was used and abused.  I did not like the pretension and kind of sarcasm that under lied the use of it.  I especially hated how the mass media took it over and used it in advertising so quickly.  Needless to say I was happy to see this term have a very short life and be relegated to the junk heap of slang.

Musician Slang: There are slang terms that have staying power.  I use “cool” and call all my close friends and musical buddies “baby” all the time. 

A couple of years ago while still living in Connecticut, I booked a wedding.  The folks hiring our band said they had an uncle who was a jazz pianist and would it be OK if he sat in a jammed with us.  Our response was, “Yeah… OK.”  In all my years of musical experience, I have learned one thing:  never have any expectations in situations like this.  The uncle might be an awesome player that it would be an honor to play with or he might have been a total bust.  There is no way to predict. 

On the day of the wedding, we met the uncle. He was indeed a cool dude.  He was an old school jazz player from I am guessing the beatnik era.  He kept referring to us “cats.”  “I love the music you cats play.”  I kept calling him baby in return.  I had never been called a “cat” before.  It was kind of cool.  I had not heard anyone use that term outside of a movie ever before or ever since.

Back in my days of playing music in Detroit with the Johnites, we had a full vocabulary of terms and nicknames.  We called our musical pay “geetus” which we borrowed from The Three Stooges.  Most of words were either idiotic or off color.  Often they were both.  One day when we were counting all the words we had made up and it dawned on us that WE did not make them up.  All the words and terms we used came from our drummer Mike Mossoian. 

Yes, as this letter draws to a close, it is time to bring Ara Topouzian into the mix.  Whenever I call or get a call from Ara, we do not say hello.  We say “loogid.”  Loogid is a contraction and slang for “look it.”  How and why did we ever come to this manner of salutation?  We happen to know, what I can only call a character, in the Armenian community of Detroit.  He seems to prefix every sentence with a drawly “look it.”  As we noticed this, and as we are basically infantile, we started emulating his habit.  At this point, we probably say it more than he does.  We even have people that never met the originator of this salutation using it.

Thanks for reading this groovy bit of discombobulated musings and meanderings in the world of slang.

May 2013 Letter: Bucket Lists

Note:  I never give a caveat in these letters.  This time I will, given the subject matter.  If you, or a loved one, are facing a serious or terminal condition, you may not want to read this simply because it is about things we want to accomplish before we die.

I started off wanting to write a humorous piece about bucket lists.  The funny thing about wanting to be funny is that it is really really hard to commit premeditated humor.  It is even harder when the topic at hand is basically not funny.  I set out to mock Bucket Lists and make fun of them.  Somewhere during the second draft, I realized that while in the hands of a deft humorist this could be scathingly funny.  I had to admit that in my hands, in whatever mood I have been in while writing this, I have to make it a tad more serious than I had originally wanted.

In the 2007 movie, The Bucket List, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play two cancer patients that take their leave from the hospital to go on a road trip with a list of things to see and do before they die.  Ever since then I have been hearing people talking about having done this or that and saying that crossed that off their bucket list. 

We all have hopes and aspirations.  We accomplish some and others are out of reach or never happen.  Often times for the things that have not happened, we have to face a certain reality at some point.  That reality is that we might not have the time, money, or talent to actually accomplish a particular goal or set of goals.  Yet, our hopes and aspirations do not seem aware of our age or economics.  We may have less big dream goals as we age, but those we have or continue to hold on to are as strong and dear to us as when we were in our teens. 

I do not like the term Bucket List.  For some reason it rubs me the wrong way.  It sounds morbid and contrived.  It must come from a list of things that we would like to accomplish before we "kick the bucket." 

Kick the bucket?  What does that mean?  A short internet search provided two theories both of which bring rather harsh images to a rather benign slangy phrase:

1. In days of yore, people that were to hung often stood on an inverted bucket.  With the noose in place, the bucket was kicked to finish the deed.
   
2. Also in days of yore, the word bucket also referred to a wooden frame from which animals were hung by their feet for slaughter which the animals would kick while being slaughtered.

Like anyone else I have a list of things I would love to do.  The list includes career and lifestyle things I would love to accomplish.  There are places I would love to visit.  There are books I want to read.  There are things I would like to experience.  I have not bothered to write these things down.  As I have not written them down, I have not prioritized these things. 

Furthermore, the list is always changing with my changing mood and insights into life.

When I was in grade school, during the first manned flights into space, I really truly wanted to be an astronaut.  It was exciting.  It was adventurous.  I was very much interested in it.  I followed each launch.  I sent a letter to NASA to get materials on the program.  They sent me bios of the astronauts and pamphlets on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.  I read about rocketry and history of rocketry.  I was locked in and committed.  I was going to do this!

In my readings, I learned about the very the rigorous training astronauts had to go through.  I learned about the various exercises that mimic the forces and rocky nature of both the launch and re-entry.  I then realized that maybe this was not for me.  In those days, I would get car sick on long trips.  I got nauseous on roller coasters.  As a result, I dropped being an astronaut off of my list.  The fascination did not stop.  I just changed my priority and wanted to learn about engineering and physics.  Over time that interest intensified and became even more abstract.  I ended up majoring in mathematics an interest which I still have today. 

This month, l learned that Richard Branson is about a year away from providing a flight into space for those that can afford the $200,000 ticket.  Money aside, I really have no interest at this point.  But, this certainly would be something one could add to Bucket List.

Also, when I was younger, there was a time when I really wanted to be a concert violinist.  Achieving that goal, would have required total focus and dedication.  Even with total dedication and focus, the probability of achieving that lofty ambition would have been low.  Frankly, I just had too many interests, like being an astronaut, and thus could not really take on anything that required total focus and dedication.  So, again my list changed at least in terms of priorities. 

These kinds of aspirations are not really what people think about when they talk about their bucket list.  The line items on Bucket Lists are activities that do not require a large investment of time to acquire a specific set of skills and competencies.  When most people talk about bucket lists, they are talking about taking a trip to see an important site or place such as the Grand Canyon or the Eiffel Tower.  Others want to do things like go to a fantasy baseball camp of their favorite team.   Some of us want to jump out of an airplane or walk the Appalachian Trail.

I will do what I sometimes do in these letters and take a simple concept like this notion of a Bucket List and make it unnecessarily complicated.  In this spirit take this one "bucket" and make three.  Let's call them: 

1. Bucket List:  This is the list as we have been taking about it thus far. It is the list of things and places people either want to experience or visit before they depart this life.
   
2. Waste Bucket List:  The items on this list are things, people, and places that I was once interested in but have little interest in now or moving forward.  Of course, this list may be populated with things that I did not have the time, aptitude, or drive to accomplish e.g. learning Japanese.  It could also apply to thing I once I had intense interest in but I have almost no or low interest in now.  Here I am talking about things like stamp collecting, baseball, and Beethoven.
   
3. Chuck-it List:  This is the list that I want people to stop bothering me about.  The items on this list are clearly delineated in two previous blog postings STFU and Curmudgeon or Just a Crumb.  Basically, with each passing year I have less and less patience for hearing anybodies advice on how I should think, vote, pray, work, and eat.  So, for me, this list is mostly populated with people I don't need to be around and mingling with.  I was going to call it the F*#k-It List.  But as my wife, daughter, and mother read these letters, I thought Chuck-It might be more appropriate. 

Do I have a Bucket List?  I guess I do but it is not definitive.  Things come and go off of the list depending on what I have been thinking which in turn is dependent on what I might have read or recently watched on TV.  It is constantly changing.  As of this writing, there are only two places that stands out in my head that I feel I would like to see.  One is the Grand Canyon and the other is to visit the towns and villages in occupied Western Armenia that my grandparents were born.  But it is not pressing.  I am ambivalent about The Great Wall of China, Mardi Gras, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, The Sistine Chapel, and any of the six claims of The World's Largest Frying Pan (why?).  Other than that there is nothing I can really think of.  No place is calling out to me. 

As for activities, I would like to ride a century (a one hundred mile bike ride in one day).  This I definitely want to do.  There are so many books I haven't read and there, of course, are the books I haven't written yet.  There are places I want to go and see.  Heck, there are even places I think I would like to live and experience as a resident and not a tourist. But, nothing is on any kind of serious list.  If they happen cool.  If they don’t that is OK too.

We have all known people who plan the major events of their lives and then make the plans happen.  This is a small minority of people.  They know they want to be a doctor, attorney, business owner, or whatever and they go out and do it.  They have a list of places that want to either live in or visit.  They make it happen.  They want to do this or that and they make it all happen.  It is impressive but something only a select and focused few can achieve.

For most of the rest of us make it up as we go.  We act more randomly or as things randomly happen to us.  We have notions more than goals.  If Plan A doesn't pan out, it morphs into Plan B or Plan C.  That is OK.  It works.   This either due to indecisiveness, lack of focus, and an element of randomness that cannot be ignored.  Getting ill or winning the lottery is certainly random and would definitely have an impact on ones plans. 

Randomness can be more subtle.  For example, let’s think of choosing courses a particular semester.  A course critical to Plan A is closed or otherwise not available.  You choose and elective course to fill some other requirement.  You fall in love with new subject and voila... You are suddenly operating on Plan B.  In another case, you get recruited for a job in a new city that you never ever considered living in.  You take the job, fall in love with the new city, meet the love of your life there, and embrace Plan C which was never premeditated. 

That is the way my career and where I live has evolved.  I had plans but circumstances provided opportunities to change the plans.  Almost everything has had an element of randomness to it.  Within the randomness, it was and is up to me to choose how to react or not react.  Does randomness provide an opportunity or a distraction?  I have gotten to the point where I appreciate the randomness.  I look for the randomness and make decisions as I go.  That is a good thing for me.  I realize it is not a good mode for everyone. 

The other thing that bugs me about the concept of Bucket List is the very idea of death.  Everyone has to die.  Some of us are in a race against that inevitability.  Some of us would rather live like we will live forever.  Some of us know that the end is closer and more certain.  All three of the lists become more important.  Things are then in a different light and with very different priorities.  It was clear to the Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman characters in the movie exactly how they wanted to spend their precious time. 

Often, we are not confronted with having to make such decisions until the time left is preciously and clearly finite.  Hopefully when we are, we still have the ability to act on, fund, and travel to whatever is in our Bucket Lists.  The acts and activities that are most fulfilling might just be appreciating friends and family.

Not everyone has the funds to fulfill a bucket list full of travel to exotic places.  Let's face it people with little time and full Bucket lists are probably not up to the travel and their cash is all tied up in caring for themselves.  Everyone, however, can afford both the Chuck-it and Waste lists.  They do not cost a thing.  They can be wonderfully delicious lists to add to.  Truth be told, I spend more time populating these lists than my actual Bucket List.  The older I get there are things that I definitely do not care to be bothered with or about.  What are on those lists?  That is for each of us to decide.  If you want to know mine, read the two blog postings noted above.

I wondered if anyone else has shared their Bucket Lists on the internet.   There is only one way to find out, so, I googled “example of bucket lists.”  The first on the list took me to a website of one Danny Dover.  He has decided that it is inane for one to make a list only when they are ill and infirm.   So, he developed the idea of a Life List:  things he wanted to do in his life.  In his own words, www.lifelisted.com/life-list, are what he has set out to do:

A life list is a list of goals you are fully committed to accomplishing before a specific date while you are living. This is different from a bucket list which is a list of things you would like to do before dying. Who wants to wait until they are dying to start living? Not me!

For my list, I have two rules:

1. The entire list must be completed by May 25th, 2017
2. I can not add or remove any item from the list

It is as simple as that!

His list, on the same website, is incredible and he certainly seems on track to accomplish this list by the deadline he set. 

There are other wondrous places on the internet that will help you craft your Bucket List. There is a blog, Daring to Live Fully, has a posting:  525+ Ideas For Your Bucket List - http://daringtolivefully.com/bucket-list-ideas.  The other sites all offer the same basic thing:  suggestions of items for your Bucket List.

It does not seem to me that it is really your list of things you want to do if you compiled it by picking and choosing from someone else list of suggestions.  One should be able to compile their own.

So, after all of this, what is my bucket list?  The truth is that most of my goals and wants are still the objectives of a person with career and lifestyle aspirations.  I want:

• To be decent person and a good husband, Dad, son, brother, uncle, and friend to the people that I hold dear.
• To be a lean, well dressed, articulate, smart consultant, professor, musician, and writer. 
• My consulting business to grow and thrive.  Beyond management consulting, I would love it to have components professional writing (publishing books), professional speaking, and teaching.
• To continue to perform Armenian music for as long as possible and compose my own songs.

 These are all easy to say and harder to do.  As easy as these are to write, they are tough for me to read for some reason (probably another blog).  Yet, as bucket lists go, this is a list that is much more appealing to me than going to see the Grand Canyon as memorable as that would be.

Please leave comments.  I would love to see how others view the concept of Bucket Lists and the items on their lists.