February
12, 2004
Today is the day to paint lovely sayings on pieces of Alka Seltzer.
The Zulkey.com Word of the Year
I had a brainstorm a few weeks ago that I think could turn out to be something that could go down in history (if by 'history,' you mean what is covered in "The Best Week Ever" on Vh1.)
Throughout the decades, we've had plenty of words that signify "I concur," "I agree with you," or "I am in agreeance with you," if you are Fred Durst. "Word," "Totally," "Yes," "Dig," "Mos def," "Agreed" and so on. Obviously, what we need is another synonym, to take us into the next month or two. I propose "charge." Not in the credit card way, but in the sort of "da da da da, da-da, charge!" or even the positive, restful, powerful connotation of someone getting charged. When somebody says something you find agreeable, you say "Charge," to show your support. The good thing about "charge" is that it lends itself to lots of different incarnations. If you hear a statement you very strongly agree with, you might want to say "double charge." Or, if something is lame or nobody likes it or agrees with it, you can show your lack of support by claiming "No charge," or even, if you're a West Coast kind of guy, "No charge, dude." So here's the thing: I need your help. If you have some sort of website like this one, subtly begin to use it on the site, without explanation, however. Phrases like "Off the hook" and "I pity the fool" did not come with handy dandy definitions. Just use it, freely and happily. Meanwhile, we need to take it to the streets. Head to your nearest hipster bar and whisper it in the ears of a few seemingly dirty-haired strangers after they profess their thoughts on leg warmers or what have you and you'll be hearing it soon enough. If you're on television, maybe you'd like to use it. Maybe if you know some young influential type person, like Hillary Duff or Paris Hilton or the Bush twins, and you use it around them, that would be helpful. Or, best of all, if you have a newborn child, begin using the word "Charge" around it frequently so that it'll be using it soon enough when it has the power of speech. Think of how good we'll all feel when we see that we have, together, influenced popular culture with our fantastic phrase. If you have any 'charge' spottings of non-Zulkey.com readers using it, please send it in. If I hear enough of them, I will personally spend 5 minutes making a 'charge' t-shirt on Cafepress and selling them for a price more expensive than your usual t-shirt, but less expensive than one at, say, Urban Outfitters. Charge!