Since I seriously doubt anyone else will, I here duly note the passing of Public Access Channel 92 in Montgomery County, Maryland. It wasn’t around long, and probably suffered from the cable company’s benign neglect – they never, for example, put it in their cable guide channel listings. Nevertheless, Channel 92 offered, I am told, some of the finest public-access programming available in the Washington DC metropolitan area.
The cable company abruptly terminated Channel 92 on January 11, 2007, claiming moral turpitude on the part of the channel manager and several producers. The producer of “The Power of Speech,” a program concerned with the progress and state of the English language, was not involved, but his program must now find a new home despite that. I wish him luck and Godspeed in re-establishing “The Power of Speech” on another public access channel.
Due to contractual considerations, he won’t be able to take any of the existing tapes he made for the Montgomery County cable company with him, however. Thus, the last nine episodes of “The Power of Speech” will probably never be broadcast. This ticked me off, because I was in one of them. So I requested a transcript of that show, which I’m posting here on my blog, so that what should have been tonight’s installment can at least see the light of day in some medium or another. I got it from the producer as an email attachment, so I did a Select All, Copy and Pasted it into where I usually write stuff, right under this text I’m typing here. Like almost all transcripts, it was originally formatted double spaced, but my blog software strips out the extra blank lines; however, I’ll be damned if I’m going to re-enter the whole thing by hand just because of that.
TRANSCRIPT
”The Power of Speech”
Episode 31 – “Whaddup with the N-Word?”
Taped: 1.9.2007
Scheduled For: 1.16.2007
Aired: NOT YET AIRED
THEME AND INTRODUCTION GRAPHICS
MODERATOR: Good evening, and welcome to “The Power of Speech,” a program dedicated to examination and discussion of the progress and evolution of the English language; I’m your host and discussion moderator, Orpheus Spondee. Tonight, I feel that I must warn our viewers that our subject matter may prove offensive and that viewer discretion is advised. This installment of our program is entitled “Whaddup with the N-Word?” and if that makes you upset or angry, please tune to another of our fine cable channels. Our special guest for this evening is Tom Collins, a well-known consultant based in the District, who prepared a research study of the N-word for the Library of Congress. Our other distinguished guests are Rabbi Mordechi Slivovitz of Congregation Adonai Shaygetz, who is an authority on slang; Randy Cockburn, a youth counselor who has extensive experience with adolescent boys; and rapper Chai-D-Ho, who is noted for persistent artistic use of the N-word in his compositions. Our guest who threatened to bust some caps in our posterior if we called him “distinguished” asked instead that we introduce him as “bloodthirsty, infamous, robbing, raping, shooting, stabbing gang leader Notorious Nosh from Silver Spring, Maryland.” I’ll open with a question to Chai-D – could you write a rap song without using the N-word?
CHAI-D-HO: Of course I could. But it wouldn’t speak from the streets, ya know, my man? I’m like the umpire at the ball park. I gotta call what I see, and what I see involves that word a lot of the times.
MODERATOR: What does the N-word mean to you, Notorious?
NOTORIOUS NOSH: That word the word I use for my crew. We bond on that word, you understand? That also the word I use when I mad at my [deleted] ‘cause she used up my stash with her [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] friends and I about to smack her in the [deleted] mouth. And it the word I use when I hate some [deleted] and I about to kill that [deleted] [deleted]. And it the word I use when I wanna say some [deleted] I just did was the [deleted] bomb and I [deleted] like it a lot, you know?
MODERATOR: Randy, could you explain the attraction the N-word holds for today’s youth?
RANDY COCKBURN: These kids grew up in a world that happened way after the historical events and conditions that caused the N-word to have negative connotations. In many ways, it’s not really the same word.
MODERATOR: Rabbi Slivovitz, could you expand on that?
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: They have no concept of how that word was used to hurt people. And no concept of how it hurts people to hear it today – what terrible memories and feelings it provokes in those who, I should hope, have suffered enough already. Would you believe, they even call each other that? It’s completely meshuganah. Thirty years studying multi-cultural slang expressions never prepared me for the eventuality that kids in my neighborhood – it’s off Georgia Avenue just south of the Beltway; near the Woodside Deli, which you should visit, because that’s authentic deli they have there; and also Synder’s across the street; they have the best kosher meat in the area, but you need to ask for it, and you have to let them know, if you know what I mean, if you want to get the genuine article – in that neighborhood, that I should hear such a word used, on a Friday night, no less, while walking to services with my wife and two grandchildren, which we are watching over while my son gets that business with the IRS straightened out concerning his investments, all of which were overseen by a lawyer who is a member of my own congregation – although he moved to the Bahamas last month, but only for his health, he assures me.
MODERATOR: Tom, can you give us some background on the N-word?
TOM COLLINS: First of all, before I do that, I would like to ask, are we actually going to say the N-word on this program, or are we going to spend the entire time pussyfooting around it, like it was a petri dish full of Ebola virus?
MODERATOR: There’s no… that is… our contract ground rules and the FCC standard practices guidance for broadcast on this public access channel allow us to pronounce the actual N-word, provided that it is the subject of scholarly discussion.
TOM COLLINS: Great. Being able to dispense with the labyrinthine circumlocutions and panoply of gratuitous euphemism that would be necessary otherwise, makes delivery of my answer considerably less arduous.
[LAUGHTER]
NOTORIOUS NOSH: What so funny about that [deleted]? He talkin’ a [deleted] bunch of ten dollar words and that’s so [deleted] funny? [Deleted]! (to Tom Collins) You [deleted] or something, talkin’ like that?
TOM COLLINS: No, I’m not gay; not that there’s anything wrong with that.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: You a [deleted] virgin or somethin’, up in that [deleted] all night with Rosie Palm and her five daughters? Huh? You [deleted] talkin’ like that, I don’t think no [deleted] ever gonna [deleted] your [deleted].
TOM COLLINS: It may surprise you Notorious, but not all women are attracted to gangstas. Some of them are attracted to a man with an advanced education and broad cultural experience who has impeccable taste, dresses in fine designer clothes, drives an imported sports car and appreciates opera, elegant wines, gourmet dining, sophisticated jazz, serious classical, orchestral and chamber music, enjoys literature, dancing, nightlife, racquet squash, hiking, rock climbing, wind surfing, and long walks on the beach.
CHAI-D-HO: That sounds like a Washingtonian Magazine personals ad.
TOM COLLINS: Touche, mon interlocuteur estime. I’m an advertisement for my own lifestyle. Mea culpa.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: Now I know you a [deleted], up in that French [deleted] and that opera [deleted]. You be goin’ to the French opera with your [deleted] Greek pool boy and [deleted] [deleted] in your opera box when the [deleted] be singin’ her high notes and screechin’ like Notorious just [deleted] his [deleted] in that [deleted] [deleted] with no [deleted] [deleted].
TOM COLLINS: Be that as it may, Notorious, the question I’m attempting to answer here is where the N-word came from.
CHAI-D-HO: Yo! Look out! Stand back, now! Mr. Collins gonna be sayin’ that N-word out loud, in public, on cable television, right in front of Almighty Yahweh and everybody!
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: (to Chai-D-Ho) Shame! Shame on you for speaking the Name of He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken!
TOM COLLINS: Indeed. Well, as Chai-D advises, everyone prepare for the moment. Let’s everybody relax, take a deep breath, and let it out. There. And you folks at home, this is your last chance to switch channels; I am about to actually pronounce the N-word. Brace yourselves. Everybody ready, here in the studio and out in public access cable TV land? Okay, here goes – “Nudnick” is derived from the Polish word “nudzic,” which in turn is a inflection of the root “nuda,” meaning to bore; thus, “nudnick,” one who bores to the point of distraction and nuisance. After its introduction into the Eastern European Slavic-influenced dialects of the Yiddish language in 18th century Poland, “nudnick” was subsequently assimilated by Germanic-root Yiddish speakers in Prussia, Schleswig Holstein, Bavaria, Holland, and the Benelux kingdoms, where its common meaning elided from “boring nuisance” to “a pain-in-the-neck, pest,” or “a shiftless, annoying troublemaker,” and the Low German “grossebetrunkenkuchenfressermadchenficker,” which has no exact English translation, but is close in meaning to the phrase “gluttonous drunk lecher.” In American English usage during the 19th and 20th centuries, it retained many of the meanings evolved in Western Europe, but the semantic connotation enlarged to include “vagabond, layabout, hobo, dirty bum, malingerer and petty vandal.”
MODERATOR: Your report contains an interesting etymological incident, as I recall, which illustrates the importance of understanding the root origins of words, and the sometimes remarkably severe consequences when such knowledge is lacking.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: (to Moderator) [Deleted] ten-[deleted]-dollar [deleted] words again! You a big [deleted] too, just like this Collins [deleted]. Why don’t you give him a kiss [deleted] candy [deleted] fist [deleted] fudge [deleted] gerbil [deleted] bikini underwear wearin’ [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] [deleted], and [deleted] huff some [deleted] poppers [deleted] [deleted] so he can [deleted] get up your [deleted]?
TOM COLLINS: Ah, yes, the incident you describe occurred during a discussion of the upcoming annual budget for a Northern Virginia county a school board. A member of the board said “nitpick,” a word that merely happens to sound like “nudnick.” His exact quote was “My colleague is determined to be a nitpick about arts funding.” The following public uproar was loud and unseemly. “Nitpick,” of course, is a 16th century metaphoric compound of the 15th century English words “nitte” and “picke.” “Nitte” is derived from the Middle English nite, from Old English hnitu; akin to Old High German hniz, from the Greek konid, or konis. “Picke,” also from Middle English, with the root piken, comes partly from Old English pician, meaning to dig, and partly from Middle French piquer, meaning to pierce. Thus, the etymology of the word “nitpick” has no relation whatsoever to that of “nudnick,” which, as I said before, is from the 18th century Polish term “nudzic,” having the Old Slavic root “nuda.” Despite a press conference in which the accused offered a detailed etymological clarification and an abject, extensive, humble, self-effacing, nay, one might even go so far as to say totally obsequious and groveling apology for any mistaken insults perceived by those who were unfamiliar with the word “nitpick,” he was nevertheless forced to resign.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: See what I say? Talkin’ ten-dollar words and such [deleted] he gotta be a [deleted] pansy-[deleted] [deleted] for sure!
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: A chaleyre! What’s the matter with you? Can’t you say one single sentence without swearing or insulting somebody, you farshtinkener putz? A shvarts yor, ech hob dir in drerd, und kush meer in toches – a broch tsu dayn lebn!
NOTORIOUS NOSH: A shaynem dank dir im pupik, rabbi. Of course I can. My abject, extensive, humble, self-effacing, nay, one might even go so far as to say totally obsequious and groveling apology for interrogating the prerogatives of your sanctimonious philanthropic simian proclivities.
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: And just what the hell is that supposed to mean, punk?
MODERATOR: Let’s keep a lid on this, if we can, as I ask Chai-D what he means when he uses the word “nudnick” in a rap song.
CHAI-D-HO: It depends on the context. All my art depends on context. Sometimes, I say “gonna kick that nudnick’s [deleted]” and I’m talking about gettin’ back at some nudnick, ya know? Sometimes I’m [deleted] about the yeshiva, and the way I get treated there, and I write a rap that says “I gonna [deleted] you [deleted] nudnicks right up the [deleted] with that [deleted] menorah you keep makin’ me light up.” At such a time, I be using “nudnick” as social commentary. Other times, I’m with my crew, and everybody been calling us nudnicks since we started hanging together, ya know? So we turn that word around on them and we say “yeah, we be the nudnicks, you altercocker hameshe kurves.” So then I say to my friend “you my nudnick,” and he say back to me “you be my main nudnick,” and I do rap lyrics where I use “nudnick” in that sense, too.
RANDY COCKBURN: “Nudnick” is one of those words like [deleted], [deleted] or [deleted], where the context, inflection, and position in the sentence can give it a whole range of connotations, from extreme positive to extreme negative, with a similarly wide range of meanings.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: Damn! I be surrounded by [deleted] talkin’ [deleted] ten-dollar words. Maybe I better get outta here before one of you [deleted] tries to [deleted] my [deleted].
RANDY COCKBURN: Methinks Notorious doth protest too much.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: [Deleted] you, [deleted] nudnick! You talkin’ that “alas poor Yorick” [deleted]. Why don’t you [deleted] Anne Boleyn and Queen Elizabeth [deleted] [deleted] up in that [deleted] frilly [deleted] and [deleted] tiaras and velvet gowns and silk [deleted] hoop skirts that be [deleted] draggin’ on the [deleted] floor while you all [deleted] dressed up in [deleted] pumpkin’ pants and [deleted] [deleted] tights and a [deleted] cape and a [deleted] [deleted] pink hat with a [deleted] ostrich feather in it like the [deleted] Duke of Earl or somethin’? Then why don’t you [deleted] their [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] and make them [deleted] [deleted] while you [deleted] [deleted] into the Crown Jewels of London, swingin’ from the yard arm, waving a [deleted] sword and yellin’ “tend to thy [deleted] master’s whistle and [deleted] blow” or some such [deleted]?
RANDY COCKBURN: Considering the relationship between Anne Boleyn and Queen Elizabeth the First, depending on what time period you are fantasizing about, Notorious, if I did that, it would either be pederasty or necrophilia, but no way would it be gay.
TOM COLLINS: If he did it with William Shakespeare and Lord Edward De Vere, however, then it would be gay; very gay.
CHAI-D-HO: It would be [deleted] nudnick gay, that’s how gay that [deleted] would be.
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: Enough with the faygalas, already! We’re here to talk about the word “nudnick,” not some shmendricks with shmekels and a loch in kop!
MODERATOR: I think Rabbi Slivovitz has a valid point, gentlemen.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: [Deleted]! Don’t be callin’ me no “gentleman,” nudnick!
MODERATOR: Sorry, Notorious. Now, please, everybody, let’s try to keep this program on topic.
CHAI-D-HO: Okay, solid. So say like, I do a rap like this – you know, where the word is a friendly word – Notorious Nosh, he my nudnick man / Nudnicking around the best he can / but the system always keepin’ Big Nosh down / just because Nosh weighs four hundred pounds…
NOTORIOUS NOSH: [Deleted] you, nudnick! I weigh three-eighty-six!
CHAI-D-HO: So my nudnick Nosh, he is the boss / of a gang so filthy, they don’t even floss / Nosh stuffin’ the bagels and cream cheese / he grabs them latkes and don’t say “please” / eatin’ nova lox, belly lox and chopped chicken liver / eatin’ kreplach and kugel, drinkin’ Mad Dog like a river / snarfin’ hamentoshens and first cut briskets / and pounds of pastrami with goyish biscuits / Yeah, he my nudnick, he my Nosh / the big dirty nudnick who will not wash.
RANDY COCKBURN: Yo, tight.
TOM COLLINS: Off the hook.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: You my nudnick, Chai-D!
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: I don’t care if it’s used in a so-called “friendly” manner, I still find it deeply offensive. Furthermore, there are over seventeen million words in the English language, and I think a person can express themselves without using a few particular words that certain members of the community find extremely offensive. And “nudnick” is just such a word. It’s hateful and hurtful; and just plain rude to use that word. It harks back to the shtetl and reminds people like myself, who are Traditional Haredi Ashkenazim, of things we’d rather not think about, such as the Sephardim, the Chassidim, the Lubavitchers, the Mizrahi, the Falasha, the Masorti, the Temanim, the Litaim, and the Mitnagdim, as well as – you should pardon the expression – “Reform” synagogues; and so forth. Once, that word was applied to luftmentsh melamedim and their kibbitzers who argued pilpul about the Talmud and the Cabala all day instead of working; then those nebbish kids who spent all their time reading comic books instead of doing their homework in the 1940’s; then those kakameyme 16-year-old mumzas who got duck-tail haircuts full of reeking Brylcreem, rode motorcycles and read Mad magazine and wouldn’t get a job in the 1950’s; then those useless shmegegge teenagers who became hippies in the 1960’s and read Rolling Stone, and, God forbid, started marrying goyim, causing their mothers untold grief. And now, these hip-hop zhlubs and golems are hanging out on the street corner outside my synagogue making that rap noise like they are schwarzter gonifs or something else they’re not, and could never – and should never – be, calling each other “nudnik.” I’m telling you – it’s not a nice word. You don’t call your friend “my nudnik.” You should call your friend something loving and respectful, not something like that word. A person should never, ever use that word, except in very special circumstances, such as this, where it is being discussed in the abstract – as an example of extremely offensive, vulgar, profane utterance – for purposes of finding solutions to the problems that using it causes.
MODERATOR: We’ll be right back with our guests after this break for station identification and public service announcements.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: What’s with this “we” and “our” [deleted], nudnick? You got a tapeworm or something?
STATION ID AND PSA BREAK
MODERATOR: Welcome back to “The Power of Speech.” Again, I will remind our viewers that the subject matter of this installment is highly sensitive and may be extremely offensive to some viewers. The title of this installment is “Whaddup with the N-word?” and, at the suggestion of Mr. Tom Collins, one of our guests, people on this program have been saying the N-word itself, out loud, distinctly, frequently, and I dare say in some instances with obvious relish; moreover, it is highly likely that they will continue to say it throughout the remainder of this program. So if hearing that word upsets you or makes you angry, please tune to programming on another of our fine cable channels. I repeat, this program contains the N-word. If that disturbs you, tune away from this program now.
TOM COLLINS: I don’t know if I deserve credit for suggesting that we say “nudnick,” but it certainly clears the air. Imagine how stilted and convoluted this conversation would be if we had not agreed to use the word “nudnick” freely, as appropriate.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: There he [deleted] go again. He a [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] for sure.
TOM COLLINS: Notorious Nosh, you my [deleted] [deleted] nudnick.
CHAI-D-HO: Tom Collins is my [deleted] nudnick!
RANDY COCKBURN: All you [deleted] [deleted] be my [deleted] nudnicks!
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: I beg your pardon, Mr. Cockburn, but I am nobody’s nudnick, and no one is my nudnick, either. That word has no place in our lexicon, and neither do about half the others you gentlemen are using.
TOM COLLINS: Well, I think it’s very suitable that we are having this discussion on a program that is called “The Power of Speech,” because no speech has more power than offensive speech. Take for example, the word [deleted]. It’s a noun, a verb, a gerund, an interjection, a participle, an adjective, an adverb and a preposition. Using street slang, I could say “You [deleted] [deleted], you [deleted] me up with that [deleted] [deleted],” and I’m sure that Randy, Chai-D and Notorious, at least, would know exactly what I meant.
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: As an expert on the subject of slang, I can tell you unequivocally, Mr. Collins, what you just said is not slang – it is rank, overt, vulgar and shocking profanity of the first water.
TOM COLLINS: In the present context, I take that as a sincere and intense compliment.
RANDY COCKBURN: You know, rabbi, the kids I work with talk to each other like that all the time, and they instinctively understand each and every [deleted] in its proper context and semantic field.
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: That hardly excuses them talking like that, does it?
RANDY COCKBURN: Talking like that limits their ability to express ideas and concepts, and I never talk to the kids I work with like that, but the fact remains, they’re all a bunch of [deleted] potty mouthed little [deleted] these days.
TOM COLLINS: Returning to the idea of words as power, I think it was Lenny Bruce who said that “if we just repeated the word ‘nudnick’ over and over again, until ‘nudnick’ didn’t mean anything anymore, then no little kid will come home crying to his matzo ball soup because somebody called him a nudnick.”
MODERATOR: So Tom, are you suggesting that people who were, are, and continue to be extremely offended by the word “nudnick” just grit their teeth and listen to people like Chai-D and Notorious use it over and over again?
TOM COLLINS: It’s like voodoo. Voodoo curses work, but only if the cursed person believes in voodoo. “Nudnick” only makes a person’s blood pressure go up if they believe in the word, if they let the word have that power over them.
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: My blood pressure is about 200 over 110 right now. People of my generation, who went through all we have been through, with that “Portnoy’s Complaint,” and “Brighton Beach,” and “Yentl,” and a number of other things, which I won’t belabor because everybody knows what they are; we know that word is wrong and we don’t want to hear it. That word is shlekht, shmutz and treyf; and only a complete shlemil would say otherwise.
MODERATOR: Yes, but how about motion pictures and literary works that use it? How would you handle that?
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: I think the books should be written over again. And the sound tracks, they should be bleeped out where that word is used, or maybe just silence or a voice-over with somebody imitating the actor saying something else, like “sad sack.” I say take all the nasty words out of everything, because we can get along just fine without them – starting with the word we are talking about right now, which I have heard enough of tonight and will not say anymore, even in an abstract consideration of it for purposes of linguistic analysis.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: Yo, [deleted]! We jerkin’ this nudnick’s chain, now bros. Chai-D, you ain’t nothin’ but a broke [deleted] nudnick havin’ plain nudnick fun, nudnicking around like a shiftless, no-account, lazy-[deleted] nudnick.
CHAI-D-HO: Thanks, Notorious. You momma a nudnick, you daddy a nudnick, you sister a nudnick and you the biggest nudnick in yo whole nudnick family.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: Nobody be more nudnick-ified than us.
CHAI-D-HO: That’s right – we be the ur-nudnicks and the proto-nudnicks and the sub-nudnicks and the ueber-nudnicks; we are the obscure nudnicks of desire; we are the Andalusian nudnicks; we are nudnicks on a hot tin roof; we are the nudnicks from the center of the earth; we are the nudnicks who came back from the future to save the world from man’s inhumanity to nudnicks; Godzilla and Mothra battle the Nudnicks from Mars at three in the morning on my cable TV and I rise from my bed to proclaim that we are the roaring, brawling nudnicks of the Windy City; that we left our hearts in the Lower East Side, but took our nudnick essence with us, and now there are four score and seven nudnicks riding their pale horses of the Apocalypse through every Middlesex village and town! We, the nudnicks, in order to form a more perfect union of nudnick-ocracy, do hereby establish the Republic of Nudnickistan, dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit of nudnick-idness, and pledge allegiance to a constant state of nudnick-itude, and I rise from my bed to sing a song of nudnick-ery, the song of myself!
TOM COLLINS: This illustrates my previous point. It is a kind of reverse identification phenomenon that has occurred many times before. I can recall three examples without even consulting references. When the Whigs used political cartoons to depict the Democrats as jackasses in the 1820’s, Andrew Jackson turned the tables on them and adopted the donkey as the Democratic party symbol. One hundred and ten years later, when the proper members of society denigrated swing dancers as “jitterbugs,” likening them to alcoholics in delirium, the kids turned around and proudly proclaimed themselves “jitterbugs.” When the London Daily Express derided young, street-wise, stylishly dressed men as “teddy boys” in 1953, scarcely a month passed before those fellows were calling themselves that and “teddy boy” fashions went on sale in the shops of Carnaby Street. By taking the word or symbol used to slur them and appropriating it as their own group identifier, groups subject to various slurs throughout history have expropriated the power of those slurs for themselves and used that power against the adversaries who slurred them. So the solution Rabbi Slivovitz is looking for has slipped through his hands, and the hands of those like him – because the point of no return was passed when the nudnicks took semantic control and expropriated the slur. Now they possess the power of that word. Only if people like Rabbi Slivovitz had never called young men “nudnicks,” would young men today not be proudly proclaiming themselves as nudnicks on the street corners of Silver Spring, Pikesville, Brooklyn, Flatbush and Long Island.
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: For the record, I state unconditionally that I have never, ever, called anybody a nudnick to his face.
RANDY COCKBURN: Ah-hah!
TOM COLLINS: But you said to your wife, maybe, “So-and-so is such a nudnick,” nu?
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: Well, if they acted like that.
RANDY COCKBURN: And your wife, the big balabusta that everyone listens to, she said to the neighbors “So-and-so and his friends, my husband, the rabbi, he says they’re a bunch of nudnicks.”
CHAI-D-HO: Yeah, and that’s were it started. Everybody calling us nudnicks.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: So we be nudnicks. Nudnicks all the way through.
CHAI-D-HO: Nudnicks red, white and blue.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: Nudnicks ‘til we die.
CHAI-D-HO: Flyin’ our nudnick banner high.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: Nudnick.
CHAI-D-HO: Nudnick, nudnick.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: Nudnick, nudnick, nudnick.
CHAI-D-HO: Nudnick, nudnick, nudnick, nudnick.
MODERATOR: Rabbi Slivovitz?
TOM COLLINS: He’s clutching his chest. Is there an EMT in the studio?
RANDY COCKBURN: It’s okay, I know CPR.
MODERATOR: Lay him across the coffee table.
TOM COLLINS: Open his collar! He’s getting cyanotic!
RANDY COCKBURN: Tom, give him mouth to mouth while I do the chest massage!
TOM COLLINS: Me? Oh, Jesus.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: Wha’d I say – that Collins nudnick is a [deleted] – look, he kissin’ the [deleted] ol’ nudnick rabbi!
[CRASHING SOUND]
MODERATOR: Randy – the coffee table! You broke the legs off! That’s a solid oak antique! It’s mine, not the [deleted] studio’s! You think the studio would cough up the jack for a coffee table like that?
RANDY COCKBURN: You told me to put him there!
MODERATOR: I didn’t tell you to jump on top of him!
RANDY COCKBURN: This is how I learned to do CPR, you [deleted] nudnick!
TOM COLLINS: Dial 911! Somebody dial 911!
NOTORIOUS NOSH: Yo, 911? This Notorious Nosh, super nudnick. We got this here eighty year old man…
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: Sixty seven!
RANDY COCKBURN: He’s coming around!
NOTORIOUS NOSH: He be havin’ a [deleted] heart attack or something. No, I be calling from my [deleted] cell phone, nudnick. I call you what I want [deleted], now get the [deleted] [deleted] ambulance down here. Damn! Stupid nudnick [deleted] say she can’t find this place ‘cause I called [deleted] 911 on a [deleted] cell phone!
TOM COLLINS: Give it to me, I’ll tell her the address and how to get into the building to the studio!
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: Cancel the 911. I’m all right.
CHAI-D-HO: Aw, [deleted] check this out – the nudnick rabbi is comin’ back from the dead. [Deleted] nudnick, don’t you know us Jews don’t do no [deleted] resurrections?
RANDY COCKBURN: 911 calls can’t be canceled, rabbi, and besides, you don’t look all that good, anyway.
TOM COLLINS: They’ll be here in three minutes!
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: I’m all right, I tell you! Just stop saying that word!
NOTORIOUS NOSH: Nudnick [deleted]!
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: Oy! [Inaudible] Oy vey ist mir!
CHAI-D-HO: Nudnick! Nudnick!
RABBI SLIVOVITZ: [Inaudible] Oy gevalt!
RANDY COCKBURN: Tom! He’s collapsed again! I need you to get back on mouth to mouth, stet!
TOM COLLINS: Here – if he comes around before the ambulance arrives, give him these aspirins!
MODERATOR: Ah… uh… this concludes our presentation of “The Power of Speech – Whaddup with the N-word?” Join us again next week, when our topic will be “What Good is the Word of the Year, and Who Needs It?” Until then, this is Orpheus Spondee, urging you to keep an open mind as you explore the awesome power of speech.
NOTORIOUS NOSH: [Deleted] nudnick [deleted] [deleted]!
CHAI-D-HO: Nudnick! Nudnick! Nudnick! Nudnick!
THEME AND EXIT GRAPHICS
ANNOUNCER: “The Power of Speech” is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The opinions expressed by guests on this program are not necessarily those of the show’s producers or your cable television provider.