"The FILTH and the FURY"

"The FILTH and the FURY"

This is my first blog. I have never blogged before and in the past I saved my deepest thoughts and emotions in a hard copy diary for no one else to see, not even myself, until the days possibly come for me to remind myself of past events while I’m eating pudding at a nursing home alone or reading it to my children and grandchildren. At this point, I believe I have a 50/50 chance of either of those scenarios occurring in the future. I had a friend with a sign over his desk at work, which read, “We tried to banish paper, but instead we banished thought.” I generally believe that to be true, but this is London, so blogging here I come and let’s give this a whirl:)

I would have to say the piece from the Punk Rock exhibit was a Daily Mirror article that spun me back into childhood with the title of “The FILTH and the FURY!” The words filth and fury had the largest font on the entire page!

Funny, as I just used this word, “filth” the other day and had a conversation about the fundamentalist nature or possible use of the word with Dr. Nericcio. This course pays a lot of attention to words, nuances, slight intonations I have not thought about in detail for years.

I had never thought about the word “filth” and who may or may not use it. I simply remember when I was a young child who went outdoors to play almost every day, that my mother would yell at me as I came in the door, “Vee-dee (she never called me Veronica and I’m still unclear how she came up with that name for me) make sure to wash your hands before dinner, they are filthy.” I also went to Catholic grade-school and the nuns would use the same word to describe my hands, when they would get dirty or muddy in the playground at recess.

Then today, BOOM, the exhibit which started with the year I was born, and I felt old, really old, LOL and wondered how I was going to make sense of a punk rock exhibit LOL. 

It made me think how wildly different life has been for me than for the majority of my classmates here. Punk Rock for me as a high school student was Cindy Lauper and MADDONA, more like "Girls just want to have fun," whereas my understanding of The Silver Pistols was more than just having fun, but making a dramatic political statement.

The rules were so much different growing up in a strict Catholic family. Had I tried to listen to something like The Silver Pistols in my parents' house…they would have looked at me like I had lost my mind. Then they would have thrown my cassette into the trash (yes I had cassettes and put them in my walkman) instead of today's IPOD or the like. 

My sister had hard rock cassettes which she hid from my parents underneath her bed in a shoe box that held our saddle shoes. I believe only someone past the age of 30 might understand what saddle shoes, walkmans and cassettes actually are.

When I went to college, the meaning of the word "filth" expanded. Now not only did it mean physically dirty, it could also mean morally repugnant, ethically repulsive, classless, vile and nasty.

The article read, "A POP group shocked millions of viewers last night with the filthiest language heard on British television." I don't know much about British culture, but they sure as Hell were not talking about dirty hands LOL

They were talking about language that took some people aback, left them speechless or sent them into rage just to name a few reactions.

I guess I’m lucky my parents did know I had heard or used any "filthy" language, because if they did I would probably not be sitting here writing this blog LOL.