The Time I Personally Insulted a Very Angry Man I'd Never Met

Say hello to the little friend who
inspired one of my catchphrases.

Those who know me to a certain degree are quite aware that among my many idiosyncrasies is my habit of lodging a phrase — based on something I've read or viewed — into my head and repeating it, uh, repeatedly, only to abandon it abruptly and latch onto some other series of bon mots that are not all that bon.

Then, years later, I'll run into a former college classmate or co-worker from one of my many previous locations of employ and he'll ask me if I still say, for instance, "Pork chop sandwiches!" And sometimes I'll forget that I ever said "Pork chop sandwiches!" even though this particular person's mnemonic device for "Anthony, with whom I used to work" is PORK-CHOP SANDWICHES.

For unknown reasons, I suddenly thought of one of those long-abandoned phrases I used to say. To explain the reference I will touch on one of the most enjoyable films of all time, early gangsta rap, and my college-magazine experience.

And a good chunk of what follows is probably Not Suitable For Work, but that probably doesn't matter. You ready?

THE WORLD IS YOURS
During senior year of high school, I used to hang out with my good friend Rudy. His parents owned a big-screen TV during the days before you could buy a TV larger than 30 inches for less than a grand, and we'd hit the video store for movies that looked interesting and were the kinds of films our parents wouldn't normally rent. One of the selections was Eraserhead, the experience of which is worth its own blog post, but one day Rudy suggested we watch Scarface.

I knew nothing of the film, and wasn't much of a film geek to even know who Brian DePalma (who directed), Oliver Stone (who wrote the script), and even Al Pacino were. In fact, the only person I recognized was F. Murray Abraham, whose character suffered being hanged from a hovering helicopter after being tortured off-screen, and that was because my brother once rented (and then watched like 100 times) the movie Amadeus (F. Murray portrays Mozart's nemesis, Salieri), which I sat through only because I thought the film would include the Falco song "Rock Me Amadeus." (Spoiler alert: That song does not appear in the film.)

Anyway, as Rudy and I soon learned, in addition to Scarface's violence (there's also a chainsaw scene) and drug use, the film was contained, at the time of its 1983 release, the most f-bombs in history, a record that has since been exceeded by almost four dozen later films.

That's all I'm going to say about the actual movie right now, because I want to prevent this post from spilling all over the place. Before I go on, here's an amusing edit of the film that you may have seen on one of the YouTubes that the kids are always talking about:

THIS IS NOT THE "GHETTO" THAT ELVIS ONCE SANG ABOUT
Let's fast-forward to the Christmas break during my freshman year of college. Rudy and I were at a record store at the mall looking for gag gifts for another friend, Matt. We made our selection, and while we were on the long line, we began to amuse ourselves by mocking some other guy we went to high school with, I'll call him James, who once did standup at a Sweet Sixteen we attended. His act consisted of mostly obvious impressions as well as some "stealing" of famous bits of the time. The joke we were mocking was one that I believe he stole from Billy Crystal where he notes that a name like "Smuckers" sounds like something you'd hack up. Anyway, Rudy and I just kept saying "Schmuckers" (giving the jelly brand the more Yiddish sound that Crystal used) over and over again, until the girl behind the counter yelled at us to please watch our language.

This stopped us cold, and we were so confused that we didn't even argue that "Schmuckers" didn't cross any sort of decency standard, and even if we were saying schmuck, I don't think we would've been found guilty by the judges who sent Lenny Bruce to jail.

The reason I bring all of that up is because Rudy and I eventually had to face the offended cashier with our goods, and any ambiguity about our maturity level was cleared up when she saw the cassettes we were buying for Matt:

1. The Day the Laughter Died, a double album but Andrew Dice Clay
2. The self-titled album by the Geto Boys

Let it be.

I'm pretty sure that the cashier knew who Andrew Dice Clay was, but she probably had never heard of the Geto Boys or their notorious album. This was back when rap music was still considered an underground fad, long before you can find hip-hop in yogurt commercials and part of Nick Jr. programs targeting the preschool set.

The Geto Boys was not a debut album but rather a collection of songs from the group's earlier, small-release albums that were remixed by Rick Rubin. I'd heard of the album (and made the gift suggestion at the store) because I'd read an article in Rolling Stone (back when I gave a shit about Rolling Stone) that said that the Geto Boys, a group out of Houston, would make 2 Live Crew look like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

So even if the offended cashier knew nothing about rap music, she could probably have guessed what kinds of lyrics were probably within our purchase, based on the cover. Maybe it was the parental advisory label, which was still uncommon back then, or the mugshot-posed photos of four black guys, or perhaps the additional disclaimer, which belongs in the Disclaimer Hall of Fame if one were to exist, which reads:

DEF AMERICAN RECORDS IS OPPOSED TO CENSORSHIP. OUR MANUFACTURER AND DISTRIBUTOR, HOWEVER, DO NOT CONDONE OR ENDORSE THE CONTENT OF THIS RECORDING, WHICH THEY FIND VIOLENT, SEXIST, RACIST, AND INDECENT.

Of course, today this album is about as tame as a Pat Boone LP in 1973.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOTHERFUCKER!
We gave these tapes to Matt. We expected him to listen to Andrew Dice Clay, but were surprised when he told us that he actually enjoyed the Geto Boys album. For the remainder of break, and for the following summer, whenever Matt picked us up in his Jeep Sahara, we'd blast the well-produced but clearly violent, sexist, etc., songs throughout our suburban sprawl. The lyrics were so over-the-top that it was like listening to a comedic horror movie, and Rick Rubin's production work made it an album worth listening to again and again. Which we did.

I'm not an expert on gangsta rap, but I'm certain that this Geto Boys album was among the first rap albums to worship at the altar of Tony Montana. The entire first side was full of samples from Scarface, and the very first song, with the appropriate title "Fuck 'Em," begins with Scarface samples shot at you like Tony Montana being ventilated with bullets at the end of the movie:

The sample where Tony yells, defiantly, "FUCK YOU, MANG!" at the 12-second mark stuck in my brain. (In the movie, I believe it's right before Tony blows away the Cuban assassin that he was supposed to assist in bombing an anti-drug crusader because the assassin was willing to trigger the bomb while the crusader had his wife and kids in the car but hey, Tony had his principles.) Mang is basically how you say Man with a thick ersatz-Cuban accent. Maybe it's actually pronounced Main, but I always heard a hard "g" sound.

THERE ACTUALLY IS A POINT TO THIS STORY
So anyway, for the next couple of years I found myself saying "Fuck you, Mang!" or "OK, Mang!" mostly just "Mang" whenever possible. I'm sure I drove most of my acquaintances quite insane with my constant mang-liness, but that's the risk you take when you want to know me better. I got a few people to humor me by saying mang, too, and one time a friend took me on a pilgrimage to see Mang Park, on Mang Avenue, of course.

This brings me to the reason I've told you all the preamble, in order to better appreciate what happened next.

During junior year I was editor of the weekly student magazine, a publication that included a free personals section. It wasn't a dating section, more like an anonymous Twitter feed without a precise character limit, in the style of the part of the classifieds in your local newspaper that no one reads. Students could fill out a form and unless it named specific names or was clearly as violent, sexist, racist, or indecent as the album manufacturer and distributor felt about The Geto Boys, we'd publish it.

After the personals were placed onto its pages in PageMaker, there was usually enough space for staff members to add their own. For several weeks, I'd splice in a couple of FUCK YOU MANGs. No big deal, just a private joke between me and the people who knew me.

Well, one day, my good friend Jay was sitting in the office alone when a very angry laborer-type dude showed up with a rolled-up magazine in his large paw. "SOMEONE'S WRITING ABOUT ME IN YOUR MAGAZINE!" he said.

Jay assumed the guy was possibly crazy or otherwise mentally damaged; the magazine tended to attract weirdos to the office, including, during my sophomore year, not one but two different guys with metal plates in their heads.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Jay replied as nicely as possible. "Where did they write about you?"

"HERE!" he said, slamming down the magazine, open to the personals section.

Jay was slightly relieved because the offense had to have been made inadvertently by a student's personal, not one of the staff writers. "We usually try to catch any personals that talk about anyone by their last name," Jay said. "Which personal talks about you?"

"THIS ONE," the guy replied, pointing to one of my FUCK YOU MANGs.

"I don't understand," Jay said.

"MY LAST NAME IS MANG!" he said. "SOMEONE'S BEEN SAYING 'FUCK YOU' TO ME FOR WEEKS!"

Jay told me later he had to summon all his strength to keep from laughing once the connection was made, but he assured Mr. Mang that his name would never appear in the magazine again. Satisfied, Mr. Mang left the office and never returned.

It's fortunate that I wasn't there, because I probably would have tried to explain everything, only to (literally) dig my grave even deeper.

Soon after this close call, I moved on from saying Mang all the time. But whenever Scarface comes on, I wonder if Mr. Mang is watching it and cheering as Al Pacino's Tony Montana, the main purveyor of "Fuck you, Mang!," gets blown away.

And I've made a point of trying to avoid repetitive catchphrases that can be interpreted as an insult to a person's family. So from now on, it's back to PORK CHOP SANDWICHES!