I am a
white, thirty-seven-year-old male. My fellow white
thirty-somethings,
the same ones who have badmouthed
hip-hop
music for years, have taken to the distressing habit
of
imitating urban youth: dawg, beeyatch, spelling boys as
boyz. I have only in recent years become comfortable with
eighties
surfer/stoner talk: dude, sweet, major, whoah. I
will not
change my vernacular at this age. If I’m going to
sound
out-of-it, I’m going to sound out-of-it with a lingo
familiar
to me.