Drive-Time Rants, Celebrity Tributes, and Generation Slang Showdowns

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Ever had one of those mornings where every driver on the road seems determined to test your patience? That's exactly how this Monday began — at 5 AM with a parade of inconsiderate drivers that had me wondering if it was an omen for the week ahead.

The passing of Loni Anderson prompted a heartfelt reflection on why her character in WKRP meant so much to me growing up. Far from the blonde bimbo stereotype many remember, Jennifer Marlowe represented something revolutionary: a woman who was intelligent, capable, successful AND embraced her sexuality on her own terms. She offered a template for womanhood that many of us aspired to, even if our paths ultimately led elsewhere.

We dive into a viral story about parents allegedly abandoning their 10-year-old at an airport in Spain over documentation issues — a tale that raises immediate red flags. How does someone make it through security only to discover visa problems at the gate? This TikTok-originated story with over 320,000 views deserves our skepticism in an era where engagement often trumps accuracy.

The generational slang showdown between Gen X and Gen Z reveals fascinating cultural divides. Do you know what "bogart" means? How about "delulu" or "riz"? Our teenage vocabulary becomes a time capsule of our youth, with words like "gnarly," "wicked," and "tubular" marking specific moments in cultural history. What slang word did you overuse as a teenager that would baffle today's kids?

We also touch on the mysterious tragedy of four elderly relatives found deceased beside their wrecked car in West Virginia while on a religious pilgrimage, and I share my excitement for the approaching fall season — complete with a brunette wig as my personal harbinger of cooler weather to come.

Share your teenage movie memories and favorite slang terms from your youth in the comments! And if you're a writer looking for a platform, reach out about contributing to anamericanist.com.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh Lordy, I hope to drive in today with all the
idiots.
The effing a-holes out on thestreets this morning at five in
the morning is not indicative ofhow the rest of the Monday is
going to be.
Oh my gosh, I mean, Iencountered one a-hole after the
other on the way in thismorning, goodness gracious.
All right, we need to get onwith the unusual stories of the

(00:23):
day.
I guess this one, well, thefirst one I want to talk about
briefly is rest in peace, lonnieAnderson.
So she was one of the veryfirst characters on TV that I
saw and thought, huh, I want tobe like that.
Now, at first glance you mightthink why did you want to be
like a blonde bimbo?

(00:45):
Well, if you are true WKRP fans, you know that she was not a
blonde bimbo on that show.
She was highly intelligent andsmart and successful, all right.
But and she was also a sexsymbol and I wanted to be just
like her.
Okay, obviously that didn'tturn out.
But moving on to the next, restin peace, lonnie Anderson.
All right, Moving on to thenext, I think this next story is

(01:07):
fake news, because somebodyalso pointed out oh, there's two
comments.
How does she even get throughsecurity.
Now we're going to talk aboutthese parents who supposedly
left their child at the airportbecause 10 year old child at the
airport, because they didn'thave the correct documents.
Okay, I find this hard tobelieve.
I think it's fake news.

(01:29):
And so Freedom Enterprise wantsto know how did they even make
it through security?
Then Another person repliedKevin.
Yes, I agree, kevin.
All right, we need to.
Let's read about this, shall we?
I think it's fake news.
All right, an unnamed, so theydon't even have a name.
They're not naming anybody.
An unnamed mom and dad preppedfor takeoff.

(01:51):
Their kid was left as they castoff.
An unnamed mother and fatherallegedly abandoned a
10-year-old boy at anunidentified airport in Spain
after realizing they didn't packall of the tots necessary
travel documents.
Unwilling to miss their flight,the jet setters boarded the
Airbus, leaving their son in theairport terminal where a family

(02:13):
member would eventually,hopefully retrieve him.
I find this hard to believe.
I don't believe this for asecond, but yet here it is
written like a real story in theNew York Post.
The kid told police that hisparents were on the plane on
their way to their home countryfor vacation, said Lillian, a

(02:35):
purported air operationscoordinator at the plane station
where the incident occurred.
She detailed the chaos to over320,000 TikTok viewers.
Her claims, however, have notbeen verified.
So she's doing this for whatViewers?
To get likes on her TikTokvideo?
Shameful.
If this is the case, shame onyou, lady.

(02:56):
The explanation given to theauthorities was that the child
was traveling with an expiredpassport from Spain and needed a
travel visa, and Lillianspeaking Spanish in the clip.
Since he didn't have a visa,they left the kid in the
terminal and called a relativeto pick him up.
Bullshit, I call I.

(03:18):
Just how do you these people?
They travel back and come on,your child doesn't have a visa.
I don't believe that for asecond.
I'm not even going to go finishreading that story.
You can go finish reading it ifyou'd like.
All right, next up, gen Z andGen X square off in a slang
showdown.
Do you know what slay, tubular,bogart and more mean?

(03:39):
This is also from the New YorkPost and I'm not going to read
this whole story, but somebodytook the streets and asked the
different generations if theyknew what the slang meant.
So we're going to scroll downhere and just read a couple of
them, okay.
Gen X slang gnarly.

(04:01):
So according to Surfer Today,gnarly originated from the word
gnarled, meaning knobbly roughand twisted, especially with age
.
Well, that would be me, okay.
Especially with age.
Well, that would be me, okay,all right.
It first came into usage wayback in the mid 18th century and
kept its literal meaning formore than 200 years before it
was appropriately appropriatedby California surfers in the

(04:24):
1970s to describe somethingcompletely different.
The slang word subsequentlybecame a Gen X staple after it
was used by Sean Penn's surferstoner character, jeff Spicoli,
in the 1982 team smash fast timeat Ridgemont High.
But did you?
But do you know what it means?
Answer gnarly can mean eitherdifficult and challenging or

(04:46):
excellent and cool gnarly dude.
So I have two questions of theday for you.
Number Number one when you weregrowing up, what was the movie
to watch, what was the teenmovie to watch back in the day?
Do you remember oh gosh, oh,it's escaping me right now.
Oh it's, oh my gosh, I'm goingto have to.
I'm pausing it.

(05:08):
Oh my gosh, okay, sorry y'all,I had to pause it for a second
to go look up this movie.
Do you remember Porky's 1982?
I barely remember the scene.
I remember the most is, I guessthe boys in the shower looking
through a peephole?
Okay, I don't even want to know.
Okay, you don't want to.
All right, moving on, we needto go back to the story.

(05:28):
Okay, bogart.
I don't know what Bogart means.
Let's see what that means.
Popular gen x slang was wordbaffled the gen z participants
who took part in our quiz.
Okay, blah, blah, I don't, even, I'm not.
What is I never heard of bogart, however, the word actually
inspired by hollywood iconhumphrey bogart, who often kept

(05:48):
a cigarette in his mouth withoutsmoking it.
Okay, yeah, but isshape-shifting?
No, I don't.
Tubular, I know Bodacious, Iknow Grody, I know.
Now for Gen Z, what does Stanmean?
The original of this popularGen Z slang word dates back to
the year 2000, long beforeZoomers held culture sway,

(06:11):
inspired by Eminem's song Stanreleased the this year.
It's a term used to describe adevoted and possibly deranged
fan.
Okay, and then they use theword slay serve riz.
I'm not even going to tell youwhat I think about when I hear
the word riz.
Uh, delulu, I don't.
What is delulu?
What the hell is that?

(06:31):
I don't know what that iseither, so you can go finish
reading that.
So my other second question iswhen you were a teenager.
What slang word did you use allthe time?
I think I use the word wicked alot to describe like something
totally awesome.
Oh, that's wicked dude.
I think I use that a lot.
I know.
All right, moving on, this is astrange story from the New York

(06:53):
Post.
I don't know what.
They don't tell us whathappened.
Maybe it was just a crash, Idon't know.
New York grandparents whovanished on religious road trip
found dead an embankment in WestVirginia.
A family of upstate New Yorkgrandparents who went missing
while on a religious road tripwere found dead next to their

(07:15):
car in West Virginia on Saturday, next to their car.
So what?
They got out of the car.
The four elderly relatives,identified by authorities as Dr
Kishore, devon, 89, asha, devon,85, shailesh, devon, 86, and

(07:36):
Gita, devon, 84, were on a roadtrip from Buffalo to the Palace
of Gold, a historic Hindu sitein Marshall County, west
Virginia.
When they disappeared Tuesday.
They were found dead next totheir wrecked Toyota Camry along
Big Wheeling Creek Road onSaturday.

(07:57):
So they wrecked the car.
We don't know how bad it waswrecked.
Apparently it was wreckedpretty good.
Sheriff Mike Dougherty saidtheir bodies were found along a
steep embankment around 9.30 pm.
First responders were on thescene for more than five hours.
The group was last seen around2.45 Tuesday.

(08:20):
It is unclear exactly how thefour, who are all of Indian
descent, are related.
Oh well, but how did they die?
Maybe they just surely theydidn't all just have heart
attacks, it's?
I don't, it's weird, I don'tknow.
All right, so you got thequestions of the day and I guess
that's it for me.

(08:40):
Did you have a good weekend?
We had a good weekend.
We had, we had the grand camp,but we only had them for a
limited hours.
We had him from like nine toone.
Normally we have him like tento four, but he had a pool party
to go to later that day.
Goodness gracious, his socialcalendar is more than ours.
All right, let's see what elseis going on.

(09:02):
I guess there's nothing elsegoing on.
Go read my blog,anamericanistcom.
I'm trying to keep that up on aregular basis and if you know
anybody that would like tocontribute writing on a regular
basis, please send them my way.
I also write for the VictoryGirls.
I'm going to be writing forthem pretty much all week and
that's it.
Oh, oh, oh.

(09:22):
I'm ready for fall to happen,so much so that I'm going back
to brunette.
In fact, I'm wearing a brunettewig.
Today the temperatures arecooler here in Alabama, so I
think I can wear a wig.
Today.
It's a little bit more bearable, All right, but I'm so excited
I want fall to get here, so I'mwearing brunette.
All right, I gotta go.

(09:43):
Thanks for listening.
Y'all Love you Bye.