Whatever happened to the perfectly wonderful expression, “You’re welcome!”? You remember it. It’s what one used to say after someone else said, “Thank you!” It’s one of those fundamental phrases we learn at the knee of our forebears. When we learn a foreign language, we’re taught to say it in some other tongue. If a Frenchman says “Merci,” we’re supposed to say “De rien,” or “de nada,” if they’re Spanish. (Notice I used the contraction “they’re” not “their” as is becoming increasingly popular).

Recently I’ve noticed the demise of “You’re Welcome” while watching the PBS Newshour (which I still steadfastly call The MacNeil Lehrer Report even though neither of them are regulars on it anymore.) Just the other night, a trio of garrulous talking heads was invited to speak on some worldly topic (an earthquake could hit Los Angeles, but the Newshour wouldn’t mention it). At the end of their spiels, Judy Woodruff (who IMHO can do no wrong) said “Thank you” to them. Then each of them chimed in “Thank you” in return. Why can’t they just say “You’re welcome,” like we used to back in the good old days? Saying “Thank you” in return leaves the audience hanging, waiting for closure. It’s awkward and stilted, as is obvious when these grateful souls utter it and stare at the camera as if they’ve just gone up on their lines. There’s no resolution; it’s like a concert in which the music ends out of key, or a tennis match that ends in a draw. It makes me anxious and on edge.

This phenomenon is by no means limited to PBS. It happens on all the talk shows from Bill Moyers to Jon Stewart. I suppose people can’t say, “You’re welcome,” because that would imply some kind of deference on the part of the host. But in many cases it’s the pundit who is beholden to the host, so he is compelled to say “thank you” in return or else he would come across as an ingrate, or an insufferable self-serving blowhard. Or perhaps they can’t say it because an exchange has literally taken place, a transaction (clearly on some shows the guests are paid to speak their minds.) For them to say “you’re welcome,” would be admitting the practice, the verbal equivalent of slipping an envelope stuffed with cash in their jacket pocket. Much safer to say “thank you” and not open the door to further issues of indebtedness.

Do you remember the expression “Bad hair day”? It used to be funny to say to someone whose hair was uncombed, frizzy, or matted that he was having a “bad hair day.” It kind of softened the blow. Rather than saying you look ridiculous or ugly or dirty, you made light of it. But watching some of the folks at the Oscars the other night (which I did in very short intervals during the dull parts of the hilariously bad movie The Oscar, starring sexy Stephen Boyd, on TCM that same hour), I was struck by how meaningless that expression has become. Everyone is having a bad hair day these days. Well, at least those who might appear in People magazine. Doesn’t anyone use a comb anymore? Zac Efron is supposed to be a teen idol, a heartthrob. But he looked like he’d stuck his finger in a socket when he waltzed onstage during the Oscars. Maybe he did. It would have helped kill the time.

Same with George Clooney. You’d think that people who get paid as much as the GDP of most nations on earth to make a movie could hire a hair stylist. Or maybe he did, which is worse. Have you ever noticed that most hair stylists have the ugliest hair styles? It’s kind of like dress designers, who tramp around in rags or artists who show up unshaven and in stained jeans to accept awards. They’re too cool to dress up, but not too cool to accept the prize money. I’m always amazed when I see some doctors who are overweight, or smoking, or have bad breath and yellow teeth, or dandruff visible even on their white jackets. That reminds me of the time I went to get fitted for braces. The orthodontist told me I needed them for an overbite. When I asked how much it would cost, he smiled, revealing teeth that resembled roquefort cheese. Well, if he didn’t need braces, why would I? But I went ahead and ordered them, because I was a good little boy who did as he was told, and now have a serious underbite.

Getting back to those Oscars. Those very bad Oscars. I didn’t even have to watch them to know they stank. Do you remember that expression “that movie is so bad it’s good”? Think of Plan 9 From Outer Space, or Ishtar, or The Oscar, for that matter. One enjoyed such forays into cinematic trash because they were deliciously awful. And yet compared to the dreck masquerading as films today, they’re masterpieces. This point was driven home to me during the broadcast when Lauren Bacall was forced to stand next to Roger Corman to accept the congratulations of the crowd for their respective lifetime achievement awards. Talk about “like water and oil.” Class and Crass! She looked about as happy to be there as one of the victims in his schlockfests. Couldn’t they have given her the award on stage alone and lent some much-needed glamour to these ignominious proceedings?

And then, what about having ten pictures nominated for best film? Doesn’t that dilute the value of the award just a bit? Why not 100 pictures? Or 250 of them? Why not have IMDB host the ceremony? Frankly, I had a hard time finding ten pictures I would even want to see last year, let alone nominate for best picture. In fact, I didn’t see any of them. Why? Because few movies today are entertaining. It’s pointless to say “it’s so bad, it’s good” anymore. It’s become redundant. Most are bombs, and I don’t mean “they’re the bomb.” They’ve gotten “bad,” and that ain’t good.

Speaking of bombs, another expression I loathe which one hears all the time now on TV is “the bad guys.” We’re at war with two nations (if you can call them that), spending trillions of dollars on defense (although we seem to always be on the offense) and the best that the big wigs in the military can say is that we’re “getting the bad guys.” The other night I watched in horror as a soldier buried in a cave somewhere in a remote desert here in the States was taking out targets in Afghanistan using a drone plane. It was just like a video game, the interviewer said (although “interviewer” is a loose term when it comes to journalism these days. The questions all seem scripted, and the entire exchange reeked of carefully rolled-out Pentagon propaganda.) The highly-trained soldier aimed his missiles at targets thousands of miles away, then took out a few suspicious-looking individuals on the ground with the touch of a finger. The reporter asked him if he felt guilty about shooting people to death from such a safe distance. He said he didn’t because he knew he was getting rid of the “bad guys.” This is the level of discourse? In the past we used words like “Huns,” “Barbarians,” “Nips,” “Japs,” and “Gooks,” to dehumanize the enemy. Today we simply call them “the bad guys,” as if this were a TV western starring Clint Walker in Cheyenne. Maybe it is. The only difference is that there are more commercials now.

You can excuse such idiotic talk, I suppose, when dealing with soldiers lower down on the totem pole. They’re not, one would imagine, as educated or experienced as the top brass. But the other day I watched one of the top generals discussing the conflict in Afghanistan and he used the same expression. “We’re rooting out the bad guys,” he said, straight-faced, moments after footage had been shown of dozens of civilians killed by a missile strike, families weeping over their dead bodies, piled high like driftwood on the side of the road. It had not been an “accident,” some errant missile, as they tried to soft-pedal it, whitewashing the incident. A bus had been deliberately hit because they thought there were “bad guys” in it. Such are the fruits of war, some even bigger wigs with more brass argued. “War is hell,” one Pentagon official concurred. He might as well have added, “Shit happens.” But that’s missing the point. The issue isn’t whether innocent people will die during a war, it’s that the military can’t tell the difference between “the good guys” and “the bad guys.” It’s Cowboys and Indians time. Perhaps if they knew why these people were fighting against us, they wouldn’t need to use inane comic book expressions in describing them. Why not bring in The Green Hornet to fight them?

It reminds me of when President Bush reviled “the evildoers” who attacked us on 9/11. Yes, hijacking planes and killing people to make a political statement or even to thwart ill-perceived imperialism is wrong, dead wrong. Blowing up buildings to incite terror is mean and vicious and cruel. But is it “evil”? How is it any more evil than us blowing up Baghdad during operation “Shock and Awe” in defense of liberty? Lots of innocent people must have died during those attacks (we were never told how many exactly), but because we’re the “good guys” I guess it’s okay. For my money, “evil” should never be part of the equation. Leave “evil” and “good” in the pulpit where they belong. This is war, not a sermon from the mount.

“Evil” is used often in the media to describe serial killers and lone gunmen as well. The fellow who shot and killed soldiers at Fort Hood was “evil.” He was one of “the bad guys” working for Al Qaeda, or wanted to, it soon became apparent. After first announcing, erroneously, that he was dead, the media later told us that he was mentally unbalanced, a sick man, with paranoid tendencies. If he was that much of a lunatic, why did the military send him to Fort Hood to provide psychiatric counseling to its soldiers? It seems that all one has to do to become “evil” nowadays is to do a despicable act. But was he “evil” before he did it? Or did he suddenly snap? And if one can become “evil” without wanting to, by some instantaneous quirk of nature, then how exactly is that “evil”? Is the media implying that the Devil made him do it? If so, we’re right back in the throes of The Exorcist, or with Flip Wilson on Laugh-In.

Just yesterday I was reading about some fellow who is on trial for murder and kidnapping a number of young girls. He’s a “serial killer” who once made a splash on The Dating Game. He was the winner, the bachelor that the girl ultimately selected. But now some of the people on the show with him are saying they could tell he was “evil” even back then. There was something “creepy” about him. As far as I’m concerned, there’s something creepy about being on The Dating Game in the first place. I should know. I auditioned for it once with my pal Bradford, when I was visiting him in LA after graduating from college. We both got selected to appear, but both decided it wasn’t worth it (they didn’t offer to pay my air fare back from New York). Maybe we both were too weirded out by the creeps who worked there.

I wonder if I had gone on, whether one of my bachelor rivals would have guessed that I was out of my element, figuring out I was gay. Perhaps he would now be dissing me to others (especially if I had become a serial killer) by exclaiming, “That’s so gay.” That’s another expression that makes my blood boil. Since when did being gay become the equivalent of being bad? I remember when being called a “fag,” or “fairy,” or “queer,” meant you were homosexual, and that may not have been something little boys aspired to way back when, but no one thought of it as a euphemism for lousy or unfortunate. Now you hear it at football games or bingo tournaments. If someone gets 22 at a blackjack table in a casino, it’s not bad luck, “it’s gay.” Get a grip, Polly.

Another expression that rubs me the wrong way is “my bad.” When did this ludicrous phrase creep into our consciousness? The other night I was playing poker and a buddy bet out of turn. “My bad,” he said, as he took back the chips he’d flung into the pot. Was it really “bad” of him to make that mistake? Why can’t one just say I made a “boo-boo” and be done with it? If we’re all going to talk like children in this country, let’s at least be cute about it.