FRAMESHOP:FRAMESHOP: FUN WITH MADE-UP WORDS, GEORGE ALLEN STYLE

You know...sometimes politicians engaged in damage control say such silly things, I'm never quite sure if I should laugh, scream or--rise to the challenge.

In an attempt to disprove the idea that George Allen actually knew the meaning of the racist slur 'macaca'--after he called the only dark-skinned person in the crowd a 'macaca' at a campaign stop...twice...on video--George Allen's campaign has issued what has to be the whackiest spin I have ever seen. 

Apparently--and I am not making this up--the Allen campaign wants us all to believe that the word 'macaca' (an actual narly racial slur used by white supremacists) was a 'made-up' word that campaign staffers invented and that George Allen just happend to overhear. According to Hotline:

What does Macaca really mean? Three Virginia Republicans confirmed to the Hotline that several Allen campaign aides and advisers are telling allies that the word was a made-up, off-the-cuff neologism that these aides occasionally used to refer to tracker S.R. Sidarth well before last Saturday's videotaped encounter.

According to two Republicans who heard the word used, "macaca" was a mash-up of "Mohawk," referring to Sidarth's distinctive hair, and "caca," Spanish slang for excrement, or "shit."

Said one Republican close to the campaign: "In other words, he was a shit-head, an annoyance." Allen, according to Republicans, heard members of his traveling entourage and Virginia Republicans use the phrase and picked it up.

Did everybody catch that?  'Macaca' was a made-up word just being tossed around by the happy-go-lucky Geoge Allen campaign.  The kid had a 'Mohawk' haircut...he was acting like a Liberal poo-poo...throw in a little Latin flair and--presto!  'Moh-caca!  Of course, this is obviously a pathetic attempt at damage control by the George Allen campaign--trying to provide cover after their candidate made fun of a college student using a white power racist epithet.

But hold on a second.  What if we took the Allen campaign's apology seriously?  Their twisted explaination actually suggests a new kind of fun word game--kind of like a racist word jumble.

So...I wonder what other mash-up words we can...uh...mash-up? 

(cue cheesy game show music)

Tha-a-a-a-a-t's right, America!  It's time to play your favorite madcapped Republican campaign season game: FUN WITH MADE-UP WORDS, GEORGE ALLEN STYLE!!

Drive the debate! LINK to this FRAMESHOP article:

http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/2006/08/frameshop_fun_m.html

OK, here we go.

The following is a list of 10 totally made-up single-word descriptions of hypothetical people who might be following the George Allen campaign around Virginia.  See if you can figure out the off-the-cuff made-up words the George Allen and his staff might come up with based on these imaginary descriptions of people annoying the campaign. There's a hint at the end of every clue, just click on the link if you get stumped. And remember:  all these words are 100% made-up.  Enjoy!

FUN WITH MADE-UP WORDS, GEORGE ALLEN STYLE!!

1. There's this guy following the campaign around with a Nikon camera.  Nice camera, but boy is this guy annoying eveyrone!  And he's a big guy, like over six feet tall.  So everyone kept on talking about how much bigger he was than everyone else.   As a joke, we strung together "Nikon" and "bigger" and made up the word. [hint]
2. During a campaign stop in park outside of Christiansburg, there was this college student who made a 'Bring The Troops Home' sign into a kite actually flew it above the crowd.  Afterwards we joked about how she could not even afford a car because she road around on bike like some hippy.  On the car ride home, a volunteer mashed-together "kite" and "bike" and came up with the nickname: [hint]
3. During a day in Charlottesville, we noticed this guy at every campaign stop  holding a sign about immigrant rights.  The funny thing was that this guy had such a big nose, we started calling it his beak.  Look at that guy's beak!  It was hilarious.  Anyway, at one stop this guy spilled coffee on his shirt and somebody yelled out, "Hey pal!  Why don't you stop protesting and go to a dry cleaner or something!"  So we combined "beak" and "cleaner" and made up: [hint]
4. In Pulaski there was this little guy recording everything George said who was wearing a shirt that looked like an old-style striped prison uniform.  We kept on shouting "Go back to jail and leave us alone!"  The next day he was suddenly wearing a cap that looked the same.  It was hilarious!  So we combined "jail" and "cap" and called him the made up the word: [hint]
5. After a long, hot day in the New River Valley, a bunch of us were joking about this car of Webb volunteers who drove in from Hampton University to follow us around and take notes on what George was saying in his speeches.  At one point, somebody on the campaign said, "They must be looney toons to spend their summer vacation following us around!"  That cracked everybody up.  So that night at Dairy Queen, we combined "car" and  "toons" and started refering to them with the made up word: [hint]
6. Midway through a campaign stop at private home Reston, we noticed these yard workers working on the lawn next door who kept looking over at our event like they were interested  in what George had to say.  We think they were repairing the sprinkler system because their clothes were all wet.  The thing that cracked us up was how they would look over at our event as if they were listening, then turn their backs after a few minutes and get back to work.   That night as we were all packing up the event, we combined "wet" and "backs" and started calling them this made up word: [hint]
7. So we did this really cool event in the parking lot of the Target store in Roanoke. Cool event, lots of people, great crowd.  Anyway, there was this girl taking video of the event.  We think she was a high school kid because he was wearing this sweatshirt with a Baby Phat logo.  We had never heard of that brand, and afterward we were joking around when someone combined the words "target" and "baby" and started calling her the made-up word:[hint]
8. So, we were at this stop outside of Marion when we noticed this guy videotaping the event who looked a lot like that Mohawk dude from the other day. Somebody yelled,"You must be a pal of that other guy!"  Anway, while this guy was waiting around for his ride, we noticed that he had one of those giant keychains with like 50 keys hainging from it.  Later that night we all went for sushi and somebody joked,"I wonder if that guy filming us, today, likes saki?"  I'm not sure why it was funny, but everybody cracked up at that one.  Afterwards, when we were breaking down the tables, somebody combined "pal" and "saki" and came up with the made-up word: [hint]
9. The other day in Virginia Beach, there was this old guy with an anti-War protest sign who was just following us around wherever we went that day.  So, annoying this guy, but he was also kind of funny.  We thought he just came from the beach because he had sand all over his shoes.  And after the event, we noticed he was carrying this old-fashioned tape player that was blasting mambo music. What a crazy old guy!  In the van ride home afterwards, a volunteer combined "sand" and "mambo" and made-up this hilarious nickname for the guy that nobody had ever heard of before: [hint]
10. After the controversy where George called that kid a 'macaca'--twice...and it was caught on tape and seen and talked about by millions of people all over the country--some big Republican donor called the capaign headquarters and really gave him an earful.  Supposedly--and this is only rumor--the guy called George a big dumb idiot for using the word 'macaca' like that in a stump speech--even though George explained that 'macaca' was not a racist term, but was just made up (and hilarious!). Later that day, a bunch of people in the media, along with the voters of Virginia and most people in America combined the words "big" and "idiot" and made-up this crazy new nickname for George Alllen: [hint]

Of course, the purpose of this game is to show how ridiculous it was for George Allen's campaign team to make up such a crazy story--a crazy story designed to hide the simple fact that their candidate used a racial slur to intimidate a college student during a stump speech. And I doubt they would have much fun playing this game. Because if they played--they would inevitably realize how cynical their spin has become.

© 2006 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop