cussing at naucc

It does not mention cussing or obscenity, and there are many other ways to be objectionable (Take it from an expert…).

How about some political songs, some antiwar songs, half the songs from the current playlist Richie Havens is performing–CD not being released until December. Never utters an obscenity.

Then again, maybe the war IS an obscenity…

Yes, there are many ways you could be objectionable, such as pulling down your pants, or playing some audio that’s very politically incorrect. The rule is left open to interpretation intentionally, with the hope that people who read it will think about their impact, and also so there can be consequences whether the person read it or not.

On the other hand, it is Freestyle, and people will stand up for the “free” part as well. There was a big discussion here a few years ago when a member of these forums did a tribute performance to all the people who died in the 9/11 attacks. His chosen music/audio was a bit of a war cry, and many non-Americans (this was at a Unicon in the U.S.) found it pretty offensive. But though they didn’t like it, almost all agreed that it was a free expression, and not something that should have been penalized.

The rule we’re talking about came after that, and was proposed for both the IUF and USA Rulebooks.

I believe the term in questions was “tastelessness”.

And please, before you start frothing at the mouth in the dawn’s early light, read the first post again and explain why the ‘Peace’ initiative drew the condemnation.

For yall who asked what song im going to use im not really sure yet. i just asked cuz all the songs i really like have cussing in it. im kinda actually tossing around not going but who knows. my favorite band ever is these guys, theyre so amazing. theyve actually written me several times and when i ordered one there shirts and sent me an autograph.

and ill use one of their songs most likely if i decide to go and ya know if i get disqualified and i throw down an amazing performance, im ok with that honestly. winning isnt my goal. i just want to throw down something that i consider really hott. if i do gothat is, i might just use the money and fly to see forrest rowell, but that wouldnt be for several months. i love you forrest.

and no thanks on the offer GILD, im probably just going to use it anyways, but i really do appreciate you being kind to me, because most people usually are not to me.

haha. you guys can glorify him if you want to.

For yall who asked what song im going to use im not really sure yet. i just asked cuz all the songs i really like have cussing in it. im kinda actually tossing around not going but who knows. my favorite band ever is these guys, theyre so amazing. theyve actually written me several times and when i ordered one there shirts and sent me an autograph.

and ill use one of their songs most likely if i decide to go and ya know if i get disqualified and i throw down an amazing performance, im ok with that honestly. winning isnt my goal. i just want to throw down something that i consider really hott. if i do gothat is, i might just use the money and fly to see forrest rowell, but that wouldnt be for several months. i love you forrest.

and no thanks on the offer GILD, im probably just going to use it anyways, but i really do appreciate you being kind to me, because most people usually are not to me.

haha. you guys can glorify him if you want to.

If most people are not kind to you, it’s probably a reflection of how you are to most people.

To each his own.

It does beg the question about what the point is in entering a competition if winning isn’t your goal.
Can’t you not have winning as a goal while not entering a competition?
And if winning isn’t your goal, and you knowingly include an offensive element in your performance, I have to ask if it is then simply your goal to offend?
In which case I have to ask you what the organisers, other competitors and the expected audience at that competitions ever did to you to deserve such an action from your part?

Gildy-poo, that’s an awful lot of rash assumptions to make about jonny. Why would it be his goal to offend? Has there never been a competition for you that you entered for the joy of the game but with no intention to actually win? I’ve done it before, I would expect others have as well.

Just a garrumpling minute their my good friend Duderysocketery.
I made no assumptions, I asked direct questions of the man, as I think is only fair in a frank and open discussion such as the one we’re having.

And yes, I do understand the concept of entering a competition for the thrill of competing and the joy of the game. I have no plans to get married yet I date, gladly, and as often as I can.
In the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Marathon, John Stephen Akhwari from Tanzania ran on, despite a dislocated knee and refused to retire from the race.
He limped into a near deserted stadium, more than an hour after the medal ceremony and completed the race.
Asked why he refused to retire, he simply said “My country didn’t send me 5000miles to start a race, they sent me 5000miles to finish one.”
I’m at peace with the concept of competing without neccesarily having winning as a goal.

My questions to Johhny should be seen in the context of this discussion and his original query where he (among other things) wanted to know if he could be disqualified for using such music.

If one couldn’t compete without having winning as a goal I wouldn’t get out of bed most mornings.

The impression I get from Jonny is that he wants to ride in front of an audience, and he wants to play music by his favorite band even though he knows there will be children and families present, and they have asked not to hear offensive lyrics. He would rather do that than win.

I would ask the Chief Judge to review his music ahead of time to see if she can offer him any suggestions.

With an event like Freestyle, it’s an opportunity to get in front of an audience and show some of what you can do, even if you know it’s not sufficient to win. This is fine with me to a point, as long as your attempt to perform is honest. If you have something an audience should want to see, great. Over the years, many people have done amazing comedy or “artsy” acts that lacked enough skill to be considered against the other riders, but were still good and worth watching. If you have something that intentioinally goes against the rules, or against the spirit of the event, I’d rather you didn’t. You can ask to be in the public show. You can offer a workshop that will include your performance. You don’t have to “pollute” the Freestyle competition.

I’m not saying that’s what Jonny intends to do; that was more directed at some of the performances I’ve seen in the past. For example, there was an infamous entry in the Expert Pairs competition a few years ago where two very good riders pretended to be drunk, and mess up one trick after another while one of the two riders’ moms kept serving them more (fake) cans of beer from a tray. It was really inappropriate for the Expert category, which was performed in an auditorium with a very big audience that included members of the general public. Just an example of bad taste separate from the music track.

Johnny Peacock’s Free Speech Freestyle Uni Tour!!!

Let’s keep the FREE in Freestyle!!!

Freedom!!! Free SPEECH!!!

Go Johnny!!!

Just no Country music. THAT would be offensive.

The following songs are on the “BANNED at NAUCC” list.

“Before he cheats”–by Carrie Underwood. She finds her boyfriend flirting, and goes into the parking lot, slaches his tires, baseball bats his headlights, carves her name into his leather seats. :astonished:

“U + Ur Hand” by Pink “Keep your drink, just give me the money. It’s you and your hand tonight.” :astonished:

“Girlfriend” by Avril Lavigne: about a woman who tells a guy to make his loser girlfriend disappear so she can show him what good sex is really like. :astonished:

Hahaha.

Who cares if he doesn’t want to win. How many times in your life have you gone into something not trying to win, but just to do it? Its not a big deal. I have done tons of competitions, sports wise, and musically for fun. I dont care if I come in 1st, or last, I jsut care that I am there having fun.

Sure there are gonna be kids, but you know how many times cussing and worse things go on in their elementary school? Maybe they hear there parents cuss a few times. What they watch on television is probably worse then a few curse words.

Fuck, shit, ass. Scary isnt it. :astonished:

It seems like a lot of you guys are just too uptight about this and way over thinking it.

Jerrick, you’re taking a very narrow view of this. As far as personal opinions go, I agree with you. They don’t bother me, they just tend to make the person using them sound like an idiot. However, not everyone at Unicon is going to be a teenage white American male. It’s not your place to tell someone what they have to think about swearing.

True dat, William.

I want everybody here to explain why exactly they are offended my cuss words after all that is all they are words. They only have the power in which you give them nothing more nothing less. I just can’t wrap my head around the theory of being offended by so called cuss words. What I think about the comp is he should except Glid’s offer not because they offend me it is because of the general public. Say a family with small children is there they get turned off from unicycling and leave along with other people. I think it is a bad way to represent the sport making people offended that is since many are by cuss words. So yeah that is my take on it. If he wants to us a song profanity they could always notify people there so if they wish to leave before the performance they could then come back afterwards.

Nor is it yours.

I dont think im being narrow minded. Originally I had in my post another paragraph on the other side of the argument, but when reading it, it didnt sound how I planned, so I deleted it and submited the rest.

I definetly know where the others are coming from, and ive listened to all the songs from the site posted. One song (fer sure) has a part where the cussing is noticable, and I know that one would get a few bad looks from people. There is a radio edited one that replaces the curse words with suggestive sounds that stands out lol.

If he chooses the first song, he has nothing to worry about, the Fer fure radio edit would have a few weird looks, but wouldnt be bad.

This part is true. If the USA didn’t have so overly-many age groups, the assumption by most riders would have to be that they weren’t going to win. In something like the Olympics, there are only a handful of athletes in any given event who know they have a chance to win, while usually a much larger number know it’s extremely unlikely. They are just there to do the best they can. Jonny_Peacock is just suggesting he may take the risk of being disqualified because he likes a certain band. Otherwise he sounds like he wants to do the best he can.

I just noticed; you’re one of the kids yourself (17)! I thought you were a little older. Do you know how many times kids stab each other in schools? Well shoot. If that goes on, I guess it’s okay at our event too. Do you agree? Or is it okay for the organizers to have standards? You don’t have to like them or agree with them. That’s part of the concept of “it’s not your convention and nobody is making you go.” You always have choices.

BTW, these forums are also considered a family place, and rude language is frowned upon. So here’s a little :angry: for you.

I’m not uptight. I’ve kept coming back on this thread to help people understand the “whys” of that little rule, and a little about USA/NAUCC philosophy for people who have never been to one of their events. They’re not like a MUni fesitval, which has very few small kids and is mostly outdoors. There are lots of unicycle clubs with riders, all the way down to preschool, with their whole families within earshot. I used to work in schools, lots of them. I understand that the larger a group of people, the wider a range of standards they’re likely to have. If your intent is not to offend, you learn to restrict your own actions as a way of being polite.

Or not.

Then you’ve got some growing up to do. You don’t have to be offended yourself; you just have to understand that someone else might be offended, and give a crap. This is part of what we call “community,” where large groups of people live together by not always just doing or saying whatever they think or feel, without consideration for others around them.

Example: Your friend just found out he’s going to have to have all four wisdom teeth removed at once. He’s scared. You know he doesn’t like needles and hates going to the dentist. Your other friend then proceeds to tell him the horror story of his own, single wisdom tooth extraction, which led to an infection, pain, lots of swelling, and an inability to eat for several days. Bad taste or not? If you think not, you still aren’t getting it.

Yeah, in the Olympics, its something people work hard for, and its hard to get in there, and the point of the Olympics is to win and bring home a medal. Im sure they have fun there, but they are more determined to win.

At NAUCC, there are gonna be the same people with winning in mind, and those are gonna be the ones to look out for, but theres gonna be the people just going for the experience and fun of it all. Theres no problem with that. :slight_smile:

I am one of those kids, but, I am not the ones who cuss in every sentence, and I fully understand the no cussing in the songs at NAUCC. Thats why I suggested using the radio edit of the song, or the other one, cause those dont have cussing in them. I am also saying there can be a lot worse things being done at NAUCC.

I have met you and talked with you tiny bit at Moab, and you dont seem uptight at all, but sometimes your sentences seem that way. Im probably just reading it wrong, but its not a bad thing. Too much of it is, but I hardly see it from you.

I do restrict myself. Theres plenty of times when walking or riding with some friends and we get into some discussion that arent exactly kid friendly, and usually we are in a neighborhood, and some kids are out playing. I stop talking about the subject and tell my friend to stop so they dont have to hear about any of the stuff we are talking about.

OT - I had 5 pulled out at once, then a performance the next night. It was fun.

Would anyone be offended if the act put up a BIG banner saying:

[SIZE=“7”]BONG HITS FOR JESUS[/SIZE]

?

Hey Jonny. I am looking forward to seeing you again at NAUCC. But I would caution you to remember that it is more about the riding than the music. Don’t get me wrong. I am all for offending people when they need offending. But there is no sense in offending people unnecessarily.

We sort of went through the same thing in our family recently. Last year, my son Christopher won his school talent show with a unicycling routine. This year he was disqualified because his music was offensive. He did “White and Nerdy” by Weird Al.