Waz

Waz is a very specialized term that I came up with in high school, originally to describe the effects of a cat tranquilizer called Ketamine, which is not fun at all, but not so completely lacking in fun that you wouldn't do it again so you could go ahead and not have a good time on Ketamine as an exciting change of pace from just not having a good time, which is pretty much what high school is all about.

It soon became clear that there are a large number of very common activities in life that are exactly as fun as ingesting a bunch of cat tranquilizers and sitting around not having a very good time. Relationships, for instance. And watching movies about superheroes. Waz was much more than a piece of druggie jargon that only made sense to me, my friends, and a generation of house cats—it was a vital piece of emotional vocabulary that had been mysteriously omitted from the list of descriptive terms we're expected to use to describe what kind of a time we're having. Like leaving "red" off the color wheel. For instance:

Girlfriend: Was that as good for you as it was for me?
Me: It was pretty fucking waz, actually.
Girlfriend: Well, that's the last time I take you to watch a movie about a superhero.

So imagine my relief this week when I learned that they've come out with a feature film about waz. They've got a Flash website and everything. The tagline is "What Would it Take to Make You Kill the One You Love?" Since we all know that the answer to that question is "A seven layer burrito and a coupon for a free Journey ringtone of my choice," it's pretty clear that the geniuses who crafted this rich filmic experience have a firm grasp of what's waz and what's not waz.

The poster for this movie, which depicts a woman who has accidentally covered the non-disfigured side of her disfigured face with the hood of an anorak, shows us that the graphic designer was not afraid to use the Greek symbol for the letter "d" to replace the only vowel in the only word in the movie's title (knowing that he could just write it out below in capital letters, thereby negating and undermining the entirety of his role in designing a graphic for the title in the first place), and also that the film stars Hollywood leading lady Selma Blair—two powerful indications that not only will the uncompromising auteurs behind this cinematic event depict waz experiences to their viewers, but they will also ensure that their viewers experience waz for themselves. Much like how the guys who made A Thin Red Line showed countless moviegoers that war is dreary and monotonous by making their movie 13 hours long and completely impossible to watch without the aid of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The Waz official movie site, which I encourage everyone to check out, has a "storyboard" section which shows many of the waz moments that putative viewers can expect during the film. After ravenously devouring every element of this storyboard, I have decided that I will not be watching this movie in theaters, but as soon as it is released for rental, my cat and I intend to cook up a vial of Ketamine, pop the DVD in the player, and rate it on a scale of 1 to waz. I'll let you know the results in a few months.

I'm also told that in the UK, "waz" is used to mean "urinate".