Read the column online.
A brick – the Junk the Funk award – to the aesthetic champions of Leucadia who can't seem to resist the adjective funky to define the Encinitas community's character.
Look, I'm also guilty of using the slang term as a label for dilapidated grandeur, the sort of hippie unpretension Californians love to Haight, so to speak.
A quick database search shows I've used the word, especially to express affection for little Ponto, the tiny coastal hamlet north of Leucadia that's slated for the wrecking ball.
During a Wednesday meeting to plan a new and improved “streetscape” for Leucadia, a consultant from Solana Beach and an Encinitas councilwoman both employed funky to evoke Leucadia's artistic soul.
Enough is enough.
I'm advocating a moratorium on a word that means, in its first definition, moldy or smelly. In the '50s, that earthy definition morphed into a style of blues music with a fashionable sexy swing.
While funky is often used in a positive sense – as in casual, free, easy – I'd suggest that Leucadia shouldn't aspire to be funky (i.e., down to smelly earth) so much as authentic.
A clean '55 Chevy, for example, is hardly funky. It's cool, but not funky.
More than more funk, Leucadia needs its house pride stoked. It needs new trees to replace its signature eucalyptus on Highway 101. To slow traffic, it might look to Bird Rock's roundabouts for inspiration.
But down-and-dirty funk? Who needs it?
Throw it in with the dirty socks.
BLOG REBUTTAL: In my opinion Keep Leucadia Funky is a great town slogan. Most cities would kill for such marketing. Yes, funky rhymes with junky which is a shame and some people associate the word funky with smell but in the context of Leucadia, funky means eclectic and groovy and offbeat and cool and non-corporate. Keep Leucadia Eclectic sounds too yuppie and Keep Leucadia Unique sounds wimpy so the KLF will continue. In 2006 I wrote a blog post very similar to Logan's column asking if the word Funky was serving us well. I've since come full circle and have embraced it again. It's a local thing and I don't think folks are too concerned if outsiders don't get it. I don't see people peeling their KLF stickers off their cars anytime soon.
Examples of why the word Funky is a positive thing:
BeFunky.com Cartoonizer
Flickr.com Funky Photos Cluster.
James Brown "Ain't it Funky Now", Paris 1971
Logan uses a 1955 Chevy as an example, citing that a clean '55 Chevy is not funky. This is true! However, a rat rod primer gray '55 Chevy is funky.
NOT FUNKY.
FUNKY!
Leucadia Blog: Leucadia: funky, groovy, classic...home.
Leucadia Blog: What is the Funky anyway?
Funky would be a roundabout at La Costa with a statue of our beloved Fred Caldwell in the center.
ReplyDeleteOh no, not this funky bullshit again, just fix up the stupid town.
ReplyDeleteI don't care for the so called Leucadia slogan myself I prefer eclectic to funky. Besides the slogan was created by some guy who just arrived in town who made some stickers and passed them around at a taste of Leucadia night. I see it as just corny and demeaning. Some trees more sidewalks and some tender loving care and we'll shine like an eclectic new dime.
ReplyDeleteKeep Logan Jenkins out of Leucadia!
ReplyDeleteStay off my lawn.
ReplyDeleteI know who you are 8:57. Knock it off.
ReplyDeleteI too was growing tired of the phrase until Logan's article. And as much as I have agreed with him in the past, and as much as he helped restore the 101 sheild to our historic hwy, I beg to differ.
And as usual, JP's comments and pictures capture the essence. I leave you all now with these written words of wisdom:
Gotta make a move to a
Town that's right for me
Town to keep me movin'
Keep me groovin' with some energy
Well, I talk about it
Talk about it
Talk about it
Talk about it
Talk about, Talk about
Talk about movin
Gotta move on
Gotta move on
Gotta move on
Won't you take me to
Funkytown
Won't you take me to
Funkytown
Won't you take me to
Funkytown
Won't you take me to
Funkytown
Gotta make a move to a
Town that's right for me
Town to keep me movin'
Keep me groovin' with some energy
Well, I talk about it
Talk about it
Talk about it
Talk about it
Talk about, Talk about
Talk about movin
Gotta move on
Gotta move on
Gotta move on
Won't you take me to
Funkytown
Won't you take me to
Funkytown
Won't you take me to
Funkytown
Won't you take me to
Funkytown
I too, do not believe that 'Funky' is what I want Leucadia to be. Eclectic, rural, quaint, historical, unique, picturesque all portray what we want without the negative connotation of some awful smell. I like funky music.
ReplyDeleteThe guy who made the sticker left town. I do not see Leucadia being the 'funky' music funky. Leucadia is way too white.
I vote for eclectic. This says what we wish to keep without the negative meaning.
An eclectic flavor sound so much more appetizing than a funky flavor.
If I read that the workshops goals were funky, it would not sound good and,as 9:50 says, demeaning.
I like Bob Jenkins.
Bob, do you like anything?
new slogan:
ReplyDeleteRedevelop Leucadia Now
BOB, just fix up the stupid town!!!
ReplyDeleteAdj. 1. funky - offensively malodorous; "a foul odor"; "the kitchen smelled really funky"
ReplyDeletefetid, foetid, foul-smelling, ill-scented, smelly, stinking, noisome, foul
ill-smelling, malodorous, malodourous, stinky, unpleasant-smelling - having an unpleasant smell
2. funky - (of jazz) having the soulful feeling of early blues
low-down
jazz - a genre of popular music that originated in New Orleans around 1900 and developed through increasingly complex styles
emotional - of more than usual emotion; "his behavior was highly emotional"
3. funky - stylish and modern in an unconventional way; "she likes funky clothes"; "we did it all in black and white in a very funky sixties style"
unconventional - not conventional or conformist; "unconventional life styles"
4. funky - in a state of cowardly fright
cowardly, fearful - lacking courage; ignobly timid and faint-hearted; "cowardly dogs, ye will not aid me then"- P.B.Shelley
Maybe # 3, but the main definition is not a good thing.
Funky is one of the most complex words in the urban language. Means BOTH exceptionally good and extremely bad.
ReplyDeletePlayer: “Check out my funky new FUBU Gear”
Player hater: “All I know is YOUR breath is funky”
Just fix it up and make it artsy and eclectic.
ReplyDeleteLeucadia- The Art and Soul of Encinitas!
Keep Leucadia Soulful.
ReplyDeleteI think that's what we really want. Mom & Pops, one off, finger-lickin, original, sultry, sexy, built to last, easy, cool...soulful.
Yeh, baby.
I saw "rural" up there somewhere. How can you be rural an urban at the same time?
ReplyDeleteAlthough I live in Cardiff, I have to agree, I love funky. Soulful seems too sad to me. Art and Soul is good, but maybe too lengthy. Funky is a slogan that sticks. It is like a good wine. Complex and simple, as is Leucadia.
ReplyDeleteJudging from Logan Jenkins photo I say he is funky looking in the bad way. If he grew a beard and got some cool Elvis Costello glasses he might be funky in the good way.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you want a slogan that requests keeping Leucadia smelling bad. Note: Perhaps that's why they've cut down all the trees - i.e., to accentuate the stinkiness.
ReplyDeleteI met those two guys who were passing out the "Keep Leucadia Funky" stickers, and one in particular, Peter, even showed up at Papa Gus', (before it was Mozy's), and he showed us computer print outs, with nice little graphics, and a real cute sales pitch about "fixing up Leucadia" via... a Redevelopment District. "But we can still keep it Funky", he promised. Peter also claimed that he and his friend just thought of the phrase one night and decided to make hundreds stickers out of the goodness of their hearts. "This is our gift to the community", he gushed.
ReplyDeleteRight.
As the weeks passed and the articles in the paper began to appeared suggesting Leucadia was "blighted", we formed a group to stop this, and Peter came to one of our meetings. It was obvious that someone had coached him on what to say. I knew he was a mole for sure the day he called me up and asked me to meet with some business owners who also were boosters for an RDA.
When the city council passed on the ridiculous idea, Peter and his friend vanished. Maybe they are in Folsom now with Kerry Miller, eh?
Whatever. It's become an iconic phrase, and I agree with JP. It's OK, I'm used to it. At least it's not as pathetic as the phrase Christy Guerrin liked:
"Encinitas Rocks!"
One of the few times I've disagreed with JP I painted over the funky on my Leucadia licence plate. There's just something "funky "about a guy who's just blowing thru town coining our slogan, where's the soul in that? I like eclectic it doesn't say James Brown and it doesn't say Wllmart or Nordstroms either.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I saw the phrase Keep Leucadia Funky it was scrawled into the sandstone bluff down at Stone Steps when I little kid in the 70's and it stuck with me. In high school I printed Die Yuppie Scum and Keep Leucadia Funky bumper stickers in Mr. Rage's screen printing class at San Dieguito high school in the 80's. Friends of mine who remembered those stickers asked if I made the die cut KLF stickers that surfaced a few years ago but I wasn't sure where they came from. Then I heard that a guy from Hawaii had made them.
ReplyDeleteI like the KLF motto but I'm not going to ram it down anyone's throat, if some of you don't like it that is cool with me.
KLF??? Just fix the damn town!!
ReplyDeletea-ha! Thanks JP, I knew those guys weren't that original! Same story with the guy who ran the "Surf*Guitars" place at the bottom of Grandview a few years ago. He claimed he'd invented the phrase "Rat Fink" and then was astounded when Big Daddy Roth's lawyers called him on his BS, and told him to knock it off.
ReplyDeleteYou just keep on ramming J.P. Most of us love it. And if you don't, TFB. Did Mrs. Rage rage at you too, by any chance? I had to see Dr. Lori about it. I still have trauma over several classes at San Dieguito, before it was a fancy Academy, whatever that is. Keep on blogging.
ReplyDeleteHey, I like the phrase. I like the license plates holders, the stickers.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't like it, ignore it. You don't own this town. Go print some Keep Leucadia Eclectic bumper stickers, and see how far that goes.
This is not a gated community.
Who gives a damn who created the phrase... Just fix the Damn town!!!
ReplyDeleteFRED- checked with Peltz they will have plans with the RR right of way clearly marked. Also, city is having the right of way staked out for the citizen walk on Saturday.
ReplyDelete