The "Cha" Game
posted August 20, 2009 - 2:08pmIt is always a challenge explaining “Cha” to a neophyte.
“It’s a linguistics game,” I tell the uninitiated. “Originated by a childhood friend of mine to compensate for a hyper-corrective teacher.”
&ldquo What?”
Usually my explanation only obfuscates matters further. People wonder why I would mock the behavior of a child, at which point I present a biographical overview of Dave, figuring his story will entertain them and capture their imaginations.
Son of a La Jolla neurologist. Bright mind, wonderful imagination, incredibly gifted.
Tormented by peer pressure and teen anxiety. An early practitioner of the gentle art of verbal self defense. He developed and nurtured his skills in dramatic confrontations with his authority figures.
This deep background on the “Cha” game overwhelms simpler minds, adding up to information overload. But I have discovered that the story offers intrigue and revelation to others. Those who realize its value beyond that of a prankster’s pique will probe further into Cha’s origins, taking a deeper interest in those who play the game.
Cha is self-revealing. It serves as window to one’s underlying thoughts, a barometer of subconscious weather patterns. I believe the Cha is an effective litmus test for intelligence and creative thinking. But it also flies over a lot of heads. No two people’s responses are ever quite the same.
I told my friend Matt’s new girlfriend, Genevieve, that “Cha” is similar to other games she may have played as a young girl. “Have you and your friends ever said the same word simultaneously, then raced to say “Jinx?” Have you ever lead someone astray mentally, only to yell, “Psych?” It is like that. Nothing more than intellectual sparring really, an attempt to control a conversation and lead it in specific directions, if for no other reason than brief gratification of the wits.
Geneveve was obviously curious about her new boyfriend. So complex and fascinating, so wonderfully mysterious. Part of the initial stages of infatuation is the thrill of discovering the character of a fresh partner, learning to understand him from the inside, then premeditating his thoughts and actions based on specific details garnered from probing his psyche. She wanted to understand this “Cha” thing and place it in its proper context, I could tell.
Matt explained how “Cha” has become an international phenomenon, taking root during one of his international surf trips, in the competitive broth of Madeira ’s surf breaks. The Australians picked up on it immediately and employed it to perfection. A mate who talked incessantly about his girlfriend back home was asked, “What was the name of your sister again?”
It was a means of familiarity, a polite way of declaring that they knew you well enough to poke a little fun of you. Of course they understood the guy wasn't talking about his sister. Then again, maybe they were implying that he manifested inbred traits. To the quick minded, the “Cha” game perpetuates dialogue, opening up caverns of conversational possibilities. It can be mildly insulting or slightly risque. Like double entendre, it left a wide back door for quick escape from the faux pas or Freudian slip.
Geneveve still didn’t quite understand, but I could see by the look in her eyes that her curiosity was stimulated. She seemed to be an open-minded sort of hippie girl. Matt met her while she was working at the Newbreak Coffee House down the street. She had ignored his come ons for several weeks -- clever little quips about this and that, ruminations about art and music, Freemasons, conspiracies, the news, the weather.
When Matt discovered that Genevieve’s paintings graced the walls, he bought one and told her where he had hanged it, describing his garden, his cats and his other objets d’art. The little honey bee couldn’t resist the sweet fragrance of nectar emanating from Matt’s lyrical tongue. The seduction was set.
Genevieve was napping the rainy Saturday afternoon I stopped by to visit. I had been in La Jolla , celebrating my Grandfather’s 89th birthday at Jud’s new chateau, a cottage on Eads Avenue , next to the Dick’s Liquor parking lot. I wanted Matt to meet my puppy. He wanted me to meet Genevieve. Both were tired so we took a walk.
There is a little known stretch of boardwalk that leads south, under the Ocean Beach pier and around the cliffs, where older apartment buildings perch precariously on eroding slabs of concrete. The police rarely round the corner, because homeless people camp out there, smoking reefer and dealing drugs. A misfortunate clan of conservative out-of-towners made the mistake of entering into this domain of vagabonds and rapscallions and were rudely met with pleas for spare change. The father was Eddie Bauer from head to toe, right off the country club greens. The mother looked to be a former sorority princess, coif full of hair spray, finger nails immaculately done. The children were well groomed and shiny like Cocker Spaniel puppies, following obediently behind their parents. Didn’t they notice the man with the tattoos and the filthy jeans, supine in the ice plant? They must have missed the "scary vagrant" with the dreadlocks and the long dirty overcoat, zig-zagging up the pavement from soul to soul, trying to bum a cigarette. When they reached the nose-pierced, reefer-smoking punks, the sheepish dad shielded his wife and kids and herded them back towards the beach.
Matt was oblivious to the surroundings, all light and airy in the head as he talked about his coffee shop artist girl. We passed through the seedy crowd and walked upstairs and out onto the O.B. pier, him talking, me listening. I sensed a ripe opportunity for a cha.
The opportunity came when conversation turned to my dog. Matt was starting to annoy me with comments about the dog’s name. “Why Ebon? What does Ebon mean?” I told him it was “bone,” spelled backwards. He pondered it for a moment before attempting to correct me. He never saw it coming.
“CHA!”
The word struck like lightning, reverberating off the interior of his thunderstruck skull like a scornful interior echo, the bitter sting slowly fading into his heart. I have worn those shoes, I too have felt that verbal slap, and I know that the first order of recovery is to imediately scheme and plot one’s revenge. The Cha is a two way street, and a truck full of retribution had just proceeded up its onramp and into the foremost thoughts riding upon Matt’s brow.
For the rest of the day, he was determined get me back, but my guard was up. Each feeble cha attempt was boldly met with a counter cha. Later at Matt’s, after I met Genevieve and we were all sitting around the table, his competitive urges persisted, and I felt obliged to explain the strange goings-on to the doe-eyed ingenue.
I remember trying to explain “Cha” to another of Matt’s girlfriends, Noelle. She showed little patience or interest in the game. In fact she was contemptuous of the whole affair.
Things were strange that one particular evening a year before. Noelle was in one of those moods that eventually destroyed the relationship. I think her anger grew from a frustration with Matt’s behavior. She had grown irritable and critical of Matt following several ongoing disagreements. The two became argumentative. Noelle’s comments began rolling like rain off a duck’s feathers, and to further deflect her barbs, Matt began a masterful deployment of Chas. We were laughing, but Noelle was practically in tears. Out of pity, I attempted to explain the game and arm her with the ability to counter cha.
I set Noelle up with several prime examples, gave her a crash course in “Cha” strategy and insisted that the best defense was a good offense. Her attempts were meek and miscalculated. When Matt rejected her suggestion to go see a movie, she snidely uttered “Cha,” and got up to leave, slamming the back door.
Genevieve’s approach was markedly different. “What does `Cha’ mean?” she asked, searching for the word’s etymological origins.
“Cha comes from an old television ad,” I explained. “A pitch for Gravy Train brand dog food, in which a diminutive horse driver steers his miniature covered wagon across a kitchen floor, shouting “Cha, Chuckwagon” to his horse team as he leads the household dog in a hunger-induced stampede to the cupboard. The original phrase was later truncated.
“Gravy Train?” said Matt. “I thought it was an ad for Alpo.” I danced around his transparent trap like an elated gypsy, smiling as I stuttered an exaggerated CH sound. “Chi-chi-chi-chi- chaaaah.” The word leaked out of my mouth with the hiss of a deflated tire, the hiss of a deflated cha attempt.
Genevieve was a Cha innocent. To cha her would be like spearing Garibaldi at the La Jolla Cove. But her time would come. I told her that if she could cha Matt in the meantime, she would earn his unswerving respect and awe. That after all, is the true right of initiation for any Cha practitioner. And to continue to hone one’s skills, exploring the finer nuances and inventing new tactics of deployment, to become a true cha master is to elevate one’s self among a growing domain of worldwide legions.
Yes, it may be a stupid little game, just like “Rock-Paper-Scissors.” But it can also be an endearing sport, a cryptic ticket to the inner circle of the hip. Any way you look at it, it is best to fully appreciate the resources at hand. Like a brick, its value lies in what you make of it.
The most common of primary or basic Chas -- the one most consistently attempted by those still wobbly on their Cha feet -- is the blatantly incorrect proclamation. One’s first attempt will typically develop as follows:
Cha-er: “You have lipstick marks on your lapel.”
Cha-ee: (Looking in mirror) “No I don’t.”
Cha-er: “Cha!”
In time, the observant and creative Cha neophyte will discover a myriad of cha possibilities, including the following:
The Brand-Name Cha: Having observed your host pour a Coke into a glass, take his offering and sip it. Then reply, “I really don’t care for Pepsi. Do you have any Coca Cola?”
The Homonym Cha: When your conversational partner employs a word or phrase that is similar to another or has two meanings, you respond to the unintended meaning. I.E: logger/lager; burro/ burrow; and one of my favorites: papa don’t preach/papa John Creech.
The Cover-Your- Rear Cha: Amid a social setting, you go out on a limb and make a bold statement. If the response is overwhelmingly condemning or critical, you abandon your position gracefully with a cha. Observe:
Cha-er: “I think O.J. is innocent.”
Cha-ee: “Are you out of your mind? How can you ignore the preponderance of evidence? How could you give any credence to allegations of a police conspiracy? How could you defend an admitted wife-beater?”
Cha-er: “Cha.”
Well, I’m proud to say that Genevieve caught on, and the cha phenomenon soon became de rigeur among her social set, expanding continually outward into ever-larger concentric circles that now span the globe. Matt has written confirmation of chas in Scotland , France , Portugal , the Maldives , Bali and Western Australia .
I wish all those people could have met and known Dave. I wish that Dave could have comprehended the magnitude, the reach and frequency of his adolescent word game.
I still think about those teen-age summer days at Slides, the three of us sitting in the sun throwing rocks at a can, passing the hours with little more than laughter and a few pair of Churchill swim fins. How much would I pay to skakeboard the financial building again, or catamaran down the center of the community concourse with my old school buddy before he went completely insane?
Those are the days of which even the most rich and powerful dream in their fading years – Like Citizen Cane yearning for his beloved rose pedal.
Cha!
“It’s a linguistics game,” I tell the uninitiated. “Originated by a childhood friend of mine to compensate for a hyper-corrective teacher.”
&ldquo What?”
Usually my explanation only obfuscates matters further. People wonder why I would mock the behavior of a child, at which point I present a biographical overview of Dave, figuring his story will entertain them and capture their imaginations.
Son of a La Jolla neurologist. Bright mind, wonderful imagination, incredibly gifted.
Tormented by peer pressure and teen anxiety. An early practitioner of the gentle art of verbal self defense. He developed and nurtured his skills in dramatic confrontations with his authority figures.
This deep background on the “Cha” game overwhelms simpler minds, adding up to information overload. But I have discovered that the story offers intrigue and revelation to others. Those who realize its value beyond that of a prankster’s pique will probe further into Cha’s origins, taking a deeper interest in those who play the game.
Cha is self-revealing. It serves as window to one’s underlying thoughts, a barometer of subconscious weather patterns. I believe the Cha is an effective litmus test for intelligence and creative thinking. But it also flies over a lot of heads. No two people’s responses are ever quite the same.
I told my friend Matt’s new girlfriend, Genevieve, that “Cha” is similar to other games she may have played as a young girl. “Have you and your friends ever said the same word simultaneously, then raced to say “Jinx?” Have you ever lead someone astray mentally, only to yell, “Psych?” It is like that. Nothing more than intellectual sparring really, an attempt to control a conversation and lead it in specific directions, if for no other reason than brief gratification of the wits.
Geneveve was obviously curious about her new boyfriend. So complex and fascinating, so wonderfully mysterious. Part of the initial stages of infatuation is the thrill of discovering the character of a fresh partner, learning to understand him from the inside, then premeditating his thoughts and actions based on specific details garnered from probing his psyche. She wanted to understand this “Cha” thing and place it in its proper context, I could tell.
Matt explained how “Cha” has become an international phenomenon, taking root during one of his international surf trips, in the competitive broth of Madeira ’s surf breaks. The Australians picked up on it immediately and employed it to perfection. A mate who talked incessantly about his girlfriend back home was asked, “What was the name of your sister again?”
It was a means of familiarity, a polite way of declaring that they knew you well enough to poke a little fun of you. Of course they understood the guy wasn't talking about his sister. Then again, maybe they were implying that he manifested inbred traits. To the quick minded, the “Cha” game perpetuates dialogue, opening up caverns of conversational possibilities. It can be mildly insulting or slightly risque. Like double entendre, it left a wide back door for quick escape from the faux pas or Freudian slip.
Geneveve still didn’t quite understand, but I could see by the look in her eyes that her curiosity was stimulated. She seemed to be an open-minded sort of hippie girl. Matt met her while she was working at the Newbreak Coffee House down the street. She had ignored his come ons for several weeks -- clever little quips about this and that, ruminations about art and music, Freemasons, conspiracies, the news, the weather.
When Matt discovered that Genevieve’s paintings graced the walls, he bought one and told her where he had hanged it, describing his garden, his cats and his other objets d’art. The little honey bee couldn’t resist the sweet fragrance of nectar emanating from Matt’s lyrical tongue. The seduction was set.
Genevieve was napping the rainy Saturday afternoon I stopped by to visit. I had been in La Jolla , celebrating my Grandfather’s 89th birthday at Jud’s new chateau, a cottage on Eads Avenue , next to the Dick’s Liquor parking lot. I wanted Matt to meet my puppy. He wanted me to meet Genevieve. Both were tired so we took a walk.
There is a little known stretch of boardwalk that leads south, under the Ocean Beach pier and around the cliffs, where older apartment buildings perch precariously on eroding slabs of concrete. The police rarely round the corner, because homeless people camp out there, smoking reefer and dealing drugs. A misfortunate clan of conservative out-of-towners made the mistake of entering into this domain of vagabonds and rapscallions and were rudely met with pleas for spare change. The father was Eddie Bauer from head to toe, right off the country club greens. The mother looked to be a former sorority princess, coif full of hair spray, finger nails immaculately done. The children were well groomed and shiny like Cocker Spaniel puppies, following obediently behind their parents. Didn’t they notice the man with the tattoos and the filthy jeans, supine in the ice plant? They must have missed the "scary vagrant" with the dreadlocks and the long dirty overcoat, zig-zagging up the pavement from soul to soul, trying to bum a cigarette. When they reached the nose-pierced, reefer-smoking punks, the sheepish dad shielded his wife and kids and herded them back towards the beach.
Matt was oblivious to the surroundings, all light and airy in the head as he talked about his coffee shop artist girl. We passed through the seedy crowd and walked upstairs and out onto the O.B. pier, him talking, me listening. I sensed a ripe opportunity for a cha.
The opportunity came when conversation turned to my dog. Matt was starting to annoy me with comments about the dog’s name. “Why Ebon? What does Ebon mean?” I told him it was “bone,” spelled backwards. He pondered it for a moment before attempting to correct me. He never saw it coming.
“CHA!”
The word struck like lightning, reverberating off the interior of his thunderstruck skull like a scornful interior echo, the bitter sting slowly fading into his heart. I have worn those shoes, I too have felt that verbal slap, and I know that the first order of recovery is to imediately scheme and plot one’s revenge. The Cha is a two way street, and a truck full of retribution had just proceeded up its onramp and into the foremost thoughts riding upon Matt’s brow.
For the rest of the day, he was determined get me back, but my guard was up. Each feeble cha attempt was boldly met with a counter cha. Later at Matt’s, after I met Genevieve and we were all sitting around the table, his competitive urges persisted, and I felt obliged to explain the strange goings-on to the doe-eyed ingenue.
I remember trying to explain “Cha” to another of Matt’s girlfriends, Noelle. She showed little patience or interest in the game. In fact she was contemptuous of the whole affair.
Things were strange that one particular evening a year before. Noelle was in one of those moods that eventually destroyed the relationship. I think her anger grew from a frustration with Matt’s behavior. She had grown irritable and critical of Matt following several ongoing disagreements. The two became argumentative. Noelle’s comments began rolling like rain off a duck’s feathers, and to further deflect her barbs, Matt began a masterful deployment of Chas. We were laughing, but Noelle was practically in tears. Out of pity, I attempted to explain the game and arm her with the ability to counter cha.
I set Noelle up with several prime examples, gave her a crash course in “Cha” strategy and insisted that the best defense was a good offense. Her attempts were meek and miscalculated. When Matt rejected her suggestion to go see a movie, she snidely uttered “Cha,” and got up to leave, slamming the back door.
Genevieve’s approach was markedly different. “What does `Cha’ mean?” she asked, searching for the word’s etymological origins.
“Cha comes from an old television ad,” I explained. “A pitch for Gravy Train brand dog food, in which a diminutive horse driver steers his miniature covered wagon across a kitchen floor, shouting “Cha, Chuckwagon” to his horse team as he leads the household dog in a hunger-induced stampede to the cupboard. The original phrase was later truncated.
“Gravy Train?” said Matt. “I thought it was an ad for Alpo.” I danced around his transparent trap like an elated gypsy, smiling as I stuttered an exaggerated CH sound. “Chi-chi-chi-chi- chaaaah.” The word leaked out of my mouth with the hiss of a deflated tire, the hiss of a deflated cha attempt.
Genevieve was a Cha innocent. To cha her would be like spearing Garibaldi at the La Jolla Cove. But her time would come. I told her that if she could cha Matt in the meantime, she would earn his unswerving respect and awe. That after all, is the true right of initiation for any Cha practitioner. And to continue to hone one’s skills, exploring the finer nuances and inventing new tactics of deployment, to become a true cha master is to elevate one’s self among a growing domain of worldwide legions.
Yes, it may be a stupid little game, just like “Rock-Paper-Scissors.” But it can also be an endearing sport, a cryptic ticket to the inner circle of the hip. Any way you look at it, it is best to fully appreciate the resources at hand. Like a brick, its value lies in what you make of it.
The most common of primary or basic Chas -- the one most consistently attempted by those still wobbly on their Cha feet -- is the blatantly incorrect proclamation. One’s first attempt will typically develop as follows:
Cha-er: “You have lipstick marks on your lapel.”
Cha-ee: (Looking in mirror) “No I don’t.”
Cha-er: “Cha!”
In time, the observant and creative Cha neophyte will discover a myriad of cha possibilities, including the following:
The Brand-Name Cha: Having observed your host pour a Coke into a glass, take his offering and sip it. Then reply, “I really don’t care for Pepsi. Do you have any Coca Cola?”
The Homonym Cha: When your conversational partner employs a word or phrase that is similar to another or has two meanings, you respond to the unintended meaning. I.E: logger/lager; burro/ burrow; and one of my favorites: papa don’t preach/papa John Creech.
The Cover-Your- Rear Cha: Amid a social setting, you go out on a limb and make a bold statement. If the response is overwhelmingly condemning or critical, you abandon your position gracefully with a cha. Observe:
Cha-er: “I think O.J. is innocent.”
Cha-ee: “Are you out of your mind? How can you ignore the preponderance of evidence? How could you give any credence to allegations of a police conspiracy? How could you defend an admitted wife-beater?”
Cha-er: “Cha.”
Well, I’m proud to say that Genevieve caught on, and the cha phenomenon soon became de rigeur among her social set, expanding continually outward into ever-larger concentric circles that now span the globe. Matt has written confirmation of chas in Scotland , France , Portugal , the Maldives , Bali and Western Australia .
I wish all those people could have met and known Dave. I wish that Dave could have comprehended the magnitude, the reach and frequency of his adolescent word game.
I still think about those teen-age summer days at Slides, the three of us sitting in the sun throwing rocks at a can, passing the hours with little more than laughter and a few pair of Churchill swim fins. How much would I pay to skakeboard the financial building again, or catamaran down the center of the community concourse with my old school buddy before he went completely insane?
Those are the days of which even the most rich and powerful dream in their fading years – Like Citizen Cane yearning for his beloved rose pedal.
Cha!
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