David Lee Roth "Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody"

It's probably been a long time since you've seen the video for David Lee Roth's "Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody."  You might as well watch it first, since it's certainly going to be the most entertaining part of this otherwise shaggy dog post:


See the video on Youtube.

If you remember the video, you probably remember the busty girls or the celebrity impersonators or Dave's particular, peculiar dance moves.

But I wanted to focus on the preamble scene.  The one that takes place on the set of the Cable Channel that "Dave" is the host of.

As Dave is approached by a collection of very, very surreal character actors, one of them (at the :45 mark) says, "You've got charaassma!"

He doesn't pronounce it correctly.

CharISma.

He makes it rhyme with the respiratory condition, asthma.

CharASma.

This song and video came out in 1985, which means I was 16 at the time.  Basically, I was the target audience of this video.

And I loved it.  All of it.

But for some reason, I really thought "CharASma" was hilarious.  So much so, that I started saying it myself.

At first, I'd just use it the way you'd use any movie quote.  The video was ubiquitous enough at the time, that peers would know the reference.

Then I started saying it any time the word "charisma" would happen into a sentence.  I'd just substitute "charASma" in, but I'd say it in a BIG way.  You know, to be ironic.

Then I just started pronoucing the word "charASma."  I mean, even when I wasn't trying to be funny or weird or pop-culturally clever.

To the point where I kinda forgot that the word was actually pronouced "charISma."

This transformation took place over the course of a couple of years, so it had reached the point where mispronouncing "charisma" was a habit I had to break.

I finally did get a handle on it, and after a few months of consciously thinking about it, I no longer had to pause and try to remember, "What's the correct way to say it?  CharISma or CharASma?"

And thus concludes the longest, lamest and least boob-related story about how a David Lee Roth video warped a teenagers brain.