The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 15

THE SUN Personalities Movies Television Comics SECTION -MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1991 Music review Oi! This Rap is Way Rad A crash course In youth terminology J' Go! ft on' lo noM-' Bonnie Raltt: a modem rocker. CHRIS CARROLL Bonnie Raitt turns up the energy level at Merriweather show SLANGUAGE You can't speak a language if you don't know what the words mean, so what follows Is a brief introduction to the Dude, Rap and Brit slang vocabularies. DUDE: Language of the Southern California party culture. Typical movie: "Bill Ted's Bogus Journey." Typical music-Van Halen, Motley Crue, Aerosmith. Dudel: "Hello." Dude: "Guy." Babe: "Girl." Buds: "Close friends." Rad: Superlative, from "radical." Way rad: "Extremely cool." Weak: "Uncool." Skanky: Chill: "Hang out." Latronic: "See you later." Clean: "Very attractive." Fully edged: "Really angry." Amped: "Excited." Party onl: "Keep at It." Tunes: "Music," specifically rock music.

Fundage: "Cash." Grindage: "Food" Mack, mack out: "Eat heartily." Brew-ha: "Beer." RAP: Language of the hip-hop nation. Typical movie: "Boyz the Hood." Typical music: L.L Cool De La Soul. Yol: "Hello." "Guy." Also, "gangster." O.G.: "Really tough guy." Homeboy: "Buddy." Literally, "guy from the neighborhood." Homle, homes: "Buddy." As In, "He's myhomie." Posse: Crowd, clique. Dope: Superlative. Fresh: "Cool." Wack: "Uncool, stupid." All that Superlative.

Alt that and a bag of chips: Intenslfier for "all that." Crib: "Home." Hood: "Neighborhood." Living large: "Doing well financially." Fat "Has money." Also, "impressive." Flex: "Give attitude." Fly: "Very stylish." Gat "Gun." Old "Beer." Freak: "Horny person (either sex)." Nasty: "Sexy." Knock boots: "Have sex." Jimmy hat, jim hat "Condom." BRIT: Adopted language of the American rock underground. Typical movie: "The Commitments." Typical music: Happy Mondays, EMF. Oil: "Hello." Bloke: "Guy." Dolly: "Girl." Deadly: "Really cool." Naff: "Uncool, corny." Scoop: "Glass of beer." Wally: "Moron." Pull birds: "Pick up girls." Shag, knob or bonk: "Have sex." SUN ILLUSTRATIONANN FEILD By J.D. Considine Sun Pop Music Critic By J.D. Considine Sun Pop Music Critic i At first glance, Saturday night's lineup at the Merriweather Post Pavilion probably looked like some sort of rock and roll revival show.

At one end of the bill was Chris Isaak, whose gold-lame suit and Elvis Presley pompadour seem straight out of the '50s: at the other was Bonnie Raltt, a singer and slide guitarist whose roots remain firmly grounded in pre-rock blues and Yet for all their traditionalist trappings, Raltt and Isaak are thoroughly modern rockers, something Saturday's show made eminently obvious. Isaak for Instance, may dress the part of a rockabilly icon, but he refuses to play like a purist, and that keeps his music from succumbing to cliche. Isaak and his SIl-vertones basically do only two songs a slow one and a fast one but do both well enough that It's hard to hold that limitation against them. For one thing, Isaak's slow songs are like no other; with their slow, brooding pulse, eerie, atmospheric guitar and haunting, mournful vocals, tunes like "Wicked Game" or "Heart Shaped World" convey a sense of heartbreak with uncanny accuracy. Still, as much as fans cheered "Wicked what really got them going was when Isaak brought out sax maniac Johnny Reno, and led his band through a series of up-tempo ravers like Do Dlddley's "Diddley Daddy." Mood may sell records, but it's the big beat that moves a crowd.

Just ask Bonnie Raitt. Although the basic form of Saturday's show Is similar to the set she offered last year See MUSIC, 3C, Col. 1 ude! I gotta comedy wood, chillirV ma-jor!" says comedian Pauly Shore, to enormous applause. It's one of the first things you hear on his new album, "The Future of America," and If you're fluent In Dude, plays this language gap as generational "I don't want to bum you out," he tells the older members of his audience, "but I'm the future of America" which it surely is. After all, how many people over 30 are fluent in Dude? And Dude is not the only new "slanguage" to become part of youth culture communication.

Rap slang is also bustin' out everywhere, as homies drop the latest dope Jams on their boom-in' systems (that is, as people play the latest rap hits on their stereos). Even the latest Brit slang a favorite of punters and posers (rock fans and would-be hipsters) since the days of the Beatles is taking on new life. Today's youth slang works a little differently than that of the past, however. Slang used to be a sort of private code, with the latest lingo known only to a handful of hipsters. But these newcomers Dude, Rap and Brit are media-disseminated, spreading the word through albums, movies and television.

Dude, for instance, was originally the local dialect of Valley Kids and young Los Angelenos. See SLANG, 3C. Col. 3 you understand that he's saying he has a lot of jokes In store. But If you're not fluent In Dude If you think "chlllin' ma-Jor" means Shore hasn't dressed warmly enough perhaps you ought to read on.

For Instance, this is Shore's Dude-speak version of a parent telling the kids it's time for bed: "Look at you crusty dudes, chillln'. You're burnt and I'm edged, so if you don't cruise upstairs pronto, I'm gonna snap into my own and I'm 'onna tweak you in the melons." (Translation: "Look, you kids are tired, and I'm getting mad. So get to bed before I start knocking Shore, both on MTV and in his nightclub act, ART REVIEW f. ABSTRACT IMAGES IN BENETTON ADS EVOKE STRONG REACTIONS By Genevieve Buck Chicago Tribune Chicago A newborn baby with its umbilical cord still attached, a priest and a nun kissing, an angelic-looking white child hugging a black child with a semblance of horns, leaves floating In a sea of oil, a zebra and a parrot, and a roll of white-toilet paper are the six Images that form Benetton's fall advertising campaign. Forget about the leaves, the zebra with the parrot and even the toilet paper for the time being.

It's the baby and those cute kids that are bringing the bags of mall to Benetton's headquarters and causing Its 800 number to go bonkers. And who knows what might happen when Rolling Stone's November issue comes out with the priest and nun kissing. But, then, Polling Stone's audience might not object at all to what Benetton describes as something "not intended as a controversial scandal but rather the affirmation of pure human sentiment" But, some people who have seen the newborn ad In the August Issues of Self and Vogue and the little girl and boy ad In the August Issues of Parenting and Seuenleen are indeed objecting. At this point, it's the newborn that's most controversial. "Disgusting" Is the word used most often by those who've been calling and writing to express their views about the photo of the newborn, according to Peter Fressola, director of communications at Benetton of North America in New York City.

"And I find that very curious. I can respect the opinions of those who say the photo is not appropriate because childbirth is a private affair. But, the miracle See ADS, 8C, Col. 1 1 TV REVIEW Fine acting, script lift 'Crazy From the Heart' above expectations By David Zurawik Sun TV Critic There's a man. There's a woman.

There's passion between them. But the whole damn world says no, no, no to their relationship. Whatever will become of them and their love? It's an old, old, old formula at the center of "Crazy From the Heart," a made-for-cable movie premlering at 8 tonight on TNT. But with Christine Lahtl and Ruben Blades as the unlikely lovers and a script that says some of the smartest things ever said on TV about racism, old is good. "Crazy From the Heart" Is Involving, uplifting and wise.

It's one of the best made-for-TV movies of the year. Lahtl plays Charlotte Bain, a white high school principal headed for assistant superintendent of the whole district. She's on the fast track in Tidewater, a Actional Texas town where class and racial distinctions still are strictly observed. Blades plays Ernesto Ontlveros, a Mexican-American who owns a small ranch that has fallen on hard times. To try to save the ranch, he takes a Job as Janitor at Charlotte's high school.

It's clear that there is something happening from their first meeting when he arrives at her office to fix the toilet in her private bathroom. Yes, there is a bit of the old D.H. Lawrence lady-and-the-handyman business going on. But the film goes beyond that. "Crazy From the Heart" constantly hooks you with a familiar situation, but then goes on to make you see people in new-ways.

Initially, it looks as if the film Is going to stumble into the arguably sexist rut of showing us a successful career woman, but then telling us how unhappy she is because she's uptight and doesn't have a real man. It also looks as If the film is headed for the arguably racist rut of suggesting that persons of color are somehow more In touch with the rhythms of nature. Stay with "Crazy From the Heart" through those early moments, because the payoffs are great. Great acting by Lahtl and Blades. Great minor characters In Tomas Ontlveros (Tommy Munlz), Ernesto's father, and Dewey Whltcomb (William Russ), as the high school coach without passion who wants to marry Charlotte.

Great wisdom. Great heart. THE SUNPAUL H. HUTCHINS JR. 1 "Time," by Moe Turner.

Some artists venture beyond dance cliches at Life of Maryland show By JohnDorsey Sun Art Critic Degas made great art out of dance pictures, but there are not many artists like Degas. And so an exhibit titled "Art of the Dance," at a gallery known for its conservatism, sounds like a prescription for cliches. But that isn't completely the case at the Life of Maryland Gallery's newly opened show (through Oct. 25). It's true that most of these dance-inspired works are more or less traditional, and some of the selections are confused, amateurish or just plain boring.

But others, even if not stunningly new, can be admired on their own terms. Among the artists who stand out in this group show Is Douglas Hofmann. Though his smaller lithographs are pleasant but not special, two of his larger ones excel. "Dancing at Dusk" and "Before the Ballet," are endowed with a lovely soft light, a feeling for space, and realistic detail down to the grain of the floorboards and the transparency of a skirt with the dancer's leg and a chair leg showing through the material. These are sensitive as well as technically accomplished.

John Ebersberger's charcoal drawings "The Dancer" See ART, 8C, Col. 6 -tV I BENETTON One ad shows an angei-llke white child and a black child with hair shaped like horns. People magazine picks 1991's sexiest man alive. Names and Faces, 2QD Redemption reignsras summer's top movie theme 3C..