I keep seeing this dancing stick figure on bumper stickers with a single word: “Fukengrüven”. I know it’s a mock-Teutonic spelling of a vulgar phrase, but what the heck is the referent? What’s the point of it?
Usually when I see something I don’t recognize, I can search for it on the internet and find a FAQ or at least some elucidation. But searching for “Fukengrüven” leaves me as much in the dark as ever. The way it’s used on the internet gives no idea of what it’s about. Will somebody let me in on the joke?
You couldn’t find it because you mispelled it! It’s “Fahrvergnuegen” or “Fahrvergnügen”. It’s a made-up german word that Volkswagen used in their ad campaigns a few years back. It’s a compound word (you know how germans love their compound words) Fahr = Driving, and Vergnügen = pleasure. Kind of a silly campaign if you ask me. I doubt they used it in Germany.
I’ve seen similar bumper stickers, but the ones I saw read “funkengrueven” and had a line drawing (similar, I think to some that VW may have used in ads) of a person, uh, grooving to the funk.
“Fukengrüven” stickers are a play on the Volkswagen “Fahrvergnügen” campaign. They are generally seen on vehicles belonging to fans of “jam” bands-- Phish, Grateful Dead, Blues Traveller, and the like. (There’s a whole subculture of such stickers, especially with Phish fans. “Antelope crossing” signs, white ovals with “YEM” in block letters, and the Hood Dairy logo are all Phish-related stickers one periodically sees on our nation’s highways and byways. They’re Generation X’s answer to the Deadhead’s “dancing bears” stickers.)
As ishmintingas deduced, when pronounced, the terms is “fuckin’ groovin’” or “dancing to the groove” that such bands tend to get into.
I’ve always thought that it must be tough for the uninitiated at a Phish show. You’ll see just about every corporate logo you’ve ever seen corrupted to include the name of a Phish song. My favorite is still the John Deere/Antelope logo: “Nothing Runs Like An Antelope”.
The tradition does go back to the Dead. I can remember being very young (6 or 7) and seeing someone in a Mountain Dew T-shirt, except that it said “Morning Dew” instead. It was probably 10 or 12 years after that before I heard the song, and said, “Oh! That’s it!”
I think the first and still most famous such shirt is the old Miller Lite logo–Bass Great, Lesh Philling.
By the way, the best shirt on the Phish lot this summer featured the Comic Book Store Guy from the Simpsons wearing a T-shirt that said, “Worst Show Ever”. I believe Trey was even seen in one.
Okay, the day after I read your post I saw a Red VW Microbus (shades of Arlo Guthrie) with Farfig-something on the rear window off the side of I-430. Was that you? Did I miss helping a stranded Doper? My Wife was driving anyway. She is from New York and would have thought it a trap set by muggers.
Actually, about 8 years ago, I asked a German exchange student what it meant, and he said “Extreme pleasure from driving.”
Personally, I prefer the Fukengrüven myself. Used to have it on my VW Bus. Natch. **
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Yes, in German there are few constraints on creating new compounds, so that a word like Fahrvergnügen is not only not incorrect but is immediately understandable. Not that I have ever heard it in my 9 years in Germany, except I belive once in a discussion about the Volkswagen ad campaign. But other words that I will create for you right now would be just as valid: “Rauchvergnügen” (pleasure through smoking) “Schlafvergnügen” (through sleeping) “Musikvergnügen” (you figure that one out for yourselves).
No, that wasn’t me. Mine was a '78 Campervan, deep brown (named “Snuffeluffabus”). And this was a few years ago. And I’ve got no clue as to what part of the country I-430 is even in.
