Those who know me will testify that I rarely, if ever, use profanity in my day-to-day speech. (Okay, when I ran the record label there was that one staff meeting when I called that guy an *******, but at the time he really was acting like an ******* and I was merely articulating a consensus view for the purposes of team-building.)

If “Using Profanity” was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, I’d be feeling pretty good about myself right now. Sadly, it’s not. In fact, I just googled “Seven Deadly Sins” – Expletive Hurling is nowhere on the list, and of the Seven that are, I’m pretty sure I’ve broken them all in the last thirty six hours.

I mention this as a way of easing into a potentially controversial topic in some circles regarding the Blue Like Jazz movie…

The screenwriting software I use has a feature called “profanity statistics” wherein all the expletives in a screenplay are magically counted and displayed in a tally. While the CussCount™ for Blue Like Jazz is lower than Al Pacino’s shootout scene in Scarface, it is considerably higher than all the Pixar movies combined.

For most of you reading this – No Big Deal. You assume that a movie set on the “most godless campus in America” is going to contain some measure of “language.” You don’t want it to be gratuitous, like that final shootout scene in Scarface (although who among us can judge what’s gratuitous when we’re riddled with bullets and high on cocaine?). But you expect, in a movie like ours, to hear a certain number of ****s, ****s, ***es, and possibly even the judicious use of ******* when spoken solely as an adjective.

But there are others of you who question the need for any profanity in Blue Like Jazz. After all, there isn’t any in the book, right? Aren’t there plenty of other movies set on college campuses that are good, clean fun for the whole family?

Good points all. While it’s true that the book managed to skirt the issue via Don’s first person narrative, our movie unfolds in dialogue, not voiceover. And yes, there are plenty of college-set movies you can take the kids to, although I believe most were filmed in black and white and include Flubber in the title.

For those who take issue with this news, please know that I’m sympathetic to your concerns. We, the screenwriters, really wrestled with the issue, and while our hope is that we’ve struck an appropriate balance, we suspect that when the movie’s released, your complaints about too much bad language will be countered by those who wanted more.

In the meantime, we offer this olive branch to fans wanting the language scrubbed: We’re open to your suggestions. Really. Please post a reply with your favorite non-curse word or phrase, use it in a sentence, and we’ll try out the best ones as alternate takes.

And for all you merry pranksters who might be tempted to lace your reply with expletives – don’t be an ******.