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| Country Ain't Country No More |
| 02.22.05 (2:02 pm) [edit] |
I have my own theory for why Hunter S. Thompson killed himself sunday.
He watched the NBA ALL-Star halftime show. The headliner was the country music group "Big & Rich". These newcomers have selfproclaimed themselves as the next generation of the country genre. They even have their own "hip-hoppish" clique called the Muzik-Mafia. The sexy young Gretchen Wilson is part of this "posse". Hot country babe aside, I still think the END is near my friends. Not only was it bad enough to let a country band play a halftime show for a sport whose fanbase majority is african american and holds closer ties to the Rap/ Hip-Hop entertainment world; but Big & Rich went over the line when they added THIS guy to their show:
[image]riverrat338_109323 0098.jpg[/image] ARRRRGGGHHH! That lil fella's got a tight grip!
I've never been a country music fan. I grew up not too far from Nashville in small towns where country was/is king.
But even I was ashamed to see this show. And I'm sure the good doctor HST felt my pain.
If it's any consolation maybe The Geto Boyz can sue Big & Rich for copyright infringement since they've had their own "accessory midget"(and he has one eye) for more than 10 years.
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| Baby Baby Baby |
| 02.18.05 (12:45 pm) [edit] |
Congrats to my evil petting zoo teammates Greg and Jeanine on the birth of their little daughter Maggie this week.
You can read more about her and see photos of her nursery on greg's Foolish Consistency link. Don't forget to look at the eerie mobile video clip.
Greg I tried to find a good audio clip of the looney toons' Drunken Stork but no luck...so I thought I'd share this one with you instead.
http://nonstick.com/sounds/miscellaneous/ ltmi_117.wav" title="http://nonstick.com/sounds/miscellaneous/ ltmi_117.wav" target="_blank"http://nonstick.com/sounds/mi...
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| A Country Boy Can....Be Stupid |
| 02.14.05 (5:32 am) [edit] |
Here's one Scubadiva would probaly like.
This is a true story as recounted to me by a good friend of my dad back home. Keith is one of the guys we duck hunt with each year and he always has some great anecdotes to share. But this one has to do with a very famous...or infamous celebrity.
Hank Williams Jr owns a very nice house up near KY Lake not too far from Paris, Tn. When he's not off making monday night football videos and partying on and off the stage abroad he spends a lot of his time there. Sometimes Kid Rock will come hang out there and they'll throw a big party. Recently quite a few of his expensive jewelry pieces turned up missing....well actually the safe containing those pieces had been stolen from the house.
The estimated value of the jewelry was around $1 million. He offered...or perhaps the sheriff's department had offered a $25,000 reward for anyone who found the stolen loot.
A few days went by before a woman called and said she had found Bocephus' missing stuff.
However, the explanation of HOW and WHY she found it turned out to be pretty funny.
The young man who broke into Hank's house had done some work for Mr. Williams in the past. Yardwork, clenaing up, etc. Well it seems that Hank left his house unlocked on this occasion and this fella slipped in and got away with the safe. A few days later this guy was traveling over in the eastern part of TN when he was pulled over for a traffic violation. Upon running a background check on the kid the police found that there was a warrant out for him for another crime. So off to the county jail he goes. Bail is set for a high amount of money so what does he do? He calls his momma back in Paris and tells her "Mom, I'm in a bit of trouble and need some help getting bailed out." "If you go over to my place you'll see a safe in the closet. Open it up, the lock is broken so don't worry about a key or combination. There's some jewelry in there. Can you take some of it to the pawn shop,hock it and wire me the money?"
So momma does what her little man asks but when she picks up the jewelry she notices something isn't quite adding up. What's this? A gold necklace with "country music hall of fame" engraved on it?....some pieces with some guy named Hank's name on them? A few items commemorating gold albums from the 1970's and 80's??? How did her 19 year old son ever have the time to accomplish all this?!!
Needless to say the dude got an extra charge against him and his mother is, to my knowledge, still trying to get the $25,000 reward.
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| Matchmaker Matchmaker, Make Me a Match! |
| 02.06.05 (9:38 pm) [edit] |
Ok, if you are not able to listen to this audioblog you will be left out of this funny message my grandmother left me. I think she left this message last year....maybe as far back as july or august but I have kept it saved hoping I could get it on my blog somehow.
http://www.audioblogger.com/media/45935/143015.mp3" title="http://www.audioblogger.com/media/45935/143015.mp3" target="_blank"http://www.audioblogger.com/m...
Speaking of my grandmother; the thing that was on my mind all last week has to do with her.
Back during christmas weekend I found out maw-maw was going to sell her house and the 16 acre farm. I grew up on that land. My parents and I lived up the hill in a house and our own 20 acres. I used to be able to go to the back yard and yell down the hill to my cousin Brian . We would yell back and forth as long as we could. Friday nights I used to go down and spend the night there. I would sit right in front of the TV and watch the dukes of hazard with my grandparents. It's the same place where I got stuck in the "quicksand" mud when I was about 4 years old. Stuck there for days I tell ya! The buzzards, they were'a circlin' me! Then there was the time Brian and I wandered off too far up next to the big pond and his mom caught us and spanked our hides with a nice tree limb she used for a switch. It's where I sat outside and helped make homemade ice cream. It's where I helped my granddad feed his hogs. It's where we would catch toads at night in the summer and watch them eat lightning bugs then turn out the porh light and watch the lightning bugs flash inside the toads' bellies! And it's where, in may 1992, the original house burned down. The house that is still in a lot of my dreams( Dreamhouse part 1,2,3 http://www.tblog.com/template... )
They built a new, even better house and many more memories took place there. In the summer nowadays, maw-maw's back porch can be host to 100 or more humminbirds. It's a site to behold when you sit out there and watch them buzz all around you, some coming right up in your face or sitting next to you. I'm going to miss that place. The last bit of original property left to my dad's family. If I could afford it I would buy it tomorrow. And because I am a good christian young man and awesome grandson I would give her 2 whole weeks to move out! :op Just kidding maw-maw...you'd have 30 days.
I hope the next owners of that property have as many great memories as my family did.
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| My Blog Lost Its Shadow |
| 02.04.05 (9:37 am) [edit] |
Chocolate caramel mocha, big slice of strawberry cake, rhythm & blues and jazz music playing over the speakers…..must mean one thing…Otherlands!... ANNNNNNK! Wrong. I’m at this place on Madison Ave called Republic Coffee. If the folks at Otherlands ever found out they’d kill me! What’s this? Matt is cheating on his faithful coffee shop? What happened to Ethical Ellis?! In my own defense, I must say, at least I’m not eating the same kind of cake and drinking the same kind of beverage. I mean if I was having carrot cake and an Italian cream soda with a shot of cherry syrup it would be like using the same moves and sweet nothings on another girl behind your girlfriend’s back wouldn’t it? I guess this could fall under “The Cheater’s Justification Rule #1……”It’s not cheating if you’re in a different area code.” Or in this case “….if you’re on a different street.” This place is a little different. She has a different personality. She’s more open. She has a small pool hall in the back. She’s more open. Her artwork is different. I haven’t seen the first…oops nevermind..there’s a hippie just walking in.
The staff still has that typical look of your run-of-the-mill midtown gen-X latte drinking “liberal”. Man, I feel so different from most of these people.
I’m writing this as extemporaneously as I can while I try to figure out how to fit in the one thought that’s been occupying my mind most of the week. Someone just changed radio stations on the PA system. They switched over to some music I think was from the 30’s. Big band music with a woman singing solo. It made me think back to my junior year in high school. In English class our theme for the year was focused mainly on American writers. My favorite story then was The Great Gatsby. I had recently gained a lot of interest in the early 20th century lifestyle. Specifically the 1920’s. They called it “The Roaring Twenties.” Prohibition was in full swing and speakeasies were the place to be. The Charleston was today’s Macarena or “insert name of line dance here”. Country music and bluegrass were moving out of the small town and down from the hills into Nashville and into the ears of the masses. The dresses the ladies wore were loose and glamorous.
The more jewelry she wore the hipper she was. We were beginning to enjoy a new level of entertainment…radio and the silver screen. When our class watched the Robert Redford Great Gatsby movie I got even more intrigued by the era. I wanted to go back in time and be able to go to those wild, swanky parties and rub elbows with the elite hoi polloi, sip the best champagne, enjoy a nice cigar, and call my friends “ole chap” and “ole bean”. I could probably do that now but somehow I don’t think it would be the same. Today’s “ole chap/ole bean” have been replaced by “my nigga-mah nizzle-what up my homie” and the ever so loved “what up dawg” and that just doesn’t seem elite or sophisticated. The champagne has been replaced by expensive imported beer you have to still open with a bottle opener. Then again, who wants to be elite and sophisticated? After all, I AM in midtown Memphis!
Speaking of good movies of the early 20th century period, I went to see Finding Neverland last week. Ever since the year Marissa Tomei won an Oscar for My Cousin Vinnie I have had an interest in the Academy Awards and particularly the Best Picture category. Finding Neverland is a movie based on the man who wrote the story of Peter Pan (Matthew Barrie). It specifically focuses on that period in his life when he wrote the story and how he got the ideas for it. I would really encourage everyone to go see it. Johnny Depp and Kate Winslett do excellent jobs in their roles. And so do the young lads who play the sons of Winslett’s character, a widow and mother of 4. Without giving too much away Barrie meets these boys and their mother in a public park one day. He quickly notices how mature and nonsensical the young boys are for their age. The main reason for this is their father had died when they were younger and that coupled with an aristocratic, overbearing maternal grandmother who constantly and forcefully influenced their upbringing caused them to grow up before their time. Barrie takes on the task of trying to teach these boys how to find their childhood once again. He does so by teaching them how to use their imaginations to see their surroundings as not just a typical back yard or boring city park but more like an exotic jungle or wild western Cowboys & Indians landscape. He spends so much time with them and their ailing mother, all the while gaining inspiration for a new play, to the point where he neglects his own marriage and household. The most touching scene to me was when Barrie has a serious conversation with the eldest son concerning his mother’s health and how his grandmother’s objections to Barries’s influence has escalated. Depp makes an observation of how in that brief moment he sees the end of the boy and the beginning of the man. It happens so fast we hardly even notice it. We lose our faith in things and our hope and get tied up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Priorities change, responsibility grows, self awareness cultivates taking place of the child we were. To me that seems like it would be such a shame. To always be a slave to our day to day chores, our career, our goals, our bills; without not being able to step outside our mental cubicle for a few minutes and daydream or to act silly for a moment. After the debut of Peter Pan at the theater a loyal patron, an elderly lady who always praised Barrie’s work and made a comment to him of how the crocodile with the clock in his belly represented Time itself. A monster always chasing us….taking a bit of us away one piece at a time. It’s always ticking just loudly enough so we don’t forget it’s there. Gatsby used to look across the bay near his estate and watch the distant light flash on the horizon..It was a reminder of something he always wanted and tried to obtain. I suppose it’s only natural to lose the kid in us as we age. Somehow I don’t think I could be able to run across the playground today pretending to be a transformer, making the transformer sound effects, like I did when I was in the 2nd grade. I would probably twist my ankle and be out of breath before I made it to the monkey bars. But I can still do it in my mind. John Todd was the tallest kid in our group so he got to be Optimus Prime. I think I was Brawn, the strongest of the Autobots. Next time I’m in Paris I’ll stop by the old school, walk around the playground, and see if I hear that ole croc ticking away in the woods.
Well, I didn’t find a way to talk about that occupying thought but I think it might make for an interesting audioblog.
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| Starting Over From Scratchless |
| 02.03.05 (12:14 am) [edit] |
Woohoo for me! I got sales associate of the month for January. Dumb luck really if you "ax" me but hey, I'll take luck anyday as long as it's good luck.
Luck and skill helped Evil Petting Zoo get back on the board with a 3rd place effort this week. For those "Doubting Thomases" (what's the plural of Thomas?..."Thomai"?, "Thomasi"?)
Anyhow, for those Doubting Thomai we'll not back down...."Well I won’t back down, no I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won’t back down
Gonna stand my ground, won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down
Gonna stand my ground and I won’t back down." Oh Geez! 2 Tom Petty references in less than a week!!?! I'm sorry! I can't get passed how do you do, I don't know what to say to you."...OK...OK...I'll stop with the Pettyisms.
The music in the background today, if you can hear, is Doubting Thomas by Nickel Creek. Pretty nice and calm song. Speaking of music I have been trying to remember all the cd's I lost in my recent truck break-in. Here's all I can remember as of now.
Some if not most of these will not be album names but just a simple description:
2 Apocalyptica cd's (Cellists covering Metallica songs)
Time Life 2 disc set of bluegrass classics including Rocky Top, Ruby Are You Mad at Your Man, Mountain Dew, and Orange Blossum Special.
A Bela Fleck cd.
Spiderman 1 sountrack
The first Matrix soundtrack
2 Offspring cd's
2 Nickelback cd's
Default "Fallout"..yay! I remembered one.
Metallica S&M, Garage Inc, Load, Reload, St. Anger
Office Space sountrack
Daredevil soundtrack
Nickel Creek: Nickel Creek, This Side
Alice in Chains: Jar of Flies
Everclear: Learning How to Smile?
Audioslave: Audioslave
Star Wars Phantom Menace soundtrack
2 Creed albums
2 disc collection of Irish pub songs
Gamble Rogers: God Gave Me Grace but the Devil Gave Me Style
Hoobastank
Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Glen Phillips: Live at Largo
That's all I can remember now
that's all I can think of right now.
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