Play Something Country

It ain't always pretty

But it's real

It's the way we were made

Wouldn't have it any other way

-These Are My People (Rodney Atkins)

These days, it seems that country music has a stigma (no crap Brian!). It's hard to put a finger on one thing in particular, a specific point that gives it that stigma. And that point is proven by the fact that a hundred different reasons just raced through your head as to what that stigma is. Rednecks (I knew y'all wuld like em' that ther pithur), wife beaters, banjos, Nascar, dogs always dyin', cheatin' husbands, Deliverance, etc. But no matter, rest assured, if you ask enough people what type of music they enjoy listening to, at least half of them will say something to the effect of

"I like everything. Except for country, that is."

Why? Even people who enjoy, and like me, preach the qualities and pure artistry of country music, will put a disclaimer and qualifier when we speak up about country music. Almost solidifying the "stigma" or giving credence to it. Admitting the redneck factor, double wide, wife left me, got in a bar fight, truck broke down, and I kicked my dog (Vick style....eww, low blow) perception people have of country music.

"I'm not saying it's all good..."

"Hard to believe but..."

"It's not as twangy anymore..."

blah, blah, blah.

It's a large issue. The fact that people in our generation seem to automatically deny the quality or pleasurable benefit of country music and its offshoots. It is assumed this is largely in hopes of portraying the opposite element of hip-ness for the express purposes of impressing those around them. Granted, there are a number of artists who have been embraced as of late, especially by those in the Christian community -- by a "number of artists," it is meant "Johnny Cash."

Most of the people who are now claiming allegiance to the house of Cash never really listened to him before his death -- and even more telling, before his movie biopic. At least it means that there is some accounting for taste out there, not to mention that the less people we have listening to the latest fourth-generation Pearl Jam rip-off (and therefore, 3rd generation Nirvana rip-off...yes I said it...OVERRATED...said it again), the better; Cash's newly born hipster cred may be posthumous, but it's hipster cred nonetheless.

But if you really get down to it, country music is impossible to ignore. Truth be told, that particular industry sells records. A lot of them. If that is true (and it is), then for every person attempting to project instinctive coolness by denying country music, there is one who really doesn't mind appearing "countrified" (openly discussing their purchase of the latest Big & Rich album) and one who swears he "would never" but has and will. Hats off to the ones who are "keeping it real."

The great music journalist Chuck Klosterman, in his book: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs writes:

"While rock and hip-hop constantly try to break through to a future consciousness -- and while alt country tries to replicate a lost consciousness from the 1930s -- modern country artists validate the experience of living right here, right now."

Hmmm....I though Van Halen was all about Right Here, Right Now? It means everything! It's that magic moment!

Riiiiiight......anyway.........

I think he is on to something. He's actually expressing 2 elements to why country music has remained so popular for so many years, and why it will continue to do so. The first is expressly written by him, country music is primarily concerned with the here and now. Secondly, and I think more subversive in his writing, that it does not try to push its ideas on anyone, but merely reflects what its fans already believe.

No pretensioness (is that word), no fakes, no frills. It isn't always pretty, but it is what it is and that is is Life.

"...Country music doesn’t have to be politically correct. We sing about God, because we believe in Him. We’re not tryin’ to offend anybody, but the evidence we have seen of Him in our small, little lives trumps your opinion about whether or not He exists.

We love country music because it touches us where we live. It’s about mamas and when they were hot and when they are unappreciated and when they were dying. It’s about daddies and the difficulties they have sometimes in tellin’ the people that they work so hard to protect and provide for, how they feel about’em.

Country music is about new love and it’s about old love. It’s about gettin’ drunk and it’s about getting’ sober. It’s about leavin’ and it’s about comin’ home.

It’s real music sung by real people for real people—the people that make up the backbone of this country. You can call us rednecks if you want, we’re not offended ‘cause we know what we’re all about. We get up and go to work. We get up and go to church. And, we get up and go to war when necessary. All we ask for is a few songs to carry us along the way...” - Jeff Foxworthy, 2007 CMA's

Click here to see the whole speech.

Go Organic and Free Range!!

Ever Wonder what $200 million looks like....

Take a look.

WOW!

Big Mac

Well it finally seems that former Senator George Mitchell doesn't really have the cooties afterall. After a year of getting the cold shoulder from Major League Baseball (MLB) Players and their obstructionists union, MLB's top drug cop is finally getting a trickle of cooperation from the players. Jason Giambi talked to him a few days ago and Gary Sheffield, who can't stop talking to anybody about everybody and anything, has said that he will talk frankly with Mitchell as well. That's wonderful. That's great news that just might lend some smidgen of credibility to this glorified book report that Mitchell has been conducting. But as memory serves me, weren't we suppose to be hearing some rather frank, anti-steroid chatter from another famous, muscle-bound, swollen headed, steroid using home run leader?

No not him.

I'm talking about Mark McGwire. It's been just over 2 years and 4 months since he sat before Congress and told us, with alligator tears flowing from his eyes, that he would speak up, loud and clear, to the youth of America and tell them, with his own unusual conjugation how bad steroids were. And now here we are. We're still waiting Mark. And your silence is another reminder to everybody that Barry Bonds isn't the only villain in this story of baseball and steroids.

Amnesty SHAMnesty

On Vacation

3 posts in one day?! WOW!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I am done and out.

Vacation time

In Traverse City until sometime next week. Beaches, vineyards, lighthouses, sand dunes, and the whole family....get me there NOW!!!

The plan is to be back in Detroit on Thursday the 19th, but maybe not. We'll see, we may stay an extra day or two.

I hope to catch up here and on everyone else's blog with comments, etc when we get back.

Remember it is all the Republicans fault.

Gas prices....freakin a.

On the verge of leaving on vacation for the week, gas prices skyrocket again and Michigan leads the pack. What are the odds that in the middle of July prices would go up? It's never happen before. It has to be those greedy, money grubbing, deep pocket, lighting Cuban's with their Benji's Republicans.

Anyway, here's an article in today's Detroit News explaining a lot of it:

"Michigan's gasoline prices, the highest in the nation on Thursday, have motorists fuming and the tax man smiling."

Read the rest here

The Doctor will see you now

Luke, the beloved physician, was poised for the ultimate examination. Luke had done his research thoroughly, he had talked to other specialists, grasped the vital signs denoting health; he was prepped for his task. Years of medical experience had trained his eyes and intuitions to know the situation even before the results were in. The patient, the Lord Jesus, was thoroughly sifted in Luke's arduous investigation. No stone had gone unturned in the life of Christ, no pocket left unchecked. The doctor gazed deeply into the pupils, the ears and most importantly, listened to His heart. After a period of analysis, a crunching of the numbers and checking the charts, the Doctor stepped back and internalized the results. He rubbed his chin and checked the information on his clip-board one more time. Looking up, he pronounced his diagnosis, "You're normal." he said.

May we all be normal

Alex, I'll take "No Clue" for $1,000

My home computer is broke.

I have no clue why other than the hard drive is done and I need a new one. Going back to that whole "Arghhhh..." post from a month ago things kind of got worse with the computer. Had to do system restore a couple times and now finally it crapped out on me.

I also have no clue when it will get fixed. Evetually I'll make my way to Best Buy or somewhere and buy a new hard drive, but I've been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest lately and as much as I am an internet junky it's almost a back burner item right now.

I've been able to hammer out a couple posts in the meantime:

This one

and

This two (too)

Which, to be honest, I had hoped would garner more comments and get some conversations going, but they didn't, and I have no clue why. Maybe they still will, but not right now. Which at this time may be better anyway, since lunchtime at work is my only free-time right now to "surf the web." Although right now is slacker Tuesday before the holiday afternoon and I am typing this one now.

I have a lot of things I want to touch on. But I have no clue what my next post will be and no clue when it will be. I have like 5 or 6 drafts going right now and the problem is a couple are old and I have lost some of the thought process I had going with them. Maybe I'll pick those back up, but I have no clue.

So I am kind of in limbo with the computer and blog updates. The week after next we go on vacation for the week to good ole' Traverse City (TC is by far one of Michele's and mine favorite vacation locales.) so it may take that long.

Hopefully I'll be able to conjure up some of the old drafts I have going on, which include:

• Things that crack me up (all satire)
• Country Music (I like I love it, I want some more of it)
• Gotta know..."Why I Stick with the Church 3" is in the pipeline
• Show off pictures of "Black Beauty" - (My Homemade Tennis Ball Mortar....sends a tennis ball about 500 yards into the air...built for under $20) who is making her debut to the public tomorrow evening for some 4th of the July Festivities at our Pastor's house in Wyandotte. Michele and Seth have already partook in the glorious resonance of loud explosions, blue flames, and the smell of lighter fluid exiting a tin can contraption at a rather extremely high velocity.
• Vacation pictures
• Detroit Tigers - 5 players and maybe 6 are going to the All-Star game this year!!!
• Detroit Sports scene in general - My 2 hour round trip commute puts me in contact with a lot of Sports Talk Radio in the area...
• My growth, limitations, decisions, fears, and overall outlook and progress of raising Seth to be the manly man all men are to be. Here, over here too, as well as over here, here again, as well as back to here, and absolutely, positively here too. Or if you just click here, you can get them all at once, but start reading at the bottom of the page and work your way.

Let's see what else.....

I have no clue what else. I have no clue if any of the above will make it ever here.

But be patient for the immediate future. For those that are regular just know I still check your blogs almost daily and just because it may take a few days here for updates, don't let that happen to your blogs. I need something to read, roll my eyes at, laugh at, nod my head with, agree with, disagree with, think about, and waste other time reading.

But as for now, I'm outta here, I've got to get home, I've got sun to soak up, beer to drink, and lots and lots of gunpowder and lighter fluid to go blow up in the nighttime sky (I love the little firework stores in Ohio).

Happy 4th of July and enjoy your summer.

GO TIGERS!!!!!

The Mourning After

So what happens when our character in this great big meta-narrative story we are in ends? We've served our purpose, done what was required and the Director writes us off the story? The screen goes black, the music quits playing in the background, and we are gone. Anyone reading this doesn't really know the exacts. But we do know what happens when one of the characters we love is no longer here. We know what happens to us.

************************************************

What is the first thing you did when you heard the news that someone you loved died? Did the hand holding the phone stop cooperating? Did the phone fall to the floor? Or did you? Did you fall silent? Or start repeating one word over and over and over, such as, "No. No. No."? Or was it relief you felt, relief for a suffering that finally passed? Were your reactions nothing more than learned responses? Were these reactions simply the summing of chemicals and electrical pulses? If so, then why did it hurt so badly? Why do we mourn the way we do?

It's not as if we get a crash course in these things. And we never get one when everyone around us is in good health and accounted for. There isn't a childhood moment where our parents anxiously sit us down to give us "the talk" concerning proper protocol for when someone close to us departs this realm we are all adventuring through. Death does not discriminate between those who are prepared and those who are not. The fact is, if we chose to participate in human relationship, eventally all of us, every single one of us will find ourselves standing in a church, a funeral parlor or next to a big rectangle hole in the ground, stuttering and stammering for the right words to say. And yet somehow, in those situations, it seems we all fall in line with a certain set of activites and customs, whether we have experienced them previosuly or not.

It customarily plays out like this:

• News is received and we are stunned
• A furious bustle of activity including phone calls, emails, red-eye flights, and 4 hour drives at 1am.
• Decisions, decisions, decisions, as a complex and choreographed funeral is designed.
• Flowers, cards, gifts, donations come in.
• A viewing
• A funeral
• A burial
• A memorial
• Everyone congregates somewhere for food
• Family, friends, the church, the neighbors make extra casseroles for the departed's family to alleviate the preparation of food in the coming days.
• Everyone tracks the families grieving process.

And that grieving process is important to all of us. Depression, guilt, anger, hope, etc. All part of it.

But there is also a whole list of rituals and traditions that transpire during observance of a death. We all share a common yet unspoken knowledge of how to act. These acts are referred to as "mourning." Just name a few:

• Wearing black
• Speaking well of the departed
• We all pat the mourner on the back and exert sympathy and some form of, "i am so sorry, this is so awful. At least they are in a better place."

Why do we do this?

Fear and awe, both in the same.

At the edge of life, between the living and the dead, between the material and the immaterial, there is unavoidable awe. Perhaps all this absurdity of tradition points to the simple fact that death scares us. It has always scared us. It is beyond our finite understanding, and the crazier these customs appear, the more deeply that reality can be felt. No matter how tighly packed our doctrine, at the edge of a rectangular hole in the ground (regardless of how many flowers surround it) there are leaks. It is then, more than at any other moment, that we see clearly how dimly we see.

It is now not the souls of those departed that we worry about, but our own. It is at the grave that our wonder begins. It is there that we need to believe in something more, something bigger and grander than our hands can touch (or dissect) or that our eyes can see (with or without magnification). It is there that we need all our notions of heaven to be real. It is our souls that need the comfort.

We go through the motions and rituals not because it is expected of us but because we are scared of the possible finality of it all. We do all of this to remember.

To remember.

What was the last conversation you shared? Your last meal together? What words do you wish had exited your mouth? What would you say now if given the chance? What is your most loved memory? When was the moment you felt closest? What were the things they'd get excited about? What makes you think of them? What do you miss the most? Wouldn't you rather feel this sadness, bear this weight, and mourn their absence than never have been touched by them?

Upon death, we hold a wake to remind us of how precious a person's life was. We order tombstones as a monument of love. We speak well of the departed because there is no use in speaking ill of them. We wear black to show that under the surface, there is a left an immense cavern. We are sad becasue something has been lost.