September 2005

Banjo Picks, Week 4

Well, last week's picks are over. Thank God for that. Now that it's the 4th week, the cool, calm, collection (pun intended) week for Vegas, we can see that the cowards have every home team but Tennessee giving points. There are no more surprises in this season, and if you get caught writing checks your ass can't cash, well then, you deserve to have your thumbs broken by a retired Mexican professional wrestler, who used to wear a mask and fight under the ring name of El Lizardo.

Visitor, Vegas Line, HOME TEAM (followed by my senseless caterwalling)

San Diego +5 1/2 NEW ENGLAND

New England getting their act together and putting the screws on Pittsburgh last week was as predictable as Renee coming to her senses and dumping Kenny. Shit-enheimer and his Keenan McCardell focused offense have to fly cross country to face the eternally unsatisfied Bellichik and the defending champs. If it didn't hit home last week, Bolts fans will finally understand how they've been suckered into a marriage where only one partner is committed, sharing their bed with Shit-enheimer.

Denver +4 JACKSONVILLE

Byron Leftwich is The Copperheads of the NFL: he'll show up in any condition and play anywhere. The Copperheads are opening for the Hoyle Brothers down at Lee's tomorrow night, and it's only about their 325th gig of the 2005 calendar year. Just when you haven't seen them on anybody's calendar, you make one last look and there they are. Last week, the Jaguars were finished halfway through the 2nd quarter, then whamm-o, there was Leftwich. It helped they were playing the hapless Jets, but, all the same, if Denver doesn't do something to put the Jags away early in this game, don't be suprised at another furious finish for the Cats.

Houston +10 CINCINNATI

Cincinnati is roughly the equivalent of the whole "Picked 2 Click" issue of this senseless rag. Now that they've showed up 3-0, and done it in a sort of plucky, hey-look-at-me, 3-year-old-showing-off way, everybody is claiming to have their first self-released EP, and to have known their original drummer before he OD'd. What's that mean to you when betting? Well,t he Picked 2 Click show at First Avenue is often the last gig for about 25 to 50% of the bands who play it, so go ahead and do the brown acid this week, but be a wary participant in Week 5.

Indianapolis -7 TENNESSEE

Archie Manning received a lot of anonymous death threats last week when Indy didn't cover on that 13 1/2 point spread like I predicted. For some reason, Colts infatuation is like everyone who follows the band Low, to me. It's not that they aren't good, I'm just not buying it. Fresh off not covering a huge spread, Vegas goes overboard again and has Indy GIVING 7 ON THE ROAD. I don't care how many flat bellied girls with bobbed purple hair sway to the moody lyrics, I'm just not going to get sucked in.

Philadelphia +1 1/2 KANSAS CITY

The Gleam is the best band in Minneapolis. I know they can't sing or play their instruments, and half their songs are booze infested paeans to self-destruction that I should have outgrown like the Chiefs' Huddle Club, but I don't fucking care. The Eagles are going to get killed Sunday, the day after The Gleam open for Ike Reilly at the Varsity Theatre in Dinkytown.

Detroit +7 TAMPA BAY

Is Tampa Bay really a 4-0 team? Remember, Kenny and Renee were rich, good-looking kids from small southern towns who seemed to have everything in common. We all know how that turned out. It turns out Kenny's a talentless hack who ditched his wife for the cash grab that is his career, and a selfish existence of playing video games and getting stoned in the Virgin Islands.

St. Louis +3 NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS

Tiki Barber is a real alt country running back. One of your buddies always takes him as the 10 or 11th running back chosen your fantasy draft, then you're sitting around during week 8 or 9 when you really need a win and realize you could have gotten him yourself. Every now and then, some of the records I play sneak up on people at parties and they say, "I don't normally like country, but I like this." Tiki Barber is a running back just like LaDainian Tomlinson and Shaun Alexander, and might be more dangerous. Be careful if you bet this game, the Giants might kill them, especially since Mike Martz is the 2nd dumbest coach in the NFL next to Tice.

Buffalo Pick 'em NEW ORLEANS (San Antonio)

People in San Antonio get all lit up down on that river walk and sometimes drive with the headlights off out to Greune Hall and get all lit up some more. Half of those people are going to be down at the Alamodome. This game is going to be like your old electronic football game where you plug the big metal board in and all the little plastic guys with magnetic bases going vibrating in every direction.

Seattle +2 WASHINGTON

Kurt Cobain's not coming back from the dead and neither are the Seahawks. They might make the playoffs at 8-8 or something, but, they're not going to throw up a "Nevermind" sort of season, followed by glowing columns in Rolling Stone that read more like folded up, high school, I-have-a -crush-on-you type notes. Joe Gibbs laughed his ass off for about 2 hours after getting the Cowboys 2 weeks ago; if he's living on those fumes, Seattle might jump on them, but, if he's put it behind them, expect this to be the most boring game of the week, like a GB Leighton show anywhere in town.

New York Jets +7 BALTIMORE

If I go to First Avenue, I never park in that big 7th Street Garage, I usually park down the street in Butler Square's lot. Similarly, Brookes Bollinger isn't going anywhere near Ray Lewis. He's going to shit down his leg. Ed Reed might set an NFL record for interceptions in this game if he suits up. If you play in a league that drafts individual defenders, and you have either one of those guys, you should be smiling right now.

Minnesota +6 ATLANTA

When people tell me that Kenny Chesney is a talented real country performer that sells millions of records, I point to the thousands of teenaged girls, popping their gum, covered in sparkle makeup, crying their eyes out at his shows. Last week's win against the Saints was pretty much the same thing. You didn't have me at hello, Mike Tice.

Dallas +3 OAKLAND

From last week, this game is your injury special. There are SO MANY talented players on these two teams that it's hard to bet on them. You just have to root for lots of injuries and not make any bets. By the 8th week, both teams should be solid dogs, or solid coverers, but a really nasty knee or hammy to Moss or Collins or Jones would make the picture so much clearer.

San Francisco +2 ARIZONA (Mexico City)

I've only been to Mexico a few times where something didn't go terribly wrong. A buddy of mine said he visited Mexico City once, got to his hotel, changed clothes, went out for several hours, got back to the hotel and picked to of the biggest blackest buggars out of his nose that he's ever seen. What does that have to do with football and betting? I don't know. Watch ESPN or some such pregame show Sunday morning and if they all say, "X is going to kill Y in this game," bet heavily on Y.

Green Bay +7 1/2 CAROLINA

Betting against Brett Favre on Monday night is a poison proposition. Ask yourself, do you really believe that the Packers are going to go 0-4? It's possible, they're not a very good team. But, that's the beauty of gambling...the spread. Seven and a half is a pretty honking big spread for a Monday Night game where Favre is involved. If he makes you nervous, bet the cover. The over/under is at 43, which seems low too. Pro gamblers love the hillbilly from Kiln because people are either wildly against him, or overly enthusiastic. Don't get suckered into the whole win/loss thing; it would be like buying "Songs From and Old Blue Chair" to get laid, and finding out your date is really a man in the middle of sexual reassignment surgery.

Posted by Jack Sparks at September 30, 2005 3:35 PM

Banjo Picks, Week 3

Hey, I like theatre, the plastic arts, and the cooking channel, but nothing makes my heart beat like football. This is a hillbilly alt country blog in name, so naturally, if I start making weekly football picks, there ought to be a hillbilly slant to them, so maybe I'll call them "Banjo Picks." Week 3 is a watershed week in the season, because it's the week where everyone really figures out who's who and what's what. What follows is visitor, Vegas line, and home team. I put the home team in CAPS too, because you might be inbred and need more help than normal. Below each line is my thoughts and pick, not necessarily echoing Vegas, because they're all devil worshipping meth-addicts.

Tennessee +6 1/2 ST. LOUIS
Coaches named Mike are poison this year. Philadelphia dismantled a San Francisco team that Mike Martz somehow lost to. Vegas starts by giving the home team 3 points, so what they're really saying here is that the Rams might win by more than a field goal. Idiot coaches submarine their teams in games like these. I wouldn't bet a line in this dog of a game, but I'd float a little Titans action out there on a Win/Lose bet. If you're actually betting this game, you have a gambling problem, and you're probably an alcoholic too.

Oakland +8 PHILADELPHIA
Most of the time, Randy Moss can push off on anybody and score a 50+ yard touchdown. Norv Turner is some kind of a bonehead though, and used his big prize as a decoy when he had a better than even chance of marching down the field and stabbing the Chiefs in the heart with him, at home, last week. Philly is going to kill the Raiders, even if Moss gets a big touchdown. 45-7 is still 45-7.

Cincy -3 CHICAGO
People are beating their chests over this one like it's going to be educational in some fashion: are the Bengals for real, are the Bears for real? Who cares? You'd have to be smoking crack to bet on this game. These are 9-7 teams, if you're honest, you're rooting for injuries so that one of them becomes a 5-11 team, thus making bets easier.

Jacksonville +2 JETS
Ick. Truth be told, the Jets should probably walk away with this one, but neither team has looked that good this year. Here's another injury special. If a Leftwich or a Martin could go down for the season in this one, it would make betting against either of these teams easier.

New Orleans +4 MINNESOTA
All of the 30+ year old men in this town have been sitting around in their magic Bud Grant underoos convincing themselves there's no way this awful team is going to lose to that awful team. "Daunte will be better this week," they say. "The Saints have run out of karma," they say. Let me throw this at you, right down the middle, like Brian Griese and Carson Palmer: Alex Smith, touchdown, right over the middle, Alex Smith, touchdown, right over the middle, Chad Johnson, touchdown, right over the middle, TJ Houshma...Houshma...Houshma...Houshma-notgonnaworkhereanymore, touchdown, right over the middle….the Vikings are either soft, or stupid, or both, right over the middle of their defense. If the Saints' first 5 plays aren't deep post routes to Joe Horn, Jim Haslett should be fired. Take the Saints, give 2 1/2 points, then laugh at all your Vikings fans friends who are wringing their hands and fighting every urge not to begin guzzling turpentine.

Cleveland +13 1/2 INDIANAPOLIS
This game is interesting if only for the line. What was that Indy-Jacksonville score last week? 9-3? I forget. Now, all of the sudden, they're giving 13 ½? That's one hell of a line. If you have a real gambling problem, and you want to make a small bet to keep your heart pumping and your adrenaline flowing, bet the Browns to cover. All of the sudden the Colts are being lauded for their defense, which is cute and all, but, the reason it's happening is because the offense has been horrible, relative to its recent history. Makes a football junky pause.

Atlanta +2 1/2 BUFFALO
Atlanta is the squirreliest team in the NFL. Don't touch this game with a ten foot hooker.

Tampa Bay -3 1/2 GREEN BAY
There will be a lot of heavily armed, drunk men in rural Wisconsin this weekend, driving around on ATV's, setting up deer stands. They have absolutely no sense of humor about the Packers. Their moods will be especially surly when the Bucs are up by 2 touchdowns.

Arizona +6 1/2 SEATTLE
I'm going to call an upset here. At the very least, the Cardinals will cover. Shaun Alexander oughta run over everybody and make Arizona look really stupid, but somehow, he won't. And, this is just the type of game where Warner, Fitzgerald and Boldin will get on track and cause a bunch of needless Fantasy trades on Tuesday morning.

New England +3 PITTSBURGH
This will be a real football game. As such, any real gambler will seek out rubes from both sides of the isle and take all the action he can. This game will be decided by 2 points or fewer at the last second. Find some ketchup eating, construction working blowhard who's been transplanted from Pittsburgh or Boston and goad him into giving you 6 or 9 points. Feed him alcohol. Bring up Sam Wyche and Terry Bradshaw. He'll cave in.

Dallas -6 1/2 SAN FRANCISCO
Dallas is going to beat the Niners senseless like the Eagles did. Parcells is pissed and San Francisco is the perfect target for his ire. Don't get crazy, just bet the line and pocket the dough.

Giants +5 1/2 SAN DIEGO
Marty Shit-enheimer has been turning good teams into heartbreakers for years. The people in San Diego are waking up to this year's hangover after last year's party. This is the type of game where the non-featured running back inexplicably runs for 200 yards. If you have Tiki Barber on your fantasy team, you should be salivating right now. If you're a Bolts fan, you should be praying that a massively violent, out-of-control collision happens just on the edge of the sidelines and takes out Shit-enheimer.

Kansas City +3 DENVER
Denver has looked like shit two weeks in a row, and suddenly, Vegas can't make up its mind on this one? The Chiefs destroyed the Jets, then thumped the Raiders in their home park. I'm biased. Dick's going to cry after this one, too. Nobody believes in this Chiefs bunch. Nobody thinks we can do it. Well, I'm here to tell ya, team Dick is going to score 30 and team Gun is going to make Jake Plummer look like the saboteur that he is. Bet the Chiefs, give points, go crazy. Steve McNair is the toughest QB in the NFL, but Trent Green is a very close second.

Posted by Jack Sparks at September 23, 2005 11:35 AM

Welcome Again

Welcome to my blog-site in its new location.

If you've never visited the Twin Cities' Only Alt Country Rant Blog, let me re-introduce myself to you by telling you who you are.

If you're visiting this site, you think Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Rascall Flatts, Brooks & Dunn, Big & Rich, and all the other shit-heels down in Nashville are the Anti-Christs of country music. You realize that Johnny Cash didn't die, he dug a hole and climbed in because he was so fucking ashamed of what people were calling "Country Music" these days.

If you're visiting this site, you're a radio person who realizes that Program Directors and Music Directors at Mainstream Country radio stations only play music that will get women between the ages of 18-45 to stay tuned into the station for the commercials. That's it. Many of these stations have monopolies on the format in large urban areas, so as representatives of the art form, they ensure that it's narrowly defined as the most disgusting, sappy, cliche-ridden, soap opera crap, and they ace out a very wide range of influence and interpretation that the genre is undergoing, and has undergone, for many years in the clubs and theatres of those same cities. The men and women who program these stations are soulless automatons who are more concerned about making money than preserving a musical history, so naturally, they're all going to hell. Pray for them.

If you're visiting this site, you have a burning desire to be outside where you can fish, camp, and hunt; you have a burning desire to do these things in the city sometimes; you have a burning desire to find out where the cockfight is happening on a Saturday night within the ever-growing Mexican community in your city, because you know there is one; you have a burning desire to learn to the play the banjo that was given to you as a gift by the person who loves you the most; you have a burning desire to holler at the tv screen as your football team rips your heart from your chest and cavalierly throws it into the garbage can; you have many burning desires...

Which makes you different from everyone in the mainstream Country music industry, because they're all focused on making money, that's why their biggest influences are Elton John and Billy Joel, instead of Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash.

If you're visiting this site, it's imperative that you go out and buy these albums immediately, if you don't already own them:

Johnny Cash: At Folsom Prison
Loretta Lynn: Van Lear Rose
Willie Nelson: Red-Headed Stranger
Uncle Tupelo: Still Feel Gone
Waylon Jennings: Honky Tonk Heroes (featuring the music of Billy Joe Shaver, Country's current Poet Laureate)
Merle Haggard: Swinging Doors
EmmyLou Harris: Elite Hotel

That should get you started. It'll make you feel better. You'll feel a sudden urge to rob a gas station and make your own liquor. You'll give your neighbor the stink-eye for starin' at your woman, and you'll drive everywhere in town with the windows down on your green pickup, instead of running the air conditioner.

Welcome back folks, it's time to get weird...ummm, weirder.....

Posted by Jack Sparks at September 22, 2005 2:36 PM

Res ipsa loquitur

Filed under: Imported

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Oscar-winning actress Renee Zellweger and country singer Kenny Chesney are seeking an annulment after five months of marriage, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

Publicist Nanci Ryder confirmed that Zellweger and Chesney, who stunned the entertainment world in May with a marriage on a beach in the Caribbean, had split.

In court papers filed Wednesday, Zellweger listed "fraud" as the reason for the breakup but did not elaborate, The Associated Press reported.

A phone call to her attorney was not immediately returned, nor was a call to Gleason later in the day regarding the fraud claim.

From People.com:

Zellweger filed the papers Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, citing "fraud" as the reason for the split. The actress's petition also asks the court not to award spousal support to Chesney.

No further details about the couple's split were available, and there was no immediate comment from Zellweger's camp on why she cited "fraud" as the reason. According to top Hollywood divorce attorney Sorrell Trope: "If fraud is checked that means a promise was made before the marriage, but the person who made it had no intention of keeping it. The promise has to pertain to the heart of the marriage."

Thumper's dad taught him that if you couldn't say something nice, don't say anything at all. But it's worth pointing out that it only took Renee 5 months to figure out what I've known all along. Maybe his tractor isn't so sexy after all. I think I'll drop an email to my old Buddy, Buddy Cannon and see what Renee means by "fraud." F-R-A-U-D, in sworn court documents, under penalty of perjury and sanction. God shouldn't tease me like this.

This is still a Presto Electric Hotdog cooker:

More from People.com:

In a statement released Friday, Zellweger sought to "clarify that the term 'fraud' as listed in the documentation is simply legal language and not a reflection of Kenny's character.

"I would personally be very grateful for your support in refraining from drawing derogatory, hurtful, sensationalized or untrue conclusions and greatly appreciate your understanding that we hope to experience this transition as privately as possible," the statement reads.

No further details about the couple's split were available. Zellweger added that she wants "to maintain the integrity of our privacy by not commenting on the specifics of our decision."

Chesney also released a statement Friday echoing Zellweger's sentiments. "This is an incredibly sad time," he said. "I just hope everyone can respect the privacy that I know Renée has already asked for."

Goddamnit boys and girls...Renee's right...

Fraud is a legal term...it's a legal term that in its barest essentials means a material misrepesentation of facts and circumstances was made intentionally. So legally, Renee, respecting your privacy, and, sensitive to Kenny's incredible sadness, you're saying that he made a material representation about you, him, and/or you and him, that just wasn't true, and he did it on purpose. Truly, I plead, forgive our small-minded glea, but we all doubt very seriously that he looked you in the eye and said, "Renee, I like cats," and then, 4 months later commenced to beating your precious kitty to within an inch of its life.

Just come clean...he stole all of your boxes of contact lenses and hid all of your pairs of glasses and threw your hearing aids in the trash, then told you he was tall, had a full head of hair and could sing.

This is still a Presto Electric Hot Dog cooker:

Excuse my fascination with this but...

Fraud is defined to be "an intentional perversion of truth" or a "false misrepresentation of a matter of fact" which induces another person to "part with some valuable thing belonging to him or to surrender a legal right".

I earned my JD from the University of Minnesota in 1995 and passed the bar exam that same year, so allow me a little leeway here...I'm a little rusty...

She's breaking off the marriage because of fraud, marriage and the responsibilities thereof were the legal rights she surrendered. And that's why she's petitioning for no spousal support, because legally speaking, either one of them could be liable for it, post-divorce.

So now we have to sit around and cackle and cluck about what he lied about. Let's brainstorm, shall we?

1. Wealth
Highly unlikely. He has to have about 13 quadrillion dollars. Realistically, I could see a scenario where all of his royalties are tied up in some convuluted contract fashioned by the shitheels who run Cashville, thus rendering him a puppet to their wishes...but jeez, we all have to drop our conspiracy theories at some point, don't we? He's rich, she's rich, so I doubt she's bitching about money, unless he has a spectacularly out of control gambling problem.

2. Sexuality
This is getting a lot of play in the blogiverse, but don't get too focused on the small picture here...he could be a hermaphrodite..........gotcha! The celebrity world is full of your George Michael type confessionals, so I wouldn't be surprised, but let's give the kid a break, he's from Tennessee where I think they outlawed homosexuality shortly before Sherman's March.

3. Potency
If she wanted a real baby and he couldn't provide one...hmmm. Does any guy really wish this on another guy? If I was a betting man, my money might be here, but I wouldn't feel good about it.

4. General Health
As in, I went to the Doctor before we got the marriage license and I don't have Syphillis or Cancer or AIDS. Once again, not one of those you wish on anybody, because if you cook up 10 or 15 possibilities, chances are Renee now has 90% of them. Ew. Gambling problems and drug problems show up down here, too. A drug problem isn't a far-fetched guess, but don't you think the People/Us/Enquirer folks would have caught that long before this Godless union? They ran down their Robert Downey Jr's and their River Phoenixes, don't you think they'd catch the Kenny Chesneys too? Hmmm.

5. Living Arrangements
As in, "we'll live in Texas," then he forces her to live on the boat in the Carribean. I don't have my license anymore, and I wasn't a very good lawyer in the first place, but this seems thin.

6. Capability of Being Married
As in, he was married before and hadn't had it annulled, or he was too incompetent to decide to get married, or he and Renee are actually cousins and he knew it. I'd call these pretty sexy picks if I were a bookie, especially the previously non-annulled (un-annulled?) marriage. Who knows how many Gingers and Mary Annes (or Gilligans for that matter) he has/had/will have down there on the boat? Maybe he's just fucking crazy. Maybe he's so fucking crazy he forgot he met Renee at the family 4th of July barbecue.

If anybody wants to get a gambling board up on this, email me. If we're going to gossip, we might as well cook up some odds.

God, I love People Magazine:

Then, late Friday, Zellweger and Chesney released a third statement, saying that "the miscommunication of the objective of their marriage at the start is the only reason for this annulment. Renée and Kenny value and respect each other and are saddened that their different objectives prevent the success of this marriage."

So now we know...somebody wanted kids and the other one didn't. I was personally hoping for a improperly dissolved previous marriage with an illegitimate child, but we can't win 'em all.

This is still a Presto Electric Hot Dog cooker:

Posted by Jack Sparks at September 16, 2005 8:59 AM

Sigh II

Filed under: Imported

I gave up recently.

In the last few months, I've been inundated with shit from Nashville encouraging me to vote for absolute fucking wastes of time like Rascall Flatts and Kenny Chesney for CMA awards.

Here's the thing, you, me, we, us, them...we don't want stimulating variety. We want a package. Let me illustrate.

ESPN.com has a pretty entertaining writer on Page2 of their web site named Bill Simmons. Bill is a very engaging author, who is talented at dropping pop culture references into his work to flesh out ideas and add humorous twists to his topics. He's also one of the most un-abashed Boston sports fans you'll ever read. He bleeds for the Sox, Patriots, and Celtics. And, for that reason, his articles during the past few baseball and football seasons have really added a honed edge to the "Boston experience." His fear and his lament, however, have been stuff like the HBO special "The Curse of the Bambino," the movie "Fever Pitch," and every useless shot of Ben Affleck in his Red Sox cap on TV. You see, what Hollywood and TV think we want is a derivative Red Sox experience, and so they've hand-delivered this sort of cliché-ridden picture of the thing to suck us in.

Don't get me wrong, Red Sox fans are awful, I hate being around them. But I have the good sense to know that their pain leading up to last season's World Series was a very ugly thing, deep and rich, striped and spotted, with wave after wave of idiosyncracy and nuance. I would rather run into some drunken guy in a bar yelling "Sawks!," and tell him the only reason it took so long was because Yawkey didn't like black ball players. THAT'S when you get the true picture of what that whole mess was all about, not some bullshit movie where Drew Barrymore bounces her ample bossom up and down on a baseball field grossly cheapening a moment that literally millions of people were praying for, for 86 years.

But your stupid children won't know the difference. They're going to equate this thing with Ben Affleck, not Leigh Montville and Peter Gammons.

And who's to say they shouldn't?

The point is, you could go buy a Red Sox hat, a "Good Will Hunting" lunch box, watch "Fever Pitch" and the "Curse of the Bambino" and call yourself a Red Sox fan, and no one at the Wal Mart or Target where you bought these things would say anything to you.

Now pay close attention here...

Right after Gretchen Wilson strutted out on stage with a dip in, proclaiming herself a Redneck Girl...Faith Hill is now at or near the top of the charts as...tah-dahhhhh...a Mississippi Girl! No more whispy goddess in designer dress moaning of love from the Eiffel Tower with her bald husband by her side. Dammit, she's DOWN HOME.

The number one Billboard Country song right now is "Play Something Country," by Brooks & Dunn. This comes from the authentic duo--put together by the marketing managers of two labels in Nashville who thought one's voice and the other's pouty cowboy act would play well with the hausfraus--who brought you the boot-scootin' fucking boogie.

Well fuck you Kixx (what a stupid fucking name by the way, what's your real name?) and Ronnie. Johnny Cash fucking hated you. And he hated you too, Kenny. He hated all of you people in Nashville. You know why? You gave up relevance for money. Country music wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't like it was just going to up and disappear. But you panicked and decided it needed to be a product.

"Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy," isn't in the Harlan Howard tradition. Harlan Howard would have invented that phrase, not read it off of a bumper sticker and made a song out of it, ten or fifteen fucking years after it was first said. The long ago dead genius of the songwriters in Nashville was their ability to translate common life into meaningful music with clever twists of language. You fucking people have turned that all around bass-ackwards. Now you take jingle slogans and inundate your radio listeners with them until they go to the fucking Wal-Mart and buy whatever it is you're selling.

Several people at a small radio station in Stillwater can attest to this. I got piles and piles of mail in the last few months encouraging me to vote for this and for that for CMA awards. Many for artists in direct competition with each other for THE SAME CATEGORY. Piles of it. You want to know the joke? IT ALL CAME FROM THE SAME ADDRESS IN NASHVILLE.

You, me, us, we, them...we don't want Country Music. We want the Country Music package.

I give up. I miss you Johnny.

Posted by Jack Sparks at September 14, 2005 11:03 AM

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