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:

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.

If you like songs about puppy dogs being too late to save disabled kids who die in house fires, become angels and prevent car wrecks, screamed at you on top of overly dramatic pedal steel fills, you'll love Martina McBride. Bring your wallet because it will cost more than $40 to absorb her vocal histrionics on the back of your skull and have your soul stirred repeatedly by songs of poverty and abuse sung by a very rich woman with servants. Tonight State Fair Grand Stand, $1,000 (Angels get in free)

Buck Owens wouldn't shit down Rascall Flatts' throats if they were dying of starvation. Maybe I complain too much, but if you're going to force me to accept the Chesney-ification of Country Music, please give me some sort of connection to the historical timeline of the art form. Don't just give Hanson some facial hair and put a fiddle and steel player in their backing band and call them the next Alabama. By the way, who the fuck wants to be the next Alabama, anyway? I sure as hell didn't ask for the next Alabama. Thursday State Fair Grand Stand, $Your Eternal Soul's Damnation in Hell (if you go with two of your best friends, make sure one of you wears a tshirt, the other a Western shirt, and make the fattest of the 3 of you wear a long-cut, untucked silk shirt with a spikey collar and the sleeves undone, pout at any girls you meet)

We couldn't get Lynyrd Skynyrd, but then again, none of us cared. Here's a hint, or maybe a nudge, perhaps even a wink wink to the State Fair folks: The Gear Daddies should play the Grandstand one of the last 3 nights at The Fair every year, and it shouldn't be as a replacement for some band that isn't even a band, or even the shadow of the band, or even 50% of the band that they're supposed to be.

This is a smoked walleye. It was caught in a Minnesota lake and it was gutted and grilled within 100 miles of where it was yanked unceremoniously from its habitat.

I'm a transplant to Minnesota, and I worship the State Fair. I find it to be the perfect period to my Summer sentence, and I scratch my head in bewilderment at those who fail to revel in its majestic beauty and terrible ugliness. Our hopes and our fears are sewn into the seams and pockets of this spectacle, and we gather, like sardines in a can, to hash this thing out until there's nothing left but a battalion of dumpsters, filled to the lid with the shattered equinox of what we think is "Minnesota."

As you're standing in the middle of a six or seven thousand member sea of humanity watching the 40-someting Gear Daddies play, you realize that they don't speak to who we are so much as they speak to who we hope we are. We want small town education and big city guts, and we pray every night that there's one or three things we can rely on when the sun comes up in the morning. We want to feel like the boss expects us, but we want him to understand that it's still August, and, incongruously, that there are ripe tomatoes on the vine. We want to get bombed Friday night and miraculously find our way home, safely. But we don't want to feel like a pussy getting there.

Here's the thing about the State Fair...about the Gear Daddies...about Minnesota...that you'll never understand, unless you have your ear to the ground Kemosabe. A) You want some friends. B) You want to spend time with your friends, exchanging ideas, lawnmowers, and recipes for smoked walleye. C) At some point, you hope and you pray that some rock solid gal who understands the finer points of paying the mortgage on time, when to plant the tomatoes, where the dogwoods should go in the backyard, and which belt to wear with which shoes, takes pity on you and makes your life worth living. Diablo Cody, THAT is what the State Fair is about; it's about the sweaty mess of 3 deep lines at the port-o-let at 10:01pm, and the men who love them. There is LIFE in this process and genuflection is mandatory.

Still, I felt a nagging emptiness when I left. That was it? That's the event Minnesotans talk about all year long? --Diablo Cody

You see, my little Diablita, the State Fair is about the annualness of it all. This is a harvest festival. We all get together and celebrate our sunburnt, drunken, fish-poachin', gun-shootin', bike ridin', pontoon wreckin' summers. And, if we happen to come across a bare-chested, 300 pound man with a prosthetic hook for a right arm, wearing a captain's hat, with a distended belly button that would be a b-cup breast if it were on a woman...well, good God woman, that's worth the $9 in and of itself. Some things are different about the Fair each year: the seed artworks, some of the food, a handful of musical acts...but some things are the SAME: like the above photo, an annual rite of "Sparks at the Fair." This year's act was filled with unbridled joy because I had actually bought a digital camera this past winter and was able to capture it in pixilated form for posterity. I apologize, but the only thing I don't like about the State Fair is when they bring in bullshit sissy boy bands like Rascall Flatts, and the scotch eggs. Everything else gets a "10" in my book.

Carlos Saragosa
left his home in Casas Grandes
when the moon was full

He had no money is pocket
just a locket of his sister
framed in gold

He headed for El Suego
and stole a rooster named Gallo del Cielo
and the he crossed the Rio Grande
with that rooster nestled deep beneath his arms

Robbie Fulks once told The Onion in an interview that Country Music does one thing really well, and when it does that thing, it sort of transcends itself. As I watched Joe Ely last night at Lee's Liquor Lounge, I pondered this idea. What kept ringing in my head is that what I consider good and/or authentic twang music, stains you. It stains your clothes, your heart, and your soul. It gets down inside you and it stays there across the years.

By contrast, the kind of Countrived Music that I rail against is more like lip gloss or clown paint, very temporary. If you're prancing around in a black cowboy hat right now, singing about Margaritas and Senoritas, you're going to wake up 10 or 15 years from now and wonder what the joke was. Why were you wearing that shirt, and man, this song sounds kinda fruity all the sudden doesn't it?

Joe Ely's music isn't like that. I often tell people if they had to re-record the episode of the Simpsons where Homer eats the chili pepper, goes on a trip and meets his spirit guide, a coyote with Johnny Cash's voice, they should choose Ely to fill in for the Man in Black (God rest his soul). When Joe sings a song, it stays sung. There's some kind of creepy, ethereal, authority to the way he sings; and that's not to say his voice is hard-edged and brute. Rather, when you're there, 20 feet away from the guy, and he sings something, you have a hard time imagining anybody else ever singing that song again. I like Robert Earl Keen like the next guy, but, after last night, I can't imagine anyone else singing "The Road Goes on Forever," ever again.

And make no mistake about two things: 1) Seeing the man do "Me and Billy the Kid," live in your face is just about one of the ten best things you can do on this earth if you're a country fan, and 2) Joel Guzman will cut the top of your head off with his accordion playing. I'm not sure I've seen anything like him, this side of Flaco Jimenez. He made that thing sound like a pedal steel, harmonica, and everything in between.

Finally, he sang the chicken fight song during his encores. I think I would have stepped over my own mother to hear that song live. To use a sports analogy, the welling of emotion for me in that song at the end is very similar to Al Michaels' "do you belive in miracles" bit at the end of the game against the Russians. The song is epic, yet believable, and for some reason, you get a big sympathetic hole in your heart for a fighting rooster during it. More of that ethereal stuff I was talking about.

A quick counterpoint to Jon Bream's best live country acts piece on StarTribune.com. His comments, followed by my reactions in bold.

1. Kenny Chesney: With his energy, attitude and athleticism, he throws a party like no other current country star, even if his songs don't measure up to country's finest.

His songs don't measure up to country's worst. To say he sucks ass is an insult to ass everywhere. I'm really lost on why this guy doesn't get savaged more regularly. "...even if his songs don't measure up to country's finest," is the national music writer's code for "we all think he sucks, but we have to write drivel like this because the production companies buy huge ads in our newspapers." Let's all drop the pretense, if Kenny Chesney never recorded another fucking note, none of us in the Country Music biz would be the worst for it.

2. Big & Rich. Genre-blending originality, commanding stage presence and a sense of fun (and humor) have meant that Big Kenny Alphin and John Rich's motto should be "Save a Genre (Take Some Chances)." Thursday at We Fest.

There's nothing original about these guys. Their stage performance is derivative of everything Kid Rock's been doing for many years now. Take some chances? "Save a horse, ride a cowboy" has been a FUCKING BUMPER STICKER for decades! Let's all drop the pretense, these edgy guys who happen to record for the equally edgy independent little shop called WARNER BROTHERS FUCKING RECORDS are an attempt to tap into--albeit about a decade later than they should have--the suburban, white, hip hop market, Wal-Mart Hip Hop.

3. Toby Keith. Part Hulk Hogan and part Hank Williams Jr., this blustery, hard-partying patriot is country's over-the-top success. Thursday at We Fest.

Finally, something to latch onto. It's Part Hulk Hogan part Hank Jr. because today's mainstream country is more like Pro Wrestling than Country Music.

4. Brooks & Dunn. This long-lasting duo has a convincing balance of sentimental songs, sanitized redneck rowdiness and calculated showmanship.

It took all of Bream's strength to say these guys should hang it up. Their act is so tired that they don't even measure up to the 10 bands that are exact duplicates/weird offshoots of them (see Big & Rich).

5. Rascal Flatts. Country's boy band pulls it off with youthful energy, harmony-happy romantic songs and cool hairdos, especially frontman Gary LeVox's (above). Sept. 1 at State Fair.

If Bream wanted Gary LeVox to ask him to the prom, all he had to do was call him. FUCKING BOY BANDS DON'T BELONG IN COUNTRY!!!! I'm calling right now state-wide for anyone who's got tickets for this gig to eat a sweet corn, save your cob, and launch it at the stage in unison when this disaster comes out to play.

6. Sawyer Brown. This veteran group doesn't try to impress with a fancy production. Instead, it lets the uptempo tunes and frontman Mark Miller's dazzling dancing carry the show. Friday at We Fest and Aug. 27 at State Fair.

Two words: Star Search. How long oh lord? How long?

7. Alison Krauss & Union Station. No one can argue with her beautiful voice and the group's awesome instrumental prowess, but it's Krauss' off-the-wall humor that makes the performances delightfully unpredictable.

Finally, someone worth seeing.

8. Keith Urban. This fast-rising Aussie heartthrob injects spirituality, romanticism and guitar heroics into his hook-filled country-rock. Sept. 24 at Xcel Center.

The Sean Cassidy of country. I'm going to tell you what happened with this guy, even though I wasn't there. Some night at some club in Nashville, he was on a bill with 3 other guys who sang and played guitar just as well, if not better than he does. The fat fuck in the audience with the big office at the record company--on his 5th Jack and Coke--signed the good looking guy. That's it, that's what separates him, his looks.

9. Gretchen Wilson. This raw, rough-around-the-edges newcomer's honesty, passion and humor shine through on her forward-thinking but traditional mix of heartache and honky-tonk. Saturday at We Fest.

I'm still warming up to Gretchen. Too bad she's part of the Ass Clown Posse, or whatever they call themselves.

10. Trick Pony. A spunky, fun-loving and fun-generating trio that understands how to create a (contrived) good time. Saturday at We Fest.

Why did he put "contrived" in parentheses? Almost everyone on this list is contrived. In fact, mainstream country music should be changed to Countrived Music.

11. Terri Clark. She rocks! She can be a sensitive balladeer or a sweaty rocker. And she always champions girl power. Sept. 4 at Kick'n Up Kountry Music Festival in Hallock, Minn.

I actually have sympathy for Terri Clark. She starved herself into hotness when she came down out of Canada and that fat fuck with the office at the record company thought he had a chick act he could throw out there and make some dough off of, even if she had a two note voice and a two song act. They tried to make her the "Redneck Woman" thing, but it just didn't ring true, maybe further evidence of Wilson's authenticity, I'm not sure. The thing is, now that Wilson hit it big, they've twisted Clark's bit all around and tried to shove her into the mold. It will be interesting to see where all the chicks go now. We've already seen the desperately God-awful Faith Hill try to refashion herself into a hillbilly queen after selling out mercilessly for so long. What a fucking joke.

12. Dwight Yoakam. Long a Nashville outsider, this Hollywood cowboy is a scrumptious sonic throwback with a deep melting pot of superior tunes and a sly, witty stage style that drives women wild.

I've heard some good things about Dwight's gigs recently. I'm kind of crossing my fingers on his split with his long-time producer.

13. Tim McGraw. He drives women wild, too, not with his statue-like moves but with his hunky body, winning songs and big-budget production. Saturday at We Fest.

Sigh. In another words, he stands out there like a puppet and voice-boxes some song somebody else wrote while hookers and fireworks dance around in the background so the chumps who got duped out of $200 a head down front are distracted from his master's strings? Is that about right Jon?

14. Wynonna Judd. Long one of the strongest female voices in Nashville, she has finally found her comfort zone on stage with a spirited, liberating, humorous journey through her life via her favorite rock and R&B covers along with her own hits. Aug. 26 at Grand Casino Hinckley.

He's right, Wynona has a powerful voice. She also weighs about 2 1/2 bills, which made the fat fuck with the big office in Nashville jump off her ship like a scared rat. Do you see what I'm talking about? Loads of talent, but she likes moon-pies, so we think we'll pass. Nashville sucks.

15. Montgomery Gentry. Coming on like WWE tag-team champions, this duo is rambunctious and rockin' with a couple of ballads to balance the bluster. Aug. 26 at Jackpot Junction Casino in Morton, Minn.

See Pro Wrestling reference above. All of these duo acts in Nashville are just twangy copies of Wham! You do the jitterbug (snap snap snap)...

"Well," I said. "All this white stuff on my sleeve is LSD."

He said nothing: Merely grabbed my arm and began sucking on it. A very gross tableau. I wondered what would happen if some Kingston Trio/young stockbroker type might wander in and catch us in the act. Fuck him, I thought. With a bit of luck, it'll ruin his life--forever thinking that just behind some narrow door in all his favorite bars, men in red Pendleton shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he'll never know. Would he dare to suck a sleeve? Probably not. Play it safe. Pretend you never saw it...

--From Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson

Gregg Swedberg went to bed Sunday night, comfortable in the knowledge that his music director is too stupid to play, or even be aware of the band Drag The River. Which is the way things go in Mainstream Country Radio. The point I hammer home, ad nauseam, in this space is that Country music is many things to many people, and, comes from many strange and varied locales. When you work at a Mainstream Country Radio station, you stick your head into the sand, all the way up to your asshole, and buy the line that nothing is worth throwing on the radio unless it comes out of Nashville. Not only is Drag the River better as a band and a concept than anything coming out of Nashville right now, I'm sure they would overwhelm all those "Music City" acts with brute force, if not by smell. They drink before the show, during the show, and after the show; and like Dr. Johnny Fever, it just seems to make them stronger.

Chris Riemenschneider went to bed Sunday night, comfortable in the knowledge that Jon Bream had done a thorough cataloging of the lyrics of the last Mariah Carey album, but had never stopped to consider the 8 year odyssey of boozey road songs of regret and redemption that Chad Price and Jon Snodgrass seem to be able to churn out at will. There was a rough crowd at the Triple Rock Cafe Sunday night, and the two fisted out-state boys were shouting the words back at the band with bottles raised in the air, jumping up on-stage at roughly 2 minutes to 2, to slog through "Modern Drunkard" in perfect inebriated harmony, with guitar and pedal steel. Normally, a crowd with Asian chicks sporting tattoos in the shape of Texas, colored in with the pattern of the state flag, is Riemenschneider's gig. But, he's had enough of punk bands going country, so it's no wonder he misses the gems in the rock pile.

Ed Benson and Buddy Canon went to bed Sunday night, too fucking paranoid and stupid to give any thought whatsoever to anything but Big & Rich, and whether Faith Hill's bullshit attempt to go straight and play it twangy was going to bring the money rolling back in, now that Garth has retired to full time Dad-dom. While they spend every waking hour trying to squeeze any little bit of creativity in the genre through large product grinders with fine mesh dies, until there's nothing left but shapeless meaningless pulp that looks like the same shapeless meaningless shit they churned out last year, Drag the River charges around the country playing small clubs to rabid fans, most of whom are tangential travellers to the twang, having grown up worshipping at the altar of ALL as they charged their skateboards down the railings of the local public library. This tap into the vein of the demographic is organic and real, and their metamorphosis into Drag the River was a natural process that breeds lifelong loyalty, or repeat business...Ed.

Fuck them, I think. With a bit of luck, it'll ruin their lives--forever thinking that just behind some narrow door in all their favorite bars, men in skateboard shirts and Asian chicks with Texas tattoos are getting incredible kicks from things they'll never know.

From ESPN.com:

Colin Montgomerie shot 66, good enough to get him in the final group Saturday with Woods. But the Scotsman will start the round with four daunting strokes to make up.

He didn't even object to the premise that everyone is playing for second.

"I have to go along with that," Montgomerie said. "A lot can happen around here. But we all know if Tiger Woods plays the way Tiger Woods can play around this golf course, I'd have to agree."

Translation: Tiger Woods can eat a shit sandwich.

If this were a pro wrestling match, the announcers would be shouting, "these two men just don't like each other!"

The over-under on a piece of gamesmanship by Monty that brings out the New Zealand All Star Rugby player in Stevie and begins a succession of well-framed glares on ABC's bland coverage, is about hole 5 tomorrow. If Monty isn't in full red-faced ruddy anger by the time he gets his spikes off at the end of the round, tomorrow will be a complete waste. Get out of bed, I promise you it will be worth it. This man has acrimony against his American counterparts because of all that Ryder Cup bullshit, and, because he's never won the big one on his home turf.

I'm rooting for good TV.

91. I Was Drunk, Alejandro Escovedo
There's only one Alejandro.

Throughout the first few songs of Alejandro Escovedo's set on Friday night at First Avenue, I kept thinking of David Bowie for some reason. This feeling that maybe Escovedo is the Bowie of roots rock kept weighing down on me. It's a goofy little comparison, but it just felt right. The music he allows to surround his lyrics is bendy and alien sometimes, while still feeling basic and rootsy. And his voice isn't really twangy when he sings, but it is when he talks. You get the feeling he could be anything at any time up on that stage, and each new song he played was different, but weirdly fit with the one before, as the night progressed. And Jesus, his voice...the man has Hepatitis C. You don't just take some Vitamin C and call it a bad mistake on that one. I was really worried that he'd have to limp through something up there, singing on heart and conviction, but good God was I wrong. Even if he didn't move and swagger too much, his voice crashed around the room, reintroducing himself as our weird ol' Texas spirit guide Uncle Alejandro, gone for awhile, but come back to visit. His rendition of "I Was Drunk," the 91st greatest Country Song of All Time, was outstanding, if not chilling in its desperation and tone. This is truly a masterpiece of isolation and pain, and it struck me for the first time what a brilliant move it was to never call out or record the name he's actually calling out in the song. It's all part of relating the pain and loneliness, and besides, it makes the song more universal in the end. Finally, he absolutely kicked my ass at the end, with a two song encore of "All The Young Dudes (written by Bowie--see? It wasn't just the dirty tap delirium and nausea that caused that thought)" and the Stones' "Sway."

Thu 07.21.05 Oklahoma City, OK Blue Door
Fri 07.22.05 Kansas City, MO
Sat 07.23.05 Kansas City, MO Davey's Uptown
Thu 08.04.05 Calgary, AB (CA)
Fri 08.05.05 Calgary, AB (CA) Night Gallery
Sat 08.06.05 Edmonton, AB (CA)
Sun 08.07.05 Edmonton, AB (CA) Gallagher Park w/ Edmonton Folk Festival
Fri 08.26.05 San Francisco, CA
Sat 08.27.05 San Francisco, CA 12 Galaxies
Fri 09.23.05 Austin, TX
Sat 09.24.05 Austin, TX Continental Club
Thu 09.29.05 New York, NY Irving Plaza w/ Jon Dee Graham, David Pulkingham & Matt Fish
Fri 09.30.05 Washington, DC 9:30 Club w/ Jon Dee Graham, David Pulkingham & Matt Fish
Sat 10.01.05 tba w/ Jon Dee Graham, David Pulkingham & Matt Fish
Sun 10.02.05 Philadelphia, PA Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (Verizon Hall)

The people who live in the above cities are dumbasses if they don't go catch this guy's show when he comes to town. That's all we have to say about that.