Land of Confusion

The Hon. John McCain:

Sarah Palin?!?

Really, Sen. McCain? I was underwhelmed with Sen. Obama's choice for a running mate, but you sir have finally lowered the bar to the floor.

Nothing I read about your running mate impresses me, sir.

I will now require a MUCH larger check - or perhaps a condo - before I even consider filling in the broken arrow next to your name on the ballot.

Good day sir!

Respectfully,

Your RHS

She got the gold mine

Your Redheadedstranger was in the shower today, a-latherin' and a-scrubbin' and listening to the radio news when the final throwaway item in the top-of-the-hour news update upset the delicate balance of his shower ritual...

Jerry Reed was dead.

Emphysema, they said. 71, they said.



Here's Jerry on the Porter Wagoner show (note the Nudie suits in play here!) picking one of my favorite old timey country tunes and putting his own spin on it.

Jerry Reed was by no means a terribly influential country artist - most people under 40 know him better for his turns in Smokey and the Bandit and The Waterboy than his recordings - but there was something about a Jerry Reed tune that set it apart.

Maybe it was the guitar style. Maybe it was the blues influence. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the way every song he did seemed to say, "Listen, pal - I don't give a flying f*&$ if you want to hear Adios, Amigo. That dude in the back wants to hear When You're Hot You're Hot again and he's the one buying the beer."

Dropped out of high school to tour with Ernest Tubb and Faron Young. Lordy.

Mulder? Scully?

David Duchovny is in rehab to kick his sex habit.

Remember when he was relevant? Oh, those were the days. I still look at my flannel shirts and my Nirvana CDs with tearful sentimentality.

I'd like to congratulate a couple of entities for some bold moves today.

BOLD MOVE #A - Georgia may just cut off relations with the country that invaded them. It may be time to consider that move.

BOLD MOVE #2 - John McCain picked the governor of Alaska as his running mate. Isn't she being investigated for ... wait, I already said she was an Alaska Republican. It's like the Reps own little Chicago up there, eh?

BOLD MOVE #4 - Me, for picking Iowa to beat Maine on Saturday. However, if Iowa doesn't run for a ridiculous number of yards and completely control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, it's going to be a loooooooong year.

Two Things

- I believe the little lady and I have a date - June 21. Having an actual date makes it seem...real.

- I have made a conscious choice not to caucus tonight. I am completely and totally burned out in regards to the 2008 election. I get 20+ pieces of campaign mail a week. I see 3 political ads during every break in local programming. I think Mike Gravel even stumped in my living room last week. I'm not sure.

Maybe other people are fired up this year, but count me out. None of the candidates truly excite me, and having Clinthompsobamabee shoved down my throat on a constant basis has killed my desire to care.

NEVERTHELESS...your RHS endorses Chris Dodd and John McCain this year. I had been leaning towards Bill Richardson before the focus of his campaign became "get the troops out in a year". Iowans have finely tuned B.S. detectors, Bill, and most of us recognize your promise for what it is. Likewise with John Edwards (for whom I caucused in 2004) and his "we'll get those companies to stop sending jobs overseas!" pledge.

Chris Dodd is not only level-headed and occasionally bi-partisan, he has done nothing to offend me during the run up to the caucus. John McCain had the good taste to not bother with Iowa at all. He even still says he's AGAINST farm subsidies - what other candidate on either side would have the guts to say that this time of year? - and more importantly to me, he isn't dragging his religious beliefs around on a chain. (No, I do not care for Mike Huckabee. Thank you for your concern.)

For this, Chris Dodd and John McCain earn Your RHS's Seal of Approval. However, if you're caucusing and you really want my opinion on the matter? No Preference is the way to go. You won't be a viable group and you'll have to pick a candidate anyway, but it might make you feel better about things.

Your RHS is still jiggy, phat, fly, and dope

You know how Your RHS loves his sports.

You know he's "Down With It" when it comes to the hip-hop. Kool Moe Dee, Young Emcee, Oh Dee Bee - I love them all.

That is why this caused me to giggle like an eight-year-old school girl this morning. When life hands you lemons, ditch them and look for giggles on the internet.

He's infringing on my decrees!

I've always felt that I would make a good king, or at least a kick ass duke.

Now I realize Juan Carlos is my royal idol.

When do the rest of us get our chance?

Style!

The Fisherpriceman brings up another recent passing - Porter Wagoner - which I had failed to note (mostly because I thought he died yeeears ago). If you haven't seen the video clip of he and Dolly belting out Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man over on FPM's blog, do so. I did.

Which brings us to the point of this post. That suit ol' Porter was wearing was a Nudie suit, and a lot of people can't even be in the same room with such an outfit without expressing their emotions in such ways as "ROFL" and "LMAO". I, however, think it's high time the damned things made a comeback in country music. Why? I'm glad you asked!

Here we see Gram Parsons (undoubtedly during his Flying Burrito Brothers days) rocking his own Nudie suit. Notice the clever rhinestone herbs on the jacket via which Gram says, "Hey, brother - you back in the 30th row - go ahead and spark up, brother, because it's all groovy with me."

The back featured a red cross, perhaps meant to tell that same guy in the 30th row to be sorry he burned a burrito torpedo in the presence of his wife and child.

(I have to confess at this point that I was KISS in concert during their non-makeup days. In front of me sat a middle aged guy who brought his wife, his two young sons, and his sweet sweet sticky. Impressive parenting.)

Here's a shot of the aforementioned Porter Wagoner from behind at the Grand Ole Opry. Porter might have worried fans would forget his name. I'm not sure.

Before you ask - no, it is absolutely positively not possible for a Nudie suit to be "gaudy" or "too busy". Nudie Cohn would spin in his grave if you thought such a thing. Please do not. Grave spinning is illegal where Nudie is buried.

I hope Porter Wagoner was buried in a Nudie suit. I really do. I spent a few days in Ottumwa for a wedding last year, and one of the high points was waking up in the hotel to a Sunday morning rebroadcast of the old Porter Wagoner show. At least, I think it was the Porter Wagoner show. The glare from the suits was a little much to take at 7 am on a Sunday.

Here's Nudie himself, rocking one of his finer suits. Ever get a good giggle (or drunken satisfaction) out of singing along with Rhinestone Cowboy? Stop thanking Glen Campbell - without Nudka "Nudie" Cohn, there wouldn't be any rhinestone cowboys. Like Elvis in his gold lame suit? That was Nudie as well. Charged the Colonel $10,000 for a suit that cost him $500 to make. I think they both made out pretty well in the end.

There's just no sparkle or pizzazz anymore, ya know? Little Jimmy Dickens has a closet full of Nudie suits. Kenny Chesney cuts the sleeves off of his casual dress shirts. Webb Pierce had an awesome Nudie suit featuring himself behind bars plucking a guitar - all because he recorded a popular version of In the Jailhouse Now. Toby Keith has a beat-up straw cowboy hat that could have come from Wal-Mart.

What ever happened to the spectacle? The style? Hell, even when everyone was wearing a Nudie suit on stage no one looked alike. Buck Owens, Roy Rogers and Hank Williams loved them enough to be buried in them. Do you honestly think Alan Jackson wants to meet his maker in a white cowboy hat and jeans? I truly believe Roy Rogers wanted to meet the Almighty wearing his finest Nudie suit. I only hope Dale did the same.

If you take nothing else away from this brief rant, dear reader, take this - country music has a long and (obviously) colorful history that has been trampled on over the last 10-15 years. You may laugh at the Nudie suits, but I still listen to every Nudie-suit-wearing artist listed in this rant on a fairly regular basis. They recorded music that reflected their own personal tastes and their individuality. Today's country artists are just looking to get another top ten hit out there so Sean Hannity will invite them to play a Freedom Concert somewhere, hopefully boosting sales a little more.

The industry has finally won, the artists have finally lost, and we're all a little worse off for the war.

Say it ain't so! (Part 2)

I was reminded by nothing in particular that someone of no real importance had told me Charles Nelson Reilly was no longer amongst the living.

I recoiled in horror, as certainly I would have heard that CNR passed away.

Turns out CNR has brought down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. At least he'll have Brett Somers to joke with in the great beyond. And Gene Rayburn. Having watched many an episode of Match Game '7?, it's a bit surprising some of the panelists made it into their old age. Only Richard Dawson - the man who fled Match Game when they wouldn't let him play every bonus round - remains. (Incidentally, didja know that it was Richard Dawson who introduced Bob Crane to John Carpenter? Yes, that is a chill you feel filling the room.)

While looking up that bit of sad CNR news, I got hit with another shot to the solar plexus - Robert Goulet has taken Red Ships of Spain on tour in the afterlife.

No longer will we see his nut ads.

No longer will he urge us to dream the impossible dream.

Sigh.

CNR gone? Robert Goulet gone? I have to say it - Your RHS is a little bummed.

Nobel? Noble?

Reserving comment on whether or not Al Gore's half of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was warranted or deserved...doesn't his picture from their website look like he could have been the head of the Soviet Union between Brezhnev and Andropov?

Imagine him making a fiery anti-American speech in Russian with that silly lisp/accent thingy he has going. I challenge you not to giggle - and if you don't laugh, you probably are a Commie pinko anyway.

Istan-bull

It amuses me greatly that Turkey is so vociferous in its assertion that the "mass killing" of Armenians that the Ottoman Turks perpetrated during World War I was not genocide.

Merely a mass killing.

(Thank goodness that's cleared up!)

While I appreciate the tactic of sticking one's fingers in one's ears and loudly humming "The Stars & Stripes Forever" while someone else points out the truth, this has become just a tad ridiculous. The Turks are quick to point out why it isn't genocide...

A) It wasn't directly orchestrated by the government (unless you look into the matter).
B) Only 300,000 Armenians were killed (or was it over a million? I suppose once you hit six figures, the rest is gravy).
C) The word genocide wasn't coined until the 1940s (best reason yet!).

Turkey wishes so desperately to join the EU and be considered a cosmopolitan European nation yet can't seem to own up to what was done within their own borders 90+ years ago? Let them cool relations with the United States. Let them beat their chests in public and trot out revisionist historians to explain why the systematic elimination of hundreds of thousands of Armenians was simply inter-racial skirmishing during the war. I for one refuse to listen any more. If the prospect of a non-binding resolution terming the event genocide passing a House committee is driving the Turkish government around the bend, then I for one can hardly wait to see what happens when it sails through the full House.

What the Turks need to understand is simple: rational people don't hold the current government responsible for what the Young Turks did during the war - they hold them responsible for refusing to acknowledge the truth. It's hard to consider a state a legitimate voice in the modern world when they refuse to acknowledge their own past faults. It seems to be this would be something akin to the U.S. claiming that they never allowed slavery, but did have an extensive African guest worker program prior to the Civil War. Utterly ludicrous, but that's what we're seeing today.

I wish the Erdogan government would come to realize this and proceed accordingly, but they'll use patriotic fervor and anti-American sentiment to whip up further support for themselves. What this accomplishes outside of a brief wider mandate remains entirely unclear to me. I tire of the notion that there are lists of countries we are allowed to offend and and lists which we are not allowed to offend. I'm rather in favor of speaking the truth, and if that means embarrassing some nation because they refuse to acknowledge their faults, then so be it.

Special Sauce Indeed

I had an underwhelming experience with a "legendary" local restaurant the first time I went, but kept hearing from people, "No! You just caught them on a bad night! Try it again!"

So I did try it again, and it was better. I went back yet again and enjoyed myself. The memories of that first visit was really starting to fade.

Those trips have come to an end for a while, I think. Back to square one, I guess. Maybe I'll cheer myself up with a trip to Sutliff.

Juiced

I saw photos this weekend of O.J. being led around in handcuffs and read reports of him being held without bail - yet when I look at the dateline on my newspaper, it says 2007.

I'm so very confused. Is the new Blind Melon album out yet? Did they ever resolve the baseball strike? Is Ace of Base still huge?

Mmm. Getting in an Ace of Base reference always makes for a good Monday.