Does she get paid for this?

Alison Bonaguro, that is:

...someone played this new song, "Just Breathe," for me...I did like it. Until I found out that it was A PEARL JAM SONG. Pearl Jam, of the screaming grungy alt-rock fame. Not really my thing as a hardcore country fan. But since my gut reaction to this song was a good one, I think I'd better add it to my one-off playlist and keep it handy in case anyone ever accuses me of having a one-track mind.

and for this?

Well, when I don't hear twin fiddles and a steel guitar, I think I must be listening to just another rock song. And I don't really like it. So when I first saw this Rascal Flatts video for "Unstoppable," with so much guitar and not much else, I was not a fan. But then I remembered, "Oh yeah, I love this song."

One-track mind? One could be forgiven for thinking someone who would write things like that had no mind at all. I think anyone who likes Rascal Flatts has little if any business calling him/herself a hardcore country fan. And I daresay that a one-off playlist of one or two songs each from a few non-country singers or bands isn't even close to an indicator of being open-minded when it comes to other genres of music. Let's see a few albums from those other artists and some intelligent conversation about them. Otherwise you're just a shallow-minded poser. And to show I'm *not* a shallow-minded poser, a few comments about a sampling of my own iTunes...

Kelly Clarkson, Breakaway (2004): Yes, I admit it, I bought this cd and really enjoyed it. I'm not a fan of the whole American Idol concept, and I think those who call Adam Lambert a "rock god" don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. But this was a nice, well-rounded top-40 pie, served up by one of the best voices in pop music these days. I particularly liked the songs that had their main characters refusing to be walked on, such as "Gone" and "Walk Away." But the slower songs that showed their characters' more vulnerable side, such as "Because of You" and "Where Is Your Heart" were enjoyable as well.

Megadeth, "Rust In Peace" (1990): The band started by ex-Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine in 1985 had a string of great thrash metal records from its formation, but it was "Rust in Peace" that many say was the band's artistic peak. I am still working on my Megadeth collection, so I can't honestly make that assessment, but I can say that this album is a thrash metal masterpiece, from beginning to end. The galloping guitar intro to "Holy Wars (The Punishment Due)" gets me going every time, and "Tornado of Souls" has a really infectious groove to it. Mustaine's topics were very similar to James Hetfield and company's -- religious wars ("Holy Wars"), secret government compounds housing aliens ("Hangar 18"), and the brutality of war in general ("Take No Prisoners"). A lot of people love one band and hate the other, but I love them both, and this album is a prime example of why I love Megadeth.

Merle Haggard, "Down Every Road" (1994): If you get one Haggard compilation in your life, this 4-cd boxed set is the one to get. They called Merle the "poet of the common man," and this 100-song collection is the ultimate illustration of every reason for that. Many of Merle's great prison songs are on here ("Sing Me Back Home," "Mama Tried," "Huntsville"), the tales of the common folk of America and the hard times they faced ("If We Make It Through December," "California Cottonfields," "Tulare Dust"), and even Merle's derision of society's intolerance of interracial love ("Go Home," "Irma Jackson.") If you're a hardcore country fan, well, you NEED this in your collection.

I could go on, but you get the point. I'll put my music tastes up against anyone's -- perhaps not my knowledge, but then I'll freely admit that I have a lot left to learn. I should note, though, that my wife made a good point a few weeks back as we were tooling down IH-35 on the north side of San Antonio. She said that it was not necessarily a bad thing to have narrow tastes in music, that if you claimed to like any kind of music you really weren't much of a discriminating music fan. Some might think that has an elitist air to it, but as she said, if you like everything in general, you like nothing in particular. And as I thought about it, I came to see there's nothing wrong with having what people would term "narrow tastes." Some might still think I have them. But I like to think of myself as a hell of a lot more enlightened than someone who wouldn't like a Pearl Jam song because it was supposedly "not country," yet in another blog post sing the praises of Rascal Flatts as a "country" band.

(h/t Country California)

Today we run away...

Check Sabra's blog about 1:30 today. That's all I'm going to say about that. It'll tell you all you need to know... ;-)

Yeah, that sounds about right to me...

A letter-writer in today's San Antonio Express-News:

The two rights liberals hate and fear most are the right of free speech — unless they're the ones speaking — and the right to keep and bear arms. The Supreme Court stood up for the citizens for once.

Try as I may, I can't really argue with that. How else to explain all the lefty caterwauling after Heller v. D.C and Citizens United v. FEC? And how else does one explain this statement from John Mellencamp?

“I don’t think people fought and gave their lives so that some guy can sit in his bedroom and be mean. I don’t think that’s what freedom of speech is...Freedom of speech is really about assembly — for us to collectively have an idea. We want to get our point of view out so we can assemble and I can appoint you to be the spokesman. That’s freedom of speech — to be able to collectively speak for a sector of people.

I wonder why the reporter didn't ask him what group appointed him to say that? And what is it with liberals and their collective-right fetish?

That's what you get...

...when you pick up an angry rattlesnake, you should nigh well EXPECT to get bitten...

"We are shocked and stunned at the Administration's tone and public dressing down of Israel," Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman said in a statement. "We cannot remember an instance when such harsh language was directed at a friend and ally of the United States."

Suck it, Abe. Your organization supported that bastard Obama over McCain, even if you couldn't do it officially. I'd bet that over 90 percent of the ADL's membership voted for him, despite the fact that McCain was a much better friend of the Israelis than Obama could have even pretended to be. Just like you support things like gun control which make it so much easier for your people to be oppressed and even exterminated. You reap what you sow, dude.

(h/t Firehand)

Still here...

I am not dealing with any blues. In fact, life couldn't be better. Sabra is with me. Stay tuned. ;-)

"Country. You keep using that term."

"I do not think it means what you think it means."

He did do country songs on idol, Jesus takes the wheel, hope you dance, what hurts the most and I think there’s one more.

Goodness, what can I say to that? "I Hope You Dance" was arguably Lee Ann Womack's most pop-sounding song, to the point that MCA was able to make a top-40 remix of it. I might've given the dude some credit if he'd done, say, "Does My Ring Burn Your Finger" or "I May Hate Myself In the Morning." To paraphrase one of CMW's comments from last year, are we to understand that the closest Danny Gokey can get to traditional country is a poppish detour by a solid traditionalist? And those other two choices pretty much speak for themselves. Carrie Underwood and Rascal Flatts. Really. I wonder if these people think that if you call a turd a chocolate eclair that automatically makes it one. Hand to God, this was my Facebook status yesterday afternoon as a certain song was playing on Sirius:

"'...Fill the cracks in, with judicial granite....because I don't say it, don't mean I ain't thinkin' it....' Ahhh, Megadeth. You see what Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood have driven me to listen to?"

You know what this is?

This...

A decade-old probation report on a sex offender accused of murdering Southern California teenager Chelsea King says a psychiatrist concluded he had "significant predatory traits" toward underage girls.
The report released by a San Diego court on Tuesday was prepared in 2000 for the sentencing of then-20-year-old John Albert Gardner III after he pleaded guilty to committing lewd acts on a 13-year-old neighbor girl. The victim was also punched repeatedly.

is another example of the kind of person Paul Helmke, Sarah Brady, Abby Spangler, et al. seem to have no problem with walking the streets, free to predate at will, as long as they allegedly can't get a gun. Not only that, they would leave us all defenseless against such monsters (see: their protests every time a public or PRIVATE entity makes it easier to carry) if they had their way. You wonder why I think these people are evil? Well, there's yet another answer for you.

Stage vs. studio...

or, Another blog commenter nails it here:

Tim McGraw put on a great "show" by appealing to the crowd but his vocals were terrible, I don't think he hit a single high note all night and certainly didn't sound anything like his album cuts. That's the problem with Nashville country, its mostly smoke and mirrors.

If you want to hear real music then check out some Texas Country.

I remember seeing TM on the Strait tours and having the very same complaint. For the most part he doesn't sound much on stage like he does in the studio. How many other singers are like that I don't know, but I'd bet most of them are Nashville creatures. I've seen several of the Texas-red dirt singers live, among them Cory Morrow, Robert Earl Keen and Cross Canadian Ragweed, and they all sound live exactly like they do on their records. And I don't have any reason to believe that, for another couple of examples, the Robison brothers and Jack Ingram needed any help with their vocals when they recorded this cd at Gruene Hall. I know a lot of people are going to say that the Texas-red dirt folks aren't really good singers, but to the extent they aren't, they more than make up for that with the grit in the lyrical content and the passion with which they sing.

Another commenter a few minutes later said, "I think he may have had a little too much fun at the Oscars the night before....but he sure looked good!!"

In other words, "He didn't put on his best show, but he sure was perty to look at!" That seems to be the modern Nashville music fan's mentality in a nutshell, doesn't it?

Doesn't matter if they take the captions off...

...because the comments here reveal Brady supporters to be bigoted and detached from reality almost as much as the offensive captions did:

Sent them back to 1791!
Armed = Dangerous
Seriously? The guy with the bullet covered gun belt is clearly trying to compensate for being a complete loser in high school.

Armed = Dangerous? Only if you're a criminal. I got a kick out of the comment about "Almost any criminal (being able to) disarm one of these guys in about a half of a second." I am reminded of an increasingly common retort to that: "Well, I'll just take my gun back from him!" Yes, it's tongue in cheek, but the old "the criminal will just take your gun and shoot you with it" was long ago disproven just like all the rest of their arguments. Yet they bitterly cling to every last one of them...

More musical musings...

If Cross Canadian Ragweed is too rock for country, then why the hell is Rascal Flatts considered a "country" band? I guess it just goes to show you that those hacks in Nashville and at mainstream country radio really aren't about incorporating all their diverse influences into country music after all. Just as Gary Allan said, "There's not even really a country genre. You've got just as much pop as country. I was baffled on that Flatts tour…going, 'I just don’t get it.'"

I don't either, Gary. I don't get it either.

(h/t Country California)

Ye shall know them by their covers...

I think I might have spoken on this topic before, but what's another installment, right? Especially if it entails more ragging on a Nashville artist.

I was telling Sabra just last night that you could tell a lot about where an artist is coming from musically by the songs said artist covers live. (You could extend that to the artist's studio albums as well.) Just for a couple of examples, Tim McGraw has covered the Steve Miller Band ("The Joker") and Elton John ("Tiny Dancer"), while George Strait has covered Bob Wills ("Cherokee Maiden," "Take Me Back To Tulsa"), Merle Haggard ("Mama Tried") and Johnny Cash ("Folsom Prison Blues"). Who does Jason Aldean cover?

...he managed a solid take on Bryan Adams' Cuts Like a Knife...

With apologies to the late, great Vern Gosdin, that just about says it all, doesn't it?

What makes her think we're going without?

One Abby Spangler, that is...

And to Starbucks corporate management: How’s it feel to be kissing up to guys carrying guns drinking your coffee? FEEL GOOD? Wouldn’t you rather be kissing up to the women of America? FEEL OUR HEAT at Saturday’s Starbucks protest. All are welcome.

Who says it has to be one or the other? Would that I could tell that brainless twatwaffle to her self-righteous face just how much nookie I have gotten since I lost my virginity, at worst completely independent of my strident advocacy of the right to keep AND BEAR arms. And it's been from better looking people than her, to boot. Let's put it like this: I was a latecomer to it, but I have been doing my damnedest to catch up, and a right-good job of it. And I am sure I am not the only RKBA advocate who's not having to endure a dry spell. Go fuck yourself, Abby Spangler, right in your fucking ear.

Random musical observation for your Friday

Megadeth followed by Testament. Lord, but I do love Sirius.

Let them find someone else.

Read this post from Sabra before you continue here.

Done? All right...

You will note that Citizen Tom said nothing about Bob Marshall's offensive statement about disabled children being God's punishment for abortion. CT's defense of Marshall was little more than "he's a fiscally and socially conservative believer in small government and the big bad Virginny medier hateses them some social cons! Stupid reporter just made him look bad! Don't juuudge heeeim!"

Thing is, though, as Sabra pointed out, the full transcript of Marshall's remarks didn't make him look like anything other than what he was. And I'm betting there are many other fiscally conservative small-government advocates in Virginia who don't think disabled children are punishment from God. So let Virginia voters find one. Maybe they will also get lucky and find one who is a bit more libertarian on social issues, i.e., pro-gay marriage and casino gambling.

Oh, Leonard, so close...

...yet so far away...

Some of us after all, have argued all along that the tea parties were about as “conservative” — insofar as that term has traditionally been understood — as ladies night in a trendy bar. Indeed, some of us made the same point about George W. Bush, the putatively conservative president who nevertheless presided over an expansion of the federal government and of a federal entitlement program (Medicare), a costly war of choice in Iraq founded on a shifting rationale and financial mismanagement that turned surplus into deficit seemingly overnight.
...
they have yet to figure out that to protest everything is to protest nothing.

Pitts is actually right when he said George W. wasn't all that conservative; many on the right side of the aisle made the same determination over the last few years of his term. But I fail to understand this "to protest everything is to protest nothing" shibboleth. To say that would imply that everything the tea partiers are protesting cancels each other out, and even a casual glance at those protests will clearly show that is not the case. Everything they're protesting goes to the fact that government is expanding and taking more of our money and freedoms. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Pitts cites the New York Times here, as they have the same agenda he does; but as the old saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. Come to think of it, that phrase could explain most of not all of Pitts' columns.

Fundamental rights subject to what, again?

Supreme Court justices, in yesterday's arguments in McDonald v. Chicago:

(Stephen) Breyer said even a basic right such as gun ownership should be balanced by arguments about how restrictions could save lives.
"When it's free speech versus life, we very often decide in favor of life," Breyer said. "Here, every case will be on one side guns, on the other side human life."
Roberts and others opposed such limitations, but the chief justice said that even a fundamental right is "still going to be subject to the political process."

Wow. One wonders what other fundamental rights they would subject to the political process, ostensibly in the name of public safety, and public welfare too. I'm sure that violations of the Fourth Amendment could have gotten quite a few dangerous people off the streets, but I would think the Founding Fathers thought it worth the risk -- better a thousand guilty men go free than one innocent be locked up, as the old saying goes. I guess this sort of thing is what happens when the nanny-state takes over, but it's still quite disheartening to see this mentality espoused by members of the highest court in the land. I know many people decry the fact that judges are elected instead of appointed here in Texas, but is it a good thing when you get a judiciary that says things like "fundamental rights are going to be subject to the political process" and they can't be held accountable via that very process?

I also found what Breyer said to be a bit amusing. One wonders if he includes the lives of the criminals prowling the streets to be worthy of consideration. Based on his rhetoric, I am guessing he does. And then we have Gerald Ford appointee John Paul Stevens "wonder(ing) if a limited Second Amendment right could be applied to the states, so that ownership in the home was protected, as opposed to 'the right to parade around the streets with guns.'" Which more or less renders the Second Amendment meaningless, because if you only have a right to defend yourself in your home, do you really have that right recognized?

And then there was Antonin Scalia, whom you will remember Josh Sugarmann blasting as an "ambassador to the gun industry," speaking about incorporation of the 14A via the privileges and immunities clause being "contrary to 140 years of our jurisprudence." It strikes me that he's putting the stare decisis doctrine at the head of the list of things to be protected here, and while I can understand that, is stare decisis such a good thing when it leads to continued deprivation of rights or leaves the door open for such?

Professional-deceiver-says-what, again?

...or, Yes, Josh Sugarmann really wrote this:

So while we in the United States accept that a Supreme Court Justice who's an "Ambassador" for the gun industry can ethically rule on cases that impact the very industry he represents, maybe in Old Europe, where the WFSA is located, they can still feel the sting of a little thing called shame.

Shame? This from someone who has advocated taking advantage of the public's confusion about automatic vs. semi-automatic rifles to garner support for bans on semiautomatic rifles:

Assault weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons --anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun-- can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.

That's rich. Apparently richer than Josh's organization, to boot, considering that he's reduced to recycling blog posts from almost two years ago. You'd think by now he'd have seen the writing on the wall and started taking more advantage of his Federal Firearms License. God knows there's a market for the services he can offer.

Like I've said before...

....evil doesn't always come dressed in armbands and jackboots. Sometimes it comes in just a suit and tie, defending things like civilian disarmament and calling them "reasonable, common-sense gun laws." One wonders what Richard Daley would say to the folks mentioned in this story, especially Otis McDonald:

He came to Chicago from Louisiana when he was 17, as part of the Great Migration of blacks. He worked his way up from a janitor to a maintenance engineer, a good job that allowed him and his wife to buy a house on the city's far South Side in 1972, where they raised their family.
In recent years, McDonald, now a grandfather, has watched the neighborhood deteriorate, the quiet nights he once enjoyed replaced by the sound of gunfire, drunken fights and shattering liquor bottles.

How ironic that Daley and his kind claim to stand up for the rights of people like the McDonalds as they deny those people their most basic right of self-protection -- and on top of that, use those people's tax money to pay the salaries of their armed bodyguards. They fancy themselves heroes, but they're really nothing more than common criminals, accessories to tens of thousands of robberies, rapes, home invasions and murders. They'll probably never be held properly accountable for that, but at least the Supreme Court will have the opportunity to enable future would-be victims to defend themselves. Let's hope they do the right thing.

Moral dilemma?

More like warped moral compass:

...Do you really think God is somewhere polishing the barrel of his rifle, smiling down at all of his gun-owning children, while he thinks twice about the rest of us who sense a moral dilemma in owning a device explicitly made for killing?

Moral dilemma? WHAT moral dilemma? I wouldn't look forward to killing anyone and neither would any other gun owner I know, but if it comes down to defending my life and the lives of those I love or putting us at the mercy of some thug who wants our stuff and is willing to kill for it, then I come squarely down on the side of the former. And I see no moral dilemma whatsoever in owning a device designed to facilitate that defense, especially when the lives of mine and Sabra's defenseless children are at stake. It'd suck having to kill someone, but better them than me and mine.

I've heard all the classic lines about guns and the "freedom" to own one: "It's my second amendment right...I have the right to protect myself...If we outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns...Guns don't kill people; people kill people..." But I don't care about all the old cliches of gun ownership.

So he apparently doesn't care about people having the right to protect themselves -- or, apparently, the responsibility to protect those who can't protect themselves. Wow. I just don't have the words for that. Evil? You could sure make a case for that. It isn't always goose-stepping in jackboots.

I also thought this:

I understand that many intelligent, well-meaning, devoutly religious people own guns...

was interesting considering earlier in the piece he said this:

But what's creepier: the people who make these idiotic machines (Hello Kitty-themed guns -- ed.) or the people who want to buy them?

So apparently one can be intelligent AND an idiot at the same time? Because calling something "idiotic" implies that only an idiot would want it.

(h/t Joe Huffman)

Monday Morning Music Musings

As they say, there's no accounting for taste:

(Jason) Aldean's encouraging, steady success can be partly attributed to his sound, which he describes as "kind of like Guns N' Roses meets Hank Jr. And George Strait's hangin' around at the party, too." (Aldean's own iPod currently hold tunes from Alabama, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Paramore, Jay-Z and Rihanna.)
It's a fitting phrase, and much of Aldean's catalog (Amarillo Sky, Johnny Cash, She's Country) is a fresh alternative to the pretty-boy sap and vague contemporary-Christian ideals that fill most country radio playlists. It's made him a bright spot in a slumping industry, and one of the few new-ish male country acts to keep pace with Swift, Underwood and Lady Antebellum.

Fresh alternative? If you say so, Sparky. What I hear is little more than the other side of the worthless Nashville coin -- call it pretty-boy posturing, with "Johnny Cash" and "She's Country" being perfect examples of that. "Amarillo Sky" was comparatively decent, but anyone with more than just a rudimentary knowledge of American music knows that theme has been covered before.

Speaking of pretty-boy sap, though, as I was telling Sabra the other night, I don't know how the Grand Ole Opry hasn't disappeared in a ball of fire yet considering some of the "country" "artists" who have appeared on its stage. Jimmy Wayne? Man, what a joke. And not a very funny one.