...while my son Liam is doing his rap thing, I've just kind of been in a JC mood.
My truck no longer has a driver's side window because Liam hasn't quite grasped the concept of potential ricochet's with the BB/Pellet gun. I think we'll hold off on getting him the .22 rifle I was looking at upgrading him to. The truck still works though and the dogs know that if I'm going someplace in it, that they too are going to get a chance to go "bye-bye". You can't say that word too loud though because if they hear it, it triggers a little bit of a freak out time for them. Sometimes a stroll through the countryside is just what the doctor ordered, although with the dogs in the truck in the middle of summer's sweltering heat (and no air conditioning), what we have is a hot wind in the face, swirling shedded dog hair, everybody wanting to be on my lap, drool flowing like a waterfall and the non-stop rhythmic sound of panting. Would be sort of comical if there could be some kind of hidden camera.
Not sure if, wherever y'all may be, you get those redneck type jokes forwarded to you in your email. I don't know that I would be officially considered one or be embraced by redneck brethren as a fellow redneck, but unavoidably the tendencies are there. Actually if I drive my truck I get ten times the waves I do when I drive my car, even the big rigs give me the high sign. The jokes are very popular among the rednecks I know, made popular by Jeff Foxworthy and the other Blue Collar Comedy guys, and I'm a little impressed by a group of people being able to laugh at how they have been stereotyped (or have stereotyped themselves). Ethnic groups do the same thing, kind of roasting themselves, but anyone outside of that group making those kind of stereotypical (racist?) jokes would be frowned upon. Anyway I get these redneck jokes forwarded to me all the time and got a few good ones I've edited recently from my Grandpa.
You're An EXTREME Redneck When..... 1. You let your 14-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids. 4. You think a woman who is out of your league bowls on a different night.. 6. Someone in your family died right after saying 'Hey, guys, watch this'. 17. You think loading the dishwasher means getting your wife drunk.
Along those lines, interestingly (or not) enough called the Erudite Redneck. An interesting word, "erudite", I had to look it up, "learned, scholarly, with emphasis on knowledge gained from books". Kind of an oxymoron (another big word) if you take the stereotype to the next level. Kind of one of those resource link commentary type sites but since my buddy The Warden" is taking a break, I need something to fill the gap in my internet buffet.
If you weren't Johnny Cashed-out before this post, that like these others before, is on, about, for or in tribute to the man, well...let's say...I'm still trying. I personally would have a hard time getting sick of his music, but then again I've never tried to break that threshold. Like everything it's all about timing and what mood your in. You may have seen that I posted two very different releases of his, American Recordings and The Sun Years, plus several other random tunes, sparsely salted to taste, throughout my posts here. I really can't get enough of the guy and wish that he had been like one of those mythical biblical type guys who lived 9oo years. His output was tremendous but what could it have hurt to have gone on for a few more centuries. Speaking of "hurt", I don't have all the American Recoding stuff he did with Rick Rubin, but just discovered a tune he did, written by Trent Resnor (NIN) that, if you haven't already heard it, will blow you away, especially if you're like me and have been hopelessly addicted to something,
Hurt
This fine image was stolen/borrowed/loaned without permission from Sharp Tattoos and fit nicely since my copy of this single doesn't have a sleeve. Both tunes are perfect on this one from 1971 from what I would call the middle period of his career, but obviously Man In Black is the highlight and worth posting the lyrics to,
Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town, I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, But is there because he's a victim of the times.
I wear the black for those who never read, Or listened to the words that Jesus said, About the road to happiness through love and charity, Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.
Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose, In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes, But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back, Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.
I wear it for the sick and lonely old, For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold, I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been, Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.
And, I wear it for the thousands who have died, Believen' that the Lord was on their side, I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died, Believen' that we all were on their side.
Well, there's things that never will be right I know, And things need changin' everywhere you go, But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right, You'll never see me wear a suit of white.
Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day, And tell the world that everything's OK, But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back, 'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black. I'm not one to quote Wikipedia and actually I've run across many sites that pretty much just quote Wiki without credit and then call it good. Cheezy in my book, but I'm not one to talk as this place may have the reek of something like burnt Parmesan at times. This paragraph was too good to not pass on directly so, "Cash, a devout but troubled Christian, has been characterized "as a lens through which to view American contradictions and challenges." A Biblical scholar, he penned a Christian novel entitled Man In White, and he made a spoken word recording of the entire New King James Version of the New Testament. Even so, Cash declared that he was "the biggest sinner of them all", and viewed himself overall as a complicated and contradictory man. Accordingly, Cash is said to have "contained multitudes", and has been deemed "the philosopher-prince of American country music". A good lead in to the 'A' side of this single.
I have a lot of Johnny Cash singles but this was my first from his early stuff off the Sun label. My copy is worn to say the least and actually according to "Goldmine Standards" is is rated "good", which is not so good. The label is worn, there's sticker residue, but there's "WOL" (writing on label). The vinyl itself has absolutely no sheen, just one big scuff, no scratches that skip, but there is a whole speaker that is dedicated to surface noise. Even still the sound is beautiful. I don't know their names but I dig the "Tennessee Two". Now that I live in a place where Country is THE music of choice for young and old, I can see how really popular Mr. Cash was. Watched this special on the man not to long ago that basically put him in a place where he was as popular as the British invasion. In the early 60's, when he did "Ring of Fire" he crossed over to the pop charts into that top 40. More often than not, popular, means shit, but sometimes...not,
Another seriously great one from the man, that someone has kindly shared the video of. You can pretty much find just about anything on Youtube. Ira Hayes is someone worth looking into especially if your in the mood to be angry or depressed.
One of my many things I do in working with people with disabilities is coming up with picture lists of job tasks for people who can't read. So for instance if someone had to clean a toilet as part of a daily routine I might take pictures of toilet bowl cleaner, a toilet brush, a toilet and put them together indicating how and what was needed to get that particular job done. That's a very simple example but you get the point. When it comes time to do that I search around clip art sites to get images to match the jobs that are needing picture lists. So, long story short I was looking for a clip art image of stairs and found this one, and in my subdued insanity I busted out laughing. Sadistic laughing, finding humor in this cartoon woman's misfortune. The shoe off, the hands out, the hair back and the look of fearful terror, still makes me laugh. Needless to say I did not use this image for the picture list I was working on because the woman who needed that list would have been deathly afraid that was what was going to happen to her.
Hands down my favorite western is Outlaw Josey Wales. Clint Eastwood at his very best, with two of the best Native American actors in 
This is sort of a logical follow up, in my sometimes not so linear mind, to the last post. From Henpecker to Johnny Cash just works in my mind. I will never be accused of being any kind of country fan especially when you consider the pop country that is popular today. The wife and I did see this one big guy with a deep voice who's playing these days that I really liked and I think she has a crush on but I can't remember his name (we have satellite and get hundreds of useless channels that once in a while have something good on them). EDIT: Trace Adkins is the guys name, good stuff. There's a few exceptions I guess but if I had to pick country it would be older stuff like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson (+ J.C. = The Highwaymen), Patsy Kline and going back a little further Hank Williams. Hell I've seen Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., Kris Kristofferson and on the folk end of it the Weavers, in concert. I guess that's the direction I head in is that more folk kind of country. A while back our good friend Erich over at GoodBadMusic did an awesome Johnny Cash post and since then I've been thinking about posting this one. His was a much rarer vinyl thing and this is just a CD but musically what you get is early, raw JC. Here in the not too distant future I will be posting some 7"s of his from the 70's that I got just recently for a $1 a piece. On top of that I will be posting a thing he did with Rick Rubin on Def Jam that blew me away, but this is the stuff I always come back to, classic.
EDIT: Needless to say, if you were looking for a rip of this bad boy it's long gone copyright and all that, people profit from dead artists...hahahah. You can get this thing on CD at Discogs for a couple bucks and album for maybe $13. Anyway, one of my faves by the man, which is not on the album...
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mf-BIZumaA]
The Dalton Gang whose hideout museum is a couple hours south of here in Kansas that I went to way back when I was a kid. Definately Mustard Relics.