Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

It is time for another trip to the cabin to still my quaking nerves and temper the shift of my lofty or scattered ambitions. I am stressed by the upcoming move and the shifting of time that makes me older but not wiser as I battle my apprehension and dismiss the fact that I actually graduated with a Ph.D. no less, but I can never appreciate my good luck or all the hard work that went into finishing the dissertation, many of it at the cabin. I pack a small number of records; we changed the rules this year, only ten, but both Donny and I are bringing more surreptitiously, unbeknownst to all except each other. We knew we each would and discussed it more than usual, sifting our collections for the unknown, we grabbed albums to introduce to each other like new friends.   After last year's AC/DC debacle, where he tried to play the discography and was shut down, the decision was made (by who?), in passive voice resistance, to bring albums that were near and dear to us and ...

Growing up in a small Wisconsin town, I developed an early aversion to country music bars. My aunt owns a cool bar now, but it is still in the part of Wisconsin that caters to a clientele that likes "both kinds of music -- Country and Western." Dan Aykroyd in his sagelike wisdom pointed this anomaly out in Blues Brothers. No one ever threw bottles at me, but they played a hell of a lot of Garth Brooks. So I guess many of those bars are County radio bars, but not the kind that play old school honkytonk, the kind that play Country with a drum machine. Sitting in one of these bars, I commend them on sticking with the country theme. Personally,  I would rather drink my beer at a bar that plays real honkytonk. I'd take some Johnny Horton or Slim Whitman. Or give me some outlaw country. Ol' Waylon or Billy Joe Shaver would go down smoothly right now. I could kill for some Jason Isbell or John Moreland to be honest. I raise my glass to the real country heroes. I'm head...

Cal Smith, born Calvin Grant Shofner on April 7, 1932, died on October 10. He was best known for the 1974 hit, "Country Bumpkin." A tangible part of my childhood, the song still echoes in my head whenever pumpkins are displayed or the newest batch of Pumpkin ales hits the store shelves.  Where I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, the old  Blues Brothers  adage rang true that there were two kinds of music, "country and western." My parents always listened to country music in our house (My mom preferred '90s country radio) and there was always a bunch of western in there as well.(Mostly from my dad). I remember hearing "Streets of Bakersfield" often drifting from car radios and home stereos. I developed an early attraction to some of these songs, even though years later I would hide it behind a sheen of four chords and punk rock. A secret shadow self of country knowledge and Western Swing bravado remained, only unsheathed for music trivia and in the dar...