banning the Dixie Chicks
Let me start with this. I like most music, but for whatever reason, Country has never been my cup of tea. I can listen to it. I can even enjoy it to an extent. If I'm in a music store though, or some store that sells music, I'm not heading for the Country Music section. I have never bought an album, CD or music in any other format for myself that came from the country section. I have bought it for others. Even with Faith Hill and Shania Twain, both of whom are considered "crossover" singers and damn nice looking, I can take a pass. So we have the Dixie Chicks, who the wife likes, and mom-in-law likes, but I never really cared for, before or after the nasty Dubya comments.
Next, let me present the lumberyard theory of crazy Uncle Earl. I may have presented it before under another name, but it always starts with "crazy Uncle" somebody. Earl is just the name de jour. The theory goes like this. Every family has a crazy Uncle Earl. He's the guy (or girl, we're not being that gender specific) that the whole family knows and talks about. He or she does goofy stuff and sometimes stupid stuff, and everyone in the family has their own "crazy uncle Earl" story, which they tell at family gatherings. It's OK to make fun of crazy Uncle Earl when you're talking with family. It's not OK for someone outside the family to make fun of crazy Uncle Earl. If they do, you'll defend crazy Uncle Earl to the death. It's also not OK for family to make fun of crazy Uncle Earl in conversations outside the family. After all, he or she is family. You out there of a more liberal ilk will doubtless have fun with the fact that I'm about to use crazy Uncle Earl in reference to Dubya, but have at it. Consider it my gift to you.
A few years ago, the fat Dixie Chick said something ugly about Dubya while on tour in Europe. I don't know the specifics, and they aren't all that important. I just know that she said something ugly, and her mostly conservative, country music lovin' fan base wasn't impressed. They decided to boycott her and her sisters, or cousins, or friends, or whatever the hell the other not-so-fat Dixie Chicks are in relation to her. They called country music radio stations and asked them not to play Dixie Chicks music if they wanted to keep their fan base. Some of those stations obliged in a move that, lets face facts, was more grounded in economic self-preservation than any kind of political stand.
So, we're going to brunch this past Sunday, which has been a lumberyard Mother's Day tradition for the last several years. The usual suspects were in attendance...the youngster, the wife, the mom-in-law, and me. Let me also throw in that besides being a country music lover, mom-in-law is also liberal, a trait that has led to a few discussions which usually ended in the wife asking me to stop badgering her mom. Therefore I try not to have them anymore. So we're driving to brunch and mom-in-law throws out that the Dixie Chicks are making a comeback.
So I said, "A comeback? I didn't know they went anywhere."
"Oh yeah, they were banned for several years because of that Bush comment."
OK, I held my tongue because I didn't want to verbally body slam mom-in-law into the pavement and piss off the wife on Mother's Day, but now it's two days later, mom-in-law's gone back home and and it's time to rant.
Nobody got freakin' banned, OK? Being banned means someone from the government comes and tells you that you can't sing anywhere anymore. The fact that people don't want to pay someone to sing doesn't make them banned. Nobody wants to pay me to sing, but I'm not banned. The slant that they were banned because of comments made about the president is what I consider stereotypical liberal crap, where people shouldn't be held responsible for their actions and freedom of speech should come with no consequences, and lack of monetary support is synonymous with being banned (yeah, all you folks who get your panties in a wad when its suggested the NEA not give money to some "artist" sinking a picture of the Virgin Mary in a vat of urine, I can lump you in here too). The fat Dixie Chick (I'm sorry I don't know her name. Yes, I know she has one and I'm sorry I don't know it, but it's about as important to what I have to say as her circumference, which is just my way of differentiating her from the other Dixie Chicks, who I understand are noticably not as fat) said something about George Bush that a lot of people disagreed with in a forum (a concert in Europe) that made it all the worse. That's the crazy Uncle Earl theory at work. Criticize your own if you will, but don't do it with strangers. Anyway, people didn't like it and reacted in their own way, which they have every right to do. Nobody banned the Dixie Chicks. They were and are still free to sing or say anything they like. The fact that other people don't want to pay them to do it is another issue. They can all get day jobs and sing or say anything they please, out in a public park somewhere for free. Freedom of speech is alive and well, but supporting someone to exercise that right has never been a guarantee. If your livelihood depends on your popularity, and you say something to sabotage that, nobody is obliged to still like you or give you money. Still, you have every right to say whatever got you in trouble with your fans, just as they have every right to ignore you.
So come on back Dixie Chicks. You were never banned. You're just not subsidized.
Next, let me present the lumberyard theory of crazy Uncle Earl. I may have presented it before under another name, but it always starts with "crazy Uncle" somebody. Earl is just the name de jour. The theory goes like this. Every family has a crazy Uncle Earl. He's the guy (or girl, we're not being that gender specific) that the whole family knows and talks about. He or she does goofy stuff and sometimes stupid stuff, and everyone in the family has their own "crazy uncle Earl" story, which they tell at family gatherings. It's OK to make fun of crazy Uncle Earl when you're talking with family. It's not OK for someone outside the family to make fun of crazy Uncle Earl. If they do, you'll defend crazy Uncle Earl to the death. It's also not OK for family to make fun of crazy Uncle Earl in conversations outside the family. After all, he or she is family. You out there of a more liberal ilk will doubtless have fun with the fact that I'm about to use crazy Uncle Earl in reference to Dubya, but have at it. Consider it my gift to you.
A few years ago, the fat Dixie Chick said something ugly about Dubya while on tour in Europe. I don't know the specifics, and they aren't all that important. I just know that she said something ugly, and her mostly conservative, country music lovin' fan base wasn't impressed. They decided to boycott her and her sisters, or cousins, or friends, or whatever the hell the other not-so-fat Dixie Chicks are in relation to her. They called country music radio stations and asked them not to play Dixie Chicks music if they wanted to keep their fan base. Some of those stations obliged in a move that, lets face facts, was more grounded in economic self-preservation than any kind of political stand.
So, we're going to brunch this past Sunday, which has been a lumberyard Mother's Day tradition for the last several years. The usual suspects were in attendance...the youngster, the wife, the mom-in-law, and me. Let me also throw in that besides being a country music lover, mom-in-law is also liberal, a trait that has led to a few discussions which usually ended in the wife asking me to stop badgering her mom. Therefore I try not to have them anymore. So we're driving to brunch and mom-in-law throws out that the Dixie Chicks are making a comeback.
So I said, "A comeback? I didn't know they went anywhere."
"Oh yeah, they were banned for several years because of that Bush comment."
OK, I held my tongue because I didn't want to verbally body slam mom-in-law into the pavement and piss off the wife on Mother's Day, but now it's two days later, mom-in-law's gone back home and and it's time to rant.
Nobody got freakin' banned, OK? Being banned means someone from the government comes and tells you that you can't sing anywhere anymore. The fact that people don't want to pay someone to sing doesn't make them banned. Nobody wants to pay me to sing, but I'm not banned. The slant that they were banned because of comments made about the president is what I consider stereotypical liberal crap, where people shouldn't be held responsible for their actions and freedom of speech should come with no consequences, and lack of monetary support is synonymous with being banned (yeah, all you folks who get your panties in a wad when its suggested the NEA not give money to some "artist" sinking a picture of the Virgin Mary in a vat of urine, I can lump you in here too). The fat Dixie Chick (I'm sorry I don't know her name. Yes, I know she has one and I'm sorry I don't know it, but it's about as important to what I have to say as her circumference, which is just my way of differentiating her from the other Dixie Chicks, who I understand are noticably not as fat) said something about George Bush that a lot of people disagreed with in a forum (a concert in Europe) that made it all the worse. That's the crazy Uncle Earl theory at work. Criticize your own if you will, but don't do it with strangers. Anyway, people didn't like it and reacted in their own way, which they have every right to do. Nobody banned the Dixie Chicks. They were and are still free to sing or say anything they like. The fact that other people don't want to pay them to do it is another issue. They can all get day jobs and sing or say anything they please, out in a public park somewhere for free. Freedom of speech is alive and well, but supporting someone to exercise that right has never been a guarantee. If your livelihood depends on your popularity, and you say something to sabotage that, nobody is obliged to still like you or give you money. Still, you have every right to say whatever got you in trouble with your fans, just as they have every right to ignore you.
So come on back Dixie Chicks. You were never banned. You're just not subsidized.
John put this out here at 7:49 AM
7 Comments:
I dont know who the Dixie Chicks are, but I doubt a band with a name like that would be capable of saying anything remotely intelligent enough to warrent them being banned...
Most of the time, your posts really entertain me, John in the Lumberyard. This one, however, really just enhances your narrowmindedness. The "fat dixie chick" description, alone, is a pretty clear indicator of your way of looking at women (not that "babe of the day" wasn't pretty clear to begin with), and I realize that a blog is, of course a place for one to blather on about one's own position...but sheesh. When one so often sounds intelligent and interesting...and then BLARINGLY sounds like an asshole--it's left to the rest of us fat (but not dixie) chicks to call you on the carpet. Lighten up, John of the Right. Curb your dogma! The Dixie Chicks have written some very good music, even from the point of view of another person who's not a country music fan. Agreeing with their political views isn't even the issue. And they're not "remotely UNintellingent" in the least, Jo...though you should know better than to judge a book by its cover (seeing as how you seem to have trouble spelling "warrant").
--JessieE (now hopping down off her high horse)
Not on a high horse, because of a horseback riding incident as a kid, but climbing on my soapbox.
Jessie, I can see where the "fat" comment ticked you off a bit, but you could take a bit of your own advice and lighten up. I'm not exactly rail thin. Just ask my doctor, who twice a year reminds me I need to lose weight. The youngster likes to push his finger in my belly and tell me we need to go out and exercise, and he's right. I do need to, and he and I do go out and fight that battle often. That doesn't mean I can't use the same distinguishing factor many before me have used for the larger of the Dixie Chicks. You have to admit, it is the most noticable when you stand her toothpick cohorts on either side of her, and like the post said, the fact that she's larger than the other chicklets is relevant to the post only because it distinguishes she who made the Bush bashing comments.
As for my way of looking at women...please don't do that. Please don't do that liberal thing, where when you stereotype people it's OK, because you think you're right, but God help us if someone from the right does the same thing...say about welfare mothers, because they, of course, are wrong. Personally, I think both of those stereotypes are way wrong. I'm not saying you do this, because I wouldn't stereotype you, but I know many liberals who say Rush Limbaugh needs to be taken off the air, but Jessie Jackson has every right to pontificate on any subject he likes, because of freedom of speech. Speech is free, as long as we like what you have to say. You really have no idea how I look at women. I think I look at women pretty much the same way most women look at men, though I'm not that big on men's tushies. I know women who go to Jaguar games, and use their binoculars to scan the sidelines, because of those cute butts in tight pants, and because they think Jack Del Rio's a babe. Then their husbands use the same binoculars to scan the cheerleaders. I, obviously (looking at babe of the day) have no problem with eye candy. That has no bearing on my relationship with women I know, love, or work with, or work for, for that matter.
Oh by the way. I happen to be follically challenged. That has never stopped me, when it happens to be the most obvious way of differentiating one guy from another, from saying, "He's the bald one." or "The one of the left, with the bald spot." In fact, the wife has used that last one to point me out in a crowd. Just 'cuz it's true doesn't make it a bad thing.
Jessiee
Jo's from the UK and they spell some words differently.
John o' the Right--
Your Jesse Jackson comment is well taken. Tho I am hard-pressed to make that a lib/con argument, it is true that we all find a way to perpetuate our own beliefs (political and otherwise) and look for excuses to diminish the opposing ones. I suggest that perhaps not liking the the Dixie Chicks' music based only on their politics might be a similar bent??
Having said that, my offense taken with identifying Natalie Maines as "the fat Dixie Chick" is similar to identifying someone else as, say, "the black one" or "the crippled one." I think there are many other ways to get one's point across without the extra dose of -- how shall I put it -- nastiness? that the descriptive term implies. Yes, I agree, it does help to verify the identity of the individual about whom one is speaking, but I guess I wish for a world in which we didn't see differences as so often negative. Call me a liberal :-) -- I've certainly been called worse.
And I'm sorry. You're right that I have no idea how you look at women. I was operating off the "fat" comment and clearly got myself riled up. I took that, in combination with the "babe" thing and then jumped. Won't get fooled again!
As far as how "most women look at men"...just from where I sit, doesn't matter one whit to me what's on TOP of one's head, Mr. McBaldy. What's sexiest and always has been to this fat northern chick is what's between one's EARS and a sense of humor.
I have to say I agree with you wholeheartedly. I agree everyone has the right to free speech, whether you are in the public eye or the average joe working on the streets. But when you are in the public eye, you best have the brains to watch what you say because all eyes are on you. And if you don't think it should affect how people look at you, you are in for a rude awakening. If you put yourself in any situation where people may disagree with you, you better be able to fight back with your beliefs instead of taking them back and apologizing, then turning around and taking that apology back just because you weren't getting as much money and your ratings went down. I call that a sell out. Kudos to you for stating all that. And I also wanted to say that sometimes I can't stand allot of these liberal feminist types. Take every word that comes out as a personal insult. Good Grief! It's a blog for crying out loud!! Hats off to you!
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