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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
Live free or die!
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December 25, 2003
I Was a Teenage Cult Leader
I started a religion once, back in high school circa 1980. A couple of us smart asses became followers of a fictional Father Dandelion. Best I remember, we went for dandelions as a symbol because it was spring, and they were plentiful for passing out. We started with the flower power nonsense and worked up the basic stunt/religious statement.
We really annoyed a couple of teachers with the piles of fresh springtime dandelions piled and scattered and passed out all over the school. However, those teachers dare not try to suppress our free religious expression.
Naturally, we interpreted any criticism or attempt to restrict our flower distribution (ie complaining when we piled hundreds of dandelions on an annoying teacher's desk during lunch hour) as a horrible religious persecution/violation of our First Ammendment rights. Littering? You have just insulted our religious faith!
From there, we just spun new things to extend the joke religious statement until we ran out of ideas/got bored with it after a month or so.
By the time we got done, half of the inmates at Laurel High School had adopted flower names. I was Brother Buttercup. As I recall, Brother Violet was my principle co-conspirator.
Several of us wrote short books of faux hippy Dandelion philosophy and at least one gospel- all unfortunately long lost.
Note that I came up with this kind of stuff years before I'd even heard of Stranger in a Strange Land.
Then the school year/dandelion season ran out, and it was forgotten.
Perhaps Dandelionism was the One True Religion. Hey, my guess is as good L Ron Hubbard's or that of Jesus of Nazareth. Memory fails, but perhaps the full truth was glimpsed only once -briefly- by some teenage crackers from Indiana.
Or maybe not. I can't quite remember. I seem to have forgotten a lot, cause I sure knew everything then.
All hail Father Dandelion.
posted by Al at 12/25/2003 01:51:00 AM
December 24, 2003
Santa can just get bent
I've got problems with Santa Claus. I just don't dig his Big Brother parameters. He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good- so be good for goodness sake. Or what?
Much like the modern welfare state, he comes in giving you a little bit of some kind of present, some welfare state crack rock, and so everyone is just pleased as punch to have this bearded freak all up in their business. Hell, between him and Jesus, a fellow can't even get privacy to play with his own ding-a-ling.
For my part, he can stick his goodies back up his chimney. He don't need to be looking in my windows or reading my mind, or whatever it is exactly that he does to get all these databases. Here's the deal: mind your own business, freak, and I'll buy my own toys. Now if I see you peaking in my bedroom window again, I'ma release the hounds.
You know that Santa is an anagram for Satan. Co-incidence?
posted by Al at 12/24/2003 06:44:00 AM
A Country Christmas CD Mix
Here's the programming for a groovy CD of country Christmas music. It adds up to just over 78 minutes for 28 songs of country holiday goodness.
If We Make It Through December - Merle Haggard
Christmas Time's a Comin - Bill Monroe
Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy - Buck Owens
Christmas Eve Can Kill You - The Everly Brothers
Daddy's Drinking Up Our Christmas - Commander Cody
White Christmas - Ernest Tubb
Reindeer Boogie - Hank Snow
Pretty Paper - Willie Nelson
My Favorite Things - Kenny Rogers
I'm Gonna Tell Santa On You - Faron Young
My Mom and Santa Claus - George Jones
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - John Mellencamp
Go Tell It On the Mountain - Dolly Parton
Santa Claus Is Watching You - Ray Stevens
Leroy the Redneck Reindeer - Joe Diffie
To Heck With Old Santa Claus - Loretta Lynn
I'll Be Walkin' the Floor This Christmas - Ernest Tubb
Christmas Carols by the Old Corral - Tex Ritter
'Po Folks Christmas - Bill Anderson
Let's Put Christ Back in Christmas - Tammy Wynette
Hark the Herald Angels Sing - Johnny Cash
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - The Louvin Brothers
O Little Town of Bethlehem - Dolly Parton
The Little Drummer Boy - Johnny Cash
Away in a Manger - Dwight Yoakam
O Come All Ye Faithful - Johnny Cash
Nothing But a Child - Steve Earle
NOTES:
"Nothing But a Child" may be the best song ever written about the birth of Jesus.
My most surprising new find amongst these holiday favorites was the Kenny Rogers version of "My Favorite Things" - though I suppose you could question how well that qualifies as "country music." Who woulda thunk I'd go for a Kenny Rogers record of ANY kind- much less a Christmas record. It's pretty good.
"If We Make It Through December" may be the best song of Merle Haggard's career, certainly one of his top 10. You could also look at it as the greatest ever sad Christmas song.
I had some of these in stock, lots of good Christmas stuff can be found at the library, and of course, you can DOWNLOAD MOST OF THEM conveniently enough.
Actually buying one or two of these artists is always nice of course. Check out the very attractively priced Ernest Tubb box set.Labels: country_music, johnny_cash
posted by Al at 12/24/2003 03:58:00 AM
December 21, 2003
Dubya sucks, but I don't know why
Maybe some of you pinkos can help me here. I don't really like President Bush that good. I want to say bad things about him, be good loyal opposition and all, but I'm having a hard time right at the moment. A lot has been going right for him recently, starting with that catching Saddam thing.
Particularly, getting Gaddafi to open Libya up to weapons inspectors, throwing open the doors, and voluntarily destroying bunches of chemical weapons, and shutting down a surprisingly advanced nuclear program looks awfully good on President Bush. On the surface, it looks like him knocking off the Baathists has made a big, big payoff here on the side.
Now, this isn't right. President Bush didn't do anything to cause this. He should get NO credit at all for this breakthrough, and it's nothing anyway. Right? Don't make me give this SOB credit for making the world safer. I won't do it.
Come on, some of you pinkos and Bush haters help me out. I'm drowning here. I can't figure out any reasonable explanation except to say that the hawkish policies of the Bush administration have led directly to this major voluntary disarming of an ugly dictator. There HAS to be some explanation that makes Dubya look bad.
I just can't find it.
posted by Al at 12/21/2003 11:57:00 PM
Criminy, but Yoko's a bitch
Yoko Ono came closer to making John Lennon happy than any other woman, so I want to grant her a lot of credit for being therapeutically effective for a great man. That was a valuable contribution to society.
Still, Jesus what an annoying bitch. From Fox News:
Ono's weirdest piece of video trickery comes on the recently released DVD "Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon." On one film, for the classic song "#9 Dream," Ono has edited herself into the original video. There you will find her mouthing the backup vocals that were sung on the original hit recording by Lennon's girlfriend at that time, May Pang.
What, I wonder are the limits of her editorial control? If she's vindictive and dishonest enough to do this, would she go back to the studio and edit the audio recording- replacing the May Pang vocals?
Perhaps she can eventually edit those other non-John-and-Yoko people out of Sgt Pepper. It will have been John and Yoko all along.
I wouldn't put it past her.
posted by Al at 12/21/2003 01:44:00 AM
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