Hmm. Well, I Guess I Was Wrong.

Y’all, I swear to god, I thought that, if any musician in town used to be a woman, it was John Rich. It’s not just that he’s small and so obviously would make a relatively attractive woman, it’s that he also seems to go to such lengths to hide his chest–the guitar or overalls or jackets over shirts–and to read as “male” with the facial hair and the overly perfect scowl.

So, imagine my surprise to learn that he hates women and gay people is anti-abortion and anti-gay-marriage.

But there you go.

Still, I don’t want y’all to miss this bit from the Tennessean.

The pro-lifer is against gay marriage.

[…]

John also is known as a woman-loving party animal. “I’m probably somewhat of a walking dichotomy, I guess. Some of my favorite singers were that too, like Johnny Cash.”

Yes, he did, America. He admitted to being a flaming (oops, wrong word choice) unrepentant hypocrite and then hid behind Johnny Cash!

Is this the new standard? If Johnny Cash did it, it’s okay? Well, slap me full of amphetamines and bring on the pretty girls!

Seriously, he’s anti-abortion, but he also wants to be able to just fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck whoever he can get his hands on. If that’s not pretty much the patriarchy in a nut-shell, I don’t know what is.

Hee, patriarchy in a nut-shell. Tee hee.

Edited to add: John Rich has decided to clarify his comments. He doesn’t hate gay people. No, he loves them. He loves everybody! People should be judged on their merits. Hmm.

Well, Mr. Rich, see, it’s like this. You can say today, “My earlier comments on same-sex marriage don’t reflect my full views on the broader issues regarding tolerance and the treatment of gays and lesbians in our society,” but yesterday, you felt it was fine to say that gay people wanted to get married was “unsavory” and “unnatural” and joked that two consenting adults who aren’t related wanting to make a legally recognized commitment to each other was on par with incest. So, explain to me again how those two things jibe?

How in the world do you think promoting the idea that gay marriage is “unsavory” and “unnatural” and on par with incest is not intolerant, bigoted, and hateful?

If we judged you on your merits, I’m afraid we’d find one fucked-up dude.

Edited some more to add this: You know what really irritates me? Take a look at this:

Shall we count the ways in which Big & Rich are horsing around in ways that owe a great debt to gay culture (yes, I know, it’s a problematic term) in this video?

1. Big Kenny’s “Love Pirate” shirt

2. Cowboy Troy in his satin shirt

3. Big & Rich marching around with their umbrellas and walking arm in arm

4. The fur coat

5. All the fringe

6. The two beauty queens

7. The fact that the “girl” in the car with Big & Rich is supposed to be a mannequin, as if it’s just a fake barrier in the way of them being together.

8. The dancing women–the ones in the business suits and the cowgirls–are all interchangeable (which, I guess, the beauty queens and the band members are as well) and the unique folk, the ones who have meaningful interactions with each other, are just the guys.

9 (kind of). In the cut of this video I used to see on my TV, Gretchen Wilson, looking just about as butch as a girl can look is riding a tractor. I don’t see her in this cut, though.

My point is that they want to horse around with gender expectations and flaunt conventional modes of how men in country music are supposed to look and act and yet, they don’t see their debt to the very folks Rich is calling “unnatural.” That bothers the shit out of me.

If you’re willing to steal from folks, you should be willing to acknowledge their value to you and go to bat for them, even if it makes you personally uncomfortable.

I Know! Let’s Play “Force Strippers to Turn to Prostitution in Order to Eat!”

Here’s my feelings, up-front, on all sex work (including stripping): It should be legal, it should be well-regulated in a way that is easy for the sex workers to negotiate, the regulation should not be so cost-prohibitive as to reasonably exclude anyone, and folks who don’t get in the system should be come down on hard, with both feet.

I don’t think sex work is a great long-term career choice.  But, if one is not strung out on drugs and if one is there of her own choosing, it can be a very lucrative way to make money for a short time.  People, okay, women put themselves through college stripping.  High end prostitutes live comfortable lives.  And, if you’re poor with limited options but a good head on your shoulders, it’s a good way to quickly put together some capital in order to make big changes in your life.

So, I’m for legalizing and regulating all forms of sex work.

Which means I’m incensed that Metro Nashville is talking about raising the licensing fees on strippers.  And it’s on a couple of levels.  First, we started regulating the hell out of strip clubs under the auspices of making sure there wasn’t any untoward prostitution going on.  Now, we’re talking about raising the fee to be a stripper from $50 to $500.  If this isn’t trying to drive these women out of work, I don’t know what is.  I mean, I’m sorry, but to compare them to plumbers or electricians is just ludicrous.  If a stripper doesn’t know how to do her job, no one is going to lose their home or business.  But if these women find sex work to be lucrative, isn’t raising the fee to such an exorbitant amount pretty much guaranteeing that they’ll have to do a little work on the side (wink, wink) to come up with the fee?

We don’t want strippers to prostitute themselves so we’ll pressure them so much that prostituting themselves looks like a better option than dancing?

But second, and maybe this means I’m turning into a libertarian, there are 10 strip clubs left in Nashville.  What the hell costs $77,000 about regulating them?

So, I mean, let’s be clear about what this is.  We taxpayers are paying the Metro Sexually Oriented Business Licensing board a shit-ton of money to screw these girls over.

Wasn’t the point of all this to reduce the number of whores in town?

All Idiots Together

The thing I hate most about going to the doctor, aside from the seemingly inevitable “God, you’re fat!” lecture (though, in all fairness to this batch of doctors, it hasn’t come up) is that doctors in Tennessee treat you like you’re an idiot.

In fact, I have only ever had one doctor in Tennessee who didn’t and he asked me right up front how much education I had, how familiar I was with medical terms and how comfortable I was with talking about complex procedures.

Yesterday, this doctor tried to explain to me where my tonsils were.

I have to tell you, I’m afraid I was snippy with him.  I mean, please!  I know where my fucking tonsils are.  Shit.  I know more about lymph nodes than I ever cared to.

But I think probably what caused the look of horror on my face was realizing first that he was going to explain to me where my tonsils were and then realizing that he was going to explain to me where my tonsils were because most of his patients don’t know.

And, Tennesee, I love you.  You know I do.  But I have to tell you something from the bottom of my heart.  There is no amount of money in the world that is too much money to make sure that your residents have a basic knowledge of things–a basic knowledge of anatomy, math, reading, etc.

Listen, I know public schools can mismanage funds.  But that just means you have to keep on them.  I only have a high-school amount of biology in my background and I know where my tonsils are and other basic anatomical features of my anatomy.  If I can know that, so can you.

The fact that you don’t says to me that there is something deeply wrong with your educational system.