An Open Letter to Kenny Chesney

Dear Kenny Chesney,

A lot of gay men our age have slept with women, even a lot of women.  Claiming that you cannot possibly be gay because you have slept with over a hundred women is like claiming that you cannot possibly like chocolate ice cream because you have had over one hundred bowls of vanilla.

I don’t give a shit if you’re gay or not.  What I do give a shit about is that, as usual, country musicians keep making ’00s country music look like ’70s rock, but in a sad, tattered, generic way.  It’s like country music is ’70s rock for folks who still find ’70s rock a little scandalous.

I mean, seriously.  100?  You’re one of the biggest country stars alive.  You were married once, briefly, and the best you could do is 100 women?  Come the fuck on.  That’s nothing to brag about.  Shoot, in his day, I’m sure Gene Simmons fucked 100 women between lunch and dinner.  I think Def Leppard fucked 100 women a week.  Led Zepplin had 100 groupies following them from hotel to hotel just watching them have sex with 100 women. A hundred women is just getting started for ’70s rockers.  I inadvertently fucked a hundred women just in the time it’s taken me to write this post.

Bragging about how many women you’ve slept with is kind of a douch move.  But, good lord, man, once you’ve committed to being a douche, at least really commit to it!  Don’t say a hundred.  Shoot, any damn fool who puts his mind to it can sleep with 100 people.  Give us the rock star fantasy.  Give us a number to aspire to.  A thousand, five thousand, ten thousand!  Start a rumor that every baby named Kenny in the southeast is secretly yours.  Something noteable, man.

But a hundred?  I’m sorry, but considering what you do for a living and how popular you are, a hundred makes it sound like you just weren’t trying very hard.

And that could lead a girl to wonder why.

Suddenly exhaustedly yours,

b.

Whew, Doggie, What a Day!

I will say that I got a big bag of seeds from Beth, who it turns out knows a German woman I am almost sure is the Professor’s Austrian friend.  How small is this town?

And the Professor brought me a book, The Tennessee Fruit and Vegetable Book (Induding Herbs and Nuts!), by Felder Rushing and Walter Reeves.

Hurray!

An Open Letter to Jeff Woods

Dearest Jeff,

Yes, I know how simply gauche that these little bloggers and their readers have the audacity to give money to the Democrats in such small number.  Why, just last night, I was at a cocktail party at the Frists and we were laughing over this very thing.  Who do these people think they are, only giving, what, $40 each and expecting that the likes of us should take them seriously?  The valets at that very party probably made $4,000 in one evening.  I’m sure your poolboy makes that in tips on warm afternoons.  Four thousand dollars?  That’s such a poor person amount.  It’s practically unseemly.

And, oh ho ho ho ho, I practically wept with laughter when I discovered that the money they gave didn’t go directly to Chip Forrester.  I mean, it was called ‘Chip In.’  And it didn’t even go to Chip.  Oh, these naive fools.  Tut tut tut.

You will be joining me for tea this afternoon at the Club, won’t you, darling?

In Snobby Solidarity,

Aunt B.

p.s. Just wondering, what’s the going ad rate at the Scene?  I mean is $4,000 something you scoff at all the time or just when other people bring it in?  Because I have a feeling that your sales department would be very happy if someone decided to land a $1,000 ad on Wednesday, did that at lunch, and then by Thursday had $3,000 from that account and a week later had $1,800 they weren’t expecting.  But maybe not.  What do I know?

And let’s talk about the hundred people for a second.  You know what your circulation is?  According to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, it’s sitting at about 50,500.  What do you think a person’s rate of return on a mention in The Scene is?  If you write a story, say, about an exhibit at the Frist, how many people do you think go to that exhibit and put out money based on what you write?  Three hundred?  Five hundred?  Maybe two hundred?  I’m going to tell you straight up, if you combined all of the readership of the blogs who participated in this and weeded out the duplicates (excluding the Kos folks, who came into the mix late Thursday, if I’m remembering right), I’m betting you’re talking about a readership of somewhere around 7,500 people, possibly less, if I’m overestimating the Knoxviews numbers.

You see what I’m saying?  You tell 60,000 people about something, and maybe 300 people decide to open their wallets.  We tell, maybe 6,000 people about something, and 60 of them decide to open their wallets (again, excluding the Kos folks).

So, yeah, you keep going with your “Oh, isn’t it cute how ineffective the bloggers are!” story.  It’s a lovely fairytale.