Adventures in Non-Lawn Mowing

So, I came home to mow the lawn and I started the mower and I hit the gas pedal and… nothing. I hit it again. Nothing. I called my dad. He made me do all the things I’d already thought to do, but this time with him on the phone and that didn’t work. So I went and got my neighbor and his magic baby and he couldn’t figure it out either. The magic baby tried pouring some milk on it but that didn’t work.

But people, then my awesome neighbor went and got his tools and fixed my fucking mower! Like magic. Which, I guess makes sense, since his magic baby daughter would have had to inherit her magic from someplace.

And all he would take in exchange was two beers.

But I still didn’t mow the lawn, because he just finished up right now and I’m blogging instead.

Forget It; This Day Can’t Delight Me More

She fucking dedicated the devil poem to me.

Holy shit.

Edited to add: Nope, it did get better. Someone brought gingerbread!

Farewell, The 9513

The best country music blog in the country is no more. Barry Mazor says something I just want to highlight, considering the Feministe brouhaha:

I do believe that The 9513 has been providing a service that’s genuinely unique, a place where country music of any stripe—yet with contemporary mainstream country very much included, respected, and featured among those ranks—could be reported on, taken seriously enough to be subject to criticism, and provided along with an open invitation for intelligent discussion.

The invitation has often been excitingly well taken, and sometimes, it could seem, only half-taken, since a site as fundamentally open as this one has been leaves itself open to serial posting by a few who make caustic, belligerent, or allegedly clever pokes at anybody else bothering to write or comment thoughtfully their personal sport, and say so. (Not that you couldn’t tell who they are, anyhow, because sooner or later they always get around to suggesting that it’s the site-hired writers who have “ego” issues, and not perhaps obsessive self-appointed snark mongers themselves.)

I don’t think the dynamic is exactly the same as it is at the big feminist blogs, but I think it’s close enough to warrant consideration. There have always been readers and writers and critics and one of the most fun things about the internet is how it brings those three groups together very close and then blurs the lines between them in really interesting ways. But did writers or readers ever had to contend with hecklers before?

And now we do.

It’s all Hank Williams Junior’s Fault

Have I told y’all my “Hank Williams Junior is the nexus of everything that’s wrong with white people” theory? Ha, well, shoot, the whole theory is right there in the title. I should give it a shorter name, like “The Bocephus Theory” and then, when you got to the part that explained it, I could say “it’s the theory that, while not to blame for everything that is wrong with white people, Hank Jr. is at the hub of it, the axle around which it all spins.

Now, we could argue for days about whether Junior is intentionally spinning the wheel or if he’s just a cog in a cosmic machine of “country people are better than city people,” “we hate effete farts,” “heritage, not hate,” “let’s drop eight thousand names in our mediocre country song,” etc. etc. But let’s not fight.

Instead, let’s petition Congress to give Hank Junior immunity from prosecution for justifiable upside-the-head slapping. Yes, let’s let Junior right his wrongs here on earth. When Kid Rock says “I love black people,” Hank Jr. could go slap him upside the head. When Blake Shelton is all “I think tweeting violent homophobia is funny!” Junior could go slap him upside the head. When Republicans are all “We want to make the prospect of having sex so scary for women that straight guys can’t get laid ever again!!!!” here would come Hank Jr. with a wrist flip to the back of the head for them all.

Hank, these young men grew up emulating you! It’s on you to go straighten them out.

The Blue Egg

There’s a blue egg in the middle of my vegetable garden. That kind of bums me out on the one hand. Poor lost potential bird. But on the other hand, it’s very beautiful next to my tomatoes, which are coming back even after being eaten.

Did you see this?

Sometimes the roar of stupidity in this country is so loud it hurts my head.