Born Country: Preface

Posted on January 24, 2019

Howwwwwwwwdy.

I’m dropping a few chapters of my book in here at a time because I’m mighty, mighty undisciplined and it’s forcing me to do a last edit as if, you know, people might be reading it. That’d be you, friend.

Chapter 4, Track Four “Sleeping Single in a Double Bed,” Barbara Mandrell, 1978.

Posted on April 12, 2019

Dear Barbara,

I’m sorry I thought you were an evil cunt all these years. See, my Grandma Florence told me you were. Well, she didn’t use the word “cunt,” but you get the idea. She maybe called you a mean old hag. An old bag? I have some recollection of Grandma referring to people she didn’t like as “old bags.” Perhaps even a bitch. No, probably not that. I don’t really remember the severity of her swears, precisely, except that by my recollection she never said fuck, but would frequently say with a sigh of exasperation, “Awwwwwwww chickyshit.” I’m pretty sure she never uttered the word “cunt,” at least not in my presence. I use the word merely for emphasis.

Chapter 3, Track Three “I Won’t Go Huntin’ With You Jake,” Jimmy Dean, 1961.

Posted on February 20, 2019

The jingle-jangle clink-clank-crush of exhausted Schmidt cans in an otherwise empty cardboard box, a pair of deer carcasses hanging from the rafters, the scriiiiiiiitch of skin peeled back from flesh; sounds and sights situating themselves among my earliest sensory memories. Death. Slow death, fast death, sustenance, nourishment. Heads and antlers propped in another cardboard box, tongues lolling out – pink, rough, scratchy, fresh – fresh flesh the smell of a fistful of pennies in your tiny little hand. I’d sit on the stoop in the garage, swinging my legs from the landing, listening to the men gossip late into the night.

Chapter 2, Track Two: “Born Country,” Alabama, 1991.

Posted on February 4, 2019

Songwriter Harlan Howard once said, “Country music is three chords and the truth.” Outlaw country singer Elizabeth Cook then said, via Twitter, “Everytime a journalist says ‘three chords and the truth’ I’m going to shoot a country star’s baby.” My apologies to the offspring of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.

Chapter 1, Track One: “Forever and Ever, Amen,” Randy Travis, 1987.

Posted on January 26, 2019

My baby was conceived in the hot tub of the hot tub suite at the AmericInn across the highway from the Walmart and nearer the only mall in my hometown on the South Dakota prairie. Only mall if you don’t count the original, the Super City Mall, built in 1964 and holding distinction as the state’s first shopping mall.

You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd, but you can be happy if you've a mind to. – Roger Miller, no relation.

And the guy in the rear was a Methodist.

When you’re ugly like us, you just naturally got to be cool.

Hello In There

Fifty years ago today, the world stopped and The Cline got off.

Don Williams: Guru

Don’t know what you got, ’til it’s gawwuhawwwwn

I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive

Under Your Spell Again

Sunday making jerky fuckin’ around record roulette

Sick day record roulette

Meg Ashling on the creative process and moving to the country

Listen up buster, and listen up good. Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood.

Some serious shit has gone down in Carroll County.