Jul 20, 2023·edited Jul 20, 2023Liked by Garrett Bucks
Re: 4, the skater dudes in my sister's class, as a group of scrappy middle school millennials, went through the entire city development process to create the skate park in my hometown (population 5512). Attended council meetings, developed construction plans, the works. The thing that was most amazing to me is that was their response to the hostile architecture that the city put in throughout downtown to deter skater-duding. As of the visit home 2 weeks ago it is still there and well maintained. An earnestly adorable thing you can do in a small town with a bunch of your 12 year old friends.
Oh! And: whatever I've done to entirely miss this story until reading this makes me feel so confident in my media consumption. <Pats self on back>
man, i feel like god has some pretty intimidating angels (like that dude with all the eyeballs and wings everywhere?) so that's a pretty good claim to fame!
i had not heard about this terrible music video, which i yearn to see but to which i do not want to give clicks, but i did just learn that it features TWO clips from Montreal! #1 in burning cop cars, and, punching people on the sidewalk, i guess?
Greetings from Brooklyn, NY, where the small-town joys include walking to the nearest library, running into friends, and hurling profanity at cars and the would-be murderers who drive them
Thanks for the hilarious and insightful piece. I haven't even bothered listening to the song, but have heard plenty about the controversy. One thing that strikes me as odd though is this concept of "cancelling" someone by shouting to millions from the rooftops about the person in question. It's like, umm...that is totally the opposite of how these things work and what typically happens. I remember some other country artist I'd seriously never even heard of was all over the news a couple of years ago for something similar. All the media outlets were foaming at the mouth about how this figure had just been "cancelled." But then would later mention with complete seriousness, as if an unrelated aside, that his streaming numbers were up 4000% for the week. I pretty much choked on my coffee that morning, and laughed about it nonstop for the next few days beyond that. The way you "cancel" someone is to ignore them.
Listen, I have a book to promote in the upcoming year. If only I could experience the particular variety of cancellation afforded to truth telling country music stars!
Jul 20, 2023·edited Jul 20, 2023Liked by Garrett Bucks
I have somehow missed out on following this controversy and have no idea who this person is. What should I say about having spent most of my life in small Montana towns and having just come back from the City of Portland, Oregon, where my son and I had a wonderful time walking for miles and taking buses everywhere but punching nobody 😱
Since a podcast interview just came out with me where at some point in the 2 hours I went on for a bit about the Flathead Warming Center and our wretched county commissioners' resistance to it, my top thought right now is that in a small town (or mid-sized town, whatever, Kalispell's population is about 26,000) that also has a reputation for being deeply conservative, you can open a low-barrier homeless shelter with cross-spectrum support. Or, since Aldean probably won't do that (I'm guessing but would love to be surprised), donate to one: https://flatheadwarmingcenter.org
You know what we do in cities like Milwaukee? Donate to warming shelters in mid-sized communities that we care about a lot, where we know people fighting the good fight :)
The thing that always strikes me about these Red whines is the pretense that they're necessitated, justified, by Blue contempt, when IME to contempt going that direction is really dwarfed by the contempt going the other way.
(Politically speaking, who's done more for rural Montana, Matt Rosendale or Nancy Pelosi? It's not remotely close, and he doesn't want to try to catch up. All he's got is 'maybe so, but she hates you.' Which isn't even true.)
It also made me think of clever small town activities, like quilting Underground Railroad routes under the noses of pro slavery people, and the ways these faux culture war disputes not only use up airtime, but are efforts to pretend small towns are homogenous and righteous, to scare people from voicing their dissent. I know this post isn't the place for seriousness, but I felt like your humor was a great vehicle to actually put me in touch with how much I self-censor in certain places, because I've internalized this idea that if I'm in "the country" people will have contempt for me, which just feeds the problem.
Prompted by the latest essay on the Richmond song to revisit this and share my take on it. When "Small Town" was making the discussion rounds, I decided to investigate. (Just the song. Skipped the video) So my husband and I sat on the couch and very earnestly gave it a listen. We're former Bay Area folk now living in a medium town in a small state so we approached it with curiosity. By the second chorus, I was thinking "But small town living has some challenges! Some small towns in this state are an hour away from competent medical care. Some of them have school houses that haven't been repaired in decades. Some of them...MINE for instance, can't count on a scheduled delivery from a Sacramento warehouse when winds pick up on 50!" And so I had my inspiration:
BUY THAT IN A SNOW TOWN, lyrics
Shopping cart loaded up with some good stuff
Prime says shipping’s free overnight
Picked a style for the corner of my living room
Mid-century cool or just old-school, but it’s nice.
THIS IS A WORK OF ART! And yes, you have 100% identified the main thing that most commenters about Aldean's song (myself included) miss: The primary driving force of small and mid-sized town life is logistical inconvenience!
Oh god, you made me laugh and laugh. I live in a small city (Springfield, Ohio) where much of this rings true. And I'd never heard of the Sucking on a Chili Dog guy, Tom-what's-his-name. I like your style.
Wow way to overlook murdering men with poisoned legumes.
Oh Lyz I’m so sorry haven’t you heard? Murdering men with poisoned legumes has been CANCELLED!
YOU CAN'T CANCEL MURDER!!!
That song's been in my head a lot since the "get rid of no-fault divorce" crowd started yapping.
Re: 4, the skater dudes in my sister's class, as a group of scrappy middle school millennials, went through the entire city development process to create the skate park in my hometown (population 5512). Attended council meetings, developed construction plans, the works. The thing that was most amazing to me is that was their response to the hostile architecture that the city put in throughout downtown to deter skater-duding. As of the visit home 2 weeks ago it is still there and well maintained. An earnestly adorable thing you can do in a small town with a bunch of your 12 year old friends.
Oh! And: whatever I've done to entirely miss this story until reading this makes me feel so confident in my media consumption. <Pats self on back>
This is now my favorite story of small town heroism!!
Love this!
this is so lovely!!!!
man, i feel like god has some pretty intimidating angels (like that dude with all the eyeballs and wings everywhere?) so that's a pretty good claim to fame!
i had not heard about this terrible music video, which i yearn to see but to which i do not want to give clicks, but i did just learn that it features TWO clips from Montreal! #1 in burning cop cars, and, punching people on the sidewalk, i guess?
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jason-aldean-try-that-in-a-small-town-canadian-protest-video-1234791776/
Also thank you for introducing a new game for that video: “tag your city in the depiction of urban decay!” I’m “convenience store scuffle!”
SACRE BLEU!!
TUESDAYS ARE FOR VIOLENCE AND OVERPRICED SALADS, you do know
Love my WARM QUINOA/AGGRAVATED ASSAULT TUESDAYS with the happy hour crew!!!
Can your city-slicking hand even punch without roasted sweet potato in your belly
so true
Your "80% nonsense bonus posts" are my favorite posts, so thank you for this! With appreciation from Helena, MT :)
Some day I’ll be following Cap N’ Crunch’s lead and releasing an “Oops all nonsense!” Issue
This is some well done nonsense. I haven’t come across your writing before and this was a good place to start.
Welcome! Glad to have you here
Greetings from Brooklyn, NY, where the small-town joys include walking to the nearest library, running into friends, and hurling profanity at cars and the would-be murderers who drive them
Now those are some real small town Brooklyn values!
Thanks for the hilarious and insightful piece. I haven't even bothered listening to the song, but have heard plenty about the controversy. One thing that strikes me as odd though is this concept of "cancelling" someone by shouting to millions from the rooftops about the person in question. It's like, umm...that is totally the opposite of how these things work and what typically happens. I remember some other country artist I'd seriously never even heard of was all over the news a couple of years ago for something similar. All the media outlets were foaming at the mouth about how this figure had just been "cancelled." But then would later mention with complete seriousness, as if an unrelated aside, that his streaming numbers were up 4000% for the week. I pretty much choked on my coffee that morning, and laughed about it nonstop for the next few days beyond that. The way you "cancel" someone is to ignore them.
Listen, I have a book to promote in the upcoming year. If only I could experience the particular variety of cancellation afforded to truth telling country music stars!
Yeah really. Oh perchance to dream!
I have somehow missed out on following this controversy and have no idea who this person is. What should I say about having spent most of my life in small Montana towns and having just come back from the City of Portland, Oregon, where my son and I had a wonderful time walking for miles and taking buses everywhere but punching nobody 😱
Since a podcast interview just came out with me where at some point in the 2 hours I went on for a bit about the Flathead Warming Center and our wretched county commissioners' resistance to it, my top thought right now is that in a small town (or mid-sized town, whatever, Kalispell's population is about 26,000) that also has a reputation for being deeply conservative, you can open a low-barrier homeless shelter with cross-spectrum support. Or, since Aldean probably won't do that (I'm guessing but would love to be surprised), donate to one: https://flatheadwarmingcenter.org
You know what we do in cities like Milwaukee? Donate to warming shelters in mid-sized communities that we care about a lot, where we know people fighting the good fight :)
🥰🥰🥰
The thing that always strikes me about these Red whines is the pretense that they're necessitated, justified, by Blue contempt, when IME to contempt going that direction is really dwarfed by the contempt going the other way.
(Politically speaking, who's done more for rural Montana, Matt Rosendale or Nancy Pelosi? It's not remotely close, and he doesn't want to try to catch up. All he's got is 'maybe so, but she hates you.' Which isn't even true.)
Anyone want an earworm?
"Who knows how long this will last
Now we've come so far, so fast
But, somewhere back there in the dust
That same small town in each of us"
Yep, yep, yep! To all of this!
Hat tip to Lyz and you for filling in the corn hole sized gaps of the WPOST's version of the story. Thank you.
This was the take the mainstream media was afraid to give you
Love the hat-tip (Ten gallon I am sure) to King of the Hill.
This is brilliant and made me laugh.
It also made me think of clever small town activities, like quilting Underground Railroad routes under the noses of pro slavery people, and the ways these faux culture war disputes not only use up airtime, but are efforts to pretend small towns are homogenous and righteous, to scare people from voicing their dissent. I know this post isn't the place for seriousness, but I felt like your humor was a great vehicle to actually put me in touch with how much I self-censor in certain places, because I've internalized this idea that if I'm in "the country" people will have contempt for me, which just feeds the problem.
I love that my nonsense could inspire such great reflections! Thanks for these, Rebecca.
This is fantastic Garrett.
#7: yes
#16 validated to see you linked where that did
#17 delighted to see this parody was by Tom McGovern, of Good Band Name Bad Band Name. I regularly shout "I don't give a floof!" Now.
-I unapologetically love Jack and Diane. And Mellencamp
-small towns are where 5-7 surnames of families are known for generations and the rich kid has a 2-story treehouse
"The rich kid in the small town" is a very specific American creature.
Prompted by the latest essay on the Richmond song to revisit this and share my take on it. When "Small Town" was making the discussion rounds, I decided to investigate. (Just the song. Skipped the video) So my husband and I sat on the couch and very earnestly gave it a listen. We're former Bay Area folk now living in a medium town in a small state so we approached it with curiosity. By the second chorus, I was thinking "But small town living has some challenges! Some small towns in this state are an hour away from competent medical care. Some of them have school houses that haven't been repaired in decades. Some of them...MINE for instance, can't count on a scheduled delivery from a Sacramento warehouse when winds pick up on 50!" And so I had my inspiration:
BUY THAT IN A SNOW TOWN, lyrics
Shopping cart loaded up with some good stuff
Prime says shipping’s free overnight
Picked a style for the corner of my living room
Mid-century cool or just old-school, but it’s nice.
Throw in a mop, add a book case
Pick out a lamp and light it up
Yeah, I think that’s enough.
Well, buy that in a snow town
See how far that truck makes it down the road
Around here, we wait for what we own
You shop online, it WILL take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don’t
Buy that in a snow town.
Got a receipt Amazon gave me
They say one day they’re gonna show up
Well that ice might melt up on ‘Fifty, good luck
Buy that in a snow town
See how far that truck makes it down the road
Around here, we wait for what we own
You shop online, it will take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don’t
Buy that in a snow town.
THIS IS A WORK OF ART! And yes, you have 100% identified the main thing that most commenters about Aldean's song (myself included) miss: The primary driving force of small and mid-sized town life is logistical inconvenience!
Oh god, you made me laugh and laugh. I live in a small city (Springfield, Ohio) where much of this rings true. And I'd never heard of the Sucking on a Chili Dog guy, Tom-what's-his-name. I like your style.
I definitely know Springfield. Lots of good times spent in the Miami Valley