Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. And Little Sheba. And Barbara Lewis Hari Krishna Beauregard.

Good point on Steve Earle. He's also a good example of a similar topic: artists whose later works' badness makes you question the value of the earlier work you once loved. From Guitar Town up through El Corazon (discounting a couple of throw-away crap albums from the early nineties), I loved the guy, especially…

I realized, with Saturday, that after years of saying I liked McEwan, I really don't. Saturday was the wake-up call. It was so bad I thought it must be a parody of something I couldn't quite put my finger on—the oh-so-correct and upright and beautiful family who eat so healthily and hold such perfect opinions and…

There's a convent north of Houston where purportedly miniature horses are raised. We took the kids up there and were disappointed to find that the horses were regular sized. Until we saw the giant nuns.

I think that was Dan's brother who was in Seals and Croft. Dan was "England" Dan. (Don't know what became of John Ford Coley. Don't much care either.)

Yeah, I had expected Dragon to be "family friendly." I saw it yesterday. It starts with a frenzy of dragon-murder and barely lets up. My five-year-old was traumatized. What the hell happened to "Hot Lead and Cold Feet"? "The Shaggy DA"?

Denis Johnson and David Letterman
Somebody's probably already said Letterman (jeez, like 800 comments ten minutes after this story posted), but I mark the move to CBS as his descent to irrelevance. Or, as somebody far above in the comments astutely noted, my own outgrowing of his schtick.

It's gonna take a lotta love to change the way things are.

I got a seven year old boy. It is only a mild exaggeration to say that Star Wars Legos is absolutely all he talks about and thinks about. The Legos are all over the house. They are in every room. Ventress guards the door to the mudroom. The Republic Attack Shuttle cruises my underwear drawer. Everywhere. The…

I didn't read Dahl as a kid and always assumed I'd like him because of his reputation as somebody I'd like. As the father of two young kids to whom I've read some of the Dahl books, though, I gotta say I can barely tolerate most of his stuff. The one about the magical medicine was funny and moved fast, but…

I don't watch the late night stuff because it comes on, well, late at night, and I am reluctant to mess with the whole space-time continuum thing by Tivoing or whatever the kids are using these days. But somebody forwarded me a long clip of Ferguson on his show expressing his concern about Britney Spears and why he…

Alabama has some pretty parts, a rich history, pretty accents, etc., and though people make fun of Texas, Texas is really bad-ass in every way there is to be bad-ass, and on down the line through various states, until you get to Oklahoma, which is an unredeemable shithole in every respect. God, it's just awful. …

White man speak with forked tongue.

Except in Texas we go out and live in our damn state. It doesn't matter how hot or windy or snakey or far it is, by God, we're gonna put in a septic tank and park a trailer there. Australia? Bunch of pussies living along the coast. All that land, and they bunch up on the edges and talk about how brave they are.

HA HA HA HA—

Barnaby Jones reruns played on an Austin independent station on weekday mornings in the early nineties when I was in college—I think there was a double feature with Matlock. My friends and I theorized that Buddy Ebsen had actually died in the third or fourth season and that his corpse had been used until the end of…

Sounds real nasty.

Here's the video for "Sorry You Asked" referenced above. Quite mirthful:

". . . But certain third parties (her sister for one)
Brought our reconciling to a DROP DEAD halt . . . ."

I agree with Bent wholeheartedly on the need to acknowledge Pete Anderson. That guy pretty much IS the Dwight sound. (By the same token, Don Rich is crucial to the Buck Owens sound particularly and the Bakersfield Sound generally.) I love Dwight Yoakum, but his voice needs a particular kind of production or it just…