Waiters on the breakfast shift should be tipped big. That's a miserable shift and the tabs are low (I was a waiter through college and part of grad school), so 100% is not unreasonable there. I've never met a former waiter who could bear to stiff even the crappiest service. We former waiters can also be pretty…

He did (unfortunately.) Rabin just says "Take This Job and Shove It" was performed on the show. I don't doubt it. The Boar's Nest hosted lots of A-list acts (Roy Orbison, Buck Owens are two I can think of), who had to perform as a condition of their being released from the Hazzard County Jail, where they were often…

Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised
Maybe Rabin didn't mean it as a slight, but I think "Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised" is a much better song than is implied in the write-up. It's not a novelty song and not really a funny song—it just has a clever title, like a lot (most maybe) of country songs. It's really a sad and…

The novel "Fat City" is one of those famously unfamous great novels. I think it was Leonard Gardner's only book and is on that short list of lean, perfect novels (as in there's nary a line in the book that doesn't need to be there.) The novel is soaked in that same boozy despair the film translates to the screen.

Anybody else read this to mean his daughter's fat?
"When I was in the eighth grade, I was the fat kid. I was never that big. I look now at my daughter and her classmates, I'm like, man, I was kind of just chubby compared to kids now."

Dick Wolf! was a standout for me, too. I gotta give the edge to Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., though. That one's perfect.

Point taken, Denby, but that song has moved into bluegrass/folk standard territory (maybe Porter and Dolly helped put it there) and its sensitive singer-songwriter origins (that sounds facetious but I don't mean for it to; I just don't have a better characterization) have been obscured. In my experience, it's one of…

Maybe that's what inspired him to write "Going to Work in Tall Buildings":

Rationalist, thanks for the clips. I've wondered why Hartford isn't cited more often in connection with the surge of Americana (and even steampunk) these last several years. What distinguishes him from many of the contemporary acts is his utter unself-consciousness and guilelessness. I don't want to knock anybody…

"Gentle on my Mind" is one of the most beautiful hobo love songs ever written.

Great songwriter. He wrote "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town," which is one of the freakiest and greatest country songs ever. In a little over two minutes it covers themes of self-pity, revenge, paralysis, impotence, infidelity, murder—it's like if the Greeks had written country songs, only not in Greek. Kenny…

You left out
He's the only country legend whose first and last names are synonyms of each other. Pee Wee King is the converse of that.

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley! Hang it and weep, my man!

I work in the wind power industry. I'd be interested in what she has to say about it. As for her work, I know only the weekly strip as it appeared in the Austin Chronicle in the 80s/90s when I was there. I'm not a comics or graphics guy, but it's funny how that little four-panel strip could often be so provacative…

The main thing I remember, other than Dolly, is Speck's comedy bits, which may all have involved calling up the operator on one of those old-timey phones. Maybe not, but I have a really strong memory of Speck hollering into the mouthpiece at Clara or whoever.

"Rocky Horror" can sound a lot like "Rocky IV" when you're 18 and you're drunk, and that's the story behind how I wound up seeing the movie.

As a fellow rebel, albeit not a Nashville one,
I have been meaning to see this movie for years. My dad saw it when it first came out and now and then expresses an interest in finding out if it's on video. I don't have the heart te tell him.

I was doing a set of incline press and sent a note up to see if he could come over and give me a spot and he looked at it like it was a turd or something. I knew I should have just stuck with my Bally membership.

Bruce Hornsby already did this. That's just the way it is.

Holy shit! If only you would use your powers for good instead of evil.