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 Northerners need country songs about their own particular interests. Like ridin' snowmobiles. And ice fishing. And making maple syrup. Last month I went to a wedding in Richmond, Va., and drove down Monument Row, which features a series of giant statues depicting Southern civil war heroes. Growing up in New England, you take it as sort of a given that the Confederacy was the bad guy in the Civil War. You know, the pro-slavery agrarian secessionists bent on destroying America—as those biased Northern textbook manufacturers would have it.
Granted, guys like Jefferson Davis and Robert Lee are historic figures, but they lost, and Monument Row was startling because America doesn’t celebrate losers. At the surrender at Appomattox, Grant should’ve demanded that Lee sign a form declaring, “There shall be no statues of any of us losers, because we lost, and even though it’s mildly impressive that we managed to build a submarine in the 1800s, the only future monument to my life shall be a totally awesome orange Dodge Charger that can jump over barns. Signed, Robert E. Lee.”
All of this brings me, naturally, to country music. I’ve embarked on a few road trips lately that have taken me to the hinterlands where country music is about the only thing on the FM dial. And, after listening to a fair helping of modern country music, I’ve come to the conclusion that northern country fans need their own tunes.
Despite Robert E. Lee’s best efforts, this is still one big country, and therefore the life experiences and priorities of the northern redneck are not necessarily reflected in music produced by the Southern hillbilly. For example, I was driving through Canada when I heard the song “People are Crazy,” which tells the story of a male bonding session that takes place in a bar in Ohio. I mean, can Canadians even relate to a story set in an exotic sunny paradise like Ohio? And if they nevertheless enjoy such music, imagine how much more they’d enjoy it if it made cultural references they could understand, like workin’ on the Alberta oil sands, eatin’ at Tim Horton’s, drinkin’ Molson and watchin’ hockey. I think I just wrote the next Canadian country music hit. Somebody get me a twangy guitar and a lumberjack shirt.
In other major music genres, offshoots of the form tend to eventually spread over the entire nation. Hip-hop has the East Coast, the West Coast and whatever planet Lil’ Wayne came from. Rock is international. But country music is very much of a place, and that place is the American south. Consider these lyrics from Josh Thompson’s “Beer on the Table”: “Once the bills are paid and that bass boat tank has gone from E to F, I fill that big ol’ cooler up there ain’t a whole lot left.” While bass boats do exist north of the Mason-Dixon, they’re much more of an inland Southern phenomenon. If you showed up at the Pemaquid lobster boat races in a bass boat, you’d be laughed straight out to Monhegan Island.
Easton Corbin’s “I’m a little more country than that” asks listeners to, “Imagine a dirt road full of pot holes, with a creek bank and some cane poles, catching channel cat. I’m a little more country than that.” After the part about potholes I’m completely lost, but I infer that southerners somehow use canes to catch cats. Mr. Corbin, if his boasts are valid, is even a little more country than that.
Certain country music tropes are universal—the desire for a loyal soulmate, a nice truck, a dog who don’t chew up yer guns. But other concerns of the New England rural dweller are sadly unrepresented. Where are the country songs about snowstorms, gay marriage and coffee brandy? What about lobstering, moose hunting and riding snowmobiles? Has Toby Keith ever made his own maple syrup? No, because if he had, there’d be a song called, “I made my own maple syrup and I ain’t sharin’ it with no illegal immigrants.”
Here’s a song I just made up for my northern country music aficionados. I call it, “Your driveway ain’t all I want to plow.”
I love diggin’ clams and eatin’ mussels from Maine,
I love the smell of a moose in the rain.
But I’d trade my Ski-Doo for your lovin’ right now
Cause your driveway ain’t all I want to plow.
The South has warm weather, all the manufacturing jobs and college football teams that are actually good. It’s not fair that they also have a monopoly on hokey song lyrics about fishing. Plus, it’s past time that the North had another win. So get ready, South. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, take your tongue outta my mouth, cause I’m kissing you goodbye.
 The healthcare system could be worse. I don’t enjoy getting scared. When I was a kid, I’d run out of the room when the commercial for Friday the 13th came on TV. I’ve never seen Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. One of my earliest memories is of a clown trying to shake my hand—I refused to cooperate, because even then I could tell that clowns are weird. In the parlance of clinical psychology, I’m what’s known as a big ’fraidy cat. Although I stand by my initial impression on clowns.
Thus it’s probably no surprise that I’ve never been inside a haunted house. I find life scary enough. But when SpookyWorld offers me a chance to get on the other side of the business—working as an actor inside their Sleep Stalkers attraction—I decide to confront my fears head-on. Which is to say, by jumping out at kids and trying to scare them so bad they pee themselves.
I drive to Litchfield, N.H. and meet the aptly named Joel Fearon to get a bit of coaching before my Sleep Stalkers debut. Fearon’s title is “haunt manager” and he makes sure that Spooky World’s parade of horrors goes off according to plan. Because truly blood-curdling nightmarish fright requires solid logistics. Do the hellish ghouls have their Halls cough drops for when their voices get hoarse from screaming in agony? Does the 7’4” dude lurking behind a certain door need gas for his chainsaw? That kind of stuff.
Fearon leads me into the Sleep Stalkers building and I’m immediately on edge, even though the lights are on and I myself look like a bloody-faced zombie, courtesy of the Spooky World makeup department. It’s creepy and I want out of here.
“The premise is that this is a sleep deprivation experiment gone horribly wrong,” Fearon says. “But, as bad as the patients are, the doctors are in worse shape.” This notion is supported by the arrival of Bob, an actor wearing blood-spattered doctor’s scrubs. The chunky red tendrils of flesh around his mouth indicate that his role involves a bit of cannibalism. Bob mentions that this year he’s made two people pee themselves—so far. “I like to tell them, ‘I want to eat your skin!’” Bob says. “That’s more scary than saying ‘I want to eat your brains.’” Totally—telling people you want to eat their brains is like saying “boo.” Nobody’s gonna pee themselves over cliches.
At 7 pm, the doors open and the victims begin entering the building. I’m positioned along a blood-spattered row of shower stalls with a guy named Joe, a seasoned pro who’ll demonstrate the procedure before I give it a shot. The first group—mostly girls—approaches and Joe explodes through hidden doors and screams “Shower time!” There is much shrieking. After they pass, Joe says, “I like to wait till the middle of the group to jump out. The people in front are usually the bravest, so you want to get the ones who are the most scared.” That sounds kind of mean, but hey, we’re not the ones who bought a ticket. We’re here to frighten and terrify, not make moral judgments.
I observe Joe blitz a few more crowds before taking my position behind the doors, watching the hallway through a peephole. A couple approaches and I burst out, bellowing the “shower time” line and looking quite convincing with my bloody smock and mangled face. At least, I must look convincing, because I cause a grown man almost jump into his girlfriend’s arms. I’d feel bad for the guy—hell, I am that guy—if this weren’t so funny. And satisfying.
As customers continue to filter through, some patterns emerge. Fulfilling their stereotypical gender roles, teenage girls are the easiest to scare, while teenage guys are the biggest a-holes. That’s why it’s so fun to make the dudes flinch even as they’re sarcastically declaring, “Yeah, man, real scary.” Sometimes I want to reply “Your mom’s real scary,” but I’ve got to stay in character. It’s like Disney World in that respect.
I try some different locations, and find that leaping from behind a shower curtain is actually less scary than just sort of slumping out in a lifeless fashion. Also, fear can be amplified by creepily parroting things people say on their way through: When a girl hugs her friend and cries, “Hold me!” Joe strides out of the shower and follows them down the hall pleading, “Hold me! Hold me!” Have I mentioned that Joe is wearing one white contact lens? It’s not a good look.
By the end of my shift, I’m no longer so creeped out by Sleep Stalkers, but understanding the mechanics of fear doesn’t make me any more enthusiastic about experiencing it. I won’t be renting Hostel anytime soon. I have decided to amp up my Halloween costume for this year, though. Richard Simmons is scary, but Zombie Richard Simmons is gonna be frightening.
 I probably end statements with "so" more frequently than you do, so. There’s a strange linguistic crutch that’s sweeping the nation. It’s an epidemic of epidemic proportions. I see it on TV, I hear it on the street and I even catch myself mindlessly stumbling into its clutches. I try to stop myself, but it’s kinda addictive, so.
So what? So I should duct-tape my mouth shut until I can complete a thought? Yes, probably I should. But everyone else is doing it, so.
What began as a way of abandoning a thought, letting one’s muse trail off into the realm of infinite possibility, has become a declarative statement. There is no longer an ellipsis after the “so,” as there is when Kristen Wiig’s pathologically lying Saturday Night Live character uses it to one-up somebody. “So” is now a closer: “I’m busy tonight, so.” (So get the hell out of my face.) Most of the time, “so” now stands in for, “So that’s all I have to say on this matter.”
This is actually the second turn for “so” on the pop-culture merry-go-round. The last time was so not cool—don’t worry, I’m so kidding. It so was. The forcibly included-extra-so was popular around the era of the dangling “with,” as in, “I’m so getting in my Hummer H2 and cranking some Destiny’s Child. You want to come with?” I know, so 2004.
I’m curious how these mutations begin. Did someone actually say, “You know, I’m going to start saying ‘same difference’ and see if that catches on”? I want to start some new trends, along the lines of pig Latin or whatever you call the way Snoop Dogg talks. Bascially, you can make up any silly thing and people will latch onto it, because we’re all so bored with talking.
For instance, I’d love to bring back the Prohibition-era gangster “see”. So I’m going to start ending sentences with “see.” And you’re gonna start using it, see? Or I’m gonna get mad, see. Note: you may also have to speak with an exaggerated nasally voice, because humans didn’t develop voices of our current timbre until 1975.
How about this? We all stop using the word “the” and we end our sentences with the word “monkey.” Let’s try: “I’ve got tickets to Celtics game, monkey.” I think I hit nail on head with this idea, monkey!
And people better get on board, because there’s nothing more embarrassing than trying to start a crazy fad and having nobody go along with it. Like when Kris Kross started dressing totally crossed out, expecting that their hit single “Warm it Up Kris” would prompt kids across the nation to go to school with their clothes on backwards. Except nobody did that, because wearing your clothes backwards is stupid. Plus it’s uncomfortable, especially the shoes.
While “so” is the fashionable verbal tic of the masses, every individual has his or her own stable of abused verbiage. I have a friend who’s latched onto the word “literally.” In fact, he’s invented a new spin for “literally” abuse. Normally, someone will test my Language Police self-restraint by saying, “I literally sweat my ass off when I run,” or some other statement that is hopefully not literal. But this fellow injects “literally” into situations that are in fact literal, but just unremarkable. We were driving in his car, and he said, “I literally drove up this road yesterday.” Really? You mean to say you didn’t figuratively drive up this road yesterday? You actually did that? Because without the “literally,” I would’ve assumed you were constructing some sort of allegory, wherein “the road” is the French Revolution and “driving” represents the inherent conflict between the concepts of fate and free will. But I guess you just mean you drove your car here yesterday.
Everybody uses pointless verbal embellishments. Some people say “in other words” before there are any other words. Some people devalue “by the way,” by adding its conspiratorial wink to the most straightforward and mundane statements. Obama invented a new one, the Obama Pause, wherein you prevent yourself from chattering by stressing certain syllables, pausing and dragging out particular words. Annnnnnnddddd that’s how you avoid sounding like Heidi Montag when you’re disCUSSING… matters of national importance.
I’m not above critique, either. I’ve caught myself saying “clearly” a lot. And there’s clearly no way to inject “clearly” into your everyday conversations without sounding like a pompous douche. I also say, “like I might’ve told you,” way too often, because I can never remember what I already discussed with a particular person. Like I might’ve told you, I’ve clearly got some work to do myself. And that’s my column, so.
 Who needs bread when the world has fried chicken? Fast food chains get a bad rap for contributing to the nation’s obesity woes. Thus Burger King offers apple fries and McDonald’s dutifully peddles salads, so that when your lard-ass drives up to the order window you can theoretically buy something with nutritional value. But one fast food chain, instead of wasting time with fruits and vegetables, is hard at work inventing new products worthy of a company called Yum! Brands. Instead of folding in the face of nutritional pressure, KFC has decided to Double Down on deliciousness.
The new Double Down sandwich’s fillings include bacon, pepper jack cheese, swiss cheese and the Colonel’s sauce. “But Ez,” you say, “How could they make this bacon and two-kinds-of-cheese sandwich even more irresistible?” After years of trying to create chicken-flavored bread, the Colonel hit on the solution: Replace the bread with actual slabs of fried chicken. In terms of milestones in human progress, you now have the wheel, the cotton gin, and the KFC Double Down sandwich. Yum, indeed.
The DD, being a controversial product, is sold in a lawless land to the south, a place where seemingly upstanding citizens have been known to slip across the border in pursuit of sex, drugs and unthinkable debauchery. I’m talking, of course, about Rhode Island.
I get in the car and head for Providence, because the only other state where you can score a Double Down is Nebraska, and frankly Nebraska’s already had its sandwich-innovation moment, what with the invention of the reuben. You know, once upon a time, people thought that corned beef and Russian dressing on rye sounded gross, too.
Even though I called ahead to confirm Double Down availability, I’m still mildly shocked when I pull up to the KFC drive-through and see it there on the menu. So this is really happening. I’m really about to order a sandwich that uses chicken for buns.
When I get my sandwich, I open the box and discover KFC’s solution to the most obvious technical challenge of the breadless sandwich. The quandary, the stumbling block that’s halted all prior chicken-instead-of-bread research, is that bread traditionally serves as a means of grasping messy fillings. So what do you do when the exterior of the sandwich is itself greasy fried chicken? You wrap it in wax paper, is what you do. Because you wouldn’t want to touch with your fingers what you’re ingesting into your body. Is “genius” too strong a word?
I use the paper to grip the sandwich, which nonetheless slides around in my hands like a feisty trout. But given a bit of determination, I subdue the 10.3 ounces of chicken, bacon and cheese long enough to take a bite. The result is a flavor explosion, a nuclear assault on my palate, a weeklong Woodstock where 100,000 taste buds are tripping on pure umami. Anything is possible. Compared to this, an Angry Whopper is a bowl of Kashi. KFC has rung a bell that cannot be unrung.
People laughed at the idea of using chicken for bread. They said it couldn’t be done. But we’re a nation of dreamers, inventors and scientists—gluttonous dreamers, tubby inventors and morbidly obese scientists. With a little know-how and some good old-fashioned bravado, we’ve entered an era when the sandwich is no longer constrained by bread, tradition or shame. John Lennon wrote a little song called “Imagine” that seems so relevant to this wondrous time we’re living in. Especially the verse that goes, “Imagine all the people, crapping themselves as they have heart attacks.”
If I were the bread industry, I’d be running scared. In a stroke, KFC has rendered bread obsolete. What would you rather have for breakfast, toast or fried chicken? And I think we can all agree that the bread bowl was always better in theory than in practice. Imagine clam chowder in a savory fried-chicken bowl. No sogginess there, friends. Even the expression, “The best thing since sliced bread” is now an anachronism, supplanted by “the best thing since fried chicken instead of sliced bread”.
There’s already a lot of hand-wringing on Beacon Hill as legislators argue over the future of the Double Down in Massachusetts. Personally, I think we should legalize it so that we can collect tax revenue, because habitual users are going to get their hands on it anyway. If the Double Down is criminal, then only criminals will have Double Downs, right? Besides, the recipe is already all over the Internet, and any two-bit chicken-slinger can rig a basement kitchen to cook up counterfeits that might be cut with spare ribs, sausage patties or worse.
As for the critics who suggest that this is exactly the sort of mass-produced high-calorie trash that contributes to America’s grotesque obesity and general unhealthiness, I’ll have you know that the Double Down is actually a great source of fiber. As long as you also eat the box.
After an interminably damp summer, beach weather finally arrived this month and I earnestly participated in my first “beach day.” I use quotation marks because I don’t think that two hours can honestly be claimed as a day. But my beach time was long enough to reach a few conclusions. I hereby posit that there are only three reasons for going to a beach:
-The beach in question is artificial and situated next to a topless pool, a swim-up blackjack table and a bar.
-You’re trying to signal a passing ship for rescue.
-You’re liberating France.
The only other possible rationale for beach-going is that you’re on vacation in the middle of winter, and the combination of sudden sunshine and tropical drinks induces a temporary euphoria that obscures the fact that you’re engaging in a completely asinine activity. Why did our country’s frontiersman forge west, battling starvation and disease? Because they were trying to get as far away from the beach as possible. It’s a tragic irony that their journey ended at another beach. The most iconic beach song ever, Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville,” is about getting drunk because the beach is so annoying.
Considering that we all associate the desert with deprivation and misery, why then do we love a desert that happens to border an equally hostile environment, a vast tub of corrosive liquid filled with prehistoric predators, riptides, poisonous jellyfish, rogue waves, bloodthirsty pirates and frequently unsafe levels of doo-doo bacteria? If you want to save time without going to a beach, just throw a block of ice and a piranha in the toilet, then dip your feet while applying Banana Boat lotion with a random-orbit palm sander. Nonetheless, I know that many of you still insist on patronizing the beach, so in the spirit of public service, here are a few tips on how to best enjoy yourself.
Pick Your Spot
Unless you arrive at the crack of dawn, the beach will already be full when you get there. Thus you’ll need to weave amongst the existing beach patrons and inadvertently kick sand all over them, which may result in a severe beating from a leathery gentleman with a tattoo of the Hartford Whalers logo across his back. Once you find a place to set your towel, carefully position it so that sand doesn’t get on top. Then enjoy the 30 seconds until some other hapless nomad trudges past and sprays sand deep into the fibers of your towel, which now has the fluffy cosseting texture of a mangled chain-link fence.
Take A Walk
Initially, you’ll scald your feet on the sand, so you should put on your flip-flops, which will then immediately fling sand into the straps and begin abrading off your skin with each step. So ditch the flip flops and streak toward the water to cool your frying soles. Near the high tide mark, you’ll encounter seaweed and jagged shells, which alternately cause you to slip or lacerate your feet. Finally, you’ll reach the water, which, by virtue of warming in the sun all summer, is nearly 85 percent free of ice floes. With your feet in the water and the rest of you baking in the sun, enjoy the sensation of undergoing hypothermia and heatstroke simultaneously. Tired of having external testicles, or non-inverted boobs? Just wade a little deeper!
Things to Do
Some people think the beach is boring, but there’s actually a lot to do. For instance: Stare at cancer spots developing on your skin. Try to read, except the combination of sweat and/or sunblock will cause the ink to smear all over your hands (you could try a Kindle, but nobody likes to grab a sandy Kindle). Attempt to eat a snack while fending off advances from disease-ridden dump chickens, also known as seagulls. Construct a metaphor for the ultimate futility of your life, also known as a sandcastle. Fall asleep and wake up with a sunburn so severe that your entire immune system shuts down. Rent an umbrella or a beach chair, often for as little as two to three times what they would cost to buy in a store. Go bodysurfing and get your face smashed into the bottom beneath the maelstrom of a crashing wave. Lose your wedding ring in the water (I’ve done this). Alternately, if you’re not married, just throw $900 into the ocean. Get crapped on by a seagull (this happened to Heather). Play beach volleyball, and dive for a ball such that you whiplash your head into the sand and nearly knock yourself out. Take your top off. Please?
I’m only drawing on my own experiences here, but if you’re creative you can probably think of even more things to do at the beach. Like, if you’re lying on your back, try lying on your stomach. The possibilities are endless. But the summer isn’t—so I’ll see you at the beach! By which I mean, I’ll see you as I drive past it.
Last night I watched “Whale Wars” for the first time. It’s a depressing show, because the anti-whaling people really just mildly annoy the Japanese as they go about their business. If I were a whale, I’d probably prefer that these guys go try to get the [...]
I guess I’d probably take the tarantula over the beetle, and the centipede over the bee. Needless to say, I saw this in Japan:
insectsfighting
The importance of "ing" vs. "er".
Heather was on a business trip, and my quick rummage beneath the sink failed to turn up the expected bottle of Cascade. So I called the emergency hotline and asked Heather, somewhere in Kansas, how [...]
A couple weeks back, Heather and I were shopping at the Wrentham Outlets. I opened the door of a dressing room to get her opinion, and she looked at the pants, grimaced, and said, “I don’t love the wash on those.” Which is fine, except that I was trying on a shirt. But it was [...]
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