My Big Fat Redneck Update

As you'll recall, a few weeks ago I posted about what seemed to be a renaissance of sorts for the rednecks of America. Every network seems to be clamoring for a slice of possum pie, as it were, but all of a sudden America may have bitten off more than it can chew.

Of course, there was the likeable kid from MTV's "Buckwild", Shain Gandee. Dead at the ripe old age of 21 by what could euphemistically be called "misadventure" and "accidental causes". If you can call getting shitfaced and going mudding with two other guys "misadventure" and leaving your piece of shit Bronco running with the windows up after you bury it in the mud with the exhaust submerged so the carbon monoxide channels back into the cab to kill you "accidental causes". In other Buckwild news, 24 year old cast-mate Salwa Amin, the buxom Bangladeshi who was arrested in March for possession of heroin and Oxycodone, was released and enroute to rehab. Another cast mate, Michael Burford, was arrested for DUI in February. MTV finally cancelled the show. Maybe the leftover cast mates can get together with the refugees from Jersey Shore and have a mashup of rednecks and Guidos.

Salwa Amin. Not your typical redneck.

Up the road from me in Myrtle Manor, as the episodes wore on it just seemed more & more contrived & scripted yet it's been renewed for a second season. Not sure if all the cast members will be returning as three of them were arrested in a 3-day span. Amanda Adamswas popped on a DUI charge after wrecking her Jeep, and had a BAC of .20; our legal limit here in SC is .08. Drunk much? Fellow cast mate Lindsay Colbert was busted doing 62 in a 45 and blew a .15 BAC. Lovely. And 28 year old Taylor Burt, the heavily tattooed and pierced party promoter was busted for allegedly having sex with an underaged girl.

Amanda's Jeep after she hit a pole while almost 3 times over the limit

The teen girl said she asked her mom to drop her off at the Sound Hole concert venue around 6:30 p.m.  Once there, she claimed she messaged Burt about wanting to "hang out." (How did she get his number? I'm perplexed). She says Burt came to that location, picked her up, and took her to his apartment nearby.(I thought he lived in the tariler park?) She claims the pair had sex and Burt told her to not tell anyone because he could get into trouble.  The report said Burt told her it was "their little secret and they would do it again soon." . When the victim's mother picked her up, she said the teen was not acting right and asked her what was wrong. (Well, maybe because you dropped a 16 year old off at a club alone, mom? WTF?) The victim told her mom what happened and from there they went to the police department to file a report.The victim was later taken to a hospital but refused to have a rape kit done, the report said. (Hmmm, suspicious) Police also noted that there was no record of any "messages" sent or received between the victim and Burt on her phone; the victim told police she has deleted the messages. (Convenient. Subpeona the records...) The victim said she did not know the suspect's last name but knew he was on the TLC show Myrtle Manor, the report said. The victim's mom told police that she and her daughter had driven through the Myrtle Manor location earlier that day and talked about the show. (I smell a honey trap)...Burt was released on $25,000 bond.

Taylor Burt's mugshot.

 Over in the swamp, things are also getting kinda repetitive and scripted. The narration calls every gator a "beast" and a "monster". You'll see what appears to be a very small, thin gator on the line as the fight it and after it's killed a giant is dragged into the boat. Or, they'll say it's a big gator, not tell you how big it was, and a small gator is hauled in. The stage is set for every season to be the most difficult ever and no one is going to tag out, but on the last day pretty much everyone's a winner. A lot of people were wondering why fan favorites Joe & Tommy were not on the show this season and it might have something to do with Joe no longer being Tommy's stepfather. Seems Joe split up with his wife and I only found out after spotting Joe's arrest for Criminal Domestic Violence last summer before gator season on his girlfriend of nine months.

Joe LaFont's mugshot

 According to the arrest report Joe hit her in the chest and attempted to burn her arm with a lit cigarette during an argument outside of a Lake Buena Vista, Florida hotel on Disney property. Per the report, a witness told police that the two were leaving the hotel bar when Joe "grabbed the victim by the upper arms, shook her very hard and she cried out loud...The defendant and the victim appeared to be intoxicated." The victim, who refused medical attention at the scene, appeared to have been angry at Joe and was demanding to know who had just called him on his cell phone, the witness said. She tried to grab his phone and that's when he attempted to burn her arm, the witness added. The arresting officer said that, standing at arm's length away, he smelled booze on Joe's breath, as well as the "strong odor of burned cigarette." He was taken into custody and later released on a $1,500 bond. His girlfriend, who refused to press charges, said in a sworn statement to police that they had been in an "intimate relationship" for nine months and had been living "as a family" for the last six months.

No scandals over on Duck Dynasty but the runaway sensation hit show could hit a snag in returning next year. The cast wants more money, seeing as they are damn near the most popular show on television right now. Networks love shows like these as they can be churned out for peanuts and the cast usually makes a pittance while the network rakes in tidy profits. The trouble comes when they want more money, usually with the end result of the network dumping the show. Part of me is behind the cast of Duck Dynasty; why should someone else get fat off of them while they get a small paycheck? However, their Duck Commander company makes money hand over fist and they get a piece of the action from all the shirt & hat sales...so they ain't hurtin' for money to buy a lunch at the Waffle House.

And then there was Honey Boo Boo....

They aired a couple of "holiday specials" from the Honey Boo Boo gang a couple months back, but with no new episodes I'm wondering if the show's momentum or lack thereof will bring back viewers when it returns to the airwaves again. Allegedly Mama June lost some weight and finally married Sugar Bear in the off-season. They wore camo, of course...camo and safety orange, the child wore this ruffled pink monstrosity, and half the attendees wore shoes for the first time in months.

Could it be the Redneck Renaissance is passing? I guess Gypsies are the next big thing.....after all they seem like wealthy white trash rednecks with a Jersey Shore attitude.....Hmmm...maybe we found that hybrid after all?

Deport Justin Bieber

My Sworn Enemy

I think it's high time we finally declare Justin Bieber an Enemy Combatant and deport his scrawny little ass back to Canada. I mean, seriously, what kind of visa does this little turd have that allows him to do whatever he wants with no repercussions? Last I checked, those who were here  with a green card or visa to work in my country had to maintain certain standards of good behavior or risk deportation.

I'm kinda curious as to what sort of magic visa this little turd has. He probably has an actual green card for Permanent Resident Aliens. I know that the guys on my local hockey team used to have to scramble every fall to get one of the 66,000 available H-2B work visas granted to minor-leaguers.  The H-2B visa allows for temporary work, less than 12 months, in a variety of professional fields and is the visa all United States-based minor hockey leagues used to use for their players. Now they only use those for guys not on a contract who are coming here on a tryout basis, Otherwise they need a P-1A visa, which is usually granted for from five to ten years. That switch to the P-1A caused a veteran minor-league player to be stopped and turned away at the border over his visa type by an overzealous border guard, and the resulting paperwork delays and associated BS was the effective end of a player's career. Normally I'm cool with having vigilant border agents, but seriously...I'm more concerned with illegals slipping in from Mexico to work under the table or Jihadis trying to gain access to kill me than I am with a guy from Saskatchewan with a bag full of hockey pads and sticks coming here to work.

I know Bieber is here on some sort of visa because on multiple occasions the snotbag has stated he has no interest in becoming an American citizen and bitches about our healthcare system while touting how great it is in his homeland of Canada. Hey, Beebz...I have family in Canada myself. In fact I am 50% Canadian as my mother (a naturalized American citizen) is from Toronto. You know, that big city about 2 hours from where you're from in London, Ontario. If Canada's "free" healthcare is so great why do people in Ontario routinely hop the border to Buffalo for medical care after waiting months to see a dentist or other caregiver? Sure, Canada is a great country, and I'm glad you're proud to be Canadian, but dude, don't come here and buy a mansion and gather up tens of millions of American dollars while talking shit about us, okay?

But why am I so concerned about Bieber's visa status and availability for deportation? Because while most of the world thinks he's all cute and cuddly and a great role model and his legions of pre-pubescent little girl fans worship him like low-information moron voters worship Obama, a growing number of informed grownups are noticing that he is a Supreme World-Class Dick at worst and a spoiled punk-assed kid at best.

In the past few months, Bieber has been all over the news, if folks would bother to look, and not much of it has been even remotely positive:

Back in March there was an alleged altercation with his neighbor after racing his Ferrari up and down the street where our mature young man reportedly spat upon his neighbor.

Gonna be hard getting in that car with that big load in your diaper there, sport.

Lately he's been prone to altercations with paparazzi where he lunges at them and threatens to kill them, all the while his bodyguards pretend to hold back his fearsome 130 pounds.

He's constantly seen by entertainment reporters smoking weed and slurping sizzurp with thugtastical rap types. Mix codeine cough syrup with Sprite and drink until your synapses misfire. That's sizzurp.

His tour bus was raided in April by Swedish police, who found drugs and a stun gun.

He shows up at an airport in Germany with a live monkey and no paperwork. Come on, Germans love their paperwork. Dude just expected everyone to kiss his ass and let him wander about with a monkey. Haven't you seen "Quarantine"? You probably thought it would wear a Rolling Stones vest and bring you dope like in "Hangover 2", right? He then abandons the monkey in Germany, leaving no money for its upkeep, and now the Germans have given it to a zoo.

An Austrian nightclub banned him & his entourage after they started groping girls and smashing peoples' cell phones for daring to take pictures of His Bieberness.

He had the effing audacity to write in the guestbook at the Anne Frank house that he thought Anne would have been a Belieber.

In March he showed up at the airport in Lodz, Poland with his pants falling off and no shirt on despite it being 14 degrees outside and walked topless through the airport before boarding a private jet.

He showed up 2 hours late for a packed concert at London's O2 Arena and blamed it on "technical issues". Look, kid, it was bad enough when Axl Rose used to pull that shit like a diva in front of grown adult rock fans. You did that to an arena full of pre-teen girls on a school night like a dick. At another show he kept fans waiting over 90 minutes because he was too engrossed is a freakin' ping pong game backstage with one of his dancers.

He reportedly had a tantrum during a recent photo shoot for an Elizabeth Arden fragrance in Copenhagen after showing up SIX HOURS late. He threw the fit because they wanted him to wear a bell boy hat and he refused. This puke is quickly getting a reputation as someone that no one wants to work with.

He is rumored to have taken on-again/off-again doormat girlfriend Selena Gomez out to a comped (ie: FREE) meal at some high-dollar establisgment where he didn't seem to feel the need to tip his waiter. Granted, tipping is different in every country you visit, but to leave nothing, especially after the meal is FREE, is downright dickish.

If you go to a party at his house, you're met at the door with a Liability Waiver & Release that states if you talk about what goes on at his house he will sue you for five million dollars. Some would say that it's to protect him from frivolous lawsuits from spurious types who would fake a slip & fall to sue him, but it's more like he doesn't want anyone to know what sort of drug, booze and sex-fueled Bacchanalia he lives in.

He gets spotted in public walking around in a gas mask. Yes, GAS MASK. More than once. Dude, what the hell is WRONG with you?

I love how the bodyguard is all incensed that someone would dare take a picture of The Man Child in his gas mask

 
 I can think of another fruity diva in masks who played with monkeys.....

 Last week there was another episode where Bieber was racing up and down the street in his Ferrari, and this time the pissed neighbor was six feet four inches of retired football star Keyshawn Johnson. Keep it up, kid; someone is gonna stomp your ass flat with the quickness if you keep this up, and I'm gonna laugh and laugh and laugh when they do.

Pull up your pants, douchebag. It looks stupid enough on wannabe thugs, but you're a whiteboy tool from Canada. On you it's beyond comically asanine.

It's okay to kill eagles in the name of Green Energy & Hypocrisy

It is illegal by Federal Law to kill bald eagles and golden eagles, under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940. Unless you're Green Energy...

Really, gang, this should come as absolutely NO surprise. If you're surprised, then you haven't been paying attention to ANYTHING I've been saying these past few years on this site, nor have you paid attention to anything said by any sane, rational human being when it comes to the wanton, reckless, and verily CRIMINAL hypocrisy of The Left in general and the Obama administration in particular.

We're all supposed to pay our taxes, lest the IRS come down on us with almighty wrath. However, Obeezy's cabinet and key staff has been populated, nay riddled, with tax cheats. Hell, Wesley Snipes is fresh outta jail and needs a job; why not make him a cabinet secretary?

The Left hates guns, and wants to control guns, but crime is at its worst in Democrat-controlled zones where they don't allow responsible citizens to exercise their right to self-defense. It's also okay for prominent Liberals to own guns. Do as I say, not as I do. Gun control ain't about the guns. It's about the control.

The Left, especially in Hollywood, hates Conservatives as being violent babykillers, and then deify those in Hollywood who make exceedingly violent films.

The Left hates the rich, unless you're a rich Liberal. Then, it's okay. Those people are worshiped.

 
Most Liberals scream for people to pay more taxes yet pay no taxes themselves because they're sucking the government teat.

The Left claims to be tolerant & understanding, until you disagree with them. Then you're racist.

And, seriously, who's a bigger hypocrite than Al Gore, who has made tens of millions in filthy lucre on his Global Warming scams, lives in a mansion that uses more electricity than some small towns, and sold his failed TV network to an Islamist front organization backed by oil money. Asshole.

It's been a deliciously Schadenfreudian Slip recently watching Obeezy's administration unravel as his scandals catch up to him. No one buys that he and his scumbag lackey Eric Holder knew nothing about Fast & Furious and selling guns to Mexican drug cartels, one of which was used to kill Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

No one believes the administration's lies and cover up over the murder of four Americans by terrorists in Benghazi. That whole situation is FINALLY unraveling on him.

No one believes Obeezy knew nothing about the IRS targeting conservative Tea Party groups.

And now the Mainstream Media, even libs like Jon Stewart, are turning against the White House after it was made public the government was rummaging through the phone records of the Associated Press. The Lapdog know bites the hands of its former master.

I won't even get into the despicable, demeaning act of having a United States Marine be reduced to an umbrella stand. Commander in Chief, my ass.

Careful, Obeezy; shit melts in the rain.

Okay, we've established these scumbags in the White House are hypocrites. But now the hypocrisy stretches even farther to include a tacit okay when it comes to killing eagles. You know, majestic raptors like Golden Eagles, or the symbol of our country, the Bald Eagle....

You see, the Obeezy Regime is turning a blind eye to eagle deaths caused by wind farms. Companies operating industrial-sized turbines that are killing eagles and other protected birds have yet to be fined or prosecuted by the Administration, even though every death is a criminal violation.

The Obeezy Regime has charged oil companies for drowning birds in their waste pits, and power companies for electrocuting birds on power lines. However, it has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly.

The result is a green industry that's allowed to do dark things.

More than 573,000 birds are killed by the country's wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles, according to an estimate published in March in the peer-reviewed Wildlife Society Bulletin.

Getting precise figures is impossible because many companies aren't required to disclose how many birds they kill. And when they do, experts say, the data can be unreliable.

When companies voluntarily report deaths, the Obama administration in many cases refuses to make the information public, saying it belongs to the energy companies or that revealing it would expose trade secrets or implicate ongoing enforcement investigations. Wait, the Obeezy Regime covers things up? Say it ain't so!

Nearly all the birds being killed are protected under federal environmental laws, which prosecutors have used to generate tens of millions of dollars in fines and settlements from businesses, including oil and gas companies, over the past five years. It's okay to bankrupt oil, gas, and coal, while these guys in the Green Sector can do what they want. That's how the Left rolls.

By not enforcing the law, the administration provides little incentive for companies to build wind farms where there are fewer birds. And while companies already operating turbines are supposed to avoid killing birds, in reality there's little they can do once the windmills are spinning.

Wind farms are clusters of turbines as tall as 30-story buildings, with spinning blades as wide as a passenger jet's wingspan. Though the blades appear to move slowly, they can reach speeds up to 170 mph at the tips, creating tornado-like vortexes. They look like giant pedestal fans. However, where your pedestal fan at home has a screen assembly to keep your fingers from getting sliced off, industrial wind turbines lack any protection whatsoever.

 The Obeezy Regime has proposed a rule that would give wind-energy companies potentially decades of shelter from prosecution for killing eagles. The regulation is currently under review at the White House. (That implies people actually read stuff at the White House before it gets approved and implemented, unlike, say, Obamacare that had to be passed before they'd tell us what was in it.

The proposal, made at the urging of the wind-energy industry (gasp! Lobbysists!!!), would allow companies to apply for 30-year permits to kill a set number of bald or golden eagles. Previously, companies were only eligible for five-year permits.

In exchange for the longer timetable, companies agree that if they kill more eagles than allowed, the government could require them to make changes. (Could. But likely will just ignore it to protect windmills) But the administration recently said it would cap how much a company could be forced to spend on finding ways to reduce the number of eagles its facility is killing. If it was an oil or gas or coal company though, they'd gleefully bankrupt them in the process and then deny them out of spite.

The Obeezy Regime said the longer permit was needed to "facilitate responsible development of renewable energy" while "continuing to protect eagles." Or, if you read between the lines, it allows us to keep scamming people with windmill technology from the 1300s while calling it futuristic. A similar explanation was given when the Fish and Wildlife Service recently authorized the killing of a single California condor, an endangered species, by a proposed wind farm in California.

That's because without a long-term authorization to kill eagles, investors are less likely to finance an industry that's violating the law.

Typically, the government would be forced to study the environmental effects of such a regulation before implementing it. In this case, though, the Obama administration avoided a full review, saying the policy was nothing more than an "administrative change."

Hypocrisy. You see, capitalism and making investment money is bad, unless it suits our agenda...

Under both the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the death of a single bird without a permit is illegal.

But under the Obama administration's new guidelines, wind-energy companies — and only wind-energy companies — are held to a different standard. Their facilities don't face additional scrutiny until they have a "significant adverse impact" on wildlife or habitat. I do beg to point out that a pile of dead birds that are already endangered is pretty significant and pretty adverse.

In the meantime, birds continue to die. The golden eagle population in the West, prior to the wind energy boom, was declining so much that the government's conservation goal in 2009 was not to allow the eagle population to decrease by a single bird.

The reason boils down to biology. Eagles take five years to reach the age when they can reproduce, and often they only produce one chick a year.

But what else would you expect from a government that gave billions to Solyndra to allegedly make solar panels only to watch it go bankrupt and spent billions to prop up the Chevy Volt that no one wanted? Is it such a shock that they'd sacrifice our eagles to prop up a wind industry that costs more per kilowatt hour to produce than the industries they'd rather kill?

Taking a look at Top 40 music again

It's been quite a while (August maybe?) since I last perused the Billboard music charts to see what passes for popular music these days. As we all well know, I tend to avoid Top 40 radio like Taylor Swift avoids long-term commitments. Occasionally, however, I punish myself by listening in to at least stay somewhat current and feel less like the middle-aged guy who clings to his 80's New Wave with white knuckles.

So, I decided to check the Billboard top 40 chart and see what dreck & drivel the empty suits at the record labels are currently passing off on the masses.
 

Selina Gomez-- Come And Get It
Forever tainted by the evil touch of Satan, ie: Justin Bieber, Gomez has been performing this track on any show that will book her, from the MTV Movie Awards to Ellen to Dancing With The Stars and in pretty much every case she's in some mock Indian sari getup with dancers of various ethnicity decorated with a bindi, because all you need is a red dot on your forehead to make you an authentic Indian in Gomez' world. I'll assume the reason for the pseudo-Indian garb is the bhangra beat to the chorus. The song isn't completely terrible but honestly, if I want Indian I'll go authentic with the 2000 track "Darshan" by B21.Selina, dear, stay away from that Bieber chick. She's trouble.





Feel This Moment-- Pitbull featuring Christina Aguilera
One has no hair, the other has hair like old straw. One wears a tailored suit, the other looks like a leather sausage. This sounds pretty much like the last Pitbull song I heard, the same rap cadence of lines over a remixed sample of a classic song. Last time it was Mickey & Sylvia's "Love Is Strange" and this time the creativity is provided by A-ha's "Take On Me". At least Christina keeps the caterwauling to a minimum and refrains from yodeling vocal runs.



Justin Timberlake--Suit & Tie
Christ, this song is inescapable. On a good day my car radio can pick up five or six Top 40 and/or A/C stations and I swear to Gawd, I heard this on every single one of them in a 30 minute span. I think JT is a decent actor and a very funny guy, and I respect him musically but this new throwback soul style is utter crap. Plus, I detest Jay-Z.



Rihanna featuring Mikky Ekko--Stay
There seems to be an unwritten law that says every 90 days there must be a new Rihanna single whether we want one or not. A ballad, damn near a funereal dirge, pretty enough but after a bit it just seems to drag. Never heard of this Ekko fellow before (born John Stephen Sudduth) but his voice is actually a bit higher than hers here. At least she's spending time with a guy who isn't using her as a punching bag...



Psy--Gentleman
Well, we all thought Park Jae-sang, better known as Psy, was going to be a one hit wonder after Gangnam Style took the universe by storm last summer. While not as instantly catchy as his last single, this one's video is just as amusing, with Psy being basically a dick to everyone he meets.



Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz-- Thrift Shop
This song is effing ridonkulous but gets in your head & stays there like a recurring yeast infection on a 2-dollar hooker. A rapping white kid going on about buying second-hand clothes at Goodwill. He does make the valid point about a-holes wearing $50 designer t-shirts thinking they're unique till they see 5 others wearing the same shirt at a club.



Pink featuring Nate Ruess-- Just Give Me a Reason
I've always adored Pink. She's badass. This is one of her finest vocal performances, with help from the guy who sings for the band fun., whom I have previously  been wrong about when I guessed they'd fade into obscurity as quickly as they appeared. However, like all Pink songs, this is getting played ad nauseum, so I'm already bored with it.



Icona Pop--I Love It
I just heard this song for the first time a couple days ago and really liked it. It's great technopop dance music from Sweden and hopefully it won't get ruined by overplay. Finally, something on the Top 40 chart I can get into. I dare you to sit still while listening.



So.....what else SHOULD you be listening to?

Capital Cities-- Safe and Sound
Found this gem by accident listening to Sirius and it was love at first listen. Great beats, catchy hooks, impossible to sit still while listening. This is my new jam for Spring. Even features live trumpet instead of a sample, and it really makes the song. This is just one of several clever videos out there for this song.




The Airborne Toxic Event--Timeless
Another accidental finding on Sirius. A few years back I fell head over heels with their song "Sometime Around Midnight" and even named it one of the best songs of 2008. This one grows on you quickly.



Radioactive/It's Time--Imagine Dragons
Took me awhile to finally get into these guys. I've been let down by so many newer alternative/modern rock bands that I'm reluctant to get into bands that are heavily hyped on alternative radio. Both of these songs are really great.





Tegan & Sara--Closer
Twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin have been around awhile, an indie staple and a closely guarded secret of sorts.  I think I first heard them in 2004 with their song "Where Does The Good Go". This is a great pop track that should break them huge. Catch them opening for fun. this summer.



And, of course, there's new Depeche Mode.....

The new album is called Delta Machine, and while I'm sad that it wasn't close to the glory that was "Violator" there are some good tracks on it, and the new single is in my opinion the best track of the whole CD. Whereas the first single "Heaven" was an austere minimal ballad, "Soothe My Soul" is a dancefloor stomper with a dark, murky, sensual edge, just the way a Depeche Mode song should be. Play it LOUD, friends, and see what a 32-year career as the cutting edge of music brings to the table.







And if you want to read savage and scathing reviews of previous Top 40 offerings, go here, here, here, here, here, and here.