One of those flawless songs, from one of those damn-near flawless albums. Buy it.
“Fairs embody our roots in agriculture, entrepreneurship and rabble-rousing. Where else can you, in a matter of minutes, buy a tractor, ride a camel, sample the latest in waterless car-washing technology, marvel over a 20-pound cucumber and then saunter a few hundred feet to hear Hank Williams, Jr. belt out “Family Tradition”? Let’s face it: no matter how sophisticated we become, a life-size statue of Elvis sculpted from 800 pounds of butter will always fascinate us.
…
There are the funnel cakes, steak sandwiches, and roasted and buttered corn on the cob so hot you can brand cattle with it. And let’s not forget the panoply of fried delicacies. Every year brings an item that nobody before had thought—or dared—to fry and eat: pickles, Twinkies, HoHos, and—surely a sign of the apocalypse—bacon-cheeseburger doughnuts. Alongside these are all manner of skewered delights: pork chops on a stick, potato chips on a stick, cheesecake on a stick, waffles on a stick and, as ever, corn dogs and candy apples on sticks.”
Stervenson: I JUST WROTE THE WORST, LEAST FUNNY THING EVER, PER YOUR REQUEST:
Two men are out walking in the woods, and they each have a dog with them. They’re old friends from the big one, September 11th. They get to talking about the meaning of life and the “why’s” of so many of their friends dying. Just then the first guy’s dog starts barking and runs off into the woods. They yell after him, but he doesn’t care, just keeps running like a little doggie MANIAC off into the woods. So they shrug and keep walking.
They don’t get much further, talking about the other big one, the Oklahoma City Bombing. They start asking each other the question “Why? Why did so many good people die?” when all of a sudden the other guy’s dog runs off into the woods, and they can’t call him back. They shrug and keep walking.
Then they start to talk about that other big one, Ke$ha’s TiK ToK single, and pretty soon get to asking each other why such a stupid song would capture the public’s attention the way it did. Just then, one of the guys starts barking and runs off into the woods. The guys who’s left is flabbergasted. But after a couple minutes he hears a rustlin’ in the brush and his dog comes shuffling towards him backwards, dragging something.
As the dog gets closer, the guy can see that it’s his best friend’s head, grisly and filthy. The dog drops the head at the guy’s feet, like any good dog would do. The guy drops to his knees and starts screaming to the cold, imperturbable heavens, “Why? Why? Why?
And then the dog looks over at the guy with a coy expression and says, “I dunno, pal. It’s just a really shi**y joke.”
Justin Townes Earle's new Daytrotter Session →
Despite their new “log-in-to-start-download-widget” pain-in-the-assery, the good folks at Daytrotter are doing a fine, fine service to us all with these sessions of their'n. Here’s Mr. Justin Townes Earle accompanied by his guitar, a stand-up bass, and a fiddle. “They Killed John Henry” is particularly excellent.
One Dalton Ghetti, of Connecticut, carves lead pencil points into tiny sculptures. There’s a full gallery of these on the Telegraph website. This Ghetti fellow uses his time well.
RT @jpsowin: This picture is more full of win the longer you look at it. http://i.imgur.com/zDJ7W.jpg
Through the cab window of a decrepit old Boston & Maine RS-3. From Shaun O'Boyle’s mesmerizing series of photo essays, Modern Ruins.
The Olivetti Lettera 22. I have one of these coming to me for my 32nd birthday, which is still 40-something days away. I know this because my wife isn’t as good at hiding and sneaking and lying as I am. She is virtuous, I am not. I look forward to typing on something without monitor glare, that cannot connect to the internet, and that doesn’t heat up when I use it. I’ll even be able to hold what I’ve written.
“Born in the U.S.A.” as it appears on Tracks and as it could’ve appeared on Nebraska. Music- and performance-wise, this version is more “in character”… but the version that the Gipper co-opted for his 1984 Presidential campaign is, I think, a lot more complex and subversive. This version here is the sound you expect for desperate words like these, and, as such, makes the song a bit one-dimensional and indignant. But the shouted, mainstream, swing-for-the-fences stadium rock of the more famous version from Born in the U.S.A. tells another part of the story more eloquently than the lyrics do: by 1984, the country had moved on and done its best to forget the man in the song. All that aside, this version still rips—it’s great writing and performance from a man who believed what he was singing.
Having a 10-month-old son means something. It means that I can confidently say that the snot smeared across my sleeve is probably not mine.
Lots more railroad tattoos at the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture website. The BBCRC was started by some hoboes I was once acquainted with, including a terrifically-entertaining wino named North Bank Fred. NBF, of former Southern Pacific crew-change town Dunsmuir, CA, photographs hobo tags and puts them up here.
Justin Townes Earle: Harlem River Blues →
Justin Townes Earle is almost the best thing about music nowadays. Good ol’ NPR First Listen has his forthcoming Harlem River Blues streaming up until the record actually drops on September 14. A few weeks ago, I wrote something about the title track here.
Gillian Welch goes outside to do the day’s work, when a rider with a blood-black gunshot wound crashes through the willows. The rider is her wayward son. After two verses, she repeats the whole song in two lines: “One morning, one morning/the boy of my breast/came to my arms, unable to rest/leaving me in the arms of death.” The banjo is the very sound of violence and terror and worry and sorrow. One of those perfect songs.
Sweetgrass is a really mesmerizing and—as the official description says—unsentimental documentary of Montana shepherds driving their flock into the wild, remote Absaroka-Beartooth wilderness for summer pasture. The last glimpse of something that is now gone.
“Reader, just in case you don’t want to knock it back straight and would rather monkey around with perfectly good Bourbon, here’s my favorite recipe, “Cud’n Walker’s Uncle Will’s Favorite Mint Julep Receipt.”
You need excellent Bourbon whiskey; rye or Scotch will not do. Put half an inch of sugar in the bottom of the glass and merely dampen it with water. Next, very quickly—and here is the trick in the procedure—crush your ice, actually powder it, preferably with a wooden mallet, so quickly that it remains dry, and, slipping two sprigs of fresh mint against the inside of the glass, cram the ice in right to the brim, packing it with your hand. Finally, fill the glass, which apparently has no room left for anything else, with Bourbon, the older the better, and grate a bit of nutmeg on the top. The glass will frost immediately. Then settle back in your chair for half an hour of cumulative bliss.“
”
Stervenson →
My friend, the ruddy-livered Joshua Stevenson, co-inventor with me of the very delicious “progressive mint julep”. He podcasts his stuff, too.