The three things a Texas boy likes to see the most?
I don’t know what people from other states enjoy seeing, so feel free to enlighten me.
As any fule kno, I yield to no man for the love of my adopted country. I am an American by choice, and doubleplusproud I am to be that.
However: there are three things peculiar to the U.S. that got up my nose soon after I arrived here, and they have continued to bug the hell out of me ever since.
1) Date format: I know that we can do pretty much anything we want because Murka, but FFS why do we insist on mm/dd/yy (or /yyyy ever since Y2K) when the rest of the world uses dd/mm/yyyy? It makes no sense, forces one to insert an unnecessary comma when writing out the date — e.g. November 19 COMMA 2024, to prevent numbers running into each other — when going with the universal format would just make things easier. For everybody.
2) Gallons: I have no problem with using Imperial weights and measures, because they make things easier for everyday life over the artificial metric system. But why the hell do we have a liquid gallon that is smaller than the Imperial gallon? I was looking at a lovely old car’s specs the other day, and saw that it had a “tiny” 15-gallon fuel tank — and then realized that it was a Jaguar, and they were quoting Imperial gallons (in this case 18 U.S. gallons). I mean, we don’t have a mile that’s shorter than an Imperial mile — we could just go metric for that, don’t get me started — so why a use a smaller gallon measure?
3) Floor numbers: When you step into an elevator / lift in any developed country outside the U.S., you see the selector thus:
…but in the U.S., it’s: 
Why no ground floor? Once again, it’s something we do that nobody else does, and it often leads to confusion when talking to a non-Murkin. FFS, every building has a floor that’s at ground-level, so why not use the “G” and say “ground floor”?
No doubt there are all sorts of sound reasons why we Murkins have gone our own way — and don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with that mindset, e.g.:
…but I do need to wave my hands when such non-conformity makes absolutely no sense at all.
In all three of the above cases.
…about Kamala Harris:
And that’s all before we consider her other qualities.
# MadFellatioSkillz #WillieBrownKnows
…that would have caused my old Dad’s brow to furrow with amazement:
1.) Bottled water.
“WTF?” Selling ordinary water? In bottles? And charging how much?” That’s not to say he was unfamiliar with the concept — he’d been to France, and after getting the runs from drinking Parisian tap water, he did what the Frogs did and drank Perrier.
But the idea of a society which did have clean and potable water out of the tap (e.g. the U.S. and the U.K.), but still sold bottled water would have been as alien to him as people not being able to drive a stick shift. So:
2.) All auto, all the time.
Back when I were a yoot and my old man was still alive (early 1970s), you couldn’t take your driving test in a car with automatic transmission. Which meant you had to know how to take off on an incline without rolling backwards, as well as being able to row through the gears when parallel parking (another required activity). Once again, he was perfectly comfortable driving his various Mercedes (all auto), he just wouldn’t now be able to understand why almost nobody in the current generation can’t perform so simple an activity. Of course, that’s not all the modern yoot can’t handle:
3.) No manners, no discipline and no beatings.
The lack of manners in today’s society and the indiscipline not just in kids but in everyone would have driven him crazy. Tardiness, ingratitude, disrespect not just for one’s elders but for everyone… all this makes me want to reach for the sjambok. My dad would have been worse. And all this is because children’s (okay, boys’) backsides have somehow become sacred objects that one may no longer use as a disciplinary receptacle for the above whip. As I always say, it’s not the punishment per se but the fear of punishment that keeps youthful psychopaths on the straight and narrow. And all this has disappeared from homes, the schools and the court system because OMG the chiiiiildren! And the children have responded in true Lord Of The Flies fashion, and we are shocked and saddened by all of it because we are morons and can’t understand the root causes of the above.
What a load of bollocks. All of it.
Many years ago when I was still living in Chicago, I had a chance to see Procol Harum live at the Vic Theater, a small supper-club type venue which held (at that time) only about 600 people. (The small number is because of the tables.) We had dinner, and then the lads came on and blew everyone away.
Their tour was to promote their latest album, Prodigal Stranger, which I still consider one of their very best (of an extraordinary collection of albums, as any fule kno).
Anyway, what that concert confirmed for me was that if I’m ever going to watch a live band, I’m only interested in doing so in a small, intimate venue. I’d seen the incomparable Leon Redbone in a similarly-small theater a couple of years earlier, but Redbone’s act was by definition a more intimate one, with the crooner entertaining us with many, many sly quips as well as his music. (Oh, how I miss him.) And one last such example: back in the late 1970s I saw Blood, Sweat and Tears perform in Johannesburg’s Empire Theatre (800 seats) and well, blues vocalist David Clayton-Thomas, say no more.
I was reminded of all this by a chance comment made by (of all people) BritRoyal Prince William’s in joking with Ronnie Wood that he’d only come and see the Stones if they brought Taylor Swift along.
The thing that both Swift and the Stones have in common for me is that I’d rather have a rat cage strapped to my face than attend the mega-concerts of either. This is not just the ranting of an elderly man, by the way: I’ve always preferred to watch a concert in a smaller venue, as I’ve demonstrated above, even when I was a young rock musician myself. Frankly, if the concert has to have giant TV screens for the audience to see the act perform, I’d rather watch the concert on a DVD afterwards than be part of a massive crowd.
The whole “Swiftie” phenomenon, of course, leaves me ice cold because, when all’s said and done, young Taylor is just a country singer, and I’m not a particular fan of country music per se, although there are a few country singers I wouldn’t mind seeing live, provided that the show was in a place like the Gruene (Texas) town hall, where I once saw Merle Haggard, or Austin’s Liberty Lunch bar (Bonnie Raitt, in her pre-Nick Of Time days).
And finally (!) I come to the point of this post, which is: if I were going to attend a concert in a small country bar like Austin’s Broken Spoke or Route 20 in Racine, Wisconsin (where I once saw Bachman Turner Overdrive and Steppenwolf in a double-header), which three country artists would I prefer to see the most (instead of Taylor Swift)?
In no particular order:
And none of them would have to do a modern-style “show” (lighting, multiple costume changes, massive sound systems etc.); just a small backing band, a bar stool and (preferably) an acoustic guitar would be fine. I want to see the artist, not special effects.
Parenthetically, I wonder how well Taylor Swift would perform, under similar circumstances. Would she still be as impressive?
Your three choices in Comments.
…and I’m talking about singing voices, not (say) political screeching like that of Hillary Clinton.
When these guys start singing, I hit the Mute or Skip buttons:
And let’s not forget the chicks:
Don’t get me started on the modern chick singers; you all know about them.