Try This in C-Town.
If you haven’t already watched the video for Jason Aldean’s latest, don’t, but I feel the need to discuss the atrocity that it is. Dog whistle doesn’t even begin to describe the bullhorn of a racist statement that this video is, but some people need to have me break it down further so they can understand, here goes. I want to start by saying one cannot prove a negative, so proving this music video and song is not racist is an impossible position to take. I will try to bring into context the loud racial components to this mess of a song, good old Ludwig Van would be happy to be deaf today.
‘Try that in a Small Town’ is the title and I just want to point out some statistics that are relevant: among the United States population, urban residents are 44% white, suburban 68% white, rural 78% white. So among racist dentists, 4 out of 5 recommend living in a small town, and to act like the word ‘urban’ isn’t a code word for black is to deny reality. This is directed at the Black Lives Matter movement, and it is completely irrational to pretend that they don’t have things to riot about. Even though some of it is literally stock footage of rioting, they sneak in just a few spare frames to make sure you know that this is real, and happening in those ‘Democrat run cities’:
How did they find such a reputable source for riot coverage in Atlanta? Again, to act as if this isn’t intentional is absurd. If a news outlet paid out three-quarters of a billion dollars so you wouldn’t get to see the rest of Tucker Carlson’s private messages, and for intentionally misleading their viewers, you wouldn’t use them in your music video. Does he have a moonshine sponsorship yet with these lyrics? ‘Full of good ol’ boys, raised up right’, yeah, like all those good old frat boys at Fox News who keep you uninformed when they’re not triggering multi-million dollar settlements for harassing women.
And the pandering would not be complete without the Farmers (86% white in the U.S.), despite the fact that 80% of the food in the supermarket is produced by a handful of corporations. We needed a story from a sad old-timer to tell us about how people used to build barns for each other, and how it was a simpler time, and they just had faith in the lord and the crops grew. Yeah, there used to be a lot of small towns like that, they were called plantations. This song and music video is Joseph Goebbels level white propaganda, and unfortunately in modern America that still has an audience.
So what happened in that, ‘Small Town’ of Newtown, Connecticut where all those children were murdered at school? Where was that, ‘gun your granddad gave you’ then? Is the murder of 20 children in a small town not something we should be focusing more on than the small town values that are shown in the video? Let me temper that thought with another one about the small town of Uvalde, Texas where 19 children were murdered as local police held their dicks for over an hour. It wasn’t until the, ‘big city’ border patrol showed up to stop this sociopath that the chaos ended. But please, tell me about how some small town cop with a complex was, ‘cussed out’ and ‘spit on’ like it’s a national tragedy.
We see Aldean and his band playing in front of a courthouse and we’re supposed to think, ‘law and order’ is a small town value, but to whom? I think what should be in subtitles is the fact that the courthouse shown was the site of a race riot and of the small town value of, ‘lynching.’ That’s right, Columbia, Tennessee, the site of a 1927 lynching of Henry Choate, a black teenager and the Columbia race riots of 1946 led by African American veterans of World War Two who rioted against the Jim Crow laws they were subjected to. Is serving in the military not a ‘small town’ value? And after all who is more deserving of the right to, ‘stomp on the flag and light it up’ than a veteran who helped beat the Nazis only to come home to the same racism Hitler espoused?
If you’re still having trouble grasping as straws as to, ‘was this racist?’ Let me familiarize another formerly widely held term for municipalities of a certain size: sundown towns. Sundown towns are defined as all-white municipalities that openly practiced racial segregation through discrimination in local laws, intimidation or violence and got their name from the signs that emphatically said, ‘Colored people to leave town by sundown.’ Small town values right there if I ever have lived in one, and I have. Cities celebrate their diversity, small towns celebrate their ignorance.
HORSES?! Send a Couple of Voters
In light of all the high profile politicians soon to be awaiting the fate of a jury of their peers, I feel like that is not an excuse for not voting anymore. Think about it, you could be sitting in on high level classified documents being presented as evidence or maybe even convict a former President. Jokes aside, I digress, as this is intended to raise awareness of the importance of our Ohio special election in August, and this is a rare case in which direct democracy via the vote may be swift.
I will be voting absentee, as I usually do, as Donald Trump did in his ill advised time in Washington, as many Americans rightfully do. Early turnout numbers seem promising, but this is not one to sit out or assume the right side will prevail. This special election is a shot across the bow by the ridiculous and unrepresentative Ohio State legislature who is trying to push a special election through when they think the least amount of people will participate. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, ‘Ohio, we need to be more like Kansas’ and send a resounding message to the religious right: Get your ignorant hands off my rights.
A ‘No’ vote this August with a significant majority will signal a clear message that can be followed almost immediately by ballot initiatives in November for abortion access and responsible marijuana legislation in the state. Not a fan of the ‘Jazz Cabbage?’ That’s fine, don’t vote to legalize it. Abortion access however is something that every American has a right to under the constitution’s privacy clause, regardless of what justices Beer Can, Private Jet, Godly Wife, and Chief Justice Spineless wrote in the Dobbs case.
More than anything, I want Ohio to not become Florida, we are reasonable people. In a democracy, a majority vote needs to mean a decision of the people. There is no ideological message behind voting no on issue 1, only that you want your vote to continue to matter. Dissolution and disgust of the system is understandable, but is not an excuse for not making your voice heard on August 8th. If you got the reference in the title, I’ll leave you with this: ‘Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!’ Just fucking vote Ohio!
Hell IS Real, it’s called Cincinnati
My girlfriend Emily was honestly concerned about us seeing Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds in Cincinnati, because it was my birthday present, and she knows I hate the city. I explained that I would see Noel’s birds play on Neptune if they had Uber, but honestly, the Cincinnati hatred was 90% sporting banter and 10% actual dislike for the city. I went into the weekend with this type of an open minded headspace, I left with that 90% number being significantly altered.
The first 10% dip came when we arrived at the Zoo, which the lovely Emily’s mother aptly described as, ‘All Hills.’ Accurate would be an understatement, the Zoo that killed Harambe is basically an asphalt rollercoaster with you as the human chain. Don’t get me wrong, I am the last person to get a zoo review from, it’s not my thing, but the Columbus Zoo puts this glorified stair master to shame.
The second 10% dip came the next day after mini golf at a soon to be abandoned mall on the east side. This was July 1, but I was wearing my Columbus Crew pride shirt, as one does on any day of the year as an ally. Thankfully Emily didn’t alert me as it was happening, but one of Cincinnati’s finest troglodytes gave me an intentional dirty look for having the audacity to wear a shirt with a colorful, ‘Love Unites’ on the front of it. I wasn’t expecting the Short North, but I also wasn’t expecting much.
The third 10% dip came when the local moron in front of us at the show turned around to voice her displeasure about someone blowing on the back of her neck. I don’t think I have to explain to my readers that at an outdoor venue, air can move through, and so I responded to her with, ‘Are you trying to talk to me?’ because I genuinely could not tell. The stupidity of turning around to semi-accuse me of such a thing, as my arm is around the woman I’m with is well…to quote Lebowski: ‘Well I guess I’ve seen something every bit as stupefying as you can see in any of those other places, and in English too.’
The fourth 10% dip came when I realized early Sunday morning that I had miscalculated. After experiencing Cincinnati for 3 days and 2 nights, I gave it too much credit initially. So we are now at my objective 50/50 level of justified hatred and sports hatred, so it’s safe to say I will not be back any time soon. I don’t know how my extended family has lived in this part of Ohio for so long, and I feel for them all.
If you like Cincinnati, let me just drive an indelible stake into your, ‘Pro-Cincinnati’ stance: The Creation Museum. I know it’s on the Kentucky end of town, but of course, ‘Love Unites’ folks on the border, especially if they’re blood related on the Kentucky side. My thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Cincinnati who have to live there every day. If Cleveland is the, ‘Mistake on the Lake’ then Cincinnati is the, ‘Miscarriage on the River.’
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