New Poem: PARKING LOT HEROES

 out in front of the Dairy Queen 

 at the intersection of Highways 25 and 287

 youthful male giants once stood as colossi

 astride the welcoming landscape of small town 70s

 naked streaking all the way to White’s Auto

 fights where karate was defeated by groin kick

 Kiss and Led Zeppelin (sometimes Herbie Hancock)

 provided background music from 8-track car stereos 

 >

 their world couldn’t hold back change

 some graduated, others did not

 one or two left town ahead of baby births 

 the Dairy Queen died so Texas One Stop could live

 White’s Auto is now a Dollar General

 the colossi are now grandparents 

 the youth of today drive their giant trucks

 get their provisions from One Stop

 and drive away fast with trucker hat country 

 as CD and FM stereo background music of choice 

 blasts away their anxieties over nothing being certain anymore 

The Merle Haggard playlist.

1. Okie From Muskogee
2. Misery and Gin
3. Sing Me Back Home
4. Mama Tried
5. Pancho and Lefty (with Willie Nelson)
6. Big City
7. The Bottle Left Me Down
8. Yesterday's Wine (with George Jones)
9.  If We Make It Through December
10. Don't Think Twice, It's Alright (with Willie Nelson)

Sheryl Crow's awful makenice with country radio: FEELS LIKE HOME.

Once upon a time in the early 1980s, the cult R-&-B artist Swamp Dogg (aka Jerry Williams) released an album with the title I'M NOT SELLING OUT, I'M BUYING IN.

Over three decades later, here's Sheryl Crow, cut loose from A&M/Universal (despite a generally good run of albums with that label) and desperate for a career revival.  So, why not humiliate herself by trying to compete with Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, the one-foot-out-the-country-door Taylor Swift and Miranda Lambert--voila, the Warner Brothers release FEELS LIKE HOME.

Here are some examples for your listening displeasure:
EASY (YouTube video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST7btkkoaNU

GIVE IT TO ME (YouTube audio) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIlf_CqDVPw

And the song which made me turn off FEELS LIKE HOME, the craptastic
WE OUGHTA BE DRINKIN' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh5MS_7RDcQ

YEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!  Country Music in the Shade of Beige!

Lady Antebellum's Grammy-winning "Need You Now"--tasteful, beige country music.

Not that I listen to country music that much (I don't, with the occasional exception of the Sirius/XM satellite channel Outlaw Country--founded by Steven Van Zandt of E Street Band fame), but I was rather depressed and horrified by Lady Antebellum and their multiple-award-winning song "Need You Now" on the Grammy Awards Variety Show (With Occasional Awards) last night.

"Need You Now" takes a simple situation (desperate early morning phone call to friend/lover/ex) and turns it into bland, safely-swallowed musical Lactaid.  Even a meant-to-be-inoffensive-and-reassuring piece of assembly-line country like, say, Garth Brooks' "Unanswered Prayers" from the 90s, comes off more honest (if 590 miles away from anything resembling raw emotion).

I guess this is what most people are settling for in 2011.  Expecting Lady Antebellum (which bowed almost-constantly to an apparently-fearsome institution called "country radio" on the Grammys) to be co-opted by Mitt Romney and/or Tim Pawlenty next year.