Shut Up and Sing

Gerry's Corner: I just want to say that I love the bracing cold of winter. I miss it here in Rancho Mirage, but that doesn't mean I don't love it. I do. We moved to California to be nearer to Not-Betty's clinic and so I could play golf in the dry heat. But man - that feeling of opening your front door and feeling the air freeze your lungs, freeze inside you - there's nothing like it. It makes you feel alive, and I think we all know that I do enjoy feeling alive quite a bit these days.

Movies: Tonight, I saw the best documentary of the year: Shut Up and Sing, all about the Dixie Chicks and the fallout from their lead singer's one comment at a 2003 show in London - "We're ashamed that President Bush is from Texas." Overnight, the Dixie Chicks went from being the #1-selling women's group in American history to being the #1-selling women's group in American history who couldn't get played on any country station in the nation. It's odd to me that the country music people complained so much when the real outcry should have come from the historical accuracy crowd, since President Bush is actually from Connecticut. He was born in New Haven, home of Yale University, where President Bush went. His grandfather's name was Prescott Bush. Even though President Bush probably wishes that his grandfather looked like this:



His grandfather actually looked like this:



Either way, the Dixie Chicks were treated unfairly, and the movie shows them to be very honest and pragmatic about how to deal with that unfairness. I usually dislike country music, but that Natalie Maines has some kind of voice on her, even if her hair is built like the Bastille. Far more entertaining than the snivelling documentary that Al Franken conjured up about himself.



The crazy thing about the Dixie Chicks flap is that Natalie said what she said as one line in a concert in one venue in London. She never thought it would get broadcast to people who would take her comments out of context and proportion. I mean, it's not like she said it in public - she just meant it to be heard by the particular audience in attendance at her show.

In a way, I feel just like her. I don't know who reads this aside from the people I've told about it, but I'm old and don't remember who I have and haven't told. I know that things can spread like wildfire over the internet, if wildfires in Arizona were capable of sparking fires in, say, Saskatchewan. Still, I can't imagine anyone would want to read this blog voluntarily. I mean, Rumsfeld told me that they forced prisoners at Abu Ghraib to read it, which I think I believe, but I'm gullible, so I have to factor that in. But really, why would anyone find what I'm saying interesting? And why would anyone find what the lead singer of a musical act has to say about politics - especially something as innocuous as what she said - so offensive and, well, interesting?

The other oddity of this whole situation for the Dixie Chicks is that they invited the negative feedback by not really backing down from Natalie's statement. I'm pretty much fine with people not commenting on my blog. After all, I'm not desperate for attention and I don't really need people to tell me what they think about what I've written. For instance, Not-Betty hasn't said a word about my blog since I began it. (Of course, she's barely said a word to me in general, either.) The point is, I don't need to know that you empathize with me, whoever-you-are reading this, or that you hate my guts. I've been president and I've lived longer than you, unless you are some sort of ridiculously tech-savvy and extremely elderly person, so I don't really need the validation or reprimand of the rest of you anymore.

Yup - I should've been in the Dixie Chicks. We are so alike.

There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe,
Gerry