I hope everybody had a nice Jesus Christ's Favorite Country's Birthday yesterday. I'm still up hyah in the wilds of northeastern Lake County, on the edge of nothing, at the tangential point between zero and the square root of negative one. Near the skeevy crotch formed by the Lake Mitchikan coast and the shockingly non-fortifried border with Winksconskin.
I last lived full-time in this region (in this house, even) in that decade I like to call "The Eighties." During the last half of that decade, I was pretty heavily into hardcore punk -- especially Midwest-style (you know, that Naked Raygun-type "Whoa oh" variety) -- an example of which being frontman Tesco Vee's Michigan/D.C. combo, The Meatmen.
Here's a fine Meatmen number that, for me, at the time, in the place, under the conditions prevailing, summed up the local Zeitgeist fairly close to 100 percent accurately. With references to Harleys, snowmobiling, monster trucks, Pabst, Montgomery Ward, and bowling, you've got just about every ingredient of this still-rural, brackish zone between IL and WI in the Reagan '80s. Not to mention the misogyny and general violent fuckheadery. I'm not sure if this Upper Midwest brand of redneck cretinism still dominates hereabouts, or if things have ch-ch-ch-changed, but I have a feeling you don't have to search with a fine-toothed comb to find plenty of dudes like the character in this tune.
Not that I have much latitude to mock. For a while in high school my own uniform involved a mullet and a flannel shirt, and my best friend drove an El Camino. And just yesterday I grilled up some brats, ja hey, and smoked some beers, so ... yeah, I guess I might be an Upper Midwest Redneck, too.
Who's for another beer? Hell, ja! You fuckin' betcha!
The Meatmen - True Grit
My wife laments -- I drink! I’m crass!
Plug her little sister in the ass
Please do not of house chores, dearest, speak
Cuz the truck pull derby is this week
I’m a scumbag -- I know what I like
Plodding loony on my Harley D. bike
Bowling league and a dozen beer runs
Snowmobiling over bunnies is fun
My four-wheeler is 60 feet high
Jack and Cokes in the morning, spouse cries
Poaching wildlife for personal gain
Gunaholic commie-hatin’ insane!
When I get all hostile, in a snit
I’m true blue dirtbag -- I am true grit!
When I shine my piece it gets real stiff
I’m a nasty, ass-kickin' prick when I get miffed!
Shooting pool at "White Trash Magnet Lanes"
Flirt with boozy, sleazy, bleachy dames
I was weaned on my dad’s sphincter ring
Ten years old before I said a thing
I’m a redneck -- I know what I like
Death for fudge-packin’ homos and dykes
Equal rights for the wenches? No way!
Mother, guts, God and Ronnie’s OK
Got a case of Pabst soaked in me gourd
Got my "Action Slacks" from Montgomery Wards
Poaching wildlife for personal gain
Gunaholic commie-hatin’ insane!
When I get all hostile, in a snit
I’m true blue dirtbag -- I am true grit!
When I shine my piece it gets real stiff
I’m a nasty, ass-kickin' prick when I get miffed!
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