In which I don't know anything about Toby, and for that I am glad

As "Jean" pointed out in the comments section of my last post, Toby Keith didn't actually write "American Ride." The song was written by Joe West and Dave Pahanish and recorded by Keith. I personally am not of the opinion that there is a great moral difference between writing offensive lyrics and hiring someone else to write them, any more than with other infractions. Nor am I particularly impressed with Keith for not writing the title track of his latest album.

However, I don't believe that this was really crucial to Jean's point, since she goes on to say, "[The song] tells it like it is. This is what the world is like." Apparently this information was merely a shot at my knowledge of Keith: "Obviously you don't know anything about Toby. You are just being ignorant."

Jean goes on to say, "I hate when people don't like a song and attack the person singing it." Now, Jean, this is not merely an ad hominem attack against a lousy recording artist. I didn't say "I don't like 'American Ride,' and Toby Keith is a poser tool in a cowboy hat." I mean, it's true the song does not meet any basic criterion for literature, but it does have a catchy beat, and I wasn't attacking it as a work of art, nor was I attacking Keith as an artist. I was noting through example that his songs are often ignorant, offensive, racist, and out of touch with reality.

Jean: I apologize for not being able to more adequately respond to your concerns. Perhaps I can provide a more thorough answer if you can address at least one of my points. As for your thanks to Toby, I'll be sure to pass them along next time we have lunch.

Toby Keith is a jerk

Friday afternoon I made the drive to St. Louis, Mizzoruh, which despite its big-city identity is situated pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Once you clear Indianapolis, you're basically treated to a good four hours of open road and empty space. This would really be no problem if I could enjoy the company and thoughtful commentary of my favorite National Public Radio shows, but there seems to be an NPR dead zone that covers the majority of the space between Indy and St. Louis.

This leaves me with a problem. I hate rap music. I do not like 21st century pop, which is essentially rap music anyway. I can do rock and oldies, but they're harder to find than you might think. There's still a place in my heart for contemporary Christian music but, like Pepsi, it's really only good for the first few sips. In the midwest, this really only leaves one option--the one that covers roughly 98% of the airwaves anyway: country.

Offensively classist leanings aside, I actually don't mind country too much under very specific circumstances: namely, when I'm driving my car on an open road during daylight (like between Indianapolis and St. Louis). I'll take my mind someplace else for the sappy and melodramatic hymns like Letter to Me in exchange for the chance to rock out to the upbeat western anthems like "Beer for My Horses", a Toby Keith song that I have since discovered promotes lynching. But what really got to me this time was Keith's latest hit, "American Ride," which is basically a celebration of everything that gives country musicians and people who listen to them a bad name.

I knew I was in for a treat when the third phrase of the song bemoaned a "tidal wave comin' 'cross the Mexican border." (It's not a huge secret that I think the whole immigration debate in this country is mostly just mask for racism.) But it got better: "Don't get busted singin' Christmas carols," we're warned before the song even gets to the chorus. The music video spells it out for us by showing carolers having tape slapped over their mouths by hands protruding from sleeves clad in stars and stripes. Really, Toby? Did I miss the government banning Christmas carols? Or is this part of that bullshit perception that Christians in the United States are somehow being oppressed? (The first hit on my Google search for "prayer banned public schools" was this highly deceptive article.)

"Both ends of the ozone burnin," Keith belts out in the refrain, "funny how the world keeps turnin." Oh, I get it! Global warming must be a hoax because we're not dead yet.

The song goes on to derisively comment that you can "spill a cup of coffee, make a million dollars," an obvious reference to Stella Leibeck, whose lawsuit against McDonald's became the namesake for the Stella Awards, an indictment of American litigiousness. Not surprisingly, it seems Keith didn't do any research into the case, or me might have discovered that it was an example of a time when our legal system worked.

But the real kicker came when the music video showed an Arabic-looking man grinning maniacally while planting a bomb in his shoe (note: the "shoe bomber," Richard Colvin Reid, was half-English and half-Jamaican). Now, I'm of course not going to claim that there are no terrorists of Middle Eastern decent, but perhaps Toby Keith should consider his responsibility as a public figure not to provide another image reinforcing that stereotype. Then again, that might be a bit much to expect, since we've already seen that his personification of "gangsters doing dirty deeds" is a Black man (see "Beer for my Horses" at timestamp 3:00).

So while on the surface it seems "American Ride" is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on American pop culture, a closer look at the things it's criticizing reveals that it's pretty much just an offensive, highly ignorant, and even racist song. Which, for Toby Keith, is hardly a first.

(That last song isn't racist; it's just ignorant war propaganda.)

Concerning Sea Monkeys

Okay, Christen, just for you.

When I was young, I convinced my mother to buy me a Sea Monkeys set, probably because my friend Jake had them. I don't really remember much about the experience, except that mine were never as big as his and had a disappointing tendency to die. And despite the claim of the Sea Monkeys website that their name is due to their playful, monkey-like behavior, they were boring as hell.

Still, sure that there was a way to make them more fun, I pored over (not "poured over") the accessories catalog, assuring my mother that it was absolutely crucial that my sea monkeys have not only a five-star luxury aquarium, but also their own racetrack. Fortunately my mom is the type to cap her son's allowance at $10 and suggest used mattresses, so there was no budging her.

It has been brought to my attention recently that sea monkeys are neither monkeys, nor from the sea. Both points are correct. "Sea Monkey" is actually a patented, genetically engineered variation of Artemia salina, or brine shrimp, which is native to salt lakes and evaporation flats. Some consider Sea Monkeys to be a separate species, designated Artemia nyos, but they are incorrect--at least insofar as Artemia nyos does not fulfill the requirements of the International Code of Zoological Nominclature (I bet you didn't know that). The nyos, by the way, is not Latin, but stands for "New York Ocean Science Laboratories."

The real marketability of Sea Monkeys are their ability to be packaged and shipped in "instant hatch" formulas. This is because the brine shrimp, in some environments, enters cryptobiosis ("stasis," for the Star Trek fans among you). Sea Monkeys have been tweaked for finer control over this condition, so they may hatch more "instantly" when placed in the specially formulated water.

Both the first-day purifier packs and the second-day egg packs actually contain eggs, I guess so you'll see them sooner, and various salts which (a) allow the saltwater species to survive and (b) make them have lots and lots of sex.

Besides the instant hatching, Sea Monkeys are genetically modified to live longer and grow larger. So maybe that's the problem: Jake had sea monkeys and I, being my mother's son, had some off-brand brine shrimp.

By the way, for those of you who checked out the racetrack link... did you find that commercial as creepy as I did?

(Untitled)

i was a key.
...the heavy clunk of a deadbolt sliding into place
......the symmetry of a locked room
but that use is gone.
...twisted, mottled metal, more rust than shine
......forgotten in a drawer, scratched by other metal
.........that used to be something
awaiting a new purpose
...a ribbon to dangle from, perhaps, and a child to carry me
......releasing what i used to mean
.........so i can have meaning again