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Trailer for PBS documentary Country Boys
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Clip for “The Secret to a Happy Ending”
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DBT “Working this Job” with Ray McKinnon
72 (This Highway’s Mean)
Don’t know why they even bother putting this highway on the map
Everybody that’s ever been on it knows exactly where they’re at
Hells on both ends of it
And no where’s in between
This highway’s mean
Seems like it’s always hot down here, no matter when you come
It’s the kind of heat that holds you like a mama holds her son
Tight when he tries to walk, even tighter if he runs
It’s a mean old dusty highway
But it’s the only one that’ll get you there
That’ll get you there
Mean old highway
Stuck to the ground in Mississippi
It’s the one’ll set me free
It’s the same one that I see
Being ripped up off the ground and wrapped around me
Don’t let it fool you this highway’s mean
I don’t need a map to tell me where I am today
This feeling that I have has always led the way
Down here, you’re running from a broken heart
Or to a heart that you have to break on this mean old highway
Play it all night long
Grandpa pissed his pants again
He don’t give a damn
Brother Billy has both guns drawn
He ain’t been right since Vietnam
“Sweet home Alabama”
Play that dead band’s song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long
Daddy’s doing Sister Sally
Grandma’s dying of cancer now
The cattle all have brucellosis
We’ll get through somehow
“Sweet home Alabama”
Play that dead band’s song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long
I’m going down to the Dew Drop Inn
See if I can drink enough
There ain’t much to country living
Sweat, piss, jizz and blood
“Sweet home Alabama”
Play that dead band’s song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long
Watch
Just a brilliant and satisfying interpretation of my favorite song. I love you, Mike Cooley. You will forever be my senior yearbook hero.
Racing Around the Sun
A creative piece I did in 11th grade. The assignment was to emulate Hemingway’s style for a story of our own…
The smell of cigarettes smothered the forty-dollar-a-night room at the Chiefland Motel. Nausea from the suffocating odor and slight hangovers from the late night gave me reason not to get out of bed, but then I would have to suffer the rank smell for even longer. Hunger also rumbled in me. I knew the breakfast buffet at Bill’s Bar-b-que would cure it.
Brett was up before I was. I heard her get dressed and leave the room. I switched on the television to see if the race at the Bronson Motor Speedway would take place today, since rain had pushed it back two days already. After about thirty minutes, Brett returned with a Wal-Mart bag full of Schlitz.
“It doesn’t look like it’s going to rain,” she said.
“Isn’t supposed to.”
“Is the race gonna happen?”
“I don’t know. It hasn’t said yet.”
“Thirsty?” she asked, with a tired smile, dangling a Schlitz bottle in front of me.
“What time is it?”
“It’s already ten.”
“Only if you have one, too.”
Brett threw me a bottle. I drank mine slowly. Brett drank hers quickly.
“Nothing like one of these in the morning,” she said.
A knock at the door. I got up and pulled on a pair of jeans. The man who had checked us in three nights ago stood at the door. He wore a red Dale Earnhart shirt with the sleeves cut off and an odd stain that barely covered Earnhart’s number: three.
“Hey. How’re you doing?” he said cheerfully.
“I could be better. What about you?”
“Alright. Rough night?” he inquired while sticking his head into the room to catch a glimpse of Brett lighting her cigarette.
“Well, we found out about that bar around the corner. I mean it was good until this morning when we felt the effects.”
“Yeah, it ain’t hard having a few too many there,” he said with a nostalgic laugh. “Well, I thought y’all should know the race starts atnoon, since you were asking the other day.”
“Oh, well, we better get going.”
“If you want a good seat. It’s gonna be packed today, I tell you what. You know, I wanted to keep it hush, but one of the drivers is staying here, too.”
“Which one?”
“Aron Oakley.”
“He’s good.”
“You bet. Well, y’all have a good time now.”
“We will.”
Unfortunately we’d have to skip out on the buffet and get something at the KFC drive-thru, but the excitement for the race was enough to cure any disappointment.
We knew where we were once we saw the great white stadium appear from the road. Cars were crowding the parking lot. We stepped from the car, and the passionate energy hit us; tailgating took over the parking lot.
Brett looked good in her new sunglasses that she had bought that morning, along with the Schlitz. She threw me a Bud and winked. I knew she was eager for her first race.
“Jake, this is so fun.”
“It sure is.”
“How many drivers are in the race?”
“Ten.”
“Who do you think will win?”
“Probably Aron Oakely.”
“I hear he’s good looking.”
A drunken man walked by eyeing Brett.
“Hey, Baby!” He slurred and staggered on by.
Brett blushed.
The announcement came that the race would be starting soon, so we went in. We found our seats in the third row. It was hot in theFloridasun and the sweat poured down our faces, but we didn’t notice it for we were looking at the drivers readying themselves with their gear. We sat nearest to Aron Oakley’s stock car.
“He is good looking,” Bret said, holding a stare on Oakely.
“Well, he’s the youngest driver here and the best.”
“He’s something.”
“You hungry?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll go get us something.”
“Oh, but it’s about to start. I can wait.”
The cars sped off with a jolt. We could feel them speed by each time, shaking our seats. Oakely led the whole time, but it was a tight race. No surprise he won.
After enjoying a few Schlitzs and Buds, we headed back to Chiefland around five. We stopped to have dinner at Bill’s Bar-b-que. We ordered two pulled-pork plates.
“That was a good race today,” I said looking at the mounted deer head on the wall behind Brett.
“I can’t believe Aron Oakely is staying where we are.”
“I bet he’s celebrating tonight.”
“He should.”
We finished our dinner and headed back to our room. The motel was buzzing. It was obvious which room was Oakely’s, since it was packed with fans. Brett wanted to go meet him. I wanted to go back to the room and drink another Schlitz before we went over.
Brett drank hers within seconds of opening it and was out the door. I finished half of mine and followed her out. Entering the room, I was suffocated by too many people. Oakely stood by the television talking and drinking a Pabst. He ran a hand over his brown mullet as he caught the sight of Brett. He moved towards her and me.
“You’re one heck of a driver, Oakely,” I said to him.
“Thanks,” he said, then looking at Brett, “Were you there?”
“Yeah, you were great,” she said breathily.
“It’s girls like you who make me win, you know that?”
“Oh yeah?”
“You bet, sweetie.”
After a couple of hours, I went back to our room to get some sleep. Brett stayed enraptured with Oakely. I just hoped that she would be back for the buffet in the morning.
By Mae Beckmann, 2007, 16 years old
"The aggressively blue-collar tone of the Truckers’ music struck one reviewer as akin to “setting a trailer house in the rich part of town,” and one of their popular offerings declared that “to the fucking rich man all poor people look the same” (253)."
James Cobb in The South and America Since World War II
In the Bible, Deliverance is defined as “a rescue from bondage or danger.”
In such a world where, as the Drive-By Truckers sang, human tragedy left no more lasting imprint than “a greasy spot on the asphalt for a while,” compassion could easily be mistaken for weakness, and those who displayed it were sometimes rewarded with contempt rather than gratitude. In Larry Brown’s “Samaritans” Frank encounters a woman in a beer joint who is traveling with her mother and four children in “a junky-ass old Rambler, wrecked on the right front end, with the paint almost faded off, and slick tires, and a rag hanging out of the grill.” Frank wants to avoid her but winds up taking her into the bar and buying her several beers and a pack of cigarettes. When the beer starts to hit her she complains, “People don’t give a shit if you ain’t got a place to sleep ner noth’ to eat. They don’t care.” She tells Frank that she is heading to “Morgan City, Loozeanner,” where her husband has supposedly found work. Yet when he gives her thirty dollars, she simply gets her mother out of the car and the two of the head back to the bar, whereupon her young son solemnly informs her benefactor that he is “a dumb sumbitch” (256-7).
-James Cobb in The South and America Since World War II
"Many a one-time farmer now found himself no longer the family’s breadwinner but a mere “go-getter,” whose chief responsibility each day was to take his wife to work in the morning and then “go get ‘er” in the afternoon."
From James Cobb’s chapter “The Dominant Psychology…Is No Longer Agrarian” in his book The South and America Since World War II
