There’s More To Being A Hillbilly Than Marrying Your Sister
[ Comments Off ]Posted on April 29, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, April 29th, 2010There may be some basis in reality for the joke “Now that we’re married, does that mean you’re not my sister?”, but without inbreeding, the masterpiece “Dueling Banjos” – and perhaps country music itself – may have been impossible.
 The musical genius of dueling banjos would have been impossible without inbreeding. |
I knew when I embarked on the challenge of defining the difference between rednecks, white trash, and now hillbillies (although we’ve touched on the hillbilly tongue before), I had a tough row to hoe. As the spawn of a white trash background myself, I think I’ve finally hit upon one of the most important distinctions. It’s cultural pride. The fact is, there’s no-one more proud than a redneck showing off his new dually at a weekend bonfire or a hillbilly that has finally nailed that banjo riff or nabbed that prize possum without even leaving the porch. Say what you will, but I think we can safely say that hillbillies are a proud lot. And that they only become “white trash” when attempting to become urban. Yep. “White trash” just means “hillbilly with aspirations”. Which gives me, as white trash, additional license to speak freely on this whole topic without being vulnerable to being accused of bigotry. My roots run deep. All the way up the hill, and onto the porch. Because to me, that’s the definition of “hillbilly”. A rockin’ chair, a gun, a banjo, and a porch. And maybe some hooch and some snuff. I mean honestly, what more could a person want than some music and a nice place to reflect on their simple life? Oh. And maybe shoot dinner if it passes by. And shoes? They’re overrated. I would assert that the cultures that have been the most obsessed with footwear also have caused the world the most grief. Frankly, the only negative result of this lifestyle is the inevitable inbreeding that occurs as a result of not wanting to leave the porch just to go get some sex. And while that has unfortunately made it so that many of us cringe when we hear the words “uncle” and “shed” in the same sentence, on the other hand, it also makes possible the sort of musical savant that can play dueling banjos at 240 beats per minute (clip below). And on a slightly serious note, the fact is that the entire multimillion dollar industry that we now call “country music” would not exist today if it weren’t for hillbillies. We’ll be back with one more piece on the broader topic of these white American subcultures, because there are two things we’ve neglected so far. One being a drier anthropological description of the activities of these peoples, the other being a better term for urban hillbilly than “white trash”. There are at least two cities in Michigan that have nicknames that end in “tucky” because of the hillbilly version of pursuing “spatial mobility”; Ypsitucky and Taylortucky. I think it’s time these people had a name that instills a feeling of pride. Read the rest of this entry »
Rednecks, White Trash, And Pabst Blue Ribbon
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on April 22, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010Someone ’round here ain’t showin’ their true colors. Or: You can take the beer out of the redneck, but you can’t take the redneck out of the beer.
 Don’t be fooled. In spite of the crappy decor and a mouthful of Pabst Blue Ribbon, this is not a redneck. Source |
Recently, as I disclosed some of the truth about my white trash origins, I lamented that hillbillies and rednecks were always co-opting my heritage. But rednecks probably have it worse these days. You know your legacy is really dying when hipsters in Portland are adopting your beloved Pabst Blue Ribbon as their own . Which is a tragedy, because rednecks – in spite of your probably superficial impressions – have a rich cultural history that runs much deeper than you’d imagine. Just read Donald K. Burleson’s Understanding Redneck Philosophy . No, it’s not a book, it’s a web page. Not many rednecks publish books. Something we’ll get back to in a bit. Burleson paints a picture – one that may be fairly accurate – of rednecks as almost spiritual people, unencumbered by a longing for wealth, living in a day-to-day fashion with seeming detachment from external concepts of time. Of course this is all just another way of saying they’re broke, have no plans, and have at least one car in the yard on cinder blocks that has been getting rebuilt for the last three years, but the fact is, that all does take a certain zen-like detachment to be comfortable with. Which describes part of the essence of what I think being a redneck is really about. It’s about freedom. To shoot things. Mostly beer bottles. On fences. Or to stand next to a bonfire in the yard talking about your dualie long enough that you get a sunburn. Or to even know what a “dualie” is, in which case you probably spell it “dually”. In spite of the long-winded and politically correct definition of redneck that you’ll find on Wikipedia, rednecks are proud to be rednecks. Go ahead and call a redneck a redneck, and they’ll probably raise a beer at you and yell “h-e-e-e-e-l-l-l-l-l-l yeaaaaah!” and down the rest of it as a toast to you. And as far as rednecks being southerners? Another profound misconception. I’ve met rednecks as far north as any northern US border in Minnesota or Michigan, and they didn’t seem to be thinning in numbers if you gazed over into Canada. They just start talkin’ kinda funny north of about 40N in latitude. And the Jeff Foxworthy “you know you’re a redneck when…” approach fails miserably too. In my opinion, he’s usually describing hillbillies. Which we’ll get to in the next installment. ’cause I’m a little white trash, and we do everything on installment plans. Read the rest of this entry »
White Trash Pride
[ 6 Comments ]Posted on April 16, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Friday, April 16th, 2010Why are rednecks and hillbillies always trying to co-opt my heritage and ethnic identity?
 We’re still struggling with the White Trash brand, as you can see. |
You know America has really gone to hell when a self-respecting white supremacist can’t attend a tea party rally without getting harassed by some elitist intellectual teabagger type. We suggested a while back that the country may be headed for some kind of red vs. blue civil war, but this thinking was based on the pretty narrow evidence of two-party voting behavior during a national election. Now that we’ve had a chance to see America showing its true (mostly white) colors, we’re rethinking things a bit, and think the real civil disorder will be just that: civil disorder. And mostly amongst the hard-to-define factions known as rednecks, hillbillies, and white trash. Yes, while American spatial mobility seems to have slowed around 2007, we’re still left with a lot people from different American subcultures transplanted to a variety of urban areas. And as the old saying goes, “you can take the boy out of the country” yadda yadda. I was reminded of how powerful these subcultural influences can be recently when I used the term “white trash” in mixed company. And by “mixed company”, I mean a group of white people from various parts of the country, some of whom are only spittin’ distance from their more rural roots. I really thought that in an age when so many oppressed groups of people had reclaimed the power of words used against them – i.e.: gay men calling themselves fags, black people calling themselves niggers, etc. – that my reference to my white trash background was pretty safe. How wrong I was. The hilarious arguments that ensued regarding what the differences were between rednecks, hillbillies, and white trash inspired me to do a series of utterly unscientific pop-anthropology overviews of the distinctions. Since my snuff-dippin’ grandmother from West Virginia always bragged about how the main thing that made her not a redneck was the fact that her family fought for the Union during the civil war, that’s the first line I’m going to draw. The strongest image in the redneck brand seems to be the confederate flag, so I’m going to assert that since grandma didn’t come from the hills, and wasn’t a redneck, she must have been white trash. Which gives me license to claim a certain expertise on this group. We’ll go into more detail in upcoming pieces (besides, we already covered how to talk like a hillbilly) , but I figure we’ll cover some basics right now. First of all, you’ll need a name. An awful lot of my white trash (see how comfortably I use the term now?) ancestors had that familiar “billy bob” or dotty mae” theme going on, so I highly recommend this white trash name generator. Two other fundamentals in life are food and housing. As a culinary guide, I can comfortably recommend White Trash Cooking
Apathy & The American Revolution
[ Comments Off ]Posted on April 10, 2010 by admin in Politics
Saturday, April 10th, 2010Sure. We need a revolution in America. A revolution in the way we think.
No, not that one. And no, not that new one that tries to ride on its coattails. I’m thinking of a different one. One that’s not necessarily driven by politics. I have to admit I was a little moved by the images from Boston.com’s “Big Picture” features this week that covered the massive protests in Thailand and Kyrgyzstan. Seeing civilians organized in large enough numbers to overwhelm security forces clad in high-tech riot gear immediately made me curious about two things. First of all, how did so many people get on the same page and take action? And second, what were they really protesting? The answer to the first question is still being analyzed by major news sources, but the uprisings had common motives. Most sources are citing government corruption, murky privatization schemes, oligarchical leadership, and financial hardship for the working class while elites flourish. Sound familiar? Why are we so complacent about similar things happening in America? I live in one of the states hardest-hit by the recent mini-econopocalypse. Things are so bad here in Michigan that the city of Flint is burning down while firefighters are being laid off. You may have heard of Flint because that’s where documentary filmmaker and rabble-rouser Michael Moore started his career, with Roger & Me
Consumer Masochism
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on April 4, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, April 4th, 2010Now that it’s been established that corporations have the same rights as people, why do we choose to have such masochistic relationships with them?
  If you really ARE into this kind of abuse, I bet you didn’t know Amazon sells all the bondage gear  you’ll need.You’ll also be surprised what people call Sexual Wellness these days. |
I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re a nation of masochists. Why else would we put up with the endless assault on our sensibilities perpetrated by almost every large corporation we do business with? You’ve almost certainly had some kind of interaction with a credit card company, phone company, bank, or some other product maker or service provider that left you astounded, if not enraged. I’m going to list a few specific experiences of my own below, but I’d love to hear yours. I’m honestly just perplexed as to why we, as consumers, don’t band together and address the litany of deceptive, fraudulent, and generally scurrilous practices of almost every major corporation we keep afloat with our hard-earned dollars. I mean, the list is endless. It’s not like you have to nit-pick. You go to do something simple like buy groceries, and as standard practice, chain stores place all the products no-one wants at eye level, put different brands of the same item in different parts of the store, and line all the aisles with misleading sale tags. These and other strategies are familiar tricks, but does the store really generate more sales that way? I’d love to see the solid research. My hunch is that it’s an accepted method that is assumed to increase sales, but in reality only creates more grumpy shoppers. Another common example: if your cell phone provider is Verizon, they tell you that you qualify for a free or cheap phone every two years for your faithful patronage, and when you go to collect it, they give you rebate forms to fill out and mail in while they bill you the full price, banking on the likelihood you’ll miss the deadline and will have already been billed by then. Even if you do follow their Byzantine rebate requirements carefully, they’ve essentially forced you to loan them money for the interim. Pretty clever. But we’re all familiar with the concepts behind these annoying practices, I’m just curious as to why we tolerate them. I’m going to share a few of mine from the last year below; I’d love to hear about yours. Maybe there’s something we can do. I mean something besides complain about complaint web sites on complaint web sites. Read the rest of this entry »