Sunday, September 14, 2008

Big Rock Candy Mountain


"Just because I am handsome enough to be a model, don't go thinkin' that I'm some kinda homo."

It's Sunday. I don't need to be at work. I don't need to be anywhere. So, I'm in bed, listening to music, surfing the internet and paging through the Cabela's catalog. Cabela's loves me. They send me about three huge catalogs a week. I don't hunt, I don't fish, but I do dress like my mom picks out my clothes. So there they are, page after page of stiff looking men wearing stiff looking ill fitting clothes. The idea is that this will appeal to rural white men, who can then safely hand the catalog to the wife and say, "Hell honey, I don't care. Just pick some stuff outta this here."

I am constantly scanning the Cabela's catalog in hopes of finding something wearable that fits the uniform policy at work: "No dungaree type pants." When was the last time you heard the word dungarees? Well, Cabela's and the large orange bridge still talk about dungarees. I think it's quaint.

I wish there was some kind of slightly cool version of the Cabela's catalog: just as corny but not quite so fuckin' stiff. I am, after all, a rural white man, although I never let my ex pick out my clothes. In fact even cornier would be cool. The worst part of the Cabela's catalog is when they try and be hip. Nasty. Finally, I gave up on Cabela's and went back to the computer, where I discovered the soundtrack for the slightly cool Cabela's catalog, Big Rock Candy Mountain. Good shit. Pretty corny, not fuckin' stiff.
Liquor Store - The Meat Purveyors
"Liquor Store" is the theme song for a period of my life in the midwest. My favorite line is the one about pawning the tools for an extra twenty bucks. I used to own a genuinely deadly assault rifle, a Ruger Mini 14. I had it "just in case" . I mean what if some kind of truly bad shit were to go down? However, when I ran out of beer and cigarettes the weekend before payday, I never hesitated to run it down to the pawn shop and take out a loan on a case of Blatz and a carton of Camels. The bad shit would have to wait till after payday.

7 comments:

ib said...

Ah, fuck, it's a cliche certainly, but I lost a six string Yamaha acoustic to a pawn shop. I wouldn't necessarily have minded, having sold an electric Strat copy previously with pedals and amp (but not the flight case, oddly enough) but it was the last thing my father ever bought me before he died at age 38. It was a 16th birthday present. By the time I lost it the sound had matured to a fully round cherry and maple wood ring.

It was just beginning to sound beautiful.

Not only that, but I kind of admire that John Deere sweatshirt too. Damn.

Your driver said...

If you weren't a foreigner I'd worry about you. Everyone knows that Deere tractors are for fags and candyasses. Only Caterpillar makes a tractor fit for a man. I'm worried about you because you're a foreigner.

Actually, I'm sorry about that guitar. I always managed to pay the rent on my pawned stuff. I let go of the rifle because I couldn't manage to justify owning an assault rifle and living in a small apartment in San Francisco, a city that is not very gun friendly and does not have a rifle range within about 50 miles.

I've since lost touch with the shooting crowd. Guns can be a lot of laughs, but you have to be pretty obsessive and I'm already obsessed by enough stuff.

Ruger makes a little .22 revolver, "The Bearcat". I'd like to own one of those, but I'd never get around to shooting it.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Just two words for you, Massey Ferguson.

Your driver said...

Don't they make some kind of snowmobile?

ib said...

Well. I could have easily paid the tax and renewed the ticket, or paid to get it back without any major hassle. Trouble was I'd forgotten; misplaced the ticket. By the time I received confirmation it was going to auction, that guitar was already sold.

Done deal.

Deere tractors are for fags and candyasses, eh ? What ? Like Smith & Wesson ?

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Perhaps you were in the Ski Whiz powered Armoured Snowmobile Division of an obscure Michigan W.P.P. Militia?

Your driver said...

Yes, it went by the code name Detroit Department of Transportation. We were running 40 ft. long GMC snowmobiles with great big smooth tires on them. They tended to wallow around and get sideways in the snow. That's why I live in California.

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