[I've come to hate this fuckin' thing, but it was the first piece of shit I put up on the internet like 19 years ago, and I still get comments from people about it. Figured I'd put it up so those folks could see how dated and stupid it is.]
14 THINGS THAT KILLED THE GOOD OLE BOYThe Good Ole Boy is not an asshole redneck, though he will get drunk and start a fight with you every once in a while. The Good Ole Boy has the hard-working greasy blue jean style of a redneck. He has the good-hearted generous nature and long dirty hair of a hippie. He has the simplistic attitude of an actual Mexican, not one of these capitalism-polluted Mexican-Americans, but one from Mexico driving a beat up Dodge Dart with a milk crate for a seat. And he has the hair trigger ability to blow up recklessly and violently for no reason of a rock star. He is a hippie Mexican redneck rock star, and the Good Ole Boy is almost extinct. Here are 15 things that have killed the Good Ole Boy.
NEW-FANGLED EQUIPMENT FOR COPS It used to be the local cops wouldn't chase after the Good Ole Boy. They knew him and his family, and they'd just come by and tell the Good Ole Boy's mama to tell the Good Ole Boy to settle down or they were gonna have to bust him. And as long as the Good Ole Boy didn't do anything too malicious or outrageous, he got by with warnings. The only police types that would hassle him would be state troopers or federal agents if the Good Ole Boy was involved in illegal liquor or drugs. And you could run from them. And if you made it back to your little rural neck of the woods, they'd never find you. Hell, they didn't like looking around those parts, as long as Good Ole Boy stayed amongst his kind, they let him be. Nowadays though, they got fancy radios to tell all the other cops that the Good Ole Boy is running. And they got helicopters and TV shows and crimestopper rewards and, worst of all, they got the local cops believing in this law and order bullshit more than they believe in a sense of their own community. Local cops now will sell out the Good Ole Boy to a fancy-tongued city cop and send a guy he went to school with off to prison for years and years. The Good Ole Boy can't hide in his neck of the woods anymore because there's traitors there. And the traitors and their city cop buddies have all kinds of fancy electronic equipment that will and can monitor the Good Ole Boy. The most the Good Ole Boy can hope for is an electronic monitor for home release so he can hang out with his Ol' Lady and at least have sex with a woman.
FANCIER LAWSIt used to be if the Good Ole Boy committed a crime, he committed one crime. Now the Law's got all these fancy extra laws where if the Good Ole Boy robs a store, not only is he charged with robbing a store, he's charged with robbing a store with a gun, he's charged with carrying a gun without a permit, he's charged with being charged more than once for the same thing, he's charged with having a gun and no license, he's charged with robbing a store that was within half a mile of a school, he's charged with all kinds of shit for the one crime. So the Good Ole Boy gets all kinds of time for the one crime. And the Good Ole Boy ain't amongst a lot of other Good Ole Boys when he goes to jail, he's amongst a lot of Young Black Males, themselves a hunted species, though they're not nearly as endanger of becoming extinct as the Good Ole Boy. And plus they rule the jails. The most the Good Ole Boy can hope for is to make friends by doing cassette recorder tattoos in the shower for cigarettes and extra juices at breakfast.
WAL-MARTThat evil blasphemous Tower of Babel known as the Wal-Mart Supercenter. Wal-Mart brought big city products to small-town minds, and fucked them all up. Small-town minds (not small minds, just simpler, which is not a bad thing, it's good to live a simple life) were dazzled by the array of clothes and lots of old Alan Jackson compact discs and little die-cast Dale Earnhardt cars in seven different styles. And the poison sunk in. They no longer cared about cooking deer steaks on the pile of rocks with an old refrigerator grate over top of it in the backyard; they wanted a gas grill from Wal-Mart. That old Toro pushmower that cut off everytime the Good Ole Boy hit a big clump of dandelions was replaced by a fancy-ass riding mower with headlights, headlights on a lawn mower for christsake. All his idle time out in the middle of nowhere was taken up by all these goddamned new possessions, and the Good Ole Boy didn't spend that idle time doing crazy shit like building monster trucks or drinking heavily and gambling or any of the good ole things Good Ole Boys were famous for.
THE GLAM ROCK/GRUNGE MUSIC/GANGSTA RAP COMBO The Good Ole Boy was always predisposed to rock-n-roll. Yeah, country music was alright, but it was too slow and whiny, except some outlaw shit like Hank Jr. or David Allan Coe or some Waylon. Rock-n-roll was perfect for cranking up over the roar of a late model engine drunkenly barreling down back country roads that might accidentally twist in an unplanned direction at any second. Rock-n-roll was perfect for late at night blaring loudly from the front room while the Good Ole Boy got it on with some sweet little thang in leopard print panties in the back bedroom. The Rock Show in a nearby city was a religious pilgrimage for the Good Ole Boy, where loads of other Good Ole Boys and their sweet little thangs from other parts of rural America met together and held their lighters up in unison as a symbol of indebtedness to the great Gods of Thunder. "Here is our fire, we give it to you Gods of Thunder to burn this un-Good Ole Boy-like world down to a dirt road with some pool halls and a liquor store!" But then in the mid-80's rock-n-roll let the Good Ole Boy down. Dirty jeans and black leather bands like AC/DC and the Scorpions were being replaced by lavendar laced pretty boys like Cinderella and Poison. Any self-respecting Good Ole Boy is not gonna listen to music made by a guy that's cute. Hell, even fuckin' Motley Crue, black and red leather and Satanic shit and fuckin' rock-n-roll man; they started wearing pink and purple on their third record. I don't care how cool "Home Sweet Home" was, they were gay now. So the Good Ole Boy waited for rock-n-roll to come back around. After all the years of held up lighters, after all the years of wearing black t-shirts, after all the years of turning on younger brothers and cousins, the best rock-n-roll could do for the Good Ole Boy was grunge music. Whiny city boys not singing about pussy, not banging out loud dirty rock-n-roll; but instead complaining about shit, letting feedback all over their songs, singing like that fag in drama class from the Good Ole Boy's high school days. See, a Good Ole Boy is about the pleasures of the senses, not about worrying about the fuckin' world. And grunge music was the last straw for the Good Ole Boy and his worship for the Gods of Thunder. So he converted. To the Lords of Bass. Gangsta rap was sweeping from the inner-cities through the suburbs and out to the rural areas. They talked about pussy, they drove overly-accessorized cars, they smoked weed and drank beer and were proud of it. And the Good Ole Boy mutated into the Wigga Kid.
ARABS Arabs control oil production. In the late '70s, due to a lack of oil production, a severe gas crisis started. In response, car companies began making shitty little jellybean cars that all look alike and have no style. No more 1 ton mechanisms of self-destruction the Good Ole Boy could work on constantly to make faster, to make shinier, to make more likely to plant a Tammy or a Cindy in the passenger seat, which was one long seat with leather all the way across. If Tammy or Cindy slid over to the middle of the seat to sit right beside you, her legs had to straddle the hump of the transmission, subconsciously putting her in the mood, plus the Good Ole Boy had to reach over to shift the chrome shifter, and that gave him ample opportunities to start rubbing on her knees and working his way to the promised land. But the new cars were bucket seats with storage compartments in between them. And small. And they worked good. And if they didn't they were so goddamned alien-looking under the hoods because everybody built like the Japs now that the Good Ole Boy was confused and didn't' know how to fix shit. So the Arabs damned greedy late '70s ways killed the Good Ole Boy and his hot rod.
HOLLYWOOD'S "IGNORIFICATION" OF THE REDNECK In the past, TV and movies gave the Good Ole Boy his due. You had your Jed Clampetts and Duke boys on the small screen. And Clint Eastwood's Philo Bedo and Burt Reynold's Bandit blew up the big screen so much that they practically gave rise to the idea of a movie sequel. Good Ole Boys might have been a bit simple and animalistic, but hell, they were good old boys. The public couldn't fault them, in fact, they liked them. People wished they could have a pet orangutang that drank Olympia, or jump a souped up Dodge over a creek and have a cop wreck behind them. But then all those positive characters disappeared. No more trucker movies. No more rural sitcoms. No more Hee Haw on national TV. And after a quieting down period, Hollywood stormed back with a new image of the Good Ole Boy as a murderous pervert, as an unyielding racist, as an ignorant bumpkin sucking on a piece of straw. Uncle Toms like Jeff Foxworthy started popping up, making fun of their own upbringing and heritage, shucking and jiving for the middle classes' delight. And the Good Ole Boy started to feel ashamed. Hell, all the Good Ole Boy types in the media weren't that good. And the Good Ole Boy became embarrassed to pass on his Good Ole Boy traditions and history onto the next generation.
RIC FLAIR WORKING FOR A YANKEE Wrestling, or "wrasslin" to the Good Ole Boy, has always been a ceremonial performance for the Good Ole Boy. Rich guys were assholes. Hard-working beer drinkers kicked ass. Cowboys beat up on Russians. The long-haired southern boy with a bullrope always beat the gold-bearded black guy with the shit-talking manager in a frilly tuxedo. Wrestling reaffirmed the Good Ole Boy's beliefs, and made him feel special. Then along came that piece of shit Vince McMahon, who perverted wrestling from a regional attraction to an internation circus featuring clowns and voodoo witches and evil Canadians. Before wrestling went national, the regional circuits would do anywhere from one to four shows, each month, in all the major cities in their area. The Richmond Coliseum had a wrestling show every month. And it was usually packed with people. And all the small towns in the region could expect seeing wrestling at the local high school gym or VFW hall or community center or armory at least once a year. The Good Ole Boy got to see his heroes and villains up close and personal. But when it went national, all the Good Ole Boy got to do was watch it on TV. Every once in a while, they'd come to the nearby city and he'd go and it would suck because there'd be no blood, no satisfaction. It had always been geared towards families, but now instead of being geared towards a Good Ole Boy's family that would come back next month or next year to watch all his heroes and villains again, it was geared towards middle class families that would buy up $25 t-shirts and foam fingers and not give a shit about a program for the night's event, they were more concerned that the Big Star show up so they could see him in person. There was no more excitement that a championship might change hands, that was saved for the pay-per-views the Good Ole Boy couldn't afford. But Jim Crockett Promotions tried to fight Vince McMahon, with old fashioned southern style wrestling. Hell, they had 4th of July shows with fireworks and David Allan Coe. That's Good Ole Boy Heaven right there. But Crockett couldn't compete financially, and he sold the whole deal to corporate America. They don't know how to run a wrestling show, still don't. And Ric Flair, the Jesus figure to the Good Ole Boy, yeah he's bad, but he means well. Just into partying, getting the girls, and kicking a little ass. And plus he's from North Cackylacky. But corporate America fucked it up. And Ric Flair left to go work for Vince McMahon. Wrasslin' was dead, and sports entertainment had replaced it with all it's sterility and decadence. No good and bad, just blurred lines of cults of personality to encourage merchandising. And now the Good Ole Boy is left confused, rooting for whatever rip-off of the original Four Horsemen is being passed off as the anti-authoritarian regime, whether it be Stone Cold Steve Austin or the New World Order or whatever, the Good Ole Boy is just hoping for that peak again, when Ric Flair and Tully Blanchard and Arn & Ole Anderson ruled the world. And you can go to a wrestling show nowadays, and you'll see the quiet Good Ole Boy, beaten down and hobbled by a society that doesn't protect his natural habitat, sitting there with a short and long haircut. And when a wrestler chops another wrestler across the chest, the Good Ole Boy will flashback to days when his kind ruled the world, and he'll "Whoo" along with all the other defeated Good Ole Boys, and they'll be sad 'cuz it's a little Mexican fucker in a shiny mask they're whooing for.
BURT REYNOLDS' DESPERATE YEARS Burt Reynolds was living every Good Ole Boy's dream; he was driving fast as shit fancy cars, he was having sex with rich girls, and he was making millions of dollars while wearing a cowboy hat and a button down shirt with half the buttons unused. But then came the comedy. Good Ole Burt was teamed up with fat-ass questionable sexuality Dom Deluise in that damned Cannonball Run movie. Burt became a shucker and jiver, doing his bit for the highest dollar. And that movie made money, but then all Burt got offered was stupid buffoon comedy roles. Don't even mention to me the fact a third Smokey & the Bandit movie even exists, hell the second one was bad enough. And the second Cannonball Run, goddamn they're carrying an elephant around in a truck, fuckin' unbelievable. After that, Burt wasn't the hot commodity, and neither was the Good Ole Boy. Nobody wanted a macho devil-may-care funny-talking rebel with a rebel flag belt buckle anymore. They wanted a clean shaven robot like Arnold. Or a punch-drunk wop like Sly Stallone. And Burt was left high and dry, doing only the occasional movie with an old buddy pulling for him like Clint Eastwood (remember that movie where they were a pair of cops, damn, that was a terrible movie). Until Boogie Nights came out and offered the sex symbol of the '70s the opportunity to be a perverted old fuck with questionable sexuality. One more nail in the Good Ole Boy's coffin.
UNITED NATIONS SPONSORED AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS Winners teach history, and according to the winners the south sucked. They killed Jews and raped children and wanted to kill black people by making them work too hard. Now the Good Ole Boy's natural inclination is towards the south, since that environment sprouted him, and plus they got a pretty cool looking flag. When the Good Ole Boy, in his young sprouting stage, is told that the water that makes him grow into a big strong fun-loving fool, is in actuality a terrible poison that wanted to exterminate everything unlike it, but luckily yankee industrialists freed black people from the oppression of cotton fields and packed them into tenement housing where the most they can hope for is a shitty security guard job, well all those lessons made the Good Ole Boy cower. He wanted to be a Good Ole Boy, not an evil menace. Hell, most Good Ole Boys never had any problems with black folks, brown folks, no folks. Good Ole Boys liked everybody that liked to have a good time. But history killed the Good Ole Boy's confidence in his homeland, all part of a plan to kill any form of national pride, so that the one world government can become a reality; but that's a whole other can of worms.
MIDDLE CLASS CO-OPTING WHITE TRASH CULTURE There are actually suburban raised fucks with "Good Ole Boy" tattooed on their arms. There are actually college girls with WHITE TRASH PRINCESS stickers on their undented cars. There are actually people who think wearing a cheap cowboy hat with a pair of skateboarding shoes is cool. When a Good Ole Boy sees shit like this, he don't feel so good anymore.
GARTH BROOKS Country music always had some outlaw mentality to it. Garth Brooks was no exception when he stormed onto the scene in the early '90s. "I got friends in low places where blah blah blah and the beer it chases my blues away." That's country music. That's Good Ole Boy talk. But Garth sold millions of records and got fancy. He started wearing those weird shirts with no collar but still all the buttons and that damned microphone attached to his cowboy hat that put him in company with Madonna and other people who performed with that stupid shit on their head. And Garth pulled all the strings in Nashville. No more songs about drinking. No more songs about womanizing. No more songs about jail and fighting and hopping trains and beating up assholes. In other words, no more songs talking the Good Ole Boy talk. And the Good Ole Boy was brainwashed by the bullshit. He started liking dumb shit like Travis Tritt and he started putting bedliners in his pick-up truck. The Good Ole Boy became a demographic.
INTER-RACIAL DATING Now, before I start rambling on this, don't send me any dumbass e-mails about being against interracial dating. I could care less who fucks who, I'm not prejudiced against colors, just social classes. But the fact of the matter is, dating amongst different races started getting more popular in the late '80s and early '90s. And more white girls were being exported than black girls were being imported. More Tammys and Cindys stopped feathering the bangs and started pulling the hair back into a skintight ponytail and wearing giant hoop earrings, but very few Kenyas and Yolandas were willing to share the front bench seat of a '72 Nova Supersport. So the Good Ole Boy had to adjust to get some ass. He started pumping some Dre and Snoop Dogg. He started putting fat rims on his truck. And instead of jacking that truck up, he lowered it, sometimes even going to the drastic measures of cutting the springs so that there was no turning back. The Good Ole Boy needed to procreate, and like any species, he adapted for survival.
BEING THE LAST PAWN The powers that be have always put some sort of barrier between the middle class and themselves. Once the '80s had come around, all those barriers had been exposed. The powers couldn't buffer themselves with the blacks or the Hispanics. This was considered racist. So they created the scapegoat of white trash. Not only did it buffer the middle class from the upper class, it created a place to put all the blame of past racist actions. Black people were oppressed? Trailer trash must've done it. Mexicans getting ripped off? Rednecks did it. I've never understood how people are so stupid to believe a form of white person who has absolutely no clout in this economically-based political system could be responsible for all the evils done to minorities. They've become the scapegoat for fat, rich, hog-jowled whiteys in luxury SUVs who write the laws and rap the gavels across America. Luckily, white trash is the last scapegoat, so once people wise up to that one, maybe we can all start rioting in unity.
THE TRAGIC DEATH OF RONNIE VAN ZANDT Lynyrd Skynyrd was the penultimate Good Ole Boy band. They rocked stadiums full of drunks. They tore up hotel rooms and got in fights. They drank their share of liquor, and weren't afraid of the other substances relegated to the backroom only. And their songs told righteous tales of being a simple man, finding the good in a simple life, not getting caught up in materialism and prejudice. And they told tales of "carryin' on" as my Grandma would say. That meant doing shit the elders wished you didn't do. And when that plane went down and Ronnie Van Zandt died, so did a prophet of Good Ole Boyness. Lynyrd Skynyrd has struggled to recreate that magic ever since. And no Good Ole Boy prophet has risen up to replace, or at least try to carry on what Ronnie Van Zandt was saying to the people. The Good Ole Boy became a man without spiritual guidance; and a people with no spiritualism is bound to die off.
So the Good Ole Boy has been destroyed from all sides, a victim of a system that doesn't appreciate his kind. And no one cares. We'll complain about loggers killing a damned owl or crack cocaine destroying black communities or any other fashionable cause. But we never raise our voice against the suburban sprawl that meanders further and further outside of every American city, destroying the natural habitat of the Good Ole Boy. We don't complain about new interstates being blasted through the countryside so that we can get to our aunt's house in St. Louis a little faster, god forbid we have to slow down too much. We don't care that Wal-Marts destroy the Main Street mom-and-pop stores that are already struggling from the strip malls in every small town Wal-Mart deems profitable enough to open up in. We don't mind all the dirt and gravel roads getting paved even though only three families live down that road. We want progress.
Well fuck all yall. You killed the Good Ole Boy and all that's left is his squeaky-clean, always sober racist redneck cousin in a just-waxed brand new pick-up truck with not even a single chunk of wood rattling around in the bed. You murdered the Good Ole Boy and all that's left is his low-riding blunt-smoking No Limit Soldier nephew in color coordinated Fubu trying to figure out how to shave his sideburns into a pencil thin strip. And the few Good Ole Boys there are left, those rare few that somehow have survived the onslaught, you add insult to injury by hiring them to sheetrock and paint and plumb and carpent your houses. You bastards.
