Brown Sludge

An Observation On The Dixie Chicks

October 26th, 2006

Watching CNN tonight tonight - waiting for the Lou Dobbs special on illegal immigration and the Dixie chicks show up on Larry King moaning about why nobody is playing their songs anymore, or buying their albums anymore, or coming to their concerts anymore.

Larry keeps playing the clip where Natalie makes her infantile declaration that she’s ashamed that the president is from Texas, and then turns around and gives this big idiotic smile that my old Grandma used to call a “shit-eating grin”.

That moronic grin cost the Dixie Chicks their careers for all practical purposes.

I’m struck by the contrast between them and Garrison Keillor.

Pretty Jamie dragged me to see him live a couple of weeks ago, he was in town hawking his new anti-Bush book and raising money for Democrats.

He began the evening by drawing some very clear distinctions between what he was doing on the stage that night as an entertainer talking about politics, and the work he does on the wonderful radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” as just an entertainer.

He was very careful to point out that folks that evening had bought tickets to hear him speak about Iraq, and politics, and his new book - which are all quite political - but the folks who buy tickets to “A Prairie Home Companion” certainly don’t expect or want to hear about politics. He took great pain to separate Garrison Keillor the entertainer, from Garrison Keillor the fund-raiser. He was very concerned that folks understood that he never wanted to politicize PHC because there was no way to do that without losing 1/2 of his audience or more. He came across as a very classy guy, who was informed about what he was talking about, and understood the difference between entertainment and politics.

Smart man.

Natalie Maines should take a lesson.

They showed some clips from the documentary that’s about to come out about the Dixie Chicks, and Maines comes across as severe, moronic, uneducated, and a generally unpleasant and bitchy person. No surprises really. One scene shows her barking at her manager over the definition of the word “boycott” - and when seen from the side one is reminded of an ill-tempered chihuahua - all teeth and shrill barking - yet still hard to take seriously as a threat.

I just sat with my mouth open and listened to her snipe in that high whiny voice that just seeks out the base of the spine and shocks it like ice-water.

I watch the two other girls in the band stare at her as she talks. On the surface they appear to support her, but you can tell by the way they look at her that they’d like to choke the living CRAP out of the hotheaded little ninny for ruining the good the thing they had with that motor-mouth of hers. They almost seem to be visibly trying to restrain themselves.

At one point Larry asks a question about the documentary - and one of the other members of the band comments through almost gritted teeth that it is their hope that once the movie comes out that they’ll be able to deflect all questions about the controversy by simply saying “see the movie”. In the next breath Maines re-iterates just how NOT sorry she is, and you realize that it really is over for them.

LOL… then… in an act of awesome hypocrisy… Mains has the unmitigated BALLS to complain about people who are “haters” that “rush to judgment” and hate people they’ve never even met and don’t know much about and who are uninformed. ROTFL.

As Pretty Jamie would say - “Hello Pot, meet Kettle.”

Entry Filed under: General