All my rowdy friends are coming back Monday Night!
In what is surely to be seen on the right as a victory over political correctness, ESPN, the ever more left leaning sports network, has announced that country boy, Hank Williams, Jr., and his rowdy, booming country rock anthem that welcomed viewers to Monday Night Football for more than two decades, will be returning this season. ESPN fired Williams six years ago for his sin of failing to worship at the altar of Obamanism. For a single on-air comparison of Obama to Hitler, an offense that would go largely unremarked in this time of vile, scatological profanities aimed at our president by even anchor personalities, Hank’s longtime association was ended with a terse announcement of termination. That may not have signaled the beginning of ESPN’s decline into political correctness but it surely marked a waypoint on the leftward course that has continued, losing them millions of subscribers year after year.
ESPN reverted back to their previous musical intro for MNF but it failed to welcome you into the game with the boisterous enthusiasm of good ol’ Bocephus and his driving anthem to you, everyman, who, blue or white collar, loved feeling for that short while, like one of his rowdy friends as you sat back and cracked open a cold one, waiting for that opening kickoff. That Williams off-air is a solid Republican and 2d Amendment supporter provided a small bit of additional comfort when you knew that some smarmy ESPN talking head might berate you with some leftist agitprop before the game ended.
So is this return to the country meme acknowledgment by ESPN suits that their preferred, chardonnay sipping, enlightened liberal audiences simply aren’t sufficient to pay the bills much less to generate a profit? Are they finally recognizing what all those departing subscribers have been telling them loudly by the tens of thousands, “Keep your damned politics outta my sports!” Could it be that some common sense has soaked through those skulls marinated in urban elite political correctness? The decision makers at ESPN, from executive suites and corporate board rooms down through every production facility would do themselves well to listen to Hank’s militant ode to conservative independence, “A Country Boy Can Survive” where Williams lays out a defiant code of self-reliance that, while most Americans can no longer live up to, they still firmly embrace the sentiment.
My woman and the kids, and the dogs, and me
I got a shotgun, a rifle, and a 4-wheel drive
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
I can plow a field all day long
I can catch catfish from dusk ’til dawn
We make our own whiskey and our own smoke, too
Ain’t too many things these old boys can’t do
We grow good old tomatoes and homemade wine
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
It would appear to this ol’ small town boy that country boy, Hank Williams, Jr., most assuredly has.
Crossposted at American Thinker
Category: Politics
Fuck ESPN
And the horse they rode in on.
IDC SARC would have to see the horse first.
Well, maybe not.
More like Escalades..
ESPN worships the barbed cock of liberalism/progressiveness…
I say to ESPN, FUCK YOU and your retarded hound dawg too!!
If the squirrels would stop stealing my tomatoes, I could can a few quarts.
Ain’t nuthin’ better than a homegrown tomato sammich.
Fresh bread, mayo, and sliced tomato.
My blushing bride has a couple of plants in our front yard that are coming along real well. Had sliced tomato as part of supper last night.
Try that in New Yawk Ciddy.
Add some bacon to it, willya?
MMMMM Bacon! and some fresh cracked black pepper!
That’s settles it. Making BLT’s tonight.
Add an over-easy fried egg or two and some Duke’s mayonnaise to that BLT and then chow down on one of the best sammiches EVER.
Grew up on Duke’s mayo. I recall we grew maters as big as lopes in NC w hardly any effort. Down in Florida I get squat for my efforts. I don’t bother any longer with bacon. I can’t eat the fat on it … Oh, God, it’s gross. So by the time I pull it off, there’s so little real meat left I don’t bother buying it any longer. We grew so many lopes and melons, we couldn’t sell them all so we gave them away to any who asked for them … mostly people of color b/c that’s where we lived the first several years, in a three-room shack with dirt and linoleum floors. That was hard living but, oh my, it was fun and rewarding. Today in stores we guy ‘vine ripe’ maters that are as hard as a brick and have little taste. Roadside vendors are a little better. I suspect, though, they often get their fruits/veggies from same place the chain grocers get their stuff.
I can recall walking to the mater patch with salt and eating several right there in the field. There is no better mater than one grown in a backyard with the Good Lord’s water and sunlight.
I like a good BLT as well.
But I savor the flavor of a fresh-from-the vine tomato.
Later in the season we will add to the experience with the extras. Bacon. Fresh-ground black pepper is a winner!
Now, I’ve some jalapeno peppers I want to stuff with cream cheese, wrap in bacon and grill. That’s some good eatin’, too.
MMM that does sounds good GB.. I’ve got some peppers just about ready as well…the tomatoes are a bit behind… you can’t really put in the garden until after the last snow, which around here is usually right around Memorial Day (this year it was the weekend before) so they’re just getting going, but we’ve got 5 varieties in, 3 “cherry” or salad types, one hybrid, and one heirloom… should be good eats!
Depending upon your tolerance for hot peppers, be careful to scoop all the seeds out of the jalapenos before stuffing with cream cheese.
Last time I made these I missed getting some seeds out of one pepper, and #2 son got that one. It was funny to his wife (a little) his mother and I, but he was not amused.
I don’t know if I could get him to try another one now.
Last year for kicks I grew ghost peppers. These are peppers that are roughly 5 times hotter on the Scoville scale than habenaro peppers.
I had to wear gloves while picking / handling them in any way. I pureed some to make a hot salt and also cooked some to make a ghost pepper jelly. Instructions called for wearing chemical rubber gloves, lab goggles and a respirator. (Even with those precautions, my eyes watered and I couldn’t breath.)
The jelly turned out great – especially when placed on a cracker with cream cheese, but ghost peppers will light you up and introduce to you a level of pain you never thought food could induce.
OK, I’m crazy. But I’ll never be ghost-pepper crazy.
::shaking head in awe of gitarcarver’s level of crazy::
Yup, I do like the flavor / heat in ghost pepper.. you can even go up from there, to Trinidad Scorpions or Carolina Reapers…you do have to be careful with them though, they can definitely introduce you to a new level of pain.. this year we just did Jalapenos, bell peppers, and some called “mexi-bell” which sounds kinda like a cross between the two.. never tried them before, but looking forward to it.
I’ve heard of people dying from ghost peppers. I’ll do only the most mild peppers. I don’t really care for them but they can have a purpose in certain foods.
Mom would eat sammiches of peppers, onions, cucumbers and radish. Jeez, how could she stomach that stuff.
And wear gloves and eye protection while you’re working with them. Seriously.
Y’all are starting to scare me.
Some 4 decades ago ol’ Graybeard got some juice from canned jalapenos in his eyes. That was bad enough.
Jam on buttered toast.
My favorite breakfast: eggs on toasted shredded wheat biscuits (the big ones) and nice, crispy bacon, hash browns with onions, juice and hot beverage.
Home-made buttermilk biscuits with fig preserves. I can eat a couple of dozen of those without blinking.
Or: Sunnyside up eggs cooked in bacon grease, on toast, with bacon and grits. OJ and whole milk, coffee for afters.
Dammit! I got work to do, and you all are making me hungry!
Try open sandwiches…. to toast, layer on cheese, tomato slice, bacon, and Worcestshire. Warm in the oven till the cheese is melty and serve.
Love ya, Greybeard, but you scoop the seeds outta my jalapenos and we got us a problem. Too, we eat a lot of Indian and the local place says we take it ‘native hot.’
More power to ya’ David!
In my younger days I ate them seeds and all, but I guess I’m not the man I used to be.
I know Houston has some great Indian and Thai restaurants to go along with the Mexican/Texican eateries! I ought not leave out the Japanese, Vietnamese and Chinese eateries… some good variety there.
But the heartburn afterwards has made me have to scale back a bit.
Gettin’ old ain’t always fun.
Louetta and 249. Good stuff.
I foresee a road trip in my future.
Also they are good when you stuff them with a shrimp with the cream cheese. Just cook them in hot water slightly. The hot water also helps to peal them.
Them but the whole pepper on the grill to get a nice char and eat them with a nice cold light beer chaser.
I haven’t tried the shrimp addition yet. Sounds like it’ll be good, though.
Now I love going down to Kemah, to one of the waterside eateries where you get shrimp fresh off the boat and cooked right there. Hooo Son!
ESPN is to sports as MTV is to music videos, as the History Chanel is to history, as the the Learning Channel is to education, as the Family Chanel is to family values, as CNN/MSNBC are to the facts, etc.
You took the words right out of my head Arby! Thank you!!!!!
Too many channels to watch sports on without resorting to ESPN.
The History Channel is now: The Bigfoot Channel or The Hitler Channel or The Alien Channel.
ESPN? They are to sports as CMT is to Country Music.
Williams was let go for comparing a sitting US President to a man who wanted to take over the world, killed 6 million directly and helped start a war in which 60 – 80 million people died. The comparison is and was offensive. When the left called Bush “McHitler,” people on the right objected. I have no issues with any company letting a person go who made such a ridiculous statement.
“But its the principle!” people will say and “ESPN has gone back to Williams.”
When Williams was let go he made this statement:
“After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made my decision. By pulling my opening Oct. 3, you (ESPN) stepped on the toes of the First Amendment freedom of speech, so therefore me, my song and all my rowdy friends are out of here. It’s been a great run.”
It’s not a First Amendment issue at all. ESPN hired him and they can fire him. (Maybe Williams and all his rowdy friends can take a moment to actually read the Constitution.)
The case can be made that ESPN brought Williams back based in part on revenues and viewership. Somehow to some that signals a capitulation on some set of values that ESPN espoused.
But Williams coming back also reflects on him. Instead of saying “sorry ESPN, I ain’t gonna appear on your network because of what you did,” Williams actions are “I’ll be happy to violate my principles and values that I espoused before so you can pay me for the song and my appearances.”
There is no difference between ESPN and Williams in this instance. Both appear to be making economic choices that are contrary to values and principles they both have demonstrated in the past.
This is not about left, right, conservative, moderate, libertarian or moderate. This is about money. This is about people whose values are for sale.
Including ESPN’s values. I also seem to recall some folks callin Bush, Trump etc Hitler. I’m trying to remember who the high profile ones were and if they got fired.
It’s different when they do it.
I think we’d have to go back several decades to find a (R) President or Presidential candidate who has not been called “literally Hitler” by a lot of high-profile leftists.
Hypocrites.
Before my post above I went looking for anyone associated with ESPN that had called any President “Hitler.”
I found none. That’s not to say that there weren’t any, but I didn’t find any.
Even if there were, are we really saying that 1) a company cannot have a political leaning and or 2) it’s okay to call one President “Hitler” because other people did it too? Do we really want to go down that path of thinking used by second graders?
Finally, a little bit more research shows that after the comment, ESPN pulled the Hank Williams opening off of just one game. Williams objected and said he quit. ESPN said they “parted ways.”
Who knows?
The bottom line is that it is tough for me to get excited about two entities willing to sell their principles.
Don’t know of any Espn people calling Bush Hitler. Was trying to remember which celebrity said it and didn’t get canned. And yes Williams was the final straw for me and Monday night football. I stopped watching ESPN at all after the Schilling affair. Stopped watching NFL after Kapernick. As Perry says keep politics out of sports and entertainment. Until then fick ESPN and fuck the NFL. And it does affect those who want to jusy watch a game and enjoy putting the world aside for a bit.
Jeanine Garafolo, David Clennon, Linda Ronstadt, Madonna, MoveOn.org, just do a search for “Bush as Hitler”
Williams may think he beat ESPN and this proves they came groveling back.
I’m not seeing a blatant hypocrisy. In the view of ESPN management, for better or worse, the priority was to avoid damage to the network brand. In Williams’ view, it would have been damage to his own brand if he had submitted to wearing a network muzzle. This is called conflict, and resulted in a parting of ways. Which happens all the time.
Now that the cause of the conflict has been removed, that would be the former occupant of the White House, it shouldn’t be a big deal for ESPN and Williams to cut a new deal, with no-harm no-foul for the prior beef.
It seems to me that sometimes what we need to do is to stop reading hysterical crisis-levels implications into everything, and just play some fucking football.
“It seems to me that sometimes what we need to do is to stop reading hysterical crisis-levels implications into everything, and just play some fucking football.”
If only the dipshits like Crapernick or Costas could figure that out…
I think they did far more damage to their own brand (and bottom line) by firing him.
I am not saying there is hypocrisy in either party’s actions.
I believe both acted in their best interests in joining together again.
If there is a “hypocrisy,” it is somehow in saying “ESPN caved in because of money” and that Williams didn’t do the same. (I would not characterize the re-marriage as “caving” in.)
I truly and honestly believe that this is being blown out of proportion as some sort of “victory” for the right.
Anecdotally, I don’t know a single person who stopped watching MNF because of the Williams intro being gone. Not a one.
I do know of people that stopped watching the NFL because of the Kaepernick kneeling, others kneeling, and the unwillingness of owners to address it. Further complicating the matter was the stance by the NFL that the protest had no effect on viewership but recently the Giants owner said he had gotten emails saying they were done with the NFL and would never watch it again. Someone was not telling the truth there and I think it was the NFL offices.
But as for ESPN and WIlliams, if they want to remarry, have kids and grow old together, let them. They are both acting in their own interests and those interests don’t affect me in the least.
Perry, don’t you think “reading hysterical crisis-levels implications into everything,” is a bit hyperbolic in itself? If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that ESPN has been losing billions from subscriber cancellations. Numerous letters and articles pointing out that their viewers were fed up with ESPN’s growing injection of increasingly leftward politics into their sports broadcasting were ignored by the suits. Like you, those leaving were saying, “Can’t we just play some fucking football?”
Surveys confirmed that fans were not happy with ESPN’s political drift and angry subscribers continued their constant complaints. Sports shows and websites were reporting that DISNEY was pissed at ESPN’s performance and shopping for a buyer. In the face of all that evidence, ESPN’s diehard, PC management blindly denied that mixing leftist PC politics into their broadcasts had anything to do with their losses. They even concocted their own study that showed all sorts of other issues were at fault for their decline. They were so defiantly entrenched in political correctness that it appeared to some financial pundits that they’d rather see the company destroyed than give up their left wing advocacy.
It was with that as a background that I saw William’s rehiring as perhaps a small early admission by ESPN that their political position had to modify. With William’s kicking off every Monday game, it becomes much harder for conservative critics to accuse ESPN of being leftist. Ol’ Hank becomes their political beard so to speak.
So now will you concede that Ol’ Poe may be justified in seeing a Lefty bear wearing a big “PC” on his jersey behind that goal post? BTW, I must have hit a nerve as I don’t recall EVAH seeing the perenially phlegmatic Perry Gaskill using the word “fucking!”
Heh…
ESPN is not losing viewers because of politics or “being leftist.” People are watching sports and entertainment in different ways now. I guess that doesn’t make for a headline good enough for American Thinker.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/05/economist-explains-12
D, if you read comments by a lot of cord cutters they will tell you that ESPN’s politicization weighed in on their decision to cut the cord. The only thing keeping the stream of cord-cuttings from turning into a torrent is the fact that the NFL has nor committed to all-out streaming yet. When that happens, ESPN is toast.
Don’t believe a planted, self-serving article in a notoriously left-wing publication like the Economist. That’s like believing Bill and Hillary Clinton are honest because the New York times says so.
nor=not
I try not to drop the f-bomb too often, PT. It offends Hondo, and scares the dog…
Have you tried walking them both at the same time?