"If I Could Have a Beer With Jeezus!"
If that 'hook' and title for a current 'modern country' song leaves you speechless...and in fact more or less freezes all thought processes while you are trying to grapple with the concept ...you are not alone. This singer/songwriter seems also to have difficulty in articulating what, in fact, the answer to this rhetorical question might be. He generally pokes around at what the consequences of such an event might be, but leaves us wondering what in fact would happen?  Would it be, for example, the sort of profound, life changing conversation that so often occurs over a few glasses at a bar?  Would he complain about how traumatized he was in Sunday School as a child?  Would he find a way to raise the fact that the  Cubbies haven't won a world series since 1908?

I raise this to make a general complaint to the radio universe:  I am a big fan of country music.  Real country music is just a subcategory af Americana/fok music, and holds a secure spot in the history of popular music in America.  Remember that Frank Sinatra once called George Jones the second best singer in America.  Merle Haggard is a true artist.  But when your radio selection choices are either fundamentalist christian stations (the so called Christian Music channels being even worse than the talk show versions) and 'Modern Country'  you are really between a rock and a hot place.  People were appalled when Miley Cyrus broke new ground in repulsive entertainment at last year's Video Music Awards, but it doesn't hold a candle to the travesty inflicted on country music by her father Billy Ray Cyrus with his mega hit “Achey Breaky Heart.”  That set the stage for the curent 'modern country'.  This genre has been so refined now that in a major urban area (lets say....Missouri and into Illinois and Indiana) you can flip rapidly among channels and swear you're hearing the same exact song on every channel.  That's because, you essentially are. Its Achey Breaky Heart with different words.  Imagine the relief when occasionally you run across a gem like If I Could Have a Beer with Jeezus!  At  least they're trying! Maybe this guy could pop for the beers and ask Jeezus for help with the verses?

All of this occurred to me while rolling from just east of St. Louis this a.m., across Illinois, Indiana and most of Ohio, and ending up on the northern border of Ohio and Pennsylvania, in Geneva OH.  Other things occurred to me too, but music is one way to relieve the tedium of the road, and contemplating the sorry state of our airwaves occupied a good bit of time.  One of the other things I spent some time contemplating of course was how cities smell.  Non motorcyclists do not usually realize how much of the motorcycling experience is olfactory.  Going though towns in Illinois, for example, I was constantly smelling tacos...I realized at last it was corn tortillas, or rather some sort of corn processing I was detecting.  Indianapolis smells like burned rubber and Columbus OH is a real puzzler.  'Smoked industrial chemical' is the best I can come up with...a combination of the smell you get when you open the package of a throw away plastic raincoat and the aroma of chipotle chilis.

It is hard not to spend some time thinking about regional differences in driving etiquette as well.  If there were a Miss Manners for traffic behavior, it is apparent that there would have to be a franchise in each jurisdiction.  In California, everyone just drives 5 to 7 mph above the speed limit, and adjusts lanes and positions accordingly.  I don't know what other drivers do in Nevada, as I never saw one.  Practical speeds in Utah and Colorado appear to be primarily dictated by geography, since everything is in curves. Kansans obey the speed limit to the letter as far as I can tell, as do Missourans, although the latter do tend to cheat a bit if they are pretty certain no one is around who will mind, or tell.
In Illinois, things are very mannered, and it appears that the basic rule is “trucks go a mite slower than the limit, and cars a mite faster.” Indiana? Forget rules.  Indiana sets impossibly slow speed limits on major freeways, which causes everyone to completely ignore them and do what they like.  There is a reason they located the Speedway there!  Ohio will drive you crazy!  They must have a network of information about where their highway patrol is on any given day.  When they are present, they will pull people over for going 72 in a 70 mph zone, and everyone drives the speed limit as a result.  That is unusual, however, as the two officers assigned to that duty can't be everywhere at once, and they appear to like hanging around together on the same highway.  On all other highways, it is dog eat dog and fend for yourself!  The only rule I could infer is that if there are three lanes (common) the middle lane is for the slow traffic.  The left lane is for the bold ones who think the slow lane is for wusses.  And the right hand lane is for the free-for-all crazies who meander about seeking any and every opportunity to go faster than anyone else in the neighborhood.

Since I appear to be in an Andie Rooney mood tonight, what else can I grouse about?  Well, its not really a grouse, but I wonder if the average person, who does not spend a lot of time crossing back and forth across the country, has any idea of the magnitude of the freight traffic on our interstate highways?!  Except in urban centers, where the major highways served primarily as commute corridors, I would guess that as much as 50 to 60% of the traffic on the interstate system consists of semi tractor/trailer rigs.  It might be more.  I don't know if this is a new phenomenon, or whether I just never noticed in before.  Particularly on the long east west pipelines for freight, I 10, I 40, I 70 and I 80—each of which I have traveled extensively in the last four years-- the semi-tractor trailer's are the dominant species.  I wonder if computer technology and the ease of dispatching and controlling freight has led to an increase in the use of freight trucks rather than trains?  I raise this issue not in complaint – I like my LLBean order to get to me as quickly as anyone---but as a question.  When we run out of fuel, what will replace these leviathans of the road?  If you figure it out, lets form an investment club and buy stock in whatever that technology will be.  Of course it has to be solar, but what will it look like?  Are solar semi-tractors feasible, or will it have to be back to a gigantic new network of trains fed and relieved by local electric shuttles?

Final observation...not really final final, but final for tonight, and maybe for a while, as tomorrow I hole up with cousin Pat and hubby Louis for some partying as only those in the north woods know how:  the obesity epidemic in this country is apalling.  I admit, I'm only encountering people at truck stops, gas stations and inexpensive family restaurants, and this may be selecting out those more habituated to fast foods.  But still, everywhere you look people are extremely over weight—particularly 20 and 30 year old women, but also many men in that age group.  The old guys who have given up the fight, or who never even gave it a passing thought are still around, and always have been.  But I am talking about a whole wave of young people –20 to 40s—who are just grossly unhealthy.  Very sad.  Of course, I never even think about how skinny it makes me look in comparison.  But, forget the diet! We have more important, national issues to think about.  Like what social atrocity will the Cyrus clan inflict on us next?