mallorys_camera | Solvency, Morning Edition and Kenny Chesney's Secret War Wound

In Borger, Texas there was an actual Wells Fargo bank! I waited out the sunrise in a charming, most unlikely but utterly welcome espresso house, counting down till I once again became solvent – on paper, at least.

Then I drove 130 miles through a dust storm to catch up with the circus. (Locals wouldn’t called it a dust storm – locals would call it “the weather.”) Only radio I could pick up between crackles was country western. In a way this was a relief. I’m not a big country western fan, but NPR’s ceaseless Morning Edition prattle – suicide missions in Islamabad (guess what? there’s a new one!), the end of the recession (what, you haven’t noticed?), Obama’s political capital (basement, lingerie!) – seems utterly irrelevant to the landscape I see rushing ahead my windshield while Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh et al dodder so far into the realm of dire apocalyptic pronouncement that I feel like my IQ seeping out of my ears just listening to them.

Some things I do like about country western. I like the music outside the words, the fiddles, the slide guitar, the wah-wah pedal. I like that the songs have narrative. But honestly if I have to hear Carrie Underwood shriek about cowboy Casanovas or Brad Paisley tell that poor guy, “That’s life,” one more time, I’m gonna SCREAM. There's one I actually kind of like -- Kenny Chesney pretending to be Brad Pitt’s brother.

So why did Renee Zellweger ditch Kenny Chesney anyway, huh? Does he have a secret war wound -- ahem! -- down there? Or is he just gay?