(This is the tweaked version of my Thursday 06/24 post, which I deleted, to pluck those nasty typos, mostly. But also a few other changes.) For my debut as a regular, a garrulosity incited by video of Big&Rich's "Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy." Hark ye! At the very dawn of country video, midgets appeared. (Aye, on TNN's family value theme park,long before MTV's l'il sister CMT first rolled out of her cabbage leaf.) In the midst of a misty boardwalk, country Osmonds were faced with a malevolent Munchkin, in hideous homage to TROUBLE IN TINYTOWN. Donnyless, Mariefree, they went more than a little bit country, and collectively kicked the (Mormon for decaffeinated fudge)out of (a dummy, I hope)(Come to think of it, when they then flogged it with a hitching post, must've been to reassure us that it *was* a dummy!) The very best current cowboy midget usage, however, is actually in D12's "My Band," or whatever it's called. The fattest D12er is trying to come up with a solo project that will deliver him from "lead singer" Em's shadow, so he waddles onstage, meaning to lasso an audience gal, and, crucially, he's got this *cowboy midget sidekick,* whose own valiant striving bring both comic relief and further sympathy to Fatboy's own stash. C.m.'s a veritable Sancho Panza pancake soldier (They both are,really.But D12's tryin' to feel his Quixote coyote oats vs.Em's ill windmill.) Yet Sanchette's the stuntbaby punchline clincher to what I was already suspecting. Why, it's a leetle poke at Em's D-trot non-rival, Kid Rock.(See like D12er's cowboy midget is like K.R.'s Joe C.[R.I.P].)Yeah, cos Kee-ud's defensive good ol' boy water-treading has been getting as tired as Cowfatboy's rope. Mind you, he and sideorder do get the aforementioned audience gal, who looks deelited to be in their loops. Just like Kid Rut got the country-therefore-therefore-mainly-female-consumer-hits-of-migraine-sunshine hit duet with Sheryl C.(Same audience who made Gretchen Wilson their first first-single female chartoppa in a hen's tooth, when the fetchin' one inserted exactly one "Redneck *Woman*," Tanya Tucker, in an otherwise male and entirely predictable pantheon, def. including Kidney Stone's-in-my-passway hissef.)Gretchen's the exception who rules, like her John always knowed, that's why he's Rich. So, back and forth to Big & Rich, but they put me on a deeetour: All the country rap 'llowed on the radio so has been presented, basically, as novelty-therefore-comedy. Although Toby's "How Do You Like Me Now?" was ultimately convincing revenge-as-mission-in-lifestyle. (So that I had to laugh in amazement, but still laugh/though not change the channel, which o course was the calestimated tradeoff.)His later redwhite&bluetude proved in character, cunning grudgestunts and all, but no mo rapneack flow. Will there be a sustained followup, an uncut crop of true country neo-G thang one day? Bubba Sparxxx, Haystak, Buck 65,David Banner, all light the verge like Toby. Butt young guns whiskey licorice twist into self-fascinatin' shape of they own 'branes: "look at that, folks, lookamee," on novelTVee for Victory one more radioplaytime. The grandaddy of country rap per se is prob early 70s AM Top 40's Jim Stafford, growlin' 'bout "Don't come back to Hattie's shack," and what's hangin' on her smokehouse wall. But even on that one he had to smoke some of his Gipetto-novelty pass of "Spiders And Snakes" and "Wildwood Weed," so there's yer precedent right off. Comedy boys Big & Rich don't even need G.('less it's for Gretchen); they're unsettlers already.No, not because of their upright littleperson (he's a dwarf, as usual in vid: "midget" is just a slur-blur generality of mine, mkay?). No, the t-bone t-zone penumbrates 'round this blowup doll (representing "female"), which keeps falling into the rapper's lap.(Be he Big or Rich, it's all true.) They're in the back seat, but going over the Tallahatchee Bridge in noon traffic, so not too romantic. And the rapper keeps having to put the dark red pageboy wig back on her baldpate, while raising her from the other headspace one more time, plus he's gotta keep on lip-synching. (Always a good motto, but still.) The creepy part, though, is that I swear a real-in-the-sense-of-live actress is an edited-in stand-in or rather fall-in for the doll; yes she's a people some of the time. Either way, doll by toll by troll (sorry, little guy, but the doll's creepy's creepin into everything), the rapper's eternally mid-bridge, mid-lip, mid re-re-re-wig, and so am I (Watching commercials is supposed to be the only midshifts I'm working; paying Basic Cable for these just so many Sargasso seizures as *leisure,* not this! It aint right.)The last shot is a big closeup of her/her face. Pretty! (Nice song, too.) It's a doll after all. Whose eyes then *zoom* *zoom.* Oh. Mama. Then of course there is SheDaisy, cruising the painted desert in a van, man, picking up hunks while rhapsodizing re "Love in the passenger seat."(Can such things be, in their native Utah? Must've crossed over to ColoRODo.) "Passenger Seat is tunefully fresh as Mary Hopkin and ABBA and Shania all *used* to be, and it's got a dwarf to boot. Plus Oops SheDaisy's plush Tushwagon is also classic: 1972 AM Top 40 Volkswagen Bus mit Peace Sign mural und Quaaludes.(Ask your Momma.) The foxy Frenchy designated dedicated 'Daisy (sharp-featured brunette under well-set red cap) is ready to go steady in the backmost seat, surrounded by Moroccoan swirls of decor even Brian Jones and William Burroughs might approve. Whole situation reminding me of two girls who kept givng me a ride to school when I was hitching there every day. And even though this was common practice for many in '72, or rather *because* it was so taken for granted, started to bother me that they would just pick up someone with for instance my hrosehair. Finally I mentioned this and strawberry blonde Bonnie says,"Oh, we're prepared!" And shows me how a six-shooter is right near her hand, while remaining discreet under Mary Tyler-looking Sue's driver's seat. So maybe SheDaisy's gotta ditto as they follow hunks on Hondas off road to a carnival nestled in the arroyos and that's where they meet the buff dwarf fire eater. (Speaking of horsehair.) I infer that this scene implies that there's hope for us all, y'all. (Hope for all us guys that is but the 'Daisys need some kinda hope too; everybody does.) Jiminy, Buffer's one punk Panza far as I can see. (SheD's do applaud and then go back to the road with the hunks not him but now they got that afterglow and I figure the little scruff buff was their peak.)Gabba Gabba we acccept you Gabba Gabba Hey!  ¶ 6/29/2004