a fruitless trip into the heart of fan fair

I loathe modern country music. This week's CMA Music Festival, with its glorification of tone deafness and mind-numbing lyrics, could serve as my ideal hell. One would therefore expect me to avoid it like the plague that it is.

One must have forgotten how much I enjoy the talking of smack.

Having all these grossly overpaid country "artists" gathered in one place is simply too much of an opportunity to pass up, and so it was that I slipped on my heckling pants and headed to up to downtown Nashville for an afternoon of obnoxious musical criticism.

However, the lines were far too long, and my resolve waned and then died a slow and ugly death as I stood there behind Edgar and Maude Sixpack from Hoboscrotum, Oklahoma in their matching rhinestone encrusted denim outfits accentuated by fanny packs so proudly earned through Marlboro miles.

Sadly, the only line short enough to accommodate my impatience was the one to get your picture taken with the free-floating and disembodied beard of Charlie Daniels:

But even then the bastard wouldn't shut up long enough for me to get a word in.