just what i needed

much like UCLA, my basketball team was run right out of the building (79-22 for all you scorekeepers out there), and i've been way down in the dumps ever since. we got out-scored (obviously), out-rebounded, out-hustled and out-played in all aspects of the game. it was UGLY. i won't lie. ryan, gina and my wife were all in attendance, and all they could do was laugh. and look away.

so, to cheer myself up, i did what i always do to cheer myself up - cue the music - "doo doo, doo doo, doo doo, i guess you're just what i needed" - and went to circuit city (ok, i really went to best buy, but they don't have a cars' jingle) to pick up some new records.

i started my all-out shopping spree with rhett miller's new album, the believer, and it was the first one i unwrapped (damn, it takes a long time) and listened to when i got home. don't get me wrong, i love the old 97's, always have and always will, but the album wasn't exactly what i needed to hear after getting my face kicked in by a bunch of 35-year-old men. the songs sound like a man dying to get his songs played on elevators. here's a sample lyric for ya - "i've been living on the memory of a dream i once had/you gave me the reason for feeling like i do/you gave me the reason /i'd like to thank you." it's catchy, but i felt like i was a gayboy when i was singing along. and what's he wearing on the cover, anyway?

my next album was josh rouse's brand new, subtitulo, a record he wrote after packing up his things and moving from nashville all the way to spain. again, it wasn't really what i needed to hear after getting dunked over and air-balling several three-point attempts. it's good, but it sounds like a man who's in love, sitting on a beach in europe, writing songs on his acoustic guitar. here's an idea of what i'm talking about - "often times i sit and wonder/as i gaze out over yonder/i'm so crazy about you, so crazy and it's true /i think you're wonderful, don't change." blah, blah, blah. shoot me in the head.

why am i suddenly drawn to 30-something, senstitive, artsy-fartsy singer/songwriters, anyway?

the last album i bought, straight to hell, put my fears that i was going soft to rest. a country album with a parental advisory warning, now that's what i'm talking about! hank iii, the grandson of country legend hank williams and the son of mr. monday nite football himself, is a self-proclaimed country outlaw and one helluva badass. the kind of guy that wouldn't let a team of graying old men walk all over him. he'd beat em down, and kick em in the teeth, all while drinking, drugging and getting lapdances from topless women.

the album's not half-bad either. highlights include "satan is real/straight to hell," "the pills i took," and, of course, "dick in dixie," in which he proclaims - "so i'm here to put the 'd**k' in dixie/and the 'c**t' back in country/cause the kind of country i hear now days/is a bunch of fuckin' shit to me/they say that i'm ill-mannered/that i'm gonna self-destruct/but if you know what i'm thinkin'/you'll know that pop country really sucks."

now that's just what i needed.