11 p.m.

• Even though the guy's a commie, I like Mellencamp's older work: "Check it Out," "Authority Song," "Jack and Diane," all that shit. I began to get disinterested in his stuff around the early- to mid-'90s, although some of this stuff is more than listenable for me. "Our Country" isn't one of those songs.

"Our Country," the John Mellencamp song that's currently running in a television commercial for Chevy Trucks, sounds like a Hallmark card to America - on the anthemic choruses, at least. But the middle stanzas question whether his country lives up to its democratic ideals.

 

In that sense, the song adroitly represents the heartland rocker's 19th studio album, "Freedom Road," which celebrates the American dream while pointing out darkening clouds on its political and social landscape.

 

"Jim Crow," a duet with Joan Baez, deals with modern bigotry, while "Heaven Is a Lonely Place" pricks religious narrow-mindedness. The title song, one of eight featuring harmonies by vocal quartet Little Big Town, suggests that with liberty comes responsibility and the potential for abuse. The angriest cut refers to U.S. President George W. Bush in its title, "Rodeo Clown," and describes the United States as "an arrogant nation" with "blood on her face."

 

As usual, Mellencamp wraps his commentary in moody heartland rock, played with spare intensity by his longtime band and given plenty of bite by the twin guitars of Andy York and Mike Wanchic. Like classic Mellencamp tunes "Pink Houses" and "Rain on the Scarecrow," "Freedom Road" thrusts a rocking fist in the air while putting his fellow citizens on alert about problems bedevilling their country.

There's room enough here

For science to live

And there's room enough here

For religion to forgive

And try to understand

The other people of this world

This is our country

 

That poverty could be

Just another ugly thing

And bigotry could be

Seen only as obscene

And the ones that run this land

Will help the poor and common man

This is our country

5 p.m.

• I don't know what's funner -- listening to the Beast sing or reading the comments to this piece of video. Whenever this gets played, I do one of two things: put my hand over my heart and look at a nearby Old Glory, or put my head down in a moment of thought/meditation out of respect for those that helped make this United States of America. The latter is usually done if there is no flag to be seen. I NEVER sing. Here are some of the funnier comments.

I predict that all of the comments below will reveal/confirm 2 things.... 1) Liberals read the Druge Report... 2) Liberals have no sense of humor and can't take a joke when the shoe's on the other foot... oh yeah and a 3rd thing... BILL CLINTON IS A SEX OFFENDER!!

She needs Bill to grab, bite and push her around... then she'll sing it any way her wants her to...

She can't carry a tune OR the south.

she supports zionism just like senator mccain does. they are politicians to make money, not to help people.

Reich-wing GOPigs are not even familiar with this song. GOPigs are anti-American Nazi-loving scum. Fact.

She messes up the words. Seriously "Oh say does that star spangled"...not 'oh say does our star spangled'. Being a Military individual myself I can't believe that someone who wants to be president can't even get our countries anthem right....typical weak Democrat. I suppose next she's going to raise our tixes?..LOL

Download this before she has it removed!!!

How weak..whoever has this up is taking down negative posts!! Nice going breitbart you pud!!! Typical media tampering we republicans are used to!!

10:30 a.m.

• Someone in a thread at the other place was talking about working in the restaurant business and the asshole customers who unnecessarily rag on the help just for a power trip. This got me the thinking: I’m a pretty good restaurant customer. All I want is a booth, a menu, a correct order and a refill or two. Other than that, leave me alone. I don’t want any small talk. I don’t care to know how you’re doing. I don’t want to tell you how I am – what if I truly decide to tell you how I’m doing? Will you really care? What if my dog died, my mother was just diagnosed with cancer and I lost my job to somebody named Pedro down south because he’ll work for $1/hour? What are you going to do for me besides tell me what the soup of the day is? Gag I hate small talk. Oh, yeah. Upon reading this topic I got the thinking to the times when I was the asshole customer, and I came up with four incidents.

Incident 1: The Middletown, Ohio, Applebee’s. The better half and I were waiting for about 10 minutes for someone to take our order. No problem, the place was busy. We then waited about a half-hour for our food. No problem, the place was busy. There was a problem, however, when Mrs. kkk tried to eat her gyro/pita/whatever it was. The tortilla wrapped around her food was a bit, shall we say, stiff. It was so hard that neither of us could get the toothpick that was lodged in it out. This was brought to the attention of the waitress, who in turn brought it to the attention of the manager who in turn gave us a free meal and dessert. During the whole ordeal neither of us complained and we gave the waitress a nice tip due to our free food.

Incident 2: The same place on the very next trip. I forget what exactly happened to the better half’s order, but they forgot to put any sauce at all on my chicken wings. Once again, no problems.

These two incidents above were times when I had to complain about the food. I wasn't bitching about the service. When you can't get a toothpick out of your sandwich you HAVE to say something. And then there are the two experiences below.

Incident 3: The Middletown, Ohio, Steak & Shake. I never cared for this place, but the better half liked its hamburgers (or was it milkshakes?). Well one time we got waited on by this person who couldn’t have been much older than 18. Now he had this lackadaisical I-don’t-want-to-be-here attitude, which is fine by me considering I have probably looked this way to a customer or two during my dead-end job days. However, when he took our order without even writing anything down, I began to get a little annoyed. I try not to be a picky eater, but I cannot eat onions. They make me sick. Well anyway, I ordered a burger without this wretched topping along with a side order (I can’t remember what it was) that also came with onions. As this kid began to walk away I asked him if he should be writing our order down. He said no that it was “all up here” and pointed to his head. It may have been “all up here” while he was at our table, but it must have been dropped by the time he went to place our order. Neither item I ordered was correct, and I pointed this out. He then acted like I didn’t tell him that I didn’t want onions on any of my food, to which I replied, “Well maybe if you would have written my order down you would have remembered.” What did I do in retaliation? I didn’t leave a tip. That’s all.

Incident 4: The Greensburg, Pa., T.G.I.F. I don’t like Friday’s, which is odd because all these cookie-cutter chain restaurants are the same. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. However, Mrs. kkk wanted to go here one day so I figured what the heck. Our waiter was a real piece of work. Not only did he so not want to be at work on that Sunday afternoon, but also he especially didn’t want to be at our table. I can’t remember how long we waited to order our food, to get our food, to get a refill and to get our check, but I knew it had to be a long time. How do I know this? The people sitting around us were also complaining about the service of this guy. In fact, during our wait for the check, this couple was seated across from us and began complaining about when someone was going to take their order. I can sympathize with a food-service employee when one customer wants to be waited on as if they were the president, but when you have an entire section of patrons waiting for things like, say, the food or the bill, then I think the onus is on the employee and not the customer. What did I do? I left a $0.02 tip on the credit slip with something like, “Find another job because you’re no good at this one.”

There you go. Four bad restaurant service stories in nearly 31 years of living. Not a bad track record if I do say so myself. There may have been other incidents, but I can’t think of them now so they probably weren’t all that big a deal anyway. I should state for the record that I have been an asshole customer in other endeavors, such as the time I told a grocery store bagboy to die of cancer, but that’s another industry for another time.