Big Bucks

I know that my public image is one of a hard-rockin' party animal, living life surrounded by screaming guitars, lasers bouncing off disco balls, and mornings spent listening to bass drum echos as my ears slowly recover from mega-decibel sandblasting. And while it's true that I did once attend three Blue Öyster Cult concerts in three days, traveling over 1200 miles to do so, there is another side to my musical personality.

My most memorable BÖC-related experiences include being mistaken for a drug dealer at a show in Kansas City (where no less than a dozen whacked-out stoners asked me to fix them up), being pulled over on my motorcycle from the crime of having the BÖC symbol (upside-down question mark thingy) applied in reflective tape on the back of my helmet, and standing in the very front row at a gig where I was close enough to see Eric Bloom's bloodshot eyes behind his mysterious sunglasses. (I couldn't hear anything for a full week after that one.)

But long before I became a slave to Buck Dharma's brain-melting reaper rock, I was influenced by another great American Buck -- Buck Owens. As a youth, I watched Hee Haw religiously, and could never get enough of "Pickin' and Grinnin'". In fact, I probably owe much of my quick wit and dynamite sense of humor to those laugh-filled mixtures of classic jokes and flaming hot banjo.

So it was a real treat yesterday when I was driving to work and heard Rick Crandall play a Buck Owens song on the Breakfast Club radio show on KEZW. I was tapping my toes with the beat and singing loud enough to frighten the roadside prairie dogs, and thoroughly enjoyed a pre-work trip down the cornrows of memory lane. The problem was, I couldn't get the dang song out of my head the entire day. I even heard it playing in my head as the soundtrack for the video I was editing, and trust me; Buck Owens music and spacecraft parts tests make strange bedfellows, indeed.

But I'm not the type of fellow who hoards his pleasures. I'll take this opportunity to share the song with you as well. Enjoy it, my friends, and have a great day!