UYI

"And that is when the women of The View...became terrorists."--Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, after Michelle Obama came on the show and fist bumped Elisabeth and everyone else.

So very recently, Sirius XM did their own list of what they claim to be the 1000 greatest country songs of all time. Here's the problem: While there are a LOT of great songs on this list, there are also some truly out of place, WTF? type choices--modern songs that feel unworthy, and in some cases even songs by classic artists that feel unrepresentative of their work. And the placements of these songs leaves you wondering if half of it was put together by legitimate country music journalists and historians, and the other half by monkeys who suffer from both Tourettes Syndrome and a raging crack addiction. But hey, don't take my word for it (in large part because--full disclosure--there are many, MANY songs on this list that I have yet to listen to myself--part of the trouble of only truly discovering genre a few years ago). Take the word of the fine folks at Country Universe, who were bewildered enough by the results of this list to dissect it one by one, offering their own, often hilarious commentary. These are the same people who brought us the 100 Greatest Women list I shared here throughout much of last year, so you know that they know what they're talking about here. But first, if you're interested, here is the full list itself, via Google spreadsheet, as for some weird reason, Sirius XM has not made the list available on their website (I didn't make this, BTW--I would've been MUCH better at capitalizing everything): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1atVTI4gSNdLnkyuMkwsBVg-F2xPSKHHhIgUOL-noVbk/edit#gid=0 It should also be noted that the research methods behind this list were never revealed, which makes this list even MORE worthless overall. Nonetheless, I'm here to see how everyone at CU reacted to the choices here, especially because, like I said, the way a lot of these songs were placed is truly fascinating to me. You'll soon discover why. Here we go: #1000: Doug Supernaw--"I Don’t Call Him Daddy” #999: Patty Loveless--"Timber, I'm Falling in Love" #998: Keith Anderson--"Pickin' Wildflowers" #997: David Lee Murphy--"Party Crowd" #996: Brantley Gilbert--"One Hell of an Amen" #995: Lefty Frizzell--"I Never Go Around Mirrors" #994: George Strait--"It Ain't Cool to be Crazy About You" #993: Eric Church--"Give Me Back My Hometown" #992: Porter Wagoner--"The Cold Hard Facts of Life" #991: Rodney Atkins--"Cleaning This Gun (Come On In Boy)" http://www.countryuniverse.net/2019/05/30/a-country-music-conversation-sirius-top-1000-country-songs-of-all-time-1000-991/ #990: Johnny Lee--"Pickin' Up Strangers" #989: Bill Anderson--"Po' Folks" #988: Hunter Hayes--"I Want Crazy" #987: Conway Twitty--"I'd Just Love to Lay You Down" #986: Garth Brooks--"Papa Loved Mama" #985: Toby Keith--"Who's Your Daddy?" #984: Mel Tillis and the Statesiders--"Stomp Them Grapes" #983: Emerson Drive--"I Should Be Sleeping" #982: Eddy Raven--"I Got Mexico" #981: George Strait--"Living and Living Well" http://www.countryuniverse.net/2019/06/04/a-country-music-conversation-sirius-top-1000-country-songs-of-all-time-990-981/ #980: George Jones & Tammy Wynette--"Two Story House" #979: Alan Jackson--"I'll Go On Loving You" #978: Gary Allan--"Tough Little Boys" #977: Faron Young--“Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young” #976: Tracy Lawrence--“If the World Had a Front Porch” #975: Martina McBride--“This One’s For the Girls” #974: Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton--“The Last Thing On My Mind” #973: George Strait--“Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind” #972: John Conlee--"Common Man" #971: Tom T. Hall--"Homecoming" http://www.countryuniverse.net/2019/06/09/a-country-music-conversation-sirius-top-1000-country-songs-of-all-time-980-971/ #970: Keith Urban--"I Told You So" #969: Garth Brooks--“To Make You Feel My Love” #968: Taylor Swift--"Mine" #967: Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash--“If I Were a Carpenter” #966: Reba McEntire--“Why Haven’t I Heard From You” #965: Diamond Rio--"One More Day" #964: Webb Pierce--"I Ain't Never" #963: Randy Travis--"He Walked On Water" #962: Eric Paslay--"Friday Night" #961: Dwight Yoakam--"Little Sister" http://www.countryuniverse.net/2019/06/18/a-country-music-conversation-sirius-top-1000-country-songs-of-all-time-970-961/ More to come as they're posted! Enjoy! 🙂

Jesus Christ. Then again, it WAS Jill, but even for her...yikes. No, I take that back. She was behind the story of Eden being raped by her gynecologist on Santa Barbara. Never mind. (And just two years later, Megan McTavish was in the charge of the story on AMC where their young virginal lesbian character--Bianca Montgomery, of course--was brutally raped and impregnated, so this isn't exactly something foreign to her, either.)

Yeah, Sarah and Amber wanted to quit and did, but JFP more or less pushed them both to leave earlier than they wanted, right? At least in Amber's case. I seem to remember something about Sarah being asked to stay a bit past her original contract to wrap up Carly's story, and that there were several shouting matches between her and JFP before she left (although I guess not enough that she wasn't willing to return as Claudia in 2008).

Funny, I can think of someone who once said that herself: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/04/taylor-swift-cover-story

Technically, she did apologize for butting into the rant Nicki Minaj went on in 2015 about the VMAs and the advantage she felt white women have over black women, but the hole she dug for herself on Twitter was so big--and she was so clearly in the wrong, whether or not Nicki was indirectly talking about her, she hadn't been tagged or addressed directly and she STILL responded like she had been--that I suppose it could be looked at as necessary PR damage control. There's a possibility she WASN'T sorry (personally I think she was, even if it wasn't necessarily for the right reasons), but she had been backed into a corner that she couldn't escape without an apology. She also recently acknowledged regret for saying on Ellen's show in 2008 that Joe Jonas had broken up with her on the phone in less than 30 seconds, which I guess sort of counts as an apology (not that I care much about that one, but still).

I will say that I love the irony of her including a trailer park in one of her videos way AFTER she left country music! (And I'm a huge fan of country music, so I don't mean that in a derogatory way at all--I hate the stereotypes surrounding the genre and its fans. But even at her countriest, she still largely stood out in terms of her image in that genre--she wasn't Gretchen Wilson or Miranda Lambert--hell, Carrie Underwood isn't, either, but she projects the tried and true image of a stereotypical "country lady"--someone like Faith Hill, for example.)

What I'm most looking forward to is whether or not she will have a song with the Dixie Chicks, which has been rumored since a painting of them appeared in the video for "ME!" ("there's a lot of cool chicks out there"). If she uses the opportunity to not only send a single to country radio again, but also uses her clout, and her power, to force many of these stations to play DCX for the first time since 2003...well, that's a plan I can get behind 100 percent. (There ARE still country stations that play them--it was a de facto ban, not an official one--but many to this day still won't touch their songs at all.)

Oh totally, I just swear I remember a quote from Amber along those lines. I just wish I knew where I could find it.

Amber Tamblyn last aired on GH on July 11th, 2001. Emily was gone throughout the year of 2002. I seem to remember that after NL was cast as Emily, Amber gave an interview where she was quoted about being less than pleased that the show had hired another actress to play Emily, rather than bring her back for short visits here and there. This was only a year or so before she found success with Joan of Arcadia and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, so she might not have been so concerned with that later on (obviously), but in a weird roundabout way, it DID show that she was proud of the character and the show, and was willing to return if she could. I could definitely see why they brought back Emily full time with another actress if AT wasn't willing to do that, but still.

Thank you. I will admit that I sometimes am not AS active as I should be (or perhaps always motivated to look in the best/most places--I probably do need to expand certain aspects of my search a bit more), and because my particular field is both competitive/full of short-term work (not going into detail here for privacy reasons), that makes things even MORE complicated, especially in terms of dating--being in one place for only short amount of time doesn't always leave a good place to build lasting relationships, and being unemployed/at home certainly doesn't make it easy, either! It's especially hard because my two, much younger siblings (by 6/8 years, respectively) are both in relationships/working, which makes me feel VERY emotionally stunted sometimes. And I'm not comfortable with the idea of first having sex with either a friend/friend of a friend just for the hell of it, or paying for it, either (I do notice men usually get that suggestion more than women--obviously, people should do what they want, but I wouldn't feel right/comfortable doing that--if anything, I should a man to pay ME! lol). Really, at this point I'm trying just to accept that my past is what it is, I can't do anything to change it, but I CAN do things to make my life better in the future. And even though there are guys who might be turned off by me and my lack of relationship/dating/sex experience, and make judgments about me that aren't fair or true, I shouldn't let that stop me. Easier said than done, I guess, but I'm trying to keep myself in that mindset. It's just really hard, sometimes. 🙂 (Also, I now have more applications out at once than I have recently, which makes me feel less attached to one job--well, mostly. Right now they're still more short-term than I'd like, but I'm qualified and I know one of them might always led to the permanent job I really need/want.)

Damn, and I'm only two hours south of Baltimore! As far as these particular women go, the only names here I'm actually familiar with are Lauren Duski and Clare Dunn, and I only know a few songs by those two. There are still several newer female artists whose work I need to check out overall, so I'd be open to seeing any of them. I know that's not much, but still. 🙂

Update: Still a virgin, still single, still unemployed (I got three interviews for a job recently but didn't get it--and there was a few months before that where I wasn't even getting any responses at all), still living at home and hoping that my luck will finally change someday. I know I shouldn't, but I feel so guilty sometimes. Why couldn't I be more normal (whatever that means) and be more able to date earlier on and deal with job stuff better? Don't get me wrong, I know I can't change my past, but at 30 (and I feel selfish knowing that others even older than me are in similar spots, and yet here I am ranting about myself--I apologize for that), it feels so hard to be in this kind of situation. Only one boyfriend briefly when I was 24-25, that was mostly long distance, who I didn't sleep with the first chance I had, in part because I wasn't on the pill yet (although he had condoms, thank God), and partly because I was nervous. And yet I'll look up posts about this topic elsewhere (not here) and I'll see all these guys who talk about what a deal breaker a situation like mine is, how emotionally stunted a woman my age must be (and sometimes I DO feel that way, a little), or the automatic assumption that a woman like must be gay or asexual--both of which are obviously perfectly fine, but I know for sure aren't true for me. (And I know that guys at my age like this can get even MORE crap, too, so I don't want to minimize that, either.) *sigh* I just needed to vent a little. Like I said here a few months ago, I really DID feel better after I posted here about this, and I have Rebecca Traister's book All the Single Ladies now too, which is amazing and talks some about this issue, but I've had a very difficult week and I needed to say something here again. 😢 I know I'll probably be fine again soon, but there is so much judgment about this topic (and I know the lack of relationships might be even MORE of a deal breaker for guys than the sex part, which doesn't help, either). I know there are plenty of people who will be sympathetic and supportive, but when I see other people saying they'd kill themselves if they were virgins at 30, it's not exactly easy to shake off (I don't, for the record, but there was someone on one board who more or less SHUDDERED at the idea). P.S.: Living at home is definitely not the worst thing ever, either. My mom and I very close. But I don't want to be here forever, you know? 🙂