By Ian P.E.
All dressed up and nowhere to go! Leigh, Melissa and I sat in the empty strip-mall parking lot staring at the dark windows of Dirty Cowboys Saloon in Medina County. Wearing cowboy hats, boots, big belt-buckles and enough denim to gain Canadian citizenship, we’d gone out on that journey on a Friday night to document the culture of suburban cowboy-themed bars, but instead found ourselves witnessing the end of the modern country-western renaissance…the same culture that has annoyed me my whole life, I now saw as an animal on the brink of extinction.
Following the lead of an even larger and more ridiculously enormous cowboy dancehall – The Boot Scoot’n Saloon in the Cuyahoga Heights/Stow area, Dirty Cowboys is now closed (at least I assume it is if its doors are not open on a Friday night at 11pm). In fact, 2008 was not kind to country – according to the Nielsen Company, country music was down 14% in total sales from the previous year, the second largest drop by a genre behind (it’s white-bred cousin) Classical Music…the decline of all music sales were down 8.5%, but digital sales were up across the board.
What’s a cowboy to do? We limped down to the nearest clean, suburban, Irish-themed pub to sulk over a couple beers and pondered the eternal question – What now? And it was then, that I saw the future flash before my eyes. The Irish pub was pack with finely tailored, well-heeled black folk!
The historically racist Irish bars were now accepted by the very people who’d been beat-down and thrown to the curb for centuries – merely for entering the doors.
But for the soon to be extinct suburban cowboy-bar culture, a lesson from suburban Irish-bar culture is to be learned – better cater to the Afro-American crowd. And since Pink Eye Magazine is the high standard in journalistic integrity that it is, when we see a culture on the brink of extinction, we’ll do anything we can to help the cause.
- – -
A Five Point Action Plan to Save Country Culture from Extinction
1. Quit Holding Hands & Grind Already!
Line dancing in 2009? Talk about dated. And I’m not saying to rework the wheel here, keep the culture, just take the same lame synchronized steps, but move the lines up on top of each other. All feet need to be inside the partner’s in front of you…man or woman, because we all know those cowboys look pretty gay with the tight jeans and tucked-in shirts and leather boots and all. Sex is the only reason anybody goes to a dance club, gay or straight – bump and grind it, and start smacking someone else’s rear instead of your own!
2. Out With The Denim, & In With The Spandex
Think about how futuristic the cowboy scene would look if they just replaced denim with spandex…it’d be like the post-apocalypse. Cowboy hats and spandex is freaking dangerous! And every girl out there knows that boots look better over spandex than jeans…right? And the dudes would look like goddamn superheroes! On a side note – hot pants, hot pants, hot pants.
3. Mechanical Cock Rides
I once almost saw a full beaver shot of a girl riding the mechanical bull with a thong (I was in the bathroom). Anyways…there’s nothing sexy about a bull – replace them with rooster-boosters.
4. More Bling
Why stop at the belt-buckle? The country music stars really need to start pushing the glitter factor. Load up them jeans (or spandex) with gold puffy paint, dollar signs and rhinestones. Take a lesson from hip-hop culture and style – conspicuous consumerism trickles down to music sales.
5. Stop Crying In Your Beers & Sing About Getting Some
The lyrical content of most country songs is damn near depressing. Nobody wants to be a loser. Yeah, America is full of them, but the American dream is all us poor schleps want to think about after a long day’s work…that and sex. As the hugely popular country song goes:
“That honkey tonk badonkadonk
Keepin’ perfect rhythm, make ya wanna swing along
Got it goin’ on, like Donkey Kong
And whoo-wee, shut my mouth, slap your grandma
There outta be a law, get the Sheriff on the phone
Lord have mercy, how’s she even get them britches on
That honky tonk badonkadonk”
- Trace Adkins
By Ian P.E.
All dressed up and nowhere to go! Leigh, Melissa and I sat in the empty strip-mall parking lot staring at the dark windows of Dirty Cowboys Saloon in Medina County. Wearing cowboy hats, boots, big belt-buckles and enough denim to gain Canadian citizenship, we’d gone out on that journey on a Friday night to document the culture of suburban cowboy-themed bars, but instead found ourselves witnessing the end of the modern country-western renaissance…the same culture that has annoyed me my whole life, I now saw as an animal on the brink of extinction.
Following the lead of an even larger and more ridiculously enormous cowboy dancehall – The Boot Scoot’n Saloon in the Cuyahoga Heights/Stow area, Dirty Cowboys is now closed (at least I assume it is if its doors are not open on a Friday night at 11pm). In fact, 2008 was not kind to country – according to the Nielsen Company, country music was down 14% in total sales from the previous year, the second largest drop by a genre behind (it’s white-bred cousin) Classical Music…the decline of all music sales were down 8.5%, but digital sales were up across the board.
What’s a cowboy to do? We limped down to the nearest clean, suburban, Irish-themed pub to sulk over a couple beers and pondered the eternal question – What now? And it was then, that I saw the future flash before my eyes. The Irish pub was pack with finely tailored, well-heeled black folk!
The historically racist Irish bars were now accepted by the very people who’d been beat-down and thrown to the curb for centuries – merely for entering the doors.
But for the soon to be extinct suburban cowboy-bar culture, a lesson from suburban Irish-bar culture is to be learned – better cater to the Afro-American crowd. And since Pink Eye Magazine is the high standard in journalistic integrity that it is, when we see a culture on the brink of extinction, we’ll do anything we can to help the cause.
- – -
1. Quit Holding Hands & Grind Already!
Line dancing in 2009? Talk about dated. And I’m not saying to rework the wheel here, keep the culture, just take the same lame synchronized steps, but move the lines up on top of each other. All feet need to be inside the partner’s in front of you…man or woman, because we all know those cowboys look pretty gay with the tight jeans and tucked-in shirts and leather boots and all. Sex is the only reason anybody goes to a dance club, gay or straight – bump and grind it, and start smacking someone else’s rear instead of your own!
2. Out With The Denim, & In With The Spandex
Think about how futuristic the cowboy scene would look if they just replaced denim with spandex…it’d be like the post-apocalypse. Cowboy hats and spandex is freaking dangerous! And every girl out there knows that boots look better over spandex than jeans…right? And the dudes would look like goddamn superheroes! On a side note – hot pants, hot pants, hot pants.
3. Mechanical Cock Rides
I once almost saw a full beaver shot of a girl riding the mechanical bull with a thong (I was in the bathroom). Anyways…there’s nothing sexy about a bull – replace them with rooster-boosters.
4. More Bling
Why stop at the belt-buckle? The country music stars really need to start pushing the glitter factor. Load up them jeans (or spandex) with gold puffy paint, dollar signs and rhinestones. Take a lesson from hip-hop culture and style – conspicuous consumerism trickles down to music sales.
5. Stop Crying In Your Beers & Sing About Getting Some
The lyrical content of most country songs is damn near depressing. Nobody wants to be a loser. Yeah, America is full of them, but the American dream is all us poor schleps want to think about after a long day’s work…that and sex. As the hugely popular country song goes:
“That honkey tonk badonkadonk
Keepin’ perfect rhythm, make ya wanna swing along
Got it goin’ on, like Donkey Kong
And whoo-wee, shut my mouth, slap your grandma
There outta be a law, get the Sheriff on the phoneLord have mercy, how’s she even get them britches on
That honky tonk badonkadonk”
- Trace Adkins
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