Tag: Cody Johnson

May 5, 2026 – ‘Til You Can’t

May 5, 2026 /

This is the second time this YouTube video has made an appearance on AltF4. If you want to reference the first time see here. Often on Fridays I have caught up with all of my podcasts for the week and I like to crank up some music while I finish off the work day. It often starts off angry with bands like System of the Down, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, Rage Against the Machine. After I get that all out of my system, I start to mellow out to songs that are much more sentimental.

I keep coming back to this song because I identify so strongly with the issues, it almost hurts. All week long, I have been procrastinating hole filling and touch up paint because I was planning on tackling it on the weekend. I am doing this as a ‘show ready’ mechanism because as we have taken stuff off the walls and packed all the anchors and hangers remained. When everything was on the wall, it looked fine but all the holes and adhesives remained.

On Saturday morning, my Dad called me and said that he had tickets to the OSU baseball game. I declined because I was planning on filling holes and painting and I hadn’t done anything all week. Realistically, I could have spent a couple of hours working and then went to the baseball game. But, then I thought about all the wasted evenings that I had not used and the what if’s about a potential house showing.

It would be one thing if this was the only time I had ever done this. I remember that we drew deer tags in 2019 when I wasn’t working and I thought I was going to go all season, a first for me. But, then we got audited and I felt guilty about spending money when I didn’t have an income and we owed an additional $10,000. So, I didn’t go because I needed to ‘support the audit effort’.

I think about my son’s 1969 Mercury Cougar. It was my idea to buy a car and work on it. But, we couldn’t get on the same plane about how to go about it. I wanted to spend Saturdays and he wanted to start work at 10PM, my bedtime. I wanted him to put together a plan about how he would like to go about it and he wanted to just take parts off. So, I have hardly helped him a lick.

There is definitely an advantage to being a planner. It has served me well in a lot of the aspects in my life. But, like all personalities it is not all good. It ruins the spontaneity of things. Part of why I coasted all the evenings was that I have taken to sitting down with my wife after dinner. She watches whatever and I read or scroll through the news and blogs that I follow. I read somewhere that couples that are together regardless of whether they are doing the same activities have stronger relationships.

Make no mistake I could probably work from wakeup to bedtime. I always have things the I want to do or need to do. Even the other night I was dozing off to sleep and I was thinking, I should get that pork roast out of the freezer before I fall asleep but I was too tired to move. Guess what didn’t happen? Dinner preparation for the next night and then I was scrambling like crazy to get it all ready in a reasonable hour.

Periodically, my wife reminds me that I have a 100 year old, living Grandmother. Then she uses the the guilt trip on me on how she would love to have living grandparents still. And then, every couple of times I make arrangements to take her out to dinner and spend time with her.

Maybe you are thinking that I am douche or something but this is the way that it was supposed to be. Her end of life plan was to spend her last years at an assisted living facility. Not necessarily to be ignored, but because she is going to handle things the way that she feels is best. For the record, I don’t think that I am completely ignoring her but I will admit that I could do a better job at scheduling time.

I can’t tell you the huge disparity between what my family expects and what my wife’s does. For instance, when my sister in law got married 30 years ago, my in-laws actually went to the hotel to check on them while they were on the their honeymoon. Talk about boundary issues. That is just one example of many times where I couldn’t condone family closeness.

End Your Programming Routine: I know that we don’t live forever. That day is coming for my Grandmother and my Father sooner than I wish to think about. I also know that I could do better and living in the moment. I don’t really know how to and it is a struggle everyday. So, I listen to this song over and over to remind myself that sometimes I need to skip the paining and go to the baseball game.

May 21, 2025 – Country V. Country

May 21, 2025 /

Staying with the theme of keeping it light, I am talking about country music today. One thing that turns me off today is the phenomenon that I call ‘Bro Country’. This is the kind of music that splits the country/popular line. If you ask me, the lyrics are kind of deep country but the delivery (and the singers are not).

My theory is that popular music (Top 40) left the main stream. It is now primarily Hip Hop, Rap and R&B. So naturally, something is going to fill the void. That is country has evolved from it’s traditional roots into popular music. Artist such as Shaboozy and Carrie Underwood live on both charts. Former country artists like Taylor Swift and Leanne Rhimes previously were on both sides.

Blake Shelton is one of those that fits into that category. I want to like the guy because the lyrics appeal to my redneck side. But there is something about the guy that I just cannot quite trust. Maybe it was his humiliation of Miranda Lambert into the arms of Gwen Stefani. It is like he literally left country to go pop. If you are not familiar with Shelton’s work, watch below.

I was introduced to Chris LeDoux in my mid teens. It was definitely his shout out and subsequent song with Garth Brooks that brought Chris into the spotlight. Chris was the real deal, 1979 NFR Bare Back champion. When he sung about Rodeo, you knew it from living it. Unfortunately, Chris died in 2003 from the same liver affliction that killed Walter Peyton, basically no warning.

Speaking of Garth Brooks, not every singer has been there and done that. I think that the difference is that they didn’t try to have an image that they had. Don’t get me wrong, I am not necessarily saying that the likes of Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton and Luke Combs are bad in their own right. But it seems like legitimacy is lacking.

Nepotism runs deep in country music. Go all the way back to Hank Williams Jr in the late 1970s. He of course has one of the seminal works of outlaw country, “Country Boy Can Survive”. But, largely his body of work were covers of his dad’s work. While he is still active in music he has largely been semi-retired since the early 1980s. He spends his time in Montana for the purposes of hunting and fishing. I would say that he hasn’t really been there, done that but he sure lives like a country boy.

Chris LeDoux’s son Ned has continued nearly immediately after Chris’s death. I seen both of them in concert and Ned sounds and looks like a spitting image. It looks like Ned is finally breaking out of his father’s shadow. Not that it is a bad one but I hate to see an artist’s entire schtick on the laurels of somebody else.

When I really started getting into country music, Bro Country really had not become a thing. While I love Alan Jackson, I think that he and Kenney Chesney started the transition with their Jimmy Buffet leaning island songs. While I regret that this happened, Chesney has some really good songs too. So we put up with it until it is too late and a new sound and topics had already been accepted. This of course rapidly spun new artists and groups and Bro Country began.

Not all is lost though. I was watching the ACM music awards with my wife the other night and I saw a new artist named Cody Johnson. While I watched him perform, he reminded me so much of Garth Brooks in his body movements. So, I looked him up and low and behold he was also a bull rider. As I was listening to this song while writing this, I was starting to get a little choked up. Music should connect with the soul.

End Your Programming Routine: I guess this is what is good about America. People can choose what they like. I largely stopped listening to the radio because I don’t like most of the music anymore. It’s not that I don’t like all the newer songs but some of them should have some steel guitar in them, thanks Cody Johnson.