So I finally got around to reading the Todd Purdum piece and the feces flinging responses of the players in the Politico companion piece that DougJ mentioned earlier, and after finishing it all, this is what the Republican party looks like to me:
Just out of curiosity, how many of you have ever heard of Jesco White?
SGEW
Every time a European sees a video like this, the likelihood of any sort of international cooperation with the U.S.A. drops a bit.
However, according to his wiki, Jesco White owns a Jack Russel terrier.
flukebucket
Godamighty! I thought everybody knew about the Dancin’ Outlaw Jesco White.
A true blue American icon and hero.
Dulcie
Jesco rocks. I was introduced to Jesco and his family by an ex-boyfriend. I actually love his dancing, but I totally agree that the Repubs have more in common with Jesco that they care to admit. Good thing we have you and Doug J to do it for them!
Zifnab
That’s a classy crowd right there.
Litlebritdifrnt
I have absolutely no clue (but then that is me). Although that does look like some places up in the mountains here in NC, you know when you are driving by and there is a big hand-painted “NO TRESPUSSING” (sic) sign nailed to a tree.
Herb
I was exposed to Jesco White a long time ago, thanks to the stoner rock band The Atomic Bitchwax, and later, math-metal geniuses Mastodon. It wasn’t until later that I watched the Dancing Outlaw.
There’s another documentary coming out about the entire White family. The Wild Wonderful Whites or something.
The guys from Jackass are promoting it.
charlied
Hell no I’ve never heard of the guy(?). Does he write for the New Yorker? It seems that I don’t have enough brain cells left to deal with anything more than a two minute clip of Jesco or his family.
LD50
Are these guys from your corner of WV, John?
John Cole
@Herb: Oh, dear.
The actual story about how Jesco got famous is pretty funny.
Dixon
Too weird…just saw ‘Dancing Outlaw” two nights ago.
Weird wild stuff.
Rosali
The repugs remind me of the turkeys going head first into the slaughtering machine.
TimO
Um, is that their front yard that they’re driving on? I guess the grass will grow back. Less mowin’ for the next few months anyway. More time fer drinkin’ and shootin’!
MattM
There’s a new Jesco documentary coming out from the producers of Jackass.
http://www.jackassworld.com/pages/wildwhites
It looks to be delightfully Mamie heavy.
EDIT: Herb beat me to it.
schrodinger's cat
Never heard of him, should I have?
Comrade Kevin
Which ones’r Cletus and Brandine?
Max Peck
There’s a guy driving around Phoenix in a camo painted pick up truck with giant Confederate and US flags protruding from the bed. Is it just me or is it odd to fly both of those flags. If you support the Confederacy don’t you hate the US? One of these flags started a war against the other right? And lost.
Think their are any guns in the truck?
The Grand Panjandrum
Now that is some kind of awesome. And did you know that JTP is going to be a guest speaker at the next round of teabagging parties!
I really want to find one locally but no luck so far. BTW you can get your party signs at the WND store. Take a wild guess which sign shows up first.
NR
Sorry for the OT, but this was too good not to pass on:
Gotta love New York politics.
Lavocat
Just so we’re clear: these are humans, right? It’s kinda hard to tell but they ARE, after all, walking upright (mostly) and their grunts are almost comprehensible.
I think this is a classic example of the otherwise Appalachian Highland-loving, and too often seen, Homo Lynyrdsynyrdicus.
The Saff
When my self-esteem is low, I think of folks like those in the video and then I don’t feel so bad about myself.
Wow. Just wow.
As for the Vanity Fair piece, I’m waiting for my hard copy to come in the mail. Todd Purdham’s stories are usually pretty good. BTW, I assume the C.J./Danny relationship on “The West Wing” was based on Dee Dee Myers and Todd Purdham.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Max Peck:
There is a guy like that around here, however his truck is painted to match his hunting camo, when you see him get out of the truck it is hilarious. He has the stars and stripes and the confederate flag flying in the back of his truck too, although he keeps getting in trouble with the VA flag patrol cause they get tattered quickly and the VA peeps around here are very stern about tattered flags.
PS) *thud* (faints as she realizes that John has added her to his blog roll).
Carnacki
How many of you are from West Virginia, heard of Jesco White, and wish you never had?
SalParadise
I’d say this video was taken here in Mississippi, but everyone is wearing jackets.
It never gets cold enough here for jackets.
Ash Can
I’ve never heard of Jesco White, and I’ll go out on a limb here and surmise that I’m not missing much.
Punchy
Unsure what the point of the video was….are you trying to say Republicans cant drive? Are all white? Like Budwieser? Fling mud?
Litlebritdifrnt
Speaking of wingnuts but have you seen the Drudge headline “Federal Agents searching for guns one home at a time” that should get them frothing at the mouth (cause none of them will actually go and read the story) seems to me that Drudge is trying to stoke the fires so to speak. (Although the Houston Chronicle could have chosen a better headline too and Drudge is just C&P).
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6505651.html
gex
@TimO: What’s really impressive is the ability to drive, shoot, and hold two beer cans at the same time.
The Grand Panjandrum
I was looking for the Knoxville documentary on Jesco when I found out out hero is facing a drug charge. It’s hard out there for a hillbilly.
Left Coast Tom
In most places there’s a maximum, rather than minimum, blood alcohol level for drivers.
Bill E Pilgrim
The utter destruction the once proud Republican party by these hoards of yahoos is getting to the level of the sack of Rome at this point, it’s astonishing to watch.
“Sacking”, if I remember my history correctly, being old-timey for teabagging.
Brachiator
@Carnacki:
I don’t get it. Do Jesco White and Governor Sanford go hiking together in the Appalachian Mountains?
The Moar You Know
This looks like a hell of a good time until the cops show up.
I was somewhat surprised to see that all these folks seem to have all their teeth. Are you sure this wasn’t filmed in Canada?
LD50
To elaborate on the metaphor:
The Jescos are the GOP.
The big meadow where they’re pointlessly doing donuts is America.
And the cops never come.
SrirachaHotSauce
Okay, I watched as much of that video as I could stand.
Isn’t that basically just another day at the courthouse parking lot, in WV?
Just asking.
harlana pepper
I done blowed up the kur!
MattM
@LD50: I think that makes the “blowed up” car the economy.
harlana pepper
Where can I get in on this kind of fun?
ElCap
First exposed to Jesco at a whitewater/paddler film festival in Asheville, NC where the original Dancing Outlaw doc was screened as the “special feature”. This was circa mid 90s, before anyone had really heard of him. Reminded me of some of my relatives in north Georgia.
I don’t like no runny aayghs.
Comrade Stuck
Quit makin’ fun a my kinfolk.
John Cole
I had a friend in the early 90’s who thought Jesco was so funny that he would actually travel to his performances around the state.
SGEW
Thinking further, this seems to me to be a very powerful argument for government subsidized emergency medical care. Somehow I doubt that the people featured in this video have sufficient insurance coverage to pay for the hospital bills that accrue whenever they get run over by a truck in their own front yard or accidently shoot themselves in the yarbles.
People accuse liberals of wanting to enact a “nanny state,” but, you know, some people really do need nannies sometimes.
cleek
that video looks like fun.
doesn’t look too different than the kind of crazy shit my family used to do in upstate NY.
rednecks are everywhere, man.
Joshua Norton
Welfare provided free dental, no doubt.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@SGEW:
That’s simply natural selection at work. Please don’t interfere.
REN
Hard to believe that hard eyed political professionals allowed themselves to be saddled with an unqualified, narcissistic, uncurious, vengeful, ungrateful fool. That includes McCain. They sunk themselves by picking her. They picked her only to drag out the far right and they would have voted for McCain anyway. They lost the independents who saw through her.
It’s a good article, and reading between the lines tells me there is a lot more dirt he would have liked to heap on Palin.
If Reps keep making mistakes like her and Rush and Newt ,I don’t see any comebacks on the horizon.
whatsleft
The lack of “truck nutz” on that pickup make me seriously question the validity of the clip!
MattM
It upsets me greatly that the clip of Jesco talking about his “costly sunglasses” isn’t on YouTube.
Death By Mosquito Truck
That video background looks a lot like Snake River Run road in the Sam Black Church area of WV.
khead
This thread just reminds me of my amazement that the GOP chose the rough equivalent of the mayor of Bluefield, WV to be the VP nominee.
Johnny B. Guud
When discussing Jesco White, its not a coincidence that Joe the Plumber should be mentioned in the same thread. Suffice it to say that Joe the Plumber IS the GOP’s Jesco White.
flukebucket
@MattM: Amen to that. The video has gotten me so excited that I plan to pull that old DVD out tonight and watch the whole thing again. I had forgotten how wonderful it is.
Michael
John, where’d you find the Palin rally footage? Its awesome with that Freebird background track…..
IndieTarheel
Damn.
For once, I have no words.
JK
I can’t think of many things that have filled me with more disgust in recent years than watching Sarah Palin deliver that putrid, super-sized steaming pile of excrement, also known as an acceptance speech, at the Republican National Convention. Watching Palin’s shameless demagoguery and dripping contempt for her political opponents along with shouts of “Drill, Baby, Drill” from rabid, foaming at the mouth delegates, I was reminded of the book titles Anti-intellectualism in American Life and The Paranoid Style in American Politics.
For future reference, if Palin ever uses this line again: “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity”, keep in mind the person she is quoting. The line comes from columnist Westbrook Pegler.
As the New York Times pointed out in its obituary of him in 1969, Pegler once lamented that a would-be assassin “hit the wrong man” when gunning for Franklin Roosevelt.
h/t http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122100226859616967.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today
Pegler expressed his fervent hope about Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that “some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies.”
h/t http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/governor-palins-reading-l_b_126478.html
Obviously, I don’t think Palin condones these outrageous, insane remarks, but I have a very hard time believing that the MSM would fail to fact check a quote contained in an Obama speech.
Tsulagi
Definitely one segment, but the ones in suits are a shitload dumber.
EdTheRed
A friend of mine loaned me his VHS copy of “Dancing Outlaw” back about ten years ago. It is genius. “I’m tired of these sloppy, slimy eggs!”
“Jesco is two people. He’s Jesco, but he’s also Elvis.”
Also, “The Legend Of D. Ray White” on Hank III’s Straight To Hell should be mandatory listening.
Mike in NC
Wouldn’t he burst with pride to know about his modern day spawn: Limpballs, Hannity, BillO, Glenn Beck, Coulter, Malkin and the rest of the wingnutosphere?
JK
@Mike in NC:
It’s very depressing to see how far and wide the poison has spread since Pegler’s death.
Persia
@Joshua Norton: Maybe it does in WV, it sure as hell doesn’t in the Northeast. Well, you might get dental insurance through Medicaid, but no dentist will actually take Medicaid.
Donald G
Lot’s of Southern WV looks like that. I was thinking the location might have been in one of those communities along the Turnpike as it passes through Fayette County between Beckley (in Raleigh County, where I spent nine miserable years) and Charleston (in Kanawha County).
Some quick research on Jesco shows him to be from Boone County, which abuts the western boundaries of Raleigh and Kanawha counties.
thefncrow
@The Grand Panjandrum: Conroe, eh? Not the least bit suprising that he’d show up in that racist shithole.
For anyone who thinks that comment is too harsh, just google “Clarence Brandley” and you’ll realize that I’m actually being rather courteous by leaving it at just “racist shithole”.
Ash Can
@JK: I doubt that Palin knows or cares, to this day, about anything she said in that speech. All she did was to read the teleprompter in her best sportscaster persona.
Carnacki
@Brachiator:
His 15 minutes of fame has lasted decades.
JK
@Ash Can:
From the beginning, I believed that Palin was a dope on automatic pilot who’d say anything given to her without delving into issues of sourcing, context, and background.
My main point was to indict the MSM for being too damn lazy to do its job. I care that some Republican staffer was ignorant enough to pull a quote from a hate monger and insert it into a VP acceptance speech. I don’t think Obama would have gotten away with using a quote from someone who had previously made wild, incendiary remarks comparable to Pegler.
I think Palin was given kid gloves treatment for the 1st few weeks following the Republican convention.
Joshua Norton
Agree. And there should have been at least one snow tire on the truck from the last time they had to fix a flat.
Ash Can
@JK: Sure, I understand. I just find Palin’s vapidness a striking counterpoint to this contextual reference of her speech.
And I’m not sorry I made you repeat your point. ;) It certainly bears emphasis.
The Other Steve
You’ve mentioned Jesco White before here at BJ.
I still don’t understand him.
LD50
It’s hard not to love the very first sentence on Jesco’s website:
OriGuy
California Medical included dental coverage until today, when the Governator terminated it. My housemate is disabled, so she gets Medical and Dentical. Last night she showed me the letter from the state that she got yesterday telling her about all of the benefits they no longer fund as of the end of June. Thanks for the warning, Arnold!
In addition to ending dental coverage, mental and vision coverage has been axed. If you have a tooth problem, they’ll pull it for you. That’s about it.
Zuzu's Petals
@REN:
I think they lost quite a few Repubs too.
I had lunch with a die-hard Repub friend awhile back. Voted and prayed for GWB, etc. Said she voted for Obama. Her reason: “Two words – Sarah Palin. Do they think we’re that stupid?”
jvill
Is this a promo for the new movie, The Fast & The Furious: West Virginia Drift?
mark
actually, I’m thinking more of the Culhanes from Hee Haw.
ricky
My first intro to Jesco was on this very site after the W.Va.
primary. It may me a loyal reader as well as a devotee of runny eggs.
Demo Woman
Somebody yesterday mentioned that we would not be talking about Palin as a candidate if she looked like Susan Boyle. By the was Boyle has more talent.
sparky
goddam. never heard of him, and i’m in flori-duh, and i bout fell off the sofa laughing. clearly, i suck bigtime. leastways ain’t nobody gonna blame me for that damn mccain green screen, now.
ps: whut about that lack o truck nutz? i say fake!
LD50
His accent isn’t that thick.
Dawn Norman
Jesco fans should check out Hasil Adkins sometime; Boone County’s produced more than one jaw-dropping performer.
I’ve got an LP of Haze somewhere. Good stuff. He’s on youtube, of course.
BTW, I escaped being born a Boone County native by 3 months, so I can laugh and not weep.
LD50
@Dawn Norman: Adkins was from the same county as Jesco? Good lord, that’s poetic.
Adkins’ stuff is great. I can wholeheartedly recommend Out to Hunch as one of the most fabulous rockabilly records ever released.
Jon Karak
Anyone know the name of the theme song?
Shabbazz
Jessie can be THREE people. He is Jessie. He Jesco. And he is Elvis.
I must’ve shown the original documentary to well over a hundred people by now. I’ve owned several copies of the VHS and DVD over the years. People usally have one of two reactions to it — (1) sheer terror or (2) sheer hilarity.
But the analogy to the Republican party is apt — “It ain’t been easy livin’ wiff you all these years! Tryin’ ta pick at my brain, what little bit’s left of it!”
There’s some pretty decent D Ray footage on YouTube for anyone interested. D Ray knowed fifty two steps more than any other musician. The world wide.
Carl Nyberg
The people in the video seem to have a joie d’vivre.
Republicans seem like people who have a meanness and bitterness that they are forced to suppress to fit into society. And they are determined to use the government to make other people as miserable as they feel inside.
Laura W
Now see, this is why I never play the videos on this site during the day. They usually just annoy me and suck up my already limited “focused and productive” time. I prefer to save them for Adult Beverage O’Clock (5pm EST) because at that time I find them super entertaining and absurdly funny.
Puts me in the mood to revisit this one:
Patriotic Drunk Rednecks
Sir Nose'D
It was never clear to me–did Jesco ever get his costly sunglasses back?
Shabbazz
He got ’em back, but they was all mashed up. Dorsey didn’t take good care of ’em after Jessie let him barrey ’em ‘ta wear. It looked like somebody had intentionally taken ’em and mashed ’em all up. This is for real now, seriously.
Rey
Whoa, I’m totally out of my element on this one. Maime seems super cool or drunk.
MattM
@Rey:
Why are those things mutually exclusive?
Dyzo Bandit
“Dancing Outlaw” is a classic. Ran across it late one night on PBS and wasn’t sure for a while whether it was some kind of elaborate avant-garde fictional film, or reality. Imagine my surprise.
Victory
Jesco makes appearance @ 2:38,
ZIRGAR
God, Jesco White brings back memories, both good and bad. When I lived in Charleston, WV I saw him a few times and I guess I didn’t have enough sense of that special hillbilly irony (which is itself ironic since I was born and raised in WV) to appreciate his self-styled aesthetic. Now, Hasil Adkins was someone I really appreciated and still find immensely entertaining and influential, despite his demise.
cynn
Just saw that video of the redneck car rodeo, and that does sum up the Repubs and their wheel-spinning idiocy. But this Jesco? That’s dancing? He looks like he’s got a hotfoot. Hell, those Irish people are better.
Environmental misanthropist
That video epitomizes for me the effect of Homo sapiens on this planet.
anticontrarian
a friend of mine showed me dancin’ outlaw a few years back, in the early bush years. it’s amazing.
i wish you’d put up one of the scenes of jesco ‘recording’ down in the basement elvis room. i feel like it would have enriched the metaphor, watching him pluck at an untuned guitar and sing along, obviously not knowing all the words.
maybe if he’d been singing ‘god bless america’ or something.
also, i’m pretty sure there was no such thing as truck nutz back then, though if there had been, i think maime’d probably have the biggest pair of all.
‘only the strong will survive. that’s all.’
she will definitely survive the apocalypse.
zed
@EdTheRed: Actually, Jesco is three people. He is Jessie, he is Jesco, and he is Elvis.
memory
This is on the extras for the Vice Guide to Travel.