Time to stop takin' myself so goddamn seriously.

If there is one lesson I've needed to learn this summer, I'm beginning to figure out, for my teaching, for my writing, for my relationships with my family and friends, for my life, I think, this is the one.

For all of my worries that I haven't been getting enough done, this summer, learning not to take myself and my efforts so seriously is the most important thing I've needed to learn for a very long time, I think, now, with some retrospect on a life where I have taken myself and everything I do far too seriously.

All I know is that'd I feel more comfortable hanging out with Larry the Cable Guy than Joe Nye or Victor Davis Hanson, anyday. Though I'd be very curious about what Joe and Hanson might have to say about the state of the world.

But with Larry, I'd be right at home.

And that's how it should be. If there's a poster-boy for soft, beer-bellied power, Larry the Cable Guy is your G-string model.

Makes me hungry for wings. And to want to stop thinking about Larry the Cable Guy in a G-string.

You know what the problem with the world is?

Not enough people find both these guys funny as all shit.

Larry the cable guy's christmas carols

Or don't like 'em. I don't care. Don't like me, either, I suppose.

You realize I'm the one asshole who thought the two best albums during this war were Shock and Y'all and the Home Album (The Black Eyed Peas' Where Is the Love? was a nice effort, but country music just got the jump on everyone this war).

More Love's the reason I bought that Dixie Chicks' album (Fuck controversy is my general motto), but the Chicks' cover of Patty Griffin's Top of the World is one of the most beautiful songs I ever heard in my life.



And if you don't get teared up during American Soldier, you got a heart of fuckin' stone. I could listen to Toby Keith salute these boys and girls in uniform all fuckin' day long.



I don't know what's wrong with us, half the time, is the truth. Get so full of ourselves. Think we've finally got all the goddamn answers. It's goddamn foolish is what it is.

That's why I like takin' a moment with Dave Chappelle and Larry the Cable Guy and rememberin' that I don't. Nobody does. Just a bunch of goddamn fools, just like me, tryin' to get life figured out.

Be nice if we remembered that every once in awhile. Make more sense, at least. Make for nicer holidays. Be more decent.

I could handle that. For my kids, at least. Maybe their kids. Maybe all of us.

Get-R-Done, kids. And Fuck Yo Couch, while you're at it.

Time to stop takin' ourselves so goddamn seriously.