Weasel and the white boys (not so) cool.
If you have ever read this blog before you know that certain individuals are usually identified by specific names that might not be their real names but rather something I call them. It isn’t that I call them these names because I might otherwise forget who they are. No, I only wish that I could forget some of these folks. For instance: Gee Dubya, a.k.a. President George Walker Bush, or The Weasel, a.k.a., Attorney General Alberto “V.O. 5” Gonzales. I call Bush Gee Dubya because others have beat me to other nicknames, the late Molly Ivins, for instance called him “Shrub.” I refer to our alleged attorney general as The Weasel because his expressions combined with his actions often remind me of a weasel. Of course, not all weasels are evil and arrogant.
With Gonzales being grilled recently in congressional hearings and hearing his name mentioned so much, naturally the Rickie Lee Jones song “Weasel in a White Boys Cool” ran through my head. I say naturally perhaps it is because of these lines from her great tune:
“He was pretty sleazy when I met him
A weasel in a poor boy’s wool … “
Of course, I never met Alberto but when I first started knowing very much about him was after he was already an attorney general who wonders why people get upset about torturing prisoners or eavesdropping on their phone calls without a warrant. The poor boy part is just, I guess, artistic license.
Whether this latest circus involving Gonzales and the firing of his U.S. Attorneys turns into something that will make him go away, either from the Justice Department or to prison, only time will tell. And one can only hope.
What is more important is why don’t you hear Rickie Lee Jones on the radio? Even some of the better stations I come across from time-to-time (across the board they aren’t in the southeastern part of Texas)don’t play anything Ricky Lee perhaps maybe “Chuck E.’s in Love.” That was not even the best song on her 1979 self-titled album. While I like “Weasel in a White Boys Cool,” the song, I think that even better is “Danny’s All-Star Joint.”
“Downstairs at Danny’s all-star joint
They got a juke box that goes doyt-doyt
The vice is nice, they stay in the back all day
But when the nighttime comes, hey-hey
There’s this cat down there that makes a bad kinda soup
I come around struttin’ my luck in my shoop coupe
Cecil gives me coffee
And he won’t never take my coin
I say, ” I got thirty dollars in my pocket!
Whatchoo doin’? “
I holler, ” Come on, Cecil, take a dollar!
Come on, Cecil, take a ten!
I’ve finally geared up into a whole buncha big ones
And you’re actin’ like I’m down-shiftin’ “
Then perhaps one of the best lines ever:
“I’m in a halfway house on a one-way street
And I’m a quarter past left alive “
Not that I’ve been in a halfway house on a one-way street or on any other kind of street, other than to visit someone. But I think the line puts into perspective just how screwed up things can be sometimes in your life.
Getting back to reality, relatively speaking, I don’t know what will happen to The Weasel Gonzales. But Rickie Lee has out a new album called “The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard” and I hope to hear it sometime. Maybe Gonzales will resign and perhaps Rickie Lee’s CD (I keep calling them albums for some reason, like being an ancient fart)will be wildly popular if it so deserves.
And maybe I will win the lottery. Rickie Lee probably has a better chance having another hit than fate dealing Gonzales a well-deserved losing hand (and my winning the lottery) But one can always dream.