BOCEPHUS: IN BETTER SHAPE THIS TIME

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This doghouse here is mighty small
But it's better than no house at all
So ease it on over, drag it on over
Move over old dog 'cause a new dog's movin' in
~ Hank Williams, Senior.
from 'Move It On Over'

Cause he'd run through a ten and he'd run through a twenty
And he'd run through a hundred just as fast as it could go
Like a big dose of sauce to a little bitty fella
He'd spend a thousand dollars on a hundred dollar show
~ Hank Williams, Junior ("Bocephus")
from 'The Ballad Of Hank Williams'

OK, my minions, I've got a dream for you here that is hot off the mind. I was so sleep-deprived this week that my body finally crashed and I slept until just about an hour ago (11 AM). Well, just prior to coming back into consciousness I had a damned funny dream which I'm going to share with y'all. As I type this, my dream is no more than two hours old - they don't come any fresher.

Don't ask me why, but I found myself dreaming that I had come upon Hank Williams Jr. (his dad nicknamed him "Bocephus") and his band on their way to a gig. There was a bunch of band members and they were traveling in a van that was towing a U-Haul trailer behind it.

This convoy is going up an unpaved mountainous road. The scenery consisted of nothing but dust, boulders, sagebrush, and maybe some cacti; it was hot and desert-like.

On the side of the U-Haul trailer were images of Bocephus and the various band members. Suddenly the images came to life and began talking to each other. They spoke of being on their way to a Country music festival, one they had played the year before with disastrous results.

CUT TO:
Now I'm inside the van observing Hank and the guys. They are playing poker at tables in the back while the driver navigates the van and trailer over this rugged dirt road. Hank and his band are further discussing this Country music festival they are headed for and reminiscing about how awful the event was last year. Amongst their many complaints about the former festival, one is that, in the town where it is held, there aren't any really good bars.

That's when I learned that the U-Haul trailer contained a whole bar - Hank's and his band's own personal bar - which they were going to assemble once they got to town. It wasn't just a bar, but a barroom, with walls, windows, tables, chairs, lighting, everything! It was all disassembled in the trailer but they were planning to piece it all together so they'd have a good drinking establishment during their entire stay at the Country music festival.

As they continued to play poker, they discussed the myriad things that had gone wrong the year before and how they were determined to make a success of the festival this time.

CUT TO:
The van had broken down on the dirt road, and now I'm seeing Hank and his band scrambling to address the situation. A couple of guys are pushing the van up the mountainous dirt road, a few more are carrying musical instruments. Some are dragging the bar up the road and others are carrying the parts of the barroom - the walls, etc.

Just then, two band members walk past me carrying one of the barroom walls. It's wallpapered with an old-tyme design and mounted on the wall at the top is a deer head, with its many-pointed antlers serving as a cowboy hatrack. Standing on this wall as it is being carried up the dirt road is Hank Williams Junior.

And as all this activity is taking place, the entire band suddenly breaks out into song, just like a scene from some musical. They're all singing this really good upbeat Country song - a song that doesn't really exist because I dreamed the song up just like the rest of this stuffs.

It's a full-length Country song they sing (which I personally think has the potential to be a genuine hit in the "real" world). Unfortunately, I can't remember most of the words. I only know that it covered the same territory as the earlier discussion, about how rotten the Country music festival had been the previous year. But I do remember the principal line of the song's repeated chorus. Imagine seeing all this activity - these guys pushing a van and carrying their instruments up a hill, and dragging a bar and toting barroom walls through a dusty, barren wasteland - while they're singing something like this:

And we didn't make no money 'cause we lost every dime
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But we sho as f#ck in better shape this time!

I kid you not, I found myself laughing in my dream! How many of y'all LOL in your dreams?

And incidentally, in truth, Bocephus is more than capable of writing very funny songs. The idea of him writing a humorous song about a situation like this is not entirely inconceivable. For examples, check out the links below to some "real" Hank Williams Junior songs that are at least as funny as what I dreamed up:

Ballad Of Hank Williams

If You Don’t Like Hank Williams

The Coalition To Ban Coalitions
[I liked the plug for Ron Paul that some commenter posted!]

Pleasant Dreams, Y'all!

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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