Wait… Rascal Flatts?!?

Being a columnist, I’ve learned to cope with a steady diet of futility and disappointment. But I can’t recall feeling such a keen sense of defeat as I did yesterday afternoon, when I got word of the line-up for this years abhorrent Pops Fourth of July extravaganza. I’ve written about this before, and consider Keith Lockhart an enemy of music (not to mention an increasingly creepy looking man whose propensity for black slacks and billowy red shirts suggest a cross between an IT professional and a movie theater usher).

Still, today’s news took me off guard. Something deep (and probably stupid) within me hoped that the column I wrote last year would have knocked something loose, caused someone with the Pops to take a moment away from rigging this years’ patriotism/horror-show, and think, “You know, he’s right, we are cheapening our city, our selves, our nation, the troops, the children, civil rights, decency, decorum, taste etc. etc.”

Not so. Witness, ladies and gentlemen, the headliner for this year’s show: RASCAL FLATTS.

This country band, which consists of three (presumably Axe Bodyspray-drenched) gentlemen, one of whom resembles Lance Bass (Hank Williams weeps). This outfit is said to have inflicted more than 17 million albums on an unsuspecting populace, and has won a slew of awards which emanate from Nashville.

Now they’re coming here to show us how to celebrate our nation, which, again and again, allows this sort of thing to transpire. Ugh. Someone get me off this thing.