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Please read this post through it’s entirety, and WATCH the videos. I’m on the soap box tonight, but glad to be so. For tonight, we all just got along. Tonight I saw the best of everybody, and read between the lines to see that there is really no BETWEEN, there really IS just one straight line, and we are all part of it.

I realized something tonight. NO, I didn’t JUST realize it, IT was something I’ve seen coming on for some time, but tonight, I witnessed its fruition. There IS a movement going on. There ARE factions on BOTH sides that try to stop it. There ARE folks on TWO SIDES of a fence that live amongst each other. However, we are ALL REALLY beginning to LIKE EACH OTHER. Big & Rich are opposites but the same, Cowboy Troy is opposite and the same within one man. Truly, our country is really not seeing color or demands, we just all want to work together for common good, through whatever means necessary.

In our current political race, I think it’s fair and obvious to say that we will have a Democrat in office until 2012. I’m a Republican, but even I know that not any side always wins. In 2008, the Democrats will win. BUT, what’s really amazing to me is that for once, “for ONCE IN MY ADULT LIFE” it seems that I am again PROUD of my country. There has NEVER been any doubt of my patriotism, but I am again seeing THE PEOPLE beginning to stir, and stir as a blend not as a beat. For the men or the slow, that’s a cooking analogy. Blend ALWAYS leads to a smoother pudding than if you BEAT the pudding.

I think Barack Obama will, if elected make some really dumb moves and create some havoc in policy or procedure. Much worse, would Hilary Clinton…and John McCain is a mediocre conservative. So KNOWING that ALL of our choices might be bad, what about the one thing no one can deny?…Mr. Obama is at least MOVING the people. AT LEAST HE’S MOVING THE PEOPLE. Nobody in so long has moved the people. We’ve all been wallowing in a quagmire of WTF for so long we can’t even remember the last time we were truly inspired or moved. 9-11 shook us all up, and after that tragedy for a short time we were united as a nation. Sadly, most folks are over 9-11 and back to the same old same old run of the mill DUH and DOLDRUMS.

However, believe in Obama’s abilities, policies, ideas, or not…he’s moving a nation. BEFORE Barack Obama, a new and up and coming band called (brilliantly named) Big and Rich came onto the music scene. I had never heard of them before. One day, I heard THIS SONG Holy Water on the radio. I was so moved, I was so touched, but I was busy. It just so happened that I was about to catch a plane to go HOME to Texas in a day or two for the first time in years. When I got home, my sister Melody and I hugged and laughed, and enjoyed each other’s company for hours. Her cell phone rang. The “ring tone” was this really catchy tune that said, “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy”. We giggled, and I said, “WHO is that band…that’s a really cool song!” She told me that it was a fairly new band called Big and Rich.

After my trip was over, I came home and went to my computer to research Big and Rich. I Googled “Save a Horse & Ride a Cowboy”, and discovered in the same search that they also sang “Holy Water”. I was so amazed that the same band could have sung both songs. I was an instant fan.

I have kidded for a few years now that if “they” ever came to Reno I WOULD have tickets. Well they came tonight, and I had 2^nd row, fairly centered tickets. IT WAS AMAZING! Not only are THEY amazing, the whole movement they represent is FREAKING AMAZING! And, I never realized if you have 2^nd row tickets, the speakers cause the music to LITERALLY MOVE your hair, your shirt, your skin, and your spirit! Perhaps next time (although this was amazing), my ears are still ringing and I might opt for 5^th or 6^th row seats next time :)

I’m 45, and I have sons 24 & 18. There is an age old battle between parents and their kid’s music. However, I try to be a cool parent, but I just can’t put my arms around Rap. It’s so vile, and violent, and LOUD and HARD to hear. Well, Big and Rich bridges that gap seamlessly. Rap is very tolerable coming from cowboys that are jamming to the percussion beat of conservative values and common sense as it’s resounding inside your brain, and yet you can see with a naked eye that one or two of the band are probably liberals.

Thank GOD that I heard their song Holy Water (a ballad) BEFORE I ever heard any of their more progressive music. My husband even knows how reserved I can be, and there is NO RESERVATION at a Big and Rich concert. It’s balls out redneck rap, ballads, support the troops, kick some ass rock & roll, and anything you could want in between!

It amazed me to see looking around the crowd how many of us “older folk” were there. I think there were more “OLD folks” than there were younger folks. I TRIED to invite my kids, but they weren’t into it, THEY JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY MISSED. Big & Rich is like “Old Folks Finally Meet Their Kids”. They are a movement. There’s this one guy that looks and dresses like Tom Petty, rocks out like a Who or a Rolling Stone, and another guy that’s a TOTAL cowboy and dresses and looks like Clint Black, Garth Brooks, or George Strait. Big and Rich are the Yen & Yang, they are the Old School & the New School. They mix rock, rap, and country into the most perfect biscuits and gravy you’ve ever tasted.

And…let’s NOT LEAVE OUT Cowboy Troy! Cowboy Troy opens for them and he is as about as Rap as it comes. However, he’s a very handsome black man dressed to the nines in blue jeans, in a starched and creased button up western shirt, sporting a HUGE “rodeo style champion” belt buckle, and a die hard black felt 10X (or more) cowboy hat. He walks cowboy, he talks cowboy, he IS cowboy…and then he performs. He is rap, he is hip hop, his words though are normal. He “jives” to a beat and a movement that stirs old people :) Cowboy Troy ROCKS! One of my favorites he sang tonight was “Hick Chicks”. I AM a hick chick. I am a redneck. Now, while in this video I’m embedding, THESE girls are a little racy (didn’t see any of those tonight…amazing…there are usually A LOT of them at a concert, just not tonight)

And get THIS, people always talk about the “race card”, with all of us “normal folk” there IS NO race card, but we realize some of us are of a different color. Imagine in a crowd of mostly rodeo rednecks, more people wearing cowboy hats than not, AFTER hearing 45 minutes of Cowboy Troy rap, jive, and wiggle his ever so cowboy ass, we hear Big & Rich quote, “How ‘bout that big black guy Cowboy Troy?” The crowd rose to their feet and went nuts! See…although there IS color (we’re not BLIND), there REALLY IS NO COLOR among like minded. Just IMAGINE A CROWD EXPERIENCING Rap, Hip Hop, Country, and Americana…THEN you can imagine a Big & Rich concert, and just possibly you can then again imagine the movement that is Barack Obama. I’m sorry for the hate mail I’m getting lately saying “I’m a traitor, I’m turning Democrat”…I’M NOT! But I can see a real movement. If a Republican candidate gave me chill bumps in a speech, I’d ramble about them too, none are. I KNOW Hillary Clinton would have had a “look” on her face if she would have been present at tonight’s concert, and I KNOW John McCain just wouldn’t subject himself to something so “fun or modern”, anyway…he’s too old to stay up that late. Huckabee does play the guitar, he might have enjoyed it, but being a preacher he might not have allowed himself to do so (I never noticed any dirty words though in the presentation tonight)…

Here’s another thing about concerts. People drink too much; they crowd the stage, etc. Overly drunk people irritate the hell out of you, and given slight what if’s, it can turn bad. However, REDNECKS, COUNTRY people can get drunk, be out of line, and still have manners. Perhaps I should rephrase that to mean that like minded united liberals and conservatives can get drunk and still have manners. I have a husband with a very short fuse. He tends to overprotect me (the tough chick that doesn’t need to be protected), but I too have manners. I cringed a couple of times tonight hoping that he would not try to overprotect me in a crowd of several thousand people that thought just like me. Tonight on the 2^nd row, as people overcrowded, and I WANTED TO SEE… (I was sitting on the isle) I would occasionally gently tap a guy in a cowboy hat in the isle on his butt, and gently motion for him to stand back. EVERY TIME and without question, they all did. Even the chicks, I would also tap them on their butts and gently motion for them to move back, and they did. That’s the way country folk are, we may push the envelope sometimes, but when the envelope pushes back and you know you are on the wrong side of the envelope, you nod and graciously abide to common courtesy. BUT WE WERE AT A COUNTRY & RAP CONCERT…AMAZING! Big & Rich are like Barack Obama, they can move the masses in positive ways.

This political season is a strange one for me. I am more involved this year than any in my life. It’s too funny that it looks like me and my brother in Texas are both going to end up delegates in conventions this year and I’m a Republican and he’s a Democrat. I live in Nevada and he lives in Texas. Both states are “Wild Wild West”, and we both speak of each other among friends and co-workers, and yet we both get along just fine. Our friends and co-workers often comment to us both, “So…you guys don’t argue?” NO we DON’T…we discuss. We debate the important and meet in the middle for results that would be for the common good. But, we are just delegates, we can’t help what your elected officials on either side do to detriment your lives. Perhaps we are both more Independent that “either/or”, but it’s a good time.

My brother took his kids out of school to attend the Barack Obama rally in the Dallas TX area. Reunion Arena seats 19,000 people, and “given the poll results” it was thought that 15,000 people would show up, so Reunion Arena was a safe bet. Well, 19,000 people showed up, and hundreds or maybe even thousands more were turned away. But, fair is fair, and the other candidates were also in town. Chelsea Clinton faired a modest crowd at the University of North Texas in what looked like a large cafeteria, and Mike Huckabee managed a few onlookers at a local community college.

I’m not trying to slam either of the other two candidates, but if a “movement” was happening in their camps, there would have been a deluge at UNT, or the community college, but there WASN’T! Dallas TX is a smorgasbord of America, about 4,000,000 of them in the general area. There are highly educated people of all walks of life there. Not ALL 19000 people were delusional, there is a movement going on in this country, and it’s by the people and for the people. I tell my brother that when in office, if it happens, we’ll probably be disappointed in Mr. Obama, but nobody else is moving the people in this way, so let’s maybe give him a shot. I’d rather a highly inspiring Democrat disappoint the country than I would sell out my party and vote for John McCain who I know will make as many mistakes, just in monotone deliverance, and God forbid Hillary Clinton powered by “her machine” even try to be the first woman in office. I’d like to see a woman in office someday, but let’s keep that word WOMAN in context. Hillary is not a woman, she’s a beast. In my brother’s photos that he sent me, (all were taken with a cell phone), this one spoke to me loudly and hard. I commented to him on the phone that this photo spoke chapters, and even he said “Really?, why? It’s just the boys”. Well, as with the Big & Rich rap / country concert I saw tonight, this photo says it all. His boys were just bored, just running around a tree or pole while standing in line for several hours to see what Dad took them to see. But, there was a young beautiful black girl leaning against it, and no one saw color. My brother didn’t even see color. I just saw the amazing photo of no color in brilliant color. I saw young people just having fun and realizing that their parents were responsible enough to take them to see something amazing.

I don’t even have any video of tonight’s concert, or the jeers and cheers that went on, but it was spiritual. This video is not of viewing HD quality, but you aren’t SUPPOSED to see anything, just listen. A movement is happening, and this is what it sounds like. Be very afraid media Mongols, be very afraid power Wanna be’s…THIS…IS THE PEOPLE SPEAKING!

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