June 5 , 2008

X-Gang strikes again
By Rhonda Smyth, CV&T News Editor

What is the X-Gang anyway? Or should I say, who are the X-Gang anyway?
A few months ago somebody painted all over church signs, billboards and storage building and painted X-Gang on them.
Now they have struck again, only this time they tried to ruin a work of art, the bicentennial mural being painted on the side of the WestCare building. They thought it would make the painting more interesting if they signed it, I guess.
Why is that fun? What do people get out of destroying something that doesn’t belong to them?
I wonder if it is because their lives are so ugly, they have to make everything around them ugly too?
It could be kids who just don’t have anything else to do. I say “give them some sidewalk chalk and let them decorate to their hearts’ content.”
If it is adults then again I say “why?”
We are always talking about beautifying our community and making it more welcoming to tourists, but then when we try to do just that, somebody wants to ruin it by putting graffiti all over. This is a crime. It is trespassing and it is criminal mischief. Although they are misdemeanors, they still carry fines and jail time.
•••
I was standing in the front yard the other day trying to talk to my mom, but there was a distant whirring sound that was just loud enough to make it hard for me to concentrate on what we were talking about.
Mom asked me what it was and did I hear a motor running and I said no I think it is cicadas (locusts).
She said that isn’t what that is. But that is exactly what that was and every day the sound gets louder and louder.
I went for a ride around the county in a convertible. It was a lovely day for a ride and the sun felt wonderful in my face and the wind felt wonderful blowing my hair, but ... the noise was deafening in some parts of the county.
I wonder if these things will stay around all summer? It will sure make any outside activities impossible or at least uncomfortable.
I think they only come around every seven years or so. And that is surely often enough.
•••
I have always been very proud to be from Estill County and to be a graduate of Estill County High School.
But I have never been more proud than I am right now as I have seen some of the best and brightest graduate this year. I expect big things from this class.
I am also very proud of our softball and baseball teams as both of them are representing us in the state tournaments.
What a great bunch of kids!

Classic rock: Intelligent music
By Savannah Campbell, CV&T Summer Intern

Rock music isn’t as smart as it used to be, at least in my opinion.
Granted, I’m only 21, so my experiences in seeing, hearing, and watching rock music being performed are somewhat limited. But trust me, my listengin preferences are older than my age designates.
First, let me introduce myself. My name is Savannah Campbell, I’m from Prestonsburg. I’m a senior at Eastern Kentucky University double majoring in journalism and psychology. I’m also working as a Kentucky Press Association (KPA) intern this summer here at the Citizen Voice & Times.
Now that some formalities are out of the way, let’s get back to the music.
I love rock music, especially what is called ‘classic rock’ nowadays. Nothing makes me happier while driving than setting my dial to 92.1 (the Lexington classic rock station I adore) and driving with the Eagles to the Hotel California for example.
I think it’s the intelligence used to craft these songs’ lyrics that make me like them so much. I myself am a huge fan of words and writing in almost all forms, but that’s another topic for another day right? Today I’m talking about smart song lyrics.
Songs written and performed from the 1960s through the mid-80s showcased their writers’ intelligence and knowledge for created well-crafted rhymes, grammatical lyrics, and in some cases told full stories in under five minutes.
Take for example, the song Well-Respected Man by 60s British band The Kinks.
The song describes a man who goes through his life in a very proper way, dutifully doing his job, coming home on time, etc. One lyric describes his routine saying, “...gets the same train every time because his world is built on punctuality.” Lead singer Ray Davies sings the last word slowly so listeners can clearly hear the adjective describing the song’s main character. A kicker comes later in the chorus when the Brits find a way to rhyme punctuality, singing about their fictional English man “doing things...conservatively.”
It’s not just British bands who contributed smart rock lyrics to the general public ears.
Singer-songwriter from the 70s Jackson Browne also shows his smarts through lyrics.
His song Redneck Friend tells of a pal of his who is a bit wilder than most but still fun to be around. In the second verse, he drops hints to the listeners about the friend’s parents not liking their child’s wild ways.
Browne follows the grammatical rule of not ending a sentence with a preposition when describing the disapproval writing, “Well they’ve got their little list of things of which they don’t approve...” He could have easily written “Well they’ve got their little list of things they don’t approve of...” but he doesn’t. Instead, he moves the ‘of,’ adds a ‘which’ after it and ta-da! He’s written a grammatically perfect lyric.
Songs had to be shorter in this time because of air time available in the 60s and 70s but that didn’t mean the writers couldn’t tell a full story in this shortened time.
Jim Croce for example was very good at story songs before his early death. My favorite example of his words plus music equals story mastery was You Don’t Mess Around With Jim.
In about three and a half minutes, we listeners get to hear about a tough pool shark named Jim Walker who no one dares mess with. Well, no one until Willie McCoy, aka ‘Slim,’ who wants revenge because Jim had previously stole his money.
Slim confronts Jim at the pool hall, knife and gun in his hands. Croce sings about the hall’s patrons singing a different story later. Listeners in the closing chorus get to hear part of their song: “You don’t pull the mask off the old lone ranger and you don’t mess around with Slim.”
The Hollies also manage to tell a full story in just over three minutes; their genre of choice--detective, film noir style. Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress) tells of a narrator working in a shady area of a downtown.
He meets a tall, mysterious woman in a black dress. Within minutes of him meeting her, bullets fly, people jump over tables, basically chaos breaks out. The song ends with the narrator telling the woman she is going to be spared any jail time and he is going to live with her.
I doubt a song produced now, in June of 2008, could match the intelligence of any of the songs I’ve mentioned today. Let’s see Justin Timberlake write and sing a story in three minutes or try to rhyme a word such as conservatively the right way.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for it to happen though, I’ll stick with traveling with Don Henley and his band mates as they go to the freaky vacation resort where it’s said people “can check out any time...but you can never leave” if you know what I mean.