I watched part of the Country Music Awards (or whatever) last night, and something struck me. How many country records were sold last year? A kajillion? And the biggest non-country-music celebrities they could get to show up (that I saw) were Ricky Schroeder and the fucking Blue Man Group? So what's the problem? Is country music a cultural juggernaut or a weird backwater subculture or both or neither? And if it's as relevant as I think it probably is, why doesn't the rest of the world notice?