How is it possible that America’s favorite Texas Ranger turned 70 today? Seventy! (And he could still kick the tail of a 21-year-old. Blind-folded. With one hand tied behind his back.)

Scott County’s own Anthony Smith discusses his new single and new album:

Seven years — and countless hits as a songwriter—later, he’s back for another run of success as a solo artist. Bringin’ Back The Sunshine, his new album on his own Krankit Records, is nearing release, and the first single and video, “Love Is Love Is Love,” is starting to make an impact for the Oneida, TN native. Needless to say, it’s a great time to be Anthony Smith these days.

“It’s great,” Smith says of everything going on around him. “The timing couldn’t be better. We’ve put together a great record. It’s been in the works for the past couple of years, putting this thing together. We launched Krankit Records just a few months ago, and we’re coming out with our first single, and everybody is just excited—like having a new kid or something.”

I watched 8 Seconds tonight (again). I would say that I watched it this time without getting wet-eyed, but I would be lying.

This is, quite simply, the best movie ever…at least on my list.

If you’ve never watched it, you’re missing out. Especially if you’re an admirer of the cowboy/rodeo way of life.

My father says that he thinks movies with sad endings are worthless. I don’t. And when Dad starts his own blog, he can say what he wants to. My Top 5 movies are 8 Seconds, Ol’ Yeller, A River Runs Through It, Stand By Me, and Christmas Vacation. Of them, Christmas Vacation is arguably the only one without a sad ending. There’s something to be said for a nicely-done comedy. Or action. But drama works, too.

Introducing Mike Fink…the original river pirate.

Do you ever wonder when (or why) Disney stopped making good movies?

It wasn’t in the ’50s. They were almost all good. Besides the two Davy Crockett films, there was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Westward Ho the Wagons, The Shaggy Dog, and of course, Ol’ Yeller…

It wasn’t in the ’60s. Swiss Family Robinson, The Parent Trap, The Absent-Minded Professor, Mary Poppins, That Darn Cat!, The Jungle Book, Blackbeard’s Ghost, The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit, The Love Bug, Rascal, The Gnome-Mobile, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes…

It wasn’t in the ’70s. Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Barefoot Executives, The Million Dollar Duck, Now You See Him Now You Don’t, Robin Hood, Herbie Rides Again, Castaway Cowboy, The Apple Dumping Gang (and Rides Again), Gus, No Deposit No Return, The Shaggy D.A., Pete’s Dragon, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo…

It wasn’t even in the ’80s. Herbie Goes Bananas, The Fox and the Hound, The Journey of Natty Gann, Flight of the Navigator, Return to Snowy River, Honey I Shrunk the Kids…

It wasn’t in the early ’90s, either. White Fang, Shipwrecked, The Rocketeer, Beauty and the Beast (what?!? I can’t help it; I like that movie), Aladdin, The Mighty Ducks, Homeward Bound, The Three Musketeers, Cool Runnings…

But after that? Okay, that settles it: Disney stopped making good movies in 1993.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Tuck Everlasting (2002) was great, Finding Nemo (2003) wasn’t terrible, and Cars (2006) was pretty darned good. But they’re definitely becoming few and far between. Seriously, let’s look at some of the biggest Disney hits of the past four years: Hannah Montana the Movie? Jonas Brothers’ 3D Concert Experience? High School Musical? Meh. Wake me up when Disney brings back Fess Parker or Dean Jones.

Hello darlin’. It’s been a long time.

State Sen. Jim Kyle has dropped out of the race, which virtually assures McWherter of the Democratic nomination. AC Kleinheider sounds off on Kyle’s forfeit:

So now what for a while threatened to be an exciting nomination fight is now back to what it started as: a boring contest for a sacrificial lamb.

The only side benefit to this is that Kim McMillan may now finally get the attention she deserves as a serious candidate.

McMillan was the first one in the race, announcing before the year 2008 had even finished, but her candidacy has never caught fire. Now she represents the only hope to stop the coronation of a boring, conservative legacy case.

Conventional wisdom says that a Republican is going to win the gubernatorial race this fall. Whether it’s Bill Haslam or Zach Wamp or Ron Ramsey, the candidate who emerges victorious in August will find the November general election a mere formality. So says conventional wisdom.

But I will add this about Mike McWherter: Don’t count him out just yet. Before this morning, I hadn’t had much exposure to McWherter, apart from reading the materials distributed by his campaign and reading the Nashville blog scene. As I arrived at the Oneida Municipal Services Building this morning, I overheard a local Democrat say that he felt McWherter has a decent chance of winning. I figured he must be talking about the primary, because everyone knows that the GOP nominee will be the heir apparent to the Governor’s Mansion. Right? But after listening to McWherter speak, I know where the guy was coming from when he says he has a chance. McWherter has a strategy that, in my opinion, will resonate with voters. All candidates talk about creating jobs, but few have a clear plan. To put it bluntly, I was impressed with McWherter.

My thinking is that when McWherter gets the opportunity to begin taking his message to the people, he may win over a few voters who have no plans of casting ballots for him. And if McMillan’s candidacy is indeed going nowhere fast, and McWherter isn’t forced to go through a bruising primary battle, he can go forward with that message while the Republicans are busy trying to out-spend and out-last one another.

Whether that can translate to success in November is another story. Clearly, the Democrats face the biggest uphill battle in Tennessee that they’ve faced in some time. But this thing just might get interesting.

God bless Chris Ledoux. Next week marks the fifth anniversary of his death.

The days are getting longer, if not warmer, and photoperiodism is spurring the changing of the seasons even if Ol’ Man Winter doesn’t want to step aside. If you look close enough, some trees are growing buds and those earliest-blooming flowers are starting to peak their stems through the snow. It won’t be long until it’s time to trade in the boots for flip-flops. Turkeys will be gobbling, crappie will be biting, old men will be wearing those ridiculous Hawaiian-style flower shots at Walmart, Oscar Meyers will be burnt over the campfire…the warm weather months are just around the corner.

So, it’s time for me to shuffle the music on my iPod. This is my spring-summer playlist. Some of the songs are perennials; they don’t change with the season. But most of them do. It’s dominated by country (stop reading here if that offends you), but it pretty much runs the gamut of the genres. When you go from The Statler Brothers to Kiss, you pretty much have all the bases covered. Some of them are on there simply because they’re songs of summer. Others are on there because they remind me of summers gone by. But all of ‘em are on there because I can put the windows down and sing them at the top of my lungs as I’m rolling down I-40 on a turkey hunt or U.S. 27 on a fishing trip or S.R. 52 to Dale Hollow Lake…as the dogs howl in my wake.

If there are more songs from one artist than another, it’s because the Eagles know how to sing a good summer song and Chris Ledoux sang the best campfire songs ever written.

Without further ado…

1.) Here I Go Again (AC/DC)
2.) Hangman Jury (Aerosmith)
3.) Walk This Way (Aerosmith)
4.) Good Time (Alan Jackson)
5.) It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere (Jimmy Buffett & Alan Jackson)
6.) Metropolis (Anthony Smith)
7.) Only the Wind (Billy Dean)
8.) Thank God I’m A Country Boy (Billy Dean)
9.) Austin (Blake Shelton)
10.) Fire Down Below (Bob Seger)
11.) Storybook Endings (BR5-49)
12.) American Saturday Night (Brad Paisley)
13.) Ticks (Brad Paisley)
14.) Mud on the Tires (Brad Paisley)
15.) Ain’t Nothin’ Like (Brad Paisley)
16.) Famous People (Brad Paisley)
17.) Hard Times (Chris Ledoux)
18.) Running Through the Rain (Chris Ledoux)
19.) County Fair (Chris Ledoux)
20.) Bang A Drum (Chris Ledoux)
21.) Honkey Tonk World (Chris Ledoux)
22.) For Your Love (Chris Ledoux)
23.) Seventeen (Chris Ledoux)
24.) Sons of the Pioneers (Chris Ledoux)
25.) Fishin’ in the Dark (Confederate Railroad)
26.) International Harvester (Craig Morgan)
27.) Sweet Old Fashioned Goodness (Craig Morgan)
28.) If That Ain’t Country (David Allen Coe)
29.) Me Myself and I (De La Soul)
30.) Come Go With Me (The Del-Vikings)
31.) When Will I Be Loved (The Everly Brothers)
32.) Tennessee Banjo Man (Doyle Lawson & Quiksilver)
33.) Life in the Fast Lane (Eagles)
34.) Desperado (Eagles)
35.) Midnight Flyer (Eagles)
36.) Take It to the Limit (Eagles)
37.) Hole in the World (Eagles)
38.) There is a Mountain (Gaither Vocal Band)
39.) Rodeo (Garth Brooks)
40.) Squeeze Me In (Garth Brooks)
41.) More Than a Memory (Garth Brooks)
42.) Amazing Grace (The Gatlin Brothers)
43.) The Cross Has Won Again (The Gatlin Brothers)
44.) Knocking on Heaven’s Door (Guns & Roses)
45.) A Country Boy Can Survive (Hank Williams Jr.)
46.) Son of a Sailor (Jimmy Buffet)
47.) Bama Breeze (Jimmy Buffet)
48.) Margaritaville (Jimmy Buffet)
49.) Power Windows (John Berry)
50.) Three Chord Country & American Rock-n-Roll (Keith Anderson)
51.) Back Where I Come From (Kenny Chesney)
52.) How Forever Feels (Kenny Chesney)
53.) She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy (Kenny Chesney)
54.) Down the Road (Kenny Chesney)
55.) All Summer Long (Kid Rock)
56.) Bawitdaba (Kid Rock)
57.) I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night (Kiss)
58.) Come Together (Beatles)
59.) Boondocks (Little Big Town)
60.) Louisiana Saturday Night (Mel McDaniel)
61.) Drink, Swear, Steal & Lie (Michael Peterson)
62.) The Girls of Summer (Neal McCoy)
63.) The Life of the Party (Neal McCoy)
64.) That’s Not Her (Neal McCoy)
65.) Little Mountain Church House (Ricky Skaggs)
66.) Mr. Bojangles (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
67.) Why Don’t You Get A Job? (The Offspring)
68.) Black Betty (Ram Jam)
69.) Don’t Get Me Started (Rhett Akins)
70.) Down South (Rhett Akins)
71.) I Break For Brunettes (Rhett Akins)
72.) About the South (Rodney Atkins)
73.) These Are My People (Rodney Atkins)
74.) Wasted Whiskey (Rodney Atkins)
75.) Escape (Rupert Holmes)
76.) Next To You, Next To Me (Shenandoah)
77.) Girls Like You (South 27 Band)
78.) BBQ Stain (Tim McGraw)
79.) We Were In Love (Toby Keith)
80.) Big Ol’ Truck (Toby Keith)
81.) She’s A Hottie (Toby Keith)
82.) When Country Comes to Town (Toby Keith)
83.) If the World Had a Front Porch (Tracy Lawrence)
84.) It’s a Great Day To Be Alive (Travis Tritt)
85.) Chicken Fried (Zac Brown Band)
86.) Whatever It Is (Zac Brown Band)

It’s a strange list, if nothing else. The Cross Has Won Again and Bawitdaba are an odd combination.

The best movie speech in baseball. James Earl Jones at his finest.

There’s no mistaking their vocals and harmony but the ORB didn’t much look like themselves back then, did they? Duane Allen looks like a different man without his beard…he’s grinnin’ at the camera like Joel Osteen.

You can’t stop with just one. Fast-forward a few years. Noel Fox (in the above video) was a good bass singer, but Richard Sterban (who replaced Fox in 1972 and is still with the group today) might be the best bass singer in American music. In my next life, I want to have a good bass voice. If I could say “ba-oom papa oom papa mow mow” like Sterban, I’d spend my time singing instead of blogging.