Put Up Your Dukes, Man

Just a good ol' boys, wouldn't change if they could? I call bullshit.

Calm down dude or dudette, I’m not challenging you to engage in fisticuffs with me. I’m just talking about the Dukes of Hazzard. It was one of my favorite shows when I was growing up. The General Lee kicked ass, it was way cooler than my parents Dodge Dart. There was a span of time when I insisted on entering and exiting the car only thru the window a la Bo and Luke Duke. That was frowned upon, but it wouldn’t have stopped them good ol’ boys never meaning no harm, so I didn’t let it stop me. I did let my mother stop me though, quickly. She could be very stern. Oh well, a good times gotta end sometime…. Daisy Duke was smoking hot even to a 9-year-old boy with no concept of what smoking hot was. Legend tells that CBS wasn’t going to let her wear her famous Daisy Duke shorts because they said they were too sexy for television. They finally relented under the condition that Catherine Bach wear pantyhose under the shorts to prevent any accidental viewing of her lady penis. This led to her being not just smoking hot, but shiny as well…. Me loved she….I’m still upset that Jessica Simpson didn’t dye her hair when she played the role of Daisy in the Dukes of Hazzard movie. Daisy ain’t blonde, bitch. But I’m working through that…Uncle Jessie was a comforting figure in turbulent times, always good for some homespun words of wisdom, or a jug of Hazzards best moonshine, or an awkward back rub, or an even awkwarder front rub. I know it’s not a word…… Boss Hogg was the epitome of greed and corruption, that little fat fuck. With his white suit and his white hat and his white Cadillac with bull horns on the front. Smoking his stupid cigar, all smug and shit. I hated him, and I’m sure the feeling was mutual. In fact I know it was mutual because I have never received a phone call from Sorrell Booke, the actor who portrayed Jefferson Davis Hogg, to tell me otherwise. And he’s dead now. So there…. Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane, (with his trusty basset hound Flash) was always hiding behind a bush waiting to catch them Duke boys in the commission of crimes, real or imagined. He would chase them all over tarnation before predictably failing to make some pivotal jump,  hairpin turn, or other death-defying manuever in his Hazzard county issued squad car.Seriously, the amount of money spent on fixing police cars in this show would have bankrupted a less resilient township.Or would have at least led to a review and overhaul of the Hazzard County Sheriffs Department chase protocols… The Boars Nest, where everyone gathered at the end of the episode to drink their faces off and hootenany to whatever country music star Roscoe pulled over and arrested in one of his wildly unconstitutional speed traps .”Oh, we’ll drop the charges if you play a free concert in the bar that we own, and Loretta Lynn comes in the backroom with Boss Hogg and Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane for a sexy southern fried fuckfest.Take that you coal miners daughter, you.” Apologies to Academy Award Winners Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones. Mea culpa.

All of it was magic. But Bo and Luke Duke were the kings. They were like redneck Arthur Fonzarellis. Or Fonzie was like a Jewish Duke of Hazzard. That sounds kinda racist. Google says no…. They drove fast…on two wheels sometimes even. They partied hard and they wooed mad hussies. They wore flannel and had belt-buckles. They were the bomb, and they were merchandising gold. T-shirts, posters, action figures. collectible cups from McDonald’s,They kept my PB&J semi fresh and ant-free in my kick ass officially licensed Dukes of Hazzard lunch box with racist thermos. But then Bo and Luke Duke wanted more money. After season 4 they put their collective cowboy boots down. That’s when shit got real. CBS said,”Fuck you guys in your faces, we’ll get another blonde guy and another brunette guy…. Are guys called brunette guys or are guys just called brown-haired guys, guys? Either way Bo and Luke left to go join the NASCAR circuit, and Coy and Vance Duke came to town for season 5. It was a very uncomfortable time in my life. I had trouble sleeping, the sun didn’t shine as bright, the air didn’t smell as sweet, the fruit loops didn’t taste as loopy. It lasted only 19 episodes and then Bo and Luke came back, and Coy and Vance disappeared never to be mentioned on the show again. But things had changed and I knew it. It never felt the same to me after that. I mean, I still watched. It was the 80’s, what else was I gonna do? Hold hands across America?

Yeeeeee Haaaaaawwwwww!!!!