Sometimes it's hip to talk like a hick

My very best friend likes to check out all kinds of music so we've been watching MTV, VH1 and CMT. After not seeing cable in a while, my observations are that MTV videos have to do with pole dancing in bars, VH1 videos are filmed in airplane hangars and people in Country Music Television videos like to hang out in convenience stores.

On MTV you see guys in baggy gangsta attire and buff babes in little attire.

On VH1 there's guys with hair in their eyes lip-synching in bands in the middle of the desert, on top of a mountain or other places where electric instruments can't be plugged in.

On CMT the guys wear cowboy hats, jeans, long coats and boots that never saw the green stuff that gets on them when you're around horses. The gals look like they modeled their eyeliner and false eyelashes after Tammy Wynette circa 1971, or they wear an Ellie Mae blouse and the biggest trailer-trash earrings they can find at the dollar store.

I've tried to understand the lyrics of the songs on CMT. I've found there's something fun about checking your loved one for parasitic insects and going out honky tonking and donkey bonking.

One guy at a pyrotechnics stand sings that his gal is like a "far crecker."

One lady sings about her "may-yan." Translation: the opposite of a "woe-man."

There are people who have regional accents that can rub off on you like fur from a rabbit coat. If you've ever been around a bunch of Texans for about a half-hour, you might find yourself saying "y'all." I know a young man who was born here but, after living in the home of the Gators for a few years, calls his adopted state, "Flo-da."

How many know that Loretta Lynn was born in Butcher Hollow, not Butcher "Hollar," Kentucky? Miss Loretta came with that accent. Dolly Parton is from the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. She's the real deal - her accent, that is.

Nicole Kidman's husband sounds like any other American country star when he sings but like the Crocodile Hunter when he talks. What is the charm of a country music star's accent?

I think some country singers might want to imitate Loretta, Dolly, Hank Williams and that about covers all the country singers I know but they overdo it. Do they have to sing like that?

Maybe this phenomenon of trying to sound as hillbilly as possible has happened since we've had a president who calls citizens of our country, "Marikens." In the city where George W. is born, which is north of the Mason-Dixon line in Connecticut, that same word is actually pronounced, "American."

Maybe the strategy of being as hickish as possible is to make sure you're not mistaken for someone who is un-Mariken, as in someone who isn't from Marika, as in "fer-ners."

Practice using "ain't" in a sentence and saying, "ah wanna check you for ticks."

It's the new cool - maybe even patriotic.