When picking your candidate for President you want someone you can get behind on important issues.  Someone who can control an otherwise out of control situation.  A candidate who knows how to keep it cool when the heat is on.  That’s why, in 2012 your vote should go for Romney.  Not Mitt…Hugh, aka Wavy Gravy.  The man who ran security at Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in 1969.  The clown who helmed the legendary “Hog Farm.”  The man who woke up a half a million people with the words, “What we have in mind was breakfast in bed for 400,000.” and “The whole Earth is in jail and we’re plotting this incredible jailbreak.”

I joke but honestly, we’ve had such a long string of clowns in the Whitehouse, we might as well have a real clown who may in fact know what the hell he’s doing.

A fitting way to celebrate St. Patty’s Day from Quactus. Now take their advice and go crack a Guinness and shoot some whiskey!

It’s been a tradition of mine for the last, o, 20 years or so to listen to Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie on Thanksgiving Day.  I know there’s many out there who share in this tradition and thusly, here’s a great video of the song performed live by Arlo with great clips from the movie so you can join in this tradition too.  Teach it to your kids, sing it outloud and remember, you CAN get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant…except Alice.  Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from Shakedown News!  Now go eat that turkey!

“Billy DeLyon threw the lucky dice, won Stagger Lee’s Stetson Hat.”

-”Stagger Lee”, Grateful Dead

Ron "Pigpen" McKernan of the Grateful Dead rockin' his Stetson

Lives have been won and lost over them.  People in the Wild West would literally kill for them.  There’s something about a Stetson hat.  The fit, the style, the legend.  Whatever it is, hands down it’s the greatest hat I’ve owned.  But what is it really that makes the Stetson hat so cool.  I did some digging and here’s what I found.

First of all, I’m no cowboy.  I haven’t ridden a horse in 15+ years and even then it was the most uncomfortable and ball busting experience I’ve ever had.  I can’t rope and ride.  I don’t now, nor will I ever, own a “six shooter.”  My idols are not Gene Autry, Butch and Sundance or the Duke.  So what’s with the hat?  En route home from Rothbury Music Festival in 2009, my girlfriend and I stopped in a little town called Walsenburg in Southern Colorado at a crafty type shop and there on the wall was a giant selection of cowboy hats.  Naturally, I went over and started doing the horrible John Wayne impression trying on just about every hat on the wall.  Eventually I tried on one and my girlfriend said, “That’s the one!”  I thought she was kidding.  I was just killing time, trying on hats.  She then convinced me that I needed that hat and even bought it for me.  I’ve never been happier with a hat in my entire life.

The John B. Stetson Hat Company is 135 years old.  Begun in 1865 with $100 and a dream, it’s now one of the most recognizable hats around.  Not just another “Cowboy Hat” the Stetson has come to represent durability, innovation and style.  The best “Cowboy Hat” you can buy.  The first Stetson sold for a five dollar gold piece.  Today, you can buy one hat for more than what Mr. Stetson started his company with.

County music stars don’t get to hold claim to the Stetson.  Bono rocked the Stetson at the height of U2’s success.  He even took someone to court to get it back.  Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of the Grateful Dead sported the legendary chapeaux.  Bob Dylan’s been known to pull out a Stetson.

According to legend, the Stetson Hat, to African American slaves, was symbolic of manhood and freedom.  To the cowboy, it was protection from the sun, to rock n’ roll icons it’s a statement of the renegade wild life of rock n’ roll.  To me, it’s the feeling of history upon your head.  The immediate flashback to another time.  Maybe because so many Dead songs are about the Wild West, do I find my Stetson so perfectly positioned upon my head.  Regardless of why, you’ll always love your Stetson.