White Trash Art

Hope Chest

oil on canvas 24x36"

Kissin' Cousins

 

Marie-Louise d'Orleans and King Carlos II of Spain, acrylic, ink on vellum 12x16"

King Carlos II of Spain was the last ruling member of the Hapsberg royal family. The Hapsbergs had a disturbing penchant for incestuous marriages with resultant childbearing among them - especially pairing uncles with nieces or first cousins with one another. Their need to keep the icky DNA of non-Hapsberg human beings out of their gene pool over several generations led to the creation of poor Carlos. He had been born from a niece/uncle pairing, and both of his parents had been born of other various pairings of family. This not only made family reunions confusing occasions, it also gave him more recessive genetic ailments than your average product of direct incest between father and daughter. His health problems included:

The "Hapsbug Jaw" ("Hapsburg Lip") - a condition that was associated with a large number of Hapsbergs over many generations. Mandibular Prognathism (excessive underbite) that grew more pronounced with age, and was not only unsightly but also caused problems with eating and speaking - not to mention drooling.

Probable Craniosynostosis, or fused fontanels during infancy, which causes mental retardation and an odd shaped head. Carlos, it was said, had a huge head, flat cheeks, a "deformed" nose and everted lower eyelids.

Developmental problems that caused him to be carried around by servants until he was 10. Also, Carlos wasn't encouraged to bathe because it might strain his frail health, and his poor hygiene did not go unnoticed by the rest of the court. 

Genitals that were in such sad disarray that it was evident to an onlooker that Carlos' chance of producing an heir would be a difficult task. Also he was deemed a chronic premature ejaculator by two wives. So premature, it seems, that he couldn't even get it in first.

Carlos married Marie Louise D'Orleans at age 18, and fell madly in love with her. She was a bit less enthusiastic about the union, and lived about a decade in the court, depressed and over-eating, until she died suddenly after an acute bout with abdominal pain. Carlos, by this time rapidly going bald and described as "senile" (he was in his mid twenties, by the way) was distraught. As his mental state declined he had Marie Louise exhumed to look upon her rotting remains long after her burial (as well as several other dead relatives, because that's what a king does when he's bored). Carlos married again, but never got over her death.

Gluttony At Its Finest

My boyfriend works for the company that manufactures Oreo Cakesters, so for our anniversary I made him some with my recipe.

White Trash Peg's Gluttony Cake*

This cake contains animal fat in several different forms (including the much maligned baking ingredient lard), quite a bit of chocolate, booze, loads of sugar and white flour, salt... I very nearly substituted part of the sour cream with mayonnaise. (Maybe next time...) Because chocolate cake was never meant to be health food.

    * 5 Eggs--seperated
    * 1 c Sugar
    * 2/3 c Lard
    * 2 1/2 c Sifted cake flour
    * 1 1/2 additional c Sugar
    * 1 heaping tsp Baking powder
    * 1 heaping tsp Salt
    * 1 1/2 c sour cream
    * 8 oz good quality semi sweet chocolate (melted and cooled)
    * 2 oz good quality bourbon, like Maker's Mark
    * 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Beat egg whites till frothy. Gradually beat in 1 cup sugar. Continue beating till glossy with soft peaks. In another bowl, cream remaining sugar and lard. Add sifted dry ingredients and half of sour cream. Stir to moisten dry ingredients; then beat 1 minute, medium speed on mixer. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl constantly. Add remaining sour cream, egg yolks, bourbon, vanilla and cooled, melted chocolate. Beat 1 minute, scraping bowl constantly. Fold in egg whites. Pour into 3 greased and floured 8-inch round layer cake pans. Bake in moderate oven at 350 F. for 30 to 35 minutes.

Twinkie Filling
**double the recipe if you are making cupcakes or if you like loads of filling

    * 1 c. milk
    * 4 tbsp. flour
    * 1 c. butter, softened
    * 1 c. sugar
    * 1/4 tsp. salt
    * 1 tsp. vanilla, or preferably the "caviar" from the inside of 1 vanilla bean (substitute 1 tsp Grand Marnier if you like orange)

Beat milk and flour and cook on low until thick. Cool completely. Cream butter until relatively fluffy. Add sugar and salt. Beat 5 minutes more. Add filling and beat 10 minutes. Filling should have the consistency of twinky or ding dong filling. Add vanilla or Gran Marnier. Incorporate well. Spread between layers of cake.

Dark Chocolate Glaze
    * 4 oz melted, cooled semi sweet chocolate
    * 1/4 c half and half
    * 1 tbsp butter
    * 1/4 tsp salt

Stir over very low heat in sauce pan until glossy and smooth. Pour over filled cake.
Eat warm or chilled. Nice with a lovely blackberry sauce and a glass of port.

The Greatest Tear Jerker Country Songs of All Time*

*as compiled by Peggy the bartender and Donnie the plumber on a Tuesday night  in a bar in an American farm town that has no stoplights

Listed in no order, because of the subjective nature of these kinds of lists:

Whiskey Lullaby  - Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss
Oh my God. So freaking awful. So ridiculously sad and depressing. Alison Krauss could make you cry just by hitting the right note with that voice that sounds like a mother singing to her babies for the very last time in the face of some unforeseen tragedy... and the lyrics! A triumph among sad country songs.

The rumors flew but nobody knew how much she blamed herself
For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath
She finally drank her pain away a little at a time
But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind
Until the night she put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory...

Me and Little Andy - Dolly Parton
It wasn't enough for Dolly to stick us in the guts with a neglected toddler looking for a place to sleep during a horrible storm because "mommy ran away again" to the Indian casino or the crack house, or whatever... Oh no - she had to kill off the kid -and worse... the kid's DOG too. I'm going to go hang myself now.

 Giddy up trotty horse, going to the mill
Can we stay all night
If you don't love us no one will
I promise we wont cry
London bridge is fallin down
My daddy's drunk again in town
And we was all alone and didn't what we could do
I wonder if you'll let us stay with you

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - Hank Williams

The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky.
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry

The Caroll County Accident - Porter Wagoner
After Porter's dad is killed in the mangled, bloody carnage of a highway wreck, he realizes that his old man was out poking someone who wasn't his mom. The traditional rock-n-roll car wreck tragedy song is embellished (akin to Wagoner's signature be-dazzled wagon wheel sportcoat) with a gut wrenching country twist. 

I went down to see the wreck like all the rest,
The broken glass the bloody seats the tangled mess,
But I found something no one else had ever seen,
Behind the dash in Mary's crumpled up machine.
A little match box circled by a rubber band,
And inside the ring from Walter Browning's hand

El Paso - Marty Robbins
The evil tramp Felina must have a pussy that's hot as an oven and as spectacular as the Hope Diamond, because this miserable cowboy murders for it, then suicidally rushes into certain death just to get a piece of it again.

Maybe tomorrow
A bullet may find me.
Tonight nothing's worse than this
Pain in my heart

He Stopped Loving Her Today - George Jones
This one made me cry the first time when I was probably 7, and has made me fog up, and even sob uncontrollably, on countless occasions since. Morrisey ain't got nothing on George Jones for pure unadulterated melancholy, and I bet he knows it.

Kept some letters by his bed
Dated 1962
He had underlined in red
Every single I love you
I went to see him just today
Oh but I didn't see no tears
All dressed up to go away
First time I'd seen him smile in years...

Get it? Yeah. He's finally smiling again cause hes fucking dead.

Travelin' Soldier - The Dixie Chicks
A small town high school girl loses her first love to the Viet Cong. Good Lord have mercy.

One Friday night at a football game
The Lord's Prayer said and the anthem sang
A man said folks would you bow your heads
For a list of local Vietnam dead
Cryin' all alone under the stands
Was a piccolo player in the marching band

Ribbon of Darkness - Marty Robbins
Donnie's Marty Robbins pick was "El Paso", but I have to say this one always gets to me more. It reminds me of when you're so down and low, and you've gone through the same terrible scenarios over and over in your head so much that you can't stand to think of them any more.

Here in this cold room lyin'
Don't want to see no one but you
Lord I wish I could be dyin'
To forget you

Oh how I wish your heart could see
How mine just aches and breaks all day
Come on home and take away
This ribbon of darkness over me

The Long Black Veil - Lefty Frizell (popularly covered by Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, The Chieftains and others)
They don't get any sadder than this one. The narrator sings posthumously about how he sacrificed his life to protect his lover's reputation.

The Judge said son, what is your alibi,
if you were somewhere else, then you won't have to die.
I spoke not a word, though it meant my life,
for I'd been in the arms of my best friends wife.

Sweet Dreams - Patsy Cline
There's only three short stanzas in this concise attack on the softest, mushiest, most damaged part of your aching heart, and Patsy goes in for the kill with that sad beautiful voice.

You don't love me, it's plain
I should know I'll never wear your ring
I should hate you the whole night through
Instead of having sweet dreams about you

Teddy Bear - Red Sovine
There's nothing like a crippled kid to get past the steely exterior of the average truck driver's road-weary heart.

This was my dad's radio the little boy said
But I guess it's mine and mom's now cause my daddy's dead
Dad had a wreck about a month ago
He was tryin' to get home in a blinding snow
Mom has to work now to make ends meet
And I'm not much help with my two crippled feet
She says not to worry that we'll make it alright
But I hear her cryin' sometimes late at night

D-I-V-O-R-C-E by Tammy Wynette
someone s-h-o-o-t-m-e

Our little boy is four years old and quite a little man
So we spell out the words we don't want him to understand
Like T-O-Y or maybe S-U-R P-R-I-S-E
But the words we're hiding from him now
Tear the heart right out of me
Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today

Honorable Mention:

Do It Yourself - Drive By Truckers
Following the tradition of great Scotch-Irish balladeers who eventually gave us Appalachian tear-jerkers comes the Drive By Truckers with this tale of a suicide in the modern South. (Also check out their song 'The Deeper In', which is a woeful tale of brother-sister incest in the milieu of a Jerry Springer existence)

Who’s to blame for the loveless marriage, who’s to blame for the broken band.
You ran from life and all of it’s pleasures, your own teeth marks on your own damned hand.
Thrown out before the date’s expired, you’d rather die than let anyone help,
You’d rather die than take a stab at living.
Nothing would kill you so you do it yourself.

Giddy Up Go - Red Sovine
The king of the trucker troubadours spins a tale of a lost wife and child, and jams a giant lump into your throat for the tearful reunion of father and son, so very alike, in the parking lot of some Stuckey's on Route 66

Wreck on the Highway - Roy Acuff

There was whiskey and blood all together
Mixed with glass where they lay
Death played her hand in destruction
But I didn't hear nobody pray.

She's Lost Interest

This ad was in the back of a medical journal I bought on Ebay awhile back. Personally I think those mutton chop sideburns he grew put the kabash on the marriage. Either way, he's totally not getting laid tonight.

suitors

as chosen for me by "Match.com":

Only $19.95!

This is my proposed life partner, patent pending . The control panel offers such diverse services as vibrate, fix things, inseminate, make a living, cook, clean, and sympathize. An optional cuddling unit  is being researched.