Stuff Hillbillies Like: Armed Standoffs

Hillbillies are bound by some sort of code that covers not only how they live their lives of squalid excess, but also outline the ways they die, usually in exuberant depression.

While the code is unwritten and is decipherable only by the hillfolk, there are some magnificent acts that serve as a redneck Rosetta Stone for those of us who wish to know the hillbilly, but lie just outside of this genetically-shallow gene pool.

Hillbillies honor this code by choosing not to end their lives silently and respectfully, but to shuffle off the mortal coil in the most expressive and expensive way possible: the armed standoff. The armed standoff generally starts off innocently enough with a liberal mixture of booze and prescription medicine, along with copious quantities of cable television programming, including Lifetime.

Any emotional incident can trigger the armed standoff: a soured relationship, the repossession of a favorite pickup truck, or, as is more often the case, a deepening suspicion that the government may be using miniature helicopters disguised as bumble bees to spy on their pocket knife collection.

The armed stand off starts when the hillbilly barricades himself in his house or trailer. Then, he calls 911 to tell the police that he is, indeed, barricaded in his house or trailer. So, as not to totally ruin the surprise, the hillbilly is cagey about the amount of arms he possesses and the ultimate intention of his actions.

It's generally referred to as "goin' down in a blaze of glory," which fills the mind of the hillbilly up with visions of Jon Bon Jovi in a cowboy hat, asleep on a private jet.

Much to the chagrin of the hillbilly neighbors, the police must show up in the early morning hours, in force. Police cruisers, SWAT trucks, fire apparatus, water mules, ice cream trucks, motorcycles with sidecars, clown cars, helicopters, and a few tractor-trailers.

Back in the day, the cops would rush to the window and toss in a telephone that would serve as a means of communication between the hillbilly and a negotiator. Now, despite refusing to pay for adequate health care, the hillbilly will spend hundreds on cell phone and texting service. The cops just call the cell and wait for the Korn ring tone.

After tedious negotiations, the cops will then call in "relations" who will try to talk the hillbilly out safely. The standoff usually ends peacefully, with the hillbilly exiting the premises expecting to be greeted with hugs and high-fives from friends and family. The police, however, proceed to slam him to the ground and hogtie him faster than a rodeo heifer.

On the odd chance that the situation does not resolve peacefully and the hillbilly actually dies, the grief will spawn survivors into a heightened round of boozing and country music.

Followed by another armed standoff.

Stuff Hillbillies Like: Dirt

As evidenced by their sports, their vehicles, their homes and trailers, and their bodies, hillbillies like dirt. And all its multitudinous forms: dust, mud, filth, grime, and grit.

A hillbilly wants nothing better than to spend--the culturally insensitive might say "waste"--his or her Saturday afternoons driving a vehicle through mud. The more exposed that vehicle can be to the elements, the better. The hillbilly will ride small, open, four-wheel vehicles in the mud so he can become caked in the sacred substance.

The hillbilly likes to call this vehicle an "all terrain vehicle." Terrain, after all, is just a fancy city word for "mud."

It's better known, though, as an ATV because terrain is hard to pronounce and it sounds vaguely French.

ATVs are responsible for more than just dirty hillbillies, though; the ATV is the cause of injured hillbillies. Despite days and days spent riding aimlessly in the hills and valleys and who could forget the "hollahs," hillbillies seem unable to master the art of avoiding trees and telephone poles in their four-wheel Medicaid machines.

Fortunately for the hillbilly, the government subsidizes their recuperation time to the tune of billions of dollars each year. Unfortunately, it's time spent in a clean, sterile and booze-free environment: a hospital.

And that's no fun.

Stuff Hillbillies Like: Multiculturalism, So Long As Drinking Is Involved

Hillbillies aren't particularly Irish and aren't particularly Catholic. They will be tonight, though.

The celebration of St. Patrick's Day is indicative of the hillbilly's ability to turn any holiday into an excuse to drink until medical intervention is required. Go into any backwoods bar tonight and you'll find hillbillies face down on the bar, a little plastic green hat askew and a little vomit caked on their L.E.D.-lit shamrock pin.

On St. Patrick's Day, like other holiday, the hillbilly will push past religious differences and intolerance, forgive years of cultural imperialism, and raise a toast to America's multicultural tapestry.

Hillbillies could solve any long-standing cultural grudge with an alcohol-fueled binge. Trouble in Israel? Have a few beers on Yom Kippur. War in Iraq? Knock back some brewskies on the Prophet's birthday?

Hillbillies will show their solidarity for people in Tibet by getting bombed on the Chinese New Year.

As the environment becomes a more hot button issue, expect to find hillbillies passed out on you lawn after a vicious Arbor Day celebration.

Stuff Hillbillies Like: Date Night Sweaters and Baseball Hats

Tim Gunn on the lookout for Hillbilly fashion trends.

With Valentine's Day just over, it was interesting to see the hillbilly male in a dating capacity.

It's the one day of the year where hillbilly women force their men into a romantic encounter that doesn't include a six-pack of beer and the back of a four-wheel drive vehicle that just happened to be unlocked in the parking lot of the local bar or tavern.

In order for this to be considered a date, the hillbilly male must dress to the nines, or in his case, the four-and-a-halfs.

Hillbilly date night ensemble includes:

1. Blue jeans
2. Sweater, sleeves pushed back
3. Baseball hat

The sweater says, "I'm semi-formal."

The baseball hat says, "Oh, no, you're not."

The blue jeans say, "I think you're both idiots."

(There are variations. For instance, the Southern hillbilly may nonchalantly stack his mirrored-wrap-around sunglasses on the brim of his baseball cap. Tres chic, no?)

Once properly attired, the hillbilly couple travels to a chain restaurant, like Red Lobster, Olive Garden, or, for those who are just embarking on a non-committal date night, Wendy's. Primed by consuming cheap beers and wine coolers in the parking lot, the couple hits the restaurant with romantic gusto once reserved for sailors being met on the docks by wives, girlfriends, and seaside sex industry workers.

The hillbilly couple enjoys the expanded fair of the chain restaurant and the added attention their open-mouth kissing earns from families and non-hillbilly couples.

Where the hillbilly goes out on a date is uncertain. However, the rest of the date will conclude with the following:

• Illegitimate birth
• Substance-abused fueled fight
• PFA

Not necessarily in that order.

Stuff Hillbillies Like: Analog Television

It's hard for the hillbilly to say goodbye to certain things.

Like the rims off the tires of some 1970s-era muscle car that rust in the front yard.

Or the old lady moo-moo, a fashion style that slips easily from the bedroom to caseworker waiting room.

Some hillbillies have a hard time saying goodbye to people. That's why the Protection From Abuse, or the PFA, order was invented.

But, nothing has been harder to say goodbye to than analog television.

Congress is asking all of America to wait a a few months while hillbillies says their final farewells to their cherished analog signal and rabbit ears.

In some instances, these rabbit ears have looked after hillbilly children more than their parents have, especially during the hillbilly holiday season, which starts right after the Daytona 500.

The government has tried many tactics to get the hillbilly to part with his analog television, even offering him coupon so he could roll off the couch and get a converter box.

The hillbilly's love can not be bought or sold, unless alcohol is involved.

Many Americans are upset with the hillbillies, blaming them for tying up progress to the 21st century.

But, our Congress men and women assure us there are good reasons.

If the hillbilly's television goes dead after the conversion, he might not be able to watch the two good stations and decide to go outside.

Once outside, he may decide to do something productive with his free time, like get a job.

If he gets a job he may become a taxpayer instead of a tax consumer.

If the hillbilly becomes a productive contributor to society, all the people who voted on the analog extension might lost their jobs and become unemployed hillbillies.

And they could never say goodbye to digital cable.

Stuff Hillbillies Like: Talking Really Loud About Stuff They Like

Because a hillbilly can barely read or write, she indulges the one form of communication that doesn't tax the use of neurons: talking.

Have you ever seen a child who mastered the ability to ride a bike. The child bursts in wild exuberance and pedals madly, screaming at the top of his lungs. Now watch a hillbilly female yucking it up with friends at a Bob Evans, the well-named Cracker Barrel or other note hillbilly feed trough.

It's the same juvenile excitement. It's like it's the first day with her new mouth.

Don't mind being impolite. Go ahead and listen in. It would be like trying to ignore a low-flying 747. The hillbilly wants you to listen to her travails and victories. She'll talk about the deal she got on feminine hygiene products at Walgreen. She'll propose welfare reforms to better support her and her children. She'll wonder aloud when her disability check with come.

The hillbilly is even louder on the cell phone. You wonder why she needs it at all. Her voice can
carry at least a time zone.

Stuff Hillbillies Like: Middle Names

Hilbillies are rarely creative. They tend to celebrate destruction with all the passion of a crack-fueled chimpanzee does.

Hillbillies revel at videos of high-speed chases, although some of it is to catch an image of the relatives. They invented smash-up derby, which combines two of their favorite loves: self-mutilation and pulling down an item's intrinsic value.

Some hillbillies believe that the oldest profession is Professional Wrestling, which they follow with a religious fervor. Again, the notion of destruction enthralls the hillbilly.

Creative writing, it would seem, just wouldn't appeal to the hillbilly. And, you're right: prose and poetry are beyond the hillbilly. Except if it's the creation of middle names for their newly-born social pariah.


Here the hillbilly becomes a Be-bop jazz-fusion artist. A hillbilly mother will often insert several middle names into their male children: Billy Bob Joe-Joe, Joe Bob John-John, or Dale Earnhardt Bob... The list and variations go on like the riffs of a Miles Davis sonic soul exploration.

Why so many middle names? It's actually because the female hillbilly is trying to hedge her bets in actually using the name of the child's father in the middle-name string. She usually starts with all of her first cousins and works up the family tree, making careful notation to add the supposed names any traveling carnival workers.

This theory is further verified in the hillbilly approach to naming a female hill-baby. Names include Sue Ellen Bob, Billie Joe Bob, Bobbie Jo Billy, etc.