"A Cave Full of Ghosts"

One of my favorite movies is Sling Blade, written by Billy Bob Thornton, who also starred in the movie as the eccentric Carl Childers. Billy Bob has written a book, co-authored by another old favorite of mine, Kinky Friedman. It is entitled The Billy Bob Tapes, subtitled A Cave Full of Ghosts. Kinky proposed the book to Billy Bob: "Hey, let's do a book with some weird and funny stories about growing up, and you can also bitch about whatever's on your mind."

Billy Bob thought that might be a good idea, but he writes that "The other reason I did this book is because I wanted to put my two cents in about how I truly believe our culture is crumbling before our eyes and a lot of people seem to be pretty apathetic about it. I believe that we are in a society that is encouraging, funding, and rewarding laziness, cynicism, mediocrity, and cruelty. And for some reason we've become a society that believes that it is judge and jury. Puritanical when convenient for itself, and just the opposite when that is more convenient.

There is a lot of selfishness, hatred, and self-entitlement going around. And we're being hoodwinked by companies that sell stuff to us because they know our weakness, the need to be accepted and noticed. I believe we need a cultural revolution, and I don't mean simply "It sucks"; I mean, "It's an emergency!"

I think I will read the whole thing.