The Hipster Goddess and Mr. HuntNFish

We CAN all get along! We can!

In the face of Donald G. Trump and Elon Musk’s apparent determination to turn the USA into a client state of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and nearly half the population persisting in beliving that the pair of them are committed to the restoration of the country’s greatness, many have been predicting that a second civil war is inevitable. This past weekend, though, a musical performance in the picturesque southeastern Arkansas town of Rector rekindled hope that we can, in the words of Rodney King, “all get along”.

Chrissie Hynde, moments before her fiery vocals nearly set Rector aflame.

For the past several weeks, Chrissie Hynde, best known as the hipster goddess frontwoman and sole ongoing member of the Pretenders singing group, visited Rector as part of her The Twain Can Meet tour of the birthplaces of notable but undersung average Americans — in Rector’s case, rock scholar and critic Steve Crawford. As elsewhere, she was preceded on stage by Tracy Chapman and the late Ronnie Van Zandt of Lynyrd Skynyrd. A few of the 61 locals who attended the show were originally disgruntled by the absence of Shania Twain, but their disgruntlement quickly turned to delight as the three co-headliners performed “Free Bird”, “Fast Car”, “Brass in Pocket”, and other hits for which they are known — and in many cases adored.

Expecting that “Free Bird” would probably make the red-capped men in attendance feisty, woke attendees either queued up for the Dollar General restroom or walked over to the Citgo filling station for some beef jerky or Mountain Dew®. Fearing that the wokes might urge them to start specifying their pronouns on line, the MAGAts did likewise when Chapman and her acoustic guitarist accompanist took the stage. No punches were thrown, teeth knocked out, noses bloodied, or arrests made until Chapman injudiciously chose as her encore number Taylor Swift’s “So What If He Hates Me (I Hate Him Much More).” Jayden Breedlove, of nearby Nimmons, Missouri, was arrested for public indecency for removing his little elvis to pee down the back of the right leg of a woman in a We Tried to Warn You! T-shirt.

By the show’s finale, in which the three artists traded verses on the Pretenders’ “Tattooed Love Boys”, only seven members of the audience (their names and email addresses are available on request) weren’t up on their feet and dancing.

A few minutes chatting with Ms. Hynde in her tour bus in the presence of a local chaperon was raffled off. The lucky winner was Robby Bob Roberts of nearby Marmaduke, for whom 2025 has already been quite a year, as he quarterbacked Marmaduke High’s football team to the Clay County championship on New Year’s Day, and then, on Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, was named Mr. HuntNFish for the second consecutive year by Earle Wingnut, proprietor of Earle’s BaitNTackle on State Highway 119 and the grand wizard of the local chapter of Mouthbreathers for MAGA.

Some observers fretted that Ms. Hynde, a strident vegetarian, might find young Roberts’ huntin’ and fishin’ distasteful, but the two so enjoyed each other’s company that Ms. Hynde invited him to join the tour as her personal assistant. This didn’t go over well with pretty Melodeigh Schindler, daughter of Rector mayor Tommy Lee Schindler, and Billy Bob’s date to Marm High’s senior prom, whose theme this year was An Evening in Little Rock. “I’m frankly incredulous,” remarked Melodeigh, who intends to pursue an associate’s degree in broadcast journalism from Clay County Community College, “At 73, the old rhymes-with-which-and-witch is seven years older than Billy Bob’s grandmother,” as the Twain Can Meet tour bus pulled out of the Dollar General parking lot in which the concert had been staged.

There is a radio station in the environs of Woodstock, New York, that never plays anything other than The Pretenders, unless it’s Tom Petty. The author supposes that the radio station probably slips some Grateful Dead in every now and again, but had the good fortune of never being behind the wheel of his second-hand Suburu Forester at the time.