Recently, I realized that Louisiana Sportsman magazine has apparently missed something very important. We may be the very last media outlet in America — make that the world — to pick up on it.
As the editor, I take full responsibility and take corrective action here. It seems that we are the only magazine, newspaper, Facebook page or bathroom wall that hasn’t written something about or shared a photo of…
Taylor Swift.
So here it is. Taylor Swift gets her word count in Louisiana Sportsman!
I know nothing about her. I’ve never heard a complete song she sang. I have only caught glimpses of her on TV watching grown men play football in something called the NFL. And that’s how long I watched: Not For Long.
I’m just hoping not too many teenage girls read this or I’ll be in trouble. But hey, she made the magazine. I sent her a Facebook private message and invited her to the one-and-only original Louisiana Sportsman Show, but apparently she was booked to sing for a few hundred thousand folks on a little island called Singapore for the March 1-3 weekend.
You may be wondering why this is in an outdoor magazine. But, with all due respect and credit to ESPN’s Lee Corso, “Not so fast!”
She must love the outdoors
I did a little research and, by golly, I think she must be a fisherman or outdoors person. Some of her outfits’ color schemes would make great crankbait colors. And, I mean, today’s a good day to look at these six popular hit songs of hers and what I have determined to be their secret outdoor meanings:
“Cruel Summer” – Obviously she knows the pains of locating and catching big bass in the heat of June, July and August!
“Blank Space” – I know that feeling. I’ve looked in my livewell many, many times and seen it. Blank space. By the way, there really is a cool, albeit a few years old, fishing parody video on this one that you have to watch.
“Shake it Off” – What better theme song for a big old bass trying to get loose from the back set of treble hooks on a crankbait, or a leaping sailfish trying to get loose from a Yoto fake squid trolling lure?
“You Belong With Me” – How many deer hunters haven’t sung that as they look at pictures of a big 10-point buck staring into their deer cam?
“You Need to Calm Down” – What that same hunter needs to hear when he actually sees that big buck in person during the season and he gets the shakes as it comes into his crosshairs.
“Call It What You Want” – An obvious freedom of choice tribute to those who chase slabs — whatever you refer to them as, white perch, crappie or sac-a-lait!
Disclaimer: Okay, if you have made it this far, don’t get mad at me. It is April Fools’ month. And if there is anything offensive in any of her songs, I refer to the title of one more of her popular songs: “Don’t Blame Me.” My apologies, Swifties.
Wait, there’s more
I have a little bit more room to do a little ranting.
Today, social media has gotten to be a dumpster fire. It’s impossible to tell truth from fiction. It’s overwhelming. But it can be kind of entertaining. To me, it does show one thing. People are reaching out and wanting something, but they aren’t sure what it is. And unfortunately for many, it’s bringing out an unappealing side of them and causing them to miss out on some of the most important things in life. That is sad.
The keyboard warriors that can only post negative things or comments about everything that they see can drive you crazy, but the fun stuff is just, well….fun.
Like a floating Waffle House meme we came across from scanning Fakebook, coming to a bayou near you soon. Seriously, how come nobody has thought of this. And surely a Dollar General on the water can’t be far behind. By the way, today’s definition of a meme is “a unit of cultural information spread by imitation.”
And now we have to deal with Artificial Intelligence (AI), so trying to separate the imaginary from the real is going to be that much harder. Do you know you can download a program that will let you order a photo about anything you can imagine? Want a picture of a 14-pound bass leaping in the air over the front of a bass boat with the angler’s mouth wide open in glee? How about the Goodyear Blimp in the sky behind them and an eagle perched on a limb on the shore in the background? No problem.
That’s just AI 101.
Sorry, but I won’t deal in that. I’d rather have a real, slightly fuzzy picture of a 4-pound bass swimming into an angler’s net with the sun in the wrong position than the very best Fake Photo.
We want you to read what we write and look at the pictures we take, and a growing number of our “followers” do so through digital media. But we also realize that the overload of fake social media is pushing people to their limits. That’s why so many Louisiana Sportsman readers tell us they like to just sit in their chair and thumb through actual printed pages of the magazine at their leisure.
Here’s one thing that might be fiction and truth. Scientists have recently discovered more and more evidence of actual Bigfoot existence, but there have been fewer and fewer actual Sasquatch sightings. There is a reason.
The discovery is easily explained with very few words, brought to us via Fakebook in another “unit of cultural information spread by imitation.”
Happy April. Hey, I know this isn’t your ordinary fishing or hunting column, but every once in a while, a break for a little humor doesn’t hurt. And besides, the rest of this magazine is chocked full of great, REAL information and REAL photos of the Louisiana outdoors. And we plan on keeping it that way.
This could go on and on and on, but consider yourself lucky.
I have run out of space.
