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Music

A Brief Appreciation of Sturgill Simpson's Instagram Account

Blood, nunchucks, and birkenstocks, baby. He's got it all.

Sturgill Simpson rules. He's like, the Ultimate Dude: Chill, tired of bullshit, interested in doing cool shit but with a big chip on his shoulder that the cool shit isn't being recognized as cool shit. He's multidimensional and I dig it. I also like that he is, allegedly, always paralyzed with fear when he performs (I'm too lazy to corroborate this from among the seven million some-odd interviews he's done, but the evidence is there, just trust me. You also have Google.), because I too am constantly paralyzed by fear when I perform. It's nice to know that famous, successful people are just like me.

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Last night, before I drifted off to sleep, I did the inevitable: Stared at Instagram, endlessly scrolling in an attempt to get to the stuff the algorithm refuses to show me. I came across this one, and from there it was really just a matter of time before this piece happened.

Sturgill, my guy, I love you, but as a good friend of mine pointed out, Hammond isn't gonna endorse you after watching your organ guy destroy an organ on live TV! Not to be all "kill your idols" but something to remember about Sturgill is he's a little bit of a diva. Anyone with a chip on their shoulder as big as his is going to be, and that's ok, it's kind of a requirement for a man making music in the country field anyway. But I digress. Sturgill, I have to agree with you. Misogyny aside (sorry dude, you're a legend but calling someone a pussy is still not cool, come on man), I have never seen someone make an organ look cool like Bobby can. Shout out to Bobby. Hammond, loosen up a little, breaking stuff is very cool and good for your brand.

Sturgill was on a tear last night. He made five separate posts over 24 hours even though he really only posts like once every few days. Dude isn't big on telling us what's going on, which I also respect. We don't deserve to know your personal life just because you make goodass music!

Of the five he posted yesterday this one was my favorite. I'm currently imagining a situation where Sturgill is in charge of a remake of Big Trouble in Little China where he writes, directs, and scores the film. That's as far as I've gotten. Moving on.

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Here's Bobby again. Bobby rules. Everything about this picture is great: the Cars calendar. The assorted toys in the back corner. Bobby's expression. A dude named Roadhouse is there. Sturgill passionately discussing Riff Raff aka Jody High Roller aka Peach Panther. Bobby's Black Sabbath t-shirt. The fact that this is going on at 1AM. Like I said, Ultimate Dude here.

Sturgill met Thundercat. Very cool! Notice how Sturgill never looks happy in his photos. That's a Dude move.

I like the filter here, Sturg. How long have you had those Birkenstocks? Those are not cool, and he probably knows it, but he's wearing them anyway. Sturgill doesn't give a fuck!

I honestly don't know what's going on here. Sturgill, are you happy? Are you scared? Blink twice if you need to be rescued. Please do not jump overboard the world needs you. Why don't your eyebrows elicit more emotion. You're like country music's Mona Lisa. Who is this woman and do you have her number? Because I fuck with her vibe. Maybe this is his wife, Sarah. I really don't know, I've never seen her picture before. More like #WhoIsSarahSimpson these days.

A scroll through Sturgill's Instagram is like a long walk in a park. Sometimes you're like "holy shit this is awesome lmfao," other times you think "what am I doing here? Is there nothing else I could be doing? Is this weird? I've been doing this for a while." But then something happens. Like a beam of light streaming from the inside of a bar with $2 Budweiser, you see it. The reason you started this journey in the first place…..

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Yeah, that's a video of Sturgill Simpson, Grammy-winning artist, one of the first country artists in a very long time to be nominated for Best Album, the man who nearly single-handedly forced a modernization of Outlaw Country with his debut album High Top Mountain, playing with nunchuks somewhere in Japan, captioned with a hashtagged version of that Napoleon Dynamite quote.

What a Dude.

Annalise Domenighini is thinking about a lot of things, but mostly how many times Sturgill Simpson has seen Napoleon Dynamite. Also, where is Napoleon these days? Follow her on Twitter.

Editors note: Since this post went up, Simpson has removed the offending pussy comment from his Instagram post.