Friday, January 30, 2015

3 Chords & the Truth: Musical youth


Pass the New Wave from the left-hand side.

Pass the 30-something-year-old inside jokes from the top.

Ugh. At least this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth gets off to a better start than this week's post about this week's edition of the Big Show.

Now . . . where was I again?

I think I was going to mention just a couple of things about this week's podcast, which you can hear by clicking any of the BOLD RED LINKS. Or by pressing the little arrow on the PodOmatic player below. Or by clicking on the first episode on the 3 Chords & the Truth player over yonder on the right hand side of the page.


ANYWAY, one thing that you need to know about this week's Big Show is what you hear for about the first third of the show, give or take, is what your Mighty Favog was listening to a lot of in high school and college, back during his musical youth.  And I still love me some New Wave to this day -- my musical Not Youth.

Another thing you need to know about this week's 3 Chords & the Truth is that you may be witnessing the first-ever segué from Bob Dylan to Jeri Southern. Which totally works, by the by.

You also need to know that Garth Brooks' 1990 cover of The Fleetwoods' "Mr. Blue" kick the original's musical butt. And the original was pretty dadgum good.

And finally, you need to know that if the Big Show were a band, it would have played The Bayou (peace be upon it) on Chimes Street in Baton Rouge, just outside the north gates of Louisiana State University (peace be upon it once Gov. Bobby Jindal gets done killing it). The Bayou was the best bar ever, and all the best up-and-coming bands played there back in the day.

Ever heard of R.E.M.? Used to play The Bayou when I was in college.

SO YOU listen to this while I go grab me some cheap beer, put a quarter in the jukebox, grab me a pool cue and a table and hang out at my favorite hangout of my misspent youth. Even if it's only in my dreams.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Bigfoot lives, and he does social media!


Finally, a news organization not named The Star, the Enquirer or The Globe takes notice of Bigfoot, Yeti, Sasquatch, whatever you want to call him.

It's about time, CBS News!
In the midst of the potent wind and heavy snow, a yeti was spotted roaming around the streets of Boston Monday night.

As the blizzard of 2015 howled in, Bostonians were told to stay off the roads. But as tall figure dressed in a white, fluffy costume with grey gloves embraced the storm, documenting its trip and calling itself the @BostonYeti2015 on Twitter.

The mythical abdominal snowman started its journey in Somerville at 10:48 pm.
HOWEVER, I strongly object to the use of the word "mythical."

Saturday, January 24, 2015

3 Chords & the Truth: By the numbers


Here is this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth by the numbers.

26.

There are 26 songs on this week's edition of the Big Show.

5.

Five distinct sets of music on this 3 Chords & the Truth.

72.

Times your host says "ummmm." Ummmm . . . I just made that up.

I . . . ummmm . . . don't . . . ummmm . . . think it was nearly that many . . . ummmm . . . times.

5.

Five straight records on the Big Show that happen to be vintage 78 r.p.m. singles. A whole set consisting of 78s, as a matter of fact.

Furthermore, one of them probably will surprise you.

3.

Three songs about magic.

1.

One song -- OK, probably three songs -- that had to have been staples on Omaha's supremely middle-of-the-road KFAB radio back in the day, back when the station actually played music.

4.

Four country records on the program this go 'round.

99 44/100.

Ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths percent pure fun this week on the show. The other .56 percent is just you being a bloody crank.

SO THAT'S IT. This week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth by the numbers. Your mileage may vary, but probably not.

Of course, the only way to know for sure it to give it a listen. He says, cajolingly.

Anyway. . . .

Ummmm. . . .
 
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Thursday, January 22, 2015

A whore by any other name
. . . is just as screwed


Here's the thing about being a whore: No matter how sweet-talking the john -- no matter how apparently solicitous the man who's bought and paid for you is -- you will never, ever be allowed to forget exactly what you are.

A whore.

Because it's not about you. It's about Not You.

Yes, Pro-Life Movement (TM), I'm talking to you. The institutional "movement," the one with D.C. offices and PACs and endorsements of candidates. The one that, at some point, may come to realize that it's the whore of whores -- Republican whores.


THE A-NO. 1 fact of political life in our nation's capital is this: Politicians can be bought. The A-No. 1 reality for groups like National Right to Life, the American Life League, yadda yadda yadda is this: You're not the highest bidder.
 
Unfortunately, Pro-Life Movement (TM), your Plan B was to prostitute yourself to the very people who you couldn't afford to buy, but who sometimes would smile and greet you in the hall -- if not too many people would notice. And you paid them for the dubious "privilege."

But someday . . . someday! Someday, you'd end up just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman!

Boy, that's sure worked out well.


http://thefederalist.com/2015/01/22/why-everyone-should-be-terrified-by-the-gops-abortion-bill-debacle/

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

You want some assimilation, Governor?


Louisiana's embarrassment-in-chief is at it again.

This time, Gov. Bobby Jindal went all the way to London to say deeply stupid things, making his state a laughingstock internationally as opposed to scandalizing just a domestic American audience, as Louisiana has done time and again.

In a speech to the Henry Jackson Society, a British think tank named for the late U.S. senator from Washington state, Jindal took discredited Fox News assertions about Islamic "no-go zones" in the United Kingdom and France, then ran with them in decrying immigrant Muslims' failure to assimilate into Western societies. After all, what is truth, anyway?

According to an Associated Press  report:
In a speech prepared for delivery at a British think tank, Jindal said some immigrants are seeking “to colonize Western countries, because setting up your own enclave and demanding recognition of a no-go zone are exactly that.” He also said Muslim leaders must condemn the people who commit terrorism in the name of faith as “murderers who are going to hell.”

Jindal aides said he did not make significant changes to the prepared text.

The claims on “no-go zones” are similar to those a Fox News guest made last week about places where non-Muslims were not welcome in parts of the United Kingdom such as Birmingham, and “Muslim religious police” enforce faith-based laws.

Steven Emerson, an American author who often is asked about terror networks, told Fox News that in Britain “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.”

Prime Minister David Cameron responded by calling Emerson a “complete idiot.”

Emerson later apologized and said his comments “were totally in error.” Fox News also issued apologies for broadcasting the comments.

Jindal, however, used similar rhetoric during a speech, warning of “no-go zones” in London and other Western cities. Jindal’s remarks come in the wake of the massacre by Islamic extremists at a Paris magazine’s offices and subsequent attack on a kosher supermarket in the city. Three gunmen killed 17 people in the attacks.

“I knew that by speaking the truth we were going to make people upset,” Jindal told CNN during an interview from London.

“The huge issue, the big issue in non-assimilation is the fact that you have people that want to come to our country but not adopt our values, not adopt our language and in some cases want to set apart their own enclaves and hold onto their own values,” said Jindal. “I think that’s dangerous.”

Jindal’s parents immigrated to the United States from India. As a young man, Jindal converted from Hinduism to Catholicism.
TO HIS CREDIT, the governor did not tell his British audience that he was "a recovering wog."
"My dad and mom told my brother and me that we came to America to be Americans. Not Indian-Americans, simply Americans. If we wanted to be Indians, we would have stayed in India," Jindal, who is seen as a potential Republican Presidential candidate, is slated to tell the Henry Jackson Society in London on Monday, according to an advance transcript of his speech released by his office.

"It's not that they are embarrassed to be from India, they love India. But they came to America because they were looking for greater opportunity and freedom," Jindal maintains, adding that he does not believe in "hyphenated Americans."

"They like to refer to Indian-Americans, Irish-Americans, African-Americans, Italian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and all the rest. To be clear - I am not suggesting for one second that people should be shy or embarrassed about their ethnic heritage. But, I am explicitly saying that it is completely reasonable for nations to discriminate between allowing people into their country who want to embrace their culture, or allowing people into their country who want to destroy their culture, or establish a separate culture within," Jindal argues. 
THAT IS a fair point. But exactly what is "establish a separate culture within"? And exactly how credibly can the governor of Louisiana say such a thing?

For example, you have the United States of America. And then you have Louisiana. Technically, the state is part of the United States. Practically, not so much.

In Louisiana, you have an entire tourism infrastructure predicated upon how not typically American the state is. And if Louisiana ever were to be assimilated to the Borg level Jindal seems to advocate for immigrants to Western nations, it would cease to be anything one might recognize as Louisiana -- both for good and for bad.

If tomorrow, the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government woke up and decided to make Bobby Jindal and his constituents eat a big heapin' helpin' of what the governor feels free to preach to Europeans, I doubt that would go down well. In fact, it might go down something like this:

You want assimilation, Louisiana Governor Boy? We'll give you some damn assimilation.

First off, the United States Army arrives tomorrow to resume Radical Reconstruction, thanks to Louisiana's woeful non-assimilation on matters of race, poverty, education and official corruption. Your whole high-functioning Third World vibe continues to give the United States of America an international black eye. Furthermore, your election -- twice -- proves that the Louisiana electorate is in need of some radical re-education and, frankly, an attitude adjustment.

Also, because David Duke.

About that civil-law, Napoleonic Code thing that screws up your legal dealings with the rest of the country and makes it quite difficult for attorneys educated elsewhere to practice in Louisiana . . . we'll be sending a Justice Department legal task force within the month to rewrite your statutes and begin the rewrite of your constitution. Two words for you, Governor: Unassimilated and un-American.

And you now have counties, not "parishes" . . . and all your remaining "police juries" will be known as either "county boards" or "county commissions," effective immediately.

Now, while we're at it, about your state flag and state seal. . . . 





WE DETECT medieval Catholic symbolism for the Eucharist there. They'll have to go. Separation of church and state, don't you know?

What, Governor? You are displeased by our heavy-handed, totalitarian cultural imperialism? Just the kind of thing we have come to expect from unassimilated, un-American separatists like yourself. If you people do not wish to live as Americans, we certainly won't make you stay, Governor. Comprenez-vous?

Listen, Gov. Jindal -- May we call you Piyush? -- you quite publicly have made your and your state's bed. Now lie in it.


We are America. You will be assimilated.



Love and kisses,

The United States of America

The content of our character


Martin Luther King Jr., lived for the proposition that "all men were created equal," for the vision "that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

He also died for that proposition, that vision, that dream.

And it is for that "last full measure of devotion," to quote Abraham Lincoln, another great American who died because of a noble vision, that we honor Rev. King this time every year. To again borrow from our 16th president, King called us to heed "the better angels of our nature."

This trait in national leaders today is so rare that we are obligated to celebrate those who called us to transcend our fallen human nature all the more. It's important that we acknowledge that spark of the divine within us during an age when so much of the world seems to have gone to the devil.

Sadly, because we humans are a sad, sinful and petty lot overall, King's dream has yet to be fulfilled. Things are better, yes, than when an assassin cut down the civil-rights leader, but they're not good enough. Far too often, we judge one another by the color of our skin, not the content of our character.

That recently has been brought home right here . . . at home, in Omaha, Neb.

ENTER A small-time local Republican politician, Pat McPherson, recently elected to the state education board. McPherson seems to be one of those politicians who just can't help himself, or stay out of trouble. The content of the man's character seems to be, well, questionable.

More than a decade ago, there were allegations of groping a teenage girl dressed as the Red Robin mascot at a chain hamburger joint. McPherson, after a criminal trial, got out of that scrape, though not before he was pressured to resign as Douglas County election commissioner.

Now, after being elected to the Nebraska State Board of Education in November, McPherson is in trouble over his blog, The Objective Conservative. Several posts -- and McPherson has denied authorship or knowledge of the screeds . . . on his own blog -- refer to President Obama as "a half-breed," the latest coupling that derogatory reference with one to "our great Black Leader."
McPherson
Obama was described as a “half breed” in five separate postings on McPherson’s Objective Conservative blog — postings that McPherson said he did not author and that he disavowed after critics drew attention to them.

McPherson, a Republican, said they were posted by a contributor he would not name.

Three of the postings are written as if they reflect the opinion of the blog itself, which McPherson founded and said he co-edits. The three postings are listed as posted by Objective Conservative and are written with the pronoun “we.”

The three postings begin, “Frankly, we’ve had enough ...,” “We think Ted Nugent is cool ...” and “We are tired ...”

In one posting, the author jokes that the article may be their last because “we suspect the NSA has forwarded it to (Attorney General) Eric Holder for potential prosecution under hate-crime laws.”

The postings date back to May 11, 2011. McPherson said he deleted them from the site Tuesday. He declined to identify who wrote the blog posts, but he said he has expressed his disappointment to that person.

The chairman of the Nebraska Democratic Party said Tuesday that Ricketts “just flunked his first test as governor as he failed to ask for McPherson’s resignation.”

“How will Mr. Ricketts explain to schoolchildren and teachers why it’s OK with the governor for a State Board of Education member to have a racist blog?” Vince Powers asked.

Powers said McPherson either wrote the posts or is covering for the person who did.

He described the posts as “garbage.”

McPherson said Tuesday that he will “absolutely not” resign. He said he plans to shut down the blog and has blocked any new postings.

McPherson is a former Republican Party chairman in Douglas County who served as director of administrative services under former Omaha Mayor Hal Daub. He ran for the State Education Board on a conservative platform.

The blog, which claims to present a conservative view, is a hodge-podge of photos, articles and opinion. Much of the content needles Obama, Democrats and their policies.
ONE REFERS to an animal as a "half-breed." One does not respectfully refer to a human being that way. That, you could presume, goes double when the subject of your remarks is the president of the United States.

The term is biracial, one that could describe any number of McPherson's own constituents.

The temptation here is to launch into a grand dissertation about the wrongness of McPherson's views, the brazenness of his bile-spewing (and, seriously, no one really takes McPherson's disavowal of the contents of his own blog seriously) and how tragic it is that we Americans no longer can disagree with our fellow Americans without resorting to branding them as The Other. That ought to be bloody well self-evident.

The extent to which the obvious no longer is in this society is a direct indicator of how untenable it has become. Translation: We well may be on our last legs.

What else is self-evident -- or should be self-evident -- as this King Day winds down in Omaha is that Omaha-area voters messed up badly in electing not only a racist to public office but a man who didn't even have the decency to be a hypocrite about it on the Internet. A man whose public past ought to have given the electorate a pretty good idea about his public future.

Sadly, American voters oftentimes are just as foolish as those they put into office. Or bigoted, as the case may be.

FINALLY, it is self-evident that Pat McPherson is just another boil on the buttocks of American democracy. Worse, he is a cancer on the administration of Nebraska elementary and secondary education. It is a pity -- a tragedy, really -- that public disorders like McPherson are too often tougher to excise from the body politic than they are from the human body.

Martin Luther King's dream lives. But his work remains unfinished, thanks to human frailty, hearts of darkness and the politicians who exploit both.

In the name of King's dream and our future, we cannot afford to be content with characters like Pat McPherson. Either their day is done . . . or ours will be soon enough.

Friday, January 16, 2015

3 Chords & the Truth: More fun than 'procedures'


Let me assure you . . . this edition of the Big Show is funner than having medical implements of cauterization shoved up your nose.

Don't ask. Not my nose, per se, but just don't ask anyway.

It's also more fun than navigating around the remodeling of your kitchen, which will keep me out of the studio this week when I'm usually in it to do each excellent episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. Thus, this edition of the podcast is up and posted on the Internets a bit early this go around.

I guess that could be called a good thing.


Though the putting together of the Big Show might be a wee quick and dirty this week -- though one hopes not terribly so -- it's here. Right now. So there you go.
Did I mention that this week's edition of the Big Show is funner than having medical implements of cauterization shoved up your nose? Again, don't ask.
ACTUALLY, this week's 3 Chords & the Truth is pretty damned spiffy, if you ask me, an admittedly biased source. We have some tasty Top-40 goodness from years gone by. We have some beautimous Americana. We have some country. We have some rock.

And we have some roll, too.

Alas, I am rambling. Je suis fatigué.

C'est la vie, mon ami.

Anyway . . . good show this week, despite everything. I mean, you have no idea. Buy me a drink or six, and I might tell you. And give it a listen -- while you're buying me those drinks.

Sooooooooooo. . . .

IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Get your ice-cold cup of mortification here!


Oh, sweet Jesus!
Omaha native Jim Connor was mobbed Monday at the college football championship game, but not for scoring a touchdown.

He was cheered, applauded and even pawed. Not for making plays but for whom he plays — the latest icon in national TV commercials, concessionaire “Larry Culpepper.”
“I couldn’t walk through a public place without people stopping me, taking pictures and grabbing me,” Connor said Tuesday. “For some reason, this campaign really caught on. People love Larry Culpepper.”

In football-season commercials, the comedic character has hawked soft drinks for Dr Pepper. AdWeek magazine estimated the company has invested at least $35 million as an official “championship partner” in the College Football Playoff. And Larry is the TV spokesman, a guy with a deep love of college football, shouting “Ice-cold Dr Peppa HEAH!” and telling people that he invented the four-team college football playoff.

Two of the commercials appeared late in Monday night’s ESPN telecast, a game viewed by a cable-TV record of about 33.4 million people.

In Omaha, relatives, friends and former Creighton Prep classmates have delighted in Connor’s many TV commercials and other acting roles over the years. But his Larry Culpepper gig might top them all.

“Larry is similar to the guy we knew in high school,” said clothier John Ryan, a fellow member of Prep’s class of 1978. “Jim was a character, but he was also a tremendous debater and he was good in theater.”
EFFECTIVE immediately, the City of Omaha has changed its name to the City of Ahamo. We're hoping no one will notice that Ahamo is this "Omaha" place Larry Culpepper says he hails from.

Meanwhile, Creighton Prep must be stopped before our fair city is forced to again change its name to something like, I don't know . . . Hoboken.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

3 Chords & the Truth: Give peas a chance


And carrots, too.

That's because the music on this week's 3 Chords & the Truth goes together like peas and carrots.

Forrest and Jenny.

Mutt and Jeff.

Pancakes and syrup.

Smith and Jones.

Oscar and Felix.

Black and white.

Big and Show.

Rum and Coca-Cola.

Gin and vermouth.

Pimentos and olives.


War and peace.

Rock 'n' roll. 


And . . .

GET the picture? Good . . . good to know.

And good listening to 'ya.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Monday, January 05, 2015

YOUR ON NOTISE, ZUKERBURG!!!!!!


Better safe than sorry. As of January 3rd, 2015 at 11:43 a.m. Eastern standard time, I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future. By this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on this profile and/or its contents is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute, not to mention Big Guido down the street). NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this that Facebook is not authorized to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on this profile and/or its contents. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of this declaration that you do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that you do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use your pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on your profile and/or its contents, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. You MUST copy and paste.