Saturday, October 29, 2016

3 Chords & the Truth: FUT FUT FUT


Please open your 3 Chords & the Truth hymnals to Formula 409 as we open our program.

A song of Tonio. K?

A-one, an-a-two, an-a-three. . . .
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
BAH, I AM STUPID!
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
YES, I AM STUPID!

FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT

FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
BAH, I AM STUPID!
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
HAH, I AM STUPID!

FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT

This song has no doubt confused you.
You are maybe hurt?
You should not let this bother you
You are not so worthless!

You are:

a) an integral and valuable part of some Master Plan

OR

b) clearly as important as a dirt-clod or that can

Sing it out now:

FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
BAH, I AM STUPID!
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
YES, I AM STUPID!

FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT

FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
BAH, I AM STUPID!
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
HAH, I AM STUPID!

FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
FUT-FUT-FUT FUT-FUT-FUT
YOU MAY be seated. Thank you.

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


Friday, October 21, 2016

3 Chords & the Truth: The Voice of Music


The sounds coming off the campaign trail certainly aren't getting any sweeter -- and propriety prevents me from telling you what the presidential election sounds like to me -- so I guess we need to counteract that on this week's 3 Chords & the Truth.

Oh, crap. Reality has Trumped that possibility. (Sorry, couldn't resist the cheap joke.)

I guess, then, we will have to just do our best on the Big Show to replace the voice of discord with our own Voice of Music. We probably can't drown out all the noise from the rubber room, but I'm betting the Voice of Music will take care of most of it, making for a dramatically more pleasant run up to Armageddon Nov. 8.

I THINK this will work.

Please, God, this has to work.

OK, let's remain positive. Yes, this will work. The Voice of Music will remedy all.

We should all be feeling much better 30 minutes into this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth. You know, power to soothe the savage breast and all of that.

What do we got to lose?

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



Thursday, October 20, 2016

An American eulogy

Read this letter, dated Jan. 20, 1993, from George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton.

You Donald Trump supporters, especially. Read it, goddamn you!

Read this wonderful letter and behold what we have lost as Americans. Read it as the hourglass empties on that too-brief era when there was such a people as "Americans."

Read it. Read it and think on what we seek to throw away -- are throwing away -- for the sake of a horndog Cheeto with terrible hair and worse character.

Remember it and our squandered patrimony when the bullets start to fly.


Tuesday, October 18, 2016

CROOKED HILLARY'S GONNA TAKE YOUR GUNS . . .
THEN HAUL YOU OFF TO A FEDERAL PRISON CAMP!


Just look at all the WikiLeaks emails! Why do you think she was hiding the Goldman Sachs speeches?

Listen, you slobs! If you vote for Killary Clinton, you're going to have black helicopters and federal gestapo troops coming to take away your guns and your rights!

You think this woman respects the Constitution? You think she wouldn't lower the federal boom on God-fearing Americans and throw 'em all in politically correct prison camps?

JUST LOOK AT THE EMAILS!!!!

If you don't want Hillary's storm troopers marching down Main Street -- if you don't want the U.S. Army turned against American citizens, you must vote for Donald Trump and the Christian, freedom-loving, limited-government, Mexican-rapist hatin', states-rights respecting Republicans. Just look at this exchange with a freedom-loving, right-thinking Republican during one of those Goldman Sachs speeches:

MR. (Lloyd) BLANKFEIN (CEO, President, 
Goldman Sachs): I have to say we Republicans -- 
we obviously reach out to both sets. To a person 
-- a person regarded as someone who may be 
expected to be more partisan and has spent so much 
time is is very, very well liked by the Republicans.

PARTICIPANT: First off I would like to
thank you for all the years. Of course, I'm on the
other side.

MS. CLINTON: The dark side?

PARTICIPANT: It's the dark side right
now, but otherwise the sun does come through. You
have to be an optimist. But you have to put a
great, great effort, and I commend you for it. But
I would like two things. No. 1, you just talked
about Sandy. And since you were First Lady and a
senator -- forget the Secretary. But what is wrong
with our politicians -- I served in the Corps of
Engineers. Whether it's in Iraq, Iran -- anyplace
outside the US you can build bridges overnight.
You could have gone into Sandy. You could have
gone into New Orleans.

The actual problem is the law from the
1800s. No military, which is the only force, not
the National Guard. They don't have crap. It's
the military. Like down in New Orleans. If we
would just change the dumb law -- because it hasn't
been changed because politicians have no say once
the president declares it martial law. Put the
military up. They would have cleaned up that
coast. You wouldn't have the frigging mess you
have today. But we can do it for everybody else in
the world, but we don't do it because the state
judges don't have no authority. The mayor don't
have no authority, because you're going to put a
military officer in charge. That's one question
why you haven't looked at --


MR. BLANKFEIN: They did that in New Orleans.

PARTICIPANT: Forget the -- the second thing you mentioned about Afghanistan. Most people don't realize the Russians were there before us for
ten years and whatever, and we supported Tannenbaum
to beat the hell out of them. A lot of our
problems is because we have a competition with the Russians. If we would -- the Russians by nature
hate the Chinese, but forget that.

If we were more or less kind of like forget that
superpower, superpower, and work with them
-- two superpowers equal a hell of a lot more
in the world. You wouldn't have an Iranian
problem, we wouldn't have the Syrian problem, and
why don't we just cut Israel loose? Give them the
frigging bomb and just blow the thing up. That's
my question to you.

MS. CLINTON: Those are interesting
questions for sure.

First, I think you're referring to the
posse comitatus, which has been actually in
existence -- if not from the end of the 18th
century, the very beginning, as you said, of the
19th century. And it is a law that really limits
what the military, the US military, can do on our
soil, and it has been supported all these years in
part because there is a great suspicion by many of
US government power -- and there is no more obvious
evidence of that than the US military.

However, we do call out the National
Guard, which is under the control, as you know, of
the governor and the adjutant general. But it is
clearly in the line of command as well from the
Pentagon. So although it took some difficulties
with Katrina we did get the National Guard out.

With Sandy we got the National Guard out. But
you're right, that if you were to want to have the
military, the actual US military involved in
disaster recovery, you would have to change the
law. And it's something that would be a big fight
in Congress because a lot of people would not vote
to change a law that would give any additional
authority to any president, Republican or
democratic, to order the US military to go anywhere
in the United States.

We kid about it, but I used to see it
all the time when I was a senator. There is this
great fear that the US military is going to show up
and take away your guns and confiscate your
property. I think it's --


MR. BLANKFEIN: Was the last time that
happened with Eisenhower?

MS. CLINTON: Yes. That was to enforce
a court order.

MR. BLANKFEIN: It was shocking,
jarring.

MS. CLINTON: It was. Wasn't it the
82nd? I mean, they flew through to desegregate the
central high school, and it was viewed as a very
provocative action.

PARTICIPANT: The fact is it proved
what was right. Not what the politicians think.
It's a case of sometimes the politicians, which
includes --

MS. CLINTON: The politicians for more
than 200 years have been united on this issue.
There was a posse comitatus law before that. But
the sensitivity about it was heightened and new
regulations were put in after the Civil War, but --

PARTICIPANT: No disrespect, but if you
were right you could not have had Illinois,
Oklahoma, California join you. You had governors
that were appointed there. Military law.

MS. CLINTON: Well, you can declare
martial law. You can declare martial law.

PARTICIPANT: Military was always --

MS. CLINTON: Well, I personally could
not favor turning control over to the United States
military as much as I respect the United States
military. I guess I'm on the other side of this
with you.

I think that the civilian rule has served us well,
and I don't want to do anything that upsets it even
though I have a very personal experience. You
remember when Castro opened the prisons and
sent all the criminals to the United States?

MR. BLANKFEIN: The --

MS. CLINTON: A lot of those prisoners
were ordered to go to a fort in Ft. Smith,
Arkansas, Ft. Chaffee, and my husband was governor
of Arkansas at the time. It was a military fort,
so the United States military ran it. So if you
were on the fort you were under US military
authority, but if you stepped off the fort you were
not. And the result was there was a riot where
prisoners were breaking through the gates, and the
US military would not stop them.

So my husband as governor had to call
out the state police. So you had the military
inside basically saying under the law we can't do
anything even to stop prisoners from Cuba. So it
is complicated, but it's complicated in part for a
reason, because we do not ever want to turn over to
our military the kind of civilian authority that
should be exercised by elected officials. So I
think that's the explanation.


Uhhhhhhhhh . . . .

Friday, October 14, 2016

3 Chords & the Truth: I dub thee Krystal burger


I . . . well . . . um . . . you see . . . here's the thing. . . .

Er . . . I can't explain this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth. You're just going to have to dive into the thing and figure it out for yourself.


It's the only thing to be done when you face the prospect of . . . I'm not sure. You see, it's like . . . no, that's not it.

Something about Nobel hamburgers or Krystal Whataburgers or something.


Just listen, OK. I'm sure the Big Show will make some sort of sense eventually.

I think.

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

Hey! That has something to do with the program, too! Sort of.


Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Mike is dead. Long live Mike

Mike VI, October 2011
Mike VI lost his fight with cancer today, and the LSU community mourns.
 
He was a good boy.


Mike also brought untold joy to countless Tiger fans, and to anyone else who had the privilege of visiting this beautiful animal. He wasn't just a mascot, he was like your dog or cat at home -- part of the family.

He fought hard, and we will miss him terribly.

From The Advocate:

Mike, April 2015
As if to punctuate what has already been a tumultuous and emotional football season for LSU, Mike the Tiger – who many considered to be the living embodiment of the team's spirit – died on Tuesday at the age of 11.
Mike VI was euthanized by his attending veterinarian David Baker, ending what may be the world's most famous case of a tiger battling cancer.

"It's an emotional thing," said LSU sophomore Staci Shelby, shortly after hearing the news. "A lot of people associate the tiger with football and school spirit and things like that."

Over the past few months, Mike VI encountered a lot of firsts. He was already one of only two live tigers mascots for a university team in the nation. And in May, the famous feline was diagnosed with a spindle cell sarcoma in his face after caretakers noticed his eye was bulging.

It was thought to be the first such diagnosis of the rare, incurable cancer in a tiger.

Then Mike became the first such tiger to receive treatment for the cancer in an attempt to extend his life.

LSU Vet school officials, in conjunction with the Mary Bird Perkins-Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center, treated Mike in June with stereotactic radiotherapy, something that is often used for humans but had never been used on a tiger. Stereotactic radio therapy uses a beam of X-rays pinpointing the tumor while providing minimal damage to surrounding cells.

It was a massive undertaking, one that required an after-hours police escort, to anesthetize the 420-pound tiger and bring him across town to the hospital for the treatment.

The treatment was considered an initial success, as scans found the tumor had shrunk. Baker optimistically hoped Mike would live for another year or two.

But two weeks ago, just days after LSU coach Les Miles had been fired, Mike was treated for a sinus infection.

A scan found that the infection was attributed to the resumed growth of the tumor, which started blocking the sinus cavity. The cancer had also aggressively spread throughout the tiger's body. Smaller tumors were found on Mike's neck, hind leg, and throughout his lungs.

Medical staff determined that additional cancer treatments would not save Mike.

(snip)

LSU sophomores and friends Ella Ruth Hill and Victoria Dekerlegand were in their mass communication class when they saw on their phones the news Mike had died.

They watched the news make its way around the room as other students whispered about the latest to one another.

After class the two were among the many who trickled by Mike's empty enclosure, adorned with cards, balloons and flowers from the tiger's many fans.

"With everything that's happened this season, with football and Les and everything, Mike is something that's so precious to the students, and he's so sweet," Hill said.

Dekerlegand added that a live tiger on campus makes LSU unique.

"Mike is a constant," she said. "Nobody else has a live tiger."

LSU Student Government announced it would host a memorial Wednesday in front of the habitat.

"Mike taught us how to fight like tigers and we are forever grateful for the opportunity to make him a part of our lives as LSU students," said Student Government President Zack Faircloth in a statement.

Mike was born on July 23, 2005 and came to LSU when he was two years old.

Monday, October 10, 2016

We're gonna need more than one basket


Don't look now, but pornofascism™ is a real thing that we didn't know existed before, like, today.  And I think the deplorables are overloading Donald Trump's basket.

Another thought: "White trash" is a concept for which everybody has a little bit different definition, but we all know it when we see it. Brother, are we seeing it here.

This is where I'd usually say "God help us" or "Lord, have mercy," but I highly doubt we'd appreciate the divine assist. We're going to get exactly what we want, good and hard.

Sunday, October 09, 2016

The end of the GOP, explained in 2:03


In 1968, a certain experimenter -- let's call him Dr. Nixonstein -- began his efforts toward building a bigger and better Republican Party.

Nixonstein had early success in his project, which came to be known as the Southern Strategy after the main target for exponential growth, as he cobbled together a new party from what, at the time, seemed to be promising components.

But 48 years later, something happened. Let's call it The Disillusionment of Nixonstein's Monster.

And for the shocking play-by-play from Bumf***, Wisconsin, we take you to BuzzFeed News correspondent McKay Coppins:
ELKHORN, Wisconsin — In a jarring illustration of the chaos now engulfing the Republican Party, supporters of Donald Trump clashed bitterly with GOP leaders at a rally here Saturday — booing elected officials, heckling Paul Ryan, and angrily demanding greater establishment support for their beleaguered presidential nominee. 
The confrontations took place at Fall Fest, an annual party fundraising event held in Ryan’s Wisconsin congressional district. Trump had been scheduled to appear at the event in a show of GOP unity, but Ryan abruptly disinvited him Friday night after the Washington Post published a leaked 11-year-old video of the businessman lewdly bragging about groping women. Over the next 24 hours, a parade of high-profile Republicans condemned Trump, and several retracted their endorsements altogether, calling on the candidate to drop out of the race. 
As the program proceeded Saturday afternoon with politicians giving pro forma pep talks about the importance of voting in November, the audience in attendance — split between mainstream Republicans and rowdy Trump fans — shouted at the stage, and at each other.


OH, MY. We return you now to Bumf***, Wisconsin, for this breaking-news update and McKay Coppins:
When, early in the event’s program, Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel tried to address the recently leaked video that has sent Trump’s campaign into a tailspin, the crowd erupted in angry protest. 
“Get over it!” one heckler yelled. 
“Trump! Trump! Trump!” others chanted. 
Appearing taken aback by the reaction, Schimel made a brief nod toward support for the nominee — “Donald Trump will appoint judges that will defend our Constitution” — and then quickly changed the subject. 
Other elected officials became more combative with the audience. When Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner talked about how voters had been coming to the Fall Fest for years to support Ryan and other local Republicans, hecklers shouted, “Not anymore!” and, “I’m for Donald Trump!” 
“Why don’t you listen to what I have to say instead of interrupting me?” Sensenbrenner snapped. Soon, the 73-year-old congressman was in a shouting match with the Trump supporters in the crowd. “Listen to me, please,” he kept repeating, before ordering the audience to “clean up your act." 
By the time it was Ryan’s turn to speak, the mood had grown indisputably hostile. He took the stage to scattered boos, and shouts of, “What about Donald Trump?” and, “Shame on you!” 
“Look, let me just start out by saying: There’s a bit of an elephant in the room,” Ryan told the crowd. “And it’s a troubling situation … but that is not what we are here to talk about today. You know what we do here at Fall Fest? We talk about our ideas, we talk about our solutions, we talk about our conservative principles.” 
Trump supporters greeted the message with a chorus of boos and abuse. 
“Trump for president!” 
“Mention Trump!” 
“You turned your back on him!”

NOTE: Extremely NSFW. That's why the Donald is in such a jam
 
TAKING ITS LEAD from its brand-new lord and savior, Donald Trump, it would appear that the now-rogue Nixonstein's monster knows exactly where to grab the political party that gave it life.

Indeed. Sounds like a hell of a reality-TV series, doesn't it?

Saturday, October 08, 2016

3 Chords & the Truth: It's chilly at the top


See what happens when you come back from a restorative break from the weekly grind?

The Big Show hits new heights, that's what. So now your Mighty Favog has to figure out how to program a program from the pinnacle of podcasting prodigiousness.

Trouble is, it's cold up here. Much nippier than the relatively balmy autumnal mean down below in Omaha, by God, Nebraska.

Fortunately, I've got some wonderful music to keep me warm this week on 3 Chords & the Truth. I trust it also will keep you well entertained for, as usual, we cover just about all the bases on this eclectic artistic enterprise.

FOR INSTANCE,  you're going to hear from the composer who started as an arranger for Paul Whiteman . . . and was inspired to finish his own masterpiece by shaping another for orchestral performance. And we'll hear a little something from Paul Whiteman and his concert orchestra, too, via the 78 RPM Wayback Machine.

And, for an encore, we'll show you a bit of commonality between classical and country . . . music, that is. You won't hear that on your local FM station, that's for certain.

We can do this because here at 3 Chords & the Truth, all things are fresh and new . . . and we don't have no stinkin' rules. Come to think of it, we have damn few preconceptions, as well. But if you regularly listen to the program, you already know that, don't you?

I DON'T KNOW why I'm going on about this, being that it's common knowledge. I suppose it's the need to fill space with words so this entry doesn't look funny. Headline, picture, podcast player would just look . . .  incomplete.

So consider this post for the newest edition of the program complete.

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