3 Chords & the Truth: Love and hate

It's a thin line between love and hate.

Or is it a chasm?

Perhaps it depends on the context. In America today -- or is it Amerika? -- there's a chasm. And hate is all around. Fascism is on the rise.

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, we take a musical look. The subject matter is harsh, but the music goes down easy.

I'm biased, but I recommend you give this edition of the Big Show a listen. The devil you try to ignore will kill you even faster than the one you acknowledge.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Further out, man

It was Friday, Sept. 22. It was gray and damp in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. I was working the night watch out of the 3 Chords & the Truth culture-war bunker.

My partner's Belle the Dog, the boss is Mrs. Favog. My name is Favog. A powerful new podcast capable of producing strange and mind-expanding auditory phenomena had found its way onto the Internets. It had fallen into the hands of listeners in several places. We had to try and keep the party going, man.

We had to get further out, man. We had to get further out.

MAN, IT WAS a blast having half your head in rock and half your head in the space-age bachelor pad. But, man, you have to get further out. You have to get further out.

We could give you something on a sugar cube or in a little capsule, man. But that requires some bread, you dig? But, man, this thing cats call the Big Show, that don't cost nothin'. It don't cost nothin', man. And it'll get you further out.

Way far out, man.

MAN, it's groovy. Trippy. You'll go into orbit, man.

Forget Coca-Cola, man. 3 Chords & the Truth is the real thing. It's a happening all by itself.

Man.

And it's real, so real, so real, so real, so real, so real.

Can you dig it?

I can dig it, he can dig it, she can dig it, we can dig it, they can dig it, you can dig it. Oh, let's dig it. Can you dig it, baby?

I thought that you could.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Walk on by?

Some of the most vexing questions in our daily lives revolve around a single vexing question.

Walk on by, or don't walk on by? That is the question.

3 Chords & the Truth cannot answer that for you, but we do have a strong suggestion in one particular case. A strong suggestion.

Another strong suggestion for you right now is not to walk on by this week's episode of the Big Show. It's another good one.

And dat's the name of dat tune.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Just let the mystery be

We live in a country -- hell, a world -- of limited horizons.

Cynical people more accustomed to sitting in the front row of class, of sucking up to teacher and all the "right" people, make their money by foisting the mediocre off on those who sat in the back of class, more interested in spitballs than scholarship.

That assessment may strike you as cynical as all get out. You may be right. But I would argue there's more truth in it than any of us are comfortable with.

IF YOU DON'T believe me, turn on the radio. Hell, follow country music today.

Six words: "Try That in a Small Town."

3 Chords & the Truth ain't about that. Thus, our putting out a little Big Show from the cramped confines of a culture-war bunker, somewhere behind America's Ironic Curtain somewhere in Flyover Country.

But did you ever consider that the leavening in what's left of our culture just might be the work of the unknown and unheralded -- the presence of extraordinary anonymity in our midst? That's a big part of the program this week.

Extraordinary talent doesn't always, or even usually, lead to fame and fortune in our society. When you zoom out for a wide-angle look at things, extraordinary talent probably more often leads to a lifetime of being overlooked. Remaining relatively unknown . . . or completely unknown.

Consider the Unknown Dorm Singer, circa 1967. At the University of California, Santa Cruz during the fall following the Summer of Love, we had a guitar-toting hippie hitchhiker in need of a place to crash, a freshman-dormitory room, a young man with a decent tape recorder . . . and magic.

TO THIS DAY, no one can figure out who was that girl. So, for now, we have no choice but to let the mystery be.

But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the music -- the magic -- 56 years hence. On 3 Chords & the Truth, we will.

Today, that isn't something likely to be tried in a small town. So they say.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Fly, pigeon, fly

I shall share with you a scene from the week's hiatus of the Big Show. It starts with a stroll through City Hall Plaza in Chicago, a resumption -- after a 41-year delay -- of my Great Blues Brothers Tour.

 

Picture a walk-by of the site of Jake and Elwood’s last stand — along with its iconic Picasso sculpture.

 

A healthy (or perhaps, medically speaking, not) gathering of Big City Pigeons attracted my attention for a bit before I turned back to the Picasso. After a while, I was distracted by the sound of what only could be described as a pigeonado. This is similar to a sharknado, only oddly more impressive.

 

I entertained the possibility that this phenomenon might be even more impressive than what greets you weekly on 3 Chords & the Truth.

 

Likewise, I entertained the alternate possibility that this might be Armageddon, defying centuries of end-times Cassandras by starting in the Windy City. In fact, after witnessing this Avian Apocalypse, I considered this might be where Chicago got its nickname.

 

I will not pussyfoot around. There was a whole lot of flappin’ goin’ on.

 

IN THE CENTER of the maelstrom was not a cosmic cage match between the Son of God and the Prince of Darkness, but instead a little Asian lady tossing the last of a sack of rice into the whirlwind. Then, as suddenly as she appeared, she faded into the mists of time.

 

OK, that was hyperbole. 

 

Instead, she crossed the busy street and vanished into the evening hubbub.

 

Mrs. Favog and I struck up a conversation with a nonplussed bystander who explained what we had seen was, alas, not Beelzebub but instead the "Crazy Asian Pigeon Lady," a figure as determined as she is reviled by Chicagoans sick and tired of scraping pigeon crap off of sidewalks, downtown structures . . . and themselves.

 

ANGRY CITIZENS, exasperated property mangers and pissed-off members of Chicago’s Finest apparently are helpless against a determined woman and a bag of rice.

 

It's kind of similar to how radio and musical convention are helpless against the mind-blowing experience of this humble . . . ish . . . podcast, the Big Show.

 

Anyway, the fellow we talked to said the pigeon lady comes to feed the city’s flying rats every evening at 6 sharp. Also, pigeons can tell time. He noted, though, that she was a few minutes late that evening.

 

I blame climate change.

 

There is no word on whether the city of big shoulders will get serious about ending this crap — literally — once and for all with full deployment of the Chicago PD SWAT team, the Illinois National Guard, a sizable contingent of state police . . . and the fully strapped ghost of Carrie Fisher. (I told you this was a Blues Brothers tour.)

 

There also was no official confirmation that the dude who was way too happy to be considered of sound mind (or permanent address) as he danced amid — and perpetuated — the pigeonado, is, in fact, Da Screwtape.

 

Film at 11 on WBBM-TV, fortuitously positioned right across North Dearborn Street from the coming manifestation of the End of Days.

 

As you may be able to tell, Chicago is one of my favorite cities ever.

 

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