Farewell, Radio Shack

If I had a dollar for all the stuff I've bought at Radio Shack over the last four decades or so . . . I'd still be so far in the hole on the deal, it wouldn't be funny.

I loved Radio Shack, especially when Radio Shack was still the Radio Shack I knew when I was young. And now it's going to be gone, with the "surviving" locations being Sprint stores with a "Radio Shack section" in them.

Sure, I can get everything I got at the Shack online now, but it's not the same. And it's not as convenient -- no more making a quick trip down the road for that part or connector I need right now.

ON HBO'S Last Week Tonight, John Oliver takes aim at the snarksters laughing at the demise of a 94-year-old company. Good for him. Double good for him in producing the farewell commercial he -- and I -- would like to see run on TV.

Take that, you hipster, Millennial scum!

For old farts like me, Radio Shack was where you went to drool over cool stereo and communications gear. It's where you went to get a new needle for your phonograph. It's where you, as a kid, bought cool Science Fair electronics kits. It's where, like the corner drug store, you could test the vacuum tubes from your radio or TV.

It's where you bought batteries and Supertape. Remember audio tape?

Radio Shack is where I bought those boxes that let you put several inputs into a single "AUX" imput on your stereo. Several VCRs or DVDs on the "video in" input on your television set.

If you needed it, Radio Shack had it.

AND IF YOU wanted to spend some quality time pining for all the cool stuff that you didn't have but wished you did, you pulled out your Radio Shack catalog. That's all gone now, relegated to blessed memory like all those other lost things from the lost youth of middle-aged Americans.

If you want to snark about that, go ahead. I hope one of the soon-to-be-unemployed employees of the fallen electronics giant knocks you into next week.

The things you find

SHOWN HERE in a high-school journalism scrapbook from 1976, saved by me and then my parents for no discernible reason, is an example of a "society picture with cutline," noted at top, which happened to be of Mr. and Mrs. Miller Williams, shown center, feted in Baton Rouge en route to Rome, where they were to reside for a year at the famed American Academy. With them at the large party in the home of Dr. and Mrs. Hulen B. Williams on Castle Kirk Drive were Mrs. E. B. Williams, left, the mother of Mr. Williams, and Miss Lucinda (Cindy) Williams, daughter of the famed poet, who had won the Prix de Rome awarded by the still-famed American Academy of Arts and Letters. Two years later, Miss Williams would begin her famed recording career, which was not initially feted, but achieved some note in 1988 and then became famed in the early 1990s, when she was feted at the famed Grammy Awards, where she won the award for Best Country Song for "Passionate Kisses." She then released her famed album "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" in 1998, which was awarded a gold record and for which she was again feted at the Grammy Awards.

Serendipity was feted for my happening to cut out this particular "society picture with cutline" from the famed Sunday Advocate in Baton Rouge some 37 years ago for my journalism assignment. Attending the small party in the Omaha home of Mr. and Mrs. Mighty Favog are Mr. Favog and a bottle of moderately priced bourbon.

3 Chords & the Truth: A merry little Christmas

Our Christmas tree is the story of our lives, the missus and me. Yours may well be the same.

There's a little wooden painted-tree ornament over here -- I made that in elementary school more than 40 years ago. And that glass ball over there with the glitter on it -- that's from my wife's childhood Christmas tree.

And there's the big Lucite heart that says "Love. Christmas 1983." We bought that at Hallmark our first Christmas as a married couple. I cherish that ornament.

I cherish our tree . . . the annual Yuletide story of our lives, with baubles commemorating five years together -- 1988 -- and first Christmas in our new house, 1989. Ornaments given to us by now-gone parents. Ornaments for now-gone pets. Ornaments made by now-grown children of friends.

EVERY YEAR -- with every added year -- Christmas becomes more wistful. It becomes more about loss, more about what once was instead of what might be. It becomes about remembering and erasing the impenetrable barrier between what was and what is -- who we were and who we are. It lets us bring back those who have gone, if only in our dreams.

Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

THIS WEEK on 3 Chords & the Truth, we celebrate He who has defeated time and death, the celestial king come to earth as a little child, born in a manger long ago in a land far away. We play the songs of our Christmases past as we anticipate its coming once again.

This week, the Big Show is about the songs of our lives, both sacred and playful.

It's Christmastime once again, and we're having a party. Everyone is invited -- past, present or future . . . it doesn't matter. Not this week. Faithful friends who were dear to us will be near to us once more.

As will you.

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

And don't forget to try the egg nog and bourbon balls. Yum.

3 Chords & the Truth: Shellac touchstones

You know what kind of music my parents were buying in 1947? Walter Brown -- "My Baby's Boogie Woogie."

Low-down blues. "Race" music. Along with pop, jump and country twangfests like the Delmore Brothers (above).

"She's got what it takes, make a preacher lay his Bible down," sangeth Mr. Brown. You should hear the flip side -- and you will . . . on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

This is a special one, this episode of the Big Show. If you want to know the music of my soul, this will get you pretty close.

If you want to know what was it that made your Mighty Favog the musical creature that he is -- if you want to hear the records I was playing when I was but a lad, just old enough to get into my folks records and operate a record player -- this is it.

This is personal.

THIS WEEK'S 3 Chords & the Truth is who I am. This week's program sounds like the world -- the Deep South -- I was born into a half century ago. It's a sequel to this episode of the Big Show, only I go "there" a lot more this time around.

It was eclectic, the Louisiana . . . the South of my youth. It was seemingly at odds with itself if you didn't look any further than the surface of things. It was also rich beyond measure. So is the show today.

Take Walter Brown, the blues shouter who once sang with Jay McShann's orchestra. In the particular culture I entered into during the spring of 1961, black shouters like him could sit next to white twangers like Ernest Tubb in the record cabinet in the bottom of the old Silvertone . . . even if they couldn't share a seat on a city bus.

And no one thought twice about either peculiarity.

This explains my parents' music-buying habits of 1947, 14 years before I came along and about 18 years before I started raiding their music collection. It also explains the complex and contradictory inner lives of these people -- formed by the Southern society that brought us Louis Armstrong, Hank Williams and Jim Crow -- who could in 1947 buy racy records by blues shouters, then in 1971 yell at me about my expletive-deleted "n***er music."

People who thought Dick Clark was a communist.

Those Wallace and Duke voters.

A couple more of the blackest white people on earth -- as Southern Caucasians surely are -- who may have found it just cause for homicide if you had told them that back in the day.

THE SOUTH: It's a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, tucked away in an enigma and fueled by contradiction. This week, you can look under its hood a little bit -- its and mine. You won't totally understand either of us at the end of this particular installment of the Big Show . . . but it will be a start.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: When stereo danced

I miss the days when stereo used to dance.

I miss the days when we would get excited over something as simple as "stereo" gettin' jiggy wit it. I miss the days when we didn't say "gettin' jiggy wit it."

I miss the days when we didn't take this stuff for granted. When dancing stereo was fresh, new and exciting. Down Up. Down. Up. Down. Up.

STEREO!

This week's 3 Chords & the Truth is completely down with the jiggy stereo. Or is that sTeReO.

I miss the days of glorious analog and 29-cent gas -- the days when we were so easily amused. I miss the days when $3.98 could buy you, if not love, left and right channels of WOW!

I miss "WOW!" too. Wow and dancing stereo went hand in hand with our lost sense of wonder. When progress was a given, because we were Americans, by God!

Mostly, I miss the sense of wonder. If you get anything out of this week's edition of the Big Show, I hope it's an inkling of wonder. A smidgen of glory.

Actually, we have a whole set of "glory" this week on 3 Chords & the Truth. A whole set of cheatin', cryin' and drankin', too . . . call it "fair and balanced" DJing.

MAINLY, though, it's about the WOW! and the dancing "stereo" on old record albums pulled from the closet -- and from the warm glow of our memories of a time of wonder. Maybe it's not too late to recapture how that felt.

All you need is $3.98 and a time machine. Of course, just downloading this week's show would be easier . . . and cheaper.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Back in the saddle again

I'm back in the saddle again, out where a friend is a friend.

Where the lonely DJ feeds on some lowly MP3s . . . back in the saddle again.

Ridin' the 'Net once more
Huntin' an RCA 44
Where there's 3 Chords & the Truth
And the music shakes the roof
Back in the saddle again

Whoopi-ty-aye-yay
Rock is here to stay
Back in the saddle again
Whoopi-ty-aye-oh
Vacations come and go
Back in the saddle again

I'm back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the lonely DJ feeds
On some lowly MP3s
Back in the saddle again

Ridin' the 'Net once more
Huntin' an RCA 44
Where you sign on every day
And there's great tunes here to play
Back in the saddle again

Whoopi-ty-aye-yay
Jazz may come your way
Back in the saddle again

Whoopi-ty-aye-oh
Vacation, why'd you go?
Back in the saddle again

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

Pardner.

-- Apologies to Gene Autry

3 Chords & the Truth: Boogie till you. . . .

How to describe this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth?

Let us consider how the great philosopher, the late Root Boy Slim, might have viewed what the Big Show has in store for us today:

Put a quarter in the juke
And boogie till you puke

Works for me. And I'll spot you the quarter.

I MEAN, after all, "the party lasts till your brain cells gone." Because we got to boogie.

I think that's in the Bible.

Somewhere.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Gather 'round the iFi

One night of spin is what I'm praying for.

Wait . . . that doesn't sound quite right.

Or does it sound completely right? One night of spinning your favorite records on a machine so pretty that I'll bet the late Steve Jobs was envious of it. Yeah . . . sounds good. Sounds right.

I guess what 3 Chords & the Truth is all about is bridging realities, past and present. It's about putting a bunch of music together from yesterday and today, then mashing it all together as we try to translate the tactile, personal aesthetic of music and radio yesterday to the digital world of iWhatever today.

THIS, I suppose, is done in hope of a better tomorrow.

Or something.

That's the executive summary of what the Big Show is all about and what this episode of the Big Show is about. It's about bringing things together -- people together.

It's about bringing all kinds of music together, because there basically are only two kinds. Good and bad. The bad, we don't mess with. I've said that before and, no doubt, will say it again. And again.

So drop in, grab a cold one and grab a chair over here next to the hi-fi. There's a record party going on. We call it 3 Chords & the Truth . . . or the Big Show.

Either one.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: 'Round and around

You want to know where 3 Chords & the Truth started?

Right here . . . or there, in that old snapshot. In Baton Rouge, La., deep in the troubled, segregated South, during a time we called the Space Age.

On the picture, it says "Christmas 1963." And that's me, doing at age 2½ pretty much what I'm doing now. Now, I do it on the Internet.

Then, it was an adventure, watching the records spin while the music boomed out. "The music goes 'round and around, whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho . . . and it comes out here."

3 Chords & the Truth. It comes out here, the latest link in an unbroken chain from 1963 and my parents 45 r.p.m. records, and LP albums, and old 78s.

ALMOST 48 years later, I'm still playing those same records. Wonderful 45s from the 1950s -- Jerry Lee Lewis . . . Ivory Joe Hunter . . . Elvis Presley . . . the Everly Brothers . . . Ferlin Husky . . . the Kingston Trio . . . you name it. Now, you get to listen along with me.

This week on the Big Show, I've dug through the old 45s from a lifetime ago, and you get to hear a couple more of them. You get to hear lots more stuff this (and every) week, but the old 45s are what's nearest and dearest to my heart -- they helped to make me who I am. Maybe some similar old records, nearly lost to time and fading memories, helped to make you who you are, too.

Perhaps you can listen to this and think of that, and we'll both enjoy the journey.

You know, it's not like I haven't written about this stuff before . . . or dug into the vaults of old vinyl and old memories for a weekly episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. Then again, who goes to a favorite restaurant only once? Listens to a favorite song only once? Revisits what made you you only once?

IF I QUIT doing that, going there, I die. And a whole world dies.

No longer would the music go 'round and around. Or come out here.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Warm . . . and cool

Fall. Finally and fully.

That sums up the weather here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska, and that kind of sums up the vibe on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth. Not too hot . . . stretches where it's pretty cool.

Then again, if cool music is the criteria, maybe every edition of the Big Show is fall-like, then.

This week, we start off with the extremely cool jazz stylings of Mr. Tony Bennett, and we go from there, making regular stops at rhythm and blues, doo-wop, rock, alternative, avant-garde jazz and country.

AND WE TAKE a look back at the fathers of alt, R.E.M., upon the occasion of their hanging up the guitars and drum sticks after a 31-year run across the modern-rock charts. It's a tribute; it's cool . . . and it's going to blow you away when you least expect it.

Did I mention this week's edition of the Big Show is cool, just like a sublime fall night on the Plains? I may have.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: You better run, girl. . . .

Young girl, get out of my mind.

(And get into this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth.)

My love for you is way out of line! Better run girl . . . you're much too young, girl.

But would you mind terribly if I channeled my testosterone and visions of carnal knowledge into a Top-40 smash hit? C'mon . . . people will love it.

So hurry home to your mama. I'm sure she wonders where you are. . . .

Get out of here before I have the time to change my mind . . . 'cause I'm afraid we'll go too far.

BUT . . . then again, too far is such an antiquated relic of the semi-Victorian era of the 1960s. Maybe I can do a rap about going as far as we can before Chris Hansen shows up with a camera crew.

Sex.

Girls.

Danger.

Desperation.

We got it all this week on the Big Show. How big is it?

Well, 90 minutes, of course. What did you think I was going to say?

Shame on you. This is a fambly show.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: 10 long years

Ten years.

You know what I'm talking about. It's been 10 long years, and the media has kicked into overdrive obsessing about it. How much they're actually reflecting about it -- that awful Sept. 11 and what has transpired because of it -- remains to be seen.

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, we're going to take a stab at reflection. For a bit. We're also going to take a stab at not overdoing it.

Now that's countercultural. One thing we've not become over the past decade is more circumspect. Or less prone to excess.

AS YOU will discover on this edition of the Big Show, I have some thoughts on 9/11 and the last 10 years of fear, division and endless war. I'll save that for the program . . . give it a listen, will you?

But what I will share with you now is this: We've made our bed in our response to that terrible day, and now we have to lie in it. Part of that is each one of us trying to make the best of a suboptimal situation.

And part of that is trying to be better people tomorrow than we were yesterday -- making this land of endless war and domestic troubles less of one than it has been.

Find joy where you are. Find God in those around you -- even if they're different than yourself. (Hint: So is God.)

Take joy in the simple things, like music. Maybe even in the Big Show . . . it would make my week if you did.

NOW, if you will excuse me, I'm going to take a bit of my own advice. I'm going out for coffee with my beautiful wife on a fall-like Friday night.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Workin' for a livin'

Everybody likes the day off, but nobody cares about why we have one.

That's the American approach to holidays -- and long weekends -- and its rise corresponds with our decline as a nation.

Boy, that just puts you in a cheery mood to listen to 3 Chords & the Truth, doesn't it? Sorry about that, Chief.

But it's true.

Let's go down the line, shall we? Christmas . . . uh, it's about a manger and wise men and Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer in the little town of Bethlehem, right? Now where's my presents?

EASTER . . . uh, bunnies laying eggs . . . ham for Sunday dinner . . . and, uh . . . bonnets?

Memorial Day . . . uh, baseball. Start of summer. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Labor Day . . . uh, the Jerry Lewis Telethon? Wait . . . Jerry's not doing it anymore. Oh! The end of summer! What else? We got nothin'.

That. my friends, is why the Big Show is here -- to clue you in on stuff. Well, that and play lots of great music.

This is Labor Day weekend. That would mean we're celebrating something having to do with . . . wait for it . . . labor? Not, not hours and hours of excruciating childbirth -- labor as in "workin' hard for the money."

Labor as in "labor union." Back when politicians and greedmeisters hadn't made "union" a dirty word yet. Back when people thought there was a certain dignity to labor, and that the dignity of workingmen (and women) ought to be protected.

Back when it was considered a good thing that an Average Joe could make enough money to take care of his family. Maybe even put the kids through college . . . upward mobility and all that stuff.

WE STILL believe in all that quaint stuff here at 3 Chords & the Truth, and this week, we're saluting labor for Labor Day. Our "work" set is tasty, indeed. Why not give it a listen, huh?

In other words, you don't have to check your brain -- or your conscience -- at the door to be well and properly entertained on the Big Show.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Tunes for a stormy day

I grew up during a heyday for hurricanes on the Gulf Coast.

The first I actually remember was Hilda in 1964. What sticks in my mind was my confusion as to whom this Hilda person was and why she was in the news. I pictured in my mind a middle-aged lady who had been in a bad car wreck.

I am not making this up. At any rate, I was soon to learn otherwise.

WHEN YOU'RE a little kid, hurricanes meant one thing: You got to camp inside. Quilts on the living room floor. Hurricane lamps. Candles. Battery radios. No lights. Picnic food at home.

Too, you got to stay up way late. Hilda, and Betsy the next year, were nighttime hurricanes. And who the hell could sleep through all the howling and banging outside?

What we needed then -- but didn't have then -- was 3 Chords & the Truth, and lots of tasty storm tunes, on the transistor radio. An iPod also would have been nice in the mid-'60s, but back then that would have been an unmistakable sign of an alien invasion.

ANYWAY, you guessed it . . . not that you really had to guess. This week's episode of the Big Show features a great big heapin' helpin' of songs to hunker down with if you happen to be on the East Coast of the United States.

If you're not, enjoy anyway. Then save the show for when you need it, all right?

It's kind of like having a hurricane party on an MP3 file, only you're not too liquored up to save your own butt if the occasion presents itself. In other words, make the best of the situation . . . but be careful out there.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there (and stay put, for cryin' out loud). Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Save the DJs!

I wasn't serious. I didn't mean it.

Back in 2001, as producer of another music show long before 3 Chords & the Truth, I let the computers take over.

The "organic" hosts didn't show up, so I let the computer do it. See, there was this text-to-speech demo on the Internet . . . and with a little creative writing, and a little editing. . . .

It was a joke! I swear to God. I didn't think that. . . .

I mean, why the hell would you want to get rid of perfectly competent people who . . . for going to all the trouble of hiring people to write a disc-jockey script for a computer program to follow . . . so you . . . can fire disc jockeys?

THIS IS America, dammit. We don't have to make sense.

We don't have to employ actual humans anymore, either. We at the Big Show are nervous this week.

From MSNBC:

A non-human DJ will take to the airwaves next week in San Antonio, Texas, in what may mark another step on the path that puts flesh-and-blood radio personalities out of a job.

The DJ is an artificial intelligence program called Denise, who was built by Guile 3D Studio to serve as a virtual assistant to answer phone calls, check email, conduct Web searches and make appointments, among other tasks.

Dominique Garcia, a radio personality in San Antonio, purchased Denise for $200 and programmed the AI to serve as a DJ. Denise will hit the airwaves on Aug. 24 from 1 to 4 p.m. CST on KROV.

"A lot of radio DJs are pretty upset with me because it does work," Garcia told me.

For now, Denise requires human assistance to write the script for Denise's talk breaks and slot the voice track into the playlist.

For the most part, the script writer tells Denise exactly what to say, though "she" has the capability to tell jokes when asked, provide the weather forecast and look up things on the Internet. She can't, however, fill airspace by herself.

"That technology does not yet exist in the AI world," Garcia said. "It is not as sophisticated as that; that's the ideal situation."

I AM in trouble, Hoss.

Gotta prove I can do this here show better than my Dell running a $200 bit of software.

Gotta get the ratings up here on 3 Chords & the Truth.

Gotta be upbeat. Bright. Peppy, hip, happening and now.

I HAVE TO ENTERTAIN, DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!! Make people love me. Make them . . . love . . . me.

And that's why this week's edition of the Big Show is going to be the hippest, upbeatest, happiest, high-energy episode of 3 Chords & the Truth you ever did hear. Dammit.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Cheerio, got a match?

I wanna be . . . anarchy.

Oh, wait, Anarchy, we got. Maybe I want to aim for something more original -- like putting out a kick-ass music program every week.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

And we call that little something 3 Chords & the Truth. It's a little bit punk; it's a little bit country. It's a lot rock 'n' roll, and it's the blues in the night.

Or jazz in the morning. Whatever.

THIS WEEK, we're all over the place, and we're topical, too. I'll bet you can guess.

Anyway, you're free not to like what we're doing on this Internet Age version of "Loose Radio" on 'shrooms -- if you're of a certain age and from Baton Rouge, La., you'll get that pop-culture reference -- and I guess you're also free not to give the best damned thing on the Internets a listen, either. But I just want to tell you that we at the Big Show are packin' bricks and petrol, and we know where you live.

Destroy!

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

Make that right-o!

3 Chords & the Truth: So tired . . . muddling along

Ladies and gentlemen . . . The Beatles.

With the theme song for this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

Which I was too tired to work into this week's edition of the Big Show.

So here it is:

I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink
I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink
I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink
No,no,no.

I'm so tired I don't know what to do
I'm so tired my mind is set on you
I wonder should I call you but I know what you would do

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke, it's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep, I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks, I'm going insane
You know I'd give you everything I've got
for a little peace of mind . . . .

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ . . . snorf . . . grrbfnl.

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

And keep it down, will 'ya? I'm going to try to get some shuteye.

3 Chords & the Truth: Music. End. Wits.

In a democracy, we generally get the government we deserve.

Now look at what's going on in Washington, D.C., right now and be afraid. Be very afraid.

As Congress lurches toward Debtpocalyse and we lurch toward the poorhouse, we find the American empire lurching toward an end. And as I reflect on these years of doing 3 Chords & the Truth, it occurred to me that the Big Show is what historians call "primary source material."

In other words, future generations could pull up these things called "MP3s" of the program, cobble together something to read such an obsolete format, and then get an idea of how we reacted to the mayhem around us.

How we dealt with decline and "interesting times."

MAYBE they'll listen to this episode of 3 Chords & the Truth and tag it "Music for the End of Their Wits." Heck, I'll beat those future historians and archaeologists to it. I'll call this episode of the Big Show "Music for the End of Our Wits."

I know, looking at the news every day, I'm at the end of mine -- and I'll bet you're near the end of yours, too.

So, this week's episode of the Big Show will feature exactly that -- music for the end of our wits.

My first take on it was "the Hair-Pullin', Teeth-Gnashin', Congressional Debt-Limitin' Blues," but I think the present title is much more elegant.

And that's the deal with the Big Show this week. Venting through music, and then some sweet jazz to calm us down.

AFTER ALL, we're going to need all the serenity we can muster for the foreseeable future.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Debtpocalypse Now

Call me Nero -- I don't care.

Yes, the tea party is nuts, and insanity is totally a contagious thing in Washington.

Yes, because of this -- and because of America's political dysfunction being turned up to 11 -- we have become the Dysfunctional States of America.

Yes, we're pretty much screwed, and we're sitting here in the studio waiting on Debtpocalypse Now.

And, yes, we at 3 Chords & the Truth are going to -- so to speak -- fiddle while Washington burns. What the hell else are we supposed to do?

APART, of course, from sending the cast of Swamp People to the District and having them set lines all around the Capitol, baiting the hooks with $100 bills.

Unfortunately, we here at the Big Show have no sway over Louisiana alligator hunters (And that John Boehner kinda looks like a "tree shaker," doesn't he?) despite having hailed from the Gret Stet. So there we are, back at Square One.

With the music . . . and you.

And we're just going to have to make the best of it, cheering ourselves up with some excellent tunage. It's the American Way.

Or something.

SO I'M rosining up the bow, boys, and we'll march off to the poor house with a song in our hearts. And with the swampers doing that voodoo that they do among the reptiles on Capitol Hill.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Kicking back

It's too dang hot.

It's too dang steamy.

I think on 3 Chords & the Truth this week, we'll take it too dang easy. Well, not too dang easy. I mean . . . you know.

It's just that it's summer, and that means it's time to kick back some. Enjoy life. Take things at a more leisurely pace.

Avoid heatstroke.

I MEAN . . . you know what I mean.

Right?

Anyway, taking it just easy enough to avoid hospitalization in this wicked July weather while being just industrious enough not to suck is the rather reasonable goal of this week's edition of the Big Show. I hope this is a goal with which you can get fully on board.

The music's still good even when you're kicking back. Better, actually. Because you're kicking back.

Circular reasoning 'R' us. Because it's summer, and it's hot -- no reason to bust a gut. Or fry your brain.

YOU KNOW what I mean.

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