3 Chords & the Truth: Getting by

If you're anything like me, this damn country -- or what passes for this damn country anymore -- may have finally broken you.

I feel tired. Sick. Sick and tired.

The best I can manage this week is to get by. How am I doing? Doing.

How is 3 Chords & the Truth going this week? It's going. Fortunately for us all, it's high functioning even when it's just going and just doing.

YEAH. That.

You know what? If you're not disturbed, down in the dumps, sick and tired and just managing to hold it all together when one of America's two major political parties is talking like actual Nazis, demonizing like actual Nazis, tweeting like actual Nazis, holding Nuremberg for Dummies rallies like actual Nazis and vowing to govern like actual Nazis, I'd like you to answer one question.

What the hell is wrong with you? Have you been paying attention?

Get a grip and get disturbed. Then vote to make it stop.

Meantime, we have a stunningly diverse program put together for this week's Big Show. It's amazingly good for just getting by.

The marketing, obviously, not so much. I've always been too much of an open book for my own self-promotional good, alas.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Favog's little helper

Listen, we're in a little blue dot in a redneck state -- one that used to not be all that bad, actually.

But now it is. And especially this year, that can get, how do we say, depressing AF.

Still, you have to do 3 Chords & the Truth. Every damn week. Your keel has to be even.

So, sometimes, you need a little somethin' somethin'. I forget what the directions on the label said, but I figure I'm good if I take more than one and fewer than 10.

I FIGURE I'm good if I take more than one and fewer than 10.

I figure I'm good if I take more than one and fewer than 10.

Good, I am if take, I do, more than one and fewer than . . . I forget. Better take another one.

It's a good Big Show; it's a laid back show. Show. Mellow. Cool!

Good is the music. Mellow is the host. Copacetic is the vibe.

I figure I'm good if I take more than one and fewer than 10. Ten. An interesting number, that.

Because one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do. The 0 makes it unlonely. Yes, it does.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: If you can't laugh. . . .

Well, at least we don't have little messages before the late news saying "It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your cats and dogs are?"

Yet.

Every damn week for the last nine years or so, whenever I'm confronted with writing another little missive for another episode of 3 Chords & the Truth, I have to think of something to say amid the crazy. And You Know Who has prompted the fruitiest of the Fruit Loops in America today.

Now, it's "They're eating the cats. They're eating the dogs." You Know Who floated that bit of crazy during  the presidential debate, no less.

What in the Wide World of Sports is your average, marginally sane person supposed to do with that level of bat shit?

To maintain my marginal level of sanity, I make merciless fun of it. So we're breaking a bubbling-under-the-Top-40 future smash hit on the Big Show this week. It, unsurprisingly, is from that unfathomably popular group, The DJT Music Explosion.

They're exploding something, all right.

Let's just hope it doesn't end up being the United States of America.

That said, insert the usual description of the awesomeness of this week's show, because that generally doesn't change a whit.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Weaving

It's good to be here in Sioux City; my best fans are here in the city of the Siouxes.

What? Oh.

As I was saying, I love Omaha. Omaha is, they tell me, an Indian word for the land of the Omahs. And apparently they laughed a lot . . . they laughed a lot. But not like Comrade Kamabala Biden, who should not laugh ever again. So annoying. So annoying.

And how about that 3 Chords & the Truth on the computer machine . . . or on your smartphone? Great music on the show, but a very poor host -- very biased. And what is a Mighty Foovog?

Mighty Foovog. It sounds like something I caught when I was going through my own personal Vietnam in the '70s; it took two or three Shots in the Ass -- I had a very good doctor then, very quick to give you an Ass Shot. His Ass Shots didn't hurt as much as they could have . . . Ass Shots can be so painful, so painful.

BUT THE Shots in the Ass got me back in the battle. I prefer the battles where if things go bad -- but things don't go bad for me, only if people are being very unfair. Things can go so bad when the fake news and all the haters are being so unfair. I preferred the Vietnam where you sometimes had to get a Shot in the Ass instead of getting shot in the face. Or getting shot in the chest.

Both very bad. I don't understand why you'd want to volunteer to get shot in the face. Faces are very important. I saw a guy once try to eat a hamburder without a face -- he didn't have the face . . . can hamburders have a face? That's a question for some of the great minds in this country to work on. Very big Question.

He couldn't eat the Mickey D's because if you don't have a face, you don't have a mouth.

Now that thing they call the Big Show would be a lot better if that very unfair host didn't have a mouth. Just play the music and keep quiet -- shut up and spin the tunes, I say. But he has some great music on there if you can get past his Being a Communist. Very biased, very unfair.

I LIKE music. Music is good to play when you're doing battle in your own personal Vietnam.

Did you ever notice that they generally play very poor music in the doctor's office when you're in there for a Shot in the Ass? Very poor music. But what can you expect from all the Commie Musicians out there?

You've been a very wonderful crowd. They're telling me I have to wrap this up because we're running behind schedule, and I have to be in Omaha in a couple of hours. But you just stick around, listen to the tunes. Some very excellent tunes today, so I am told.

One more thing, and then I'm ditching this burg. . . .

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Remembering a friend

Did you have a friend who, in a roundabout way, is why you do what you do today?

Was that friend, by chance . . . a radio station?

As it happens, I am among that geeky subset of folks who can answer yes to that. My radio friend's name was WLCS, also sometimes known during various eras as the Big Win 910 or the Big 91. It made up a big part of the soundtrack of my youth and, sometimes, it was the bright spot during some dark days.

If you appreciate 3 Chords & the Truth, there are a small number of the radio stations of my youth in Baton Rouge, La., that you can thank. WLCS is at the front of that list.

FORTY YEARS ago today, the Big 91 faded into the mists of history. Now it lives only in the memories of those of us who are, as they say, "of a certain age" . . . and as part of the Big Show.

WLCS was, I'd argue, a higher form of social media than what we call "social media" today. Oftentimes, today's social media is downright antisocial. The radio of my youth actually brought people together. The media of today often drives people apart.

I REALIZE this might come off as the whining of an old man, a geezer complaining that things absolutely were better back in the day. I am from the Deep South; that tends, if one is honest with oneself, to immunize against silly nostalgia.

But some things were better. The Big 91 was one of those things. I have it to thank for this thing we call 3 Chords & the Truth.

And, like a friend who has slipped this mortal coil, it lives on. It lives in our memories and in our hearts, and -- in a way -- it lives on right here.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: E pluribus unum

I don't do verbatim transcripts of what I say during 3 Chords & the Truth in this space, where I'm enticing you to actually listen to 3 Chords & the Truth.

And you know what? F*** that. This week, I will, because I had a revelation about what the hell I'm doing here on the Big Show. . . after nearly 17 years.

Here goes.

BEING THE politics nerd that I am, I’ve been watching the Democratic National Convention — and note there’s an -ic on the end of Democrat. Calling a political party the “Democrat Party,” is like calling a Jewish barber a “Jew barber.” It’s a slur; it’s dehumanizing, and we don’t do that in this country.

Or, at least, we used to not do it most places. During Jim Crow, it was the strategy of all the wrong people in the South. I hope I don’t need to elucidate, here.

Anyway, something occurred to me as I watched. Something occurred to me about this show as I reflected on this convention and that other one last month. As I reflected on folks who get their knickers in a twist if, at some social event or another, they think there’s not enough “White” music being played.

And as segregated and as nasty as the Deep South could be when I was growing up, there’s one thing that was great about it — “Black” music was “White” music, too. It was a bunch of what all-white Favog listened to back in the day. And “White” music was a bunch of what my Black high-school classmates listened to.

There was one thing ol’ Jim Crow failed miserably at, and that was in trying to segregate music and make our ears as separate and unequal as everything else.

If you want to know what 3 Chords & the Truth is all about, it’s about America. It’s all “E pluribus unum” all the time — “Out of many, one.”

In brief, there’s only two kinds of music, good and bad. And the bad, we don’t mess with.

If you like this program, there’s one thing I do not need to tell you: Music, like America, cannot be segregated. It does not recognize bigoted hierarchies of worth or authenticity.

And it all belongs. Period. End of sentence . . . and of the argument. If you disagree, you probably have figured out this isn’t the place for you. And, perhaps, neither is this country.

WELL, that's all I have to say about that.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: We got the power

To be honest with you, I couldn't tell you what really happened the night the lights went out in Georgia. I wasn't there.

I can tell you, though, what happened the night the lights went out in Omaha, just as I was getting ready to pick music for what would have been the Aug. 2 edition of the Big Show. It wasn't good.

There's a big pile of limbs and branches sitting in front of the 3 Chords & the Truth culture war bunker, waiting for the city to haul it away. That's one of the smaller piles on the street.

THE STORM that turned out the lights in Omaha also dropped trees and huge limbs on houses all over town -- and on more than a few power lines. One of those houses was next door.

Oh . . . and we had no power for a week. No Internet, either. Obviously.

So, no electricity, no show for two weeks.

After sweating profusely for a few days, then bugging out to our friends' downtown condo after the temperature inside got within spitting distance of the 99-degree heat outside -- this with all the windows open -- the lights finally came back on late on Aug. 7.

And now we're back in business, in brightly lit, Internet enabled, air-conditioned comfort. I gotta tell you, I was getting a little stir crazy only as an old radio/media guy can.

And this week, we're trying to make up for the unplanned absence. Boy, are we. Trust me, this edition of the show is a good one. As usual.

Thus, without any further ado. . . .

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

3 Chords & the Truth: As the Nut Cracks

Click.

You're in tune with 3 Chords & the Truth, Omaha.

(THEME MUSIC SWELLS.)

Join us for the next 90 minutes for As the Nut Cracks, the story of a country just a bit off its nut, sponsored by Planters, where every can is full of nuts, just like American politics. Planters, where nuttery is our business.

(DISSOLVE TO OPENING SCENE.)

"Bing bong, bing bing bing! Sharks! Electric boats! Shocking! Jaws! Mass deportation now! Commies! Commies!"

We will return to the Big Show after these messages.

Buy Planters. Our nuts are the good kind. Really.

Now back to . . . As the Nut Cracks!

"Doctor, is there anything that can be done? I'm afraid, Doctor, I'm afraid! That's some weird shit."

"It's a difficult case, Jane. One of the worst I've ever seen . . . but we'll do our best. But for you, dear, I recommend you start drinking heavily. After all, I'm a doctor.

"Also, you might want to listen to some good music. It will be very calming. I'll give you a prescription."

"Thank you, Doctor. Thanks for everything."

(MUSIC SWELLS.)

Can the doctor restore sanity? Or will the nut crack? Find out tomorrow on the next episode of As the Nut Cracks, the story of a country that's just around the bend.

Now a final word from our sponsor -- Planters. Our nuts won't hurt you, just so long as you're not allergic.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: America today

We find ourselves living in the Age of Disunity. Now, more than ever, the mother's milk of politics is bullshit.

This applies much more to some political parties than others. Boy, does it.

Listen, I watched all of Donald Trump's historically weird acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, otherwise known as Nuremberg for Dummies. That über über gathering in Milwaukee was notable among American political conventions for the placard handouts that got right to the point -- "MASS DEPORTATION NOW."

Sieg heil, y'all.

THIS IS the American milieu from which 3 Chords & the Truth emerges every week. You sometimes wonder whether doing this thing, amid this level of ugly, every week amounts to whistling past a national graveyard.

Oh, yeah. Some 20-year-old nutter attempted to assassinate Trump last week. So there's that.

I absolutely cannot wait for what lies ahead . . . said no one ever the past few years.

Then we have the Democrats trying to force a diminished and doddering Joe Biden off the ballot. The niceties disappear when the stakes are existential, and losing may be death.

Ready for some music yet?

Ready or not, here it is, and it's damn good. As usual. In times like these, you have to keep on keepin' on -- until you can't. We'll keep the eclectic wonderfulness of the Big Show coming . . . until we can't.

It's that kind of America right now.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Really? What the hell?

If you know, you know.

First, I ain't young. I started in radio -- long before the Internet and 3 Chords & the Truth -- during the age of cartridge machines, big studio consoles with round knobs, turntables and reel-to-reel tape decks. Editing was done with a grease pencil and razor blade. The computer was the Heathkit they built in electronics class, which was where it stayed.

And the thing about being Not Young is that I've seen some things. And I remember most of them.

SECOND, I ain't never seen what I'm seeing now. Enter the 2024 presidential race -- 81-year-old Joe Biden, who's had a pretty damn good run as president vs. 78-year-old Donald Trump, an adjudicated rapist, convicted felon, federal defendant, Georgia defendant, word-salad aficionado, and all-around reprobate.

And the felonious reprobate, running on a flat-out authoritarian platform, is winning. I was born in the Deep South in 1961. What we'll get under a second Trump Administration, I've seen. It was called Jim Crow. It was horrific.

No wonder that I felt the need to bang my head on this week's edition of the Big Show.

I am old enough to have seen a lot of good music. This is it. Trust me.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Xanax, take me away!

If you can't laugh, you'll end up sticking your head in the oven.

Yeah, I watched the presidential debate pitting a bad debater who's lost a step . . . and a pathological liar who aspires to be Short-Bus Hitler. Couple that with a thoroughly broken journalistic infrastructure (I'm looking at you, CNN), and if cannabis were legal in this state, I'd be snarfing pot gummies like Raisinettes in a freakin' movie theater.

Thus, the importance of good music on 3 Chords & the Truth . . . and the ability to laugh at this s***.

I'm hoping I achieved the good-music and humor goals on this week's edition of the Big Show. I am betting heavily that you are, too.

Well, I guess you'll just have to see, now, won't you?

This has to work. I have an electric oven. Ouch.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Baby, it's you

Here's to you.

After all, without you, we at 3 Chords & the Truth are talking to ourselves and playing records for the wind.

So, musically, that's where we're starting on the show this week. But that's not where we're going to end. There is lots to love -- as usual -- about yet another episode of the Big Show. I mean, we're talking some seriously good music, intelligently presented.

Thank a seriously massive music library.

And that's about all I have to say about that. If you know, you know. If you don't -- yet -- this is as good a time as any to find out. You can thank me later.

With that said. . . .

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

3 Chords & the Truth: You get what you get

By the time I got to Memphis, I was sinking.

You'll find the note I left hangin' on your phone. You'll laugh when you read the part that says I'm flailin.'

 
'Cause I've flailed on here so many times before.

 

BY THE TIME I hit record, I was low energy. You'll probably think the Big Show is nothin' at all.

 
But you'll just have to go on thinkin' . . . mighty small. That's all.

 

By the time you figure it out, show'll be over. You'll turn and say "That's 3 Chords & the Truth!"

 
And you'll cry just to think I'd really done it -- tho' time and time again I've pulled it off.

 
You just didn't know . . . it's the Big Show.

 

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

 

3 Chords & the Truth: What just happened?

What just happened here?

Well, as this episode of 3 Chords & the Truth came together and headed to the Internet tubes, a former president of the United States was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York. That's a first in two and a half centuries.

Momentous stuff, to say the least.

And, unsurprisingly, convicted felon Donald Trump and Republican politicians from soup to nuts -- emphasis on the nuts -- are waging a brutal rhetorical war on the American justice system. Throw some dude in the 'hood under the jail, our criminal courts are great. Convict a psychologically damaged, orange authoritarian? THE TRIAL WAS RIGGED! DEMOCRATS ARE WAGING WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE!

EVEN THOUGH our system held here, even though we saw that no man is above the law -- in New York state, at least -- the United States remains in a world of hurt. American patriots (the real ones, not the performative ones) continue to fight for our democratic lives.

Interesting week to come out with another Big Show.

And the existential question remains: Which side are you on, boys? Which side are you on?

Here, we're on the side of America -- the noble idea of America. America is an idea, you know. It's a creed, an aspiration. We haven't fully lived up to the tenets of that creed yet, but the defining characteristic of Americanism is that we keep trying to.

Our national bond, now so horribly frayed, is in the trying . . . trying to live up to the words of the Declaration of Independence. Trying to remain faithful to our constitution.

This is a music program, however. We're also on the side of great music, and we're pretty firmly rooted in that respect. I'd recommend, after the day -- after the decade -- we've had that you kick back and chill with the musical greatness of the Big Show.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Seeing darkly via rose-colored specs

Life is a mixed bag, and not everything was better when we were young.

Actually, lots of things were awful, even cruel, when we were young. To deny that, it seems to me, is to fall into what I like to call malignant nostalgia. Rose-colored glasses tend to make your hindsight blurry.

Perhaps even offensive.

THAT'S WHAT is on my mind as another edition of 3 Chords & the Truth goes into the can and onto the Internets. For instance, I think the music from my time back in the day was, overall, pretty damned good. That doesn't mean it all was . . . God, no! A lot of it was crap.

Same goes for today. There's a lot of crap on the radio -- and on Spotify or whatever, There's also a lot of amazingly good stuff which, as was true to a lesser degree when I was young, can be less in your face and might take a little effort to connect with.

But the thing about the Big Show is that we celebrate the good. The bad, we don't mess with.

That, methinks, is all that needs to be said here. Really, it's time to get to the music now.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: What can I say?

What can I say?

Well, I don't know.

I've been in a contemplative mood but, unfortunately, that hasn't readily translated into something in particular to actually say on this week's 3 Chords & the Truth. Guess the music will have to do the talking.

Good thing the music, as usual, just says it all.

That's the Big Show for you.

And that is all I have to say.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Nudge dread

"These are the times that try men's souls."

Thomas Paine opened his essay "American Crisis" with that sentence in December 1776. The revolution against Great Britain wasn't going so well at that point.

Two hundred forty-eight years later, with a country riven as much as it's been since the Civil War, with a deranged authoritarian commanding the loyalty of a good 40 percent of Americans -- with American democracy itself teetering on the sharp edge of oblivion -- these are the times that try people's will to get out of bed in the morning.

SCRATCH MILLIONS of average Americans, and you're likely to bring forth a flood of existential dread. It's been that way for much of the past nine years.

And here I am doing a music podcast. You may have heard of it -- 3 Chords & the Truth. And the Truth is, we don't know how much more of this mess we, and the United States, can take. Think of the 3 Chords part as a pleasant refuge from the encroaching dread.

Ninety minutes' peace a week from existential dread ain't nothing. Well, that's one way to market the Big Show.

The quintessential 2024 way to market a music program.

Fortunately, that 90 minutes a week of musical refuge are 90 quality minutes of musical refuge. An absolute dread-free zone.

Thank God.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Spiraling

This is where I'm supposed to be clever or funny -- or something -- as I say something that's vaguely about this week's episode of the Big Show.

And perhaps you've noticed that I'm rather late posting this week's 3 Chords & the Truth.

Truth is . . . clever, funny or saying much about this week's show isn't really in the cards this early Saturday morning. I'm posting the show because it's been in the can since early Friday morning, but hyping it would be, in my reckoning right now, kind of vulgar.

Maybe you've heard on the news that Omaha (a.k.a., Omaha, by God, Nebraska) was hit hard by tornadoes Friday afternoon. The biggest one, out in far western Omaha, was massive and powerful -- perhaps an EF-4 or EF-5. That has yet to be officially determined, but it was really big, really powerful . . . and there are many homes and a few neighborhoods that no longer exist.

ON THE OTHER side of town, just north of downtown Omaha, a tornado tore through our airport, heavily damaging the general aviation section. My wife and I saw that happen on live TV.

The monster tornado missed our house (a.k.a., the Culture War bunker) by about 9 miles or so. The other one missed us by about 7 miles and change. We were lucky.

Not so for folks in a ruined path through western Douglas County, the western suburbs of Omaha and up through Bennington and well into Washington County. Also down toward Lincoln, Neb. And across the river in Iowa, tornadoes leveled huge parts of a few small towns, as well as some areas in Council Bluffs.

This area hasn't seen anything like that since the Tornado of 1975, an EF-4 monster that ripped through the middle of Omaha and was the United States' first billion-dollar twister.

Yes, this week's Big Show is as fine as ever. It's just that that seems rather unimportant now. As is the self-serving social-media hype one is expected to do these days.

I mean, "Too bad about the devastation across town, but now let's get back to the bitchin' tunes!" just doesn't cut it.

The show's done, and I didn't want to junk it, and that's about all I feel like saying about it. So I suck at modern marketing. Whoopee.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Listen. Or don't.

In the grand scheme of things, it's not that important, actually.

3 Chords & the Truth: Here comes the music

Sooner or later, the Big Show's gonna get ya.

Sooner or later, friend, you got to give in.

Sooner or later, the tunes are gonna let 'cha.

Sooner or later, the music's gonna win. Music's gonna win.

IT'S JUST a matter of time before you make up your mind.

To give all those grooves that you've been hiding.

Its just a question of when, I've told you time and again. You'll get all the tunes you've been denying.

Sooner or later, 3C&T is gonna get ya.

Sooner or later, friend, you got to give in.

Sooner or later, the tunes are gonna let 'cha.

Sooner or later, the music's gonna win. Music's gonna win!

So . . . here comes the Big Show. You betcha.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Nekkid truth

I sit here at the keyboard, naked before you, telling and playing the truth.

Well, not naked naked but figuratively naked. And certainly not nekkid. As any Southerner will tell you, there's a difference between naked and nekkid. Naked is clothesless. Nekkid is naked while up to something. There's a 3 Chords & the Truth naked truth for you.

I'll tell you the naked truth of why Linda Martell's debut country album was her last album. It is not an easy path for Black women in Nashville today. It was exponentially harder in 1970 and, indeed, it didn't work out -- for obvious reasons five years past the technical end of Jim Crow.

Back then, the miraculous apparently was all used up on the great Charley Pride's stardom.

HERE'S ANOTHER naked truth for this edition of the Big Show: Great music encompasses all genres, and they all can coexist on a single program. You know. like this one. And yet another one: Too many people are too parochial to embrace that fact.

Having grown up before the culture splintered into microcultures, it was pretty easy for an old guy like me to realize that at a relatively early age. It got even easier when I aged out of any concern for being "cool."

And the nakedest truth for me right now is that, in writing this, I'm just all over the place. Like, are people going to think I'm an idiot when I say The Who's "Naked Eye" is on Who's Next? Well, if you have a later CD re-release, it is.

Another version is on Odds and Sods (1974). The naked truth is that digital re-releases of classic albums make one's musical-geek life confusing. Bonus tracks good; bonus tracks kinda bad if you nerd out on who released what when.

Like I said, all over the place, I am. No, I am not Yoda. I just write like him.

Perhaps I'd better stop now. That's the naked truth, but not the nekkid truth. Nekkid truth, you would not want to see.

And there goes the thread, which I have lost.

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