3 Chords & the Truth: It's all we got

Some years back, when LSU football was going through a meh stretch, and the Tigers had lost in agonizing fashion to one hated rival or another, a fellow native Louisianian was in despair.

My wife, trying to be encouraging, said something platitudinous on social media . . . you know, like "The sun will come up in the morning, and this, too, shall pass. So count your blessings, bucko."

Midwesterners. They're so frickin' earnest.

My fellow expat friend was having none of that bullshit.

"You don't understand," she said. "Football. It's all we got."

We Louisianians damn grew up in Trumpworld -- we just didn't know what to call it then. It's not like anyone was going to spend the money or give two shits enough to build a world-class university the Tigers could be proud of.

IT'S NOT LIKE, magically, government would generally work and voters would generally care.

It's not like the K-12 school system wouldn't always rank somewhere around dead last in the country.

It's not like the poor wouldn't always be with us, always be killing one another, always be hopeless and always have Bubba -- who had a union job at the chemical plant and would die of cancer in about 20 years -- blame the poor for their mean estate.

But goddammit, the LSU Tigers always had a shot. Except when they didn't.

It's all we got.

Folks in places like Nebraska don't get that. If the Nebraska Cornhuskers were magically transported to my home state, along with all their fans, in their present losing condition . . . well, "Nebraska" would supplant "Jonestown" in the Grim Reaper's thesaurus.

SO, YOU ASK. What's this have to do with the Big Show, with 3 Chords & the Truth?

Well, Cap, we all live in Trumpworld now. And we're all learning that, no, it's not darkest just before the dawn. It's darkest just before it gets even darker.

It's suckiest just before the president gets all jiggy with his Twitter account and commits witness harassment against one of his own ambassadors who -- at that very moment -- is testifying at his House impeachment hearing. And then things get even worse.

And then you learn to hang on to what you got. For as long as you can.

In the Gret Stet, that's football. And great food. And a rich culture. And a world-class musical tradition.

Being educated, having long lives and a minimally functioning government, with good roads and shit . . . not so much.

Louisiana will always have gumbo, Russia will always have great vodka, Catholics will always have the Sistine Chapel (I think), and America will always have what was the most amazing patrimony on earth -- until it all went to shit.

ME, I'M CLINGING to 3 Chords & the Truth. I look on the program as a flashlight in the darkness, a nod to musical truth, a tribute to what we had . . . and a hope that this present darkness just might be the precursor to dawn after all.

I guess that Pollyanna-ish Midwestern optimistic crap might be starting to rub off on me after 30-something years.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Music, music, music

We live in a world where people like to spoon feed you both kinds of music.

You know, country and western. Rap and hip-hop. Classic rock and classic hits. Classical and orchestral.

Here at 3 Chords & the Truth, we play one kind of music -- good. The bad, we don't mess with.

So, in the course of one show -- like this week's -- you're apt to hear The Young Rascals followed by Leonard Cohen. Mama Cass followed by Sarah Vaughan. Charlie Byrd followed by Squeeze.

ANDY WILLIAMS followed by Nazareth. I'm pretty proud of Andy Williams followed by Nazareth.

It all works. It all expands your mind and your horizons. It all makes up the rich musical gumbo you know as the Big Show.

Screw radio homogeneity, and screw the programmers and corporate suits who sell you short on an unending basis.

We don't roll like that. We're 3 Chords & the Truth, dammit.

Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: The smart choice

Style and substance -- the Big Show has both. Always has. Always will.

In radio today, I'm not sure what's the rarer thing, style or substance. Some stations and programs have some degree of style. Others -- not a bunch -- have substance. Few have both.

Actually, having both is a good way to not be on the radio. Having both, come to think of it, is a good way to be totally screwed in lots of ways in our culture today. Such are the times in which we live.

The blessing and the curse of 3 Chords & the Truth is that it's the program that doesn't give a damn.

Bad news: This sort of thing is a horrible way to make any money. Good news: We've no money to lose from not being dumb-ass enough, so you're gonna hear some wild sh . . . stuff on this here little podcast. (Gotta watch the language. "Style," don't you know.)

Style and substance. Boy is that happening on the Big Show this week.

And, boy, do you need to be listening to the Big Show this week.

Really, aren't we all tired of the dumb and the artless? Time for a change.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: It's late

It's late.

And I'm afraid we have no idea how late it is . . . says someone who is a member of a group of tens upon tens upon tens upon tens of millions of Americans just deemed "human scum" by the president of the United States of America. Just because we happen to oppose the mean-spirited, disastrous misgovernance of said president and his band of craven partisan enablers.

The words "human scum" made it possible to kill 6 million Jews. Made it possible for Hutus to slaughter between half a million and a million Tutsis in Rwanda. Allowed the Turks to butcher about 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during and after World War I.

"HUMAN SCUM" on American lips gave permission for Southerners to enslave millions of blacks and egged them on as they declared war on their northern brethren in defense of the indefensible. Nearly 700,000 Americans were dead by the time the carnage played itself out in 1865.

This edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is predicated upon the lateness of the hour in these United States. This edition of the Big Show also harbors a musical prayer that it's not too late.

Sorry to get all serious on you but, alas, these are serious times. But at least we work plenty enough fun and tuneful enjoyment around the seriousness . . . in my humble opinion.

But don't take my word for it; I'm just "human scum." Why don't you just listen for yourself instead?

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Hello in there

Fall just fell, the heat is running, the coffee's on . . . a great time for you to pop in and say "Hello in there!"

Or maybe the Big Show will just drop by your place to say hello. Either way is fine.

Well, while we're saying hello, we just as well have some pumpkin spice stuff -- coffee, treats, booze, air freshener, whatever. Apparently it's required.

And we at 3 Chords & the Truth do what's expected of us.

Uh . . . once we did. I think.

Anyway, say howdy, grab some kind of pumpkin stuff and settle in for a bunch of really good music. As is our custom.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Watching the world go by

We're sittin' in the bunker, watching the world go by.

DUCK!

It's that kind of world these days, and 3 Chords & the Truth is here to help you cope with it. Good music helps with everything.

When you have a president who, in just one day, called on the Chinese communists to investigate the former vice president of the United States -- a potential electoral opponent of said president -- and then run a network television commercial accusing congressional Democrats of plotting a coup against him . . . well, we need all the help we can get.

AND THAT was just a couple of days after he quoted (in a tweet, of course) a right-wing preacher who said there'd be civil war to pay if the Democrats impeached him. Listen to the music, folks. Listen to the music.

Listen to the good music and soak in the good cheer -- we're not that far away from killing one another. Like I said, hold on to the good music . . . and the better angels of your nature. We need all the help we can get.

The Big Show is fun, yes. It's musically enlightening. It's, on its better days, informative without boring the crap out of you or sounding like a college lecture. (A not good one, that is.)

But this here little music program is as serious as a heart attack, too. 3 Chords & the Truth also is, one hopes, a reminder that we're better than the worse of the headlines on the evening news. That we're better than our politics. That we're better than the dysfunctional man-child in Washington who keeps trying to drag us down into the muck -- to pit American brother against American brother, and American sister against American sister. To pit America against the rest of the world.

Call the show not just "music for the people," but also "music for we the people."

Love your brother and listen to the damn music. Please?

'Cause no one's listening to anything if we've all done one another in.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: The Now Sound?

The Now Sound?

This week, not so much. The newest selection is from 21 years ago. Old happens.

No, this edition of the Big Show is the "then sound," with music from wildly varying genres and several different "thens." Frankly, I like it that way. Increasingly, "now" is not something to which a sane man wishes to aspire.

"Now," we're at one another's throats. We as an American nation . . . aren't. We are as divided as we've been since Vietnam, and maybe since Fort Sumter. "Now," we are dry kindling, and we have a president splashing gasoline around and lighting matches.

TO "NOW" -- especially at the end of this particular Week of Pending Impeachment and Ongoing Denial and Excuse-Making -- 3 Chords & the Truth says "F*** that s***."

Pardon my pessimism and rejection of "now" this week. I came down with a nasty cold amid recording this week's edition of the Big Show, and I may have just had a toddy with orange juice, lemon juice, honey, Tabasco sauce . . . and three shots of grocery store bourbon.

If I can't get well soon, at least I won't care. But you have to endure my dark bluntness amid the damned fine music. Which definitely isn't "now."

It's from "then," when folks hated each other a bit less and hoped for the future a bit more. Good night and good luck.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Wafting across the aether

This week, 3 Chords & the Truth wafts across the aether, which has much more class and aesthetic value than the oh-so-pedestrian "ether," into your ears and your very soul.

We become one with the magic of the night . . . the wonder of the music.

The Big Show defies the insanity surrounding us with beauty, joy, eclecticism and some small measure of intelligence. This week, as every week, our humble little program stands as a sign of contradiction to the stupidity that seeks to engulf us.

There is a fungus among us. You know what I mean.

Screw that; listen to this.

The music of 3 Chords & the Truth surfs the aetherial waves. It inhabits the mystery beyond the last golden rays of sunshine. It defies conformity and convention.

Tune in for an eclectic happening, curated by your Mighty Favog. It's here, in the night . . . in the aether.

Or something.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Still the same . . . or something

I feel like the Big Show is a Bob Seger thing . . . still the same.

Forget that. We actually don't have any Bob Seger on the show this week. We are, however, still the same -- in that we're rarely the same week to week.

Which, conversely, makes 3 Chords & the Truth still the same in programmatic non-sameness. Or something like that.

I am starting to not make sense. Which might make me president of the United States, and no one wants that. Then again, nobody wants the present president of the United States, either.

So I'll merely say that this current edition of the Big Show is the same as every other in its eclecticism and high quality. And your host is what he is.

That is all.

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

The abomination of desecration

Like millions of Americans, I watched the towers fall in New York City -- live -- on my television set.

Before they fell, I saw people leap to their deaths.rather than be burned alive.

I watched the Pentagon burn. I heard the stories from Flight 93, which gave us "Let's roll!" as a battle cry after Sept. 11, 2001.

Looking into the Omaha sky that day, I saw fighter jets and an AWACS plane. And no other aircraft for days.

I saw my country changed forever, and not for the better, in a single morning. That day, 2,996 people died. People are still dying -- many of them New York first responders -- because of that day.

Wikipedia

TO THIS DAY, I get a pit in my stomach whenever I see old pictures of the twin towers of the then-World Trade Center.

And this is how the Omaha World-Herald has chosen to commemorate that terrible day -- with a 9/11 coupon section. If there's a more telling embodiment of the America of  Donald Trump, who infamously called a New York TV station to brag (falsely) that his Trump Tower now was the city's tallest, I don't know what that would be.

Thousands die. Hey, that's a killer opportunity to make a buck! Right, Warren Buffett? Right, Lee Enterprises?

I can't wait for what the World-Herald has planned for Pearl Harbor Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On Flight 93 over Pennsylvania, when Todd Beamer told his fellow passengers "Let's roll!" as they fought to foil the plane's hijackers, little did we know how America would be rolling nearly two decades later.

It's enough to make one wonder whether our worst enemies are the ones who just might know us best.

Great Satan, indeed.

3 Chords & the Truth: Really?

There was a hurricane.

And, like, it moved north, you know, and wasn't. . . .

Not headed anywhere near Alabama.  But then the president tweeted. And. . . .

Then . . . then . . . he was wrong. But truth is a casualty when he's wrong and reality must be bent to make lies into something like the truth in this crazy, mixed-up land.

I swear to God, what's a poor music show to do in the middle of a loony bin? I'm talking about 3 Chords & the Truth here.

PITY THE Big Show that just wants to have fun when an apocalypse calls. No, not the Apocalypse, just an apocalypse.

But Donald Trump's trying hard, you know?

So tune in for 3 Chords & the Truth in full underground, rebel radio station mode. Because someone has to tell folks they're not the ones who are crazy.

Oh . . . the music's damn good, too.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: And it's all right?

We all, I think, had a close call with apocalyptic crazy last week, and it's all right.

For now.

I think.

The sun has continued to rise, and it appears we will make it to September. I think. That is, hurricanes and Washington willing.

Anyway, we're counting our being here to do yet another installment of 3 Chords & the Truth as a victory, which we're celebrating in the usual manner -- with really great music, eclectically presented.

IT'S THE BEST music. Unbelievably beautiful music. You would not believe how beautiful the music is on this week's edition of the Big Show.

And that's no fake news. Or is it Fake News?

The new rules for capitalization still kinda throw me. You know?

That said. . . .

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

3 Chords & the Truth: We had a good run, eh?

The lunatic tweets like an ass.

The lunatic speaks out his ass
Remembering blame and crazy claims and gaffes
Got to keep the loonies on the path

The lunatic has cast a pall
The lunatics have so much gall
TV news keeps his crazy rants in our ears
And every day the lunatic spews more

And the crazy train is off the rusted tracks again
And if this is the end of the damn line
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you here on 3 Chords & the Truth

It's the Big Show, y'all. Let's be here while we can. Aloha.

(Apologies to Pink Floyd.)

3 Chords & the Truth: Music box

What is the Big Show?

The program, 3 Chords & the Truth, is basically an internet-enabled, really eclectic, Favogian frickin' music box. Like a radio.

I assume you're listening on something that roughly approximates a box. And that there's music coming out of it.

Voila! Music box.

And in the case of the Big Show, it's a good music box. Or a box filled with good music. However you'd like to phrase it.

It's certainly a box radiating eclectic music, carefully curated. I'm told I should use phrases like "carefully curated." I don't know why.

WE LIVE IN an age of branding, I suppose. That's fine, as far as it goes, but it doesn't equal doing. And thoughtfully selected and placed music is what we just frickin' do on 3 Chords & the Truth.

Heat up that iron in a fire and brand something with it, Cowboy.

Hell, I don't even know where I'm going with this. Hell, the veterinarian didn't know where I was going with it when I asked him whether the organizers were giving out Who's a GOOD Boy? awards at his 30-year vet-school reunion this summer.

AND, by the way, Belle the Dog is lying on the back of the couch watching Elmo on PBS Kids.

I don't know why.

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

Listen to Wubbie

Watch intently.

Obey Wubbie. You're feeling the need to listen. Listen. You really need to listen to the Big Show.

Listen to Wubbie.

Wubbie says listen to 3 Chords & the Truth. Wubbie loves good music. YOU love good music. Wubbie says listen.

Listen.

Music in the night: The anachronism edition

Here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska, we're taking a break this week from the Big Show, but not from music in the night.

In the process, I may have accidentally created a historical, technological and cultural mishmash for the ages. Let me explain here. 

While doing some maintenance on our laptop (and waiting for the interminable latest major update to Windows 10 to . . . well . . . terminate), I decided to listen to the radio. So I turned on our 1928 RCA Radiola 18, one of the earliest "light socket" sets, which translates to "electric" from the 1920s technobabble.

IN 1928, a technomiracle was as simple as "No more messy lead-acid batteries in the living room!"

"OK, whatevs," you say. But I totally get it. F'rinstance:

What if everybody's big flat-screen TV set ran off car batteries. In a cabinet. In your living room.

THEN, WHILE still waiting for the computer to update while listening to the local AM-oldies station, I decided to take a couple of geeky, artsy photos with . . . my iPhone. While the radio still is going strong after 91 years, I do not expect the iPhone to still be operational decades after I have ceased to.

Then I uploaded the pictures to the iMac, edited them, then uploaded the finished products to the blog, via the Internet.

So what you see here is a nine-decade span of technological advancement (whether it's "progress" is debatable, depending), several massive leaps of the human imagination and at least as many head-spinning cultural shifts spurred by all the other shifts.

That, when you come to think of it, kind of tires you out. That is all.

3 Chords & the Truth: WHOA!

Did you know there may be a race of men who live in the trees?

WHOA!

That's just one of the shocking developments you'll hear on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth. In fact, this episode of the show is chock full of surprises, unexpected endings and edge-of-your-seat musical moments.

IT'S TRUE!

So if you don't want to miss out on one WHOA! moment after another, DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL!!! Even if your podcast-listening device doesn't actually have a dial.

Just do what we say, and everybody gets good music and somewhat-witty repartée. And it's right here on the Big Show.

You betcha.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: No static a-tall

Did your old man ever ominously warn you about giving him any static?

Mine did. It usually didn't work. I gave him static.

Well, pally, today we live in a world with nothin' but static. Static here, static there, static static static everywhere.

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, I seek to make static amends by proclaiming this here program a static-free zone. There will be no static here, only good music.

And from the Great Beyond, Daddy now is saying "So NOW you decide to stop being an asshole."

To that, I only can say "Better late than never, Pop. Better late than never."

Enjoy your static-free edition of the Big Show.

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

Political science

Wife: What's the dog got in her mouth?

Me: (Prying dog's jaws open and grabbing object.) 

Wife: What is it? 

Me: Oh, God. Eww. (Goes to drop object in toilet.) 

Me: (Washing hand with alcohol before sullying the soap.)

There's a political metaphor in there somewhere.

3 Chords & the Truth: The Big Show has landed

"One of these days, Alice! Pow! Straight to the moon!"

One of these days came 50 years ago today. Pow! We went straight to the moon.

Oddly enough, it wasn't Ralph Kramden's fist that got us there. No, it was three brave astronauts who climbed atop a gigantic Saturn V rocket four days before, blasted off into the heavens and took the whole damned planet with them for a lunar joyride.

July 20, 1969. It was a Sunday. I was 8 years old -- almost 8 and a half. Halves are very important when you're 8.

That day -- POW! -- straight to the moon. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins got there with Apollo 11. I suspect they kinda knew that I (and a few billion others) had hitched a ride on their rocket ship.

This episode of the Big Show has the moon on its mind, a way to remember the greatest thing mankind has done and give thanks to the three men who did it . . . and all the thousands of men and women who got them there.

In fact, this week's 3 Chords & the Truth doesn't have a single song that isn't a moon song. And they're all good. Fittingly good for an Apollo 11 anniversary program.

Mementos of a grade-school space nut

PUTTING THIS particular edition together put me, in a very real way, back in time. Back in our living room at 10645 Darryl Dr. in Baton Rouge. Back in front of the black-and-white, 21-inch Magnavox television tuned in to CBS and Walter Cronkite. Back to when I was an elementary-school spaceaholic, the one with all the Gemini-mission stickers all over the dresser mirror in my bedroom.

The 1960s were fraught times, like our own today. But a big difference was hope. We had hope. We knew we were better than our struggles and our national squabbles and missteps, and we had hope that, someday, we would overcome.

Someday.

We have yet to overcome and, indeed, we're backsliding. Today, we have a lot more Trump than we have hope.

BUT LOOKING BACK at Apollo 11 and those first glorious steps on a strange world, we know what the better angels of our human nature look like. And when we look up into a moonlit sky, we know that for those better angels, the sky is the limit.

And in an age seemingly bereft of heroes, we only have to look back within the lifetime of your broken-down old radio guy here to see a whole big bunch of them -- heroes who touched the moon, if not the stars.

For that, we give musical thanks.

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