These are the times that try men's immune systems.
And their faith in mankind . . . political leaders . . . the "American way of life" (snort) . . . human intelligence, God and the universe.
Americans, most of us, are not in a good place right now. We're cooped up, the president's brain obviously is f***ed up, people are all head-up, and right-wing politicians and pundits look at the mounting coronavirus death toll, then agitate for the economy to "open up."
It's late 1918 and the Spanish flu all over again. That didn't end well.
ON TOP of it all, John Prine died on April 7. Of the coronavirus.
It's all enough to make you give up hope. That's exactly why you can't. And that's more or less what this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is all about -- that, paying tribute to the great John Prine, a Woodstock jam and other good stuff.
To be frank (because I'm sick of people calling me Shirley), I'm kind of at a loss for what else to say about this go 'round of the Big Show.
So I won't. Just listen; you'll figure it out.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
So . . . I just got back from the neighborhood (loosely speaking) Hy-Vee, where I waited for about an hour to pick up groceries. You think I went inside -- on a Saturday?
From how full the parking lot was, and how few people were wearing the now-recommended masks, it's clear a lot of folks haven't gotten the coronavirus memo. Nope, staying in the car, where I know all the germs.
Still, it was out of the house for a bit. Speaking to someone not my wife, who is an excellent, witty conversationalist, I hasten to add.
Such is life today in COVID-19 Nation, where disease is rampant and we're all on our own.
THAT'S THE mindset behind today's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth. If I'm stir crazy and living in a stay-at-home fog, I'll bet your are, too.
At least you better be -- for your own health.
We're going to try to bring a little musical sunshine into your cloistered existence this week and every week for the duration. I mean, we do that every time on the Big Show, but in a world with an increasing viral load, it's time to double down.
Or something.
Don't miss one of the program's patented boogie sets, by the way. You've got to get your butt off the couch and move a little, you know?
And that's about it. Just listen, OK? You'll be glad you did.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
A friend today summed up these officially interesting times perfectly. Absolutely perfectly.
"This is the Lentiest Lent I ever Lented," she wrote.
Yeah, that about covers it. Almost to the point where I have nothing else to add.
It would seem that we are flailing amid a world of hurt, a world of suffering and a world of fear. That's before we get to the religious obligations of prayer, self-denial and penance.
This is one hell of a Lenty Lent, all right. We even had to give up church for Lent. America's president and government would have given up common sense and competence for the penitential season, except for one niggling detail.
You cannot surrender what you do not possess.
AND HERE we are, with too many people unnecessarily giving up good health for Lent. People giving up a sense of security for Lent. People by the thousands giving up their very lives for Lent -- giving them to a virus that U.S. officialdom never took seriously until it was damned near too late. Whether some leaders ever take the coronavirus seriously enough to do any damned good remains to be seen.
Let's just say I'm not real optimistic as I sit in the 3 Chords & the Truth apocalypse bunker here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska.
That's about all the elaboration I can muster. It's hard staying at home. It's hard being isolated from friends . . . and the world. It's hard for me, and I'll bet it's hard for you, too.
So . . . we all do what we can to make it through, and to help one another make it through. The Big Show is what I do -- give you some music to listen to and maybe a thing or two to think about. Maybe that's helpful. I pray that it is.
Wash your hands, keep your distance, and be careful out there.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
If I see one more social-media post about not listening to the "hysterical" media -- a group I was proud to belong to, and still do in my own way, and to which my wife, over in the dining room busting her ass for the Omaha World-Herald, still belongs -- I am going to go all Ray Nagin on WWL radio after Katrina.
If not for "the hysterical media," you wouldn't know what the fuck is coming at you like a freight train. You wouldn't know squat about "wash your hands" and how COVID-19 is spread. You wouldn't know that your health-care system is at risk of collapse if you don't stay the hell home and not cause yourself (or your loved ones, friends and random strangers) to be infected.
If not for "the hysterical media," no one would be sewing face masks for hospitals or trying to help out laid-off workers -- because they'd have no damned idea if they weren't hard hit themselves.
IF NOT for "the hysterical media," you'd know jack shit about jack squat. (Which still, unfortunately, is too often the case in this country, despite the heroic efforts of "the hysterical media.")
Untold members of "the hysterical media" have given their lives to let unreflective and ungrateful people know the things they'd rather not know but damned well need to. On my darkest days, I don't know why "the hysterical media" bother.
Right now, there are hard-working folks in "the hysterical media" who have been infected by COVID-19 in the course of trying tell you about the threat of COVID-19 and how your fellow Americans are suffering under the plague of COVID-19.
Not that people fucking care. At least, won't care about until they're lying on a gurney in the hall of an overwhelmed hospital, gasping for breath, waiting for death because there's no respirator available.
Your governors have been screaming bloody murder about that shortage. You'd know that if you actually had been listening to "the hysterical media."
Now, please don't get all hysterical when you're blindsided by what you refused to believe was coming. It's a bad look, don't you know?
And please don't say the media didn't try to tell you. They did, and you called them all "hysterical."
End of Week 2 in nearly total home sequestration: Mr. and Mrs. Favog have not killed one another.
So far, so good.
In the name of "flattening the curve" of COVID-19 cases, we certainly hope you're doing the same. Your health, your neighbor's health, your grandmama's health and the health of our American health-care system demand that middling sacrifice of us all.
The virus, it is real. And real bad.
SO, IN THE NAME of making your homebound state as pleasant as possible, here's another episode of the Big Show . . . 3 Chords & the Truth. As usual, it's a good one.
An eclectic one.
One that will make you, at least once (maybe twice . . . OK, maybe three times) go "WHOA!"
That is how we roll here in the Apocalypse Bunker in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. We're doing our level best.
Now turn us on and listen to the music. And wash your damn hands.
So . . . is anybody else disinfecting groceries? Yesterday's gobstoppering paranoia is today's mere prudence, I suppose -- here in Coronavirus Nation.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
You can't say the Big Show is a laggard in having an apocalypse bunker, now, can you?
And I'll bet you're scrambling to construct one of your own, now, aren't you? Complete with microbial air filtering capabilities.
Well, that's why 3 Chords & the Truth is a leader, in musical entertainment and disaster preparedness, too. That's why you're here -- you want the best in entertainment while you get ready for God only knows what next.
THIS WEEK on this here program, we're going to keep it light and relaxing, because God knows we've all had about as much anxiety and heaviness as we can stand. So prepare to be mellowed out . . . and to have a little joy infusion into this present viral-induced joy deficit.
And that's about it. We're going to try to chill as best as we can. We need all the chill we can muster for the times ahead.
As you're hunkered down.
In your own apocalypse bunker.
Remember this, though. We'll get through it. It won't be easy, but we will.
Somehow.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
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If marijuana -- hell, crystal meth -- isn't legal in Nebraska (it's not), you'd be hard-pressed to divine that from the Omaha World-Herald's website tonight.
This fails every possible journalistic test. It fails in newsworthiness. It fails in "what folks are worried about." It even fails the Internet Age test of "What story is gonna get the most page views?"
PUTTING "Creighton looks to spruce up 24th Street" in the lead-story slot over, oh, coronavirus fast getting a foothold in the Omaha area even fails a basic tenet of the news business that every first-year journalism student learns in college -- if not on their high-school newspaper: The most important story gets the most important slot.
I can't say I know exactly what the hell is going on here, but whatever it is, it's seriously messed up.
The World-Herald hasn't won a Pulitzer Prize since 1944 (and probably won't under the bleed-it-dry ownership of Lee Enterprises) but at least you'd think it wouldn't be too much to ask that it not try for the newspaper version of the Darwin Awards.
The covid-19 thing, the "novel coronavirus," is getting real here in the United States. So far, 15 are dead. Total confirmed American infections are north of 300.
One case was confirmed at the Omaha hospital a block from where I write.
And this is what the president of the United States said -- amid health officials praising him in Dear Leader terms -- during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta today: "People are really surprised I understand this stuff,” he said. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”
Believe me, Donald John Trump's only "natural ability" is for being a liar, an ignoramus, a buffoon and a flim-flam man.
SO . . . what does this have to do with this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth? Well, this week's edition of the Big Show is all about WATCH YOUR STEP. That's what we all have to do now, because we're pretty much on our own -- watch your step.
Part of watching your step, besides washing your hands -- a lot -- and substituting a wave for a handshake, and staying out of large crowds, and making sure you have enough provisions to hole up at home for a while if need be . . . is keeping a level head and keeping your spirits up.
The aim of 3 Chords & the Truth is that last thing. The aim is to play some good music, make you think a little bit . . . and to keep spirits up. We're going to need that. A lot.
Besides, this here program would serve as excellent entertainment if you're homebound and eating lots of beans, soup and tuna fish.
That . . . is all.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Hard times are us.
Really, it's just one damned thing after another. Now it's a looming pandemic and a crashing stock market because of the looming pandemic, which has pretty much shuttered China and threatens to do the same to the rest of the world.
Investors also weren't exactly comforted by the realization that the president of the United States is a mentally unwell half-wit who thinks the whole coronavirus (or"caronavirus" if you're reading Donald Trump's tweets) thing is just being exaggerated by the evil liberal media and the Democrats to crash the economy and cost him re-election.
To summarize: We are f*cked.
THIS EDITION of 3 Chords & the Truth is an attempt to internalize that . . . and be as much a musical balm as we can. It may not be much, but it isn't nothing.
The Big Show also is a fine way to pass the time once we're all too afraid to venture out of our homes for fear of infection. Or are quarantined -- one or the other.
Who knew that the 3C&T Apocalypse Bunker might end up being something other than a metaphor, a mere semi-witty saying? But that's where we are in the Land of One Damned Thing After Another.
Good night, and good luck. And may all your infections be mild.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Just because you're hunkered down in an apocalypse bunker in the Trumpian States of Amerika, that doesn't mean you can't spruce the place up a bit and celebrate Mardi Gras.
Let's just call Carnival time the bright spot between secular, never-ending Lent and religious Lent plus the ongoing secular, never-ending Lent in this national vale of moonbattery.
That's where we are on this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.
But . . . the music's great, the music is fine, and the music on the Big Show (one hopes) will get us through every form of Lenten mortification.
And dat's the name of dat tune.
Period.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Let me be direct: I often find myself looking backward, embracing the anachronism, because the present is too much to take straight up.
Sometimes, anachronistic ain't such a bad thing to be -- like less vitriolic, more accepting of grace and redemption . . . having a longer attention span.
For example, 3 Chords & the Truth is a big time throwback to another age, totally out of step with postmodernity. First off, this is a freeform music program. Where the hell do you even find such a thing anymore?
Not many places, that's for certain.
ANOTHER THING . . . the only computer that puts together any playlist for any episode of the Big Show resides inside the head of your Mighty Favog. It's somewhat larger than your smartphone, and I'm pretty sure it's hand-wired and runs on vacuum tubes.
Too, this here podcast embraces the quirky, the eccentric and holding more than one thought in one's head at one time. Talk about anachronistic.
3 Chords & the Truth has a soft spot for old music, old electronic equipment, old politics and old notions of what we used to know as "radio." We have no damn clue what the hell folks think they're doing on several fronts today.
And we feel sorrow and sympathy for those too young to remember the good things we do, too young to remember, and be wary of, the old bad stuff we've seen and lived -- and which keeps coming back around every so often.
That pretty much sums up the aesthetic of Revolution 21 and the Big Show.
That also helps to make this, in my humble opinion, a damn good radio program. Even if it's not actually on what passes for radio these days.
Try it. You'll like it, this anachronistic thing here.
YEAH, call us an anachronism. We like it like that.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
It's been a week, hasn't it?
Seems like we've had a lot of those, right? A week. A month. Three years. We've had a three years.
It's easy to lose hope. It's easy -- and probably correct -- to think things are just going to get worse. It's even easier to not know what the hell to do.
It's really hard to see the bottom, mainly because there may not be one. The president is a deranged cult leader, and cruelty is is specialty -- which is what many, including the allegedly religious, see as a feature and not a bug.
TORMENT WHOM you will and despoil what you will, Mr. President. Just give us some right-thinking judges, and save the faith we've mocked from them what hate us. Whom we likewise hate, for Jesus said we ought.
It's in the Bible -- somewhere in the back. No? But they said on Fox News.
Three years ago, we knew this present darkness would be hard. But we thought it'd be easier.
Right.
WHAT DOES this have to do with 3 Chords & the Truth? I don't know. Nothing? Everything?
What will we do on the Big Show? The answer is . . . what we can.
We'll play great music. We'll endeavor not to be dumb. We won't insult your intelligence, and we'll try to be a light, however small, in the darkness that has overtaken this land.
It started in 2008, and it continues right now. Vive la résistance! Long live "What we can"!
And this week particularly, you're gonna love "What we can."
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Hi there! Remember me?
We're back with this little thing called 3 Chords & the Truth after a month off . . . about three weeks of that due to the viral crud that's been going around these parts and your Mighty Favog's not having enough voice to do the show. At least not enough until right now, and that's a generous assessment of the state of my vocal cords.
Winter stinks.
But not as badly as the last three years, which have been rather like attending the world's longest, saddest funeral.
For your country.
AND NOW, as the president is on trial in the Senate, and the outcome is just as foreordained as the trials of white supremacists who killed black folk in 1963 Mississippi. . . .
Yeah, it kind of puts the viral crud in perspective as we head to the graveyard to shovel dirt onto the casket of the United States of America.
I'm guessing right now that you kind of wish I still had the crud. On the other hand . . . it is what it is, and we're well past the point of being measured or polite.
Down here in the 3C&T apocalypse bunker, bluntness is standard operating procedure. The music is pretty sweet, though.
In dark times, we need all the cold comfort we can muster.
Subversion is just about all that we have left in our political and cultural arsenal, and good music, smartly presented, is the Big Show's way of subverting the bad hand -- the dysfunctional culture, politics and government -- we've been dealt. Turn the music up . . . loud . . . as you find your way to throw a spanner into the gears of fascist Amerika.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
It has been many years since I've wanted a goddamned thing to do with the professionalized, politicized "pro-life" movement. Why? Because it's God-damned.
That sad fact becomes clearer by the day, if not by the minute.
Any organization that isn't wouldn't mock the Almighty by saying, with apparently straight faces -- both of them -- that Donald John Trump was "a voice for the unborn and continuously working to build a culture of life." That is a whopper of Trumpian proportions, at least.
Trumpian, hell. Orwellian.
Having Trump speak at an alleged March for Life is like having the ghost of Joseph Goebbels keynote an Anti-Defamation League convention. This most vile and dangerous of American presidents is building some kind of culture, alt-right all right, and it is anything but a "culture of life."
A CULTURE OF LIFE does not see ripping children from their parents at the border, then placing them in squalid and overcrowded Border Patrol stations as a feature and not a bug.
A culture of life's stance on the treatment of women does not include "grab 'em by the pussy."
A culture of life does not celebrate war crimes, it does not threaten war crimes, and it does not tolerate peacetime assassinations of foreign leaders.
A culture of life seeks to ease the struggles of the poor -- it does not cut their SNAP benefits.
A culture of life takes a dim view -- a really dim view -- of referring to women as "dogs."
A culture of life does not claim there's "some very fine people" among neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.
A culture of life does not celebrate someone who's told 16,241 public lies in his first three years in office.
A culture of life is not racist.
A culture of life is not anti-Semitic.
I could go on, but it's late and I'm tired.
WHEN I SAW the March of Life's tweet, the first thing -- literally -- that came to mind was "abomination of desolation." That's Bible speak, roughly describing something horrific and defiling. Apocalyptic, even. Think of erecting pagan monuments on the ruins of the temple in Jerusalem, as the Romans did.
Think of building an altar to Satan in a Catholic church.
Think of having Donald John Trump speak at a March for Life.
I'm thinking of the Archdiocese of Omaha sending busloads of teenagers to the March for Life -- and all of its hyperpoliticized Trumpdolatry -- like lambs to the spiritual and ideological slaughter. One of three things is likely to happen to each poor soul, and none is good:
* The kid might die of irony overload right on the spot.
* The kid might become a MAGA enthusiast, endangering his or her immortal soul and causing much harm to others somewhere down the road.
* The kid might be unusually perceptive, see this for the evil, blasphemous bullshit that it really is, take note of who and what brought him or her into this moral clusterfuck . . . and be lost to the Church (or Christianity, period) forever.
What an amazing witness for Christ. America -- and the church -- will have much to suffer because of such sulfurous subversion from the depths of hell.
I'm also imagining Jesus on one of those buses full of Nebraska teens as it crosses the Potomac River. It is written, "As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it."
The bigger the show, the less I'll write about it. And the Christmas edition of the Big Show is a big, big show, indeed.
In fact, it's the biggest Big Show we've done in more than 11 years of doing the program. There isn't a little Christmas in this week's 3 Chords & the Truth; there's a lot of Christmas.
There's a simple reason for that, pally.
These days, we need a lot of Christmas. Every single minute. We need a lot of Christmastime.
In this case, 3 hours and 13 minutes of Christmastime. You're welcome. Actually, thank our sponsor, What? Do a Shot . . . the drink America drinks when it needs to black out.
So there you have it, big Big Show, small post about the holiday music marathon.
It's A 3 Chords & the Truth Christmas, y'all. Be there. Alo-ho-ho-ho-ha.
There are a lot of entities and ideologies, nay, powers and principalities, out there waiting to assimilate your ass.
The vast majority represent bad, nay, weird ass, stuff. Feel free to substitute a more colorful noun than "stuff."
If you wonder what I speak of, you haven't been paying attention to our sorry and strife-filled times. But this isn't about that.
This is about being assimilated by something good and interesting and, nay, something good for your brain and your soul.
THIS . . . is about 3 Chords & the Truth. We're like the good Borg, and we only require to assimilate a modest and reasonable portion of your mind to the hive.
And maybe your feet, with which we will guide you to use for dancing and tapping.
Apart from that, there's just another exceptional edition of the Big Show to alert you to this week. Good music and a few great Christmas songs as we lead up to the giant Ho Ho Ho Extravaganza next week.
That . . . is all.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
The power of tunes is . . .
Three minutes of Christmas joy that makes you forget about a world of hurt for just a bit.
Songs that make you think, reminding you of the important things in life.
Music that lets you scream and rage at the insanity of this present darkness . . . without actually screaming and raging and getting carted off to the nearest psych ward.
THAT SOMETHING beyond words that touches you inside in a way beyond description.
The force multiplier of twist and shout.
Not caring whether "the force multiplier of twist and shout" actually makes any sense. You know what you mean.
"She loves you, yeah yeah yeah!"
Now, komm gib mir deine Hand, and I'll lead you to a magical place. We call it the Big Show.
We call it 3 Chords & the Truth.
Be there.
Aloha.
There's a hole in Donald's head where all the crazy goes.
And America died for nothing, I suppose,
Little minds have big mouths.
Don't stop to count the cost,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.
(Apologies to John Prine)
THAT'S US. We're a broken radio, and the sweet songs -- our democratic heritage -- can't last too long. Not when we're going like this.
The Big Show will do what it can. We will play our sweet songs as long as we can. But if our national -- our cultural -- hatred of the truth, of the rule of law . . . of one another . . . doesn't end, the sweet songs will fade into static.
What cannot go on, won't.
That is the message of this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. We're here in the 3C&T apocalypse bunker beneath Omaha, by God, Nebraska, and we're doing what we can.
Mainly, that's to play the best music we can, to remind you -- briefly -- of some basic, important things, and to keep alive the better angels of our cultural nature for as long as we can.
That's what the Big Show can do. You have to do the rest. Now to the music.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
