Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Louisianastan


Do you remember how translators and other locals who worked with and for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan and Iraq, as a matter of course, went -- and still go -- by pseudonyms and otherwise shrouded their true identities because, for certain other locals, to know, know, know them is to kill, kill, kill them?

As it turns out, you don't have to go all the way to southwest Asia or the Middle East to become familiar with the concept.

No, a mere 1,000-mile drive from where I type can give you a homegrown taste of the concept, where contractors bidding to remove Confederate and white-supremacist monuments from the New Orleans public square, so to speak, won't even tell reporters who they are. That comes after the last guy to get the job, a Baton Rouge contractor, pulled out after receiving death threats . . . and after someone torched his luxury sports car.

It also comes after city government in the Big Uneasy was forced to remove a list of interested contractors from its website after the threats started rolling in, vowing at a minimum to put one firm out of business. The owner contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation.


FROM the New Orleans Times Picayune:
Speaking at an informational meeting held for firms interested in bidding on the removal job, they also raised concerns about diving into such a controversial job.

One asked city officials whether he would be required to post a sign with his company's name on it at the job sites. Another asked whether his crew could work in the predawn hours, presumably to limit as much public exposure as possible.

Vince Smith, director of Capital Projects Administration, said that the city would work with the winning bidder on a security plan to mitigate any threat. Regarding signage, he said, "Quite frankly, I don't think we are going to make that a requirement," given the ongoing controversy over monument removal.

The city had originally hoped to bypass the traditional public bid process, selecting Baton Rouge firm H&O investments directly from its pool of pre-approved contractors to handle the removal of monuments to Confederates Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis. The owner of the company, though, pulled out, saying he had received death threats after his name was associated with the project. A crane operator, though it had not yet been formally hired for the job, also disavowed any involvement.

The contractors at the meeting did not give their names during the discussion, and one, pulled aside after it adjourned, declined to give his name to a reporter. He said that he had driven by the monuments discretely to get a look at their construction, but he didn't want to go too close for fear of being identified by pro-monument hardliners.

The city did not distribute a sign-in sheet at the meeting.
DONALD TRUMP isn't trying to impose fascism on the United States. Donald Trump isn't introducing the specter of violence to the public square or the political arena. And Donald Trump hasn't started a movement to celebrate racism, bigotry and nativism.

All these things have been popular forever in this country, and nowhere more than in the South and my home state, Louisiana. Merely to have been black in the South -- within living memory, within my memory -- was just about as dangerous as it is to be Christian in Iraq today or be found out as an American collaborator in Afghanistan.


All Trump is doing is summoning forth the demons, because summoning forth America's demons just might get him elected president. God knows that demon-summoning always has been a booming business in Louisiana, where it's always 1959 somewhere. Or maybe 1861.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

3 Chords & the Truth: The Producer


This week's edition of the Big Show can be described in two words.

One name.

George Martin.

If you don't know George Martin, or why we mark his passing by playing the music he touched, shaped, molded for decades, you're about to get an education in sound. If you do know the work of this producer's producer, you mourn the unfathomable loss with us at 3 Chords & the Truth as we celebrate the immeasurable musical legacy.


Sir George was the Fifth Beatle . . . and so much more.

Today, the program is his.

Today, the cultural birthright is ours.

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


Thursday, March 10, 2016

Colorfully killed by irony


Remember the old sitcom, Norby?

No, me neither.

Norby, from the creator of the somewhat better-remembered show Mister Peepers,  ran on NBC for exactly four months in 1955. It's notable for being the first sitcom to have every episode filmed in color.

All 13 of them.


David Wayne starred in the show, one of the first regular series in the then-new "compatible color" format on network TV. It was sponsored by Eastman Kodak -- which wanted to sell color movie film just as much as NBC wanted to sell color TV sets for parent company RCA -- and was "Photographed on Eastman Color Film."

Color sitcom on a network that wanted to showcase the newest big thing -- color -- and a photography behemoth that wanted to move Kodacolor . . . what's not to love?


WELL, this is where the irony comes in.

What wasn't to love? The cost. Kodak hated how much it cost to sponsor and film Norby on Eastman Color Film a lot more than it loved trying to sell color film to the 99.9 percent of TV viewers who, alas, could only see the show in lifeless monochrome instead of living color. Remember, in early 1955, an RCA console color TV would set you back $898 in non-devalued American currency.


That would be, not to put too fine a point on it, $7,955.03 in 2016 cash money.

And, friends, there we have it. The first all-color sitcom in TV history was killed by irony -- it just cost too bloody much.

All because it was in color.

Wednesday, March 09, 2016

George Martin: Genius behind the geniuses


Back at Abbey Road, Martin gave The Beatles the chance to respond to his dressing down. "I've laid into you for quite a long time," he said. "You haven't responded. Is there anything you don't like?" 
"Well, for a start," replied George Harrison, "I don't like your tie." 

The quip broke the ice and The Beatles relaxed into comedy mode. 

"For the next 15 to 20 minutes they were pure entertainment," recalled Norman Smith. "I had tears running down my face." 

Despite his misgivings, Martin eventually decided The Beatles had "the potential to make a hit record" and gave them a recording deal on 6 June (backdated by two days so as to secure copyright to the recording session). 

He later admitted it was their "tremendous charisma" rather than their music that won him over. "When you are with them, you are all the better for being with them and when they leave you feel a loss," he told Sue Lawley. 

"I fell in love with them. It's as simple as that."

Saturday, March 05, 2016

3 Chords & the Truth: Schwing states


I messed up.

I watched the latest Republican presidential debate.

Donald Trump made sure everyone knew there was "no problem" with the size of his hands . . . or his penis. This happened.

The candidates also yelled at each other a lot.

NEEDLESS to say, I can't quite get the vision of this out of my brain. Yet I still had to do another episode of 3 Chords & the Truth, and I'm told it's bad to get too political on the radio . . . or the Internet facsimile thereof.

So I did my best.

But . . . GOD ALMIGHTY, A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ALLUDED TO THE SIZE OF HIS TALLYWHACKER ON NATIONAL TV! 

Among other things.

I guess what I'm saying is this edition of the Big Show may have gotten a little interesting. I spin the stacks of groovy wax; you decide.

Whatever.

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


Friday, March 04, 2016

Dropping the needle on another show


Music, the way it used to was and, more and more, still be.

I have records, and I'm not afraid to play them. Now, that's the answer to the $64,000 Question.

I imagine you'd be surprised to know exactly how much of the music on 3 Chords & the Truth comes to you in the the old-school manner, off of old LPs, 45s and even 78s. Welllllllll. . . .

I'd have to say most, actually.


BESIDES, old Zenith "Cobra-Matic" record changers are just so cool. As are old LP jackets. 

I think that about covers it until later, when we'll drop another episode of the Big Show onto the platter and see how it plays.

That is all.

Thursday, March 03, 2016

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it. . . .


If what I just read in the paper instead were a book, you'd have to call it "Profiles in Cowardice."

And our first profile in gutlessness, not to mention political amorality, is Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska. I wish I were shocked.

From today's Omaha World-Herald:
Sen. Deb Fischer on Wednesday rejected fellow Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse’s call for a third-party conservative candidate in the event that Donald Trump captures the GOP nomination.

“I don’t know how any Republican or conservative can support that,” Fischer told The World-Herald. “We’ve seen this story before. We saw it in ’92 with the election of Bill Clinton because of a third party. And I certainly don’t want to see it in 2016 and have the election of another Clinton because of a third party.” 
(snip)
Regardless of the nominee, Fischer said a third-party bid represents a “really poor strategy” that would only ensure a victory for Hillary Clinton. As president, Clinton probably would have an immediate opportunity to make one appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court and most likely more down the road.

“I will support the Republican nominee,” Fischer said. “This election is a big one. There is way too much at stake to hand it to Hillary Clinton — and the strategy of a third party, I believe, would do just that.”

Fischer wasn’t the only Republican taking a hard pass on Sasse’s third-party proposal.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, told The World-Herald that she’s sticking by her plan to support the GOP nominee, whoever that is.


I DON'T AGREE with Ben Sasse on many things, but he has demonstrated here that at least he's a man of principle . . . and character. On the other hand, Deb, what you're telling Republicans is "Vote for the fascist; it's important."

Let me put it this way: If you're a Republican who thinks it's important to vote for an amoral, fascist vulgarian who draws his political energy from the darkest recesses of the American soul, you are no better than Catholic bishops and laymen who sacrificed the innocence of children as they turned a blind eye to the predators in their midst and covered up unspeakable sins "for the good of the Church." Or party, as the case may be.

They were, and are, pond scum. And you, madam, are a moral cipher. You are engaging in mindless political tribalism. You seek to get out in front of the mob in the hope it won't then come for you.

But mobs aren't easily satisfied. The mob -- or the strongman -- will come for you soon enough. And you won't even have the small consolation of a holy death.

POLITICIANS like you, Deb Fischer, are demonstrating to us why the Republican Party -- the party of Lincoln that's been disgracing the Great Emancipator for a long time now -- deserves that favorite punishment of GOP partisans everywhere . . . the death penalty.

I just regret like hell that it's Donald Trump who gets to be the executioner.

Monday, February 29, 2016

America's fascist moment


So, here we are on Feb. 29, 2016.

The presumably putative Republican presidential nominee, de-facto fascist Donald Trump, refuses to outright repudiate the support of noted white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, feigning an ignorance of Duke that he certainly does not possess. And, in light of this, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, had a question:

"I mean, is he really so stupid that he thinks Southerners aren't offended by the Ku Klux Klan? Is he really so ignorant of Southern voters that he thinks this is the way to their heart -- to go neutral, to play Switzerland when you're talking about the Klan!?"

I THINK Scarborough overestimates the virtue of Southern voters and underestimates the moral rot that has hollowed out the United States. If what Scarborough says is true, Trump would go down in flames tomorrow, "Super Tuesday," where most of the primary states are in the South.

He won't.

The candidate who also favorably retweeted a quote by Benito Mussolini will sweep through the South and all but lock up the Republican nomination. Listen, a Louisiana cousin of mine once actually said on Facebook, during a dust-up over banishing Confederate symbolism from the public square, "Sadly, the South lost the war." The Civil War.

And polling in the wake of Trump's overwhelming victory in the South Carolina GOP primary reveals that Southerners like my Confederate-loving kinfolk are far from isolated basket cases in the region's sociopolitical economy:
Mr. Trump’s support among those who say they support a temporary ban on Muslim entry into the United States — a notion Mr. Trump first advanced in early December — is significant. He won more than twice as many supporters of the ban in South Carolina as any other candidate. Voters often echo the things candidates say on the campaign trail, so that level may not be revelatory.

Possibly more surprising are the attitudes of Mr. Trump’s supporters on things that he has not talked very much about on the campaign trail. He has said nothing about a ban on gays in the United States, the outcome of the Civil War or white supremacy. Yet on all of these topics, Mr. Trump’s supporters appear to stand out from the rest of Republican primary voters.

Data from Public Policy Polling show that a third of Mr. Trump’s backers in South Carolina support barring gays and lesbians from entering the country. This is nearly twice the support for this idea (17 percent) among Ted Cruz’s and Marco Rubio’s voters and nearly five times the support of John Kasich’s and Ben Carson’s supporters (7 percent).


Similarly, YouGov data reveal that a third of Mr. Trump’s (and Mr. Cruz’s) backers believe that Japanese internment during World War II was a good idea, while roughly 10 percent of Mr. Rubio’s and Mr. Kasich’s supporters do. Mr. Trump’s coalition is also more likely to disagree with the desegregation of the military (which was ordered in 1948 by Harry Truman) than other candidates’ supporters are.

The P.P.P. poll asked voters if they thought whites were a superior race. Most Republican primary voters in South Carolina — 78 percent — disagreed with this idea (10 percent agreed and 11 percent weren’t sure). But among Mr. Trump’s supporters, only 69 percent disagreed. Mr. Carson’s voters were the most opposed to the notion (99 percent), followed by Mr. Kasich and Mr. Cruz’s supporters at 92 and 89 percent. Mr. Rubio’s backers were close to the average level of disagreement (76 percent).

According to P.P.P., 70 percent of Mr. Trump’s voters in South Carolina wish the Confederate battle flag were still flying on their statehouse grounds. (It was removed last summer less than a month after a mass shooting at a black church in Charleston.) The polling firm says that 38 percent of them wish the South had won the Civil War. Only a quarter of Mr. Rubio’s supporters share that wish, and even fewer of Mr. Kasich’s and Mr. Carson’s do.

Nationally, further analyses of the YouGov data show a similar trend: Nearly 20 percent of Mr. Trump’s voters disagreed with Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the Southern states during the Civil War. Only 5 percent of Mr. Rubio’s voters share this view.

Mr. Trump’s popularity with white, working-class voters who are more likely than other Republicans to believe that whites are a supreme race and who long for the Confederacy may make him unpopular among leaders in his party. But it’s worth noting that he isn’t persuading voters to hold these beliefs. The beliefs were there — and have been for some time.
SO, WE AGAIN come to the question at hand: How have we come to this moment in American history? How have we arrived at the point where the party of Abraham Lincoln is about to nominate a fascist vulgarian as its candidate for president of the United States?

The correct answer probably is the most obvious one. Moral rot, elite decadence and economic hardship had turned an electoral majority of Germans into willing Nazis by 1933, and the same factors in 2016 likewise have unleashed the American Id.

It is our very own, all-American fascist moment, summoned forth like a demon within -- not by an exorcist delivering it to the wrath of a holy God but, instead, by a megalomaniac desiring to channel the darkness for his own malevolent ends.

Friday, February 26, 2016

3 Chords & the Truth: Shtick happens. Or not.


I looked and looked and looked for a gimmick, a theme, a shtick for this week's episode of the Big Show.

I got nothin'.

So this week's 3 Chords & the Truth will be completely shtick-free. No gimmicks. No overarching theme. No cutesy-pie crapola. Just me and you . . . and the music.

One hopes that will be enough. It ought to, you know? Because aren't we all getting tired of people's shticks?

That is all.

Just listen to the unvarnished program, if you please. It's here. Or down there. Or over there.

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


Tuesday, February 23, 2016

I spy a numbers station

Rikki don't lose that number
You don't wanna call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself
Rikki don't lose that number
It's the only one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home
-- Steely Dan


Natasha callink Boris . . . Natasha callink Boris. . . . 

Important message for Boris!

Uno, dos, siete, cuatro, cuatro, seis, ocho, tres, nueve. . . . 

If you hear a strange station on shortwave that's just counting -- usually in Spanish -- it's a spy . . . somewhere . . . sending coded messages to other spies . . . somewhere.

I USED to pick up these stations all the time when I was a kid. They seemed incredibly mysterious back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

That's because they were. And are.


Still, it's somehow reassuring to know the cloak-and-dagger folks stiil do that voodoo that they do old school, though Natasha here has incorporated a dial up-style modem into her sleuthy transmissions to Boris Badenov . . . wherever he might be.

In this case -- now that advanced computing is available to the average listener -- I was fortunate enough to decode this particular message in just a couple of hours. Here is the transcript:

Attention: Agent Badenov. STOP.
Inform Comrade Putin that Operation Combover is more successful than we had hoped. STOP. Now calculate odds of Donald Trump securing Republican nomination at 74 percent. STOP. The American voter is much more stupid than previous intelligence indicated. STOP.
With luck in November, American hegemony will be finished. STOP. With very good fortune, we could turn this into a second American civil war. STOP.

Awaiting further instructions. STOP.
Signed, Natasha.
END.

Hitchin' a spin


This evening, after watching the network news and its tales of death, mayhem and Trump -- and then reports about all the non-campaign goings-on -- I found myself with a stark choice.

Happy, poppy tunes from 1971 or slitting my wrists.


I trust I made the wise choice. Thank you, Vanity Fare, wherever you are.