3 Chords & the Truth: Doing our level best

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.

3 Chords & the Truth: Well, here we are

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.

If you can't win a Pulitzer, at least try not to win a Darwin

Click for full size

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.

3 Chords & the Truth: Watch your step

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.

There's a spot on Donald's head where all the crazy flows

NASA

This is the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. It's a helluva storm that's been there a long, long time.

It's the biggest storm, the yuuuuuugest storm in the solar system. You wouldn't believe what a storm it is -- and it extends 200 miles into the gas giant's atmosphere.

Fox News

THIS IS the Great Gray Spot on Donald Trump's head. It's a helluva . . . well, we don't know exactly what the hell it is.

But given its similarity, except in color, to the massive storm on that other gas giant in the solar system, some might infer that the Great Gray Spot also is a massive storm, which may account for much of the erratic behavior, lack of focus and general covfefe of America's head case in chief.

Fox News

Other possible explanations for the unnatural phenomenon include a horrendous comb-over or a Russian remote-control device.

Unfortunately, a more precise answer concerning the origin and effects of Great Gray Spot requires better data than we have with these images. That will have to wait until NASA can send another interplanetary probe to that region of head space.

3 Chords & the Truth: Hard times

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.

3 Chords & the Truth: Carnival in the bunker

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.

3 Chords & the Truth: Looking back to our better selves

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.

If you wigged out, Luzianne had you covered

Baton Rouge State-Times, Feb. 12, 1970

Maybe it's the caffeine.

Well, switching to Sanka might've been one cup over the line, so 50 years ago in coffee-loving Louisiana, Luzianne had a plan for when the ladies might get a little jacked up and tear their hair out -- buy our coffee, get wigs cheap.

Works for me. So, did they have any toupées?

The best thing about outmoded technology

Fifty years ago, in February 1970, Polaroid Land Cameras were a big thing.

In fact, Polaroid represented instant photography -- pull the undeveloped film out of the camera (and the film was the picture) -- wait a minute (or 2 minutes for color), and you could see what you just took. Will miracles never cease.

Oh, don't forget the flashcubes or flashbulbs if you're going to be taking pictures indoors.
 

Omaha World-Herald -- Feb. 12, 1970

THE TECHNOLOGY of my youth was much more advanced than what we have today, what with taking film-free, electronical "pictures" on one's telephone, which hasn't even the decency to be attached to a phone outlet by a long cord.

With the Polaroid and its Colorpack film, by God, you got 10 exposures, and that film wasn't cheap -- because People Smarter Than Yourself didn't want you wasting time and resources taking pictures of stupid things.

Like yourself.

In 1970, if you tried to take a selfie with a Polaroid camera, it would not go well for you. For one, you would be seeing spots -- still -- in 2020. And that's
assuming you didn't have a bad flashbulb that . . . how shall we put it . . . blew up.

Now, it wouldn't matter at all that the selfie would be completely out of focus. That's because all you would see would be the bright white of the flash bathing your now blind-ass self.

Of course, you could try taking a selfie as people did back then -- in a mirror. In a very well-lit room so you could avoid shooting a flash into a mirror . . . which, again, probably would not go well.  

FUN FACT: Did you know that until, in historical terms . . . yesterday, all selfies showed backward people pointing backward cameras much like the one in our Calandra Camera ad, a


I had a Polaroid camera in 1970, and I am happy to report there are no blurry, washed-out selfies of my Ernie Douglas-looking self. If you know who Ernie Douglas was, you remember the blessed days when taking a selfie was a process involved enough to deter people vain and unserious enough to want to take one.

History giveth, the present taketh away.

3 Chords & the Truth: Easy, right?

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.