50 years ago, a very good day

May 16, 1966: The Beach Boys release Pet Sounds.


May 16, 1966: Bob Dylan releases Blonde on Blonde.
Fifty years. My God.

Coincidence? I hope not

I hope this wasn't an accident of placement. I hope it was shrewd commentary by "the liberal, mainstream media," being that it's now, oh, so true.

That is all.

Trump, ja! Sasse, nein!

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Republican Party makes me sick.

If you are a member of the GOP -- particularly the Nebraska Republican Party -- be aware this is what you have signed onto, basically the Full Trump. The Full Trump is what used to be known as fascist nativism . . . or nativist fascism . . . or your basic collection of nuts, cranks, xenophobes and bigots.

And here's the thing: I'm sure the picture painted today in the Omaha World-Herald probably would be even uglier elsewhere. Let me caution you; if Christianity for you is more than a mere identity, and if Americanism encompasses real philosophical propositions, this is going to make your blood boil. It did mine.

U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse has carved out a name for himself on the national stage as a leader in the “Never Trump” Republican faction. 

On the home front, however, the Nebraska freshman found himself rebuked Saturday by party loyalists upset at his call for a third candidate to arise and give conservatives such as himself an alternative to Donald Trump in the fall election.

Delegates at the State Republican Convention overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing Sasse’s call for a third candidate. They argued it would only help Democrats win the White House in November.

“If you support a third-party candidate, you are going to elect Hillary Clinton, and she is going to nominate the next three or four members of the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Pat McPherson, an Omaha Republican. 

The delegates also went one step further in making clear they were lining up behind Trump. They roundly rejected a counterresolution that sought to condemn the presumptive GOP presidential nominee for making “degrading” comments toward women and minorities. (The resolution was submitted by people who opposed the earlier resolution.) 

One Republican said it was not their place to be the “thought police” in this presidential election.

(snip) 

They adopted one resolution calling for a state law that would require a transgender person to use a bathroom that corresponds with the gender on his or her birth certificate. They passed another to oppose the relocation of refugees into America. “I’m a foreigner in my own country,” one man said in support of the resolution.

WHAT IS the difference between, say, the National Front in France -- the old, undiluted National Front and not Marine Le Pen's prettied-up version -- and the Republican Party in Nebraska? Precious little. That has been made clear.

Actually, "Omaha Republican" Pat McPherson made that pretty clear last year, pre-Trump.

Once, the Republican Party was the Party of Lincoln. What's incomprehensible is that it jettisoned that noble pedigree, just to become the party of Donald Trump and Officer Mancuso.

3 Chords & the Truth: Don't leave the seat up

I don't know how we got here.

I think we've all gone nuts.

I don't really want to say anything, because we already have enough excuses to fight, demonize, yell and scream.

In light of all this, your Mighty Favog has elected to take 3 Chords & the Truth, for the most part, back to 1972 -- mainly because 1972 is the last time he understood what the hell was going on. And the music was pretty damn good that year.

That is all.

WELL, not quite. If you have to hit the head during the Big Show, don't stare and mind your manners.

And don't forget to flush.

That really is all.

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

Gunga Spin strikes again

Once upon a time, my wife and I were sitting down to Sunday dinner at my parents' in Baton Rouge. It was Labor Day weekend, and the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon was on the Magnavox in the living room.

I always was fond of the Jerry Lewis telethon, and I'd always call in to make a donation. Sitting there at the table, I think I made the mistake of asking my old man -- not a fan -- whether he was going to contribute.

What followed was a seemingly deranged rant about people in wheelchairs who were armed to the teeth and ready to commit Swiss cheese against the rest of us. The missus and I weren't as good at the poker face then as we are now.

In other words, we burst out laughing. Trouble is, the old man was serious, and now he was really pissed.

"You might have book learnin'," he thundered, "but I got common sense!"

And then he didn't speak to us for weeks.

SO WHAT did I immediately think when I saw the latest bit of "Are you f***ing kidding me?" from former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (a.k.a., Gunga Spin, or the Destroyer of Louisiana or any number of unprintable epithets) regarding der Comb-Over?

You got it. "He may have book learnin', but I got common sense!"

Thanks a lot, Bobby.

But at least I do have common sense enough that -- if I were that sorry sack of s*** (the Jindal sorry sack of s***,  not the Donald Trump sorry sack of s***) -- I would just hide in a deep hole somewhere and not say anything. I do think I'd possess enough self-awareness not to write an op-ed  in the Wall Street Freakin' Journal saying I was going to vote for a guy I once called "a madman who must be stopped."

The Republican Party deserves every horrible thing that's going to happen to it. But for Gunga Spin, every horrible thing wouldn't be nearly enough.

3 Chords & the Truth: Making America hate again

We have to deal with the comb-over in the punch bowl.

Trouble is, the last thing I want to talk about this week on 3 Chords & the Truth is the vulgarian with fascist tendencies hiding in the woodpile . . . otherwise known as one of America's two major political parties. So, how do you say GOP in the original German?

OK, I don't want to talk about Donald Trump on the Big Show. You probably don't want to talk about Donald Trump. So let's not talk about the plague on American democracy.

Let's let the MUSIC for the Age of Trump do the talking for the both of us.

OK? All right.

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

Trolling the fascists

We have come to this: Donald Trump is going to be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party.

I don't have much to say about this, being near despair for my country because I think Trump actually could win, but I will say this.

What this means is that half of the political universe this country has known since 1856 has gone full-blown fascist.

That’s not just my opinion, it’s also Andrew Sullivan’s in a New York magazine piece which, by the way, probably is the best thing written thus far about this fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

THE IMPLICATIONS of that are as follows: We will be well on the way to becoming that which my father's generation fought against 70 years ago. There will be no fig leaf to cover the United States’ bare-assed moral bankruptcy.

It also puts the terrifying possibility (how large, I do not know) of civil war on the table as well.

If anyone is unsure as to who’ll be worse for what’s left of this nation, let me put it this way: Hillary Clinton would be bad — perhaps very bad. But the Donald would be the end of us, one way or another.

There will be election violence -- lethal election violence -- before November. Mark my words. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

For now, I'll just comfort myself by trolling Reince Priebus, the feckless head of the wicked GOP.

3 Chords & the Truth: Boogity boogity shoop

This week's edition of the Big Show is all about the stomp.

And the waltz.

And the mope-itty mope, mope-itty mope mope mope.

Well, yeah, we also have some boom boom-ba-booms and some sha-na-nas on 3 Chords & the Truth as well this go around, but you probably already figured that was coming. It's a diverse and eclectic cornucopia, I tells ya!

So pull up a chair. Take your shoes off. And enjoy what's about to caress your eardrums.

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

BRRRRRRRRAAAAAAP!!!

I love this newspaper ad for one of the radio stations I listened to during my misspent youth in Baton Rouge.

Look closely, though, and connect the dots on the ol' schematic.

Isn't this really a very 1970s-cool advertisement for some rock 'n' roll electroshock therapy? Inquiring minds -- what's left of them -- want to know.

On the other hand, I was told by a Republican presidential candidate that it's not really torture unless the radio is playing "Muskrat Love" by the Captain & Tennille.

Decent people's mileage may vary.