Well, ladies and germs, it would appear that President Stupid is about to get us all into a real, honest-to-God trade war of the Smoot-Hawley variety.
Those never end well. I fear the chill'uns are about to get a lesson on what it was like when their grandparents -- folks my age -- were teenagers and college students. The cool stuff you really wanted was really expensive, and you seriously had to save up for it.
In 1980, I was working about 20 hours a week at minimum wage -- then $3 an hour. Today, that would work out to $9.22. And being a total gear head, I really wanted a cool new stereo receiver. To get one, I had to save for months. The Yamaha receiver I bought cost just shy of $400, or around $1,100 in 2018 dollars. That was serious money then, and it's even more serious today, as wages haven't come close to keeping pace with inflation the past four decades. Later, I decided I wanted a color TV, a nice one, for my bedroom. So I got a "Sony of my owny," to borrow the phraseology of the era's advertisements for the brand. It was a 12-inch Trinitron color set with push-button tuning. I also could tell you the model, but that would just bore you and out me as a total anorak, which is a particularly geeky way to say "nerd."
My Sony cost a mere $369.95 ($1,086.25 today).
GOOD LUCK doing that now as a student making minimum wage at a part-time job. For one thing . . . your wages have been depressed. For another thing, your depressed wages in 2018 go toward lots of stuff we didn't have in the late 1970s and early 1980s -- like monthly cellphone bills. And monthly cable-TV bills to watch programs and sporting events that were on free, over-the-air TV in 1980. And then there's Hulu and Netflix and Amazon Prime Video so you can watch the popular shows that aren't on cable. Oh, yeah. There's your monthly broadband-Internet bill, too. Then there's college tuition. In 1979, my old man shelled out $295 in tuition and fees for me to attend Louisiana State University full time for the fall semester ($995.29 in 2018, about a $2,000-a-semester discount over one of today's "reasonably priced" state universities). Back then, state legislatures tended to think public universities were, well . . . public. By the standards of today's Republican Party, we all were pinko-communist, socialist radicals living in a thoroughly collectivized country . . . and we liked it. We particularly liked not being bankrupted by student-loan debt which, of course, can't be erased by bankruptcy. And I saw Bruce Springsteen in 1980 for the princely sum of $8 a ticket ($23.30 today). The Who cost $12. I had great seats. Sucks to be you, kids. There's a reason so many of you live with Mom and Dad till you're 30.
SUCKS TO BE us old farts, too. When prices go through the roof, the economy craters and our 401(k) retirement accounts come to naught, we'll probably die at age 80 . . . shivering in an unheated hovel, eating cat food and wallowing in our own shit. On the bright side, maybe Donald Trump will just get us nuked instead, and we'll never know what hit us.
As we sit here in the thick of Holy Week, we sit here in darkness.
We dread what is to come, yet we know this present darkness will give way to a great light. This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, we find ourselves in something like limbo. We need to just . . . be. We need to contemplate some things. Not to put too fine a point on it, we need to chill. NOT TO put too fine a point on it, that's exactly what the Big Show is all about this week -- this holiest and most solemn of weeks on the Christian calendar. This week, the music asks us what time it is. The music invites us to sit, to think . . . to just be. And we will. We are. We invite you to, too. It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Way down yonder in New Orleans, Mr. Mardi Gras thinks it would be a fine idea to rename the former Lee Circle (as in Robert E.) as Mardi Gras Circle . . . in the name of unity and fraternity. Especially, no doubt, fraternity.
As New Orleans celebrates its tricentennial, it is worth noting that Mardi Gras has been an essential part of the city’s history for more than half these 300 years. Street masking and private balls occurred in the late-1700s. In 1857, the Mistick Krewe of Comus presented the first organized Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans.
In 1874, 10 years before the Robert E. Lee statue was erected in New Orleans, Rex paraded past the area, then known as Tivoli Circle. For 142 years, families have gathered in harmony to enjoy hundreds of Mardi Gras parades that have passed the site. For decades, the city erected official parade-reviewing stands at the circle. Today, all 34 New Orleans parades roll past this location.
The name Mardi Gras Circle would not invite the public controversy that naming the landmark after an individual surely will: “Why Tom Benson Circle and not Fats Domino? Allen Toussaint and not Leah Chase? Andrew Higgins and not Pete Fountain?”
Finally, Mardi Gras Circle would fill a long-standing need for a monument in downtown New Orleans that commemorates the city’s oldest and largest local festival and world-class tourist attraction. Visitors to the city are amazed that as important as Mardi Gras is to our image and our economy, there exists no monument to it other than a fountain on the lakefront, four miles from downtown where the parades roll. Mardi Gras Circle could itself become a tourist attraction.
METHINKS Arthur Hardy and the Mayor’s Mardi Gras Advisory Committee are on to something big. Real big.
Christe eleison, it's my birthday. Kyrie eleison, I am freakin' old. Lord have mercy, if I have to turn what I'm turning, the Big Show is gonna party like it's 1979. Or 1980. Perhaps, 1985. WHATEVER.No matter the particular year, this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is going to rock. Hard. Christ have mercy, the old farts will rock. Yes we will. And so will you, Cap. It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Well, this was extraordinary . . . even for Louisiana.
You might think that was a wild overreaction by Sen. Conrad Appel, but you have to remember he's a Republican who represents Metairie, and that's what one has to do to hold on to one's job in David Dukeland.
People think Donald Trump is America's national disease. He is not.
What Trump is, is a particularly devastating symptom of an even more devastating disease (as evidenced by this display from our national canary in the coal mine, Louisiana).
The president is said to be branching out from Fox & Friends, and that means all media -- for easy comprehension -- are being required to employ Trumplators. This program is no exception.
We at 3 Chords & the Truthhave learned, and learned the hard way, that Trumplation can be a fraught affair. And during the course of this rather jazz-centric edition of the show, some quick conclusions may be drawn about Trumplators and their inherent biases, ideologies and -- alas -- not-so-benign agendas. To wit:
1. Never trust a Trumplator. 2. Never trust a Trumplator. 3. The Trumplator is not worthy of your trust. 4. Bad things will happen if you trust the Trumplator. 5. Do not assume that the Trumplator is translating for the president what you actually are saying. 6. Something ain't right in this whole deal. 7. I do not believe that Trumplators particularly like America or "decadent" American music. 8. Everybody in this whole Trumplation thing is up to something. 9. It is possible to do an excellent edition of the Big Showsky . . . uh . . . Big Show despite the mandated Trumplator causing all hell to break loose. 10. DO NOT trust the Trumplator, comrade. That's about it. It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Here's what we're going to do this week on the Big Show: First of all, we're going to tune in.
Then we will turn on, maaaaan. Finally, we will rock out. It's as simple as that. Oh . . . we may end up jazzing out some, too. But we definitely will rock out. Is what I'm saying. It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
What would we Louisiana expatriates do without our hometown newspapers . . . to remind us why the hell we left in the first place?
I am from Baton Rouge. My hometown newspaper is The Advocate, which isn't the gay publication of the same name but is rather queer, come to think of it. Anyway, The Advocate has, in the past, printed some pretty insane things. Those were a warm-up for this dog whistle.
DAN FAGAN(whatever a Dan Fagan is) accuses Mitch Landrieu of being a race-baiter and then -- somehow -- brings the whole argument about Confederate monuments to "Because abortion." I am pro-life. And I am here to tell you this is, to quote George W. Bush, "some weird shit." It's also why I have become, as a pro-lifer, allergic to so much of the "pro-life movement," which has devolved to a bunch of pro-birth political hacks who are fine with merely delaying the execution of society's most vulnerable members to a later date. In light of that, Fagan's argument comes down to this:
SO . . . society should be in the business of honoring things that aren't moral, ethical or right? Fagan is saying that Landrieu is a race-baiting scoundrel because he tore down New Orleans' monuments to the Confederacy and white supremacy. And refusing future honors to Democrats, because abortion, will somehow be a cosmically just payback for tearing down monuments to those who fought for slavery? Which, of course, was somehow both horribly wrong yet worthy of honor via public monuments to the men and states dedicated to the perpetuation of institutionalized human bondage. Actually, the non-disingenuous analogy here would be removing a statue of a Mitch Landrieu who went on to commit treason against the United States in the name of legal abortion -- and then to fight a bloody civil war against it. Because abortion. The Democrats may be on the wrong side of history regarding abortion, but they're no traitors and, thus far, have refrained from firing upon Fort Sumter. Today's Republican Party, on the other hand, is placing itself on the wrong side of history on virtually every other issue -- some of them just as morally fraught and morally non-negotiable as abortion. And, by the way, any number of the GOP's members in this Age of Trump are this close to being demonstrably treasonous. Now, what does this son of the South, who now lives in the Gret White Nawth, have to say about Fagan's philosophical treatise, one he obviously penned for the benefit of Confederacy-loving mouth-breathers who can't use "treatise" in a sentence? Well, I'm thinking of a certain bumper sticker we used to see a lot in the South in the 1960s and '70s -- often affixed to pickup trucks.
In 1980, I was working about 20 hours a week at minimum wage -- then $3 an hour. Today, that would work out to $9.22. And being a total gear head, I really wanted a cool new stereo receiver.
By the standards of today's Republican Party, we all were pinko-communist, socialist radicals living in a thoroughly collectivized country . . . and we liked it. We particularly liked not being bankrupted by student-loan debt which, of course, can't be erased by bankruptcy.
