I usually bitch and moan about the heat on Saturdays. There’s an exception to every rule: the heat has been inescapable and oppressive the last few days. It’s been as hot as I can ever recall since I moved to New Orleans in the Eighties. Our air dish keeps the house nice and cool when it’s 90 but struggles in the heat of the day when it’s over 95. We’re forced to huddle in cooler/smaller enclaves such as the study and guest room when it’s this hot. Cower might be a better word than huddle. It’s too damn hot, y’all.
The heat has got me down but so has the news. It’s the summer of child abuse stories. Notorious super-perv Jeffrey Epstein has been arrested by the feds for assorted disgusting malefactions including child trafficking. He supposedly has bipartisan buddies: the feds should follow the facts and disregard who ends up in the bulls-eye. Let the chips fall, y’all.
A worse example of child abuse is the ongoing babies in cages scandal perpetrated by the Trump regime. The reason it’s worse is that cruelty is the point of this despicable exercise. The regime claims that it’s not that bad, that it’s all fake news, but it’s said with a wink by liars.
I’m not much on soccer but the victory of the American women in the World Cup was uplifting as was this chant:
One could call it beautiful noise for the beautiful game.
I spent a lot of time this week researching and writing a piece about the New Orleans newspaper war for the Bayou Brief. It will be dropping in the next few days. That’s why I’m keeping this introduction, well, brief.
This week’s theme song continues the patriotic theme of the week. The left should never have let the right hijack patriotism in the Sixties, which was when Paul Simon wrote America. 1968, the year from hell, to be precise. It was one of many stellar tracks on one of Simon & Garfunkel’s best albums, Bookends.
We have two versions for your listening pleasure: the S&G original and a brilliant 1971 cover by Yes. It features some of Steve Howe’s finest finger picking and that’s saying a lot.
Now that we’ve counted the cars on the New Jersey turnpike, we’ll jump to the break and bypass Saginaw even though Michigan is nice at this time of year.
I took my own advice yesterday and stayed away from political news. We binge watched the first half of Season 4 of Billions instead. The one in which Axe and Chuck are unlikely allies but I digress.
That’s why I was so tickled when this tweet from a New Orleans writer was the first thing I saw this morning upon glancing at the tweeter tube:
"The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our Army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over airports." – President Donald Trump, 4th of July, 2019. pic.twitter.com/R1CLRMgBJR
Rumor has it that Paul Drake likes boxes. I’m not stretching the truth in confirming those rumors. The only stretching in this post is by the boy himself.
I’ve already taken a wack at Trumpalooza so I don’t need to repeat myself on that topic. I am, however, repeating myself with this 10th annual Independence Day post. It’s quite fitting: my mother used to call me Pete and Repeat when I talked too much. It was the only time she ever called me Pete. In our family my uncle was Pete and I was Peter. That concludes this edition of story time with Adrastos.
One more thing about the Current Occupant: don’t let that evil, stupid motherfucker ruin Independence Day. I’ve never let past piss-poor presidents ruin it and I’m not about to let an Insult Comedian with a dead nutria pelt atop his head spoil America’s birthday. It’s what he wants: don’t fall into his trap, y’all.
It’s time for my 10th annual Fourth of July post. It seems like a good day to suggest that people take a mental health day away from political news. There’s so much going on that we all need to take a break to avoid burnout. In the intense days right after Katrina and the Federal Flood. I saw people lose their shit because they were so focused on dealing with the disaster. So, do whatever floats your boat today and put the news on hold. It will still be there tomorrow. You can’t resist, if you’re burned out.
I usually post Dave Alvin, the Dead, and Bruce Springsteen but Neil Young joined the Americana fray last year with a video celebrating the resistance.
Unlike other Trump regime scandals, the census controversy is neither sexy nor scary. What it is is IMPORTANT. The census determines government spending, political boundaries, and so much more.
The census is one of the specific items mentioned in the constitution: Article 1, Section 2 to be exact. The language is clear: “all persons” shall be counted. Team Trump has tried to change that to “all citizens” but they’ve taken a beating in court. They’re also under a printing deadline so the census can be ready for its decennial appearance on the national stage.
It appears that the Trump regime has surrendered on this point but the Insult Comedian continues to claim that some delay is feasible. It’s a muddle but that’s the story of this misbegotten presidency*.
My hunch is that they’ve caved and that the purpose of Trump’s twitter frenzy is to look tough and cover his ass. But I’ve been wrong before and I will be again. Such is the pundit’s lot. Besides, these fuckers lie incessantly so you never know what evil shit they’re up to. .
It seems to be Zappa day here at First Draft. Here’s the song title that inspired the post title:
It’s bad enough that president* Trump is turning the executive branch into the vanity project of a vain man. Now he wants to fuck with Independence Day and transform it into a tribute to his favorite American: himself. Since the whole thing is a MAGA rally on the public dime, the only salute I’d give him on “Salute To America Day” is an extended middle finger
Does he have any idea of how bad the whole tanks on the lawn shit makes him look? All you have to do is look at his cotton candy piss hair to come up with the correct answer: NO, NO, NO. A THOUSAND TIMES NO.
Richard Nixon pulled a similar stunt early in his administration. He put Willard Marriott, Billy Graham, and Bob Hope in charge of an “Honor America” celebration in 1970. It was intended as a celebration of his so-called silent majority and a rebuke to noisy hippie peacenik scum. The pinkos viewed it as a pro-Vietnam War rally and protested. It turned into a clusterfuck that Tricky Dick had the good sense not to attend.
The Fourth of July should be an emphatically non-partisan event. We all like to think of ourselves as patriots, we just celebrate different aspects of our nation’s history and heritage. This latest attempt to turn it into a salute to the dear leader is doomed to fail.
One thing our readers don’t know about me is that I love military bands. They’re a standard feature of Carnival parades and I get a thrill every time I see one. In addition to having the best uniforms, the Navy and Marines have the best bands. It’s the legacy of Lt. Commander John Philip Sousa, the March King.
Most Sousa album covers feature the man himself looking stern and imposing. I’ve opted for a less conventional cover by Jim Flora that does not feature the man and his mustache:
I know I shouldn’t have been, but I was stunned by the MSM’s sycophantic coverage of Trump’s “historic trip” to the Korean DMZ. For the acronymically impaired, that’s demilitarized zone. While it’s true that Trump is the first American president to set foot on North Korean soil, it wasn’t much of a trip. The real history is that Trump walked anywhere. I guess the North Korean secret police didn’t let them bring a golf cart along so the president* was obliged to waddle across the border.
The MSM showed additional mass gullibility in accepting the notion that this happened on a moment’s notice after a tweet by the Insult Comedian. I concur with New York Magazine’s Chas Danner:
Trump later said that he was also willing to cross the border into North Korea. Pyongyang eventually responded that it was an “interesting” idea, but was waiting for an official proposal before agreeing. Within less than a day, the meeting was on. But while few people are as impulsive as Trump is, there are several holes in his spontaneity claim (apart from the fact that he rarely tells the truth, or the full truth, ever.)
First, the two leaders exchanged letters earlier this month. And the New York Timesreported on Sunday that an unannounced visit to the DMZ was already part of the Trump team’s itinerary and that the president “had actually been musing out loud about [meeting with Kim] for days in advance.” He’s also been dreaming of a DMZ meet-up since last year.
“Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, said it was inconceivable that the leaders of two powerful nations had arranged a meeting at such short notice, calling it a “show” designed to send a political message, without raising expectations about them making actual progress.”
Bravo’s Andy Cohen would be more skeptical of a Richards-Vanderpump reconciliation on TheReal Housewives of Beverly Hills than the MSM was of this publicity stunt. The reality teevee allusion was deliberate: Trump has deployed reality teevee tropes throughout his presidency. Not an original observation but an accurate one. Hell, Real Housewives Nene Leakes and Theresa Giudice were contestants on Trump’s crappy reality game show.
I’m old enough to recall the impact of Tricky Dick’s visit to China in an election year. That trip, however, accomplished something as opposed to the emptiness of this visit, which was shorter than Trump’s memory. Once again, the Dotard gave something of value to the Dictator without getting anything in return. Why not ask for the release of foreign nationals held by the world’s last Stalinist regime? Why not ask the North Korean secret police not to assault his own press secretary?
“President Obama wanted to meet, and Chairman Kim would not meet him,” the President said. “The Obama administration was begging for a meeting. They were begging for meetings constantly, and Chairman Kim would not meet with him.”
“Trump is lying,” tweeted Ben Rhodes, who served as Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications during the Obama administration. “I was there for all eight years. Obama never sought a meeting with Kim Jong Un. Foreign policy isn’t reality television it’s reality.”
We’re all used to Trump’s incessant and egregious lying but it isn’t as funny as it used to be now that he’s “palling around” with dictators. He also plans to run against Democrats in 2020 by denouncing them as “socialists.” The nerve: his little North Korean buddy is an old school communist. I remember when conservative American presidents denounced dictators, especially communist dictators. That’s another reason president* Trump gets an asterisk: he’s an illegitimate president* who thinks human rights are for suckers.
A closing note about the featured image. The Magic Mirror Maze was created by Greg Biermann from the hall of mirrors/fun house/crazy house scene in the Orson Welles classic The Lady From Shanghai. It has particular resonance for me as that scene was filmed at Playland at the Beach in San Francisco; a place that I frequented as a child with my parents. Playland closed in 1972; as we New Orleanians would say, “Ain’t dere no more.”
I used the image in a June post, The Fog Of History: Semantic Antics and brought it back because it’s perfect for this moment in history. These are crazy times and our political life is replete with fog, mirrors, and lies. As the Seventies British band Slade put it, Mama Weer All Crazy Now. They get the last word:
Cleveland Heights to be precise but Ian Hunter didn’t write a song about it. Ted Koppel doesn’t give a toss about the Mott the Hoople head honcho, but he does care about a group of Ohioans who are helping Haitian school teacher, Ansly Damus, in his effort to be granted political asylum. Here’s hoping that Ansly’s Army helps him realize his American dream.
The leading lights of New Orleans culture keep leaving us. This time it was Dave Bartholomew who died at the age of 100. He was best known for his collaboration with Fats Domino as his arranger, co-writer, producer, and band leader. Bartholomew was a formidable trumpeter in his own right. He was also one of the contenders for the title of father of rock and roll. If nothing else, he was present at the creation.
But the sides he did record for himself in the ’50s were masterful and diverse, from the clattering Caribbean rhythms of “Shrimp and Gumbo” to the goofy novelty “My Ding-A-Ling” (which Chuck Berry unearthed for a 1972 hit) to the singular grinding blues “The Monkey Speaks His Mind,” a strange fable that questions whether humans, with all their sin, are truly superior among the primates, and which showcases his bellowing, stentorian baritone.
This week’s theme song is best understood as a parable of the civil rights movement. Did that make Dave Bartholomew rock’s own George Orwell? Beats the hell outta me.
The Monkey Speaks His Mind was written and recorded by Dave Bartholomew in 1957. It’s been recorded by a variety of artists. We have three versions for your listening pleasure:
It’s time to stop monkeying around and brachiate to the break. There will be a banana for everyone willing to take the plunge.
People had a lot of fun with new age sage burner Marianne Williamson last night. I was too annoyed by her presence to pile on BUT it’s unclear if she’s actually kookier than the Current Occupant.
The first tweet comes from ethics guy Robert Maguire:
If you think Marianne Williamson's ideas are kooky, wait til you hear about the guy who says windmills cause cancer, thinks you need to show ID to buy cereal, and doesn't exercise because he thinks the human body is like a battery with a finite amount of energy
The second entry is a couplet from my friend Gambit editor Kevin Allman:
"She was seated on the floor, in the midst of enormous batik pillows meant to take the place of a sofa. In front of her was an amethyst marble table, with a steaming mug of blood-red tea and a white plastic box that emitted sounds of the surf…" https://t.co/iyEyMCsSDa
I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never read Kevin’s book but I dig writers who are into self-quotation. I hope he’s not following in my footsteps on the road to perdition.
Suzan Morninglory is a swell name for a character based on Marianne Williamson. It means that the last word goes to Oasis who pose the eternal question: (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?
Paul Drake is used to being in a band As a solo artist, he’s alternately needy and aloof. He has a new hobby that we call “knocking shit off” various surfaces. Della Street thought she was a big cat and PD thinks he’s small; hence the inadvertent minor damage.
Here he is after knocking some water bottles off the tower of terror:
I hate these large joint appearances: that’s why I call them cattle calls. There are too many candidates talking at once and too many bodies on stage. Why were a one note guy like Andrew Yang and a second rate new age guru type like Marianne Williamson allowed on the same stage as the real candidates? I hope we don’t see them again. It’s a waste of the voters time and it’s as annoying as hell.
Speaking of annoying, Chuck Todd is a windy nitwit. I was astonished that he didn’t tweak his performance after the first night’s debacle. He kept asking the “reply in one word” questions that never work in this setting. Give it a rest, Chuck.
The second round was more contentious than the first. The Democratic base was fed more raw meat, which is okay for casual observers but I find it unappetizing. It’s early so I’d rather get to know the serious candidates as opposed to hearing how much they hate Trump. That’s a given.
Unlike the first night, there was a clear winner. The envelope please:
Harris: The junior Senator from California showed that she hasn’t lost her chops as a trial lawyer despite years as an administrator. She ignored the clock and kept talking but in such an authoritative way that she got away with it.
The best moment of the debate was when she went after Biden. He effectively told her to get off his lawn. She declined the invitation.
I think Harris has finally found her groove. I’ve long thought she should embrace her inner prosecutor. We have a criminal president* why not a prosecutor as his opponent?
There was much talk on social media of how Harris would mop the floor with Trump in a debate. Repeat after me: Hillary and Kerry kicked ass in their debates and lost. Debates are a sideshow.
Biden: He was terrible. I wasn’t surprised that he rambled but didn’t expect him to come off as angry. Harris really pushed his buttons and threw him off his game. He needs to get back to being avuncular Uncle Joe or his candidacy will start circling the bowl sooner than expected.
Another reason I think Biden won’t be the nominee is that his staff was backstabbing him DURING the debate. It’s not how winning campaigns operate. It’s starting to look like 1988 all over again.
Sanders: In a word: angry. I’m not sure that the country wants someone who is stylistically similar to the Current Occupant. They’re both shouty old white guys with heavy New York accents.
Buttigieg: I don’t get the Mayor Pete craze. He leaves me cold. I think his troubles back home will eventually tank his campaign. At least he didn’t start speaking Norwegian. I would have thrown something at the teevee if he had.
Gillibrand: I thought she might break through but she was almost as annoying as Chuck Todd. She’s been a good senator. She should stick to her current job.
Swallwell: “People try to put us down. Talking ’bout my generation.”
Bennet: In a word: erratic. The stuff about his family fleeing Nazi persecution was excellent but the rest was a mish-mash. I dig his bushy eyebrows though. They have a life of their own.
I still don’t understand why he’s running against longtime ally John Hickenlooper. Perhaps he thinks he has a better chance because his name is shorter.
Hickenlooper: Despite a record of progressive reform as Colorado Governor, he’s running as an anti-socialist capitalist or something. He should drop out and run for the Senate against Cory Gardner who is the most vulnerable Republican up in 2020.
Yang: Holy one issue candidate, Batman.
Williamson: She should go rub a crystal.
Here are words I never thought I’d write, the last word goes to Eddy Arnold:
A Trump administration official who’s in charge of protocol decisions on foreign soil resigned abruptly just before President Trump’s visit to Japan, Bloomberg News reported.
State Department Chief of Protocol Sean Lawler’s resignation comes amid accusations that he intimidated employees and carried a whip around the office, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. The department’s inspector general may open a probe into the accusations, according to Bloomberg.
President Trump likely won’t bat an eye over the resignation. According to the people who spoke to Bloomberg, Trump doesn’t like Lawler and has “repeatedly asked why he still worked at the White House,” in Bloomberg’s words.
Lawler’s role is confirmed by the U.S. Senate and his responsibilities are considered similar to those of an ambassador.
So, the protocol honcho carried a whip around the office. I wonder if he wore bondage regalia or a cowboy outfit a la Lash LaRue?
Holy pulp fiction lagniappe, Batman.
This undiplomatic story gives an entirely meaning to the term Foggy Bottom. Ouch.
Nothing that happened on that glitzy stage in Miami mattered all that much. Some candidates performed well and others bombed but in the end, a good ground game in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina will matter infinitely more.
Hell, I don’t even think general election debates matter all that much: Hillary and Kerry destroyed their opponents, which is the political equivalent of winning the battle and losing the war.
One jarring thing about the debate was the performative Spanish speaking by several candidates. It started to feel as if it were a Canadian debate where they break into French from time-to-time. You say gracias, I say merci. Let’s call the whole thing off.
I have a few random thoughts about this random group of candidates:
Warren:My candidate performed well as always. There were stretches where she was quiet but she’s the frontrunner in this group so she didn’t need to mix it up with the likes of DeBlasio, Ryan, Delaney, and Gabbard.
Her closing argument was superb. It’s a good example of why I believe she’ll win the nomination and go on to be our first woman president.
Booker: He helped himself. He was strong, forceful, and passionate. He seems to have good chemistry with both Warren and Castro. A good thing since they’re her most likely running mates if she picks within the field of candidates.
Castro: The strongest performance of the night. He’s an impressive guy with a great back story. He’s making a real contribution to the race with his focus on immigration. It’s easy to imagine him cleaning up the Homeland Security Department in the next Democratic administration.
Beto: He’s an outstanding stump speaker but a poor debater. He came off as a nervous windbag who was trying too hard to be a 21st Century Bobby Kennedy.
It finally occurred to me who Beto reminds me of:
I may have been watching too much Justified of late BUT Beto reminds me of Boyd Crowder: toothy and windy.
Like Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder, Beto never uses one word when ten are available. And they both have big, scary teeth.
He should reconsider running against Senator Cornhole in Texas. Running for president was a bad Beto…
Klobuchar: I like the Senator from Minnesota, but this was not her best performance. Her closing argument was a dud: I’m electable yadda, yadda, yadda. Why? At this point in time, Trump looks like a stone cold loser unless his pals in the Kremlin bail him out again.
Inslee: In a word, inconsistent. Gave some good answers on climate change but rambled at other times. His makeup was a disaster. It made him look 20 years older than he is.
DeBlasio: Tall, annoying, and loud.
Delaney: Why was this bozo even onstage? He looks like a wrestling coach. I halfway expected him to apply a Half-Nelson to one of his opponents.
Ryan: He gave a decent answer early on about guns then became increasingly incoherent. He spent much of the second half giving forgettable answers about the forgotten people. I forget exactly what he said.
Gabbard: Ryan was so inept that he gave Gabbard a chance to shine. I hate to say that because she’s awful and should exit the race, stage left.
The 24-7 news cycle has been frantic for quite some time but in the Trump era it’s like a hyperactive child in need of medication. The child in question is, of course, the Insult Comedian.
After losing to Jack Kennedy, Richard Nixon wrote a pretty good, albeit self-serving, book called Six Crises. The Current Occupant has more like Sixty Crises some of which are so repetitive that the people and the media are becoming numb to them. It’s the presidency, in E’s memorable phrase, as Novocaine For The Soul.
This political numbness must be resisted at all costs: it’s okay not to be SURPRISED by presidential* antics but we should be SHOCKED by all the crazy the Trump regime throws our way. We conclude this opening sermonette with a musical interlude: a Fall Out Boy song whose protagonist sounds eerily like Trumpberius.
This is a black, black ski mask song
So put all of your anger on
In the truly gruesome do we trust
I will always land on you like a sucker punch
Singing I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare
I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare
Indeed you are, Donald, indeed you are.
Two of the major crises du jour are the internment camps on the border, especially the one at Clint, Texas, and the slagging match with Iran that could result in another stupid war in the Middle East. Trump relies on his gut when it comes to foreign policy, and *my* gut tells me that he’s bluffing in his face-off with Iran. BUT the chance for miscalculation is great when his senior advisers, Bolton and Pompeo, are salivating over the prospect of regime change in Iran. We’ve seen that movie before. It didn’t play well in Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran is a more formidable foe than the decadent dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Stay tuned.
As to the migrant concentration camps, only a hardcore, heartless racist could fail to be moved by accounts of children living in their own filth without soap or toothbrushes. Since my eyesight and hearing are crappy, I have an acute sense of smell and the stench coming from children who have no soap with which to bathe is a notion that haunts me. It’s slow motion torture, which is a stain on our national honor. It’s a rotten lead up to Independence Day.
There’s been a lively discussion in the corners of social media that I frequent about what issue we should focus on. We need to multi-task because the Trump regime will always trump up something to distract us. Diversion is the only thing they do well. Remember the Maddow Doctrine:
There’s one Trump crisis that the MSM is particularly numb to: We have a president* who is a serial sexual assaulter who sees women as prey, not people. The Gray Lady primly did not publish a story about E. Jean Carroll’s credible rape allegations for days after they broke. The depressing consensus among the Cult of the Savvy and GOP bigwigs seems to be that the voters knew about Trump’s rapey ways and elected him anyway. The NYT has admitted error and Trump has, predictably, said she was not hot enough for him to lust after. In a word: gross. Donald Trump is a pussy, he should grab himself.
I understand why so many people think the media’s failure here is the result of boredom. One reality of the Trump era is how profoundly boring it is—we watch the same dramas unfold, again and again; we debunk the same lies, again and again; and we issue the same warnings, again and again. But I don’t think that what happened here is the result of boredom so much as an almost perfect journalistic incapacity for telling any story it hasn’t told a thousand times before. Maybe we’re not bored. Maybe we’re just boring.
Because E. Jean Carroll flipped the script. Having watched, and watched, and watched the #MeToo stories play out over the past several years, she decided she wasn’t going to do it as it had been done. She was going to tell her own story on her own terms, publishing it in her own book. Because, as she wrote in the excerpt published in New York magazine last Friday:
“Why haven’t I “come forward” before now?
Receiving death threats, being driven from my home, being dismissed, being dragged through the mud, and joining the 15 women who’ve come forward with credible stories about how the man grabbed, badgered, belittled, mauled, molested, and assaulted them, only to see the man turn it around, deny, threaten, and attack them, never sounded like much fun. Also, I am a coward.”
She’s the opposite of a coward. E. Jean Carroll is my new hero. It takes guts to deal with a traumatic episode with wit and humor; two qualities her rapist notably lacks. All he knows how to do is attack, belittle, degrade, and divert attention from his crimes.
I have no idea why this 1972 compilation album has bacon and eggs in a skillet on the cover. Did they think it resembles Johannes Brahms or conductor William Steinberg? Beats the hell outta me.
All I know is that grim times call for comic relief as well as a good breakfast.
Best of Brahms does not eggist on the YouTube. One of the compositions excerpted was Brahms’ 4th Symphony so here’s the whole damn thing:
I never miss a chance to mention that the great New Orleans musician, Deacon John Moore, lives not far from Adrastos World HQ. John is a helluva nice guy as well as a helluva singer and so is Crowded House’s Neil Finn.
Deacon John has left his musical comfort zone and recorded two songs from Crowded House’s eponymous debut album. This an experiment that works. I hope he records more of Neil’s songs in addition to the two tracks on Crowded Shotgun House.
