Get Keiller!

I hated A Prairie Home Companion,  Garrison Keillor’s long running Minnesota Public Radio show.  The sound of his voice was like nails on a chalkboard to me.  He was one of those guys who thought he was funny but wasn’t.  I am incensed, however, that the fact that he put his hands on a woman’s bare back (several years ago!) led to his firing.

Alleged improper behavior, read the headline.  We have now reached the point where the crime doesn’t even have to be cited.  This reminds of the Twilight Zone in which a mob in a small mid-American town runs around in a panic accusing people of being aliens.

For far too long people in power have gotten away with murder.  People such as Harvey Weinstein, Roy Moore or Kevin Spacey should lose their jobs and possibly serve prison time.  But I’m not about to put Al Franken, Keillor, or even Louis C.K  in their class.  In Keillor’s case the punishment most certainly does not fit the crime.  Until the orangutan in the Oval office has to answer to his *proven* improper behavior I don’t want to hear about the Keillors or the Frankens.

If we must have mob rule why can’t George Steinbrenner be alive now? And how is Rudy Giuliani getting off scott free?

I’ll be looking forward to tomorrow’s allegations against Tom Hanks. It will take my mind off of my impending tax increase.

Fry it up

I have noticed that nearly every person under 40 speaks with vocal fry – an affectation akin to a scratchy throat.  It’s millennial code for I am cool.

Vocal fry annoys me to no end, especially when I’m listening to the radio and the host seemingly does not have the ability to speak like a normal human being.  I have to wonder what is on the mind of the station’s management. Can’t they detect the fry, and if so, aren’t they bothered by it?  Walter Cronkite didn’t use vocal fry.  I’m wondering if vocal fry is so prevalent that it is next to impossible to find a decent radio voice.

The case in point is this Saturday NPR show called Invisibilia, whose troika of hostesses sound as if they were awoken at four in the morning after having undergone a tonsillectomy.  Suffice it to say that it is unlistenable, as is 90% of NPR’s weekend programming.  At least Keillor is gone.

Bait and switch

What else is there to say?  Damning testimony from Sally Yates reveals that Donald Trump was advised by Barack Obama not to hire Michael Flynn for NSA?  That’s OK,  just change the conversation by firing James Comey.  The administration is saying that Comey was fired over his handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails but that’s such a bald face lie I’m surprised that NPR reporters can keep a straight face while delivering the news.

The thing that confounds me is how difficult it is to discern whether the Trump people are really this incompetent, or if this all misdirection.  And does it even matter?  It appears that whatever was done to pave the way for these oligarchs was done long ago behind closed doors.  Was it Putin, the Heritage Foundation,  or a third party that we haven’t even heard of?  It hardly matters.  We’re in it now.

The Normalization

This would be good horror movie title if we weren’t already living it.

THE NORMALIZATION!

One of the most confounding things about the Trump presidency is that a man who is uneducated and unqualified for his job is being taken seriously.

For instance, NPR news anchors thoroughly analyze Trump’s tweets, as if they are substantive, instead of the the knee-jerk rantings of an unstable personality.

Here’s Trump on Sirius radio in full-on historian mode:

I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said “There’s no reason for this.” People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

It’s unclear as to whether or not Trump knew that Jackson had died before the start of the war, but my money is on no.

The next day he took to Twitter to clarify:

President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War started, saw it coming and was angry. Would never have let it happen!

From his mouth to God’s ears.

Now let’s go to the pundits for some crack analysis.  NPR.com wrote,

This much is true: Andrew Jackson, who was president from 1829-1837, helped to avert a plausible civil war, generations before the actual one. In the 1830’s, South Carolina insisted on its right to nullify, or ignore, federal law. The South Carolinians objected to taxes — federal tariffs on the imported goods they were buying from Europe.

Jackson insisted that federal law reigned supreme. Through a carefully calibrated mixture of threats (a warship actually appeared in the harbor at Charleston, ready to open fire if need be) and compromises…

Yadda, yadda, yadda…

Yes, this is good knowledge, and I enjoy reading history as much as the next guy, but let’s be real here – Trump was not trying to delve into a deep historical discussion.  He’s like a guy at a bar dogmatically asserting facts that have no basis in reality.

I wish I were a pundit.  If somebody asked me what I thought Trump meant by ‘the Civil War being avoided if Andrew Jackson had been president,’ pundit Keitho would have responded, Trump is a moron.

 

Pledge week

Let’s have a live look-in on NPR’s winter pledge drive!

—————-//———

This year why not take the plunge and become a gold member. You’ll receive 2 tickets to SF Jazz, our magazine – Boredom Weekly – and the brand new Keillor-Blocker.

This state of the art console attaches to your listening device to automatically block disturbing Saturday programming such as, A Prairie Home Companion, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, & Look Ma, No Hands.

In their place you can choose from among the following:

Game 6 of the 2003 World Series

Noam Chomsky reads The Pickwick Papers

&

Keitho sings A Love Supreme [in the shower]

Finally it is safe to drive a vehicle on a Saturday.

Hurry! There’s a limited supply.

Comes the deplorables

I was wrong.  For nine months I insisted that there is no way that the American people would elect Donald Trump.  Although we have a conservative, celebrity-driven culture, I insisted, we are not reactionary enough to elect an unintelligent, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, failed realtor.

How wrong I was.  Today, along with the rest of liberal Americans, I eat crow.  I over-estimated the intelligence of the American people.

And to the blue-collar, salt of the earth, working class Americans in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin I sent out a hearty and heartfelt, fuck you.   Get the fuck out of here with your high-minded morality and your hypocritical church going ways.  Because guess what?  He’s taking you down right alongside lefty, commie, kale-loving yours truly.

The fact is that you real Americans are going to need affordable health care, roads, schools, and who knows, maybe even an abortion or two.  Good luck with all of that.  Do you really believe that a crooked billionaire real estate mogul gives even the tiniest fuck about the state of blue-collar America?  If you do I was wondering if you would invest in my next recording project:  Keitho plays the music of Bud Powell.  That record has a better chance of going platinum than blue collar workers do of finding jobs under a Trump presidency.

Listening to NPR radio last night I nearly threw up in my mouth.  The general consensus was that a populist movement propelled Trump to the Whitehouse.  I call bullshit.  It was pure, unadulterated racism.  We have seen the kind of people that a Trump rally attract.  They are scum of the earth, thuggish, racist, white trash.  You can take that kind of populism and shove it up your ass.

Eight years ago I voted and for the first time in my life was proud to be an American.  Now I am ashamed to be one.  These are dark days.

 

Waiting for the ball to drop

Earlier this week I told my friend that I wouldn’t be hate posting re New Years Eve because it was too obvious. Consider that to be my last broken promise of 2015.

Just how much of a moron do you have to be to schlep out to Times Square, stake out a 2 square foot patch of concrete, and wait hours in sub-freezing temperatures to watch a plastic ball drop a few feet?

It’s bad enough that you’re standing in the asshole of New York City. It’s a cesspool of capitalistic corporate, kitsch, and you have willingly planted yourself there amidst the drunk Long Island and Jersey Broncos and Broncettes, not to mention the pickpockets and Aqualung-style dirty old perverts. And to do it for no good reason?!

It boggles the mind that people would do this on the most cynical, contrived holiday there is. Don’t feign irony now. DON’T PLAY THAT. It’s a corny holiday. At least us musicians get paid for going out on 12/31. I don’t care if I play the Chicken Dance & a 40 minute conga line song. At the end of the night I’m driving home with fat stacks of cash! We don’t need an excuse to drink; it can be go time on Jan 2nd, what do we care?

NPR weighed in this afternoon with a hard-hitting feature on the guy who is in charge of organizing throwing the confetti from the Times Square buildings. With Paul Simon-esque acoustic guitar music playing in the background this nimrod breathlessly described the minute planning and intricacy that goes into confetti-throwing. “…and when it’s 20 seconds to midnight I speak into my walkie-talkie: Go confetti, go confetti, go confetti!”

Happy fucking New Years everyone.

The war on Christmas: The gift that keeps on giving!

One of my favorite things about this time of year is the ongoing war on Christmas.  Like Iraq and Afghanistan, it is a war with no end in sight.  Like a Bill Clinton speech it goes on and on, causing both liberals and conservatives to collapse in an irate heap at the side of the yuletide road. 

I thought that the WOC had died down until I came across this peach of an article in the Washington Post.  To summarize, Nina Totenberg, a legal correspondent from NPR’s All Things Considered,  was appearing on a show called “Inside Washington.”  During a discussion about tax cuts she threw in an anecdote:

“I was at — forgive the expression – a Christmas party at the Department of Justice,” she said, going on to explain how guests there were worried about the impact of spending cuts.

This [almost apologetic] reference to Christmas was red meat for conservative pundits and bloggers.  It was gold, for Christ’s sake!  Oops…pardon the expression. 

Then, the backtracking!  Totenberg defended herself by saying how much she adored the Christmas holiday and that her usage of the term ‘pardon the expression’ was ironic — that she was tweaking the Department of Justice. 

Well isn’t that just meta.   How many layers of irony do we have to cut through to follow these shows?  Come on, Nina, why not come clean and admit that you are at war with Christmas.  And while I’m at it, why do you hate America?

I thought that the War on Christmas ™ was yesterday’s news.  Wasn’t it three or four years ago when Bill O’Reilly went on a rampage against the politically correct ‘Happy Holidays’ crowd?  Apparently I was wrong.  The shrapnel from the Totenberg incident is spreading far and wide across this great, yet divided nation.

Now for a surprise.  I am officially entering the war…on the side of Christmas!  You know what?  It’s not that big of a deal to say Merry Christmas.  First of all, it’s anything but a religious holiday — Madison Avenue saw to that many years ago.  That said, it’s not a bad thing to have a day of the year where families get together and eat like Romans.  What’s the harm?  There ‘s corny music, great food, and plenty of alcohol.  

I’m a Jew who is not offended by Christmas.  Maybe if the Maccabees had a little more personality we would be fighting the War on Hanukkah.  So I say to you all from my podium at World of Keitho, Merry Christmas to one and all!