Jerry Brown On The Axe Files
I know, I know, I’m overloading you with missives. Hell, I’m thrilled you’re subscribing and reading AT ALL! It’s just that I’m both excited about life and overwhelmed, and there’s just so much HAPPENING!
Like listening to the BBC re the election on Sirius this morning. What a great world we live in where we can tune into the source and get a take. But there are fewer outlets in the U.K., at least it seems that way, whereas in America we live in the land of chaos, nowhere so much as in the land of podcasts, most of which are vanity projects, but some resonate.
Like the Axe Files. Wherein David Axelrod interviews both right and left wingers. He gets their history, and if we’re lucky their take on what’s going on now. I mean he even had Karl Rove, and that guy who wrote “Hillbilly Elegy,” whom I now deplore. J.D. Vance may have come from nothing, but after Yale he became part of the tech/financial complex, working for Peter Thiel, and I’d rather listen to someone still in the belly of the beast. Did you read that story in the “New Yorker” about the opioid crisis in West Virginia? The EMT went to the same house for O.D.’s three times in one day, FOR THE SAME PEOPLE!
Now we live in a land of disagreement, where there’s little leadership and we feel that we’re on our own, then you listen to Jerry Brown on the Axe Files and you see a glimmer of hope.
That’s right, Governor Moonbeam. Who dated Linda Ronstadt. Who kept running for President and losing. He’s Governor again, but not for long, hell, he’s 79 years old. But he’s as fresh and as motivated as ever. And listening to him talk is stimulating and energizing and THIS IS THE BEST PODCAST I’VE HEARD ALL YEAR!
We need leaders. We need people who are speaking English. Brown pulls no punches, says exactly what he thinks, with no hems and haws. He just lays it all out. And I believe even if you disagree, if you’re on the right, you’ll think he makes sense.
And at the end he recites all the California triumphs. High taxes, but a great economy with a reserve.
But I don’t want to get into the specifics, I want you to LISTEN!
And no one’s got any time, I know. I went to the Dylan Nobel speech and it had under a hundred thousand listens. Now I see it’s got 661,050, and to tell you the truth, you don’t have to listen to all 27 minutes, when he gets talking about “Moby Dick” and “All Quiet On The Western Front” it’s boring, it’s like he had to appeal to the naysayers, say he’s part of the canon of literature. But BEFORE THAT? Wow, he talks about inspiration, locking on to Buddy Holly, hearing records, getting inspiration, finding his direction, not worrying about popular culture but going his own way, it’s so INSTRUCTIVE!
But even more I want you to listen to Jerry Brown. All of it. Because it’s the wisdom of experience. He himself makes that point, when he was first governor when he was 36, he thought experience was the problem, now he knows that’s wrong. And he learned how to get along, to compromise, and this is a better Commencement speech than you’re ever gonna hear.
If you listen to podcasts. If you’re worried about the world surrounding us. If you’re interested in stimulation… PLEASE LISTEN!
