“Jack White Just Shut Down The Trump Administration With One Brutal And Lengthy Instagram Post”

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/articles/jack-white-fired-back-white-191021365.html

What cracks me up is all the people e-mailing me saying not to use their name. Nobodies from nowhere saying inoffensive things. As if the long arm of the law is going to reach out and do…exactly what to them? A veritable nation of pussies I tell you, especially on the left. These are not men, these are mice.

And how do you turn them around?

By showing the way, as Peter Frampton would say. By standing up and being a beacon.

Like Jack White.

Used to be you stood up to the man via music, now you do so with your words.

Will Jack White lose out economically as a result of his words? No, because he’s not part of the music industrial complex, he’s stood aside, and therefore he’s not dependent upon the gatekeepers for success. No, Jack White has a hard core fan base, built over decades, and he knows people respect him, not only for his music, but for his other enterprises… If Jack White and Third Man are involved, you know it’s authentic, you know Jack believes in it, EVEN IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT!

Respect. Isn’t that what Ali G said?

Not something one has for most of the people with a profile in music anymore. Who don’t want to risk the brand, don’t want to offend a single potential customer, who are tools of the system.

Think about this, you can criticize the President and immediately get a response. Whereas a record does no such thing. You see White hit Trump where he’s vulnerable, where he cares…his design and decorating taste.

An artist criticizing a businessman. HOW DARE YOU! Aesthetics…something that are no longer a focus in our commerce driven music world. Of course it’s a business, but can anybody say no, can anybody have a backbone?

Those on the right seem to have no problem doing this. They’re firing up their keyboards as I write this. They believe if they clap back immediately with strength I will cower into submission. That’s their game plan. The exact OPPOSITE of those on the left. Who are afraid to speak up.

Unlike Jack White.

Do you get Chuck Schumer railing against the gaudiness of the Trump redecoration of “the people’s house”?

Of course not, because his whole being is based on compromise.

That’s the essence of an artist, to be UNCOMPROMISED!

As for the message…

Got to give Bill Maher credit, he’s got it right, it’s a slow moving coup, just like he was right about Trump not leaving the office back in 2020.

It’s not like Trump’s actions are not documented in the news. But we’ve got a somnambulant public which believes it’ll all work out in the end. Just wait until 2028! Yeah, right, as if the Texas redistricting is not a harbinger of what’s coming in the voting sphere.

At what point do you say NO MAS!

Historically, too late. Just ask the Jews in Germany.

Don’t accuse me of being histrionic.

I’m no fan of John Bolton, but this revenge tour by Trump is positively scary. You think you’re immune… By time they come looking for those afraid to speak up today it will be too late, can you say CHECKMATE?

What has been proven by both Gavin Newsom and Jack White is the best way to get to Trump is to make fun of him, that makes his skin boil. Point out that he’s a doofus.

Policy? Trump doesn’t care what you think.

Image? He’s got the thinnest skin extant. His clap back tweets are laughable on Truth Social.

As for his supporters… If you’re waiting for them to come around, good luck. The truth is they hate you more than they care about anything Trump does. Now if you’re rich and a Republican, I get it. But I constantly hear from Uber drivers, those barely keeping their heads above water, who are dyed-in-the-wool Trumpers. Not because they believe Trump is going to lift them up, but because they believe he’s going to put the libs down.

So who’s sticking up for the libs?

No one has as much power as an artist. Maybe some of them can stop putting out multiple iterations of vinyl and take a stand.

Hell, how about a blackout night, when there are NO SHOWS across the nation.

How about an icon every artist can post to TikTok, and then a newspaper ad listing everybody who did this (you might not read the newspaper, but Trump and his team live to see what’s in the “New York Times”).

We are not fighting against Trump so much as for America.

For those who believe in the Constitution…

We’ve got a compromised legal system that is allowing this guy to do whatever he wants. And when they say no, he goes ahead and does it anyway.

And now he’s got troops in the street.

And he takes advice from Viktor Orbán, who is a hero of the right.

Please explain that to me. You want to emulate a strongman?

Jack White is doing the work you won’t. He’s got a profile, you don’t, but you’re afraid to go on the record.

As for music… The only hope is a single song, like “We Are the World.” Radio will refuse to play it, but radio is no longer in control, the audience is. And the track can be driven to number one on streaming services instantly. And then you’ve got a news story and…

You’ve got to stand up at some point.

Or else you’ll be shut up.

Don’t lose your voice.

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“Morgan Wallen Will Not Submit Latest Album for Grammys Consideration – The country singer became the latest major artist to abandon the awards, declining to enter his chart-topping fourth album, “I’m the Problem,” for the 2026 ceremony.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/arts/music/morgan-wallen-grammys.html

I’ve got a bug up my ass about the Grammys. It seems the only people who take the awards seriously are those who need the accolades to justify their work, so they can put it on their Wikipedia pages so we can be impressed.

I’m not.

What makes me further crazy is when obituaries mention winning or nominations for Grammys. As if that evidences a level of status. Will people think less of Morgan Wallen in the future because he does not have a slew of Grammys?

Now I can understand Black artists complaining about racism. Unfortunately, it’s true. But the kind of person who is motivated to join the organization, who’s got the inclination and the time to vote, tends to be not plugged into the top line of the music business, where Black artists oftentimes dominate. It’s a divide as wide as Beverly Hills and Compton. No one in Beverly Hills even drives through Compton, they’re too scared, and when Comptonites come into Beverly Hills all the whites are on guard, with their hands on their purses and wallets.

As for Morgan Wallen…

This is another reason Trump got elected, under the rubric of free speech. Yes, Wallen employed the N-word, but it was clear that he was drunk and using it in a way evidenced in Black culture, he was imitating the rappers and their videos as opposed to making a racist comment.

I know, I know, you absolutely can’t use the N-word, and I agree, I give Wallen no pass, but does he have to be a pariah forever? Can he never be let out of jail?

Not that Wallen himself probably cares. But when the biggest recording artist in America is snubbed by an award-granting organization…what does that say?

Actually, this is rock star behavior from the old school. From when the Grammys were irrelevant and the musicians showed up for events in their everyday streetwear instead of tuxedos. Now it’s techies who do that. Because the techies believe they’re above the rest of us, whereas the musicians are all subservient…to the organization, to the corporation, to the BUCKS! God, a techie will speak truth before a musician. Ain’t that sad.

I don’t want to defend Wallen the man. Throwing that chair off the roof. But back in the seventies antics like this were celebrated. And you wonder why men are neutered.

Let me try to thread the needle here. There’s no reason Wallen should have thrown that chair, but the constant pressure to behave drives men nuts. They feel neutered. Do you really expect them to vote for Kamala who is in bed with all those strident women?

WHEW! “Strident”?

It’s kind of like the troops in D.C. I don’t believe Trump should have brought in forces, but now even Maureen Dowd has gone on record that there’s a crime problem in D.C. We can’t be so busy being politically correct that we ignore the problem.

And the Grammys are a politically correct organization run by small men drunk with power. It’s like those short men who become policemen. They want to get back at all the bullies, and the Grammy gatekeepers want to get back at all those acts they see as no-talents who get all the money and attention. Who’d want part of that? Not Wallen.

He’s put out one monster album after another and all we hear about is Taylor Swift and the circle jerk of friendship bracelets. But Wallen is more dominant in recordings and sells out stadiums too! But that doesn’t mean anything to the arbiters of decorum. Wallen is on the wrong side. He’s always on the wrong side. Nothing he can do can satiate those who hate him in principle. A hick from nowhere with an accent who dominates all the charts? Screw him, WE’RE GOING TO TEACH HIM A LESSON!

The Grammys are like the school administration, lording it over you. You can’t wait until you graduate and are done with them. God, if I think about all the things teachers said to me in my schooling. They wanted to break me, rub off the rough edges, make me just like them, AND WHO ARE THEY?

Yes, I’ve got a problem with organizations. But when it comes to art…

Then again, we can’t even have a legitimate chart in the music business. They weigh physical more than streams and it’s all ridiculous. And unlike the manipulators of the game, Wallen isn’t releasing endless vinyl variations of his albums to maintain his chart position, in his case, THE MUSIC IS ENOUGH!

Think about that… You don’t see Wallen boasting that he’s number one. He’s going on none of the victory laps seemingly every other successful artist does today. He hasn’t gone Hollywood… No wonder people hate him, he’s not doing it their way!

And let’s say he didn’t utter the N-word and didn’t throw that chair, what are the odds any of his projects would have gotten Album of the Year? ZILCH! We don’t give that to hicks playing that music… We need to give the award to respectable people, like Herbie Hancock.

Now don’t e-mail me trying to justify the Grammys, I don’t care. The bottom line is an artist is an outsider who questions precepts, not someone who drinks the kool-aid to get along. You become an artist because you want to avoid the rules, not play by them!

If the Grammys had balls, and it doesn’t, they would give Wallen a special award during the telecast. Acknowledge the level of his success.

But no, they can’t do that… Once again, there are rules. He didn’t submit, so he’s out.

No, you messed with him and it’s your move. Why don’t you do the right thing? Don’t expect him to show up for the award, don’t even invite him, just do it.

Or maybe we just give Grammys to everybody. That’s another thing that pisses me off about the organization. There are nearly a hundred categories, if you can’t get nominated you don’t make music. The awards become meaningless.

If Michelle Obama can win a Grammy, and Bill Clinton too (well, at least he played the saxophone)… What do the two of them have to do with music, other than having ears to listen?

You could whittle the categories down to just the majors, like the Brits, but then the rank and file would complain, they need to win their Grammys, what about them?

And isn’t that exactly the point???

BritBox trailer:

This would be the talk of the town if it was on Netflix. There’d be features about Rose Ayling-Ellis in all the newspapers and people would be talking about it, but…

It’s on BritBox.

Having said that, it’s number one on BritBox, deservedly so.

The only time I’ve felt this tense watching a TV series was when I viewed “The Bureau.” Not only was I on the edge of my seat during the first three episodes, I actually considered turning it off, my anxiety was just too high.

Now we’d just seen Rose Ayling-Ellis in “Ludwig,” the feel good series on BritBox. At times it’s silly, but it’s ultimately satisfying. What you’ve got is a misanthropic puzzle maker solving murders. I don’t want to tell you much more other than to say one of the murders is of a teacher. And another member of the faculty is Ayling-Ellis. Who when questioned has an interpreter employing sign language to get the words across, even though she can respond in what seems like an almost regular voice.

So I was very surprised to watch “Code of Silence” and find Ayling-Ellis once again hearing challenged. Turns out in real life she’s nearly deaf, she wears hearing aids but relies also on lip-reading and… If you do your research, you’ll see that Ayling-Ellis was awarded an MBE…

But, what we’ve got here is a nearly deaf woman trying to make it in life, just wanting an opportunity, but despite lip service, no one wants to really give her a chance. So she’s relegated to a cleaning job and…

She ends up working for the police, reading lips, but they always keep her at arm’s length and she decides to take matters into her own hands and…

You’re just waiting for her to get into trouble, to be exposed.

Stunningly, the series does not play out as one would expect. The plot twists, not in an unnatural way, but an unexpected one.

There are six episodes forty five minutes in length, it’s not a big commitment, but you do have to sign up for BritBox, which is too heavy a lift for most people. And I get it, it’s like being pecked to death by ducks with all these subscriptions. Apple just raised the price $3?? There’s nothing on the damn channel. They drip out very few shows episode by episode and this discourages me from subscribing and by time the show is over all the hoopla, assuming there is any, is gone, and do I want to pay all that cash just to see one show?

You see Rose Ayling-Ellis making bad choices, but you can also see where she’s coming from. You get what it’s like to be non-hearing in a hearing world.

This is a really great series, I highly recommend it.