Why isn’t there a concomitant examination of music?

I’m positively stunned at the amount of coverage the Oscars are getting. Especially for a show everyone has agreed no one will see. Bill Maher said it best…

“Every year I write down my Oscars predictions. This year I predict I’m not going to watch.”

The coverage is a reflection of the myopia of mainstream media, which believes if it cares about it, everyone else will. This is the great bifurcation which truly gained steam about ten years ago, between those who get their “news” from newspapers and TV and those who get it online, oftentimes via social media and “word of mouth.” The end result is we live in a world where facts are fungible and no one can agree on the truth, but rather than address this problem, the mainstream media feels if it doubles-down, it can just convince people to care, to pay attention, when the truth is they don’t. To put it another way, we haven’t had that spirit here since 1999.

As for the outsized focus on film…

In 2019, U.S. box office revenues were $11.4 billion.

In 2019, U.S. recorded music revenues were $11.1 billion.

Furthermore, you can add on another $28 billion for the live music business, which doesn’t have a film equivalent. Then again, visual entertainment has streaming television revenues.

But let’s go back to box office. Traditionally, the exhibitors retain 50% of the gross, which means $5.7 billion flowed back to rights holders.

In music, streaming outlets retain 30% of the gross, which means $7.7 billion flowed back to rights holders. So why does music get no respect?

If you look to history, the Warner cable system was built on the back of the Warner music labels, which were throwing off tons of cash. Not that we ever hear about that.

But we do hear about the decline in recorded music revenue this century. Yes, music was the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption, but although it was a wrenching transition, music figured it out, via streaming, and now revenues are consistently going up. As for film? It’s still wrestling with digital disruption. Do we release the films day and date on streaming services? Do we have one outlet where everyone can pay one price and see all the content online?

Even worse, we’ve got a cadre of oldsters complaining that films must be seen in theatres, when that ship sailed in the music business, finally no one is complaining that music must be listened to on CD. Remember all the arguments about the sound of MP3s? Well, it turned out most people could not tell the difference, and presently there’s a move to higher resolution streaming. As a matter of fact, for a low price you can stream better than CD quality via Amazon Music Ultra HD. And finally, the oldsters’ complaints are fading in music.

But not in film.

The irony is that as music playback systems have gotten worse, film’s have gotten better. And I’m not talking about the theatre experience, which is arguably worse, no comfy seat in a stadium arrangement can overcome of smartphone use and talking, never mind sticky floors, but you can buy a 65″ plus OLED TV that renders an astounding picture, ironically the same one all the filmmakers employ. And, you can watch on demand, as in when you want to. Why is it the film business believes it can dictate our habits when everything else is on demand, at our fingertips instantly? I.e. the film starts at 7:30. You’ve got to leave your house, budget time to park, buy tickets, go to the bathroom, watch trailers and…if you get there late, tough noogies.

Yet the music business is consistently seen as a second class citizen.

So for months we’ve endured a debate as to the wokeness and content of today’s films.

That’s not an issue in music, Black music dominates the charts.

As for awards… If you think awards matter, an Oscar or a Grammy, you don’t know how many broke, out of work, no longer remembered people have won each.

As for executives… Strides need to be made, but the truth is today’s major labels are oftentimes just the end point, the acts are developed by people of color and managed by people of color. That does not mean progress cannot be made in the executive ranks, but a little perspective would help here, not that you ever want to mix truth into the story…

But what blows my mind is all this debate re the content of film. There’s no debate about the content of music!

Film is expensive. A collaborative effort. Resulting in story that even a five year old can debate.

Music can be extremely inexpensive, made by one person in their bedroom, and even the biggest hits…about the most you can say about them is “it had a good beat, I could dance to it.”

Then again, music has started to imitate film, at the elite level anyway. Marketing is so expensive that the major labels put out less product than ever before and want to do their damnedest to ensure they’re hits. To the point where records are made by committee, and constantly reworked, remixed in an effort to have success, when the truth is music is best when it has that je ne sais quoi of lightning captured in a bottle.

But, in movies people are complaining about the content. Either it’s too serious or not mindless enough. As if movies could truly parallel life, when the truth is that’s music’s skill.

But music is in a bad place.

Music is purely commercial. Art is secondary. True, the Oscars might have nominated a bunch of highbrow stuff the hoi polloi have not seen, but we don’t have an equivalent layer of product in music, that which demands respect but got little commercial traction. Instead in music the focus is always on the vapid mainstream, repetitive sans meaning. In music, a forty year old fake drum sound, i.e. the Roland 808, dominates today. Which is kind of like insisting all films be shot in black and white. But there’s no uproar. Except from the audience, the truth is new music has lost its hold on the public, most people don’t care, which is why the hits have less market share on Spotify than they have previously, you don’t need to know them. As for the petty wars and triumphs…that’s fodder for fans and gossip rags, nobodies arguing about nothing, and too often it’s about money not art.

But criticize a successful act/record at your peril. If it made money, it cannot be bad. At least the highbrows bitch about high concept cartoon/superhero flicks, but they don’t bother to even weigh in on the dreck sold to the listening audience.

And in both cases, film and music, all the heat now rises from the bottom. Yes, it’s the unfettered individuals online who garner all the attention. Film/the Oscars has not even figured out how to harness the power of TikTok, never mind YouTube and Instagram and Snapchat. As for the music business, all it can do is sign that which is successful online. The truth is the major labels don’t grow anything anymore, they just cherry-pick that which is flowering. Which is why the execs are faceless. These are bean counters, marketers not conservators of the soul of America. It’s even worse in film, not one single executive is known by the masses. As for power? Neither of them have any, music or film executives, in the general landscape. That’s owned by Mark Zuckerberg, Google, Reed Hastings… And all of these tech titans have bigger mindshare than the product itself, never mind those who green light it.

But ain’t that America, where debate must be easy and only the elites are entitled to an opinion. Yes, those with any cultural power pooh-pooh the masses as know-nothings. But if that is so, why do they keep pushing the envelope online?

Now it used to be that change was always in the offing, but income inequality killed that. The best and the brightest will not go into the arts. And if they do, the focus is on the bottom line, not the content, because he with the greatest number of bucks is…the greatest. But we used to revere those who didn’t sell so well, but impacted us with their art.

Those days are through.

The tail has wagged the dog in the arts for decades, it’s just the ancient industries and the boomers who run them have refused to acknowledge this. Furthermore, the companies they run are long in the tooth public enterprises that no executive has a significant ownership interest in, it’s all about short term gain. So is it any wonder the product reflects this?

As for those commenting… The truth is they don’t really care, it’s only once a year, when awards season comes along, and the truth is the “unknown” social media stars online have much more overall influence.

Things will get better when the boomers pass.

But until then we’ve got twentieth century mores in a twenty first century world. And you wonder why these industries and their awards shows continue to miss the target…

https://bit.ly/3tIGpqU

1

It’s inspirational.

And it’s now on Hulu.

Zappa was someone you discovered along the way, and then you went back and purchased all the albums that came before and the ones that came thereafter until…you grew up and went separate ways.

I’m not saying I stopped buying Zappa’s records, I’m not saying I wasn’t paying attention to Frank, what I’m saying is Zappa was a jumping off point, and once you were trained enough, he expected you to spread your wings and fly, and definitely not where he’d already been.

Most people did not, fly that is.

But some of us did.

You had to grow up in the sixties. I was doing an interview with Joel Selvin about his new book “Hollywood Eden” and I asked him why everybody at University High wanted to make a record. Joel said that’s where the action was. And sure, Capitol was in L.A. but the rest of the labels were on the east coast and on the west coast it was a fledgling business, run by independents, akin to the computer revolution back in the nineties. Sure, the computer revolution started in the seventies, the first time I ever saw someone using an Apple II was in the office of Frank’s manager, but in the nineties and early two thousands…tech innovation was rampant. In retrospect, it was a very brief time, before the money and consolidation came along to quash independent dreams. Compete with Amazon and Facebook at your peril. They’ll just imitate you and put you out of business, or make you sell to them.

But it wasn’t always this way.

Back in the sixties no one expected to be rich and famous. That was for somebody else, people who broke the rules. You see prior to the mid-sixties, the life of baby boomers was all about conforming, jumping through hoops. Now some turned on, tuned in and dropped out, but most didn’t have the chutzpah, and when Reagan came along in the eighties to legitimize greed they got right on board, and rode the rails through the Clinton presidency and now believed they were different from everybody else, and entitled. They were self-satisfied.

But Frank Zappa would say the joke was on them.

The greats don’t conform. Which is why you can’t learn to be a rock star in school. You were either born with it or you weren’t. And if you weren’t, you’ll never make it, the road is too hard, and to truly make your mark you must be inspired. And if you are and you make it to the top expect to be denigrated, because others were unwilling to put in the hard work and are jealous of your success. Like Glenn Frey and the Eagles. Glenn had knocked around, Geffen wasn’t interested in his work with J.D. Souther, and then he had an idea for a band, he kept Don Henley up all night telling him who and what the Eagles would be the night before their first gig with Linda Ronstadt in D.C. And then Glenn proceeded to execute. And sure, the Eagles made lots of money, Zappa had no problem with that, as long as you didn’t sell out to make your money.

So the sixties were very short, the Mothers of Invention recorded for a very brief window, from ’65 to ’69, but in that short span of time they changed the landscape, and the people who listened to them.

Irreverence, questioning authority, speaking truth to power. None of those are elements of today’s hit music. But these were the mantras of Frank Zappa. He didn’t beat you over the head with them, he just lived his life by them and you were influenced by that.

Influence… Who are you influenced by?

I’m not sure who people are truly influenced by today. I hope it’s not politicians, none of them are true believers like Frank. But in the sixties, our influences were those who were pushing the envelope, testing limits, and word would spread and…

That’s how you’d discover Frank Zappa and so much more.

So what was it like in the sixties?

Well, unless you lived then, you’ll never really know. As for the aphorism that if you remember the sixties you weren’t there, that’s completely wrong. Then again, everybody was too busy living their life to chronicle it, you didn’t want to sit back, you wanted to participate. It was about self-realization. And that’s a hard viewpoint to shake. I never have.

Yes, I’m a sixties casualty.

I’ve got this beach metaphor, hang in there with me. In the fifties there were beatniks, everybody was hip and cool, and then the wave went back to sea and the only one left on shore was Maynard G. Krebs. Same deal in the sixties, everybody was a hippie, growing their hair long, loving one another, and then the wave went out and I was left standing alone, on the beach, and when I express my viewpoints people laugh at me.

But at least I have viewpoints, I don’t take the temperature, take a poll of the audience before I act. And neither did Steve Jobs and neither did Frank Zappa. They acted on their own innate tuning fork. As for Mr. Jobs…he was influenced and inspired by the Beatles and Bob Dylan, and if Steve were still alive today he’d place them on the totem pole above himself, you see art may last, technology is always superseded.

There’s so much that’s skipped over in this movie, like how did Frank learn to read and write music. But that’s what’s great about it, it’s not comprehensive, it does its best to create a mood, a feeling, and you certainly get it. And Frank was not lovable and when the movie is over you don’t love him either, you respect him, you’re wowed by him, you’re inspired by him, and that will hit you right between the eyes whether you like Zappa’s music or not.

Not that there’s endless music in this film, that’s not what it’s about. It’s the story of Frank. Well, part of the story. There could be three or four more documentaries and they’d be almost totally new, Frank created that much, he did that much.

But what if you grow up nowhere as an outcast, how does that affect you?

And if you’re looking to do something, are you trying to get a grant, from a foundation or the government? Zappa didn’t play that game, he paid, he didn’t want anybody telling him what to do, he wanted control. And the truth is all true artists are control freaks, because they have a vision, and they know unless it’s portrayed accurately, it won’t resonate, it’ll miss.

2

“Hey punk where you goin’ with that flower in your hand

Well I’m goin’ up to Frisco to join a psychedelic band

Hey punk where you goin’ with that button on your shirt

I’m goin’ to the love-in to sit and play my bongos in the dirt”

“Flower Punk” was the song that made me a Frank Zappa fan. It was only 1968, but the Mothers were making fun of the hippies, all the non-thinking followers. Today nobody thinks for themselves, you join your tribe and never question it, it’s a nation of followers. But back in the sixties, more important than your bank account was your ability to think.

“I’m losing status at the high school

I used to think that it was my school”

High school is all about popularity, fitting in. But what if you weren’t, popular that is, what if you didn’t fit in?

“The other night we painted posters

We played some records by the Coasters

Wah wah wah wah

A bunch of pom-pom girls

Looked down their nose at me

They had painted tons of posters I had painted three

I hear the secret whispers everywhere I go

My school spirit is at an all time low”

“Status Back Baby” is on the second side of “Absolutely Free,” released in 1967, before “We’re Only in It for the Money,” which contains “Flower Punk.” I had to buy the album after I purchased “We’re Only in It for the Money” and that’s when I discovered the track. And most people didn’t know it, but if you did, you were a member of a secret club, you were aligned with Frank Zappa, you could not only see, but knew, the system was a joke.

It’s all there with Zappa. He was always true to himself. He never wavered. He never sold out. He risked, he evolved, but he never strived for a hit, and as a result everybody knew who he was, and those truly in the know looked up to him. Today they only look up to you if you make money, if you’re rich, and if you’re rich your work cannot be challenged.

Alex Winter, aka Bill in “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” has not made the typical rock doc. You know, hagiography, jumping through the hoops, he or she did this or that, got their head screwed on straight and now they’re on a victory lap, don’t you love them? “Zappa” is almost an impressionistic view of Zappa and his career. You jump from bite to bite, Frank’s history and ethos come into view, but not everything is crammed in, just enough for you to get the sense, the feel for who he is.

And the truth is the film got excellent reviews, but nobody was gonna pay to see it on VOD during Covid, when it was released last fall. This is a film for a streaming service. This is a time bomb, something that will sit in the library, waiting to be discovered by generations hence. Every artist, everybody who thinks they want to be an artist, needs to see this film, it’s the gut check of all gut checks. You see Frank’s choices, would you make them?

In other words, Frank Zappa and this film might be what W.C. Fields was to us in the sixties. Gone for decades, we were fanatics for him, went to see his pictures, like “The Bank Dick” and “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.” It was W.C.’s sensibility, he was irascible, he didn’t have time for children and fools, he was himself all the time, meaning you could be an irreverent curmudgeon too, you didn’t have to act nice like everybody told you to, worrying about making the right impression.

W.C. Fields has yet to come back again, he may never do so, but Frank Zappa… The younger generations aren’t aware of Frank and his work, or think he’s all about “Valley Girl” if he’s about anything. But at some point, could be tomorrow, could be ten years from now, they’ll see this documentary and be inspired, need to go down the rabbit hole, listen to the music and become aware of all the possibilities.

Yes, that’s what art is about, possibilities, in your expression. Going where you want to, not worrying if anybody else wants to come along. It’s a hard road and you may never be recognized. But watching this movie you’ve got to ask yourself, do you deserve to be recognized?

You cannot watch this flick without being moved, no way.

And you cannot turn it off.

The first half could be the best rock documentary ever made. The second half is more conventional, which is not a criticism so much as I’m saying the first half is godhead.

You need to see it.

Steve Cropper is literally a living legend. Guitar player, producer, writer…Cropper has had a hand in some of the most iconic tracks of all time, from “Green Onions” to “In the Midnight Hour” to “Knock on Wood” to “Dock of the Bay” to… We chart Steve’s history from Missouri to Memphis, from the Mar-Keys to Booker T and the MGs, from Jim Stewart to Tom Dowd to John Lennon and the Blues Brothers and so much more. We discuss the creative process, the equipment, the characters…we go deep, and you don’t want to miss this!

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/The-Bob-Lefsetz-Podcast

Apple Podcasts app

1

Subject: “Big Daddy” Don Garlits Did Not

… appreciate my enlightening share, evidently.

DWjr

__________

Take me off your fucking list! I don’t need to hear your liberal shit! Your type is what has happened to our great Nation! Go kiss the idiot Biden’s ass, I don’t care. He didn’t get the most votes, it was a totally illegal election!! I know that for a fact!

Don Garlits

__________

In the 1960s there were two things every young boy paid attention to, baseball and ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.”

It wasn’t until the late sixties that football superseded baseball as America’s Pastime. Football moved faster in a world that was moving faster. The two leagues merged. There was the Super Bowl and then Joe Namath’s called victory, baseball was never the same. But before that…scratch a baby boomer and they’ll complain their parents threw out their baseball cards, they’d be worth so much if they still had them! We didn’t save them in pristine condition in a vault as an investment, rather we put them all in a plastic bag and went to friends’ houses and at first traded, and then flipped. Yes, you flipped for cards, today that would be called a sport.

As for Saturday afternoon… At five o’clock you watched “Wide World of Sports.” This was before networks put a bug in the corner to remind you what channel you were watching. Most burgs only had three networks, and every kid could tell the difference, they knew the late night schedule by heart.

So, “The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.” Boomers still employ that phrase today, usually ironically, but they know it better than religious treatises. And they also know the ski jumper who fell in the intro, everyone always wondered what happened to him, there was no internet, certainly no Wikipedia, unanswered questions were the rule of the day.

One can actually argue that ski jumping and bobsledding were bigger in the sixties, because they were constantly featured on “Wide World of Sports.” And this was before the fitness boom, these were just regular people competing, you didn’t have ringers from other sports, amazing physical specimens to add push and weight to your bobsled…this was a winter job, nearly a lark, and we watched…did you see when that four man sled went over the side and people died? It’s embedded in my brain, I can see it right now, albeit in black and white.

Some sports have died along the way. Like barrel jumping. That was always from Grossinger’s, in the Catskills. I remember when the record was just over ten, I believe it was twelve or so. Ultimately it went up to fourteen, fifteen, sixteen or… And if you crashed… The barrels were made out of cardboard, so the pain was lessened, but you still crashed on ice.

Another sport featured on “Wide World of Sports” was drag racing. Always from Southern California. California was exotic back then, no one saw a need to put it down, and being three hours behind the time, many people in business did not even think of it. But if you were a youngster, you had the Beach Boys, and the beach, and the girls on it, and drag racing…it was where you wanted to go and many did, for the freedom it promised, before freedom had different connotations and we started to argue over it. And one of the drag racing stars was Don “Big Daddy” Garlits. I never forgot him, who could forget that name, in an era where nicknames were prominent, like “Moose” Skowron, never mind Rattfink.

Who were these guys who built their own cars with the goal just to go fast for a quarter mile? You’d watch the different categories, gain knowledge that no one has today, in an era of specialization. This is stuff we were exposed to at a young age, Top Fuel, Funny Cars…not that I could ever figure out which one was faster, after all you got limited exposure, only on Saturday afternoons.

And the host was one Jim McKay. It took a decade for us to find out his real last name was “McManus,” how would we know? But McKay ran herd over the entire enterprise, he was our trusted authority.

Of course as time went by more people became aware of McKay, he hosted the Olympics, but the Olympics back then had a fraction of the mindshare they do today, the winter games only lasted a week, and no one got rich, not even the networks, exploitation really began in the seventies, when ballparks lost their original monikers and players started to do huge endorsement deals.

In other words, back in the sixties, in the days of “Wide World of Sports,” you can argue that life was quaint, one thing you can say for sure, we were always on the same page.

You cannot say that today.

2

What changed? Well, definitely there was the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, but in truth there was an explosion of options, first pay cable with HBO and then further premium channels as well as basic cable outlets and to think that Bruce Springsteen complained that there were only fifty seven channels and nothing on, talk about a dated view, today there are hundreds of channels, never mind streaming outlets, and people have so much to watch that many are cutting the cord, they can live quite easily without those hundreds of cable channels, they’ve got enough options.

Let’s see what else changed.

Well, instead of love your brother it became about getting rich. Taxes dropped, income inequality soared, and in the nineties it looked like everybody was winning until…

The century turned. That’s when things got bad.

It started with 9/11. It happened on American soil, the generation alive and aware back then is still not over it. And then the war. And then the 2008 crash.

Suddenly people realized there were winners and losers, and if you were a loser, it had to be somebody else’s fault. And now there were numerous outlets to reinforce that notion. That someone stole your job, the immigrants… And foreign nations were ripe for abuse too. They took the jobs. Meanwhile, Americans would switch loyalties for one dollar. Look at airline tickets. To the point where you can buy a no-frills ticket, you can’t even bring carry-on luggage, and people who buy these tickets always complain when they’re confronted with the rules, how were they supposed to know, it’s unfair! And one can criticize them for their ignorance, but the truth is we’re constantly confronted with boilerplate and no one can be an expert on everything, and no one can sacrifice, make that the 28th Amendment. No one can lose their job, no technology can cause them to go out of business, no one can make less money as the future marches on. Of course this is untrue, but people believe this, especially those in power.

So let’s say you had a job working with your hands. Most of those were shipped overseas, you can only get a service gig, retraining was a joke, and you made much less and your lifestyle took a nosedive. But as for personal impact by outside forces…it wasn’t like an immigrant was taking your job, but immigrants did have jobs, even illegal immigrants, so therefore it must be affecting your job, because of the trickle down effect, just like with taxes.

Now the truth is a lot of the jobs immigrants do citizens do not want to. Like picking grapes, it’s back-breaking work. But you read about those foreigners getting jobs in Silicon Valley, high-salaried ones, and you must be paying the price for that, you have to be. Furthermore, those who were supporting this way of life became the enemy, they weren’t Americans, there became this myth about “real Americans,” who worked hard, never got divorced, went to church, didn’t do drugs and…few of these people exist, on either end of the political spectrum.

So what we ended up with was a divide.

3

I’d like to see Big Daddy’s proof that Trump won. This is like that “Catfish” show on MTV. Let me see, a movie star is interested in dating me, even though I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Some things just make you laugh on the surface. But in a world where everybody should get paid as an artist and a reality TV star becomes president, everyone believes they know everything and are entitled to an opinion. As for others’ contrasting opinions, they’re inherently wrong. This is America’s new sport, the divide between the believers, the political parties, not football, although they learned the game from football, it’s dirty and violent and people cheat but it’s all about winning.

Yesterday, Black people and liberals were thrilled that Chauvin was convicted. However, if you dialed in Fox, just the opposite happened. The debate was framed as pro or con police. There’s not a single American who believes there should be no police, but somehow nearly half the country believes people are saying this. It’s become an issue of semantics, catchphrases, Frank Luntz realized it was all in how you labeled it, “Death Taxes” bad, “Estate Taxes” not so much, so let’s change the term and the perception.

If you go to Fox News on your phone right now, you’ll find the Chauvin trial takes a back seat to stories about liberal media, and AOC and Hollywood and… As for Chauvin, all the stories are not about the conviction, but the penumbra, that the left just isn’t satisfied.

There are some Chauvin headlines on the sides of the page if you’re using your desktop browser, but if you’re on your phone the only relevant story is about how Pelosi handled Maxine Waters’s “revolting” remarks.

In other words, the Chauvin trial is already in the rearview mirror in the Fox News bubble. It’s back to belittling the left ad infinitum.

Note, the right is playing this game quite well, but it doesn’t have its own agenda, other than a return to the past. And while we’re at it, why don’t we get rid of music streaming, electric automobiles, smartphones… You can’t go back, it’s impossible. As for manufacturing in America… Are you willing to pay two grand for a basic flat screen? Five grand for a laptop?

4

Tucker Carlson has gotten a beating in the press. But the press is now wrong unless you agree with it, the right has eliminated the “New York Times” and “Washington Post,” they’re biased and must be ignored. Carlson employs the replacement theory, an anti-Semitic trope, and when criticized for it, by the Anti-Defamation League and more, he doubles down.

But it’s bigger than Carlson. The constant blowback is about moving the goal posts, most recently voting restrictions. Donald Trump said there was voter fraud and he truly won the election and even Big Daddy Garlits believes it!

Yes, look at the maps. Chances are you live in a bubble, you only hear your own opinion repeated to you. As for those who feel differently, they’ve been excised from your life. Or they say they don’t want to talk politics, but when you scratch the surface they support Trump, because it’s good for their pocketbook.

This is America today. Yes, the police are killing Black people in the street, but almost half the country is laboring under reinforced falsehoods seen as facts that the police are innocent and the problem is with the protesters and you might read about it but you never experience it and then you get an e-mail from Big Daddy Garlits.

Words have consequences, as does spin. They call it America, but it’s really two different countries. One that believes we’re all in it together and another that is on high alert for impingement upon their “freedoms.” Hell, people refuse to get vaccinated? God, vaccines were the breakthrough of the twentieth century, can you say POLIO? Would these same people refuse to get a polio shot? Hell, they’re refusing to get a measles vaccination, the crackpots on the left too, who are so rich and educated that they believe they can create science, that they can bend facts, that the rules don’t apply to them, to the point where measles have returned from the brink. As for getting a shot for the good of others? Screw others.

So no one really knows what is going on in the other camp, or just doesn’t believe it. Believe that people think Trump won, just ask Big Daddy.

But the truth is the right is in lockstep sans agenda other than to thwart all Democratic legislation because… Because why? The public loves Obamacare, loves the stimulus bill and the infrastructure bill too. Why are Republican elected officials against it? Because politics is now a team sport. Even worse, facts are fungible. January 6th has been redefined, people didn’t die, the protesters weren’t violent, and really it was an antifa plot. Seems ridiculous, but history is being rewritten as I write this.

I just want to make you aware of it.

Rust never sleeps.

Never mind the undermining of truth by the right wing news outlets.

And why is this done? For power, for people like Murdoch, even though the rank and file are told it is being done for them as they vote against their interests.

It’s true. All those people who believe the election was stolen from Trump and more.

Just ask Big Daddy.