Covid is killing the theatres, not only for movies but for live shows. And it’s only going to get worse.

I’m sure you’re aware by now that Regal Cinemas have closed in the U.S. Concert venues are already closed. What can open them up? THE DECIMATION OF COVID-19!

The people are too afraid to go out. Forget the vocal minority, there are not enough people willing to flout mask and other prophylactic measures to keep the economy alive, the rest of us are just afraid. You can open it but they will not come, no way.

So, the movie studios are holding back pictures, they don’t want to lose their investment.

And it’s not only live business that has been decimated, magazines are dropping by the wayside. “Powder” and “Men’s Journal” just died and if you check your print subscription it probably says “Summer” or “Fall” or “September/October,” monthly is out the window. These publications were already challenged, with advertising moving online, but with advertisers having fewer bucks to spend and the public tightening its purse strings, somebody’s gonna get squeezed.

But you’re on your own. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. If you just had the right genes you would be a winner.

The one story you need to read today comes from the “Los Angeles Times”:

“Trump’s touting of ‘racehorse theory’ tied to eugenics and Nazis alarms Jewish leaders”

“‘You have good genes, you know that, right?’ Trump told a mostly all white crowd of supporters in Bemidji, Minn., on Sept. 18. ‘You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it? Don’t you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.'”

Talk about white nationalism, Charlottesville was amateur hour compared to this. And if you think this audience believes Black Lives Matter then you’re unaware of the militias fighting protesters, never mind the Proud Boys themselves.

Trump thinks he’s better. He truly does. We take it as a joke, but he does not.

Meanwhile, there was no ending to the movie, or a premature, unsatisfying one at best. Monday Trump went home, today “he reports no symptoms.” Assuming you can read, assuming you have the power of analysis, TRUMP REPORTED HE WAS SYMPTOM FREE, THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE WHAT THE DOCTORS BELIEVE!

Do you know anybody who’s had Covid? Been to the hospital? It never goes down this way. If they do manage to exit from a medical facility they come home broken and barely alive. But Trump believes he’s different, and so do his minions. And they’re receiving different messaging, that Covid can be whipped, even someone in the demo with a preexisting condition like Trump could conquer it no problem. Let’s all get back to work! But as I stated above, most of the public does not want to do this, rightfully so, so…

There’s a fiction on the left that this is a normal election, that the regular rules apply, when nothing could be further from the truth. As for applying the laws, the courts are now stacked with Trump appointees, how do you think that’s going to play out? So the only way Biden has a chance of beating Trump is if the election results are definitively in Joe’s favor on election day. But I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to the polls. Furthermore, in many communities, especially in ones of color, voting requires hours long waits. We can’t get tens of millions of people to vote at all, do you think they’re going to stand in the cold for a full day just to cast their insignificant ballot? Oh, we know that every vote is important, we learned that in 2000, but that was twenty years ago, the youth did not live through it.

As for the mail-in vote, Trump has already said he is not going to accept it.

So, Biden lays off the negative advertising and Trump doubles down. It’s like they’re not even playing the same game. For illustration read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers.” The white shoe law firms wouldn’t do takeovers, you needed upstarts, the Jews these firms would not employ, to get that ball rolling. The DNC is running a white shoe campaign. With “dignity.” Why not give us some truth? No, because they’re afraid of alienating someone who is gonna vote for Trump anyway. And the right is comprised of crybabies, anything they don’t like they complain about until the next crisis comes along.

But none of this is really relevant. Because Trump isn’t gonna accept the result if he loses, HE KEEPS SAYING THIS! And I ask you, when has Trump ever changed his mind, unless it was good for him? NEVER! So it’s been going Trump’s way for four years but somehow the Democrats believe we’re still living decades ago, with a modicum of decorum.
This story is starting to be reported. Trump’s authoritarian ways. The “New York Times” has published some articles, even Rachel Maddow is talking about authoritarianism now, but the a-word has not penetrated the country at large. It’s frightening. I engage with highly educated people who believe this is going to be a fair election and if we just get the vote out Biden will win and it’ll all be hunky-dory. IT’S NOT GOING TO GO DOWN THAT WAY!

And never forget, the people on television, the reporters, the anchors, and the reporters for the papers, they’re still getting paid, in some cases handsomely. They don’t know what it’s like to have no cash coming in, living on the financial edge.

But if you say all this who do you get complaints from? THE LEFT! It’s astounding, the left elite, and the party and the media are controlled by the elite, tells everybody to just shut up and get behind Biden, who can’t even fight when the lane is wide open. WHO IS GOING TO FIGHT TRUMP!

Trump is living in bizarroworld. He thinks he can debate next week. Forget his cognitive abilities, people won’t go to movie theatres, do you think everybody is willing to show up to get infected by Trump? And, the left will pull back and the right will make hay of this, that Biden is a wimp, who is afraid.

The last four days have been a lesson. That Trump defines the debate, not the left. And he makes truth. And if it’s untrue, that’s just your opinion, because facts are just opinions anyway, right?

That’s right, for days the left wing media followed Trump’s every move, the penumbra, what the doctors had to say, who would be in charge of the government if Trump had to pass the baton. But all their scenarios came to naught. Trump rose from the near-dead MORE POWERFUL THAN HE WAS BEFORE. After all, he looked Covid-19 in the eye and BEAT IT! Talk about a hero!

Give Pelosi credit, she won’t cave in to the right with a substandard stimulus bill that won’t solve most people’s problems but the truth is the Republicans keep blaming the economic crisis on her, on the left! It’s like offering ten grand for a new Mercedes-Benz, is the seller supposed to take it?

And sure, the left has commentators, but those in power, those in charge, just don’t stand up, they don’t rally the troops, they look like they’re afraid.

Schumer should say that the Democrats will give no consent in the Senate, which means no business can be done, which means Amy Coney Barrett can’t be confirmed, literally impossible. All Schumer has to do is push the button, BUT HE’S AFRAID OF ALIENATING POTENTIAL VOTERS! Come on, the right, Trump himself has no problem completely stopping the federal government, and the truth is his believers still believe. Just like the anti-Trump people are never going to vote for Joe. THERE ARE NO UNDECIDEDS!

In baseball it’s all about the data. But the DNC doesn’t believe in the data. Rachel Bitecofer says at most there are one to two percent who are undecided and it’s all about energizing the base and getting out the vote, but like Casey Stengel or some other alta kacher manager the DNC and its minions keep playing by their gut, looking at history, when the truth is you can’t win in baseball today without sabermetrics, it’s literally impossible, the game itself has changed. But these are the same people castigating tech, refusing to update their smartphones, giving crap to the voting age people on TikTok. The DNC is so invested in the past that it can be creamed by Trump. And elite boomers too. They think it’s still the last century, when that’s decades past.

You’ve got to make the public aware of Trump’s faux pas. Because public opinion must be on your side when Trump tries to steal the election. So far, all we are hearing is his side, to the point where even those on the left are susceptible to his bloviating about the flaws in mail-in ballots. Where is the concomitant story on the left? We don’t hear Joe Biden talking trash, saying every damn day that we’ve voted with absentee ballots for years with no significant problem. No, he and his handlers are just sitting on their hands, hoping and praying they can win in November.

Ain’t gonna happen folks. Do you think the man who truly believes he’s superior, who has lauded everybody from Putin to Xi to Kim Jong-un, is just gonna roll over and pass the baton? NO WAY! That’s not how they do it and that’s not how he’s gonna do it. And I hate to tell you this, but he’s got the power. Hell, why not declare martial law, and say the whole country is on lockdown and nothing can change. Sure, you can challenge him in court, but that hasn’t worked so far, the “New York Times” got the tax returns, not the system.

Trump says he feels STRONGER! Your head might be spinning, but his base believes it and since everything’s behind closed doors with a news blackout, it appears that he is, irrelevant of the truth.

Oh, that’s another thing that’s gone out the window, truth.

Vaccines are not the only way we can save our economy, return to normal life. Geofencing could do it. Requiring everybody to stay in the same place. Never mind tracking, which has helped so much in South Korea. Oh, but that’s right, we don’t want to impinge on anybody’s FREEDOMS! Meanwhile, a great percentage of Americans are afraid to leave the house. But, if they did, and wore masks, that also would go a long way towards eradicating Covid.

But NO! Biden can’t take a hard stand, can’t throw the long ball, because he’s afraid of alienating those people who are gonna vote for Trump anyway. No, you take a stand and you own it, you double-down on it, but it seems only Trump can do that today.

This election is about democracy. Believe me, those voting for Biden need no further inspiration, the horse race has been long over. But, the left needs to set the tone, get the public on its side for when the inevitable shenanigans begin in November. And if Trump concedes defeat? It’s just like war-gaming for the next virus, you prepare for the possibilities, especially the one Trump keeps telling us about over and over and over again.

We’re gonna have to fight for this country. ARE YOU WITH ME?

And the cradle will no longer rock.

That’s my favorite Van Halen song. It sounds so alive, but Eddie Van Halen isn’t.

He paid his dues. You’ve got to be a virtuoso. When no one is watching, no one is paying attention, you’re on a mission.

And then they started knocking around town. Most bands fermented in their local burb and ultimately pulled up roots and moved to Hollywood. Van Halen started here. And you could see them all the time. At clubs like the Starwood or Gazzarri’s, which never featured stars, just those on the way up or those who would never make it. The stars played the Whisky, the Troubadour, the Roxy. You went to the Starwood and Gazzarri’s to rock, to hang with like-minded people, it was a niche, and few broke out of it.

So Gene Simmons decided to pony up for a demo. We knew because we heard it on KROQ. “Runnin’ With The Devil.”

But still, Van Halen was stuck in no-man’s land. Everybody in L.A. knew them, but no one outside Tinseltown did. One wondered if their moment was gonna pass.

And it was not an act that played nicely with others. As in it didn’t always fit. Van Halen were born to be headliners. I saw them opening for Nils Lofgren at the Santa Monica Civic before the first album came out. David Lee Roth resembled no one so much as Jim Dandy, of the execrable Black Oak Arkansas. A larger than life cartoon that was playing to the back row of the arena even though we were in a theatre. As for Eddie Van Halen’s guitar, it was so loud and I was so close that it all washed over me, I didn’t get it.

Until “Van Halen II.” When the clerks at Rhino Records were testifying how great Eddie was, and they didn’t like anybody unless they were obscure, and someone playing this kind of music? It perked up my ears.

So, they were always around.

I took a class with Jim Rissmiller, he’s gone now too, about concert promotion. He brought in Noel Monk, the band’s manager at the time, and Noel filled us in on “Diver Down,” which was imminent. But it was “1984” that broke the band wide, I mean to everybody.

And David Lee Roth thought he was the act, but it was always Eddie Van Halen, always. Van Halen could continue with a new lead singer, but not without Eddie. Van Halen was one of the very few bands that could succeed at the same level with a new lead singer, that’s testimony to Van Halen’s skills. Sammy Hagar has the pipes, but look at the venues Hagar’s playing now.

But back to “1984.” It was released on New Year’s Day, when at the time no one put out any music in January whatsoever. And it dominated the airwaves. “Jump” was in the jukebox at the Rainbow, it was played over and over that spring and summer, long after it had left the airwaves.

And of course Van Halen was supercharged by MTV. But somehow they truly bridged the gap. Most of the classic rockers, those with careers before the music television service, did performance videos, where they stood still, Van Halen jumped around, to the point where Eddie had to get his hips replaced.

Actually, my favorite track on “1984” is “I’ll Wait.” That was one of the album’s breakthroughs. Not only was Eddie a star on guitar, he mastered the keys too, he could add new sounds, he wanted to grow.

And Dave went on to sing about “California Girls” as the Van Halen brothers and Michael Anthony licked their wounds and then two years later, the newly configured Van Hagar came out with “5150.”

The hit was “Why Can’t This Be Love.” The work track, the one that came out in advance. And at first it was different, you didn’t quite get it, but then you couldn’t get enough of it, you played it over and over again.

It was still the vinyl era. I bought the LP the day it came out. And it’s very good. At this point its most famous, most played cut, is “Dreams,” which could never be done with Dave, but my favorite opens the second side, “Best of Both Worlds.” It was the riff and the dynamics. From loud to understated. I tingle as I listen right now. This wasn’t pure balls to the wall, it mixed in-your-face with subtle, twisting and turning along the way.

And if you watch the video live from New Haven, not only can you see Eddie play the notes effortlessly, you see him moving in time, dancing at the front of the stage and the effect is one of pure, unmitigated joy. Isn’t that the point, to let the sound elevate your mood, to take you to heaven right here on earth?

Van Halen – Best Of Both Worlds (From “Live Without A Net” New Haven, USA 1986)

And Sammy’s manager, Ed Leffler lifted the band to new financial heights. They were true superstars. They continued while everyone else faded.

As for the ill-fated encore with Gary Cherone, let’s forget it, everyone else has.

But we can never forget what came before.

Van Halen hooked up with Ted Templeman and redid “Runnin’ With the Devil” and it was all over the radio in L.A.

Eddie Van Halen lived his life like there was no tomorrow. As did those caught up in the sound. To the point there are tons of old fans scraping by, they never expected the sound to die.

And it turned out the simple life wasn’t that simple. Once you made the record you went on the endless road, where you got high and got laid but it was never enough and you could not get off the treadmill and Eddie got further into drink to cope. It’s hard to be a hero when you’re shy and you’re not sure if people truly understand you.

As for Jamie cryin’…the bands did not want to get stuck, they were reaching for the brass ring, settling down to a traditional life was not in the cards, you made it or died trying, there was no safety net.

And Eddie could make covers his own, but it was always the originals that gripped you, you truly wanted to dance the night away. And when you did you were singing along at the top of your lungs, even if you couldn’t hear yourself, because you bonded with the sound, it was your sound, your life. We all wanted some. As for Junior’s grades…school didn’t help you in rock and roll, it was religion, not something you could learn in class, you were either bitten by the bug or you were not, and those of us who were needed heroes to put our faith in, like Eddie Van Halen.

So where have all the good times gone?

That’s what I want to know. They evaporated. Rod Stewart sold out and sang the Great American Songbook which a rock fan might have heard on the way up, but never wanted to hear again. We believed, we put our faith in you, you weren’t supposed to let us down. It was love with Van Halen. We were looking for something to fill the hole and Eddie always did.

Did Eddie finish what he started?

I guess he did, but it doesn’t feel that way. We expected him to pull through. We expected to see him on the boards again.

And Eddie forged his own path. You know if you see his original Frankenstein guitar. If you owned it you wouldn’t let it leave your bedroom, it appeared that fragile. But in Eddie’s hands not only was it solid, it emanated the elixir of life, that’s what music provides when it’s done right, and Van Halen did it right.

What can I tell you. Everybody on the inside knew Eddie was sick. But he was sick for so long it looked like he would always be with us. But now he’s not.

And Eddie had a reputation for being off-putting, but the truth was he was just gun-shy, that’s how you get when you’ve been ripped-off and pushed around so much, some people embrace stardom, others know to put it on a shelf, they know who they are, and they don’t want the accolades to change who they are.

And first and foremost Eddie Van Halen was a musician. He’d be silent and uncomfortable, but if you got him into conversation, if he trusted you, he’d light up, he’d talk a mile a minute about music, he was passionate. That’s the essence of a great artist, that passion, the quest, which has got more to do with the music than the fame, the fame is just a byproduct.

So we expect the classic rockers to die. After all, many are pushing eighty. But Eddie Van Halen came from the second generation, he didn’t make it in the sixties but the seventies, and he knew what came before, he’d digested the Beatles, unlike today’s rockers he knew about melody and song structure.

But we don’t expect anybody from the second generation to die yet, unless it’s an accident, or…

The Big C.

It knows no limits, no matter how rich you are, oftentimes no matter how healthy you eat and live, it can still get you, it can still bite you in the ass.

Now one of the great things about being a musician is if you do it right your work sustains. And the work of so many of the bands of the seventies and eighties has already been forgotten, but not Van Halen, never Van Halen.

And there will be no more Van Halen. Without Eddie you just can’t do it, no one can replace him. Didn’t we learn that with Dave, with his revolving door of axemen? You see it isn’t solely about skill, it’s something more than that, it’s inspiration. Being able to transcend what has come before and create something new. To the point where Eddie Van Halen has a place in the same cadre of guitarists as Clapton, Page and Beck. Like Jimi Hendrix before him, Eddie Van Halen tested the limits, came up with a new sound. Suddenly everybody was tapping, trying to re-create “Eruption.” But the key is to come up with it first, to innovate, to push the envelope for the thrill of it all.

And it wasn’t only guys who were fans, but girls too, which wasn’t always the case with these bands. And Eddie married America’s sweetheart and looked like he was living the life, but life is more complicated than that.

Janie got Eddie clean. She sat him on the couch and said he was going to do rehab her way. And it stuck. But you can use all the bullets in your arsenal and still not beat the Big C.

And now I don’t want to end this. I could write about Van Halen forever. And I have, many a time.

And there’s such exuberance in tracks like “And the Cradle Will Rock…”

And such gravitas in numbers like “Love Walks In.”

It’s a conundrum. Eddie could do more than one thing, it was fascinating to follow the evolution.

But now it’s done.

But on hot summer nights to come we’ll still have that mellifluous sound of his guitar coming out of dashboards, out of earbuds. Van Halen was the sound of life, how can Eddie be dead?

I’m in shock.

Spotify

Pandora

Tune in today, October 6th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive

Now we know why we can’t have concerts.

Actually, there are a number of music business lessons here. Like news is short haul and music is long haul. In other words, it used to be about making a splash and then making hay off of it. Kinda like a movie release…bombard the public with information and get them to pay before they realize it’s crap. After all, it’s all about the Benjamins.

You think it’s all about your one big break. But the “New York Times” publishes the story of the year, an investigation of Trump’s tax returns, and it’s already in the rearview mirror. So, if you’re not in it forever, you’re better off not even starting. Because it’s a really long haul, a mighty long way down rock ‘n roll, from the Liverpool docks and chances are you’ll never make it to the Hollywood Bowl, and the only people out on parole are the poor, because the rich don’t go to jail. That’s another lesson we learned this week, the IRS admitted it doesn’t bother auditing the rich, it’s too expensive…proving once again, the government is no match for the billionaires, even the millionaires.

Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about. But the preceding all comes from Mott the Hoople’s “All the Way From Memphis”:

Spotify
YouTube

But rock is dead, and contrary to what the Who sang, we can’t say “Long Live Rock.” Why? Because it’s all been done, played out. And it’s too expensive to make. You’ve got to form a band, you’ve got to rehearse, you’ve got to write and record and keep the band together, all of which are a near impossibility, never mind creating stuff so good that you can take it on the road and start a career. Whereas with hip-hop, you can borrow some beats online, post your new ditty on TikTok and you can be a star all over the world and go back to your own little life nearly instantly. As for hip-hop, it’s rock in that it started as outside music and then was generally accepted and then morphed constantly, it’s still morphing, whereas hair band ballads just about put a stake in the heart of rock and roll but grunge came along to rescue the genre and then…nothing, it’s all over. You see what kept rock alive was the conception. The constant pushing of the envelope. No one’s doing that anymore. So, you’re another singer songwriter…well, you’d better be as good as Joni Mitchell, because we’ve seen that movie before.

But it’s not about the music anymore, it’s about the brand. Just ask Rihanna. And it’s not like a lot of these acts are even responsible for the music, that’s oftentimes old white guys in pop or studio rats in hip-hop and it’s all so soulless that when the country breaks apart music can’t deliver a believable message, because no one’s got any credibility. Except for the nobodies. They’re constantly telling you how great they are even though they almost always suck. Self-promotion…if your music doesn’t speak for itself, if it doesn’t go viral all by itself, however slowly, maybe you should look for another line of work.

And speaking of work, the government can’t save the concert industry because the right and the left can’t agree on a number, a package to save the starving. Once again, you’ve got to be rich to get paid. And you’ve got to play both sides. If you don’t give money to the Republicans, they’re gonna give you the shiv down the line.

And that’s another weird thing about this Covid era, how so many musicians are out of their minds. Like Van Morrison.

I guess what we’ve learned is the music didn’t inform the populace but vice versa back then. What I really mean is the musicians were influenced by what was happening in society and then they distilled the message for the masses, they didn’t come up with the ideas themselves. So, in this mercenary culture what other message do you expect “artists” to come up with?

But everybody misses shows, concerts. They keep focusing on ways to do it, they’re champing at the bit, give us our shows back.

Well, Trump had a club show in the backyard at the White House, featuring Amy Coney Barrett, and everybody got sick, especially those who went backstage, into the White House itself. Kinda like rock stars doing coke backstage and O.D.’ing back in their hotel room. It’s all a party until it’s not.

Superspreader events. You just can’t put that many people together at one time, especially not indoors, and if you’re packed together you’re not safe outdoors either. And, the more exposed you are to the virus, the more you’re infected, the worse your illness is.

But don’t let the facts get in the way of emotions.

America has no character. It failed the marshmallow test. No one can forgo for a reward down the line, they want it now, even if it means death.

Today in “Parade,” a right wing hype sheet if there ever was one, Jerry Seinfeld said he’s not going to tour until the middle of 2022. Yet, my inbox is filled with agents who keep rescheduling shows, from the fall of 2020 to the late winter/early spring of 2021 and then to the summer of 2021. It’s all busy work, making these people believe they’re important when the truth is they’re better off disconnecting from the internet and contemplating the world and their place in it and how they’re gonna fix it. But no, if you believe it’s true, it’s gonna happen. Just like Trump believing he couldn’t get infected, look how that turned out.

Which brings us to credibility. No one in America’s got any anymore. That’s the story of the weekend, how you can’t believe what the doctors and the White House say, and Trump is parading around like he’s Putin, giving a false image of his superiority, togetherness and imperviousness. You can’t beat Covid on pure intention.

Then again, everybody in America is an optimist and no one wants to do the hard work.

And the left believes this is the nail in the coffin of Trump’s campaign.

But if you go to Fox, and I do, you’ll learn that the fault is the Democrats, and both the NYT and WaPo have done stories how the Republican base does not blame Trump and still doesn’t see a need for masks. That’s right, up is down and down is up, welcome to Eastern Europe!

And all of this is out of the authoritarian handbook, but no one in America has ever seen it so they think with their will and intent they can defeat Trump. No way, that’s not the solution. He’s not going quietly. Did you read Sunday’s “New York Times Magazine” on the right’s voter suppression campaign of decades?

The Attack on Voting in the 2020 Elections

It went live five days ago online, not a single person has e-mailed me about it. I read it from beginning to end and I can’t say it’s riveting but with all the facts together it’s overwhelming, how the right suppresses the vote, and the governor of Texas does it right before our eyes and gets away with it. As for DeJoy, he told the judge he can’t put back the sorting machines because they’ve been stripped for parts. In other words, even the law can’t help you. As for Amy Coney Barrett and textualism, I point you to this opinion piece in the “Los Angeles Times,” and you should read it:

“Op-Ed: Why Judge Barrett’s legal philosophy is deeply antidemocratic”

That’s right, I subscribe to four newspapers as well as Apple News as well as combing Twitter and I don’t know about you, but the last 72 hours all I’ve been doing is checking my newsfeed. It’s kinda like the Kennedy assassination or 9/11, it’s stopped the world cold, we want to know more. Then again, if you’re getting your news from TV you’re only getting a sliver. But America has forgotten how to read, or never learned, so most people are uninformed…but there’s so much to know!

And Trump getting Covid is also representative of the public and the government, there’s no preparation for a rainy day, no scouting of the possibilities and preparing for them. Then again, no one wants to pay any taxes to fund the government and the IRS and the CDC…oops, that’s another organization that’s fallen by the wayside, probably never to be resuscitated, like lawyers after Watergate.

And Trump’s totally right, if you’re a believer you’re gonna be sick of so much winning. That’s right, it’s been going his way, facilitated by Bill Barr and the rest of the Donald’s cronies. You may be losing, but they don’t care about you. Did you catch that segment from last night’s South Carolina debate? Where Harrison trumped the divisive Graham by saying that whomever wins must work with the other side for the benefit of all of the people? Probably not, if you know anything at all about the debate it’s about the plexiglass shield, the campaign is all about the penumbra as opposed to the issues, Fox makes it that way.

As for Biden and the left refusing to go negative…do you really think the right would do this if Biden got sick? OF COURSE NOT! But the left is afraid of alienating Trump’s core, the only ones who will take offense, and then the Democrats will become defensive, like Hillary did with the deplorables. Aren’t you supposed to make hay while the sun shines (using that farm metaphor for the second time in this screed)? Trump’s ill, if you’re not going to focus on his mishandling of the virus when are you, this is the best time!

And we still don’t have a plan for the virus.

And Cam Newton gets Covid but somehow college football players will not.

This is the best movie of my lifetime. I’m addicted. And so is America.

But the worst thing is we’re paying for it, not only with our cash but in some cases our lives.

But since the internet flattened distribution, despite the cries of the hypesters, the big are no longer as big and falsehood reigns and give Trump credit, even in the hospital he’s making news, he’s dominating the discussion, there’s no air for Biden or anybody else, never mind entertainers. Trump rode modern communications to victory once, he knows the game and the left still does not. And the truth is people are truly suffering, and Trump is giving them a scapegoat, many, from immigrants to China to Ilhan Omar…the Donald is appealing to the oppressed and claiming to be the most oppressed of all! Can you believe it, the president is the most oppressed person in America? What next…oh, wait a minute, everybody says they’re oppressed, even Katy Perry, I guess he does speak for America.

So how are we gonna turn this ship around?

A ton of sacrifice, imposed by a leader.

But we don’t have anyone with brains who has captured the imagination of the public and can carry the flag to the finish line.

So, tomorrow there will be a whole new set of facts. And we’ll argue them but the truth is Trump is leading and we’re reacting and nothing he does alienates his hard core and the right is rigging the election through voter suppression and all of this is happening in plain sight.

Scary.