Out Here in the Middle

While talking with my friend Ron as he drove through Nebraska, I quoted him a James McMurtry song: “Out here in the middle where the buffalo roam/we're putting up towers for your cell phones.” If you don’t know how that sounds and can't place it within his critique of politics in "flyover country," stop what …

P.S: Another Note to My Senators

Reading my news feeds today, two things struck me as noteworthy and somewhat related to this and this recent posts. First, amid the current stress on "When will Trump loyalists acknowledge that he lost?" -- and that refusing to acknowledge it means at minimum flirting with complicity in, if not actively fomenting, a literal fascist …

Attempting to Talk to My Republican Senator

Counting my home in East Tennessee and a small summer cabin in Wisconsin in an old pasture where my Mom grew up, I have four Senators and two Congressional Representatives. By extension I have skin in the game in one swing state (where I wish I could vote) and another state that one day might …

Another Day in America

"Ah, America. We saw it. We tipped it over, and then we sold it." One of many unforgettable lines burned into my soul by this Laurie Anderson song from Homeland. Here's another: "And you, who can be silent in four languages; your silence will be considered your consent." That one tells the actual story of today's …

12 (plus 1) Songs for Christmas: “When You Go Down” and “Starting Over”

"When you go down, all the children will sing. When you go down, the bells of freedom will ring. One two three four five six seven. John Lewis is gonna shout from heaven....When you go down." I've featured this before, but this is definitely the song we need for today. Thanks, grassroots Georgia organizers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCKoNBDpPRk …

12 Songs for Christmas: I Got So High That I Saw Jesus

 Little by little, I have come to a realization that (as a commentator on a youtube thread articulated it) “Holy shit, I think I’m a Miley Cyrus fan.”  It’s been a long time coming, and by no means implies interest in everything she’s ever done. If you think this sounds absurd, click on this link, …

12 Songs for Christmas: Dejlig Er Jorden (Beautiful is the Earth)

I created not just one new song, as we've already discussed, but two new lyrics inspired by a Christmas concert by Harald Haugaard and Helene Blum. Both are rough translations—or loose paraphrases—that allow us to sing great Danish music in English. The second one is on deck today. It extends my recent train of thought …

12 Songs for Christmas: Heavy Balloon

I said that my “12 Songs for Christmas” would be unranked. But that is with an asterisk because there is zero doubt in my mind about the album of the year—and with clear separation from everything else I've heard.   For a change this is by consensus—pretty much all the critics agree. I was getting …

12 Songs for Christmas: Christmas in Washington

“It’s Christmas time in Washington, and the Democrats rehearse. Getting into gear for [an upcoming] year of things not getting worse. Republicans drink whiskey neat and thank their lucky stars. [Thanks to Senate minority rule, with Wyoming voters weighing 68 times more than Californians] There’ll be no more FDRs.” So said Steve Earle, more or less, …

12 Songs for Christmas: Kanye’s Christmas Opera

A year ago, Kanye West was in the news because he had premiered a high-concept and well-publicized Christmas “opera” at Lincoln Center. I wrote about it then, and today I am bringing this earlier reflection back so that people have another chance to find it. I do this, in part, because of how interestingly this …

A Lament for How We Live Now

Recently I asked my dentist—with whom I have made small talk about teeth and sports teams for years—how long he thought it would take his office to get back to normal in light of the COVID vaccines that are rolling out.  He responded with a bitter tirade about how things might be OK fairly soon…. …