What Are We So Worried About?

All the headlines today paint a picture of a US that is worried, under extreme stress, anxious, and emotionally destroyed. I wonder why is that? Could it be that both candidates are making threats and unleashing dark, violent rhetoric? I think that’s what the New York Times is implying here.

Or it all our stress be due to one of the candidates? Let’s think this one over.

Isn’t is just one side that ruins our mental health? Think. Which party has been fucking with us for most of our lives?

Surely the stress is not being caused by both sides. It’s one side. Since 1980 it has always been one side.

Are we worried what Kamala Harris will do should she win, as the exit polls suggest? Is she going to have her rivals assassinated? Is she going to broadcast social media posts at five in the morning, ranting about how she didn’t look her best in an interview? She will go off on some White House leak that she privately insults Americans, has to be shown pictures rather than words, or has to have two scoops of vanilla ice cream before burrowing into the White House residence for 8 hours a night? And if she has a bad day, would she throw items against the walls, stuff her personal toilet with printed classified materials, and just rant endlessly on X?

Trump once posted 52 times on X in a single 24-hour period. Now tell me where the stress is coming from and what this nation is worried about.

Putting Great Bands To Bed

Throughout most of my life, I have valued studio recordings over live performances when it comes to music. Really good bands will take their time crafting studio recordings as those serve as the reference when discussing an album or song. And given when I was born, this makes sense. The Beatles became a better band when they stopped touring. That is, their albums got a lot better, in my opinion. Some other bands, like Genesis, made great albums with the limited time and resources they had, but were even better live, as they refined their performances and impressed audiences through not just delivering complex compositions, but building and improving upon the studio recordings. And the more I think about it, the best live bands were those that exceeded the expectations of matching the sound of their records. That includes Queen, The Police, King Crimson, Rush, Tool, Radiohead, Talking Heads, Pink Floyd, and for short periods, R.E.M., Living Colour, Fleetwood Mac and U2, among many others.

The commonality here is that these are all bands, an increasingly rare sight on the mainstream pop charts. The world still has a lot of great bands, most of them in indie rock and international rock. Live shows restarted in 2021. I’ll set aside the fact that in 2021 and today, we’re still in a single, active pandemic. The restart of live shows made performance revenue bigger than ever for artists, and the pent-up demand of audiences to see their favorite acts -some for the final time- pushed ticket prices to new highs.

For the most past, I paused going to individual live shows from roughly 2004 to 2007. That was a long time when I was still young. I remember seeing Peter Gabriel’s Up tour at Madison Square Garden in 2002 and then Genesis’ Turn It On Again tour at Hartford in 2007. I sisn’t see another MSG show until George Michael did his last US arena tour in 2008 (the 25 Live tour).

I didn’t realize it at the time but I had put George Michael to bed. That was the start of this project that I’m now documenting.

My next big MSG shows were Prince’s massive greatest hits shows, the Welcome2America tour, in December 2010 and February 2011.

I had put Prince to bed. Again, I didn’t know it

Then I mostly switched from arena and theater shows in favor of festivals. I stopped going to New York City venues like Irving Plaza, Webster Hall and Bowery Ballroom. I started going to the Newport Folk Festival each July. And I would only go to a club or theater show to see artists I had seen at Newport like Glen Hansard, L.A. Salami, Khruangbin, and Yola.

Then I went though another adjustment in my relationship with live music. I started going to small shows again, provided the band or artist was really special and meaningful to me and/or my partner. In May 2018 I saw Editors at Irving Plaza. A year later, I saw Killing Joke at Saint Vitus, which just might be the most special small show I’ll ever see. It is also the last time I’ll ever see Killing Joke, as sounding guitarist Geordie Walker passed away just over 4 years later. So Killing Joke was been put to bed in 2023.

Then the pandemic started. After about 15 months, bands and artists started to tour again. They went into a new landscape of more audience demand, higher ticket prices, and more of a need to make money performing live than ever before. By the end of 2021, I decided to go see some important shows. I had to choose indoor shows carefully, and wear protection to the ones I attended.

First up was Genesis’ penultimate show in the United States, at Boston’s TD Garden. They played on December 15 2021. Delayed by at least a year, it was the most expensive concert ticket I ever bought. And it was somehow worth it. I got to say goodbye to Genesis, and they played Dutchess. I wept. My friend and I were masked.

Just a few weeks later, on February 19 2022, I went back to TD Garden to see Tool. Same friend. Closer seats. And my gawd they were amazing. I know I will see Tool probably one last time. But I’m including this here to show just how many great bands hit the road as soon as they were able. Live music had a boom once venues reopened.

After Tool, my concerts have been almost all outdoors. I transitioned into an outdoor venue concert goer. and since the Summer of 2022, I have gone hard. I was already an occasional festival attendee. But I can see myself going to outdoor shows and festivals very regularly for the next 10 years. Maybe longer.

I kicked off my ‘outdoor era’ of live shows with one that was delayed nearly 2 full years, which was Deftones at Pier 17. It was downright intimate. Just me and 4,000 other fans dressed in black took in a great set that included Royal. Yeah. That was my first Deftones show. My summer of 2022 then took me and my partner to Jones Beach Amphitheater. We saw Garbage, Tears for Fears, Berlin, Howard Jones and Culture Club, with its three primary members. All put to bed! (Well, Tears For Fears might not be finished yet.)

Then it was on to the summer of 2023, and I put Duran Duran to bed at the Minnesota State Fair.

And then this summer, I saw Joan Jett and the Blackhearts for the first and final time, as they opened for Alanis Morrissette. Jane’s Addiction imploded two nights after playing Pier 17, putting themselves to bed. And that in turn ended Love And Rockets, the great band that was opening for them! And I would have put Massive Attack to bed last week, but they canceled all of their US shows!

My next indoor show is another bedtime opportunity. Deftones are going on their very first, and probably last headlining arena tour. Stay tuned. I plan to review their Boston show next spring and compare it to their Pier 17 show from 2022.

Newcastle United: How Is Eddie Howe's System Doing?

Newcastle United have started their third full season with Eddie Howe as manager. I’ve now watched Howe lead the team to victory in over 50 matches. I have seen what works and what needs improvement. And while I am not a good football analyst by any means, Howe’s style, tactics, and his wear and tear on the squad are now apparent. So after 18 months of not writing about Newcastle United, it’s time for me to briefly share what I think about the Eddie Howe era.

Under Eddie Howe’s leadership, Newcastle United is a team that plays HARD. They don’t over-perform. If they truly over-performed, they would advance to the knockout state of the Champions League last season (although they nearly did). Ten years ago, we Newcastle fans were sad, just wishing for a team that tried. Now we have a team that plays very hard. Last season, I think that led to too many injuries.

Now Newcastle find themselves starting a season that demands they finish in the top four, or at least the top six. That’s a tremendous amount of pressure. Oh, and they have to do it with a rotation of defenders and right wingers because their last summer transfer window focused on regulation-mandated sales. They acquired one very good left back / center back in Lloyd Kelly. And that was it.

The results have really been all over the place, as Newcastle have displayed an unsustainable mixture of poor passing. defensive mistakes and an offence essentially led by three players, Alexander Isak, Anthony Gordon and Harvey Barnes.

I used to think that Eddie Howe has a system, and he just forces his players to fit into that system. But in most matches this season, I don’t think Howe has been sure of who he wants to start. The system has not been fully enforced. Howe’s system demands speed, intensity and full use of the sidelines up and town the pitch. That’s not possible with a low pass completions rate, as we’ve seen in the first month of this season. It’s also not possible if the squad can’t run as fast as they did in the previous two seasons.

In order for Howe’s system to be enforced, it needs to be sustainable and the players need to be fit. We’re starting to see fitness levels rise in the last two matches against Manchester City and Wimbledon. We need to see a trend. But two objectively solid performances matches is a start.

Goodbye, Eric Adams

Eric Adams is much closer to the end of his time as New York City mayor than he is from the beginning. On day 987 of his term, he lost the lead lawyer he retained, -at taxpayer expense- to defend him from at least 3 legal cases. It was a Saturday night resignation. He’s indefensible.

What triggered this resignation is two-fold. First, a lawyer will fire themselves if they feel they cannot honestly defend their client. Second, what has made defending Adams impossible is the mayor’s refusal to separate himself from his criminal friends and employees. Eric Adams is loyal to the people who are going to get him indicted.

And that indictment appears to be coming soon. Now that the DOJ has multiple devices from multiple top level City Hall officials, including the mayor, the criminal investigations have accelerated. How soon Adams is indicted and with what charges now depend on what data is on his devices as well as the digital devices of 5 other people.

Is Adams an illegal lobbyist for the nation of Türkiye, as I strongly believe he is? Was he involved in any of the bribery and kickback schemes that have been uncovered in the fields of fire code inspection, club and restaurant inspection, COVID testing, migrant sheltering or school lunches?

The DOJ doesn’t apply the brakes when it comes to indicting elected officials at the state or city level. Next year is Adams’ re-election campaign. But he might be indicted well before the June 2025 primary. I think Adams is done. With this many scandals and so many devices seized, it’s just a matter of time before the US Attorney in the busiest DOJ district strikes.

What’s more, no one is defending Eric Adams. No one is falsely claiming that he’s being targeted by President Biden or the DOJ. We’re at the point now that no one will be surprised if he’s indicted. Part of that is due to reckless leaking from the FBI. But part of that is also due to the fact that Adams is the least popular mayor in the post Tammany Hall period. Eric Adams is only the 12th freely elected mayor since the collapse of Tammany Hall. He’s the least liked, the least effective, and soon I think, the second-most criminally charged New York City Mayor since World War 2.

Let This Be The Final Trump August

By my count, we have had 7 Trump Augusts. The criteria is simple. First, it has to be August. Second, he has to be all over the news. He took a break in 2021 and stayed out of the news that August. The last two Trump Augusts while he was president were traumatic - 2019 and 2020. And August 2017 gave us Charlottesville!

August plus Donald Trump equals rally bad news, as he would say. Really bad news.

Trump is having another catastrophic month of August in 2024. He isn’t in office, of course, but the man is a geyser of gasoline again in the public spotlight. And this time, he could set himself on fire.

Trump’s worst Augusts were those as the sitting president: 2017, 2019 and 2020. This time, he is back as the GOP nominee for president for a record third time. His party can’t get enough of him. And for a couple of years, it appeared he was destined to become president again. Biden was so unpopular, Trump was simply leading the polls by default. I mean, look at Biden’s Gallup approval numbers. There was no way Biden was going to surge back to 50% popularity to beat Trump. And any Democrat who tells you otherwise is not worth having as an acquaintance or friend. Burn some bridges this fall. The Democrats who yelled at you for 3 years to vote Biden no matter what were both (1) wrong, and (2) fucking idiots.

View fullsize

But now it appears the American public has swung back to rejecting Donald Trump for the first time since 2021. Holy shit! All the Democrats really had to do was switch to an opponent younger than Trump. No small feat, but look at Trump’s response. Trump is having such a dramatic meltdown, he just might guarantee the election result from here. Trump can never recover from disasters. He can never “pivot,” or change his tone (ha!). Trump is fucked.

Let’s acknowledge that the near assassination of Donald Trump had no effect on the US public. There was no outpouring of support. There was no show of national unity. People don’t reflect on what happened on July 13 2024. It feels like years ago, doesn’t it? I’ve seen no ‘7/13 Never Forget’ posters or memes. I’ve seen no Democrats reminding each other to go easy on Donald Trump. The days of going easy on this man are well over. And the vast majority of Americans don’t care about Trump’s well being. How do you like that?

I like that. As Robert De Niro might say, fuck this guy.

Donald Trump is hosing gasoline everywhere, and he’s getting himself wet with it. He’s gone a little wild, even by his standards. His campaign can’t control him. He cannot delay his sentencing in his Manhattan financial crime case. It’s only matter of time before he starts calling Kamala Harris a “bitch” in public, as he has long done in private. He’s going to let it loose.

All it takes is a few good writers to land some nationally-televised zingers at Trump at the Democratic National Convention, and the man might go up in flames. It’s past time this happened. There are whispers it finally might.

I don’t mean literally, of course. I mean that Trump would become so enraged, so out of control, that he would lash out at everyone. His campaign staff. His allies in Congress. JD Vance (let’s face it, Trump should have chosen Kristi Noem). Nikki Haley, who won’t shut the fuck up tying to be Trump’s coach (shut the fuck up, Nikki).

Trump is going to show us just how explosive an old man from Queens New York can be for the next 11 weeks. Just 11 weeks! These 11 weeks are going to fly. And they will be hot. Don’t get burned! Just beat this guy one last time.

Harris Takes The Wheel While Trump Breaks Down

A driver change. That’s all it took.

This has made Trump even more miserable. His campaign management in 2024 is the weakest it has ever been in his three campaigns. Not only can they not control their candidate, the stress is destroying them. Good.

Goodbye, Joe

I've been explaining to my fellow Democrats the reasons Biden must resign and/or drop out of the presidential race. It's a hard truth. Biden has to run faster and get his approval numbers up by at least 6 points. He’s at 40%. Trump is at 45%. Biden has to surge, but he can't. His party has been waiting for a surge since his decent State of the Union address. The surge is not coming.

The responses I get range from anger, to allegations that I'm a GOP troll. Do we think oncologists get such angry denials when they break news to patients that their cancer is most likely terminal? Breaking bad news is difficult. Accepting it is difficult. I’m glad giving people live changing, shattering news is not part of my job.

While I am here, I have a few more ways to describe Joe Biden’s chronic low approval rating problem.

Joe Biden is like an under-powered or broken automobile. The car not only has to catch-up to Donald Trump, it has to do so while driving uphill. It just can’t.

View fullsize

Joe Biden taking the “long stairs” down from Air Force Once, March 28 2023. Look at younger Joe go!

Joe Biden is the starting pitcher who needs to be taken out of the game so the relief pitcher and closer can secure the win. This one came from Congressman Jamie Raskin, who I admire. But I just realized now that it’s not clear what the game represents. Is the game his first term? Is it the rest of our time as a republic? What happens at the end of the game? Maybe that’s not a good one.

A tag team wrestling match. Joe is beat. He needs to tag out. But can he reach the ropes?

Can. He. Make. One. Last. Leap. To. The. Ropes. And. Tag. Harris. In?

Just pass the torch, Joe. Do it tonight!

Multiple Things Can Be True At The Same Time

We're surrounded by idiots who can't get their little brains to comprehend that all of the following are true:

1. Joe Biden clearly didn't have the fuel in the tank to go two terms, let alone mount a media surge, claw back to 50% approval, campaign, get re-elected, and then serve 4 more years. Obama did that! We could see by the fall of 2021 that Biden was losing steam and support as the public saw him less and less often. The story of the Biden term is a president who slowly faded in every measurable way. With the exception of enabling Israel. That surged.

2. Donald Trump and the GOP are evil. The next Republican who takes the White House will rule as an autocrat and not let go of the office.

3. The New York Times is shit.

All of this is true. I don't have tolerance for people who re-post whatever Aaron Rupar or that sponsored influencer BooklynDad says. Over at Mastodon, I can easily tell who not to follow. If they boost Rupar, or whoever the hell GottaLaff is, that's a big NO.

They're Talking Extrajudicial

The Republicans cry that Democrats are prosecuting them illegally. Therefore, the Republicans argue, they must retaliate with illegal prosecutions AND political violence, just to make that response overwhelming. The Democrats are an enemy of the state, they argue, so they must physically attack this threat. I’d call that projection.

I wonder what Federal and State judges think about this.

In normal times, legal revenge wasn't possible without evidence and the actions of judges. Maybe we should adjust our perception and realize that because no judge would allow a lawmaker to be prosecuted for rightly investigating trump, maybe the "revenge" the fascist Republicans are talking about is physical violence. And by that, I mean extrajudicial violence. "Oh, they are just using violent rhetoric to motivate their base," the media will say. I disagree. The GOP has gone so far down this violent path since 2015, that they are unrecognizable as the party of family values and children. This is not the party that recruited Whitney Houston to sing the national anthem in 1991. This is the party of bloodshed, destabilization and possibly murder. Political assassinations. Pinochet knew he could terrorize Chile by just murdering the right influencers. Same with the GOP? So they have a list? You bet they do.

Will A Weak Donald Trump Defeat An Even Weaker Joe Biden?

Over the 17 years I have run this tiny blog, I have been a doomer. It isn’t some outlier opinion. I knew when I started that I would be documenting the hell that is the 21st Century.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump are confirmed for their 2020 rematch. The presidential campaign, now underway, will probably be the worst in US history. This campaign is already the longest. It started in 2022 when Trump announced. Yeah.

In many ways, I wish this was just like the 1956 rematch between Ike and Stevenson. Eisenhower cruised to victory. Stability and conformity prevailed. But these are not stable times. Joe Biden should be leading Trump by 10 points. Instead, he and Trump are tied in most polls.

Biden stuck in a statistical tie with Trump is the result of a lot of poor strategy and performance by his White House. Biden has not interacted with the public. He hasn’t released videos on YouTube. It’s obvious he doesn’t write his own Tweets, although I suspect he approves them.

The refrain of this post is quite simple. Biden and the nation are in grave danger because he’s tied with Trump when he should be 10 points ahead. I will be repeating variations of this a couple of times. I apologize in advance.

As of today, both the BDS movement and abortion are more popular than President Biden. Poll history tells us he can't possibly win with approval numbers this low. I don't buy into 'history repeating itself like poetry' bullshit, with all the Gen-X journalists comparing 1968 to 2024 (I am also a proud Xer, born in '73). But this summer looks like a looming disaster for Joe and the Democrats. They made it clear that the US must prop-up Israel forever, no matter how small the benefits to the American people and no matter how many times young Americans question that policy. The Democrats have also made it clear that while they welcome Republicans and anti-abortionists to their big tent, they have zero tolerance for critics of Israel.

Joe Biden should be leading Donald Trump by 10 points. He’s not. Why?

It’s because Biden has bled too much support. All incumbent presidents lose voters between their election and re-election. We can call that a haircut (the banking term). But Joe Biden has lost significant support among key demographics. We’re talking double-digit drops with Black men, Hispanics, Asians, and voters under the age of 40. All of those drops explain why Joe Biden’s lead in New York State has dropped from 20 points to just 10. Biden will easily win New York State. But a 10 point drop in a Democratic-majority state spells big trouble for states with smaller differences in registered voters.

These drops in support are going to cost Biden key swing states. Take Georgia, for example. Voter suppression and lack of enthusiasm for Biden has swung Georgia firmly back into Trump’s column. In Arizona, Democrats outnumber Republicans, and yet Democratic Senate candidate Reuben Gallego is leading in the polls while Trump is leading Biden in Arizona. Michigan is slipping away. Incredibly, so is Nevada, again, where Democrats outnumber Republicans. My current (and very pessimistic) electoral map looks like this:

View fullsize

Biden should be the one with 280 electoral votes. Biden should be 10 points up in the polls. But he isn’t.

Sometimes I think Trump is actually weaker than Biden. Trump is unhinged, slower and older than he was in 2016. He is also a big loser. But Trump also has 70 million votes in the bag no matter how bad he is. Joe Biden needs to be great to get votes back. Trump just needs to be alive and he gets 70 million votes. Advantage, Trump.

The GOP autocracy is coming now, folks. Not 2028. It's happening now. Come up with a resistance and/or exile plan.

Joe Biden Constantly Tries To Be Ronald Reagan

In his years as president, Joe Biden has been trying to be like Ronald Reagan. He thinks he can maintain a centrist approach and not make any one side too upset or too happy. He’s trying to appeal to everyone and be likable. But you can’t be appealing if you don’t engage with the public.

Also, Ronald Reagan was not a centrist.

And you certainly can’t be appealing to your base if you making a public effort to court Nikki Haley voters.

I get strange looks from mainstream MSNBC Democrats when I point out that if Joe Biden was just a little more engaged with the 80 million who voted for him in 2020, he wouldn't be so thirsty for the weird, evil, anti-trump Republican vote. That vote is still vehemently anti-woman, anti-trans, anti-queer, and anti-worker.

Chris Murphy, arguably one of the nicest US Senators in the chamber, has tried to spin Joe’s centrist style as disappointing everyone by design. So while Reagan made most people feel good, Joe Biden makes most people feel down, and that was the plan.

You didn't have to make the strategic choice to be Ronald Reagan in the 2020s, Joe. You could have, um, listened to what voters under 40 want. They are the ones inheriting this environmental catastrophe. They are the ones who can't buy a house or apartment. They are the ones who are reporting that they are the saddest US generation since the Great Depression, while Americans over 60 are reporting they are richer and happier than ever before. Oh, but the men in that group are all voting for Trump! Great strategy, Joe.

Joe could have at least done a weekly video on YouTube. A little fireside chat for the kids who care. But Joe didn't even do that!

Look, we were all stressed out, doing drugs and committing suicide when Trump was dropping a dozen tweets a day (we're still committing suicide, see how young people are unhappy above). Joe could have found a happy medium between engaging with us and tweeting us to death. He chose to be the silent type. That doesn't help when you need to retain 80 million votes for the re-election.

Joe Biden might somehow win this election because Trump is so unhinged. But if I had to examine this as an objective outsider for the first time, I’d think Joe Biden is trying to lose. Intentionally.

Joe Biden Just Blew It

With a single, colossally bad statement, Joe Biden just unofficially lost the November election. Winning in November with a historically low approval rating is extremely difficult. It’s never been done! But his unwillingness to listen to anyone under the age of 40 dooms his chances. Young Democrats are asking good questions. They are asking why does the US prop-up Israel if all Israel does is keep Palestinians in ghettos. The answer from almost every elected Democrat is ‘shut the fuck up.’

It’s over for Joe. He knows it. At this point, I have to suspect he is simply throwing the election. He has my vote, of course. But he is going to lose. I can see it now.

I know when a president is finished. I saw it, sadly, with Jimmy Carter in the summer of 1980. I saw it again when George H.W. Bush had no answers for the far more charismatic Bill Clinton. I saw it again with Donald Trump, totally losing control of the world in the spring and summer of 2020. And I see it now happening to Joe Biden. He is not winning in November.

Today was the day that Joe Biden blew it. I cannot see him winning the election if he won't even address the needs of people under 40 years old. The youngs are concerned about the environmental catastrophe and they want a change in our relationship with Israel. Today Joe basically condemned them as if they did things far worse than set up tents and protest peacefully. He remembers Los Angeles 1992. He remembers Charlottesville 2017. But no. He condemned his own base of voters today. Joe -or perhaps I should say Brandon- is done.

Israel Has Lost The American Public

We're witnessing something incredible. Something I haven't seen since 1992 with the Rodney King verdict and the start of the Christopher Columbus reckoning. With each week, these protests feel like a watershed moment. They didn't side with Occupy Wall Street 15 years ago, but regular Democratic voters are choosing the BDS movement over Israel. Choosing to side with Israel by default is no longer the morally good position. That is incredible. To the olds in charge, that is horrifying. Kathy Hochul had better call in the National Guard, or else this movement is going to start steering her government.

The protesters have been called terrorist sympathizers, terrorists, anti-semites, and also manipulated by “outside agitators.” Well, if they are terrorists, then this nation has a serious problem as now millions of American adults support the protesters and the BDS movement. This is a sea change. In just 7 months, Israel has lost it’s moral position, it’s status as the ‘good guys’ in this war, and it has lost a lot of core support from the US public. We will see where this goes, but history tells us that once things turn like this, there is no going back. Israel’s existence as a US-backed colonial power is in question.

I Miss Mike Bloomberg

I miss Mike.

Sure, he turned this city in a dirtier Dubai - a heaven for billionaires. But he defended reproductive rights harder than any US politician since this state legalized abortion in 1970. And he took the damn subway almost daily (when he wasn't piloting his helicopter to Bermuda).

Why is Eric Adams our mayor? Why couldn't he just be a bad landlord or a terrible crypto scammer? He's that elderly boyfriend who fancies himself a new age health food nut who still possesses the fitness of a man in his mid-30s. If he also owned a Corvette, you'd know the type. Maybe some of our parents are dating that guy today.

He's just not a good person. He would be better suited as a former cop who does private security and grift on the side, like all the others. He wears a bracelet on his wrist that reads HUSTLE. That's no mindset for the top elected position in New York City.

Should I run? Or does any smart adult in New York City care to run for this job no one wants?

The Best Beer Breweries In New York State (According To Mister Sterling)

New York State is a lot of things. First off, it is a big, beautiful sate, geographically. Like Massachusetts, it has the ocean and the mountains. Being close to Canada, it potentially has more fresh water. Politically, it is a mess, full of corruption and leaders who undermine their own parties.

But briefly I will discuss something good and fun about New York State - its beer.

In my mind, New York State beer isn’t as elite as California, Colorado or Vermont (and increasingly, Australia, Japan, Iceland and Denmark). But it absolutely goes toe-to-tie with my home state of Massachusetts and its next door neighbors, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut. And as you will see from my picks below, some of the beer here in New York is exceptional and significant in craft beer culture.

View fullsize

Photo by Andpna’s, Ridgefield Connecticut

When discussing New York State breweries, it is best to start with what is arguably the most significant brew, Flower Power by Ithaca. It brought a west coast style IPA to the state. Back then, it seemed dramatically over-hopped. But it is mild compared to the hazy IPAs that followed 10 years later. Before Flower Power, the hoppiest New York beer was Brooklyn East IPA. But on the heels of Flower Power, we saw stronger ales like Bengali by Sixpoint. The race to release the next super-hoppy IPA in the northeast was officially on. And it hasn’t stopped. It needs to be acknowledged, that the contemporary era of northeast IPAs was started by Dogfish Head (from Delaware) in 2001. New York jumped into the game 3 years later with Flower Power.

View fullsize

Brooklyn has too many breweries. So much that some don’t really good breweries don’t survive, like KelSo, a maker of German and Czech style pilsners. But one has hung on on the northern tip of Greenpoint and bears the neighborhood’s name. While they survived the worst years of the pandemic, their beer selection has shifted more towards lagers and pilsners than the double IPAs and pale ales they used to make. But their quality and expertise comes through both on draft and in their cans. And they still have their kitchen in operation, which serves a great hot chicken sandwich, bratwurst and a massive 8oz burger.

View fullsize

Sloop Brewing operates in a big concrete factory building where IBM machines and semiconductors used to be made. It’s in the middle of an industrial park in East Fishkill, New York, somewhere between Poughkeepsie.and West Point. Sloop has a simple philosophy: just make hazy juice bomb IPAs. There’s no juice in these ales, though. The juicy flavors come from the genetically-modified hop varieties. They can emulate flavors like kiwi, citrus, peach, grass, and various variations of bitter hops. Whenever I see a Sloop can available at a venue, I know I immediately have a first or second choice. It’s easier to get larger volume brews in my part of Manhattan, like New Belgium. But Sloop is more popular than ever.

View fullsize

Five Boroughs Brewing Company has a diplomatic name, but they are based in Industry City, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Industry City is one of the nation’s first zoned industrial parks. The brewery is in a big, well ventilated warehouse building on 47th Street. With a wider selection than Greenpoint, I have to give the edge to Five Boroughs. They have summer and winter seasonal brews, as well as four core IPAs. I pledged my allegiance to IPAs in the early 2000s, and Five Boroughs is committed to that craft. I know the market for juicy hazy IPAs has cooled a little. But I’m sticking to the breweries that still develop them. I need to visit this taproom more often.

View fullsize

And finally, I can’t mention great New York ales without including Other Half, now in it’s 11th year. I didn’t buy into the hype and the brewery’s cult status 10 years ago when white bankers and tech bros were buying these cans by the caseload at about $4 per 16oz can. But I came around in 2017 or so when they started their local home delivery service. The ales they make are close together on the flavor spectrum. Most are New England style IPAs. Some, like All Citra Everything, are a little sweeter. Others, like Green City, are a little creamier (and they are even made with oats). And some of their best ales, like Stacks On Stacks, strike that perfect balance between bitter and juicy. All of them are hazy. All of them represent the best of New York.

What The Hell Is This?

With each week, Michigan looks more and more like a flip for Trump. That's a hole in the Blue Wall. If Biden loses Michigan and Pennsylvania, he loses the election (assuming he doesn't somehow take North Carolina). The lack of Democratic attention to college students and young people might finally cost them everything. It only takes a few upset defeats like this to ruin hundreds of millions of American lives. Assuming Trump squeaks out a victory, this would be the third time in 24 years that the winner of the popular vote -always a Democrat- loses the election. The sadness, despair and anger that we have felt since Trump took over the GOP in 2015 is going to become unbearable. How does everyone feel about the Democrats having a tiny majority in the House while Trump and the Senate pack our Federal courts to strengthen GOP minority rule? Won't it be fun? And all because the elders in the Democratic party thought it wasn't worth their time to listen to the needs to young people. Seriously. Leaders like Pelosi thought that young people would be a little upset about Gaza, but they'd get over it and vote in November. As unpopular as Biden is, I think young people would rescue him in November if there wasn't an invasion of Gaza. For now anyway, it appears Biden's embrace of Netanyahu's war crimes is the red line that causes millions of young people to abstain from voting this November. Biden barely had re-election in the bag! Now I am not sure.

Thompson Twins Sure Had Some Weak Lyrics

Well here’s a post that’s more than 40 years late to the party. I first got the idea to do this post when I saw a standup bit about Spandau Ballet’s lyrics for their massive hit song, True, sometime around 2007 when this blog started. Imagine my surprise when, decades later, I learned that Gary Kemp wrote those nonsensical lyrics as a coded love letter to one of his peers, Scottish actress and signer Clare Grogan.

So true, funny how it seems
Always in time, but never in line for dreams
Head over heels when toe to toe
This is the sound of my soul
This is the sound
I bought a ticket to the world
But now I've come back again
Why do I find it hard to write the next line?
Oh I want the truth to be said

Okay, I said. There’s an explanation as to why True has such hilariously nonsensical lyrics. Fine. Moving on.

But there’s another New Wave band I can’t quite leave unmentioned in this blog. Its name is Thompson Twins. The British music press used to refer to them as The Three Haircuts. They were helped by their style, musical connections, and crucial airtime on MTV that cemented them as a significant synth-pop band of the 1980s. And I write this knowing that there are far more influential electronic bands of the era out there, mainly from the Industrial sub-genre and also in avant garde pop, which includes A Flock Of Seagulls, a much better band that I will get to in a future post.

Wikipedia led me down quite an amazing history of the band and those they have either worked with or met. Thomas Dolby. Robin Hitchcock. Alex Sadkin (and the whole Island Records family behind him - Grace Jones, Robert Palmer, Duran Duran, Nile Rodgers, Bob Marley and his eldest son, Ziggy).

Thompson Twins had some great things going for them in 1983. They had a hit single from the previous year that people remembered called In The Name Of Love.

On the heels of that hit in 1982, they and their manager secretly worked to cut the band from 7 members to 3, and shuttled the trio of Alanah Currie, Tom Bailey and Joe Leeway to Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas to make more hit singles with legendary Island Records producer Alex Sadkin. The next three years of their lives were about to get nuts. They were going to become stars with three quick albums, music videos, hit singles on the Billboard and BBC charts and even a messy Live Aid appearance in Philadelphia with Madonna and Steve Stevens. They even added a logo by British graphic designer Andy Airfix. It looked really good and was perfectly fitted to the early 80s.

The band as we remember it was formed in London. Tom Bailey was the singer, from Halifax, West Yorkshire. And the driver of this bus, it seemed, was Alanah Currie, the blonde percussionist and writer from New Zealand. She took on most lyric duties, which I’ll get to in a bit.

I remember exactly where I was in 1983 when they released their next two singles, Lies and Love On Your Side. I was at Whitman School in Brockton finishing fourth grade. I liked what I heard and saw, since the band fit right into the new generation of synthesizer bands. I particularly liked the bands diversity and the somewhat distinctive, almost drunken bass sound. I don’t think Joseph Martin Leeway gets enough credit for his use of an upright, fretless electric bass from 1983-1986. A very similar sounding bass appears in Thomas Dolby’s She Blinded Me With Science in 1983, and interestingly, it was played by Matthew Seligman, one of the four Twins members who was let go.

So here we have a band with the right look and sound for as many singles as they can deliver for the label. They had engineering and programming help from Thomas Dolby, who had been making money in the business since 1981 on Foreigner’s fourth album (“4”). They were just missing one key thing: consistently good lyrics. That’s one of their few weaknesses, and it has irked me for years. What brought this on is the numerous times I have compared Thompson Twins to their contemporaries in the synth-pop genre, particularly A Flock Of Seagulls, who in my analysis, did a little more with a little less. So let me dive into to some weak lines.

From Hold Me Now (1984)

You say I'm a dreamer, we're two of a kind
Both of us searching for some perfect world we know we'll never find
So perhaps I should leave here
Yeah, yeah, and go far away
But you know that there's nowhere that I'd rather be than with you here today

The video, by the way, is one of the best studio-shot music videos of the 1980s, up there with Killing Joke’s Love Like Blood.

The first verse of this smash hit is actually really good, depicting a couple that has their ups and downs. But things go off the rails in the second verse. We’re dreamers, fine. And then there’s this silly empty threat to run away. ‘Just kidding! I’d never do that. The perfect world is here babe, even though I just said we’ll never find it.’ Ugh, this is messy and weak. And yet the musical composition and mix makes it one of their best songs. In fact, if they didn’t have this smash hit, their shelf life would have been a lot shorter.

Moving on. The Gap (1984)

East is east, west is west
Two different colors on the map
We say break the line, chew the fat
Keep moving out into the gap

To a degree, I like the humor in this song. It’s inspired by 1,000 Nights with a sprinkle of good ‘ol T.E. Lawrence British imperialism, and it’s not not meant to be taken seriously. But I know poor lyrics when I hear them. Often it is better to be obtuse and weird than pull off this silly path to get to the title of the song. So, wait, this really is about geography?

And finally King For A Day (1985)

If I was king for just one day
I would give it all away
I would give it all away to be with you

If I was king for just one day
I have just one thing to say
You know what love is
All we need to get us through

Ugh. This is the culprit. This is the song that throws us a false scenario (like the 'I’m leaving, just kidding’ line, from Hold Me Now) and also a direct quote of a Beatles song. Plus it gives us a list of luxurious things the singer could have if he was king, but also a declaration that if he was king, he’d give it up for his love. I can’t deal with this. I gong this song. Into the trap door it goes. I don’t think I like a single verse of this song. It sucks.

Okay, I have written a lot and I’ve taken some big swings at a synth-pop band that has poor lyrics in 3 of their big hits. That’s not so bad, considering how many other bands of the era had bigger hits with poor lyrics. I guess what bothers me is that these were hits. Howard Jones had hits, from 1983 to 1989. Jones had smarter lyrics.

Did Thompson Twins have any good songs? Why yes, they did!

While I don’t love their minor 1983 hit, We Are Detective, the lyrics are good. They make sense and don’t annoy. It’s a whimsical, comical song inspired by The Adventures of Tintin, which I didn’t know in 1983 and I still don’t know now.

What’s that? The band name is also inspired by Tintin? The Thompson Twins are twin detectives in the comic? Someone really liked Tintin.

A Thompson Twins song I really like is Love On Your Side (1983). It’s simple, but it also isn’t. There is some slick, radio-friendly channel separation at work. This song has their trademark groovy bass, that sounds a bit like the bass synth in Human League’s Don’t You Want Me (1982). It has a chanting chorus and some good synth drums. It’s a little dark and self-deprecating. It’s about a guy who just isn’t going to win the one he desires. And -bonus- it references In The Name Of Love with a quick keyboard riff! It’s one of their very best tracks. It’s almost precisely 4 minutes long. “Rap, Boy, rap!”

Doctor! Doctor! (1984) is better still! I was a big fan of Dr. Who at the time, so that only helped matters. Silly lyrics, yes. Notice how the sung words start and stop. There’s very little flow. In many Thompson Twins songs, these starts and stops draw attention to how poor the lyrics are. But Doctor! Doctor! makes sense! There are stronger harmonies and backing vocals on this one as well, plus a real, genuine synthesizer solo (featuring a Oberheim OBX, I think). The drum machine / percussion sounds are from a Prophet 5.

While weaker, and hobbled a by use of the inappropriate Oriental Riff, Lies (1983) is still a good Twins hit. It was the single that came after Love on Your Side on their first of three biggest albums. Again, a chant-like chorus carries it. And it is somewhat fun. I will always like the line “Cleopatra died for Egypt, what a waste of time.” I never saw the video for this song. It’s a wacky homage to the final scene from 2001. It is weird! Is the band both in the bed and dancing around the room?

I’m saving the best for last. Their best song is probably Lay Your Hands On Me (1985). The first recorded version was okay. It has their trademark bass and that percussion tone that I think is a Prophet 5. So it sounds like a song from their 1984 record, like Hold Me Now. But Nile Rodgers was brought in to punch it up, and punch it up he did, with a guitar, some better layering and more backing vocals. This wasn’t just a hit, it was their last great original song. And I can say that with confidence as the other singles on their 1985 album were the awful Don’t Mess With Doctor Dream, King For A Day, and their worst song, You Killed The Clown.

Can I pause for a moment and say how much I hate You Killed The Clown? I think the dislike for clowns is pretty widespread, so the title alone is a strike against the song. When I first heard the song around 2002, devouring as much New Wave music as I could, I remember questioning the meaning. Did a Debbie Downer put a stop to the fun? Did someone put a stop to comedy at a party or on a night out? Well, the lyrics suggest that someone shot down a woman who was being funny. Someone shut down the girl who was about to become the life of the party:

Draped in silk gown
She danced around
She filled this place with her smile
She was the queen
Of an Amazon dream
She made us feel for a while

Was it from spite
Or just sheer delight
You stooped so low
I wanna know
Why you killed the clown
(Yeah) You shot her down

I watch you try
Try to make that girl cry
So you could be king for just one day
And you said that her smile
Was no more than a lie
Just because she had something, something to say

Was it from spite
Or just sheer delight
You stooped so low
I wanna know
Why you killed the clown
(Yeah) You shot her down

Yeah! Why did you shoot her down? And why did you make her cry so you could be king for a day? Ah, there goes Alanah Currie, referencing another bad song on the album! This band released their most successful trio of albums between 1983 and 1985. The last of that trilogy was terrible, aside from the great Lay Your Hands On Me. But the first two are their best. That wonderful bass and Prophet 5 is prevalent in so many of their songs from this trilogy. That’s their defining sound. That bass setup is overused, perhaps, but look at what they accomplished. They made four albums (half of which were good) and delivered over 10 hit singles in under four years. They toured. They played Live Aid in Philadelphia (while their close friend Thomas Dolby played keyboards for David Bowie at Wembley). Their sound and theme was consistent. They worked themselves to utter exhaustion (as young New Wave bands do). And then when Joe Leeway left the band, they carried on as a duo for 7 long years.

In the years that followed, I paid no attention to Thompson Twins, with one big exception. Their very good dance cover of Cole Porter’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was recorded around 1989, and was included on the excellent AIDS research and activism benefit album Red Hot + Blue.

Today, the Thompson Twins carry on with just lead man Tom Bailey touring and performing, occasionally joined by Thomas Dolby. They are touring together in this summer’s Totally Tubular Festival in the US.

Trump's Life Has Been Miserable For Years Now

Donald Trump is doing something never before seen in American national politics. He’s literally running for his freedom.

I think I have remarked on this blog that Donald Trump has been thriving on stress his whole adult life. Looming lawsuits, debts, financial failure and legal trouble have long been his motivation and have taken-up a lot of his time. We are all mortal. We can’t run forever. Even Trump, 8 years after first running for the White House, has slowed down. He no longer cracks jokes. He’s no longer entertaining. He has frankly become more scary since leaving office. He is more profane in his rally speeches. Thematically, he’s an angrier and darker man, and he vowing to be a ruthless and vicious leader.

And he’s alone. He’s been stuck in his worst-ever emotional state since November 2020.

His two sons still support him, but that hasn’t changed in decades. He has no loyal wife by his side. He has no best friend. George Steinbrenner is now 13 years gone. He’s down to one sibling, Elizabeth, who doesn’t have a public profile.

He almost didn't pause for his last living brother, Robert. He said goodbye to his brother in a hospital room and was playing golf at Bedminster the next morning as Robert passed away. He then abused his office to host his brother’s funeral at the White House - the first since JFK’s nearly 57 years before. His daughter is unofficially estranged. His son-in law is his handler and unofficial campaign chief. He is unofficially separated from his wife. He's alone. And he's at his most dangerous, without a check or guardrail in sight. This is how it has been for decades. No one has ever stopped Trump.

He lost the 2020 election, you may say. I will argue, that didn’t stop him. As the man would say, “you see what’s happening.”

Democracy In Israel Is Dying

[The following post is a draft I’ve had since March 2021. Given recent events, I decided to let the draft go up. Stale content, yo.]

Democracy in Israel has been slowly dying since Netanyahu’s first tenure as Prime Minister over 25 years ago. The demise accelerated in 2021.

Israel has an unusual, but not unprecedented, democracy. Millions of people, who live and work in the country, and are subject to its laws and courts, but not graced with civil rights or political equality, find themselves trapped in an anti-democracy. I say that's not unprecedented because there were two other democracies in the 20th century which operated in much the same way. The Republic of South Africa had a vibrant democracy for whites, and brutal oppression for the majority blacks, until the 1990's. And the United States, so proudly the Land of the Free, subjected millions of its citizens of color, to segregation and an American system of apartheid until the mid 1960's.

Because of the occupation, in effect since 1967, Israel has moved farther and farther right, trading its democratic principles for security. As the decades march on, the need to oppress the Palestinians has of course made Israel less and less faithful to its founding ideals. It proves the old cliche, that one cannot keep another enslaved without ultimately enslaving oneself.

So the Israelis have reduced themselves to a miserable choice. For all practical purposes, there is no political left in the country, since leftists inevitably demand justice and equality for the Palestinians. That would put the nation on the road to real democracy, but it would surely end the dream of Israel as a Jewish state. If Israel is to be a Jewish state and not a multi-ethnic nation, it cannot be a true democracy, since that would grant the Palestinians full political and social equality.

The result is the fiction of a two-state solution. No serious student of this question believes that such a "solution" has any chance of coming to fruition. Israel has annexed more and more of the land once thought to be essential to the creation of a viable Palestine. Increasingly, there simply is no there there. And it must be remembered that even if some poor bantustan of a Palestine were somehow to emerge, Israel would never permit it real sovereignty. Palestine would not be allowed to establish a small military, or conduct an independent foreign policy, because such a state could threaten Israeli security.

Israeli politics is now played out on a small and increasingly undemocratic field. It's voters must choose between a center right party, and an extreme right wing coalition. Netanyahu, always just one step ahead of the sheriff, has managed to survive by allying with small, crypto-fascist parties, some of whom want to annex all of the West Bank and expel all non-Jews from Israel. Anyway, that's the way I see it.

Uncle Tim wrote this post.

The Republic Is Doomed

This week has me convinced that Trump is going to win in 406 days. How do I know? Our news media. They reported a surge of migrants crossing the southern border, but didn't point out that the vast majority of them were captured by CBP. Today they are describing Trump's speech in a non-union parts factory as a visit to striking UAW workers. Trump's behavior and past rape is not being covered. His age is not being mentioned. Fascism is coming. There haven’t been moderate Republicans since the Obama administration. Anyone who votes for Donald Trump is a bloodthirsty fascist.

And if, by some miracle, Trump loses, we’re still doomed. 2024 will signal to the world that American democracy no longer functions.

We have already crossed the Rubicon on this. There was no peaceful transfer of power in 2021. There probably won’t be a peaceful transfer of power in 2025.

It’s amazing how some smart people have come around on this. In October 2020, Trump didn’t meet the definition of a fascist. Today he meets and exceeds them. As Trump calls for the executions of people, all he’s lacking now is a military uniform. It’s a good thing he despises the military. He’s just a fascist with a poorer fashion taste. Most fascist dictators put on the dress uniform and medals and call it a day. Trump is happy with his dumb fucking red tie down to his scrotum.