Former FBI director Comey testifies under oath that Trump directed him to kill the FBI's Flynn investigation (obstruction of justice), that Trump told him that his job depended on his loyalty to Trump, that Trump fired him because of the Russian investigation (obstruction of justice) and then lied about it and defamed the FBI in the process, that Trump lied when he stated that it was Comey who initiated their dinner meeting, and that he took copious contemporary notes of his meetings with Trump because he thought that there was a chance that Trump would later lie about them.
Trump (through his lawyer): "I feel completely vindicated."
Comey purged
James Comey is only the biggest victim of Trump's purge of the Federal government. He joins Sally Yates, 42 federal prosecutors, the entire leadership of the State Department, EPA scientists, and others. The goal of this purge is to replace career government professionals (the deep state, according to Steve Brannon) with loyal Trumpists. Its complement is the nonstop war on the credibility of the press.
The stakes could not be higher--nothing less than the future of our democracy. Trump's timing--firing Comey the day after he was severely damaged by Sally Yates--is so transparent as to represent an admission of guilt. Trump is literally daring the American people to stand up for justice.
The real surprise is deputy attorney general Ron Rosenstein, who supplied a lengthy letter urging the firing of Comey--for not prosecuting Hillary Clinton. Rosenstein is critical to a legitimate investigation of Trump's dealing with the Russians because Jeff Sessions, who himself had contact with the Russians as a member of the Trump team, has recused himself from such an investigation. Just yesterday Sally Yates expressed her confidence in Rosenstein's ability to conduct that investigation. He will have NO credibility now unless he appoints a special prosecutor. Comey has made speeches over the past two years in which he spoke candidly about police and racial issues that may have given Sessions, who is aggressively decommissioning federal oversight of police negotiated by the Obama administration, concerns about Comey's willingness to play ball with his "law and order" program.
If the Trumpists think that Comey will go quietly, I think they are mistaken, even though Comey will be hampered in setting the record straight without revealing classified information. Key to the short-term future of our country is the ability of the American people to put pressure on the Republicans in Congress. If the Republicans stand behind Trump in supporting a rubber-stamp replacement for Comey and in blocking an independent prosecutor for the Trump/Russia scandal, we are in big trouble. We will have no independent investigation outside of the efforts of the press. Democrats are chasing down every media person in D.C. to condemn this firing. No Republican has yet commented.
RESIST!
Calling Dr. Death
At this point--and things have been changing literally hour by hour for more than a week--it looks as if the Republican Party and Donald Trump and much of the media will be crowing later today about a remarkable, last-minute, "victory" on health care brought about by Trump's personal lobbying efforts.
This bill is probably the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Congress. It's not a health-care bill. This bill will take health insurance away from more than 20 million Americans who have insurance today in favor of tax cuts for the rich. Thousands of Americans who would have survived under Obamacare will die each year if this bill is passed. Thousands of Americans will again go bankrupt each year because of medical expenses if this bill is passed. The bill includes an exemption for members of Congress so that they can continue to enjoy better health care than the people they represent. The bill guts Medicaid. This bill does NOT protect people with pre-existing conditions. It would separate those people from the general insurance population and will allow insurance companies to deny those them insurance by making it prohibitively expensive. This bill denies affordable health care to lower income women by defunding Planned Parenthood. The Wall Street Journal revealed just this morning that the bill allow employers to not provide their employees with affordable, comprehensive health insurance--a catastrophic step back to the dark ages that ensures that this bill will have the potential to hurt ALL Americans.
How did the Republicans create such a monstrosity?
Despite seven years of opposition and more than 65 votes to repeal it, the Republcans had no health care bill ready when Trump was inaugurated.
No Republican has read this bill. There has been no draft of the bill to read.
This bill has been rushed through the House in less than a week.
There gave been no hearings on this bill. No input was allowed from the American people, Democrats, or health-care professionals.
No Republican knows what will happen if this bill is passed. They are voting on this bill before the Congressional Budget Office publishes an analysis of its impact.
This bill is a Frankensteinian construct designed by less than a dozen Americans: a handfull Republican representatives, Trump, Pence, and Paul Ryan.
The only criteria for the design of this bill was to get 216 Republican votes. The only reason the Republicans want to kill the ACA is because it has Obama's name on it. They know that they are lying when they say that Obamacare is collapsing, and they refuse to even consider fixing its shortcomings.
It's true that there is no chance that the Senate will pass a bill that resembles this one, but we should all be deeply fearful for our nation that such an immoral, corrupt travesty has passed the House. There can be no quarter with the Republicans. They care nothing about the American people or about governing. They are determined to take their crackpot economic theories--which have recently destroyed the economirs of Kansas and Louisiana--and implement them nationwide.
The only possible positive from today's national tragedy is that 216 or more Republicans will be on record as voting for a supremely cruel and un-American piece of legislation. The American people must prove this hellish tribe to be not winners but a group of political suicide bombers who have just detonated their vests today and thereby doomed the GOP to lose their House majority in 2018. If we don't use this treacherous bill against the GOP to transform the makeup of the House, this country may be damaged beyond recovery by 2020.
I would also hope that today's horror show in Congress will cause progressives and leftists who feel passionately that there is literally NO difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party to soberly revisit that position, which is clearly and unambiguously refuted by today's vote. As lame, frustrating, and even corrupt as the Democrats can be, there is no way that group would ever submit, much less approve, such a vicious bill. The reality is that a vote for the lesser of two evils, as Dan Savage has pointed out, is LESS EVIL. If after today you still do not accept that sitting out an election because your own chosen candidate was not triumphant can wreak needless devastation and, literally, death on your fellow citizens, you need to own the fact that by doing so you are relinquishing your right to complain about--and fight--its real-world impact. This shameful day needs to be a juncture where we all look deep into our own hearts and respond to the impure complexity of reality by fighting for our fellow Americans and against the horror and profound cruelty of Trumpism and not with each other.
Barack Backsliding
History will be kind to Barack Obama, because he was framed by the two worst Presidents of all time, because he had some impressive accomplishments (including ending the Iraq war and passing Obama are), and because he honored the Presidency and served stylishly. Obama also bore the burden of being the first of his race to be Cief Executive. But he failed to use his profound communication skills to effectively counter the Republican disinformation campaigns and the Democratic Party lost considerable ground during his time in office. I have been curious to see how he would behave as a former President, and for this first hundred days he's been hugely disappointing. He has said exactly nothing about the fraud who replaced him and his fascist and racist policies. And now we learn that he has been infected with Clintonitis and somehow, despite a $65 million dollar book contract, he's taking $400,000 speaking engagements from the Wall Streeters who he declined to prosecute after they destroyed the economy in 2008. Truly and utterly nauseating.
Republicans--an age-old problem
Just in case you were under the impression that Republicans were a new plague upon our great nation...
Walter Horton
Today is the birthday of Walter Horton, one of the musicians who had the biggest influence on me. Walter grew up in Horn Lake, Mississippi and by the time he was a teenager he had moved a few miles north to Memphis. His childhood friend, bluesman Johnny Shines, told writer Peter Guralnick about meeting Horton when they were both youngsters in Mississippi:
“Walter would be sitting on the porch, blowing in tin cans, you know, he’d blow in tin cans, and he’d get sounds out of these things. You see, this harmonica blowing is really a mark for Walter, it’s not something he picked up—he was born to do it. And he’s gonna do that. I believe he’d crack tomorrow with a harp in his hand and he’d keep it in his hand. And probably you could never take that harp away from him.”
If you ever heard Horton blow the harp, you would have no problem believing that he could get music out of a tin can. Walter had a unique, very melodic approach to the blues harp that showed the strong influence of the amazing collection of great jug band harmonica players like Noah Lewis and Will Shade who were active in Memphis in the ‘20s and ‘30s. Walter claimed to have recorded with the Memphis Jug Band when he was nine years old; he definitely backed Little Buddy Doyle on that singer’s 1939 recordings. He worked outside of music through most of the 1940s, but in 1952 legendary producer Sam Phillips recorded several sides for Sun Records with Horton. One of them, “Easy,” is a bona fide blues harp masterpiece.
Horton moved to Chicago not long after and quickly became top harp man in a city loaded with harmonica players. Horton made many brilliant recordings of his own and contributed stellar harmonica work to sessions with Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, Sunnyland Slim, Otis Spann, and Robert Nighthawk, among others.
When I was going to college in NYC, I hitchhiked up to Boston several times to see Horton play at Joe’s Place, where he was backed up by Johnny Nicholas and his great band. Those shows were a total revelation to me—Horton’s sound was huge and gorgeous, and he greatly expanded my notion of what was possible on the harmonica. I also able to spend time with Walter at his table between sets. Walter was by nature a shy person, but after a few drinks he would let out with all kinds of outrageous statements. He gave me his address in Chicago and told me the amazing experience that would be mine if I ever showed up for a lesson. “I got a motherf----n’ x-ray machine, man, and I will slap that f----r up against my face and you will see EVERYTHING.” I did a show with him at the Rainbow Tavern in Seattle and he invited me to join him onstage for his last set, which no doubt will always stand as my most amazing musical experience. Walter was really something else.
Portland
I'm wrapping up a really wonderful two-year stint in New York City, one of the most amazing places on earth. I came here because of a cool job opportunity, and I’ve enjoyed almost every minute of it and did my best to enjoy what Manhattan has to offer. The best part of this sojourn—by far—was reconnecting with so many East Coast friends. But my family, my girlfriend, and most of my personal tribe are in the Pacific Northwest, and I’ll be headed home in about a month. I’ll be moving to Portland, Oregon. I’ve always enjoyed the Rose City, I have many friends there, I’ve been totally impressed for decades by the passionate and incredibly talented music community in that town, and it’s within striking distance of Seattle. I don’t speak fluent hipster, but I’m ready to step up to that challenge. Really, really excited about the next chapter.
Muddy Waters
MMuddy Waters turns 104 today.
The standard story behind the blues is that it was the acoustic folk music of the black field hands in Mississippi delta—with strong African and gospel antecedents—that spread from there to Memphis and Helena and St. Louis and then to Chicago, where southern-born black musicians created an urbanized version of the blues that served as the basis for rock and roll.
That’s all accurate. It also describes Muddy Water’s life journey.
He was born on a Mississippi plantation and raised by his grandmother, who called him “Muddy” because of his childhood habit of playing in the creek. He sang in church and played the harmonica. He grew to manhood and became a field hand on the Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, where he fell under the spell of local bluesmen Charley Patton and Son House. Muddy was sharp and he was ambitious, and he soon had a profitable sideline outside of his field work selling moonshine and turning his cabin into the local juke joint and gambling house on the weekends.
He was restless, too. He visited Memphis and St. Louis, but always returned. Folkorist Alan Lomax recorded Muddy at his cabin in 1941 and 1942. He paid Muddy $10 a side and sent him two copies of a 78 record. When Muddy heard his own voice and guitar on the local jukebox, he was galvanized. “I just played it and played it and said, 'I can do it, I can do it.'" [When his plantation boss refused to give Waters a raise from 22-1/2 cents an hour to 27-1/2 cents, Muddy said goodbye to his grandmother and caught the train to Chicago, where a sister lived.
Within five years he was a mainstay of the Chicago blues scene and had formed a band—with Jimmy Rogers on guitar, Baby Face Leroy on drums, and Little Walter Jacobs on harp—that was perfecting an amplified, urban update of the patterns that Muddy had mastered as a young man. In 1948 Muddy recorded a tune for Aristocrat Records that Alan Lomax had waxed on him seven years earlier, but this time Waters’ slide guitar was amplified and Big Crawford added a loping acoustic bass part. “I Can’t Be Satisfied” was a surprise, monster hit. Aristocrat changed its name to Chess Records, and the Chicago blues sound was born.
Muddy is almost everyone’s favorite bluesman. He had incredible nuance and subtlety in his singing and playing, he carried himself onstage with profound authority, he assembled stellar bands, and his music had intensity. “His stuff had pep,” is how Willie Dixon put it. Waters’ legacy is a unique, soulful music that bridged the fields and the city and set the standard that, for better and sometimes worse, inspired an entire generation of rock and roll musicians.
Muddy Waters wasn’t just a bluesman. He literally WAS the blues.
Emmylou
Emmylou Harris turned 70 today. Most people discovered Gram Parsons through Emmylou Harris, but I discovered Emmylou Harris through Gram Parsons. I was lucky enough to see Gram and the Flying Burrito Brothers live four times when I was in high school in Seattle. I was in college in NYC when Gram’s first solo album, “GP,” came out, and that’s how I first heard the otherwordly, shimmering voice of Emmylou Harris.
I saw them both together a few months later at Max’s Kansas City. The show was basically a mess. Gram was shaky, the band was weak, and the material leaned toward vintage rock and roll tunes, which was not exactly Parsons’ forte. Emmylou (this was her first tour) sang great but looked spooked. There was a pause in the program to get a guitar set up so that Dave Mason could sit in, and Gram and Emmylou stepped up with just Gram’s acoustic and sang “The Devil’s Jeweled Crown.” Those few minutes were unforgettable.
A couple of years later I was back in Seattle and Emmylou brought her phenomenal Hot Band to town. What a transformation. Harris was now a totally confident performer and bandleader who had fashioned a unique sound and repertoire for herself. She’s been a pillar of soulfulness and integrity on the country scene for over forty years now and has helped the careers of countless artists. I’ve always especially loved this gorgeous tune, which Harris wrote as a tribute to Gram Parsons.
The Art Life
The IFC theater in the Village is hosting a week-long David Lynch film festival. Highlights have included Lynch's early student films (Lynch was unmistakenly Lynch from the very beginning) and the theater premiere of "David Lynch: The Art Life," a brilliant and illuminating examination of what drives America's most creative filmmaker and visual artist. Tomorrow: a new print of "Eraserhead," which astounded me when I first saw it as the midnight movie at the Elgin, also in the Village, nearly forty years ago. I've come full circle.
Trump and Ryan at the bat
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Health Care Act that day;
Without the Freedom Caucus, the bill could not be saved.
The moderates were terrified by the COB’s grim score,
And the Democrats just sat there—they’d seen this all before.
The old and poor will have insurance, but at half their salary;
The rich will get a tax surprise beneath their Christmas tree.
This is the ultimate health care defined by Ayn Rand—
Make it rich or prepare to join the heavenly angel band.
But Ryan couldn’t hide the fact that premiums would rise,
And if you read the fine print you could not be surprised
That millions upon millions would lose the coverage they had,
Thanks to that damn Obama. Even gone he made them mad.
The pundits got their knives out and called the bill a joke.
Kasich and the governors said their red states would go broke.
But Republicans inhabit an imaginary realm,
And they were sure they would prevail with Trump and Ryan at the helm.
At first the lanky Speaker in a firm voice did intone
That no amendments would there be—the bill was set in stone.
But after Mrs. DeVos helped him with the math
He found he held a losing hand—to 215 there was no path.
Then from the mouths of Reagan’s party there rose a lusty yell
That rumbled through the Capitol like a war cry straight from hell.
McDonnell almost fainted and in delight Pete King did squeal
For Donald, mighty Donald, was stepping up to seal the deal.
He brought them to the Oval Office and twisted every arm;
He blew such smoke his handlers dismantled the alarms.
If they couldn’t bring themselves to like it they got his ironclad guarantee
That all would be made perfect in Phase Two if not Phase Three.
There was ease in Donald’s manner, he had no doubt he would astound
He knew not what was in the bill, but he would bring them ‘round
He would bless each change they asked for, it wasn’t like he cared
And as he caved and caved again, the pilgrims marveled at his hair.
The Freedom Caucus fumed against the socialistic stuff—
Maternity care and Medicaid—they called the Donald’s bluff.
“We will only cast our votes for right-wing thoughts purebred.”
“But what about the Senate?” Ryan asked. “Strike one,” the alt-right said.
As rightwards moved the legislation, the moderates complained.
“My district went for Clinton—why must I bear all the pain?
Who will pay for my robo calls and bury all the dead?”
“Grow a pair,” said Donald. “Strike two,” the moderates said.
The smile is gone from Ryan’s face, for there is no Plan B;
This Wednesday midnight meeting will bring his charges to their knees.
The Donald is beside him as they make their final pitches;
Winning is for men like them and losing is for bitches.
Oh, all across this favored land the many millions can exhale—
The Republican death panels at least for now will not prevail.
Let the word go forth to all of deadly TrumpCare’s rout
For there is no joy in Mar-a-Lago—Trump and Ryan have struck out.
Like ringin' a bell
He was a young hairdresser and part-ime musician from St. Louis on vacation in Chicago when in 1955 Chuck Berry chatted up one of his heroes, Muddy Waters, in a club. Waters told Berry about Leonard Chess and his record label. There was an audition and then a session at which Berry recorded an original blues, "Wee Wee Hours." For a flip side, Berry pulled out a mock hillbilly rave up, "Maybelline," inspired by Bob Wills' "Ida Red," and the rest is rock and roll history. Berry's good looks and duck-walking showmanship helped break down the color barrier and make the guitar the axe of choice for young rockers. One of the greatest pop songwriters of all time, Berry was rock and roll's most marvelous storyteller and the inspiration for Bob Dylan and the other musical wordsmiths of the '60s. RIP
Buster and the Nighthawks
Buster Keaton literally cut his teeth in vaudeville (he was a pro at the age of five), and this afternoon he returned to Manhattan's theater district. Town Hall was packed for a screening of Keaton's great film, "The Cameraman," the last film on which he had creative control. The festivities started with an hilarious Laurel and Hardy short (featuring a very young Jean Harlow). The great American clown Bill Irwin did a very funny skit with an endless pot of spaghetti that was followed by the feature. Two things made the show especially memorable--Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks played fantastic period music throughout, matching the films and Irwin's skit masterfully, and, as it was a Family Day program, there were lots of kids in attendance. A small boy sitting front of me was literally bouncing up and down in his seat, he was laughing so hard. I can think of only a couple of things in life more pleasurable than Buster Keaton on the big screen with a live orchestra in a hall filled with laughter.
James Cotton
I was seventeen the night I walked up the ramps at Eagles Auditorium in downtown Seattle to catch the James Cotton Blues Band. This was the (justifiably) legendary early Cotton band, with Luther Tucker on guitar, Francis Clay on drums, Alberto Gianquinto on piano, and Bobby Anderson on bass. I had been playing the trumpet in school bands for seven years, but in terms of live music, I was green, with a pair of fresh ears that were wide open. Looking back, I can’t believe how lucky I was to walk into that show at such a tender age when I was in no way prepared for the experience.
Cotton was only in his mid-thirties then, but he already had done a lifetime of gigs. Born in Tunica, Mississippi, Cotton moved in with Rice (Sonny Boy Williamson) Miller at the age of nine (!), and he inherited Miller’s band six years later when Miller moved to Chicago. He spent a half dozen years as part of the thriving Memphis blues scene, along with Howlin’ Wolf, Bobby Bland, Junior Parker and B.B. King, and he made his first recordings there for Sun Records. Then came a twelve-year stint with Muddy Waters. Cotton developed into not only a master harp player, but a truly great singer and showman as well. He was the whole package.
The night I saw him, Cotton had just recently formed his own band and gone out on his own. The young James was a fountain of energy onstage, pacing relentlessly back and forth throughout the entire set. Cotton somehow pulled off “The Creeper,” his complex, tour de force harp instrumental, while doing somersaults. He was the first performer I saw do the sixty-foot-cord stunt, and when he walked right past me popping that harp in and out of his mouth, I was a goner.
That showmanship and physicality ensured that I would never forget that Eagles show, but it was Cotton’s harp sound that changed my life. I had never heard amplified harp before. My trumpet playing had made me a confirmed wind-instrument player, and I did know a few things about tone, breath control, and phrasing, but I had never heard a sound like the one Cotton got out of those Marine Bands. In the middle of the show Cotton stepped on the reverb pedal and served up an impossibly deep slow blues in the echo chamber, a number he recorded as “Blues In My Sleep.” It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard in my young life. It made me literally weak in the knees, and it left me determined to get on the trail to track it down. I went to the music store the next day and bought a C Marine Band, and I’ve been trying, for the most part fruitlessly, to figure out Cotton’s magical sound ever since.
I got to see him many, many times in a multitude of settings, cities, and venues. I got to open for him on a few occasions, and I was able to spend some time in his presence and to hear some of his stories. Such a privilege. I once opened for him at the Backstage in Seattle. I was excited not only because I was on the bill with me hero, but because Luther Tucker had rejoined James this tour of the West Coast. I got to hear them recreate some of that magic that whipped me so badly that night at Eagles Auditorium. That night, talking in the “dressing room” between sets I asked James if he’d do me a favor and let me get a photo of the two of us. Cotton was relaxing on a couch, and he good naturedly said “Sure, but I ain’t gettin’ up off of this damn sofa to do it.” So I slid in next to him and made myself comfortable, too.
A few years back tapes of a live gig in Montreal by the same Cotton band I heard that night at Eagles were issued on a pair of CDs. I love those recordings because when I put them on I’m instantly right back there, listening with fresh ears. In a few minutes, after I get some dinner, I’ll be settling down in another couch to listen to them again. Thanks for the energy, the soulfulness, and that beautiful sound, James.
Lightnin'
Today is the birthday of Lightnin’ Hopkins. There was, or is, no deeper bluesman. An inspired and unique guitarist, a mesmerizing singer, a master showman with off-the-charts charisma. and a born troubadour who sang brilliantly about whatever was happening to him in that instant.
The first time I saw him was many years ago in NYC. He was opening for Muddy Waters. Lightnin’ was backed by a game bass player who skillfully followed Hopkins’ free-form chord changes. Lightnin’ was dressed to the nines in a gorgeous, dark-blue pinstripe suit, alligator shoes, and shades. His marcelled hair shone blue in the stage lights. Lightnin’ was totally on fire that night. From the first note he had the audience hypnotized. After about forty-five minutes he launched his set into the stratosphere with one of his patented, monster boogie grooves in E. It was insane. When he finished the crowd leaped to their feet and applauded thunderously. Lightnin’ walked off the stage and a timorous hippie emcee walked up to the microphone and tried to get the crowd’s attention. After about five solid minutes the ovation began to subside, and the emcee gave out with some pathetic statement along the lines of “Wasn’t Lightnin’ great? We’d love to have him play longer, but we only have the hall until midnight (?) and we have to get the great Muddy Waters out here.”
Just as the disappointed, muttering crowd began to finally quiet and sit back down, Lightnin’, the cagey old veteran, poked his head out from behind the stage curtain and waved at the crowd. The poor emcee never saw this; Hopkins was behind him. All the ponytailed master of ceremonies knew was that for some unknown reason the audience had suddenly vaulted upright again and was screaming hoarsely for Lightnin’. He had no choice but to bring Hopkins out again, and Lightnin’ made the most of it, playing twenty more incendiary minutes. Muddy seemed to enjoy it as much if not more as we did. He invited Lightnin’ onstage during his set and the two blues legends sang a beautiful version of “Rocky Mountain Blues” together. Giants walked the earth in those days.
TrumpCare
After seven years of brave, full-throated opposition to the Affordable Care Act, the Republicans have unveiled their vision for health care in America. TrumpCare is a brilliant bill that offers bold solutions to the biggest health-care issues we face as a nation.
First: Too many Americans have health insurance. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, has made it clear that “insurance is not the end goal” of the Republicans’ health-insurance legislation. TrumpCare will ensure that 11 million Americans covered under Medicaid will lose their health insurance within the first two years. Longer term, the prospect of taking health insurance away from Americans is even brighter. TrumpCare’s funding provisions won’t work, so it’s entirely possible that all Americans currently covered by the ACA will lose their insurance when the TrumpCare goes into a predictable death spiral.
Second: The richest Americans, the neediest and most neglected sector of society, will finally get critical relief as their premiums are reduced dramatically.
Third: Elderly Americans on fixed incomes, who are killing this country with their outrageous demands for special treatment, will finally be appropriately punished with higher premiums.
Fourth: Women, that bewildering segment of society that insists beyond all reason that they have access to birth control, maternity care, pediatric dental and vision care, will be brought back to the real world. Insurance companies will no longer be required to cover such incidentals and “nice to haves.”
Fifth: Health-care-company CEOs will no longer have their freedom infringed upon by un-American salary caps. The GOP bill ensures that these brilliant business leaders will finally be allowed, just like other American CEOs, to grant themselves enormous salaries that in no way reflect their performance.
Sixth: Health-care fraud committed by lottery winners. Six pages in the bill are devoted to ensuring that lottery winners are not provided with health insurance. Finally!
Our new President is really stepping up to the plate and asserting his innovative, clear-eyed vision for the health-care crisis. Just yesterday he told Congressional Republicans that he didn’t care which health-care bill they passed as long as they passed SOMETHING.
And the GOP Congressional leadership has achieved what many thought was impossible—the crafting of a TrumpCare bill that has been universally condemned by all stakeholders (conservative Republicans, moderate Republicans, Tea-Party Republicans, all Democrats, health-care companies, the American Hospital Association, AARP, the American Medical Association, health-care experts, the Koch brothers, the real media (Breitbart), and the lamestream media (all news outlets except for Breitbart). You know you have a good bill when everyone is against it. The Republicans really ARE bringing the country together.
All the naysayers who contend that the anti-government Republican Party is no good at governing and that Donald Trump was completely bullshitting the country about his health-care vision have been totally silenced, probably forever, by this week’s jaw-dropping TrumpCare blitzkreig .
Now that the pesky health-care problem has been solved, it’s on to new challenges: reforming the tax code, giving the Russians and the banks whatever they want, taking immigrant children away from their mothers, making America less safe by taking TSA and Coast Guard funds to build a Mexican border wall, getting Trump trademarks for escort services approved in China, blaming everything on Obama, dismantling public education, and launching new wars with North Korea and the scientific community.
"Shoot low, sheriff!"
, Today marks the birthday of Bob Wills, one of the great American bandleaders and a true original in a music business full of unique wildmen. Wills was born into a family of cotton farmers and champion fiddlers and was profoundly influenced by the blues sung by black field hands. He told one interviewer that he had ridden fifty miles on horseback, just to hear Bessie Smith sing. “She was the greatest thing I ever heard.” Wills started out playing fiddle in local bands and within a decade he was leading a large, phenomenally popular dance band based in Tulsa, Oklahoma—Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, the group that invented “western swing” by coupling traditional fiddle music and blues to the swing rhythms of the big bands of the 1930s. During World War II, Bob drew bigger crowds than Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. An incomparable number of world-class musicians spent time in the Texas Playboys, including steel guitarist Leon McCauliffe, guitarists Eldon Shamblin (an early proponent of the electric guitar) and Junior Barnard, and the great vocalist Tommy Duncan. Bob was also a movie star, appearing in countless westerns.
Bob was a born entertainer who threw himself into the music, often punctuating his records with cries of “Aaaahhhhhh” and vocal interjections like “Shoot low, Sheriff—I think she’s ridin’ a Shetland!” When Bob and his boys got their first break, a recording session with Brunswick, the band cut a take of their first number and the producer took Bob aside to let him know that the band sounded great but that he needed to cut out the “yelling.” Bob turned to the band, told them “Pack up, boys, we’re going home” and walked out of the session. Wills was a hard drinker with a hot temper who was married six times (three times in a single year).
It would be hard to name an American musician who had a bigger influence than Bob Wills. His tune “San Antonio Rose” is an oft-recorded standard piece of Americana. Merle Haggard (a masterful interpreter of Bob’s music), Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings all revered Wills. Fats Domino and Chuck Berry were huge fans and were heavily influenced by him. Not many people are members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Bob Wills deserves his place in each one of them.
Chekhov in Australia
Saw Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh tonight in an all-Aussie-cast version of Chekhov's "The Present" on Broadway. An updated version of Chekhov's unfinished first play, it started off slowly but ended with a literal bang. It was mostly Roxburgh's show, and he did a fabulous job, but Blanchett was wonderful as well. It was worth it just to see Blanchett fire a shotgun.
Devin and Oscar
Guillermo Rodriguez, Jimmy Kimmel's sidekick, and Kimmel's newest staff writer, my son Devin, working the red carpet at the Oscars tonight.
Johnny Cash
Happy birthday to Johnny Cash. As a nation of immigrants (the Cashes came from Scotland), America has an impossibly rich trove of folk music, and it never had a better friend or a more masterful interpreter than the Man in Black.