Welcome To Tony Palmeri's Media Rants! I am a professor of Communication Studies at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I use this blog to try to promote critical thinking about mainstream media, establishment politics, and popular culture.
I'm writing this less than a week before the November elections. For the first time in my life, the phrase "the most consequential election in history" is not an exaggeration. If anything the phrase understates the severity of the stakes we face. I'm in agreement with the respected historian Robert Paxton, who told the New York Times that "If Trump wins, it's going to be awful. If he loses, it's going to be awful too."
As we all know by now, to become president of the United States requires 270 Electoral College votes. In the last six presidential elections, the Republican candidate has lost the popular vote five times, yet won the presidency three times. Only in 2004 did the Republican (George W. Bush) win both the popular and Electoral College vote.
In 2024 the volatility of the polls suggests any number of possible outcomes. It is conceivable one candidate could win by a landslide in both the popular and Electoral College vote. If Trump wins Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania we could easily see a repeat of 2016. It's not likely, but we could even see a situation in which Harris loses the popular vote but wins in the Electoral College.
In 2020 Joe Biden won both the popular and Electoral College vote. But because of how close the vote was in the so-called swing states, Mr. Trump only needs to flip several thousand votes in a handful of states in order to repeat his 2016 triumph.
For me, the racist origins of the Electoral College should by itself be enough to abolish it. Because of the "3/5 compromise" in the 1787 Constitution, the southern states were able to include slaves in the census count, which increased those states' congressional representation and electoral votes. According to constitutional law professor Akhil Amar, in 1800 the "free state of Pennsylvania had 10% more free persons than Virginia, but got 20% fewer electoral votes." Not coincidentally, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the White House for 32 of the Constitution's first 36 years. The Electoral College is worth rejecting if for no other reason than rejecting that sordid past.
Okay, I know that righting historical wrongs is not a high priority for people who have more pressing things to think about. But even if we ignore the history, just focusing on the present ways that the Electoral College makes our presidential election an international embarrassment should be enough to force change. Here are just three electoral college absurdities:
The Electoral College Empowers Only a Small Group Of Voters. At my university (University of Wisconsin Oshkosh), we now have a number of students from Illinois. One of them--who happens to follow politics more closely than most students--came up to me about a month ago, told me he was registered to vote in Illinois, and said he was going to vote by absentee ballot. I told him that, since Kamala Harris was certain to win Illinois, his vote for Trump or Harris would actually carry much more weight in Wisconsin where the result was less certain. What complicated matters for this particular student was that he happens to be from Illinois's 17th Congressional District, which happens to be the only genuinely competitive one in the entire state. This particular student cares deeply about the presidential election and that congressional election, yet the realities of the Electoral College made him have to think about where his vote would have most impact.
Even though Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by about seven million popular votes nationwide, the candidates would have been tied in the Electoral College but for 44,000 votes across Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. About 67 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in 2020; if that same percentage holds this year, about 162 million people will vote. Is it really rational or ethical that 44,000 of those voters have substantially more power than everyone else? Of course not.
The Myth Of The Small State Benefit. The most common argument I hear in support of the Electoral College is that it somehow gives small states more of a voice in the presidential election. That could not be more wrong. Small states have been ignored for many decades. The only states that have a real voice in the presidential election are the swing states, which this year are Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada. Just how "small" are these states?:
Pennsylvania is the 5th largest state
Georgia is the 8th largest state
North Carolina is the 9th largest state
Michigan is the 10th largest state
Arizona is the 14th largest state
Wisconsin is the 20th largest state
Nevada is the 32nd largest state
Nevada (population 3.1 million) is the only one that I think can legitimately be called "small," and even IT is not in the bottom ten.
The Electoral College benefits "swing" states, which are defined as those in which the winner prevails by five percent of the vote or less. In a very real sense, 40+ states are pretty much irrelevant in the election, with candidates rarely showing up in them. This creates a bizarre phenomenon in which a state becoming more red or more blue takes it out of the presidential race, and thus does not get its needs addressed in a meaningful way. Ohio and Florida, for example, have become red to the point where very little presidential campaigning happens there anymore. This is tragic, as Ohio's manufacturing plight and Florida's status as ground zero for climate changes catastrophes make them places that should get sustained presidential campaign attention.
Lewis Hine, a brilliant photographer whose pictures exposed the crime of child labor in the United States in the early 1900s, was born in Oshkosh, WI on September 26, 1874. His family lived in the building on North Main St. that currently houses the Jambalaya Art Gallery. The gallery hosted a reception on Sept. 26 to recognize Hine's 150th birthday, at which Rep. Lori Palmeri read a proclamation from Governor Tony Evers, while the Oshkosh Landmarks Commission presented the owner of the building with a plaque designating it as a historical landmark. An exhibit of Hine's works will be in display at Jambalaya Thursdays and Fridays from 4-8 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. thru October 31st. In late October the Time Community Theatre will be screening a free documentary on the works of Lewis Hine.
One of many photos taken by Lewis Hine for the National Child Labor Commission. Hine once said, "There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work."
It's extremely disappointing, though not at all surprising, how little interest the regional, state, and national media have in Lewis Hine. His photo journalism inspired a generation of children's rights and worker's rights activists, which eventually led to Keating-Owen Act of 1916 (declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1918) and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Among other provisions, FLSA mandated minimum wages, overtime pay, and prohibition on the employment of minors in "oppressive child labor."
Unfortunately child labor abuses did not end in 1938, which is why we need modern media not just to issue rare periodic reminders of Lewis Hine and his photos, but to incorporate his ethic into their own reporting on modern employment practices. The Department of Labor found "688 minors employed illegally in hazardous occupations in fiscal year 2022, the highest annual count since fiscal year 2011." DOL found two 10-year-old workers at a Louisville McDonald's franchise. In 2023 the New York Times featured a shocking expose' on exploitation of migrant children illegally allowed to work in brutal jobs. As noted in the report, "Arriving in record numbers, they're ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws - including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom." Meanwhile Republicans in Wisconsin would apparently have no problem having 14-year-olds serve alcohol in the state.
Some of Lewis Hine's most impactful and iconic photos were of children working in brutal conditions in coal mines.
Reporting on child labor abuses is virtually absent from mainstream television news. Print media, as noted above, will report on the abuses, but their reports rarely feature photo essays as powerful as what Hine produced. Samples of his photos can be found here, here, and here.
Why are modern corporate media minimizing or ignoring the plight of contemporary child laborers? Writing in the Smithsonian Magazine, photo historian Beth Saunders hypothesizes factors related to immigration status and race:
A recent surge of unaccompanied minors, primarily
from Central America, has brought new attention to America’s old problem of
child labor and has threatened the very laws Hine and the National Child Labor
Committee worked to enact.
Some estimates suggest that around
two-thirds of migrant children end up working full time, with some laboring
more hours than current laws permit or working without the proper
authorizations. Many of them perform hazardous jobs similar to those of Hine’s
subjects: handling dangerous equipment and being exposed to noxious chemicals
in factories, slaughterhouses and industrial farms.
While the content of Hine’s
photographs remains pertinent to today’s child labor crisis, a key distinction
between the subject of Hine’s photographs and working children today is race.
Hine focused his camera almost
exclusively on white children who arrived in the country during waves of
immigration from Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As art
historian Natalie Zelt argues, Hine’s pictorial treatment of Black
children—either ignored or forced to the margins of his images—implied to
viewers that the face of childhood in America was, by default, white.
The perceived racial hierarchies of
Hine’s era reverberate into the present, where underage migrants of color live
and work at the margins of society.
Ending modern child labor abuses, especially given the racial hierarchies described by Saunders, will require sustained activism on behalf of the voiceless victims of corporate greed and governmental neglect. Mainstream corporate media could assist the effort by empowering photojournalists to produce Hine-like iconic photos. Visual rhetoric scholars Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites defined iconic photos as "photographic images produced in print, electronic, or digital media that are (1) recognized by everyone within a public culture, (2) understood to be representations of historically significant events, (3) objects of strong emotional identification and response, an (4) regularly reproduced or copied across a range of media, genres, and topics."
Given the hyper visual age that we are living in, it is simply impossible to spark action on social injustices without iconic images, especially those that produce a "strong emotional identification and response." Taking such photos often requires the photographer to take great personal risks. Hine himself, it is said, often had to disguise himself as a Bible salesman in order to get access to the inside of a factory abusing children. When his true intentions were discovered by shop foremen, he sometimes faced physical violence. He was willing to pay that price to expose the extreme injustice taking place inside.
Regional, state, and national media can be excused for ignoring a 150th anniversary reception. What cannot be excused is their failure to expose, systematically and repeatedly, predatory harm and abuse in American society, and not just of children. Lewis Hine taught journalists how to use the power of photographic images to spark social change. Modern mainstream media have yet to learn the lesson.
Hine did not just photograph child labor. His images capturing the building of the Empire State Building never fail to give the viewer a jolt.
In July Joe Biden announced his decision to step aside and endorse Kamala Harris for the presidency. Given that the announcement came so close to the start of the Democratic National Convention in August, Harris had roughly two weeks to decide on a running mate. According to an NBC News' insider account of the Harris campaign,
"Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was a dark horse from the start, left off early lists of potential running mates. But no one used the 16 days since President Joe Biden stepped aside more effectively than Walz, who charmed Harris and national Democrats alike with a Diet Mountain Dew-fueled media tour that labeled the opposition as 'weird' and won him a spot in history."
Labeling former President Trump, GOP vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, and MAGA doctrine in general as "weird" represents a rare instance--since 2015 at least--when Democratic messaging has actually put the Republicans on the defensive. The Associated Press looked to George Washington University professor of strategic communications David Karpf for some insight. He said that labeling Republican comments as "weird" is "the sort of concise take that resonates quickly with Harris supporters." Equally important, according to Karpf, is that the "weird" label "frustrates opponents, leading them to further amplify it through off-balance responses."
The archetype of the kind of "weird" position/rhetoric that Walz and other Dems have in mind is this verbal diarrhea by J.D. Vance from his 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson:
"We're effectively run in this country--via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs--by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too . . . It's just a basic fact -- you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC -- the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children . . . And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?"
Vance made those statements while running for the US Senate in Ohio. We know that hack politicians will say anything in the heat of a competitive race. Still, it is somewhat shocking that a published author with a law degree can so easily confuse his opinion with "basic fact." Imagine if I said, "it's just a basic fact--J.D. Vance is a moron." That millions of people agree with the statement does not make it a "fact."
When called out, Vance doubles down and claims that he is not criticizing childless people, but rather the Democratic Party for being "anti-family and anti-child." Sure.
Weirdness, of course, is largely subjective: one person's "weird" posture is another's "principled stance." The problem in the Trump-dominated GOP is that the MAGA worldview--which features an unhealthy mix of QAnon conspiracy theories and Trump's unhinged rants-- is objectively weird. At some level Mr. Trump knows this to be true; why else would he so quickly distance himself from Project 2025, a far right-wing wish list of reactionary ideas about which "weird" is probably the kindest thing that could be said?
How did the GOP get this "weird?" And why does the "weird" label have so much rhetorical force for Democrats?
To explain how the MAGA era GOP got weird, let's first take a step back and think of our family lives. Suppose you're at a family barbecue and uncle J.D. shows up. Uncle J.D. is a midlevel manager at a midsized corporation who was recently passed over for a promotion; they gave the job to a single, childless woman. While everyone's enjoying burgers and hot dogs, uncle J.D. goes off on a rant about the childless cat ladies who run his corporation who passed him up because they wanted "one of their own" in the position. You know, "the ones who are miserable at their own lives and so they want to make everyone else miserable too."
Even though it usually ends up ruining the party atmosphere, in that situation you would probably get at least a few family members who would probe uncle J.D. for more information and/or pushback against his hostility: "how do you know that's why you didn't get the promotion?" "Why are women without kids miserable?" "I don't have any kids and I'm doing just fine," etc. etc. etc. Maybe after a few drinks, the usually quiet uncle Tony tells uncle J.D. to do everyone a favor and "shut the fuck up."
What has happened in the MAGA GOP is that it exists in a media environment in which uncle J.D. gets no pushback. "Weird" statements get responded to with either approval and/or even more extreme weirdness. The late Rush Limbaugh's radio program for decades mastered the art of having an authoritative sounding figure (i.e. Rush) make a series of weird claims with full knowledge that the callers' initial responses would be "ditto." Rush was the first nationally known media personality to thrive in the post-Fairness Doctrine era, in which one-sided political programming with zero pushback became the norm.
If you look at the actual interview in which Vance made the "childless cat ladies" statement, it was a classic example of what I'm talking about. As Vance uttered a stream of inanities, Tucker Carlson sat there with his typical dumbfounded expression (what the Daily Show's Michael Kosta once described as "looking like Frankenstein walked in on his parents having sex."). No pushback. No counterpoint. No prodding for evidence. And of course absolutely no attempt to interview one of the targets of Vance's creepy ire.
If you would like a more academic explanation of how our public discourse became so harebrained, philosopher C. Thi Nguyen's "Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles" (2018) is worth your time. Inspired by a number of authors including legal scholar Cass Sunstein (who coined the expression "echo chamber") and activist Eli Pariser (who wrote an important book on "filter bubbles"), he writes:
An epistemic bubble is a social epistemic structure in which other relevant voices have been left out, perhaps accidentally. An echo chamber is a social epistemic structure from which other relevant voices have been actively excluded and discredited. Members of epistemic bubbles lack exposure to relevant information and arguments. Members of echo chambers, on the other hand, have been brought to systematically distrust all outside sources. In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined.
With the MAGA movement we have what is probably the most toxic mix of an epistemic bubble and echo chamber in the digital age. When a movement refuses to hear relevant voices while actively undermining others, the discourse that results cannot be anything other than confrontational, aggressive, and self-righteous. Governor Walz's characterization of MAGA leaders and discourse as "weird," while clearly a political attack, is actually quite mild compared to the vicious vitriol that is more typical of contemporary political language.
Why have Walz and the Dems gotten so much mileage so far out of labeling MAGA "weird?" I think John McWorther's New York Times opinion piece on "The Hidden Grammatical Reason That 'Weird' Works" (behind a paywall) provides some useful insights. He argues that "Applying 'weird' to MAGA is a great debate team tactic, a deceptively complex rhetorical trick that uses the simplest of language to make a sophisticated point: that the beliefs that MAGA is supposed to be getting us back to defy expectation, usually for the simple reason that they’re false." For example, "The idea that a single woman without children is less qualified to lead is jarring even amid the trash talk flying throughout our political landscape."
McWorther is a Columbia University linguist and political conservative who regularly chides the political left for its abuse of language and woke excesses. But he's equally appalled at what MAGA has done to the political right, and sees the application of "weird" to it as a winning political strategy:
"Weird" pegs MAGA as a detour, a regrettable temptation that serious politics ought to render obsolete. Calling it "weird" is deft, articulate, and possibly prophetic. . . It's also an example of the power of language, in particular a kind of grammar that too few people are taught. Wouldn't more kids take interest in the subject if they knew they could use it to shut down a bully.
I would go further and say that part of the appeal of "weird" is that it protects listeners from having to confront blunt, harsh statements about reality and instead gives them a comforting euphemism. What I mean is that since 2015 Democrats have been hurling labels like "fascist," "authoritarian," "misogynist" and "deplorable" at almost everything that comes out of the mouths and social media posts of Trump and his enablers. Much to the chagrin of Dems and other anti-Trump activists, those labels tend to repulse the average American, or make us feel like we could somehow be stupid or irresponsible enough to elect a dictator.
Hurling the term "weird" at MAGA allows us to express disagreement with the basic tenets of the movement without implying that its followers are fundamentally evil, anti-American, or desirous of ending democracy. As the late scholar Kenneth Burke might have put it, "weird" is a comic frame that portrays opponents as mistaken, whereas "fascist" is a tragic frame that portrays opponents as debased and rotten.
Obviously it's going to take much more than a clever euphemism for Harris/Walz to score a victory in November. The supremely weird and outdated Electoral College method of electing the chief executive means that a very small number of voters in a handful of states will be deciding the election--and those states are populated by large numbers of voters who inhabit the MAGA epistemic bubble/echo chamber.
But regardless of what happens in November, we still owe kudos to Governor Walz for bringing the comic frame back to American politics. We sure as heck need it.
After Kamala Harris became the de facto Democratic Party nominee for President, the Trump Republicans didn't waste any time launching sexist and racist attacks on her. So far the Trumpublicans have:
minimized Harris' electoral history by calling her a "DEI hire"
argued that not having biological children is a reason for her not to be president
The attacks will get much uglier and weirder as Harris rises in the polls and we get closer to election day.
Vice President Kamala Harris. Will racist and sexist attacks be enough to derail her quest for the presidency?
There is one meme I've seen online that critiques Harris in a way that is perfectly legitimate. It asks very simply: "What has she actually done as vice president?" That's one of the most basic questions to ask of any candidate seeking an office: what have you done in your current position?
Now when people ask me about Kamala Harris' accomplishments as vice president, my first response is this: without googling, tell me what Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, and Mike Pence did when they held the same position. Those were all the vice presidents in my lifetime.
Some Americans know that Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, while just about everyone knows Mike Pence almost got himself hanged by Trump cultists upset that he refused to commit treason to keep #45 in power. Even political wonks who follow Washington closely can't tell you much about the other veeps on the list.
Why don't we know more about what vice presidents do? The simplest answer is that the vice president isn't really charged with doing much. Other than breaking ties in the Senate and presiding over the counting of electoral ballots cast in presidential elections, the veep does not have much formal power. The first Vice President of the United States, John Adams, put it best: "my country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." John McCain reportedly said he would never accept the VP spot on a national ticket because, "the vice president has two duties. One is to inquire daily about the health of the president, and the other is to attend the funerals of Third World dictators. And neither of those do I find an enjoyable exercise."
Absent formal powers, vice presidents are generally at their most effective when they work behind the scenes to help get the president's preferred bills passed through Congress, or when they serve as credible advocates for the administration's agenda. (Just as an aside, if we were to apply a JD Vance weirdness standard in assessing vice presidents, the greatest would have to be John Tyler. By the time he became veep in 1840, he had already fathered 8 children. After his first wife passed, he married again and fathered 7 more for a grand total of 15. On the Vance weirdness scale, Tyler's paternal potency should have entitled him to absolute power!).
John Tyler fathered 15 children. In the weird world of JD Vance, that might make Tyler the greatest politician in the history of the United States.
Applying the criteria of working behind the scenes and advocating for the POTUS' agenda, Harris has been no worse than any vice president in my lifetime, and probably better than most. She's been a credible voice for reproductive choice after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, she's been outspoken on voting rights, and she's cast a record 33 tie-breaking votes in the US Senate. And while the Republicans' claim that Biden appointed her as the "border czar" is false, she did lead an effort to produce a substantive report on the root causes of migration. Contrary to Mr. Trump's deportation and border wall fantasies, any effort to address immigration meaningfully MUST address root causes.
It's rare for a vice president to make an impact in that office that survives their term. In fact in my life time only two vice presidents have done that: Dick Cheney and Spiro Agnew. Unfortunately, their impact was disastrous. I'll spend a little more space on Agnew, because this is a media rants blog and his impact was on media.
In the first term, Cheney reshaped national security law, expanded the prerogatives of the executive branch and orchestrated secret, warrantless domestic surveillance, circumventing a court set up by Congress specifically to oversee such surveillance. He presented the president with options that led to a shutdown of negotiations with North Korea, and played a major role in persuading President Bush to go to war against Iraq.
Cheney also had extensive impact on domestic policies, from screening Supreme Court picks to forming tax and regulatory policies that benefited industries he was partial to. I have referred to the years 2001-2021 as two of the most shameful decades in the history of the United States. Dick Cheney's fingerprints are on almost every horrendous policy choice that created misery abroad and division at home.
From a media criticism perspective, the most impactful vice president in history was Spiro Agnew, who was Richard Nixon's henchman from 1969-1973. Agnew resigned in disgrace so as to avoid being indicted on charges of tax evasion that occurred while he was governor of Maryland in the late 1960s.
If one role of the vice president is to be an attack dog, no one played that role more effectively than Agnew. Much like a modern day Internet troll, he attacked "The Left" mercilessly, framed every critique of Nixon as being rooted in personal bias against the president, and famously pegged liberals as "nattering nabobs of negativism."
Vice President Spiro Agnew's attacks on media greatly inspired Roger Ailes' later creation of Fox news and were also an early version of Donald Trump's "fake news" rants.
On November 13, 1969 Agnew delivered a speech before a friendly group of Republicans in Des Moines, Iowa entitled "The Responsibilities of Television." Written by Nixon administration speech writer Pat Buchanan (who went on to run for president himself in 1992 and whose "culture war" rhetoric became a fixture in GOP politics), the speech attempted to undermine the credibility of Nixon's broadcast television critics by characterizing them as out of touch elitists with no connection to the average American. He said,
The purpose of my remarks tonight is to focus your attention on the little group of men who not only enjoy a right of instant rebuttal to every Presidential address, but, more importantly, wield a free hand in selecting, presenting, and interpreting the great issues in our nation. . . Of the commentators, most Americans know little other than that they reflect an urbane and assured presence, seemingly well-informed on every important matter. We do know that to a man these commentators and producers live and work in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C., or New York City . . .
For journalist Stephen Khan, in making a populist critique of media Agnew was "Trump before Trump." Khan correctly notes that "Agnew had demonstrated the vulnerability of the mass media to populist attacks, firing some of the first shots in a culture war that persists to this day." I would go even further and argue that, like Trump, Agnew actually made some sensible critiques of corporate mass media: they are not transparent about how ownership effects news and editorial coverage, they privilege controversy in selecting what to report for no purpose other than to drive ratings, and they are detached from working class Americans. But also like Trump, Agnew's purpose for making these critiques was not at all to promote media accountability and improvement, but to make himself (and Nixon) seem like small-d democrats by comparison. For political hacks/con artists like Agnew, Nixon, and Trump to lambast media as elitist and "fake" while situating themselves as being in sync with the "silent majority" of Americans is a kind of higher-order gaslighting that would be funny were it not so destructive to the body politic.
As Agnew delivered that speech in November of 1969, a young Nixon Administration employee named Roger Ailes was listening very closely. In 1996 Ailes launched Fox News, a station that from day one has been Agnew-esque in how it undermines the authority of mainstream media at the same time asserting its own authority. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen aptly refers to Fox and its offspring as "resentment news," a style which can be linked directly to Agnew's media critique.
Kamala Harris might not be the greatest vice president in history, but she most certainly is not a Dick Cheney or a Spiro Agnew. For that we should be thankful.
As Robert Plant might say, it's been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely time since I've done one of these ten bold cover tunes posts. Yes it has.
Why another right now?
Well, so far it has not been the greatest of summers. Our country seems to be devolving into political turmoil the likes of which we have not seen since 1968, and with Hulk Hogan's appearance at the RNC we seemed to move into full blown Idiocracy mode. On a personal level, the death of Christina Moodie, one of my all time greatest students, has been very difficult.
In musical terms, we really are living the Summertime Blues. Eddie Cochran's classic has been helping stressed out humans navigate tough summer seasons for more than 60 years.
Sometimes I wonder What I'm-a gonna do But there ain't no cure For the summertime blues
Here are my favorite covers of Eddie's classic:
#10: Dick Dale's Surf Version. One of the greatest guitar players of all time (huge influence on Jimi Hendrix), Dick Dale performed Summertime Blues in his set list for pretty much his entire career.
#9: Blue Cheer's Acid Rock Version. Released in 1968, Blue Cheer's version is a great example of the kind of distorted guitar madness that Jimi Hendrix had inspired at the time. It's almost funny now.
#8: Johnny Chester's Australian Rock Version. If you remember Johnny Chester, you are officially old. The Australian country/pop/rock star and his band the Chessmen had a hit with a respectable version of Summertime Blues in 1962. A few years later he actually was the opening act for the Beatles on their 1964 swing through Australia.
#7: Rush's Ultimate Metal Version. Released in 2004, Canadian trio Rush rocked out in their Summertime Blues cover in a way that called to mind their first album in 1974. This version solidified Alex Lifeson's reputation as one of great Guitar Gods in rock history; the cover even throws in a Hendrix-like Foxey Lady intro as if to emphasize that point.
#5: The Hep Stars' Swedish Rock Version. Released in 1965, this rockin' version of Summertime Blues holds up remarkably well. The Hep Stars were one of the most successful Swedish bands ever, but might be best known as the launching pad for Benny Andersson, who went on to have great success with ABBA.
#3: Brian Setzer's Rockabilly Version. Nobody honors and treasures 1950's rock and roll as much as the great Brian Setzer. No surprise that his is a kick-ass cover of Summertime Blues.
#2: Alan Jackson's Country Version. When I heard Alan Jackson's version in 1994, I immediately loved it. In fact I bet that if Eddie Cochran had lived, this would have been HIS favorite version as it comes closest to the playful spirit of the original.
#1: The Who Live At Leeds Version. Like many men my age, I consider The Who's Live at Leeds (released 1970) to be instrumental (pardon the pun) in my adolescent development. The passion in Roger Daltrey's voice, the raw power of Pete Townshend's guitar, the controlled chaos of John Entwhistle's bass, and Keith Moon's insane drumming felt--to this teenage boy anyway--like it gave him permission to think of "FUCK YOU" as the appropriate response to everything and everyone pissing him off. I still get a charge out of that album all these years later. Their cover of Summertime Blues will always be my favorite.
I don't have anything particularly profound to say about President Biden's train wreck of a debate performance against the felonious former prez, but here's what I was thinking while suffering through it:
*Biden Should Have Taken the Katie Hobbs Route: In May, Biden agreed to participate in two debates with Trump. My first thought at the time was, WHY? Given the President's well documented struggles with unscripted events, I feared there was a real chance that we might see the doting Biden on stage. Indeed and tragically, that is what happened.
But even if Biden were twenty years younger and at the top of his debate game, I still would have advised against participating. His campaign should have followed what I will call the Katie Dobbs debate principle. In 2022, Democrat Katie Hobbs was running for governor of Arizona against Republican Kari Lake. Lake, a MAGA Republican whose allegiance to Donald Trump borders on pathological, spent much of the campaign espousing falsehoods about the 2020 election. Hobbs refused to debate Lake, saying in part:
How do you debate someone who refuses to accept the truth, who doesn't live in fact? It doesn't do any service to the voters in terms of . . . looking at the contrast between us in terms of how we're going to govern if all she's going to do is shout over me, interrupt me, and spew lies.
Democrat Katie Hobbs refused to debate her MAGA Republican opponent Kari Lake in the race for Arizona governor in 2022, claiming that Lake was only interested in creating spectacle and spreading falsehoods. Hobbs won the election. Lake, an extreme election denier, still tells MAGA faithful that SHE is the rightful governor even though her claims of election fraud have been debunked repeatedly in and outside of legal proceedings.
As a teacher of political rhetoric, and a strong believer in debate as the foundation of civil society, it's not easy for me to urge candidates to avoid participating. But when you have candidates like Kari Lake and Donald Trump, who will continue to lie even in the face of irrefutable evidence against them, the "debate" becomes a mockery of democratic norms; nothing but a "spectacle" that makes voters dumber, as Governor Hobbs correctly noted.
President Biden would have lost little support by refusing to share a stage with a malignant narcissist bent on filling up 90 minutes with "alternative facts." Even if Biden had been more alert and rhetorically agile, he would have had to spend literally every minute of his speaking time correcting factual misstatements.
Biden also agreed to participate in a September debate. To withdraw at this point would generate the obvious criticism that Biden's campaign managers want to shield him from another embarrassing performance. The Biden campaign needs to weigh that criticism against allowing Mr. Trump another opportunity to share his alternative universe with millions.
*What If Nikki Haley Had Been The Republican Nominee? Just about every thinking person now realizes that, for very different reasons, Republican and Democratic primary voters have chosen to put two deeply flawed candidates on the November ballot. (The Republican selection of Trump has to do with the power of a personality cult, while the Democratic Party establishment simply would not allow a serious intra-party challenge to Biden.).
Nikki Haley proved to be a formidable debater in the Republican primaries. All candidates have flaws, but Haley's baggage does not come close to what Mr. Trump is carrying. Had she been the Republican challenger in the debate against President Biden, she would probably be recruiting her future Cabinet right about now.
But what if Republicans had done the sane thing and given former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley enough votes to guarantee her the nomination? If Haley had been on that debate stage against Biden, I'm certain that the wealthy donor class on the Democratic side would be much more vocal right now in demanding the Democrats select a new candidate at the August convention. Haley would have come out of that debate with enough confidence to start planning her presidential Cabinet appointments.
Donald Trump is probably the ONLY Republican that President Biden can defeat at this point, and only because millions of voters will be making a "lesser evil" calculation as they cast their ballot. What a sad and pathetic state of affairs.
*Shameful Moderating: The fact that Sean Hannity and Elon Musk praised the performance of CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash as debate moderators should tell us something. Tapper and Bash refused to perform any on-the-spot fact checking, which obviously benefits the candidate most adept at lying. Hard to disagree with the Washington Post's Karen Attiah on this:
"CNN's format of no fact checking, no pushback, no follow-ups was a mistake. The Biden campaign agreeing to this was a mistake. It demonstrates Trump's strength and power. He can bend the media and Biden to play by his rules." She called what CNN did "journalistic malpractice" and said further, "If this is how debates will go--just asking basic questions, no real-time fact checks, context or follow-ups by human journalists . . .. might as well let ChatGPT or AI do the 'job.'"
*Democrats' Hostility to Third Party Participation Comes Back To Bite Them: Neither of the establishment parties want third party or independent candidates to participate in debates, and they collude with the corporate media to create absurd qualification requirements that are virtually impossible for even wealthy independent candidates to meet. To cite just one example: an independent or third party candidate has to be pulling at least 15 percent support in 4 qualifying national polls. If an independent candidate could participate in the debates, s/he might approach that level of support. The major parties and the media that enable them are fully aware of that, so they do what they can to prevent it. Shameful.
What if Bobby Kennedy Jr., the independent candidate getting the most support from voters right now, had been on stage with Biden and Trump? If nothing else, it would have resulted in Biden talking less and thus give him more time to gather his thoughts (even though some of his worst moments at the debate were when he was not talking). Kennedy's wild conspiracy theories would have probably created a number of viral social media moments, which also would have helped Biden since the viral moments that DID come out of the debate are hurting him terribly.
*Is this An Ashcroft v. Carnahan Election? While watching the debate I started thinking of the year 2000 Missouri US Senate race between incumbent Republican John Ashcroft and Democrat Mel Carnahan, who was governor of the state. Ashcroft had been Missouri's governor before Carnahan. Ashcroft had the power of incumbency on his side, but Carnahan had been a popular governor and Missouri was a much more purple state at the time. Pundits called the race a toss-up.
Three weeks before the election, Mel Carnahan tragically died in a plane crash. So close to the election, Missouri law did not allow the Dems to select another candidate. So they left Mel Carnahan on the ballot, with an understanding that if he were to win, the new governor would appoint Carnahan's wife Jean to the seat until a special election in 2002. Jean Carnahan made one television ad in those last three weeks, essentially asking Missourians to vote for her late husband's aspirations even though he would not be the one to bring them to Washington. Mel Carnahan won the election, and Jean Carnahan went to Washington. She lost the 2002 special election to Republican Jim Talent.
Governor Mel Carnahan of Missouri was the Democratic candidate for US Senate in 2000 against conservative Republican incumbent John Ashcroft. Carnahan tragically died in a plane crash three weeks before the election. He remained on the ballot, and won as the campaign urged voter to vote their aspirations. The Biden campaign today may have to make similar urgings.
Obviously Joe Biden is not dead, but after the debate debacle the race is feeling a lot like Ashcroft v. Carnahan. John Ashcroft was not a popular US Senator in Missouri, just as Donald Trump is a deeply unpopular candidate. Mel Carnahan literally could not do the job if elected; after the presidential debate, millions of people are now convinced that President Biden cannot do it. Videos of him speaking energetically at a North Carolina rally the next day were not enough to convince otherwise. Even Biden stalwarts like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman are now urging Biden to step down.(Krugman says, "The best President of my adult life needs to withdraw."). Many others in the punditocracy agree with that sentiment.
My guess is that Biden will not leave, for a variety of reasons including ego, the messiness of choosing a new candidate at this point, and the very real possibility that a fractured Democratic Party convention could do more to hand the presidency back to Trump than a frail Biden.
So where does that leave us? First, I think the Democrat establishment needs to stop denying the obvious fact that the president is in decline. Second, the Democrats need to hope that Kamala Harris scores a knockout against whatever sycophantic toady Donald Trump selects to run as VP. Third, the Democrats need to frame the race as a battle between two seriously compromised candidates, both of whom might not be able to finish their terms or be effective for a number of reasons. As a result, they should ask people to consider the aspirations of each candidate, and vote on that basis. I believe that more people share the aspirations of Biden/Harris than Trump/whoever.
People worried about another Trump presidency should also pray. I know I'm doing much more of that these days.
Finally, if the Dems do end up having to select a replacement nominee, I hope Governor Katie Hobbs is given serious consideration. She represents the key swing state of Arizona, has a record of accomplishment as governor even though the Republicans hold majorities in the state house and senate, and she connects well with traditional Democratic constituencies. Equally important, she wants to restore political debate to something worthy of a country that calls itself a representative democracy.
Back in April I released Part 1 of my celebration of the 50th anniversary of some notable musical releases of 1974. In the United States 1974 was a pivotal year, as Richard M. Nixon became the first (and to date only) president to resign the office. As a 13-year-old at the time I remember being transfixed by the Watergate hearings that hastened Nixon's downfall, which led to social isolation because I could not find other kids my age who cared all that much.
What occupied a weird 13-year-old consumed with Watergate? Books, comic books, and music of course! Before even starting high school I found myself taken with the satirical brilliance of Kurt Vonnegut, the mysticism of Herman Hesse, and the bleak plays of Sam Shepard. For some reason I enjoyed comic books with mystery and horror themes. (Maybe I saw them as a metaphor for the national nightmare that was Watergate.).
Record albums were fairly inexpensive in the 1970s, but I was unemployed, budget-less, and did not have my own room with my own turntable to retreat to. Thankfully, FM radio was still in top form in 1974, and even the top-40 AM stations were (unlike today) more than listenable. For example, the top-ten hit songs on the Billboard charts for the week ending June 15, 1974 were: "Billy, Don't Be a Hero" by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods; "You Make Me Feel Brand New" by The Stylistics; "Sundown" by Gordon Lightfoot; "The Streak" by Ray Stevens; "Band on the Run" by Paul McCartney and Wings; "Dancing Machine" by the Jackson 5; "Be Thankful For What You Got" by William DeVaughn; "The Entertainer" by Marvin Hamlisch; "For the Love of Money" by the O'Jays; and "Midnight at the Oasis" by Maria Muldaur. Not one awful tune in the bunch.
I've decided to organize Part 2 of the notable albums of 1974 into 5 categories: Timeless, Groundbreaking, Iconic 1970s, Transitions, and Metal Mishmash. Hopefully the reasons for each will be clear as we proceed. Let's get started!
Category 1-Timeless Albums
In this category I include albums that, while readily identifiable as 1970's creations, are not stuck in that time period. Lyrically, thematically, and musically, these records maintain a fresh quality capable of attracting new audiences in any time period. They include:
26. Dolly Parton, "Jolene": I've always found Dolly Parton to be a remarkable entertainer and humanitarian, but it wasn't until her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022 that I started listening to her recordings that date back to the 1960s. I came to the realization that she's been a prolific songwriter. The "Jolene" album is one of her best, packed with tunes that have been covered by numerous other artists.
25. Steely Dan, "Pretzel Logic": The third album by one of the most unique and innovative bands of all time; dudes with jazz and blues chops who could somehow write and perform commercially appealing music without giving off even a hint of selling out. What I personally like most about "Pretzel Logic" is the great Donald Fagen's vocals, which fill up the speakers in a way more distinct in comparison with the band's first two albums.
24. Bob Marley and the Wailers, "Natty Dread": Reggae never quite caught on in the United States, but "Natty Dread" was a definite breakthrough. Watching and listening to Bob Marley get White Europeans and Americans to connect with pan-African, anti-colonialist, pro-revolution themes was something that later got me to understand the magical power of this thing called Rhetoric.
23. The Grateful Dead, "From the Mars Hotel": The Dead famously disliked studio recording, but this album featured a number of songs that remained in their live playlist for decades (most notably "U.S. Blues," "Scarlet Begonias," and "Ship of Fools.") One sign of an album's timelessness is a 50th anniversary release. According to rock journalist Michael Gallucci:
Grateful Dead will celebrate the 50th anniversary of their Mars Hotel album with a three-disc "Deluxe Edition" that includes bonus tracks.
In addition to the remastered original LP from 1974, the expanded 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition includes two demo recordings from the era and a complete, previously unreleased concert from that year's tour in support of the album.
22. John Denver, "Back Home Again": If it's true that John Denver wrote "Annie's Song" (one of the greatest love songs in all of recorded history) in ten-and-one-half minutes while riding on a ski lift to the top of Aspen Mountain, the lesson is that when the heart's on fire one doesn't need much time to create a timeless classic. John Denver = Legend.
21. Gordon Lightfoot, "Sundown": This was the Canadian singer/songwriter's ninth album, but the first and only one to reach #1 on the USA charts. At 13-years-old I had absolutely no idea what romantic relationships were all about, but I remember hearing the title track "Sundown" for the first time and thinking something like, "He's not getting along with his girlfriend right now." Years later I found out that Lightfoot wrote the song in a pissed off mood, angry that he was home alone writing songs while his girlfriend was out at the bar with friends. Thankfully the next song on the album, "Carefree Highway," is about learning to chill when you think your romantic partner has let you down.
P.S. This line from Sundown: "Sometimes I think it's a shame/when I get feelin' better when I'm feelin' no pain" is how I really want to answer when people innocently and kindly ask, "How's it going?"
This category includes albums that were not necessarily the best or even most well known works of the artists in question, but had cutting-edge qualities that impacted later music. They include:
20. Kraftwerk, "Autobahn": In the mid-1970s the German electronic band Kraftwerk looked like nerdy college professors. No one could have predicted that the wizardry of their techno-music brand would inspire compositions in virtually every popular music genre to follow.
19. Sparks, "Kimono My House": Profoundly original group founded by the brothers Ron and Russell Mael, Sparks were known for producing quirky, danceable tunes that--for better or worse--became the prototype for what came to dominate Music Television (MTV) in the 1980s.
18. 10 CC, "Sheet Music": One of the most underrated albums by one of the most underrated bands in rock history. 10 CC were musically adventurous, in a way that inspired better known artists like Queen, David Bowie, and scores of others. The adventurous quality of "Sheet Music" can be found later in the British New Wave of the late 1970s, much of the MTV pop of the 1980s, the indie-rock boom of the 1990s, and the Britpop wave of the 1990s and 2000s.
17. The Bee Gees, "Mr. Natural": This might be the least well known recording in the entire Bee Gees catalogue, mostly because it yielded no hit singles. Its significance resides in it having inspired the "Blue Eyed Soul" genre of pop that normalized the idea of White musicians performing Black soul music. Later in the 1970s the Bee Gees would evolve further down this road with the soul/disco classic "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack. "Mr. Natural" was the first step on that path, a path that scores of White artists have followed ever since.
16. Frank Zappa and the Mothers, "Roxy and Elsewhere": What I always loved about Frank Zappa was his ability to mix musical chops and comedy. That mix reached its zenith on "Roxy," an album that remains as a testament to the idea that it is possible to compose and perform musical compositions that are sophisticated, provocative, and comic. The contemporary artist most closely resembling Zappa on these fronts is Father John Misty, who told The New Yorker magazine in Zappaesque fashion that he seeks to be "authentically bogus rather than bogusly authentic."
These are records that SCREAM "1970s" as soon as they blast through your speakers or headphones.
15. Average White Band, "Average White Band": In the 1970s you could get five White guys from Scotland playing Black music while announcing themselves as the "Average White Band" and have the result seen and heard as a form of cross-cultural unification. Musically, this first album by AWB was anything but average, and the hit "Pick Up The Pieces" remains as one of the ultimate funk classics.
14. David Bowie, "Diamond Dogs": Bowie's last album in the ultra-1970s "Glam Rock" genre, lyrically inspired by the writings of George Orwell and William S. Burroughs. The '70s was a time when a substantial audience actually gave a shit about those kinds of influences in art. This album actually got me into Orwell, whose writing style I've been trying to imitate for almost 50 years now.
13. Mott The Hoople, "The Hoople": Speaking of glam rock, Bowie acolytes Mott The Hoople released an absolute masterpiece of the genre in 1974. The song "Marionette" IMHO is one of the great achievements in rock history, a terrific metaphor for all who pay the price for resisting the corporate hegemony that reduces us to mindless puppets.
12. Randy Newman, "Good Old Boys": In the early 1970s, thanks to the influence of the Beatles, the Who, and other classic rockers of the 1960s, it was common for artists to release "concept" albums in which the entire 35-40 minutes of vinyl explored a theme. At its best, the concept album genre gave us provocative and intelligent music like Randy Newman's "Good Old Boys." The album is an observation on the Deep South in the United States. Newman's classic song "Rednecks" laments the persistence of racism and the legacy of slavery in the south, but it also lambasts Northern hypocrisy. (The song references a famous appearance by racist Georgia Governor Lester Maddox on the Dick Cavett Show.).
11. Aerosmith, "Get Your Wings": There are some amazing jams on this, Aerosmith's second album. But its lyrical misogyny and sexism has a distinct early 1970s feels to it, a prototypical example of the pre-#metoo era garage rock genre. Still, Aerosmith's cover of "Train Kept a Rollin'" is the definitive version of that great old tune originally recorded by R & B artist Tiny Bradshaw in 1951 and remade as a rock tune by The Yardbirds in the 1960s.
In this category we have artists at the end of a phase in their career; albums clearly recreating the artists' familiar formula--but just as clearly signaling a desire to move on to something different.
10. Cat Stevens, "Buddha and the Chocolate Box": British folk rocker Cat Stevens had been on an obvious spiritual quest for several albums preceding this one, and not too long after "Buddha and the Chocolate Box" he would leave the music business entirely, returning years later as the Muslim missionary "Yusuf."
9. The Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock and Roll": By 1974 the Stones were in somewhat of a musical midlife crisis. Their previous album "Goats Head Soup" was the most poorly received in the history of the band, and so "It's Only Rock and Roll" became somewhat of a "return to our roots" effort with "Satisfaction" style riffs and a few "Ruby Tuesday" style ballads. But the most important song on the album was "Luxury," a reggae-inspired tune that symbolized the band's desire to move in new directions.
8. Bob Dylan, "Planet Waves": Even though he was only in his 30s, by 1974 Bob Dylan was treated as the elder statesman of popular music, an image that never sat well with him. When in need of recharging musically, he would seek out help from Robbie Robertson and The Band. "Planet Waves" is a high quality collaboration between Dylan/The Band, but like Cat Stevens in the same time period, Dylan is seemingly searching for something new. By the late 1970s he would be converting to Christianity and flirting with gospel music.
7. Linda Ronstadt, "Heart Like A Wheel": This was Linda's breakthrough album, winning her all kinds of awards and spending extended time on the charts. Yet the album boxed her into the commercial pop music formula, which was beneath her talent. Years later she became more musically adventurous (e.g. recording albums in Spanish, moving beyond folk and pop, etc.) without losing her core audience, and solidifying her reputation as one of the great singers of her generation.
6. Elton John, "Caribou": This album had the misfortune of being the follow-up to "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," Elton's signature recording and one of the classics in rock history. Anything after that was bound to disappoint. We now know from the biopic "Rocket Man" that Elton was struggling with alcoholism and substance abuse through most of this period, and it would not be until 1990 that he got sober and found a new direction in life and music. "Caribou" is not my favorite Elton John album, but "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" off the album is probably my favorite EJ song.
Inspired by the "progressive" rock movement, heavy metal bands in the 1970s were moving beyond mere loudness, high pitched vocals, and guitar hero theatrics. This last category features some of the defining metal of the era.
5. Deep Purple, "Burn": For Deep Purple fans, the "Mark 3" era featuring David Coverdale on vocals and Glenn Hughes on bass/vocals is as divisive as the Roth/Hagar debate over which version of Van Halen was better. (Mark 2 Deep Purple featured the great Ian Gillan on vocals and gave the world the mega-hit "Smoke on the Water."). Mark 3 Deep Purple did not last very long, but their initial release "Burn" is an important milestone in metal history. Ritchie Blackmore's guitar takes a funkier turn, the rhythm section (bassist Hughes joined by Jon Lord on keyboards and Ian Paice on drums) is as tight as ever, and the vocal back and forth between Coverdale and Hughes is unique in metal history.
4. Blue Oyster Cult, "Secret Treaties": BOC were still a few years away from their monster hit "Don't Fear The Reaper," (the ultimate cowbell song) but "Secret Treaties" is actually their best album. Just a rocking good time from start to finish, with a style that greatly impacted the New Metal movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
3. King Crimson, "Red": Guitarist Robert Fripp, bassist/vocalist John Wetton, and drummer Bill Bruford all had success before this album, but "Red" solidified their status as progressive metal legends. This is one more example of an album that was only able to be heard because FM radio did not suck at the time. "Red" is kind of like the "thinking person's metal."
2. Bachman Turner Overdrive, "Not Fragile": Most people don't realize that BTO, featuring the immensely talented guitarist Randy Bachman, were one of the most popular touring bands of the early to mid 1970s. Part of the attraction was the band's blue collar image, and another part was that they figured out a way to give metal a radio friendly sound that would appeal even to listeners who did not care for metal.
1. Robin Trower, "Bridge of Sighs": One of my personal favorites, featuring Robin Trower's soaring guitar and James Dewar's supremely soulful vocals. Robin Trower at the time was often brushed aside as being nothing more than a Jimi Hendrix imitator, which was and is utter bullshit. There's clearly a Hendrix influence in his music (spoiler alert: Hendrix influenced ALL guitar based rock that followed him), but what's even clearer is that Trower expanded the reach of the Fender Strat in directions that no one--not even Hendrix--previously traveled. "Too Rolling Stoned" is one of the most incredible blues-metal jams in the history of the universe.
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