GETTING IN TUNE
The arts and our artists prove yet again that the pen is mightier than the sword ...
Dear Readers,
When the oppressive Republican regime that is taking a sledgehammer to our rights and sensibilities is finally gone — and it WILL be gone — the arts will still be here filling up our lives and our hearts.
Lately, I have found myself reflecting on this lovely certainty, and am bolstered by its power to fill me with much-needed hope.
Our fight for our survival will be buttressed by the arts and our artists, and I can feel this in my bones, my friends.
Last Friday, after Stephen Colbert was kicked off the noxious CBS airways for good, I celebrated his choice of using his final show on our music, not politics, to celebrate his legacy as well as the road ahead.
The arts have the superpower to reflect where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going. They can sustain us and lift us up, as we deal with the most dangerous times and people since the Civil War.
There was some significant news broken on the arts front again this week that deserves some reflection and attention.
First, the odious Freedom 250 concert that Trump’s fascists have been ginning up in conjunction with our ailing nation’s 250th birthday, saw its already pathetic lineup of musicians take a significant hit, when some of the artists who were scheduled to perform finally caught on to what this event was really about.
To be fair, it was not a venerable list of musicians to begin with, but since all of them have given their professional life to music, they do get a piece of my respect. The music business is a tough go, so if you have persevered, and even found modest success, you have lived a life to be envied.
If you use this music to assuage bigots and misogynists, who mean this nation harm, you have completely lost your way.
On Friday, Bret Michaels, who is most likely best known (if he is known at all) as the front man for the heavy metal band Poison, decided it best if didn't lend his name and music to a regime that poisons our air and water.
Michaels, who will never be confused with Bruce Springsteen politically, or in most any way, actually, released a statement explaining why he dropping out that included this:
“Concerns have also been raised regarding the safety of my fans, band, crew, family and myself, including threats that are completely unfounded and unforgivable.”
So, in other words, Michaels caught wind that this gathering is quickly shaping up to be another one of Trump’s January 6th renderings, where entitled, violent losers scream and whine and take out their pain on everybody else.
This is what Trump refers to as art:
Man, I’ve had enough of these people.
Because of them, our nation’s capital is probably best avoided during this stupid, self-serving gala that will most certainly be conducted in Trump’s despicable image, not ours.
Country singer Martina McBride, who might have been the most reputable performer on the billing, also dropped out a day earlier, which is significant because while she has kept her political views fairly quiet, her husband, John, is a vocal Conservative.
McBride’s decision to bolt was the right one, even if like Michaels she is trying to convince people that she was lured to perform under false pretenses.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m happy people are pulling out of this thing for any reason, but anybody who signed up thinking it wouldn’t be a fascist cesspool simply hasn’t been paying attention.
Regular readers will know that these are the people I can’t stand most.
WAKE.
UP.
Better yet, get involved and use your influence and your music to save this country from an authoritarian regime that means us and YOU harm.
Friday brought yet more news on the art front when a federal judge ruled that Trump must take his despicable name off the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
This was always a low-class insult to Kennedy, the arts, and anybody with even a shred of decency in this country. It was yet another assault by a career abuser who wrecks what he can’t have. In this case: good taste.
Let’s be crystal clear about Trump’s true affiliation to the arts.
So here goes with some righteous precision:
Trump is an unread moron who’s appreciation of the arts is confined to dashing off birthday cards of headless, naked women to his rapist buddy, Jeffrey Epstein, devouring reality TV shows while eating Happy Meals, and pursing out his lips and harrumphing around a steel-reinforced stage on his inner-tube ankles as “YMCA” blares from nuclear-powered speakers in the background.
Slobbering his grotesque name everywhere including the Kennedy Center is his chief motivation, followed by taking a meaty swipe at anybody who can carry a tune, or recite a poem, and understand that the Beatles weren’t insects, and Prince didn’t live in some castle.
He’s an incurious moron, who as always, is trying to drag an entire nation down to his mud-low standards because he hates the loneliness inside the cavernous bunker that is carved out deep inside his thick head.
-End
Of course, Trump has said he will challenge this decision, because he’d rather fight to get his way like a 2-year-old spoiled brat, than serve the citizens of a country that is crumbling under the weight of heavy prices, loathsome racism and misogyny, and costly, unnecessary wars.
So as we close in on our ailing nation’s birthday, I suggest we all celebrate it in our own way. Personally, I will spend it by doing everything I can to make sure this birthday isn’t our nation’s last.
Any hoopla can wait until our country’s leaders once again conduct themselves in the image of Lincoln and King, not Putin and Stalin.
There is a lot riding on how our nation’s true patriots comport themselves as we face this daily assault on our common senses by a despicable man and party who have lost all respect for themselves and this country.
As a writer, I believe the arts will help save and sustain us.
I appreciate your readership, wisdom and support. As I have for the past six decades, I’ll be around putting words to paper until my last breath. Whether you pay for my work, so I can pay the bills, or are a regular who hangs with this community of big-hearted noble people, I am thankful for you.
If you are new here, welcome.
Now go on off on this fine Saturday and chill to some music, or get lost in a good book. It’s been a good week for the arts.
Mostly, thanks a million for just being you. You are unique, and a part of life’s pallet that helps to color our world, and our future.
-Earl
(That’s the beginning of a rainbow off the coast of North Carolina this week. I prefer to think of it as a magnificent whale having a particularly lucky day …)
(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)
Once again, you are spot on. Today’s writing is inspirational, gratifying and hopeful.
Paul Simon saw it coming nearly a half century ago. From "Boy in the Bubble" off his "Graceland" album: "Staccato signals of constant information, a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires... These are the days of miracle and wonder, this is the long-distance call; the way the camera follows us in slo-mo, the way we look to us all; the way we look to a distant constellation that's dying in a corner of the sky; these are the days of miracle and wonder, and don't cry, baby, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry." Sometimes an artist can capture in 60 words what would take an historian 600 pages.