Few are as responsible for today’s fucked up politics as he is.
Author Archives: cleek
Awful Things We Believed at My Evangelical University
Yipes.
A Fool And His Money
Like many Trump supporters, conservative donor Fred Eshelman awoke the day after the presidential election with the suspicion that something wasn’t right. His candidate’s apparent lead in key battleground states had evaporated overnight.
The next day, the North Carolina financier and his advisers reached out to a small conservative nonprofit group in Texas that was seeking to expose voter fraud. After a 20-minute talk with the group’s president, their first-ever conversation, Eshelman was sold.
“I’m in for 2,” he told the president of True the Vote, according to court documents and interviews with Eshelman and others.
“$200,000?” one of his advisers on the call asked.
“$2 million,” Eshelman responded.
Over the next 12 days, Eshelman came to regret his donation and to doubt conspiracy theories of rampant illegal voting, according to court records and interviews.
Now, he wants his money back.
Good luck with that.
Right There In Plain Sight
GOP Senators are jurors in Trump’s trial, advisors to Trump’s defense team, potential witnesses in the trial, and co-conspirators.
I think we’ve found the Deep State.
[unknown name]
Let’s listen to Rokia Traore!
You’re welcome.
—
[Not sure what the name of this tune is.]
Well I was drunk, the day my momma got out of prison
Teen reunited with pet rooster lost at Alabama Cracker Barrel after Civil War reenactment
YouTube Stardom Awaits
I went and posted most of my music-like sonic product to YouTube (as ‘full albums’).
Now, I guess I just sit back and wait for the monetized clickthru engagements to make the Bitcoins start filling up my digital wallet? Am I an influencer? Sure. Let’s say I am.
—
A key point of the first chapter in David Byrne’s latest book (“How Music Works”) is that music is written with a view of the place it is to be performed and by whom it will be listened to.
In a sense, we work backward, either consciously or unconsciously, creating work that fits the venue available to us. That holds true for the other arts as well: pictures are created that fit and look good on white walls in galleries just as music is written that sounds good either in a dance club or a symphony hall (but probably not in both). In a sense, the space, the platform, and the software “makes” the art, the music, or whatever. After something succeeds, more venues of a similar size and shape are built to accommodate more production of the same. After a while the form of the work that predominates in these spaces is taken for granted — of course we mainly hear symphonies in symphony halls.
Which got me wondering. Where do I expect this stuff to be heard, do I even expect it to be heard? The answer is: it will be heard in my own headphones, once in a while. Sometimes I’ll send a CD of stuff to a particular friend who was part of it all when I started. Sometimes I’ll post it here. Sometimes I’ll play something for my wife. Mostly it goes unheard by anyone but me. And yet I keep on making it, because it’s fun to make.
So I’m posting it on YouTube because, even though it’s not something I do for other people, I want it to exist somewhere besides just F:\Smaller Animals\Albums\. To be maudlin, I want it to outlive me. And now it’s out there in the world, sharing space on YouTube with every other song ever written.
Monday Cat Blogging
Walking Blues
Let’s listen to Bonnie Raitt!
When I first heard this album, in the late 80s, I was shocked that this was the same person who was doing all those poppy tunes on the radio.
Spry Duck
Dear President Biden,
The GOP would like you to know that you are immune from any legal consequences as long as you time your crimes so that the Senate will not be able to try your case before you leave office.
Anything you want to do, go right ahead. Nothing can stop you and nobody can touch you for it.