Month: August 2018

Gig Day II

The Portly Politico6 Comments

It’s been a crazy week in my personal world.  As such, the quality and length of my posts have been somewhat diminished.  Today will be no different.  The trenchant political and cultural commentary will recommence Monday.

Tonight, I’m playing a gig in Wilmington, North Carolina, my first true “road gig” as a solo musician.  Due to this past weekend’s flooding, the adapter for my straightforward keyboard, an easy-to-use Casio (I call her “Cassiopeia”) is no longer working.

Fortunately, a local musician friend of mine is a keyboard god, and hooked me up with his sweet Korg SV-1.  It’s a gorgeous instrument with a built in tube for truly retro-sounding tones.  I’ll likely set it on “Grand Piano” and just use the lamest presets available.

Regardless, because of my semi-homeless state, I haven’t been able to practice much, and the only playing I’ve done is a couple of open mics this week.  As such, it’s going to be a very fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants event, but it should be fun.

Enjoy your weekend, and if you’re in Wilmington, stop by the Juggling Gypsy around 9 or 9:30.

–TPP

TBT: Music is for Everyone

The Portly Politico5 Comments

I’m playing another gig this weekend—this time in Wilmginton, North Carolina, at the Juggling Gypsy—so I thought it might be appropriate to pull out one of my favorite posts from 2016, one which triggered the so-called “Bitter Progressive” referenced therein.

The crux of this piece:  we should be able to appreciate and listen to the music we want regardless of either our own political affiliation or the affiliation or attributes of the artist.  In a better, vanished time, that was such an obvious point that the need to expound on it at length wasn’t necessary.  Unfortunately, we no longer live in such times.

The essay speaks fairly well for its self; as such, here is 2016’s “Music is for Everyone“:

On the opening night of the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made the grandest entrance in American political history (as far as I know):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/04b894b6-4d31-11e6-bf27-405106836f96

Pageantry.

Whether or not you love The Donald, hate his guts, or would rather watch reruns of The Celebrity Apprentice, surely we can all unite in acknowledging that his entrance was freaking amazing.  Heck, even The Washington Post thought it was cool.  I was watching alone in my not-so-portly bungalow and began hooping and hollering like a silver-backed gorilla.

Substantive?  No.  Reason to vote Trump-Pence this November?  Hardly.  An awesome display of pageantry?  Heck, yes.

The showman in me–I am, after all, an over-the-top indie musician with delusions of grandeur–had to share my elation with the world.  No thought can be left unsaid these days, so I took to Facebook.

Here’s [a transcript of] my Facebook post, and the exchange that is the subject of this piece….:

TPP:  Whether you love or hate Donald Trump, his entrance at the Republican National Convention just now was EXACTLY how I would have done it–striding in to the strains of a Queen song as a podium rises from the floor. Holy crap…

Bitter Progressive:  Trump opens a party convention that features a platform heavily biased against marriage equality and gay rights by strolling on stage to a song written and performed by a gay man who died of AIDS.

I’m not sure which is stronger, the 2016 GOP’s innate knack for unintentional self-parody (“The national seal should include an AR-15!”) or its total obliviousness to the concept of irony.

TPP:  Maybe a good song is just a good song.

BP:  The cool thing about music is that there’s ALWAYS something deeper.

TPP:  Listen to my EP and you’ll learn otherwise. 😀

(Note how I cleverly defuse the bitterness with self-deprecating humor that also doubles as shameless promotion for my debut solo EP, Contest Winner EP, available now on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, and elsewhere.)

For a post about a major political party’s convention and controversial nominee, it was probably the least possible political statement I could make… except that, in our present age, everything is politicized.

“Tolerance isn’t enough; bitter progressives demand total acceptance, even celebration, of whatever happens to be their cause-of-the-moment.”

A quick aside:  I’m going to ignore the “unintentional self-parody” and the GOP’s “total obliviousness to the concept of irony,” except to ask the following:  how exactly is a political party supposed to acknowledge irony?  Do kill-joy progressives want Donald Trump to say, “Okay, okay, that was awesome, and I’m up here to introduce my wife, but first let me acknowledge that ‘We Are the Champions’ was written by a gay man, so let’s take a moment to check our privilege and reconsider our platform’s plank on same-sex marriage”?  I suspect that, even if he did, there’d be a slew of “too little, too late” articles on HuffPo the next day.

(And let me quickly take a moment to acknowledge the irony of writing a post lamenting excessive politicization on a blog that basically has “politics” in the name.)

***

So, let’s unpack the first paragraph of Bitter Progressive’s first post.  He complains that Trump entered to a Queen song, because the Republican Party platform supports traditional marriage, and Freddie Mercury was gay.  While BP intends this statement to be a slam at the GOP–and as a way of virtue-signalling his own support for gay rights–he essentially reduces a talented musician to one dimension, one personal trait.
I wish homosexual Americans all the best, but I, too, question the wisdom of same-sex marriage.  Does this mean I can’t listen to and appreciate Queen, simply because Freddie Mercury happened to be gay?  By this logic, I shouldn’t associate with gay people at all, nor should the roughly half of Americans who vote Republican.
Aren’t we supposed to reach out to people–regardless of their sexual orientation–and treat them with respect, even if we disagree?  How does demanding an effective ban on music by gay artists for half the population help bridge that gap (and what are Log Cabin Republicans to do)?  How does it increase understanding and tolerance?
“None of [Freddie Mercury’s] other qualities matter… until and unless they can be used as a convenient bludgeon to force conformity to the unforeseen priorities of a future age.”
It doesn’t, and that’s not the point.  Tolerance isn’t enough; bitter progressives demand total acceptance, even celebration, of whatever happens to be their cause-of-the-moment.
The logic of BP’s post also dehumanizes Freddie Mercury (and, by extension, all gay men).  No more is he a phenomenal, groundbreaking singer and songwriter.  Instead, he’s defined almost entirely based on who he likes to sleep with, and in turn, our anachronistic opinions about whether or not Mercury can formalize that sexual relationship in a legal forum is supposed to dictate whether or not we are allowed to enjoy his music.  None of his other qualities matter–being a man, having an awesome mustache, possessing an amazing voice–until and unless they can be used as a convenient bludgeon to force conformity to the unforeseen priorities of a future age.
Another pop culture example:  I disagree vehemently with pretty much everything Lady Gaga has ever said or done.  Her live concerts are like modern-day Dianic rituals to some pagan fertility goddess.  She prioritizes sexual libertinism over all else.  But, damn if I don’t like “Bad Romance”–and even “Born This Way,” an (inaccurate) anthem for the gay rights movement.  Should I not listen to her music because I disagree with her political and social views (there are other, better, aesthetic reasons to do so)?  If BP had his way, I suppose not.
A more useful, valid critique of Trump’s epic entrance would point out the danger to a free republic of falling for grand pageantry… as a substitute for responsible self-government.
A more useful, valid critique of Trump’s epic entrance would point out the danger to a free republic of falling for grand pageantry–“bread and circuses,” as one of my colleagues put it–as a substitute for responsible self-government.  I’ll admit that I loved every second of Trump’s approach, but I’m not making an important voting decision based on a fifteen second stroll.  However, some people will love it too much, and make a decision based solely on pageantry.
That’s a legitimate concern.  Freddie Mercury’s sex life forty years ago–which magically makes “We Are the Champions,” an incredibly politics-neutral song off-limits–isn’t.
***
Music should be for everyone to enjoy (songwriters should, of course, retain the rights to their works, but that’s not the issue here).  If we want to build a productive civil society–one with disagreements, but common respect–we shouldn’t criticize one group for enjoying a song because of an incidental personal characteristic of the songwriter.  Some of my best fans are liberals and progressives.  Should I be offended that they listen to “Hipster Girl Next Door” even if it describes their lifestyle-liberalism to a tee (surely some of them fail to recognize the irony)?  Should they shun me from their slam poetry readings and drum circles because I don’t think the government should pay for urine-soaked “art”?

Of course not.  Let’s grow up and just let a good song be a good song.  Maybe we’ll learn something while singing together.

Trump’s Economic Growth Isn’t Due to Farm Exports

The Portly Politico2 Comments

President Trump has enjoyed massive economic growth since his election, much less his actual inauguration.  The latest economic growth numbers for Q2 put the annualized rate of growth at a whopping 4.1%.

Naturally, the progressive Leftists are grasping about for any explanation they can to account for this growth, or to downplay it.  One of the more novel proposals is that the only reason growth is so high is because farmers are rushing out their exports to other nations ahead of planned tariffs—and the retaliatory measures they will garner.

While I’m willing to concede these premature exports may account for some of the growth rate in Q2, I doubt very seriously that there are enough additional soybean exports to China in a three-month period to bump the entire economic growth rate by more than a fraction of a percent.

Consider all the factors at play here:  the 2017 tax cut, specifically to the corporate tax rate, created a yuge incentive to companies to repatriate dollars held overseas, and made American companies internationally competitive again (prior to the cuts, our corporate tax rate of 35% was one of the highest in the developed world).  The easing of pressure on corporate rates and individual income tax rates have boosted business and consumer confidence, and wages have increased as unemployment continues to fall.

Even before the passage of the tax cut, deregulation within the executive branch began stimulating the economy.  In his famous Gettysburg campaign speech, in which then-candidate Trump put forth his reform agenda for the United States, he promised an executive order requiring the removal of two regulations for every one new regulation written.  In classic Trumpian fashion, the President delivered—and then some:  in 2017, the Trump administration cut a whopping twenty-two regulations for every one regulation passed.

The one-two punch of deregulation and tax cuts has juiced the engine of the economy with rocket fuel, but the media loves to run with the narrative that it’s all smoke-and-mirrors, and we’re only enjoying this growth because a bunch of farmers rushed out exports early.

They push that story for two reasons:

1.) They can’t give Trump credit for anything positive

2.) It draws attention to the downsides of tariffs, and the cloying sentimentality of the farmer struggling under Trump

I have a great deal of respect for farming and the rural life, but these aren’t Nebraska homesteaders or Jeffersonian yeoman farmers we’re talking about.  Not that that matters—big corporate farms shouldn’t be punished for being big; I’m merely cautioning readers to take such rhetoric with a massive dose of soy (actually, pick something else; we don’t need anymore soy boys).  The mainstream media is going to spin this story in the most maudlin fashion possible.

Tariffs historically have hurt farmers, who often pay the price of tariffs both ways:  they pay more imported goods, and they struggle to access foreign markets competitively when they export their products.  And, as I wrote recently, I don’t think tariffs are without their costs.

That said, there’s no way Q2 GDP growth can be driven solely, or even mostly, by farm exports.  Further, it seems that such robust growth makes tariffs more affordable, in the sense that the United States can spare a few decimals of growth in exchange for greater protections of worker.

Finally, tariffs-as-bargaining-chip seems to be working.  China’s economy is in free-fall, and the Chinese have to eat.  Even with tariffs on US soybeans and other farm products, China needs what we’re growing more than we need what they’re churning out.

In short, stay the course, President Trump.  Rebalance our trade agreements, make the income tax cuts permanent, and keep regulations light.