Slaid Cleaves, who crosses Folk, Americana, and Singer-Songwriter genres, played a fantastic set at Off Broadway on Sunday, July 22 (2018). I have been a fan of Cleaves for some time, but this was the first opportunity to see him live. While he played only with a mandolin/fiddle accompanist to his vocals and guitar, and kept the fairly full house mesmerized with his songs that tell strong stories and evoke deep emotions.
Slaid Cleaves performs at Off Broadway 7-22-18
I mentioned to an acquaintance recently that I haven’t not been to a big arena concert in at least 20 years, maybe 30. “What’s the problem,” she asked. “It’s not a problem,” I replied, “it’s a preference.” Slaid Cleaves’ performance at Off Broadway is the perfect example why I prefer to see great artists at small venues. There is no way I would have enjoyed Pink or Imagine Dragons or anyone else at the St. Louis Civic Center (whatever name they have tacked on it these days) anymore than I would have enjoyed seeing Slaid Cleaves in a small venue on a Sunday evening.
The 2016 Belleville Chili Cook-Off was Oct. 7 & 8. After Art on the Square in mid-May, is easily the second most popular event in downtown Belleville.
There was around 50 booths serving up all forms and varieties of chili – at least that was the official number I heard. (It seems like there were much more than that.) Since I love chili, it is dream come true for me. The cook-off, as the name implies, is all about sampling lots of different chili. Every booth will serve you a sample size serving for fifty cents. If you find one you like, you can buy a bowl for $2, or if you really like it you can buy larger take home containers. Then there is voting and awards, but honestly I don’t pay much attention to that. I am all just about eating chili.
The Chili Cook-Off is so popular that years and years ago I gave up on trying to go down and sample chili on Saturday night when the crowd is the biggest. I go down to eat chili on Saturday afternoon. The crowd used to be very sparse on Saturday afternoon, but the idea must be catching on because this year even Saturday afternoon had a pretty good crowd.
The Saturday evening crowd at the Belleville Chili Cook-Off can get pretty dense.
Still much easier to get around and sample chili than Saturday night, however.
With the crowd and the lines and the chili booths, it can get a bit hard to get around on Saturday nights. But I still often go on Saturday nights to socialize, people watch, and so on.
This year on Saturday night my patience paid off. I bought some beer chips (yes, you have to buy beer chips to buy cups of beer. Just like the beer fests (called “pinics) in those small Southern Illinois Catholic towns I used to frequent as a younger man (like Radom and Du Bois). While standing in line to get my beer chips, I noticed the promo sign included a Leinenkugel brand. So I passed beer tent after beer tent that only had Bud Light and Coors. No thanks. There must be a tent SOMEWHERE selling Leinenkugel, which is
at least a step up from the other options.
This is where the good beer was
Then, at the far end of the cook-off (at least from where I came in) there it was. A tent that proclaimed Samuel Adams. A de cent beer. Then when I queued up I saw this tent had a decent variety of better beers – including New Belgium Fat Tire. So Fat Tire it was. And I really enjoyed it. Thank you, Belleville Chili Cook-Off, for including at least one tent serving up decent beers for those of us who have grown weary of drinking crap.
Let’s get it right out on the table. Trump is a buffoon. Virtually every other thing that comes out of his mouth is a lie. Just to give examples – it is hard to know where to even start. Early in the campaign he claimed he saw thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the attack on 9/11. Obviously not true and clearly proven untrue. Yet the Donald never backed down from that claim. Recently, at the 2nd Presidential Debate he claimed that Russia has beefed up its nuclear arsenal while the U.S. has done nothing – making Russia’s nuclear weapons much superior to ours. Every military and weapons expert alive has stated the claim is not only without merit; it is completely ridiculous.
False Equivalence Number One – Trump and Hillary Both Lie
So we can start with an early and a recent example of Trump’s falsehoods. But if you look at virtually everything the man has said in the last year and a half, at least 50% of his claims are blatantly false. Look at the fact check page on the second debate from Politico – Trump blurted out lie after lie after lie. Including denying that, in the wee hours of the morning, he Tweeted to check out the former Ms. Universe’s (non-existent) sex tape – when the Tweet is right there for everyone to see. What does it say about someone who would lie about a lie when everyone knows he did? It seems sick, almost sociopath like.
On the other hand, look at what they dinged Clinton on. Things like: she claimed the U.S. is energy independent when we still get 11% of our oil from foreign sources. Of course, that number was around 40% a decade or so ago. So she was technically not correct, but comparatively speaking we are fairly energy independent. All she was lacking was a simple qualifier like “almost” or “nearly”.
So Trump’s lies are blatant and obvious. Clinton’s are rather technically nit-picky.
Yet so many people, especially Trump supporters, respond automatically that they are both liars or even absurdly that Clinton is a bigger liar. A false equivalence.
False Equivalence Number Two – Both Foundations are Crooked
Let’s look at an another example. Their foundations. It has become obvious to anyone with an open mind that the Trump Foundation is just a PR tool for Trump, and he plays fast and loose with it – ignoring reporting laws, using it to buy things for himself and his business, making illegal campaign contributions (which he claims now was a simple mistake, but if you examine the paper trail and effort the foundation made to make it look like it was NOT a political contribution throws lots of doubt on that explanation), and to buy his way out of business lawsuits. These are not “allegations” or “suspicions” – these are proven factual things.
On the other hand, the Clinton Foundation is a completely above the board, professionally ran organization that gets high marks from non-profit watch dog groups and has a specific mission that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it works hard to fulfill. Hillary Clinton has been accused of “selling access” to donors of the Clinton Foundation. There is no evidence of this other than some emails from contributors asking to meet with Clinton. The proof that she sold access is that she met with representatives of governments who made contributions. But she was Secretary of State at the time. She was constantly meeting with representatives of governments. There is no proof that she sold access and met with people because they contributed. We can only make that inference or assumption.
So once again, we have solid evidence of misuse of a foundation by Trump, and unproven accusations of misuse by Clinton. Yet once again, Trump supporters LOVE to throw out the Clinton Foundation as some kind of evidence of Hillary’s corrupt nature, when all the evidence shows that when examining both foundations, the Trump Foundation is proven beyond a doubt to be corrupt and operating illegally.
Another example of false equivalence.
False Equivalence Number Three – Trump and Hillary are Both Unfit to be President
So on one hand we have Trump – a compulsive liar with tons of shady dealings (stiffs contractors or uses litigation or threat of litigation to avoid paying for materials and services, claims America First while having his clothing line made in 3rd world countries and buys 2nd rate Chinese steel for construction projects, and a scam of a foundation), and someone who obviously has self-control issues since he cannot help himself from ridiculous middle of the night Tweets or starting fights with Republican party leaders or from bragging about sexually abusing because he is a celebrity and he can. None of these things are mere accusations or suspicions. They are known to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt.
And we have Clinton. Someone who through their intelligence and hard work got her into the best of schools, including Yale Law School. (She didn’t come from a rich family.) Someone whose earliest public service involved helping disabled and disadvantaged children have access to the education they deserved. Someone who has served as the First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the U.S., Senator from the state of New York, and four years as U.S. Secretary of State.
The accusations against Clinton are flimsy and based solely on assumptions and suspicion. The drum the Clinton haters always beat are the emails and Benghazi. Yet both of these things have been investigated and investigated – by a Republican Congress, by the FBI – to the tune of years and millions and millions of dollars. The only thing they came up with was that a small handful (about 6, I believe) of classified emails went through an unauthorized account. That’s it. Yet, despite these intense investigations the hoards of Trumpsters fling wild accusations of every stripe, even calling her a murderer because a 4 state department employees were killed in a terrorist attack as though she intentionally wanted them to die. For those informed enough to know that one of those killed was a close personal friend of hers, we realize how cruel that accusation really is.
Trumpsters also blame Hillary directly for the world being in chaos – since she was secretary of state for four; a charge so ludicrous as to be laughable. (Especially since the people who really threw the Middle East in a larger state of chaos was the Bush Administration by lying us into an unnecessary invasion of Iraq.)
Don’t get me wrong. I am not truly a Hillary fan. I was on board with Bernie from the beginning. But let’s get real. We have a choice between someone who has proven to be competent and intelligent, and someone who only seems to care about how they feel at any given moment – willing to lie and lash out in any way imaginable if they feel slighted or unhappy. Yet even people who don’t support Trump seem to fall into the false equivalence trap. “I don’t know who to vote for.” “They are both terrible people.”
Americans – the need for false equivalence shows just how ill-informed many of you are.
I am somewhat of a NRP addict. This is because I have the very nerdly personality trait of being an information seeker – and NPR is the information station.
While my NPR listening has waned quite a bit with the advent of podcasts (now I can listen to many of the NPR shows I love at my convenience and even get NPR shows not available through the local NRP station), I still listen to it fairly regularly. While getting ready for and driving to work in the morning, for example.
Yesterday morning (Thurs. Oct. 13, ’16) I turned on NPR and I heard the thing I dread most about listening to NPR. The pledge drive.
I understand that generally NPR is a public supported station, although in the past 5-7 years the amount of “sponsorship” announcements and promotions has increased exponentially, and they need to raise funds. However, NPR is supposed to be run by fairly smart people. Do they really think that interrupting the programs I want to hear for 5-10 minutes at a time to endlessly (and annoyingly) beg for money is the best way to fund raise? I have never been involved in development or fundraising, but common sense tells me – NO. There has to be better ways. Yet for the 30 or so years I have been listening to NPR they have been doing the EXACT same thing.
My instincts tell me that what this method of fundraising does most effectively is get people to change the station. That is what is does for me.
And this is not the only ham-handed way that NPR fund raises. That last time I was a “member” (meaning that I donated) a couple of years ago, I received almost constant letters from the local station asking for more money – after I had just donated. I eventually responded with a letter of my own, telling them directly that their letters were annoying and made me NOT want to contribute in the future, and that their method of hounding current contributors with form letters asking for more money was laziest way of fundraising imaginable.
So while I should give to NPR (and as mentioned I have often in the past), I currently don’t contribute and have no plans to do so in the future. Not until they learn the fundraising should not be about annoying and pestering their loyal listeners. Stop being so lazy and uncreative.
If I choose to contribute I will contribute directly to the shows I listen to, and not reward the lazy, annoying, ham-handed pledge drives smedge drives.
We all know Rob Reiner, right? Meathead on All in the Family. Son of the comedic great Carl Reiner. Of course, he went on to be a highly recognized director and producer.
A few weeks back I listened to a WTF with Marc Maron podcast where he talked with Rob Reiner. (Someday I will do a post about WTF. It was one of the first podcasts I started listening to. Maron spent the first few years of his podcast talking with other comedians. It was completely addictive and I never missed an episode. Now he interviews celebrities in general, and I look though his episodes and pluck a few out that look interesting.)
The WTF Podcast with Reiner was recorded back in the spring or early summer (2016), but it took me a while to get around to listening to it. Anyone who follows the movies knows that Reiner has done some good movies, but listening to the podcast where they kind of went through and discussed the Rob Reiner movie canon it really hit me how many GREAT movies he has done. What I call “suck me in” movies. You know, where you plop down to relax for a few minutes on a Sunday afternoon, but you happen to flip to one these movies and you can’t pull yourself away – even though you have seen it a dozen times or more. So you spend an hour or two watching a movie when it wasn’t really on your agenda.
Let’s just review this Reiner movie canon:
Spinal Tap
Stand by Me
Princess Bride
When Harry Met Sally
Misery
A Few Good Men
Ghosts of Mississippi
Of course, this is just a brief list of highlights, but what a list! These are not just good movies, but outstanding movies that would rival the canons of some of our greatest directors like Scorsese. Plus – what impressive range: screwball comedies to rom-com to social-commentary drama. While Reiner is recognized as a good movie director, I never hear him put on the list with the elites, and he absolutely deserves to be.
And on top of all that, Reiner’s production company Castle Rock produced the greatest TV comedy of all time – Seinfeld. While Reiner readily admits he had little to do with the actual creation and production of the TV show, he did have a role in recognizing the talents of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David and letting them do their thing. More importantly, after one season when NBC was about to cut the show, Rob Reiner went into a meeting with NBC execs to fight for the show. And in a desk pounding, shout-fest he convinced NBC to give the show more time to finds its voice. The rest is history.
Also, what really comes across in this hour or so discussion between Maron and Reiner is what a down-to-earth, humble guy he is. It does not seem like the decades of success as an actor, writer, director and producer has gone to his head.
So hats of to you, Meathead. Cause that’s some meat you got up there. Thanks for all the quality entertainment.
You can listen to the Reiner WTF podcast here: Or you can listen to it or other recent podcasts on the wtfpod.com website or download them from iTunes.
Early this summer I was listening to an independent music station at work via the Internet. It is a common thing I do; I have several stations I rotate through, but my favorites are the local St. Louis station KDHX, the Internet only Exponential Radio (affiliated with NPR stations), and WFPK from Louisville, KY. While listening I am always on the “lookout” for great songs or great bands unfamiliar to me.
Internet Radio at Work Rules! – Discovering Nada Surf
On this summer day I heard a song that caught my attention. One great thing about listening to the radio on the Internet is that most stations post a playlist of what they’ve played and what they are currently playing. This song was “Cold to See Clear” by Nada Surf. It was from their 2016 album You Know Who You Are. It was a great song. Later I found it on YouTube and watched the very good accompanying video. Then, as is often the case, YouTube continues to play whatever automatically loads in the queue. So I heard other Nada Surf songs. Then I heard a whole album from the early aughts – Let Go. The first half of that album rivals any album I’ve ever heard. (NOTE: It just so happens I listened to the European release, so the song order is a bit different than the U.S. release.)
Nada Surf does all the things I love in music. Melodic hooks. Poetic lyrics. A good mix and variety of themes, sounds, topics, etc. So I became a Nada Surf fan. As someone who seeks out good music and especially follow the alt, indie, and Americana music scene, I must have encountered Nada Surf music at some point. But for what ever reason, it didn’t stick with me. It was forgotten. Until I rediscovered it that summer day. Nada Surf’s newest album is very good.
Nada Surf at a Club… Really??
Then, last week, I heard Nada Surf was going to be in town performing at The Old Rock House – a medium sized club. I thought I misheard for a minute. But I checked. It was true. Nada Surf at The Old Rock House on Monday, Sept. 26. It didn’t seem right. I saw videos of them performing before huge crowds at festivals and in arenas. Why were they playing a club in St. Louis?
Whatever. Monday night or not – I was going to be there. And I was. And it was awesome. Nada Surf is one of those bands that sounds highly produced on their recordings, but when you see them live you realize it is not THAT produced, because they are playing it out live in front of you. They are truly master professionals at their craft. And it was my impression that they put just as much effort and verve into playing for a few hundred at that club as they would for a few thousand at a concert venue, or even tens of thousands at a festival.
So hats off to you, Nada Surf. You may have been around for a couple of decades, but you are one of my new favorite bands.
This is my third “attempt” at blogging. The last time I gave up because I grew frustrated with WordPress – trying to achieve the look and feel I wanted. But now I am determined to conquer it.
So things might look rough now, but I am going to keep working at it. Continual Improvement – not Delayed Perfection. I was anxious to get back at it. So many things I want to share.
I will re-post many of my old post from previous blog iterations – unless they are just too “momentary” – based on current events or happenings that don’t seem very relevant in these days.
Want to know about me? Want to know about my blog?
Why Wordward Nerdlinger?
It is a pseudonym I have used for years. I chose not to use my real name for many obvious reasons. For example, I will likely be writing on politics quite a bit, and I really don’t want hate filled trolls knowing exactly who I am. I am sure most of you get it.
er Ms. Universe’s (non-existent) sex tape – when the Tweet is right there for everyone to see. What does it say about someone who would lie about a lie when everyone knows he did? It seems sick, almost sociopath like.