Cartoons Tuesday!

Plus: Is Timmy actually Dylan's "sun"? Michael Shannon sings R.E.M. Jon Stewart hits Trump on Ukraine.

Greg Mitchell is the author of more than a dozen books and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS, including “Atomic Cover-up” and “Memorial Day Massacre.” Now watch trailer for acclaimed 2025 film “The Atomic Bowl.” Before all that, he was a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy. At Blue Sky and Twitter: as @gregmitch. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for FREE. Sustain this newsletter by ordering one of his books.

You’ll be reading/hearing a lot about this quote today, and protests from Europeans, as stock market plunges in U.S. due to tariffs, so here you go: J.D. Vance on Fox last night mocked European nations as they consider the deployment of peacekeeping forces to Ukraine, dismissing the idea as “20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.” From the Guardian:

Justin Trudeau this morning contrasted Trump’s trade attack on Canada, the USA’s “closest partner and ally,” with his efforts to cultivate a relationship with Putin, “a lying murderous dictator.” He added: “Let that make sense.”

Now, briefly to some music. As many of you know, actor Michael Shannon has been fronting and touring with bands for quite some time (he is also a Dylan freak), when not singing as George Jones in that streaming series. Greil Marcus noted last week that he is now focusing on being Michael Stipe as he tours in a kind of R.E.M. tribute show, and as evidence here he sings, with Jason Narducy, “Driver 8” on the Tonight Show. Enjoy.

Meant to post this yesterday, but all I think about when I saw the red carpet photos of Timothee at the Oscars was the classic Dylan joke (dumb, but I loved it as a teen) from “Tombstone Blues” in 1965: “The sun’s not yellow / it’s chicken.”

So, looking for a alternate version of the Dylan song, I came upon something I’d forgotten about for decades, the fact that Columbia Records in 1965 dubbed, though did not release, the song with vocal backing from their group….the Chambers Brothers, well before their “Time Has Come Today” hit. So here is that cool rarity:

Next, Jon Stewart devoted a full Daily Show last night to the Trump-Zelensky ambush in the Oval Office:

Trump Agonistes

Barry Blitt: