Thursday Newsletter
What's next for Trump and the White Rioters? Plus: Jason Isbell, Bob Dylan, James Brown, Jeff Goldblum--and my movie debut
Welcome to day four of this newsletter and hello to the many new subscribers since yesterday. It seems apt to open, after another impeachment, with a look back at where we were just three years ago in the depths of Trumpism and, maybe, why we managed to climb out. So here’s a little tune that the finest current American songwriter Jason Isbell wrote in that dark period, urging folks to “take the high road home again” to “a world we want to live in” because “there can’t be more of them than us…there can’t be more….” As it turns out, there weren’t. Look for another couple of music picks down the page—and a tribute to tuba giant Howard Johnson. For those “guests” who have not yet subscribed: please do so, and thanks.
Politics and Media Notes
As Harry Shearer tells me, “Impeachment is lovelier the second time around.” I guess that’s because this time we know Trump will be leaving office, win or lose. Colbert last night added this subtitle to his usual “Don and the Giant Impeach 2” segment: “Leave Fast, We’re Furious.” But as Howard Fineman put it, it’s going to take America quite awhile to “cough up this orange hairball.” We prefer Colbert in this house, but here’s Seth Myers’ monologue last night, including a reference to Trump as a “twice-baked potato” and “President Jackhammer.” And here’s last night’s Sam Bee opening.
Local paper in Trump’s native Queens had some fun yesterday, with its booming front-page header, QUEENS MAN IMPEACHED—AGAIN, and then its lede, “A Queens-born real estate developer made history Wednesday when he became the first U.S. president ever impeached twice by the House of Representatives.”
While the twin QAnon dodos, Boebert and Greene, got most of the attention in defending Der Leader yesterday, I had to enjoy Charlie Pierce’s quip: “If Kevin McCarthy straddles any wider, he's going to split his trousers.” Also the reappearance of Trump’s disgraced doc and White House pill pusher, Ronny Jackson, who slinked back to Texas and naturally easily won a House seat last November. Yesterday he ranted on the floor of Congress wearing the smallest mask imaginable—closer to a strip or a band—which constantly slipped down past his nose. Call him Dr. Know Nothing.
Well, Ronny’s still making out better than Trump’s previous doc, the hirsute Dr. Harold Bornstein, who has passed away at age 73. He had called his patient the healthiest person ever to serve as president, but as for himself—not so much, apparently.
Meanwhile, Rep. Greene promises to offer an impeachment resolution against Joe Biden the day after he takes office. The way things are going for her as a possible conspirator in the Capitol crime, she may have to send over the papers from jail. Hopefully she will learn it’s not easy being Greene.
Major media uproar today as Politico slammed for turning over its morning Playbook to far-right Ben Shapiro, most recently a key enabler for the election fraudsters in the House and Senate. Politico claims no big deal, as they had handed the job to liberal Chris Hayes yesterday. So again the false comparison between an arch-conservative liar and a reality-based lib.
Stark numbers: a record eight members of Congress have tested positive for Covid in the past week. Before the Capitol assault the first four were all Republicans. After the Capitol lockdown, when some of the GOPers refused to wear masks, all four were Democrats. You do the math. But “unity,” people!
Please share or subscribe…it’s even free.
NPR exclusive this morning: The FBI & DHS did not do a formal threat assessment before the Capitol riot. They did one ahead of the Portland protests after the George Floyd murder and before BLM protests in June. Despite red flags on social media, they did no assessment before the Trump rally. Because white folks planning to rape, kidnap, lynch or shoot—possibly after tours led by House members—have the right skin in the game. Then there’s this classic Police & Thieves headline today: “Two Virginia police officers claim they’re not guilty because they were escorted into the Capitol by other police.” And now we learn today that dozens on the official FBI “terrorist watch list” (mainly white supremacists) came to D.C.—with the bureau and DHS out to lunch.
One downside of Parler being forced offline, and so many QAnons kicked off Twitter, is this: It grows harder for law enforcement—and, really, any of us—to monitor the crazies planning further protests or assaults over the next few days. Some who have penetrated chats still out there on Gab and elsewhere suggest that the massive show of policing numbers in D.C. and in some spots elsewhere is forcing the Imbecilic Army to think smaller in the short run while getting more serious about long-range insurrection—or that dread phrase “going underground.”
I lived through this in the early 1970s, on the opposite end of the political spectrum, when the Weathermen became the Weather Underground (and, no, not mainly so it would seem gender neutral). That led to various bombings and gun play, causing serious negative effects for the Left, such as suffering under a massive, and sometimes illegal, federal surveillance program named COINTELPRO. It was led by the FBI’s (ahem) Mark Felt, later revealed as Woodward & Bernstein’s “Deep Throat.” I’m sure I was followed and monitored due to my dealings at Crawdaddy with the likes of 'Abbie Hoffman, Bill Kunstler, Jerry Rubin and Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo. The latter two were good friends and for a time totally innocent suspects in an infamous bomb blast at the…U.S. Capitol. More on this in future days.
Please subscribe—it’s free!
In case you were wondering, there’s no need to troll Glenn Greenwald these days over at Twitter—most days he trolls himself. And note to James Comey: It’s a little early for what we can only hope are your April Fools pranks this week. Now just go away, or perhaps forever.
Would be quite delicious if Trump really makes good on his order to his money people to stiff Rudy Giuliani on his massive legal bill, as he has done with so many others over the years, and wouldn’t that be a shame. Perfect way for Don to go out: calling Pence a “pussy” and Rudy a sap (and that sap runs, as we now know). Rudy may have to win that lawsuit against Sasha/Borat to stay afloat.
Just want to note here the passing this week of musician legend Howard Johnson, who had 28 flavors of talent, and lent his tuba playing and other skills to the work of everyone from Charlie Mingus and the first SNL band to Taj Mahal and The Band—at The Last Waltz no less. Backed James Taylor on “Sesame Street.” I caught him on stage backing a favorite performer or group several times, most notably at The Band’s legendary Rock of Ages performances in NYC in 1971. Here he is backing Taj.
Film
Sad to see that Joan Micklin Silver, one of the few female movie directors back in the day, has died. She was best known for directing Crossing Delancey, Hester Street and Chilly Scenes of Winter. Among other accomplishments she gave me my first appearance up on the big screen.
It was back in the mid-1970s, and the set photographer for Joan’s new film Between the Lines, phoned me at Crawdaddy in New York to ask if I could round up a few other vanishing longhairs to appear in the movie, which was set at a Boston alt-paper, similar to The Real Paper or the Phoenix. A "give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair" order. The photog was Lorey Sebastian, ex-wife of John Sebastian (she was the "you" in "you and me and rain on the roof”). Among those I rounded up was one of my staffers, Mitch Glazer, later a Hollywood screenwriter himself.
My appearance would amount to this: Lorey would take a picture of young Jeff Goldblum, in his breakout role, and other stars (Lindsay Crouse, John Heard, Bruno Kirby, Michael J. Pollard), plus any longhairs I could gather, in front of a building in Soho, looking like we were all back in 1970. It was summer but we had to wear winter clothes for some reason. The picture would then appear in the movie as some of the characters gazed at it (see the still below) and reflected on the good old days before the paper got kind of corporate. Yes. Even back then.
Goldblum played the smart-ass record reviewer. We later had lunch a couple of times and I got him to write a review of a Natalie Cole album or Crawdaddy. He was so quiet and well-mannered back then. So, if you watch the film, you will briefly see me--with Jeff and the rest of the "staff”—in a close-up of the photo taken in Soho that day. R.I.P. my film career in front of the camera.
Song of the Day
Don’t want to give away too much as an intro, except to say it’s one of my favorite mash-ups of all-time, as James Brown surprisingly and seamlessly meets Bob Dylan and The Band in 1966. Like a rolling stone? No, like a sex machine. “Hit it, Bobby!”
Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels, the current The Beginning or the End, and The Campaign of the Century, which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. He won more than a dozen awards as editor of Editor & Publisher magazine and for all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. This year he wrote and directed his first film feature, Atomic Cover-up.