Lies I Chose To Believe

I was just thinking about why I hate the typical big time musicians who play huge venues with large scale productions. Ya know, 20 busses for their gear and fireworks and costumes and shit. To me, those are just layers to protect us from seeing their real selves. (kind of like suing to keep your taxes secret.)

there's this live music phenomenon when you’re at a show and the musician is clearly adored by everyone in the room. The artist makes a small joke and everyone laughs like that person is Sinbad on Starsearch. Okay see. Not funny. My Sinbad reference or the joke the artist told.

But, whereas out here the result is me getting an eye roll falling in the forest for no one to hear, the artist gets legit laughs as if it was the funniest thing that entire audience had ever heard.

Or. Wait. Better example. I went to a garth brooks concert in college. Hold up. That’s not the joke. I actually camped out overnight for tickets to see mr brooks. Lord help me. But, I vividly remember only one thing about that night.

Garth had a moment during the show where he said, “I was talking to myself the other day and I said to myself I said, ‘Garth’”. Pause for audience cheers. “Because that’s what I go by back home is Garth.”

The whole crowd went fucking crazy. omg! omG!! OMG!!! As if everyone collectively was saying “holy crap guys…did you just hear what he calls himself back home? and we replied in our minds “GARTH!” while bending over and looking at each other in disbelief and silently thinking, "i love him!"

It’s a stupid fucking line. But, you could tell he’d done it a million times before. And had gotten the same result every time.

See watch. I was talking to myself the other day. {omg guys matt might actually be losing his mind. he’s talking to himself} and I said to myself. I said, “Matt”. {guys matt needs an immediate intervention and not the funny Danny Devito/Always Sunny in Philadelphia kind}

When people are up on a stage, with fancy lights and smoke machines, playing songs that 10k plus people are singing back in unison, they become more god-like than human. Bad jokes are hilarious. Talking to yourself gets applause instead of straitjackets.

the group think is contagious. we all love the artist. doesn't really matter what they say. every joke is a funny joke. all banter gets cheers. but, it's all an act, man. it's not real.

So, I think, for that reason, I crave going to shows in tiny rooms. Where the artists are accessible. My favorite ones are the ones who tell stories. And make fun of themselves. and aren’t corporate hit robots.

I need artists who hurt like I hurt. Who have lived pain. Who have fucked up. The very best are the artists who put those stories to song.

One of my all-time favorites is Frank Turner. He tells the story of a lost love in song beautifully, “I catch my----self, catching your scent on someone else…” aww, beautiful, right? Until he tells it in real life and come to find out he was in Australia and the scent was a eucalyptus leaf and the “someone” was a koala bear he was holding. the leaf reminded him of his ex-girlfriend's shampoo. when he said that, you bet your ass i cheered as if he said that back home he calls himself "Garth."

And when you catch an artist you admire having the courage to be real that’s refreshing. Whereas garth came off like someone who wanted people to worship him, frank’s songs and stage presence are the same. He’s a fuck up. He’s one of us.

Oh another one that I loved. Bruce Springsteen. I don’t know his work hardly at all, except for most of his hits and the Tunnel of Love album that I wore out in the boom box I kept in my 1973 plymouth duster that I had in high school (because my car only had am radio).

I’ve never seen bruce live, but I watched his Netflix special of the show he did on Broadway and it is solid gold. Story after story about his real life. Same vibe from hearing dave letterman describe Sylvester stallone as someone with a self-effacing sense of humor. That stuff is so endearing to me. Mega stars who don’t take themselves too seriously or who are willing to be known.

Story time is my favorite time. while we've all been hibernating, it's reminded me how much i crave genuine human interaction. the moments where we drop the bullshit and have heart to hearts with each other. that is real.

garth brooks shows are not. and something about the thought that the buffer that lights and security guards and dance ensembles give stars from the peasants in the audience made me think of trump.

Like “that’s what I go by back home is garth” got cheers. And a month ago there’s video of trump at a campaign rally in south Carolina using the word “coronavirus” in the same way. To get audience reaction. In trump’s case, he knew he could egg on his supporters by saying hoax and coronavirus and democrats together.

Except the thing is...it was a con. And Americans are dying because of Trump. the actual hoax is #45 himself. He's telling us now that he’s picking the stock market over American lives. The same people who were cheering trump and booing the evil democrats and their made up disease corona virus are going to have loved ones die in the next few months. when they were living out the coronavirus plus dems equals hoax bullshit equation, that was actually our chance to act. now, it's too late. 

And, that’s not okay man.

Our anti-science, anti-common sense, anti-truth (anti-christ anyone?) President seriously said that we’d probably have a lot more deaths from suicide than from the virus if we don’t restart the economy soon. The approach that is set up to protect our hospitals from being overrun a few days from now, flattening the curve, isn’t for him. he’s instead making up “probablys”, offering no proof to support his claim. but, proving, with his words, that American lives don’t matter to him, money does.

We're counting on the man who sues to keep his taxes secret to end this pandemic and save our economy. We could have already restarted the economy by now if we had an administration that worked on controlling the spread when it knew in early february how bad things would get instead of having Intelligence committee members selling off their personal stocks for financial gain.

from day 1, they've spread lies like a virus. and have gotten away with it every time. taxes. secret. mueller. he made the mistake of thinking congress would do its job. impeachment? any other time ever trump is done and sent back to russia. instead, mcconell had his back, because why would they want to hear from first hand witnesses when they have all their followers repeating defense talking points that made zero sense? after that, trump showed up at the god damned national prayer breakfast with a paper with the headline, "ACQUITTED".

jesus wept.

thing is. you can't spin your way out of a virus. their bullshit has finally caught up with them, but at what cost? we're about to die in mass. when they had a chance to save us, they were reassuring the public everything was fine and encouraging their brain dead followers to spread the lie that corona was a democrat hoax. this is a god damned american genocide man. fuck those cunts.

This is not a time for buffers. This is not a time for smoke and mirrors and campaign rallies that value show over substance. This is a time for truth. And the real. and this administration's lies are going to kill thousands of Americans.

Pause. I was about to call DJT a snake oil salesman, but he really did sell a cure that doesn't exist. And an Arizona man  is dead because he took the drug that the Donald called a cure to corona. it's not. it's for cleaning fish tanks. and the man is fucking dead. none of this can be real life.

And the snake oil incarnate that is Donald j trump is going to kill a lot more of us via his mishandling of COVID 19. And those that survive will be hurt by loss of loved ones, jobs, businesses, livelihoods, etc. our way of life is about to change forever and trump is saying he’ll choose to kill off some of us to save the stock market.

he already has by not testing or preparing for the last two months. you can't cram for a pandemic test. That’s the point of the flattening of the curve. But, ya know. simple math is hard. Unless it’s yes, the only numbers I care about are the billionaires satisfaction surveys. We can afford to lose the lives of the working poor if that means jeff bezos can keep his 11 bathroom place.

Yeah. Fuck yourself.

So, now he’s clearly telling us he’s not on our side by saying he wants to start the economy back by easter. The loss of American lives literally means nothing to him. there’s more outrage now, because of yesterday’s comments. But, he’s had 8 fucking weeks to prove that American lives matter and he hasn’t done anywhere close to the nationwide testing that we’ve needed. When you know we’re up against it, you fucking order ventilators. Jimmy Carter would be out there on the production lines right now building masks or ventilators. meanwhile, Trump sits in his ivory tower, looking down on us all from mar-a-lago, while his followers blame anyone but him.

You’re not jesus, bro. you're not springsteen. You’re not frank turner. you’re not a leader. You’re not a scientist. Or a good businessman (show us the taxes for fuck’s sake…six bankruptcies should have insta-disqualified you for this position). You cheat. You lie. And you prey on the weak. You’re not one of us. Actually, you know what you are.

You’re a John Moreland song, “Lies I chose to believe.”

We’re a Will Varley song, “We don’t believe you.”

All right, fuck it let’s just sing a little bit of “friends in low places” too, because to get through this at all, we are going to need each other. We are going to need science and the truth. And as a group we have to boo the ever living shit out of the imposter leading us into this major catastrophe. Non-billionaires lives matter, mother fucker. And so does story time on the clarette patio.

So, let’s keep at it. writing. Talking. Screaming. Crying. Emotional napping. Take your breaks. Use your helps, but stay in this together. And be there for your loved ones who are suffering the most because of COVID 19, whether that’s at the hands of the virus itself, the virus in the oval office, or health care providers who are or are about to be physically and emotionally drained.

Let’s end with frank turner “Make America Great Again” by making (fascists) ashamed again. (Edit: after reading this whole thing through, i went back and watched this video by Frank and cannot stop crying. we are fucking great, but holy shit are we broken. let's fucking fix this shit...together)

actually, one more thing. in a time of extreme crisis, what we need is a servant leader like Jesus. i'm not going to be confused for a christian anytime soon, but i grew up with that. and it's the right idea for these times...a leader who would roll up his sleeves and show us that we are not alone...that he is in it with us and would sacrifice himself sooner than he'd sacrifice the people he loves. what we don't need is a liar in chief who claimed to be the chosen one, blames everyone else, takes no responsibility and says he's willing to sacrifice american lives for money.  only a con man would choose to cull the herd for the sake of the almighty dollar. Please stop choosing to believe him.

the herd needs to be culled, but not via the deaths of the "expendable". it needs to be people coming to their senses, listening to truth and leaving the Cult of Trump. look where he's led us. yesterday he gave us two choices: mass suicides because the economy doesn't start back up or an unknown number of COVID 19 related deaths by starting up businesses while the massive spread of the virus is still happening. not even Jim Jones followers would have sipped that kool-aid. Trump is literally killing us, yet continues to be a lie some Americans chose to believe. he is NOT on our side.