[Editor’s Note: This is the latest edition of Tick’s Notes and Tunes. It is a transcript of a fictional radio broadcast with direct links to the tunes being played. The transcript is in 3 parts.
(1.)The first is the first half of a transcript of the radio broadcast with tune links; (2.) The Editorial: (which normally deals with the subject in the title of this post). This week it’s Trump Wins Re-Election—Our Thoughts; and (3.) The second half of the radio broadcast with tune links.
The purpose of this blog is to discuss, enlighten and educate the reader about relevant political, economic and business matters and to help maintain both a record and an appreciation for good old man-made music before AI makes man and real music a mere afterthought. ]
Hey folks
Stony Riva here
Been really busy lately
And frankly I’m still recovering from
The events of this week
I’m a little numb
So,…probably the best thing to do
Is to get this show on the road
First up tonight is a man Yinz know for sure
A legend of the first order
This particular tune has a very interesting backstory
It was supposed to be part of a film
Hell Up In Harlem but was rejected
By the film’s producers
As the same old JB stuff.
However the song was released as a single
and became hugely influential with other artists
And one can finds at least hints of it in at least 20 movies and
TV shows as well as in many other recordings
including hip hop
Enough said,. Let’s all dig on
The Godfather
The Godfather of Soul
Here’s
James Brown with a little Payback
https://youtu.be/D7ks03zsg1o?si=9-AVdybFPXNFUtKr
As everyone probably knows
Here at DJ Ltd we strive mightily to
Keep things fresh
And expose everyone to some new
And different types of music
Here’s a tune that I ran across just before going on the air.
I have to admit that one thing that Youtube has done
for sure, is that it’s made me aware of
How many really talented people there are out there
AND importantly, the tons of time I know they must have
Spent getting to the level of musical proficiency they’ve gotten to.
This is one thing that trying…
I emphasize the word trying
to play an instrument yourself does
You really do gain a greater appreciation for other artists
who’ve taken their God-given talent
to the next level.
I know absolutely nothing about this next lady
But she sure can play the piano.
Here’s a lady who I’ll just call
MiaMiamiPianist
doing The Ultimate Charleston
https://youtu.be/o3_tiM1e5Ao?si=nIzpi-xhcaxq_QiV
Wasn’t that an amazing performance?
Speaking of female instrumentalists
We’ve featured this next group several times
In fact, GURU keeps asking the bass player
Sarah Butler for a date
But she must be playin’ hard to get
Because she never answers.
That’s okay
These gals are from Canada
Toronto I believe
But they also manage
To get down here to the states
Quite often
And their mission is to keep
The music of groups like the Ventures
And Dick Dale alive
But they also keep coming up with new tunes
And their repertoire and musical abilities
Continue to blossom and have become quite impressive
This is from a tune they released in 2022
Here are
The Surfrajettes with Roller Fink
https://youtu.be/-cPPUAe3xZM?si=bU519qpD2zjmWrJ4
Okay folks, that’s going to do it for the first half
So everybody knows what that means
Yeah, it’s time for one of Rufus’ lectures…er
I mean editorials
About things we’d all would prefer to forget about
…just kidding
In any event here’s Rufus Coldwater with tonight’s editorial.
———————————————————————-
Hey folks Rufus Coldwater here
Well, we have a new President elect. Anybody who knows me knows how deeply disappointed I am.
I frankly was worried when Joe Biden tapped Kamala Harris as his VP running mate back in 2020. And the reason was very simple. I didn’t think that if she ever became the Democratic nominee for President (which I thought would be 2028) that the American public would vote a woman of color to be President.
I just felt that being both a woman and being non-White would be too much of a hurdle, the election of Barrack Obama a a black man notwithstanding, and despite the fact that Hillary Clinton actually received more popular votes than Trump in 2016..
I have to say, however, I actually thought Harris ran a good campaign. Disappointed Democracts have gotten on her for not distancing herself from Joe Biden, especially on the economy, but frankly, I don’t think I would have either. Why? Inflation is at 2.1 percent and unemployment is just a little above 4 %. Those are both very good numbers.
Apparently, however, both she and I (and probably Joe Biden) were/are wrong about the state of the economy. Either that, or we were right and a majority of the voting public was/is wrong. What gives? That’s a very good question. But here is an educated guess: (1)) working people have not, in the last couple of years seen their wages increase as fast as the cost of living price increases, namely, the inflation that this country saw in 2021 and 2022. All of which means that working folks are in fact worse off than they were in 2020 or 2021.
I also suspect that rent levels and the cost of housing was/is another big reason for a lot of voter discontent. The cost of housing goes to the whole American dream issue and is by far the biggest expense that consumers have. It is a fact, however, that more than 20 percent of all new homes are being bought by corporations and hedge funds instead of by human beings. This extra corporate demand is pushing the prices of homes up and thus pricing a lot of normal folks out of the market.
There are probably other factors at play as well.
However, Ms. Harris did address the housing problem. Namely she proposed: construction of over a million new housing units; tax incentives for builders; a down payment assistance program; and laws to discourage corporations from buying so much residential housing that it was pricing normal people out of the market.
I haven’t researched the point, and admittedly it’s a cheap probably a cheap shot to say this, but my strong hunch is that Fox News viewers were never told about Ms. Harris’ proposals. Why? Fox was/is simply not inclined to do anything to help the Democrats.
I saw somewhere, especially in the very important swing state of Pennsylvania, that: (i) non-college educated folks are/were far more likely to support Trump than Ms. Harris; and (ii) that for the typical blue collar worker in that state based their perception of the state of the economy, and apparently a lot of them are struggling to get by economically. My guess is that this was/is true in other states as well.
I just have to wonder if the Biden Administration truly understood this fact given that the inflation and unemployment figures were falling into the “good” if not “excellent” range. The Biden administration and thus Ms. Harris may have simply thought that folks weren’t as economically stressed as they were. Besides Biden did have a program in place that would have created a lot of jobs in the renewable energy sector. This program may well get axed by the incoming Trump administration.
But I have to say that there’s a major problem that needs to be addressed by our public educational system, particularly in our high schools. Why? Because not addressing it, will continue to cause voters to cast votes based upon a misperception of the political and economic way our system of democracy is supposed to work.
Simply put, most voters, particularly those who have no college education, don’t understand that: (i) the President can’t unilaterally fix most anything, because Congress also has to act; and (ii) even if the right fix is put in place by the President and Congress it normally takes several, if not many months for the economy to adjust to reflect any changes that have been implemented. In short, there’s a lag between policy adoption and the time anyone will see the consequences (hopefully positive) of the changes in policy that were adopted; and (ii) if inflation does occur, the increase in prices of most commodities are sticky (the biggest exception probably being gasoline) meaning they don’t come back down and that, at that point, a President has no power to order employers to increase wages to allow employees to pay the higher inflated prices. True, the minimum wage can be increased by an act of Congress, but even increasing the minimum wage doesn’t help those persons already making more than the minimum wage. In short, only employers can decide to pay higher wages, not the President. President Biden and Ms. Harris both needed to more clearly articulate this very important point. And, even more importantly, voters need to understand this type of thing before they vote.
Moreover, and on a still more fundamental level all voters, particularly those who haven’t gone to college need to be more aware than they are over which branch of government and/or the Federal Reserve Bank has affect or control over interest rates, inflation and unemployment. In short, the President is but one player, and sometimes not the major one, in affecting these vital economic issues.
I’ll also conclude by saying that the government cannot fix every problem. Moreover, and ironically, Republicans have always been the party that argued that government shouldn’t even try to fix all problems, that the general public operating in a free market system is perfectly capable of solving all problems without government interference. So, it is indeed ironic, that Republican voters would penalize Harris and Biden for failing to solve their financial problems, when they (meaning Biden and Harris) weren’t really in a position to do so anyway.
And I also have to note, that artificial intelligence and the quickening pace of technological change is fundamentally changing just about everything. My own opinion is that it inherently makes everyone more nervous about their own future because no job or profession seems to be immune from becoming economically obsolete. As such, I can’t help but to believe that this aspect of voter angst, is only going to get worse with time regardless of who is President, but in any event, Biden and Harris shouldn’t have been blamed for this.
The second point about AI is that it makes every worker who uses it more productive. Moreover, the productivity of each worker is probably increasing at increasingly faster rates. This probably wreaks havoc on attempts that government economists make to come up with supply and demand curves to figure out so many things, including the aggregate levels of supply and demand which affect gross domestic product and the overall level of pricing (and thus inflation) in the economy. Moreover, it goes without saying that it all makes figuring out the acceptability of overall employment and unemployment rates increasingly difficult. For example, at one time a 5 percent unemployment rate was actually considered to be “full employment” and if that rate got lower than 5 percent and elbow in the aggregate demand curve would cause inflation to increase because employers would have to pay higher wages to attract the fewer remaining unemployed workers. This has not been true now for some time.
Before closing, I also have to give a shout out to a very interesting piece by CNN where NYU Business School professor Scott Galloway explains how “aspirational masculinity” played such an important role in switching votes from Harris to Trump especially amongst younger males and interestingly enough their mothers.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. What are yours?
This Rufus Coldwater
Good night.
————————————————————————————————
Here’s an English group that I keep coming back to
I guess that makes some sense
Because they simply excel at
Tunes that we particularly like such as:
Rhythm & Blues
Rockabilly
And Northern Soul
Scarlett Fagan has been the lead singer
On the other Hawkmen tunes we’ve played before
And I’m not sure but I think she still is.
Here however we have another singer
Fronting the Hawkmen
I believe that she perhaps preceded Scarlett
In the lead vocal role with the Hawkmen
But regardless
I know you’ll be more than pleased with
Her effort
Here is
Laura Seija with the Hawkmen doing Sugar Daddy
https://youtu.be/K1yy6EVN60w?si=IHAlFDYhOO1TB4ju
Next up is an artists
Who, once again
Everyone should be familiar with,
He wrote such great hits as
The Breeze
After Midnight
and
Cocaine,
That ultimately became chart toppers
For Eric Clapton and Lynyrd Skynyrd
GURU and I think he’s simply the cat’s meow
He not only writes great stuff
But he can play and sing
In a very satisfying
Down-to-earth way too.
GURU says he always takes heart watching Cale
Play the guitar, simply because his technique,
If he actually has one, is
so eclectic, that it defies description
…in short he just does what works
Here’s
JJ Cale in the studio doin’ Travelling Light
https://youtu.be/_OgjB6y70ew?si=2MuldQ0oz3FM_Ijz
Man, it just doesn’t get better than JJ !
We really did lose one of the very best back in
July of 2013 when he passed.
Speaking of the best
Even though Buck’s not here tonight to scream at me
I know by the clock on the wall
That its’ time to wrap up tonight’s show.
And yeah, I know
No tunes tonight from Suzi
She and Buck are attending a
Radio producers convention in
Las Vegas.
And yes, I’m jealous
But, somebody has to keep all of Yinz
Entertained.
And I will gladly do my duty
With a tune
That is somehow seems appropriate
After all I wanna rock
But I’m also feeling a bit reflective
So, I’ll turn to a group
That has always had
…somewhere in its repertoire
…a tune or two that
Can just hit the spot.
With that in mind
Here, hitting cleanup for tonight’s show
Is none other than
The incomparable Who
with
Naked Eye
https://youtu.be/-cPPUAe3xZM?si=bU519qpD2zjmWrJ4
Well, that’s it for tonight folks
I hope you enjoyed it
This is Stony Riva
Here all alone
But speakin’ I sure
for Buck, Suzi and Guru
Wishin’ everyone a good evenin’
And remember
Don’t let those nasty bed bugs bite
Goodnight.
—————————————————————————–
END NOTES:
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