Covid exposed the decline of several of our “rebel“ heroes. Think of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young pulling their music out of Spotify entirely because Joe Rogan dared to question the mRNA vaccines. It turns out that most of the “trailblazers“ and “rebels“ we used to admire were just followers all along. We were fooled into thinking they were deep because of their “cool“ songs and the clothes they were wearing.
What was it Johnny Rotten said? "I never thought I'd live to see the day when the right wing would become the cool ones giving the middle finger to the establishment, and the left wing becoming the sniveling self-righteous twatty ones going around shaming everyone."
Johnny Rotten, aka John Lydon, is a huge Trump supporter who doesn't give a damn what the cultural establishment thinks. He's also right. The left have become the right and the right have become the left, but the left are oblivious to this.
I was never a fan of punk but I always felt that punk had something slightly right-wing (or anti-left wing) about it, so this comes as no surprise. It was virtually invented as a backlash to the 1960s hippie peace & love culture.
“The left have become the right and the right have become the left, but the left are oblivious to this.”
That perfectly sums up our current situation. I grew up in the Bay Area and come from the left, but I’ve seen the writing on the wall and am one of the few who is not oblivious, unlike the majority of my friends and family…
Rotten is the real Bruce Springsteen, who was always a cheesy phony, in my opinion. "Anger is an energy." Rise is such a great song for our current moment/times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OeqLjJtj48
B. S. (I don't want to utter his name, and his initials are SPOT ON appropriate) is a Botoxed, feeble, washed-up, IDIOT, who stumbles around the stage like drunk Joe Biden, while old, slobbering, white liberal, fan-club-Karens cheer him on, defending his bs and failing performances.
Listen to him there at that rally. He sounds like total shit while spewing his political propaganda. They're all pathetic.
Punk was strongly anarchist, but more compatible with the left. In England, especially, it was very working class (although, ironically, Malcolm McLaren - the creative force behind the Sex Pistols - was a privileged art school boy), and might be seen as an evolution of the mods for the Thatcher era, with its budget cuts, recession, and high unemployment. (“There is no future, and England’s dreaming” from the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen)
Even the later thrash-style US bands, like the Dead Kennedys or Husker Du, were thematically leftist. Jello Biafra even ran for mayor of San Francisco.
I think you’re referring to the “skinheads”, whose music sounded similar to thrash-punk, but whose politics were entirely different (neo-Nazi).
Being "left" in the 1970s and 1980s was completely different from being on the left today. Then, it meant challenging power and authority. In 2024 it's the left that has all the power and authority. Read Lydon's quote in the message I was responding to about how the roles have flipped. It's also important to note that when punk emerged in Britain in the mid to late 1970s, it was the socialist Labour party that was in power, not Thatcher.
Someone who is championing the Left today is championing government censorship and authoritarianism, centralized power, and extreme conformity. Rock and roll, and especially punk, was supposed to be about nonconformity. That's what Lydon is talking about.
Thatcher became PM in 1979, and her austerity measures began forthwith. Punk became popular as a reaction to that environment. And being on the left in the 1970s/80s was no different from any other time in history (apart from now, when it’s become racialist fascism) — it was about the working class vs the bourgeoisie and the ruling class. It only challenged authority when the conservatives were in power; not when the left had formed the government. It was the anarchists whose “mission” was to challenge authority and the “system”. Today’s leftists BELIEVE themselves to be in that role, but the reality is that they are simply following the latest SJW fashion (which is what Lydon was making fun of).
Of course Lydon’s comment was (relatively) recent, and reflects the topsy-turvy role reversal that the left and right have undergone. But today’s left do not see themselves as authoritarian or conformist. They see those things as the exclusive purview of the right, and are wholly blind to their own faults. It’s a perfect case of Freudian projection.
I used to hang out with all the seemingly rebel left-leaning alterna-people (every form of tat, piercing, hair color, and lifestyle) and they all ended up being the most conformist, compliant, and obedient servants of the Regime.
It is quite hard to believe. Their younger selves would kick their current selves in the ass for what they have become.
My Primary Physician had a book on his desk in summer 2020 titled “Never Wear a Mask”. He put me on high dose Vitamin C, Zinc, Ivermectin which he showed me how to buy cheaply direct from India, and Hydroxychloriquin. He told me to never take any Covid 19 poison shot. Still unjabbed today.
I saw J. Geils open for the Rolling Stones at the King Dome in Seattle, 1981. Man, a concrete dome does not make for a pleasant acoustic experience, the sound level was physically painful. My ears are still ringing.
I worked on the steel crew for Fred Saunders Productions on occasion in the late 80s and early 90s if my memory serves me correctly. Basically setting up the entire stage from the initial scaffolding to working with the tour through completion! I did many large arena concerts such as for the Stones Steel Wheels tour, Pink Floyd's Momentary Lapse of Reason, and many others! Floyd nearly broke my back! Oh man, I literally could not even pull myself out of bed without the assistance of someone the morning after my first 12 hour shift on the Floyd show! As I recall that tour had like 35 18 wheelers hauling their equipment, quad sound, flying bed, pigs, and all else! Some fond memories, albeit the back stage passes and proximity to the massive walls of amplification and all the other concerts definitely took a toll on my hearing!! What? Huh? Some common responses to my wife these days, although maybe not all due to my hearing. LOL.
Don't ever have heroes. That is the bottom line. Think of all those who revered OJ Simpson. Heroes will let you down. Enjoy the entertainment, but never more than that.
You put me in mind of a really good song from the '90s by GEM (Doug Gillard, now playing guitar with Guided by Voices -- I once traded Doug an Epiphone Granada for a 1960 Univox Custom that I ended up giving to one of my sons). Song's called "Your Heroes Hate You:"
There was a rush to the exits for those artists, a performative display entirely for the benefit of the already converted. Then the checks stopped arriving in the mailbox and they trickled back one by one. If that isn't evidence of the self-dealing and hypocrisy of the Woke Left, I'm not sure what is. What a life it is to be always at the front of the line of those pretending to be most deeply offended. Branding it Joy has been amusing though, so long as I observe it at some remove and for not very much longer since the jig is pretty much up.
I don’t think either Mitchell or Young control their music now. All big catalogues are sold off as a matter of course. So I believe those pathetic moves were corporate decisions, not artistic ones.
I was a frontman/rocker in New Orleans back in the day. We did a shitload of covers…but Bruce was not even considered. He was pop, not rock. We called it SLOP. Formulaic, nothing dazzling or inventive (like say YES, or the Police.) A decent artist, but hyped all to hell…which leads me to believe he is a Freemason.
Springsteen was lucky that when he came out there was not a lot of competition in the rock music space; disco was taking over popular music.
Like a lot of celebrities, he doesn’t understand that he wasn’t dictating fans ideas, he was only reflecting them. He thinks his success shows that he can use his music to push society in the direction he wants.
There was only one group of musicians who could do that.
There's one thing that is comparable to Hitler. And that's Hitler. Evoking the German dictator who oversaw the Holocaust and bloody World War II to win an election is disgusting and pathetic.
But that's where the Kamala Harris campaign is these days, falling back on the 'Trump is Hitler!' narrative (just like every Republican before him, mind you). It's unbecoming of her as a political candidate and insulting to the Jewish community.
The Donald Trump campaign has just dropped this ad, featuring Auschwitz survivor Jerry Warstki.
94 year old Auschwitz survivor Jerry Wartski on Kamala Harris comparing President Trump to Hitler
Auschwitz survivor Jerry Wartski rips Kamala Harris for calling President Trump a fascist:“I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes. For her to accuse President Trump of being like Hitler is the worst thing I've ever heard in my 75 years of living in the United States."
If you call everyone you disagree with "Hitler" the word loses it's meaning. People have done the same thing with "anti-Semite" and "racist". It's about shutting down any real debate. More and more people are getting wise to that game.
They’ve turned into the Leftists who cried Hitler.
It shows they are completely out of ideas; they’ve been doing this for 60 years and it’s wearing pretty thin. Christopher Tremoglie did a rundown on this:
Reductio ad Hitlerum: 60 years of Democrats falsely calling the Republican nominee a fascist
Actually, (and with all due respect) I would submit that you are correct more than you know.
If you don’t mind, a little background on the subject. (My apologies in advance for offering a very long answer)
Despite a lot of research, it’s been very difficult to find the original source of the term ‘Nazi’ since it shows up in the printed records soon after the 15th century as in this example as part of the name Gregory Nazianzus or Gregorius Nazianzenus in 1535. https://archive.ph/NVEu3
At some point in the 18th century the name Nazi became associated with Ignatius or Ignazi – long before the emergence of the world’s first social justice warrior in the 1920’s as confirmed by sources on the Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
From the Münchner Intelligenzblatt, Munich Intelligence Sheet, published in 1795:
“Other empty and day-labourer houses, on the other hand, have only variable names, such as Undere, Heinrich,
Nazi (Ignak), Lipp (Philipp); Ulrich, Bårthl, Wilhelm, Stephel, u. f. w. Welche then be put together by the successors, as Paulilipp, Bårthlpauli, Stephls jáckel, and f. tv.”
From the Schwäbisches Wörterbuch 4, I, J, K, Q, L, M, N Fischer Hermann 1914
“Mocking name, only ais Naze (see note), not just Catholic a*stupid, clumsy fellow; testifies to Buck EHErb. Dummer as Nazi. o. 0. The tappet6 N. Aug./Aug. 206.S. a. Talpes Kalmus-Nazi. Who has peculiarities Vth. WB. 70. Hot, Iggy! Exclamation of the one who burned himself/eb. It's right, Iggy. scornful response to an order (n.d.). Scolding for the one who has done something wrong, annoyed one CROn. Honh.”
Until 1872 with the publication of Pater Filucius and the reference to a sinister character the International or Inter-Nazi:
Man versteht diese allegorische Darstellung der kirchlichen Bewegung, welche sich im Anfang der 70er Jahre abspielte, wenn man für Gottlieb Michael den deutschen Michel, für Tante Petrine die römische, Pauline die evangelische Kirche setzt; die Base Angelika ist dann die freie Staatskirche der Zukunft. Der Jesuit Filucius führt den Hund Schrupp, die demokratische Presse, ein und sucht mit seinen Helfershelfern, der Internationalen und den Franzosen, den Haushalt zu stören; dagegen ruft Michel Hiebel den Wehr-, Fibel den Lehr- und Bullerstiebel den Nährstand zu Hilfe, mit deren Unterstützung er auch die ganze unsaubere Wirthschaft zum Fenster hinauswirft.
Page 29
Einer heißt der Inter-Nazi
Und der zweite Jean Lecaq,
Translated:
Father Filucius
Keys to Father Filucius
One understands this allegorical representation of the church movement, which took place at the beginning of the 70s, when one puts for Gottlieb Michael the German Michel, for Aunt Petrine the Roman Church, Pauline the Evangelical Church; the base Angelica is then the free state church of the future. The Jesuit Filucius introduces the dog Schrupp, the democratic press, and seeks with his helpers, the International and the French, to disturb the household; on the other hand, Michel Hiebel calls on the military, Fibel the teaching and the bullster to help the sustenance, with whose support he also throws the whole unclean economy out the window.
I always felt Springsteen was a product of a hype machine even back in the '80s. Never understood the almost-religious fervor his adherents attached to him, like he was some sort of demi-god (talk about a cult). Saw him once in concert. It was okay. I found his long self-absorbed ramblings in between songs irritating and boring. Just sing already. Once was enough, had no desire to see him again. He was lefty even back then, though not to the obnoxious extent that he is now. I thought at the time that most of his fans probably voted for Reagan.
The guy has shown himself to be a complete fraud. He couldn't have less in common with whatever working-class fan base he's got left. I can't believe they aren't disgusted enough by now to boycott his concerts. I saw last night where he announced he was there to oppose Donald Trump "and J.D. Vance." Are you f*ckin' kidding me? J.D. Vance's early life is literally something out of a Bruce Springsteen song. Growing up dirt poor with despair all around, pulls himself up and enters the military then Yale, then writes a bestselling book about it. If he was a Democrat, Bruce would be praising him and the left would be salivating all over him.
As a long-ago date said to me: His initials ain't B.S. for nothing.
Same with John Mellencamp, his “small town” schtick is just that. He ‘s another phony. Understand a few years back during the height of the NFL kneeling craze he remained seated while the National Anthem played. + he’s on record for far left causes.
I didn't know about that incident, but I've long known he's a leftist. Ironic that people who are the biggest beneficiaries of the American way of life are the most ungrateful. I like his music more than Springsteen, I think he's a better songwriter, and to my knowledge he doesn't get up at his concerts and tell people who to vote for. But you're right about him selling the "all-American hometown" image and getting rich off it while supporting anti-American causes.
What I want to know is how has the guy been able to stand living in deep-red Indiana his whole life?
I never got him either. A few songs were good… but I didn’t care enough to buy an album or go to a concert. But I never gravitated to the angst artists. If I was going to shell out my allowance or call in a song request (remember those days?) it was gonna be good Southern Rock or something actually fun. But I’m from the South, and we seem a lot more immune to institutional angst in general.
Lynyrd Skynyrd is likely your cup of tea I imagine, or Molly Hatchet, both the epitome of Southern rock! Even my long ago fellow young metal head rockers loved Skynard! One of the first songs I learned in a band I joined when I was 12 was Free Bird! Still on my all time favorites along with Sweet Home Alabama and Simple Man!
Well said and spot on. I have friends that were hooked on Bruce, I can apprehend his talent and commercial success, he never resonated with me, and I’ve seen the best of the best growing up in LA. I felt the same way when I saw Santana in the 80’s, and even though I was way more liberal then, I was there for music, not his politics. Stay in your own lane.
I saw Santana in a small live event about 25 years ago. Incredible artist and amazing percussion section. I remember long ago when Abraxis and Caravanseria came out.
Wow did he sound awful singing the other night. A liberal singing this gun's for hire rather than born in the usa. Hilarious. What a clown Bruce has become, just like ALL the Hollywood liberal elites.
I remember being in love with one song by Springsteen...The River. It spoke of growing up lower middle class and having dreams that never pan out and you end up getting married too young and falling into perpetuating your lower middle class life, but dreaming of better times and things that might have been. It was so full of longing that never gets fulfilled. Now I can never listen to that song again. What a shame. Now he looks like an old lesbian, like Tilda Swinton (according to Rita Panahi. 😄) Born to Run was an anthem to rebellious American youth. Now it's joke. An empty husk, like a dried up snake skin. FBS. FKH. FTW. FJB. F the left. F the democrat party. All frauds.
Born in the USA was actually about a Vietnam vet's experience after coming home from the war and getting kicked to the curb when he tried to resume his former life. It's a very powerful song. It was reportedly based on the life of Ron Kovic, the disabled vet who wrote "Born on the Fourth of July" which was made into a movie starring Tom Cruise.
The ironic thing is that when the song came out, along with the album with the American flag backdrop, it was misinterpreted by a large part of the media and public as a patriotic anthem when it was really anti-American. In fact, Bruce himself did little to correct that misconception, because it resulted in his selling a gazillion albums and concert tickets.
That pretty much tells you all you need to know about him.
Wrong decade. II think it was around 1975/6. Then The Bee Gees made a double album and we suffered through a few years of disco queens, the most disgusting American music ever. The Bee Gees were great until after 1970 when “Trafalger “ was released. I still can’t stand to see John “Revolting”act in anything. Travolta and Springsteen are twins.
This literally brought me to tears, Sasha. Born in 1961, more Bruce concerts than I can count. My favorite ever books were King's Dark Tower (and I've read many books). I said to a friend just a week or two ago, "I feel like huge blocks of my life have literally been taken from me, because those two idiots won't STFU."
Thank for this one, even more than all the other work of yours I've loved. This one hit home in very unique way. <3
I read all of them and selecting one is tough but if pressed I’ll go with Wizard and Glass.
For the last 8 years I haven’t been able to get around the author’s public break with reality.
One of my boys also loves the Dark Tower series and for a while I was looking for first editions as gifts for him. Today I wouldn’t give $5 for a first edition of The Gunslinger and if I did, he’d ask what is wrong with me.
I read them all in hardcover as they were released, along with one of my sons (we each had our own copies). I later bought the Kindle version, with the plans of doing it again one day, but I highly doubt that day will come now (same reason as you). BRUTALLY sad that these people feel the need to do such things. When I help a client, which I do often, the thought to share my political viewpoint has never once entered my mind.
"What I know about Bruce is what I know about the modern-day Left. He doesn’t know America anymore. He does not even know the kinds of people who needed his music and who made him rich. He joins the list of once and former icons who helped lift up the lost and forgotten Americans, to make them feel included in something important in our culture.
And now they sneer at them. Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, JJ Abrams, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce sit on a pile of money given to them by the same Americans they now call Nazis." Wow, a very powerful indictment. I would love to be a little bird on his shoulder while he reads that passage, and see if he is proud of himself.
I suspect so, as the modern left have no souls, no compassion, no love, only hate.
Springsteen has revealed much more than he realizes in his endorsement of Harris and his parroting that Trump is a "tyrant". Now we know, it was all a mirage, a persona he created of the American experience. He never really knew, he was just living a romantic fantasy and we all bought in. His blue jeaned, "everyman's poet" existence hides his utter disregard for those murdered or raped by illegal immigrants, his contempt for Christians and anti-abortion activists hunted down by the DOJ and their swat teams and dragged off to jail at 6am, his complacency about censoring dissenting voices and stifling the first amendment. These are all the things the marketed Bruce Springsteen should care about but doesn't. I'll never listen to another one of his songs and believe he was anything other than someone selling me something.
...well, he 'became' elite after decades of great $$$ revenue. And that's how it works right. Its much easier to insult half of your supporters AFTER you've made it.
The 1976 version of BruceSpringsteen probably wudda been more politically neutral.....
I was never a huge fan, but loved The video he did with a young Courtney Cox in the audience gazing up at him singing Dancing in the Dark. Genius marketing - Every teen girls dream to be pulled up on stage by the super star. I actually believed it was real at the time. Omg, so young & gullible!
Sasha, great piece. We have come so far and so much has changed. The people we once knew and were aligned with, are proudly showing the actions of those we opposed. Was it always just an act? Were they actually this shallow all along?
Maybe not always so shallow, but the fame & cocooned lifestyle stunted their growth in many ways. They forgot that their world wasn’t real, but a manufactured bubble that only the ultra rich can achieve. Filled with adoring fans & yes men/women who cover up that you’re a fake now. The lucky ones realize it’s really a trap & move on.
Sasha! Get the HELL outta Laurel Canyon before they find you! Save yourself!
I got peeps in AZ to help you! 😀
Speaking of ‘The Boss’ - I always thought he was overrated. I’m a child of the 70s and 80s , grew up on the west coast . Bruce was never on the turntable or cassette deck like Duran Duran . All of his songs seem to be punching down on America.
Well, they did hold a rally in 1924 at MSG for the Democrat National Convention. It was nicknamed the “KKKlanbake” and loaded with Ku Klux Klan members in full pointed hoodies. Democrats have not changed a whit in 150 years. They are just more subtle about how they oppress minorities.
Springsteen was big in Philly too and I saw him there a few times. Great memories. He’s been dead to me for years though. Too bad he lived long enough to become an establishment whore.
I’ve always been a center-right traditionalist and had fairly consistent political and social beliefs. It is really heartening to have a writer like Sasha who grew up with nearly opposing views come over to the good side. She can communicate better to her former peers than I ever could.
Sasha! We are kindred spirits. I, too, was a Springsteen fan in the 80s. I had every lyric of the River handwritten on notebook paper wallpapered in my bedroom. I had every album and my first show seeing him live at Red Rocks was a dream come true. When kids would confuse Bruce Springsteen and Rick Springfield, I would get so mad! I gave h up when he married his tambourine player. The past fifteen years or so, he’s been an artist that didn’t rotate into my iPods or digital music library. I agree with you and your assessment of Bruce’s downfall into the globalist goblin group. Thanks for sharing!
"Tambourine player" is a good way to describe her. Her "singing" is a shriek. She'd be flipping burgers on the Jersey shore if he hadn't given her that job.
Covid exposed the decline of several of our “rebel“ heroes. Think of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young pulling their music out of Spotify entirely because Joe Rogan dared to question the mRNA vaccines. It turns out that most of the “trailblazers“ and “rebels“ we used to admire were just followers all along. We were fooled into thinking they were deep because of their “cool“ songs and the clothes they were wearing.
What was it Johnny Rotten said? "I never thought I'd live to see the day when the right wing would become the cool ones giving the middle finger to the establishment, and the left wing becoming the sniveling self-righteous twatty ones going around shaming everyone."
Johnny Rotten, aka John Lydon, is a huge Trump supporter who doesn't give a damn what the cultural establishment thinks. He's also right. The left have become the right and the right have become the left, but the left are oblivious to this.
I was never a fan of punk but I always felt that punk had something slightly right-wing (or anti-left wing) about it, so this comes as no surprise. It was virtually invented as a backlash to the 1960s hippie peace & love culture.
“The left have become the right and the right have become the left, but the left are oblivious to this.”
That perfectly sums up our current situation. I grew up in the Bay Area and come from the left, but I’ve seen the writing on the wall and am one of the few who is not oblivious, unlike the majority of my friends and family…
Rotten is the real Bruce Springsteen, who was always a cheesy phony, in my opinion. "Anger is an energy." Rise is such a great song for our current moment/times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OeqLjJtj48
B. S. (I don't want to utter his name, and his initials are SPOT ON appropriate) is a Botoxed, feeble, washed-up, IDIOT, who stumbles around the stage like drunk Joe Biden, while old, slobbering, white liberal, fan-club-Karens cheer him on, defending his bs and failing performances.
Listen to him there at that rally. He sounds like total shit while spewing his political propaganda. They're all pathetic.
Love that song.
Right? The new anthem of the left: “Rage *for* the Machine” - Sad.
Punk was strongly anarchist, but more compatible with the left. In England, especially, it was very working class (although, ironically, Malcolm McLaren - the creative force behind the Sex Pistols - was a privileged art school boy), and might be seen as an evolution of the mods for the Thatcher era, with its budget cuts, recession, and high unemployment. (“There is no future, and England’s dreaming” from the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen)
Even the later thrash-style US bands, like the Dead Kennedys or Husker Du, were thematically leftist. Jello Biafra even ran for mayor of San Francisco.
I think you’re referring to the “skinheads”, whose music sounded similar to thrash-punk, but whose politics were entirely different (neo-Nazi).
Being "left" in the 1970s and 1980s was completely different from being on the left today. Then, it meant challenging power and authority. In 2024 it's the left that has all the power and authority. Read Lydon's quote in the message I was responding to about how the roles have flipped. It's also important to note that when punk emerged in Britain in the mid to late 1970s, it was the socialist Labour party that was in power, not Thatcher.
Someone who is championing the Left today is championing government censorship and authoritarianism, centralized power, and extreme conformity. Rock and roll, and especially punk, was supposed to be about nonconformity. That's what Lydon is talking about.
Thatcher became PM in 1979, and her austerity measures began forthwith. Punk became popular as a reaction to that environment. And being on the left in the 1970s/80s was no different from any other time in history (apart from now, when it’s become racialist fascism) — it was about the working class vs the bourgeoisie and the ruling class. It only challenged authority when the conservatives were in power; not when the left had formed the government. It was the anarchists whose “mission” was to challenge authority and the “system”. Today’s leftists BELIEVE themselves to be in that role, but the reality is that they are simply following the latest SJW fashion (which is what Lydon was making fun of).
Of course Lydon’s comment was (relatively) recent, and reflects the topsy-turvy role reversal that the left and right have undergone. But today’s left do not see themselves as authoritarian or conformist. They see those things as the exclusive purview of the right, and are wholly blind to their own faults. It’s a perfect case of Freudian projection.
It's a holiday in Cambodia, all the people dressed in black! Just recalling from memory. Did I nail it?
I used to hang out with all the seemingly rebel left-leaning alterna-people (every form of tat, piercing, hair color, and lifestyle) and they all ended up being the most conformist, compliant, and obedient servants of the Regime.
It is quite hard to believe. Their younger selves would kick their current selves in the ass for what they have become.
Yep, and what's really weird is they don't even seem to recognize what they've become.
🧠BRAINWASHED🤯
No critical thinking skills....
Good point...I wondered that when all the former folk singers and protest singers fell in line with the narrative like lemmings
Except for Eric Clapton, who was brutally criticized, ridiculed, and cancelled for his Covid questioning. I guess we know who the real rebel was…
And Van Morrison.
Eric and Van were heroes when it really mattered. Bruce and the others showed their true colors.
True, I always feel badly for anyone who was injured by the jab, and he was brave for speaking out
My Primary Physician had a book on his desk in summer 2020 titled “Never Wear a Mask”. He put me on high dose Vitamin C, Zinc, Ivermectin which he showed me how to buy cheaply direct from India, and Hydroxychloriquin. He told me to never take any Covid 19 poison shot. Still unjabbed today.
My primary care doctor told me masks were a hoax and advised me not to get a Covid booster because "we don't know what's in it."
Fascinating how what we were hearing from our personal doctors contradicted the so-called government health experts [charlatans].
How lucky you are to have a physician that was paying attention.
Covid questioning....
Hell, the injection paralyzed him for a while.
Ha, Sasha's Springsteen journey reminds me of this...this male version of the story:
'My blood runs cold, my memory has just been sold, my angel is a centerfold'.
J.GeilsBand
I saw J. Geils open for the Rolling Stones at the King Dome in Seattle, 1981. Man, a concrete dome does not make for a pleasant acoustic experience, the sound level was physically painful. My ears are still ringing.
I worked on the steel crew for Fred Saunders Productions on occasion in the late 80s and early 90s if my memory serves me correctly. Basically setting up the entire stage from the initial scaffolding to working with the tour through completion! I did many large arena concerts such as for the Stones Steel Wheels tour, Pink Floyd's Momentary Lapse of Reason, and many others! Floyd nearly broke my back! Oh man, I literally could not even pull myself out of bed without the assistance of someone the morning after my first 12 hour shift on the Floyd show! As I recall that tour had like 35 18 wheelers hauling their equipment, quad sound, flying bed, pigs, and all else! Some fond memories, albeit the back stage passes and proximity to the massive walls of amplification and all the other concerts definitely took a toll on my hearing!! What? Huh? Some common responses to my wife these days, although maybe not all due to my hearing. LOL.
Saw them live many years ago! I think it was Summer Strut in the 80s!
...about 1976 for me. The 'Live, Full House' era.
They all pretended to be against "the man."
Don't ever have heroes. That is the bottom line. Think of all those who revered OJ Simpson. Heroes will let you down. Enjoy the entertainment, but never more than that.
You put me in mind of a really good song from the '90s by GEM (Doug Gillard, now playing guitar with Guided by Voices -- I once traded Doug an Epiphone Granada for a 1960 Univox Custom that I ended up giving to one of my sons). Song's called "Your Heroes Hate You:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk52xUer-kA
Joe didn't even question them yet… He just had an interview and allowed somebody to talk.
There was a rush to the exits for those artists, a performative display entirely for the benefit of the already converted. Then the checks stopped arriving in the mailbox and they trickled back one by one. If that isn't evidence of the self-dealing and hypocrisy of the Woke Left, I'm not sure what is. What a life it is to be always at the front of the line of those pretending to be most deeply offended. Branding it Joy has been amusing though, so long as I observe it at some remove and for not very much longer since the jig is pretty much up.
I don’t think either Mitchell or Young control their music now. All big catalogues are sold off as a matter of course. So I believe those pathetic moves were corporate decisions, not artistic ones.
I'm voting for the felon and the hillbilly.
That brought to mind this scene from "O' Brother Where Art Thou", featuring none other than George Clooney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lpbmbCguYM
Great scene, top notch movie. A very confused actor off set.
This movie introduced me to southern bluegrass gospel. Which I love.
Oh my goodness, yes. A soundtrack for the ages.
I had never heard of Alison Krause before that.
She is a consummate musician. Have you heard any of her duets with Robert Plant?
Ha! Great succinct summation of a winning combination.
OMG I want that t-shirt!
There's a shop on Etsy called TheRightSidePrints that makes it! I placed the order & had mine within a week. :)
Love it! I have a sweatshirt that says that very thing! :)
OMG awesome! I'm on it!
Sasha, great article but easy on the boomer reference. I’m a boomer and Springsteen can kiss my old wrinkled ass.
+1
+2
+3
+5 both of us. My husband is from New Jersey.
+6
Bon Jovi I liked. Springsteen, not so much!
I was a frontman/rocker in New Orleans back in the day. We did a shitload of covers…but Bruce was not even considered. He was pop, not rock. We called it SLOP. Formulaic, nothing dazzling or inventive (like say YES, or the Police.) A decent artist, but hyped all to hell…which leads me to believe he is a Freemason.
We boomers are blamed for everything.
But given credit for little.
Springsteen was lucky that when he came out there was not a lot of competition in the rock music space; disco was taking over popular music.
Like a lot of celebrities, he doesn’t understand that he wasn’t dictating fans ideas, he was only reflecting them. He thinks his success shows that he can use his music to push society in the direction he wants.
There was only one group of musicians who could do that.
+6.
Donald Trump was ready for the oh so predictable and desperate attack from the Nation’s Socialists:
Donald Trump Is a Mensch: Holocaust Survivor Shames Harris for Evoking Hitler to Attack Trump
https://twitchy.com/amy-curtis/2024/10/25/auschwitz-survivor-on-kamala-harris-hitler-accusations-n2402768
There's one thing that is comparable to Hitler. And that's Hitler. Evoking the German dictator who oversaw the Holocaust and bloody World War II to win an election is disgusting and pathetic.
But that's where the Kamala Harris campaign is these days, falling back on the 'Trump is Hitler!' narrative (just like every Republican before him, mind you). It's unbecoming of her as a political candidate and insulting to the Jewish community.
The Donald Trump campaign has just dropped this ad, featuring Auschwitz survivor Jerry Warstki.
94 year old Auschwitz survivor Jerry Wartski on Kamala Harris comparing President Trump to Hitler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7yadpxnPqM
Oct 25, 2024
Auschwitz survivor Jerry Wartski rips Kamala Harris for calling President Trump a fascist:“I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes. For her to accuse President Trump of being like Hitler is the worst thing I've ever heard in my 75 years of living in the United States."
love this! what an awesome counter move ..."I knew Hitler. and he's no Hitler!"
If you call everyone you disagree with "Hitler" the word loses it's meaning. People have done the same thing with "anti-Semite" and "racist". It's about shutting down any real debate. More and more people are getting wise to that game.
They’ve turned into the Leftists who cried Hitler.
It shows they are completely out of ideas; they’ve been doing this for 60 years and it’s wearing pretty thin. Christopher Tremoglie did a rundown on this:
Reductio ad Hitlerum: 60 years of Democrats falsely calling the Republican nominee a fascist
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/3201957/reductio-ad-hitlerum-60-years-democrats-falsely-calling-republican-nominee-fascist/
They’re other big play is the same old attempt to buy votes with other people’s money taken at gunpoint.
Hopefully, the majority isn’t buying this BS – Biden Speak - anymore.
I prefer the updated phrase for Nation's Socialists. It is more inclusive to refer to them as iNazis ... International Socialist.
Actually, (and with all due respect) I would submit that you are correct more than you know.
If you don’t mind, a little background on the subject. (My apologies in advance for offering a very long answer)
Despite a lot of research, it’s been very difficult to find the original source of the term ‘Nazi’ since it shows up in the printed records soon after the 15th century as in this example as part of the name Gregory Nazianzus or Gregorius Nazianzenus in 1535. https://archive.ph/NVEu3
At some point in the 18th century the name Nazi became associated with Ignatius or Ignazi – long before the emergence of the world’s first social justice warrior in the 1920’s as confirmed by sources on the Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
From the Münchner Intelligenzblatt, Munich Intelligence Sheet, published in 1795:
https://archive.ph/XylmT
Partial Translation
“Other empty and day-labourer houses, on the other hand, have only variable names, such as Undere, Heinrich,
Nazi (Ignak), Lipp (Philipp); Ulrich, Bårthl, Wilhelm, Stephel, u. f. w. Welche then be put together by the successors, as Paulilipp, Bårthlpauli, Stephls jáckel, and f. tv.”
From the Schwäbisches Wörterbuch 4, I, J, K, Q, L, M, N Fischer Hermann 1914
https://archive.ph/okm1M
All through this time period the name Nazi was:
“Mocking name, only ais Naze (see note), not just Catholic a*stupid, clumsy fellow; testifies to Buck EHErb. Dummer as Nazi. o. 0. The tappet6 N. Aug./Aug. 206.S. a. Talpes Kalmus-Nazi. Who has peculiarities Vth. WB. 70. Hot, Iggy! Exclamation of the one who burned himself/eb. It's right, Iggy. scornful response to an order (n.d.). Scolding for the one who has done something wrong, annoyed one CROn. Honh.”
Until 1872 with the publication of Pater Filucius and the reference to a sinister character the International or Inter-Nazi:
https://archive.ph/3KiS1
„Schlüssel zu Pater Filucius
Man versteht diese allegorische Darstellung der kirchlichen Bewegung, welche sich im Anfang der 70er Jahre abspielte, wenn man für Gottlieb Michael den deutschen Michel, für Tante Petrine die römische, Pauline die evangelische Kirche setzt; die Base Angelika ist dann die freie Staatskirche der Zukunft. Der Jesuit Filucius führt den Hund Schrupp, die demokratische Presse, ein und sucht mit seinen Helfershelfern, der Internationalen und den Franzosen, den Haushalt zu stören; dagegen ruft Michel Hiebel den Wehr-, Fibel den Lehr- und Bullerstiebel den Nährstand zu Hilfe, mit deren Unterstützung er auch die ganze unsaubere Wirthschaft zum Fenster hinauswirft.
Page 29
Einer heißt der Inter-Nazi
Und der zweite Jean Lecaq,
Translated:
Father Filucius
Keys to Father Filucius
One understands this allegorical representation of the church movement, which took place at the beginning of the 70s, when one puts for Gottlieb Michael the German Michel, for Aunt Petrine the Roman Church, Pauline the Evangelical Church; the base Angelica is then the free state church of the future. The Jesuit Filucius introduces the dog Schrupp, the democratic press, and seeks with his helpers, the International and the French, to disturb the household; on the other hand, Michel Hiebel calls on the military, Fibel the teaching and the bullster to help the sustenance, with whose support he also throws the whole unclean economy out the window.
Page 29
One is called the Inter-Nazi
And the second Jean Lecaq,”
Again, sorry for the long answer…
Plus its catchy like iPhone or iPod. iNazi. The lower case "i" is significant.
I always felt Springsteen was a product of a hype machine even back in the '80s. Never understood the almost-religious fervor his adherents attached to him, like he was some sort of demi-god (talk about a cult). Saw him once in concert. It was okay. I found his long self-absorbed ramblings in between songs irritating and boring. Just sing already. Once was enough, had no desire to see him again. He was lefty even back then, though not to the obnoxious extent that he is now. I thought at the time that most of his fans probably voted for Reagan.
The guy has shown himself to be a complete fraud. He couldn't have less in common with whatever working-class fan base he's got left. I can't believe they aren't disgusted enough by now to boycott his concerts. I saw last night where he announced he was there to oppose Donald Trump "and J.D. Vance." Are you f*ckin' kidding me? J.D. Vance's early life is literally something out of a Bruce Springsteen song. Growing up dirt poor with despair all around, pulls himself up and enters the military then Yale, then writes a bestselling book about it. If he was a Democrat, Bruce would be praising him and the left would be salivating all over him.
As a long-ago date said to me: His initials ain't B.S. for nothing.
Same with John Mellencamp, his “small town” schtick is just that. He ‘s another phony. Understand a few years back during the height of the NFL kneeling craze he remained seated while the National Anthem played. + he’s on record for far left causes.
I didn't know about that incident, but I've long known he's a leftist. Ironic that people who are the biggest beneficiaries of the American way of life are the most ungrateful. I like his music more than Springsteen, I think he's a better songwriter, and to my knowledge he doesn't get up at his concerts and tell people who to vote for. But you're right about him selling the "all-American hometown" image and getting rich off it while supporting anti-American causes.
What I want to know is how has the guy been able to stand living in deep-red Indiana his whole life?
This gives you the A to Z: https://youtu.be/RogrG9KhheU?si=xV_5tpofc_JRvMNY
I need a rocker that won't drive me crazy/Just sing his songs and then go away.
I was never sold on the idea of little pink houses for you and me either!
The left was praising J.D. after his book. But like all others from the party of the tolerant intolerants, they now denounce him! Same with Trump!
I never got him either. A few songs were good… but I didn’t care enough to buy an album or go to a concert. But I never gravitated to the angst artists. If I was going to shell out my allowance or call in a song request (remember those days?) it was gonna be good Southern Rock or something actually fun. But I’m from the South, and we seem a lot more immune to institutional angst in general.
Lynyrd Skynyrd is likely your cup of tea I imagine, or Molly Hatchet, both the epitome of Southern rock! Even my long ago fellow young metal head rockers loved Skynard! One of the first songs I learned in a band I joined when I was 12 was Free Bird! Still on my all time favorites along with Sweet Home Alabama and Simple Man!
And Allman Brothers.
Sweet Home Alabama means the volume gets turned up haha
Always without a doubt!!
Skynyrd would wipe the floor with the “Boss”.
BTW it’s coming up in 2027 50th anniversary of the crash. Just passed the 47th last week.
Isn’t that so true!!! We are more immune to angst. We just don’t fall for all of the BS they peddle.
Well said and spot on. I have friends that were hooked on Bruce, I can apprehend his talent and commercial success, he never resonated with me, and I’ve seen the best of the best growing up in LA. I felt the same way when I saw Santana in the 80’s, and even though I was way more liberal then, I was there for music, not his politics. Stay in your own lane.
Was never a fan of Bruce; considered him poppy, phony, and always constipated-sounding. But Santana rocked. Too bad about the politicking...
I saw Santana in a small live event about 25 years ago. Incredible artist and amazing percussion section. I remember long ago when Abraxis and Caravanseria came out.
I saw them in a big event about 40 years ago, and you nailed it: incredible artist and amazing percussion. They were so great...
The problem with the left is they want the entire freeway or toll road for my fellow East Coasters!
Wow did he sound awful singing the other night. A liberal singing this gun's for hire rather than born in the usa. Hilarious. What a clown Bruce has become, just like ALL the Hollywood liberal elites.
Not a day goes by where another celebrity I used to like doesn't get added to my shit list. Billy Crystal? Him too?
I remember being in love with one song by Springsteen...The River. It spoke of growing up lower middle class and having dreams that never pan out and you end up getting married too young and falling into perpetuating your lower middle class life, but dreaming of better times and things that might have been. It was so full of longing that never gets fulfilled. Now I can never listen to that song again. What a shame. Now he looks like an old lesbian, like Tilda Swinton (according to Rita Panahi. 😄) Born to Run was an anthem to rebellious American youth. Now it's joke. An empty husk, like a dried up snake skin. FBS. FKH. FTW. FJB. F the left. F the democrat party. All frauds.
The feds should mandate that all illegal aliens move into hollywierd and Beverly Hills.
Agreed!!!!!
Kind of Ironic, I always thought Born in The USA was a dig toward the illegal migration issues at that time under Reagan.
Born in the USA was actually about a Vietnam vet's experience after coming home from the war and getting kicked to the curb when he tried to resume his former life. It's a very powerful song. It was reportedly based on the life of Ron Kovic, the disabled vet who wrote "Born on the Fourth of July" which was made into a movie starring Tom Cruise.
The ironic thing is that when the song came out, along with the album with the American flag backdrop, it was misinterpreted by a large part of the media and public as a patriotic anthem when it was really anti-American. In fact, Bruce himself did little to correct that misconception, because it resulted in his selling a gazillion albums and concert tickets.
That pretty much tells you all you need to know about him.
Thanks for educating me on the inspiration for the song Kate! I did see the Cruise movie though long ago!
Wrong decade. II think it was around 1975/6. Then The Bee Gees made a double album and we suffered through a few years of disco queens, the most disgusting American music ever. The Bee Gees were great until after 1970 when “Trafalger “ was released. I still can’t stand to see John “Revolting”act in anything. Travolta and Springsteen are twins.
The album, Born in the U. S. A. was released in 1984
This literally brought me to tears, Sasha. Born in 1961, more Bruce concerts than I can count. My favorite ever books were King's Dark Tower (and I've read many books). I said to a friend just a week or two ago, "I feel like huge blocks of my life have literally been taken from me, because those two idiots won't STFU."
Thank for this one, even more than all the other work of yours I've loved. This one hit home in very unique way. <3
I think Roland would just draw and fire on King like Roland drew and fired on resurrected weed eater.
<3 <3 <3 (drawing of the three - lol)
I read all of them and selecting one is tough but if pressed I’ll go with Wizard and Glass.
For the last 8 years I haven’t been able to get around the author’s public break with reality.
One of my boys also loves the Dark Tower series and for a while I was looking for first editions as gifts for him. Today I wouldn’t give $5 for a first edition of The Gunslinger and if I did, he’d ask what is wrong with me.
I read them all in hardcover as they were released, along with one of my sons (we each had our own copies). I later bought the Kindle version, with the plans of doing it again one day, but I highly doubt that day will come now (same reason as you). BRUTALLY sad that these people feel the need to do such things. When I help a client, which I do often, the thought to share my political viewpoint has never once entered my mind.
I can’t tell you how many times in the past three months I’ve had to firmly inform coworkers, “I do not discuss politics at work.”
If someone I hired to perform a service started talking politics I’d be out the door posthaste.
"What I know about Bruce is what I know about the modern-day Left. He doesn’t know America anymore. He does not even know the kinds of people who needed his music and who made him rich. He joins the list of once and former icons who helped lift up the lost and forgotten Americans, to make them feel included in something important in our culture.
And now they sneer at them. Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, JJ Abrams, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce sit on a pile of money given to them by the same Americans they now call Nazis." Wow, a very powerful indictment. I would love to be a little bird on his shoulder while he reads that passage, and see if he is proud of himself.
I suspect so, as the modern left have no souls, no compassion, no love, only hate.
Springsteen has revealed much more than he realizes in his endorsement of Harris and his parroting that Trump is a "tyrant". Now we know, it was all a mirage, a persona he created of the American experience. He never really knew, he was just living a romantic fantasy and we all bought in. His blue jeaned, "everyman's poet" existence hides his utter disregard for those murdered or raped by illegal immigrants, his contempt for Christians and anti-abortion activists hunted down by the DOJ and their swat teams and dragged off to jail at 6am, his complacency about censoring dissenting voices and stifling the first amendment. These are all the things the marketed Bruce Springsteen should care about but doesn't. I'll never listen to another one of his songs and believe he was anything other than someone selling me something.
Thought rock-n-roll was all about rebellion & “stand in’ up to The Man”? Instead it’s morphed into conformity & groupthink.
They have become the thing they used to sing against
His "working man" persona was always a charade.
I remember seeing news articles about him crossing union picket lines at concert venues.
But then he had to boycott concerts in states that wouldn't permit intact males into women's restrooms
I don't care if a male is "intact" or butchered. Stay TF out of the female's restrooms❕️
Intact.pfft
Bruce Who?
Just another elite who's sold his soul for fame. His day of reckoning will soon arrive.
...well, he 'became' elite after decades of great $$$ revenue. And that's how it works right. Its much easier to insult half of your supporters AFTER you've made it.
The 1976 version of BruceSpringsteen probably wudda been more politically neutral.....
I was never a huge fan, but loved The video he did with a young Courtney Cox in the audience gazing up at him singing Dancing in the Dark. Genius marketing - Every teen girls dream to be pulled up on stage by the super star. I actually believed it was real at the time. Omg, so young & gullible!
Sasha, great piece. We have come so far and so much has changed. The people we once knew and were aligned with, are proudly showing the actions of those we opposed. Was it always just an act? Were they actually this shallow all along?
Maybe not always so shallow, but the fame & cocooned lifestyle stunted their growth in many ways. They forgot that their world wasn’t real, but a manufactured bubble that only the ultra rich can achieve. Filled with adoring fans & yes men/women who cover up that you’re a fake now. The lucky ones realize it’s really a trap & move on.
Yes
Sasha! Get the HELL outta Laurel Canyon before they find you! Save yourself!
I got peeps in AZ to help you! 😀
Speaking of ‘The Boss’ - I always thought he was overrated. I’m a child of the 70s and 80s , grew up on the west coast . Bruce was never on the turntable or cassette deck like Duran Duran . All of his songs seem to be punching down on America.
Oh yea, the Hitler attacks, coming from those who want to :
1. Ban free speech
2. Seize guns
3. Support Hamas against Jews
4. Legalize shooting of civilians by the military.
5. Restrict travel.
6. Track every cent you spend.
7 Check your identification papers everywhere but voting.
8. Invade every aspect of your privacy thru the IRS.
Well at least they don't hold rallies in Madison Square Garden. (not enough would show up)
Well, they did hold a rally in 1924 at MSG for the Democrat National Convention. It was nicknamed the “KKKlanbake” and loaded with Ku Klux Klan members in full pointed hoodies. Democrats have not changed a whit in 150 years. They are just more subtle about how they oppress minorities.
Kaffiyehs instead of white hoods…
Springsteen was big in Philly too and I saw him there a few times. Great memories. He’s been dead to me for years though. Too bad he lived long enough to become an establishment whore.
Nothing says rebel like a man with capped teeth and a facelift
A bad lesbian facelift
I’ve always been a center-right traditionalist and had fairly consistent political and social beliefs. It is really heartening to have a writer like Sasha who grew up with nearly opposing views come over to the good side. She can communicate better to her former peers than I ever could.
Sasha! We are kindred spirits. I, too, was a Springsteen fan in the 80s. I had every lyric of the River handwritten on notebook paper wallpapered in my bedroom. I had every album and my first show seeing him live at Red Rocks was a dream come true. When kids would confuse Bruce Springsteen and Rick Springfield, I would get so mad! I gave h up when he married his tambourine player. The past fifteen years or so, he’s been an artist that didn’t rotate into my iPods or digital music library. I agree with you and your assessment of Bruce’s downfall into the globalist goblin group. Thanks for sharing!
"Tambourine player" is a good way to describe her. Her "singing" is a shriek. She'd be flipping burgers on the Jersey shore if he hadn't given her that job.
Her father was a banker and she went to NYU.