Grass Roots

“You’ve got to live for yourself, for yourself and nobody else!”

Blues Magoos

When I was a 9-year old enjoying a Rockwellian midwest upbringing in Evanston, Ill, one of my best friends was a neighbor named Alan Kornfeld. Together we shared a love of baseball, both playing and worshiping Ernie Banks and his Chicago Cubs. Also, Alan had a full drum set in his basement that may have been his older brother’s; near 50 years clouds my recollection on the matter. What I am clear about is how well Alan could play and how futile my half-hearted attempts at learning were.

Dog day afternoons of summer were often spent in the Kornfeld basement, me watching Alan play along very competently to “Wipe Out” or, better yet, a Beatles classic or some other 45 he poached from his brother’s off-limits collection. After several songs Alan would take a break and give me a chance with the sticks, which I never took advantage of, instead struggling to even master very basic snare/cymbal combinations. Alan wasn’t a patient teacher, and usually after a couple of failed forays at rhythm, he would be looking to get the sticks back, refreshed and ready to challenge himself. I never could get the hang of it, much to my disappointment because drumming seemed to me a very cool activity.

I remember asking my mom what she thought Santa would say to a drum set for XMas; her response was immediate and certain, leaving not a speck of daylight for hope. At least I held on to the Mel Stottlemeyer model mitt I received instead for decades…. what are you going to do? My parents were loving and generous, but not masochists!

Anyway, flash forward seven or eight years to my high school days in Maryland – the family having relocated from idyllic Evanston to the then DC suburban outpost of Potomac, where extreme culture shock and the teen angst it afforded made drug use a forgone conclusion. The silver lining was live music, which went hand in hand with pot smoking and inebriation, became a priority. In neighboring Bethesda, no band was more beloved than The Nighthawks, a lunch pail blues group that loved to play for hours without any fluff or gimmicks. Nothing but the blues!

During summertime, the Nighthawks always booked a number of dates at beach clubs up and down the Delmarva coastline. Throughout my college years summers were spent in Ocean City, MD, and the season was not complete without at least a couple of Nighthawks shows. While most of the limelight went to front man Mark Wenner and lead guitarist Jimmy Thackeray, I focused much of my attention on the drummer, Pete Ragusa, whose rock solid percussion work set just the right tempo, so necessary to allow for extended guitar riffs or charismatic harmonica solos. Perhaps it dates back to my Alan Kornfeld envy, or a close college buddy who could also pound the skins with effortless authority, but there is a wonderful feeling of satisfaction one gets viewing superb drummers as they nonchalantly anchor their band’s offerings. In the early 80s, in resort hot spots like the Electric Circus or the Bottle and Cork, Pete Ragusa fully embodied such blue collar professionalism.

Trump, his wretched core, and perhaps most significantly, Fox/AM relentlessly label critics as “elites” out of touch with the basic sensibilities of flyover American patriots. To deride the grievance narrative of Trumpism is to admit benefitting from the underhanded doings of “the swamp” “our President” is draining one kept promise at a time. Hollywood, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Ivy League “safe zones”, sanctuary cities and the like, these are the outliers obstructing the MAGA agenda “real” rock-ribbed America supposedly embraces…. oh, and prays for.

This week, several academics laid out the case for impeaching Trump to the House Judiciary Committee. It was not a difficult task. Yet and still, White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway, always game to besmirch opponents by targeting them as worthy recipients of one MAGA gripe or another, shamelessly gulped from the “elitist” well. Attacking Stanford Law Professor Pamela Karlan, who gave short shrift to comical GOP presumptions about Trump’s intentions, Conway went low and exuded phony baloney self-righteousness, her usual deflection MO:

“She’s the star witness, she didn’t educate us. She spent her life lecturing people, she hobnobs with the elite…… I took out six figures worth of student loans to put myself through law school and college with my single mother working her tail off to supplement that. I resent someone like that looking down on half of America. She sounds like Hillary Clinton with the ‘deplorables.'”

All of which circles back to Pete Ragusa and the question of what our citizenry looks and sounds like after three long years of a Fox/AM Presidency. I was psyched he accepted my friend request a couple years ago. As a fan I thought it cool FB rendered a true local blues legend like him so accessible, and welcomed his posts across my news feed. Like the straight shooter I always perceived him to be, Ragusa is direct with his thoughts, often focusing on a preoccupation many share. When not employing memes to convey his feelings, Ragusa gets right to the point without mincing words:

“F**k Trump…. F**k the Republican Party!”

“F**k Trump and f**k the spineless little minions … who further his bullshit ideas of governing a nation he spits on.”

Get the picture? Ragusa, the antithesis of MAGA’s straw man “elite,” calls things as he sees them. The visceral tone he employs matches his level of concern at a situation he recognizes as critical. He refuses to ignore it, and isn’t much concerned whether people hold his vigilance against him or not. In other words, none of this is normal and he’s not going to carry on like it is. Perhaps the one word that best encompasses his approach is patriotic.

The battle for America’s soul and well being as a democratic concern continues apace. Compelling articles of impeachment based on acts the President and his chief of staff admitted to, and for good measure were fully validated by sworn testimony of most of the principles involved, have only convinced his Hill lackeys they need to talk faster and lie with more certainty. Keep throwing pasta at the wall and go with what sticks longest.

But throughout America, on the coasts or where my father liked to call “the hustings,” lines have been drawn that now fully dictate, not just how to react to facts, but disastrously what the facts are and who can and can’t be trusted to present them. One side addles our future with a shared belief that their champion, despite preferring to simply call critics names and attack their motivations instead of offering evidence to refute their claims, is the victim of continuous persecution by dark ever-expanding forces. His gibberish, dutifully sanitized and repackaged by sycophants, is always enough to assuage any doubts they have.

Fox/AM has tirelessly spun a mythology of the wretched core as a dynamic group distinguished by shared common sensibilities and stoicism they alone have held onto as the rest of the country has abandoned what made it great. Blue collar, hard working, plain spoken patriots defending our future by appreciating our glorious past…. MAGA in a nutshell.

Trumpism relies on projection, whether it’s claiming the frailties it suffers are actually what define its opponents, or taking credit for the strengths and accomplishments it had not a thing to do with. The sophistry of Hannity or Rush doesn’t change reality, it only aims to distort it, constantly repeating the same fictions. This is never more true than their relentless efforts to draw a salt-of-the-earth caricature of the prototypical Trump supporter, while defaming opponents as out of touch with the nation’s rank and file.

All of this is now on display at perhaps the most critical crossroads in our history, when freinds and neighbors are faced with choosing sides, considering what they desire in a fellow traveler. Of course, it should be an easy decision. But allow me to help if you’re uncertain. You want direct and stoic and accountable, a portrait of citizens we can take heart in; the last place you want to look is at a Trump rally or deplorable FB thread. Give me a Pete Ragusa any day! BC