Arts Devo

Sing a song of TrumPence In an effort to “provide both motivation and soundtrack to doing the right thing these last few weeks before this most pivotal election,” author David Eggers started the 30 Days, 30 Songs project, a website that’s posting one anti-Donald Trump song per day in the month leading up to the presidential election. He reached out to and got commitments from a mix of musicians, from R.E.M. to Death Cab for Cutie, and the artists’ original tunes are hosted on the site and available on a Spotify playlist.

As of this writing, eight songs had been submitted, two of which were actually pretty good. Death Cab’s “Million Dollar Loan” takes on Trump’s contention that he rose up from meager beginnings after receiving a “small” loan of only $1 million from his dad to get his business started.

A million dollar loan/Nobody makes it on their own without a million dollar loan/To cast the first stone you’ll need a million dollar loan/Every ascension to a throne starts with a million dollar loan

The other song that worked for me was “Are These My Jets?” by EL VY, the side project of The National frontman Matt Berninger and Brent Knopf (formerly of Menomena). It’s a chill pop jam with lyrics that imagine the trippy world inside Trump’s mind:

Bluebirds blow their brains out on my shoulders/while I have long evenings with Steve and Roger/Before I fall asleep I always talk to my father’s Lego skull/Last night I had an American feeling up at the top of my moving staircase

This is the place where I dream my dreams/This is the place where I dream my dreams

I was rocking back and forth, feeding on the fear of course/Wonder what I’m gonna do today/Are these my jets?/I like to mix ladies drinks with my fingers/Are these my jets?

Listen to the growing playlist at www.30days30songs.com.

Fluffer in chief Who’s afraid of a musty old penis, one that’s been out of commission for so long that hardly anyone even remembers it? No one. But if an empathetic suitor comes along and says all the right things just to get it all worked up and stirs up old ideas to get the blood and sweat moving, then before you know it a reconstituted stench starts to rise from down there. Don’t get me wrong, Trump is a dick all by himself. But the bigger concern is the fluffing effect his rhetoric has on all the other small-minded racists, sexists and homophobes. Don’t let the passionate anti-Trump editorials and news of a few lost endorsements divert you from the really frightening reality that Trump is just a mirror for a foul contingent festering in the crotch of the country.

I realize that not everyone choosing Trump over Hillary Clinton falls into this rotten demographic. But if you’re just holding your nose and voting for your conservative values, or worse, foolishly gambling our country’s future by voting for him as a protest against politics as usual, you’re kind of being a dick as well. Allowing these noxious ideas a place in the sun is allowing them to negatively impact millions of fellow Americans. You’re actually voting against America. That’s not a stench that will soon wash out.

I know it’s a big surprise that an arts editor at a progressive newspaper will not be voting Republican. And I also know that this all might come across as me being down on America. I’m not. I’m liberal and I’m super patriotic. I really love America, faults and all. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I just have the hope that people of all races, genders and sexual identities will someday be able to feel safe, free and have the opportunity to enjoy its promise of liberty and justice. I don’t know if Clinton will get us there, but I know Trump won’t.