What a trip

Posted on July 21, 2026July 21, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Class trip to…erm…Japan?!?

Yep, I promise you it’s for real: my lovely, über-talented, and bona fide genius daughter Madeleine—currently a rising Junior at Bessemer City HS (near Gastonia, NC)—is going on a field trip courtesy of EF Educational Tours to Tokyo, Yokohama, Hiroshima, and Osaka next July 14-22. The link is to the fundraiser her mom and step-dad are holding to foot the cost of this once-in-a-lifetime trip.

The ex-spousal unit and mother of my only child contacted me earlier this afternoon to ask if I’d be on board with helping spread the word about the Send Mike’s Young ‘Un to Jay-pang fundie, so here we all are. The above link will whisk you off to MJ’s donation page, as will this one, from whence those of y’all with a few extra shekels burning holes in your pocketses can toss a few into the kitty and help give a great kid an experience she’s bound to remember for the rest of her life.

I was telling my brother Jeff about this whole deal when he guffawed and choked out past his uncontrollable mirth, “Man alive, when I was in school we were lucky to get to go over to the Schiele Museum in Gastonia every year.” Same here, bro, same here. Loved that joint all to pieces when I was but a wee tyke. I’ll make this sticky so’s it’ll stay up top for a week or two, and not get lost in the shuffle.

The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine things

Posted on July 20, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Welcome to Ye Aulde Colde Furye Blogge’s shiny new open-comments thread, where y’all can have at it as you wish, on any topic you like. New posts will appear below this one. There will be blood…

Mike @Substack

New Eyrie posts go up every Monday and Friday, although the time of day may (and most likely will) vary. Mike’s latest Eyrie offering is available for perusal here: “Screamin’ meemie Monday!“ Links to archived Golden Oldies are findable down at the bottom of each post.

Please do consider subscribing to The Eyrie, gang; it’s free, unless you’re feeling big-hearted enough to pony up for a paid sub. Either way, paying customer or freeloading looky-loo, an Eyrie subscription is a bargain at any price, a move you won’t ever regret making.

All subscribers receive email notification whenever each new post goes live, although CF management promises not to blow up your inbox with a bunch of junk mail. Latest Eyrie offering is getatable (yes, that’s really a word—trust me!) for one and all to read and enjoy totally free of charge, regardless of subscriber status. However, a paid sub is required to unlock commenting privileges—an almighty incentive to kick loose and chip in if ever there was one. Thanks, everybody!

Siddown and shaddup, little man

Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

The esteemed Miranda Devine lets ‘er rip.

Mamdani and his DSA comrades have one goal — a communist revolution in America
Our preening mayor, Zohran Mamdani, says his administration’s legal department is examining how best to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister visits New York for UN week in September.

“He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court,” Mamdani told The New York Times in an interview published over the weekend.

Well, Marco Rubio has thoughts on that and much more.

The formidable secretary of state last week announced a campaign to “dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary.”

“The ICC’s interfering with American military and law enforcement operations…would mean the death of the US as a sovereign and independent nation,” he said.

“But this is America…Independence is our birthright. We don’t intend to trade it for rule by a self-appointed priesthood of ‘international law.’ ”

Mamdani’s belief that, as a minor municipal functionary, he wields some imaginary international power to subvert American sovereignty just shows the delusions of his ideology.

His authority extends to fixing potholes and collecting garbage, neither of which he does competently.

But his delusions of grandeur are shared by the misfits, ignoramuses, and foreign interlopers who make up his rancid branch of the Democratic Party — the DSA.

The Democratic Socialists of America know nothing, have built nothing and don’t understand the country they live in, yet they imagine they have the moral authority to tear it down.

Yeee-owtch! I felt that righteous smack all the way over here. Read it all, you’ll love it. But does it get even more hilarious, you ask? Why, yes. Yes, it does.

President Trump on Monday delivered a decisive verbal smackdown to New York City’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, shutting down any notion of detaining Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on American soil.

The president squashed Mamdani’s persistent fantasy of using the NYPD to cuff the Israeli leader over a non-binding ICC (International Criminal Court) warrant that the United States doesn’t even recognize.

“Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform.

“He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52,000 innocent protestors, and has spent the last 47 years killing American Soldiers, and others,” he added. “The only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION.”

A great big ol’ “Heh” and an “Indeed” for the Bad Orange Man, an it please you. Ahh, but does it get even more hilarious still? Why, YES. Yes, it cert’ly does.

Epic Fail: Mamdani Finally Makes Humiliating Admission About His Threat to Arrest Netanyahu
His little theatre kid performance for his anti-Israel base was smacked down with reality from the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump, and even CNN legal analyst Elie Honig. Mamdani was told he had no legal ability to do any such thing and that, in the words of Trump, “no way, no how” was it happening.

Mamdani was finally forced to concede that he didn’t have the power, which had to be embarrassing to him. He’s been acting like he has all this power – only to find out how limited he truly is.

He attacks Netanyahu in this clip posted Tuesday night, accusing him of being a “war criminal,” calling him the “architect of a horrific genocide.” But Mamdani is really fuming that this incident has exposed his empty promise on this and his impotence.

Better get used to the feeling, Mammyjammy. You’re gonna be experiencing a whoooooole lot more of it as your term as NYC “mayor” drags on.

Gawdhelpus!

Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

“Other ways of being.” RIIIIIIGHHHHT.

According to Dr Donna Riley, academic rigour and the expectation of competence are “exclusionary” and tools of “privilege,” and are unfair to women and minorities, for whom rigour and competence are presumably impossible.

Dr Riley goes on to denounce engineering’s “cultures of whiteness and masculinity,” and informs us that, “scientific knowledge itself is gendered, raced, and colonising.”

Says she, “This is about doing away with the concept [of rigour] altogether so we can welcome other ways of knowing. Other ways of being. It is about criticality and reflexivity.”

Yes, the design and construction of fighter jets, oil rigs and 1000-tonne tunnelling machines will one day be informed not by careful calculation, a knowledge of materials and thoroughly tested principles, but by criticality, reflexivity and “other ways of being.”

Dr Riley is the author of the little-read tome Engineering and Social Justice, which she describes as “an attempt to explain the lack of emphasis on social justice in engineering.”

The term “social justice” is, we’re told, “difficult to define” and “resists a concise and permanent definition,” a problem illustrated by the author’s own struggle to arrive at a convincing definition, despite deploying the term on every other page.

But apparently, engineers need to spend less time doing load-bearing calculations and more time pondering “radical protest” and “Marxist traditions.”

Engineering and Social Justice, is it? At the risk of sounding didactic and overly brusque, I’d like to submit that one of these things is most definitely NOT like the other, in a great many meaningful, indeed quite critical, ways.

Simple good sense from an unexpected place

Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike 1 Comment

Second look at…uhhh, JOURNEY, ferchrissakes?!?

Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain blasts Bruce Springsteen as an “annoying, bitter old man” who should “shut up” when it comes to politics.

“I’m a diehard conservative… And guys like Bruce Springsteen should shut up. You know, really, honestly, shut up, Bruce, you know? Him… pic.twitter.com/3LLbyErl6N

— Variety (@Variety)

July 20, 2026

Also note that Mick Jagger, of all people, feels likewise.

Mick Jagger says fans don’t want political lectures at concerts after Bruce Springsteen’s anti-Trump speeches
Mick Jagger says fans don’t come to concerts to hear a political lecture in the wake of Bruce Springsteen’s on-stage speeches targeting President Trump.

The Rolling Stones frontman weighed in during an interview on The New York Times’ podcast Saturday after host David Marchese questioned him about Springsteen, who has repeatedly criticized President Trump during his latest tour.

Marchese said Springsteen “clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth” with fans before asking Jagger, “What does your relationship to the audience mean to you? What do they represent, all those people out there?”

“The bottom line of my thing really is that my job in the live music world is [for] those people that come is to have the best time they possibly can,” Jagger said.

“For two hours or whatever it is, to forget all their problems and the problems of the world and their mortgages and whatever, just to give them the best time they can have.”

Provides me with a perfect excuse to run what I consider to be the absolute GOAT Stones song.

That one, Last Time, and Paint It Black are just about the only Stones tunes I ever much cared about, to be perfectly honest. Always dug Keef, always dug Charlie, but all in all? Yeah, no. I got dragged against my will (by my dear departed MiL, bless her heart) to see them live at the Meadowlands back in 2006, and it was a truly incredible show, I do admit. But still.

Alliance of convenience

Posted on July 21, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Gotta be the most unlikely one of all time, methinks.

Socialism and Islamic Supremacism: Two Strange Bedfellows Aiming to Destroy Our Republic
Both want to change our system of law. Both hate the United States and Western civilization. And both detest Christianity. They also, by forming an alliance, become the strangest of bedfellows. They are socialism and Islamic supremacism in America — and both forces are growing.

Socialism, under the name “Democratic Socialists of America” (DSA), is quickly dropping its mask. Its new platform, released last week, calls for eliminating the Senate and having a wholly empowered Congress choose the president and Supreme Court. The DSA also wants to convene a second constitutional convention to make the preceding possible. The idea is to draft new founding documents guaranteeing a “socialist democracy.”

Political activist and Islamic supremacist Linda Sarsour is a bit less ambitious — at least in her overt pronouncements. She at this moment just wants to replace the Declaration of Independence with a document reflecting “our [read: their] values.” Whether this would be a Declaration of Dependence or a Declaration of Dependence on Allah, she didn’t say.

Then there’s a development Sarsour would surely endorse. Right from the Pressing 1 for English file, commentator J.B. Shurk reported Monday:

On social media platforms last week, videos spread of a Home Depot shopping experience in Dearborn, Michigan. Signs throughout the store were in Arabic.

Shurk further mentions that other Dearborn retailers — such as Walmart, Costco, Kroger, and Albertsons — also post Arabic signs.

As to the Islamic supremism-socialism nexus, the DSA has a “Muslim Caucus” (but no Christian Caucus, do note). Prominent Muslim members include Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-N.Y.C.). Another Muslim representative, Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), is DSA-endorsed.

One may think there’d be friction between devout Muslims and devoted leftists. There has been, too. In 2023, Hamtramck, Michigan — the first American city with an all-Muslim government — banned the “Pride” flag from public property. The old-line Democrats that had been ousted by the Muslim Democrats weren’t happy about it, either. But Hamtramck’s new overlords didn’t care. Oddly, too, the legacy media didn’t feel compelled to combat this anti-“LGBTQ+” “bigotry.” They imitated crickets.

And this may be a portent of things to come.

Oh, I’d say that’s a safe enough bet, yeah.

Update! Kunstler posts a fresh, intriguing take on the latest flavor-of-the-day-of-the-week sub-branch of the D卐M☭CRAT Party.

In the meantime, there is plenty else to concern those of us who care about our country, and Western Civ more generally, on the home front. Here comes the Insane Clown Posse of the Democratic Socialists. Their platform: abolish the police; no more jail for criminals; open borders; amnesty for all border-jumpers; abolish the Senate; Abolish the electoral college (House of Representatives to elect the president); defund the War Department; voting rights for all non-citizens; “wealth” taxes; free housing, food, medical care for all; green new deal laws; free Palestine (which is more important than any place else on Earth)!

Oh, and they are quite out-front about merely using the Democratic Party as a means to acquire power. Yeah, you noticed that already? Nobody actually had to read the quiet part out-loud. (Well, it wasn’t all that quiet.) Question is: how is all this going to work in practice (or in the praxis, as the Gramscian Marxists like to say — because it sounds like some occult power), as they roll over every institution in the land.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are our own jihadistas. They aim to make their program work by jamming it down America’s throat, starting with the throats of the plain old Democratic Party, the party of FDR, JFK, and HRC, currently fronted by Hakeem Jeffries (the House) and Chuck Schumer (the soon-to-be-abolished Senate). These two appear to be totally buffaloed by the DSA’s Insane Clown Posse. It’s their own Frankenstein monster, stitched together in their laboratory from the tatters of the 20th century. And like in the original by Mary Shelley, this monster is fixing to abolish its maker. Hakeem and Chuck are just standing by like a couple of credulous clucks waiting to see how things develop as the calendar marches implacably toward the catastrophic midterm election.

And it carries on from there, in most awesomely brilliant fashion.

Q: “Election Integrity: Is Representative Democracy A Foolish Fantasy?”

Posted on July 21, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

A: Yes. Yes, it is.

The US Constitution is perhaps the most significant historical and governmental document in a millennia. It established the modern conception of the western Republic, along with true representative government designed to answer to the people rather than rule over the people.

The Bill of Rights outlined clear restrictions on federal and state powers to legislate away the inherent and God given freedoms of the citizenry; an accomplishment which had been attempted in the past but was never truly realized until the war for independence and the creation of the United States. Until that moment, the idea that common men answer to authority and authority answers to no one was the accepted norm.

It’s a document and an ideal that gave birth to an epoch.

However, our constitutional republic was created based on conditions that, frankly, no longer exist. The American population was 95% Christian. The implementation of “patriarchy” was widespread and embraced as the most solid foundation for society. Meritocracy was absolute. Cultural identity was rooted in western civilization without any deviation or distraction.

Marxism did not exist. Atheism was rare. Degeneracy was shunned or punished. Shame was an effective social tool. Psychopathy was easy to identify and remove from within the smaller population. Women were expected to raise families and care for the home. Men were expected to feed and protect those families; perhaps even die for them.

Voting was for land owners and people with an actual stake in the success or failure of government policies. Women did not vote until a hundred years later in 1920 (many commentators have offered compelling arguments that the country quickly went downhill from there).

In 2026, many Americans still treat the notion of representative democracy as sacrosanct and untouchable, even though they don’t really know why. They just think it’s about freedom, but, they are basing their devout reverence on a system that used to work because it heavily restricted who was allowed to participate.

That’s the opening salvo from Brandon Smith’s latest, of which you’ll definitely want to read the all. Haven’t checked in on the B-Man in entirely too long, for which lapse I offer my humblest, most abject apologies.

Hit ‘im again, John

Posted on July 19, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

"Sit Down, Tough Guy" — Sen. John Fetterman Responds To Mayor Mamdani's Threat To Arrest Netanyahu For ICChttps://t.co/He9mLhcacD

"He has no way to do that, of course, obviously. America’s not even part of that corrupt court. So he’s just a clown to even say that." https://t.co/jzEQ3msqD3 pic.twitter.com/mhlzNnwvMi

— RealClearPolitics (@RCPolitics) July 19, 2026

Funny, not funny

Posted on July 17, 2026 by Mike 1 Comment

It’s official: Olive Garden is now more secure than US “elections.”

Valid Photo I.D. for Olive Garden ✅
Valid Photo I.D. to Vote ❌ pic.twitter.com/TkgM1iwqwn

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911)

July 17, 2026

The Dirtbag Left

Posted on July 16, 2026 by Mike 2 Comments

Mucho kudos to Big John Fetterman for calling ’em like he sees ‘em, straight up, no chaser.

As the 2026 midterm elections get closer, there are plenty of scenarios to speculate about. Will traditional conventional wisdom win out and Republicans lose? Will the rapid takeover of the Democratic Party by Democratic Socialists announce their presence with multiple wins across the country? While most Democrats have a deer-in-the-headlights stare when they are asked about the party’s massive surge to the left, there is one who continues to call out his own party, regardless of what it may mean for him personally.

One of the biggest, and seemingly ongoing points of speculation comes in the form of Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). Fetterman has repeatedly expressed concern about the party shift to the left, and, while he says he has “no plans” to leave the party, if it officially becomes the “anti-Israel” party, he’s done. Fetterman attended the Hill Nation Summit in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, where he stated:

“My long-term concern has been with the Democratic Party, as I am a member of that, is that our party is going to back away and turn their back to Israel. If our party ever becomes, and just makes it official, the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would leave because that’s been a moral clarity for me.”

Back in May, Fetterman penned an Op-Ed in The Washington Post, entitled, “I haven’t changed. Here’s what has.” In it, he wrote:

Though I was elected as a Democrat, I’m proud to serve all Pennsylvanians. It has become increasingly lonely to serve in that way, but I firmly believe it’s what is needed. My party cannot simply be the opposite of whatever President Donald Trump says. The president could come out for ice cream and lazy Sundays, and my party would suddenly hate them. Such pointless pile-ons and attacks are unproductive. The American people want us to work together to find solutions on issues they and our country face.

So, what are Fetterman’s “lines in the sand?”

Israel

Open borders

Party Toxicity

Anti-Trump reflex

Obstruction and government shutdowns

Defund the police

Lack of “working across the aisle”

Poor candidate vetting

Rejection of voter ID

Isn’t this basically the Democrats’ entire platform? Fetterman also mentioned support from people like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), also a self-described Democratic Socialist, and his strong support for scandal-plagued former Maine Senatorial candidate Graham Platner, which, Fetterman said, made him “angry.” He also would not discuss what he referred to as “private conversations” with Republicans about leaving the Democratic Party, but in his Op-Ed, said he would become an independent first.

Given his positions on things like abortion, legalized marijuana, LGBT rights, and being pro-labor, Fetterman was refreshingly honest and concluded his Op-Ed saying, “I’d be a terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats.” But at some point, will he sound like many from his own party, and even former President Ronald Reagan, also a former Democrat, and admit that, “I didn’t leave my party; my party left me”?

What John Fetterman looks like to me is a pretty typical old-school liberal Dem, a sincere patriot whose ideals and principles were totally mainstream before the party’s recent radical swerve to the extreme Left. It’s a damnable shame that he’s quite the rara avis these days, and it hurts the entire country that this should be so.

Memezapoppin’!Memezapoppin’!

Posted on July 15, 2026July 15, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Welcome to this week’s installment of our Wednesday meme feature, folks. Links to the “found via” sources will be attached to the specific MiQ’s (Memes in Question) whenever I can remember them, which likely won’t be very often. Only the first two memes will appear above the fold to save on bandwidth usage, since I assume not everybody who shows up at this here websty will want to see all of them. This intro will appear at the top of each week’s Memezapoppin’! post. Enjoy, funny-pitcher lovers.

Continue reading “Memezapoppin’!Memezapoppin’!“ →

Some things are transitory

Posted on July 14, 2026July 15, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Other things, however, will never change. The brutality, cruelty, and inherent, witless violence of Pisslam would definitely be in that category.

A Kiss in Indonesia and Its Aftermath Reveal the Heart and Soul of Islam
A kiss is still a kiss, as the old song goes, but in Indonesia’s Aceh province, it’s going to cost you. Not in terms of money, but in terms of the skin off your back. A young couple in Aceh just found that out after they shared a kiss on a TikTok stream, and found themselves hauled before a Sharia court and charged with violating the rules of modesty and the proper decorum that is to be maintained between an unmarried man and woman.

For that, they were each sentenced to 21 lashes, and the sentence was recently carried out before a gaping crowd of righteously indignant Sharia-adherent Muslims who know now never, ever to livestream a kiss. And so once again we see the true heart and soul of Islam: terror. While Muslim and non-Muslim Islamic apologists in the West continue to insist that the true Islam is benign and cuddly, and that terrorism is only a tiny minority of extremists’ “hijacking” of the religion, in reality, terror is at the very center of Islam. This latest caning in Aceh shows that anew.

The South China Morning Post reported Friday that “as each blow landed on their backs, the unnamed man, 22, and woman, 25, visibly grimaced. The woman later burst into tears, wailing in pain as the public punishment continued.” The Post noted that video of the canings had kicked up the usual firestorm: “It was far from the first such case to gain international attention and the response has become familiar: footage spreads online, rights groups condemn the punishment as inhumane and Aceh’s status as the Muslim-majority country’s sole sharia-enforcing province is thrust back into the spotlight.”

Yes indeed: “In a statement issued the same day as the flogging, Amnesty International said all forms of corporal punishment constituted torture or other ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,’ while its co-regional director, Montse Ferrer, called the caning of the couple ‘a horrifying act of discrimination.’”

In Aceh, however, they simply don’t care: “Nurjani, a 62-year-old housewife in Banda Aceh, said she supported caning because it ‘was about religion’ and in line with sharia law.” She explained: “If you do not do anything wrong, then there is nothing to fear. I support caning and I believe that if you lead your life in the right way and walk the right path, no one will question you.” Another Aceh resident, Muhammad Nasir, agreed, saying: “If someone is caned, it will be a lesson for them so that they do not do the same thing again. It has a physical element to it, but it is mostly social and designed to make the person ashamed of their crimes.”

Yes, and more than just ashamed: terrified. The caning is designed to make people afraid to violate Allah’s law again. People who have been caned in Indonesia have ended up collapsing and being hospitalized. If you don’t want to end up permanently injured, or at very least to suffer agonizing pain in front of a crowd that has gathered to watch you suffer, then don’t kiss a girl on TikTok.

This has nothing to do with virtue, the idea of choosing to do what is good because it is good. This is all about fear from the beginning to the end. The Qur’an tells Muslims to “strike terror in the enemies of Allah” (8:60), and lest any of Allah’s obedient slaves are tempted to violate his law and thus become his enemies as well, they get terrorized, too.

Every Westerner possessed of even a mere modicum of decency, compassion, and integrity is obligated to do everything he possibly can to aid in the destruction of Pisslam, one of the foulest, most fearful scourges ever to begrime our poor Earth.

The nightmarish blight that is Pisslam and all its evil works have been tolerated by the West for far, far too long now. We all know the score; without exception, every thinking person well knows deep in his heart what this vile pseudo-religion really is—what it intends, what it demands of its troglodytic followers, what wickedness and blood-drenched atrocities they gleefully commit, again and again, in its unholy name—yet in our disgraceful torpor, to our eternal shame we do nothing.

Pisslam must be obliterated, its loathsome adherents crushed until all that’s left is an unpleasant, rapidly-fading memory. Any lazy, gormless Westerner who keeps on puking forth one sad, sorry excuse after another for his political “leadership’s” flat refusal to take action to stanch the blood-dimmed tide of Mohammedanism—to foil the Musselman’s creeping, incremental conquest of all humanity—is guilty of de facto complicity in his own subjugation, and will reap the whirlwind he hath sown ere the end. I guar-on-gott-damn-TEE you he ain’t gonna enjoy it, either.

So there you have it, folks. We don’t have to like it, no…but we DO have to do it. There is no easy, fun, safe, pain-free option for us here. Success is by no means a sure thing, alas. Still; as the old saying goes: ROOT, HOG, OR DIE. Time’s nearly up; best get to it before what time we still do have expires completely.

Success story

Posted on July 14, 2026July 15, 2026 by Mike 4 Comments

It ain’t all that common, really, but there’s a fair number of bands with a similar backstory.

When Kansas got signed…
In 1974, Kansas had one shot to impress a record producer. The meeting was set in the tiny town of Ellinwood, Kansas – population around 800. They needed a full house. So they came up with a simple plan: offer free beer to everyone who came to the show. The room was packed. The energy was electric. And the producer (Don Kirshner) was impressed enough to sign them to a record deal.

A little free beer, a lot of loud music, and a career that was just getting started. Kirshner financed the band out of his own pocket through four albums. When they released ‘Carry on wayward son’, they finally hit gold and the rest is history. A version of the band still tours to this day…

Kinda reminds me just a smidge of a certain hit song from Ye Aulden Thymes.

Back when the BPs were on Miami-based Teen Rebel Records, I remember the owner/proprietor/sole employee of said label giving us the low-down on the inner workings of major-label A&R departments (Artists and Repertoire, ie the folks whose job it is to go out to shows; evaluate unsigned artists and/or their commercial potential, if any; and, ideally, arrange recording contracts for the likelier prospects).

According to our boy Teen Rebel Tony, A&R staff could be broken down into two basic types:

Those who have “the power of NO” (which is pretty much every single one of any given label’s employees)
The exalted few endowed with “the power of YES,” by which Tony meant those authorized to sign an artist entirely on their own initiative, without ever having to beg permission in advance or ask forgiveness later from anybody…well, at least until several of those independently-signed recording artists end up A) bombing badly with their first three (3) releases; B) slaughtering each other in the recording studio over some random, unfathomable dispute; C) becoming crackheads; or D) are caught in bed with one or more same-sex children

In plain words, then, the Category Twos are in effect the only folks in A&R who truly matter.

99 times out of a hundred, the “power of NO” types would notify you well in advance, with inordinate pridefulness and braggadocio, that they’d be coming to check out your show at Club Shithole on such and such a date. Said notification enabled them to luxuriate in feeling like Big Shots whom the band, the supporting act, the venue staff, and basically all and sundry within a five-mile radius would want to suck up to, buy drinks for, introduce their hot girlfriends to, shamelessly flatter, and other such-like industry inanities.

These useless pustules to be compared/contrasted to the “power of YES” people, who disdain to give any kind of notice at all, to anybody, of anything. In fact, you’d usually never even know they were in the joint unless/until they A) approached you after the show; B) introduced themselves and explained who they worked for, in what capacity and why they’d come; and C) expressed at least some interest, albeit slight, in offering you a contract with the label they work for.

Ironically enough, it’s the latter category of A&R rep, rather than the former, that the smart performer with knowledge and experience in such matters will be interested in schmoozing, flattering, and buying cocktails for. Tony also called these the “power of the pen” people—a somewhat more apt and directly descriptive appellation of who they are and what they do, perhaps.

In sum, then, the “power of NO” kids are basically popinjays, pricks, and douchetools. The “power of YES” guys, on the other hand, are professionals who take their roles, their industry, and their artists seriously, with no use for fumble-fucking around, preening, posturing, or obnoxious self-indulgence. Said pros are the crucial first step in the long, wearying slog of getting the music recorded, packaged, and released into the wider world—where it will then stumble or soar on wings the A&R rep provides.

A&R people are in the main unacknowledged and unheralded, even wholly unknown to the world outside of the music biz. Even so, they’re nonetheless bona fide heroes for all that, at least to those of us on the “talent” side of the business.

Understand: this is the old, traditional music industry we’re speaking of here. What with internet sales, streaming, and downloads dominating everything these days, the once-untrammeled power of the major labels such as Sony, Columbia, Epic, Atlantic, &c has diminished greatly, as have their profits, influence, and credibility. Which, if you think about it, would in turn make the job of the Category 2 A&R guy tougher than it’s ever been before.

Over lo, these many years, I’ve personally known far too many of the Cat One types, as well as far too few examples from Cat Two. It’s been years and years since I moved in those circles, alas; I can only wonder what became of them all, and where they are today.

Survey says

Posted on July 14, 2026July 14, 2026 by Mike 3 Comments

No more nor less than you would expect from a dyed-in-the-wool Enemedia outlet, that’s all.

CNBC survey mocked after top 10 ‘worst places to live’ are all red states
CNBC faced a wave of online mockery Monday after releasing its annual quality-of-life rankings, which exclusively placed conservative red states in all 10 spots of the “worst places to live” — even as official U.S. Census data shows some of those states are leading the nation in population growth.

Critics quickly took to social media to call out the outlet for what they alleged as blatant liberal bias embedded in its ranking criteria.

Counting down from the tenth-worst place to the first, CNBC ranked the bottom ten states as Arkansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Missouri, Utah, Georgia, Louisiana, Indiana, Texas, and Tennessee.

All 10 states are Republican-led and voted for President Donald Trump in 2024.

“Shocking. All deep red, conservative states. But somehow California and New York — with the highest taxes in the country, insane cost of living, and endless progressive policies — didn’t crack the top 10?”

“This is correct. Please believe this. Tennessee is HORRIBLE. You definitely shouldn’t move here…,” conservative Newsmax contributor Chrissy Clark wrote with sarcasm.

The corporate media outlet took direct shots at local conservative legislation across the board.

Tennessee was dinged for the state’s “bathroom law” — which requires transgender individuals to use facilities corresponding with their biological sex at birth — as well as a law barring localities from passing their own local antidiscrimination ordinances.

The outlet also took aim at a joint resolution signed by Gov. Bill Lee this past April designating June as “Nuclear Family Month,” while also noting it had low rankings for crime and drug deaths.

Utah, ranked sixth-worst, was hit for its $7.25 minimum wage, low availability of childcare providers and air quality.

Georgia, the fifth-worst in the survey, was explicitly called out for offering “few protections for LGBTQ+ people, making it one of America’s least inclusive states.”

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom immediately seized on the study, taking to X to point out that every single state on the list leaned red.

Quelle shock, said nobody at all. Left unmentioned by anyone involved here is why it might be that most if not all of these supposedly godawful states are seeing such YUGE surges of in-migration from Shitholistan cities/states like NYC, Shitcago, San Fran, Seattle, and LA, among lots of others. Could it be that those aforementioned transplants know something that the CNBC scribes don’t?

Update! Hawkins responds:

Yes, the worst places to live are where everyone is moving and the best places to live are actually the left-wing socialist states everyone is moving out of or something. pic.twitter.com/vxzUyJs5A4

— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) July 12, 2026

Hey, great minds, right John? Heh.

Reality bites

Posted on July 14, 2026July 14, 2026 by Mike 4 Comments

Sucks to be you, cupcake.

Transgender American regrets fleeing to the Netherlands because all the Muslim migrants want to kill him
No, this is not a Babylon Bee story. This is real life.

It’s scary. It’s legitimately scary. I decided that my mental health is degrading so substantially being here that I just need to get out.

The situation I have in the U.S. as a trans person – not good, right? – but here I will be hurt or killed.

Best bit? Gotta be this right hyar (bold mine).

This interview took place in Ter Apel, a Dutch town with only 10,000 residents.

Like many small Western towns, the government has decided to fill Ter Apel with cultural enrichers – most of them military-aged Muslim men who love jihad.

Over 2,200 “refugees” now live at a center in the town – more than a quarter of the native population – putting residents in fear.

Hm. Sounds like somebody’s figured out the whole mishegas might actually be what you call one of them self-solving problems.

Y’know, I’ve read that historically, the Dutch were a pretty dang tough bunch. Having been to the Netherlands myself a time or two and mingled with a fair few of them over there, I can definitely tell you that ordinary, rank ‘n file Dutch folk ain’t at all happy with the Moslem immivasion foisted on them by their Ruling Class politicians.

Yeah, schwarma and falafel are pretty good, I like ’em both. But they ain’t worth the price you ultimately gotta pay to enjoy easy, regular access to them, I don’t think.

(Via Stephen Green)

Mike @Substack

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