Firehose #79: Oh, Mojo

Also: Coleman on Maher, Two Fif’s on Megyn, Meijer on Wolfe

If you would have told me in 1987 that the New York Times would in the future devote a same-day obituary to our beloved fringe lunatic psychobilly spiritual exemplar Mojo freakin’ Nixon, I would have blinked at you dumbly, like a cow, then lunged for your Schaefer.

There were a lot of things we couldn’t know then—that a punk rock record would reach number one within five years, that the Berlin Wall would fall in just two, and that the same Music Television that Mojo reckoned “should be covered in jism” would within months assimilate him (if temporarily) into the video borg. But the biggest shocker might have been that in a decade hence it would no longer be something like a full-time job to keep even remotely up-to-date on the disparate, tiny green shoots of musical life trying valiantly to poke up through the suffocating saran-wrap of the mass-market 1980s. Don Henley had to die not just for his politics and ponytail, but because somehow, some way, The End of the Innocence sold 6 million records while The Pixies’ contemporaneous all-timer Doolittle—in an absolute breakout sales performance for the same college rock scene that nurtured Mojo & Skid Roper—was lucky to eventually squeak past 500,000. The struggle to even find good music was real; when the act on the other end was able, through extremely animal spirits, to channel your contradictory senses of defiant alienation and desire for belonging, well, you were grateful.

As you were when Our Tribe was brought in to testify against Pitchfork Pat Buchanan:

My longtime collaborator Ken Layne commemorated his old friend and mentor on the Desert Oracle podcast; please do take Kenny-Dean’s closing remarks to heart.

* We’ve got a veritable fIREHOSE of video for you this fine post-Super Bowl Sunday, so let’s get after it. Very recent guest Coleman Hughes (veteran also of Episodes #121, #144, #181, #188, #201, #379, #412) has, as advertised, been getting around. There he was consorting with Mike Pesca (#343, #418), being CSPAN-interviewed by Thomas Chatterton Williams (#121, #158, #188, #197, #373), giving CNN commentary on the great Tracy Chapman/Luke Combs Grammy performance, publishing excerpts at CNN and the New York Post, getting reviewed in the Washington Examiner, and talking about Woke Kindergarten and Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview on Real Time with Bill Maher:

* Also in the spotlight this week is comrade FIREman Greg Lukianoff (#216, Members Only #183, #427), who testified in front of Congress about A.I. regulation and free speech:

* FIRE Board Member Kmele did the Megyn Kelly thang Monday, talking border bills, Biden polls, Haley-comedy, and more:

* I followed suit on Tuesday with Reason tattoo-model Liz Wolfe, yakking about Trump at SCOTUS, Biden skipping the Super Bowl, the White House obsession with Morning Joe, RFK Jr.’s impact on the race, and so forth:

* Speaking of the Wolfe, she and her Just Asking Questions co-host Zach Weissmueller brought on Fif’ fave Peter Meijer (Special Dispatch #51, #307, #339, #367,  #424, M.O. #184), to talk about “his run for Senate, what the prospects are for a candidate who voted to impeach Trump for his behavior on January 6, and how he hopes the GOP can change for the better to usher in ‘a new American century.’ They also discuss how Democrats funded ads to help a Trump-backed candidate defeat Meijer in Michigan's 2022 primary, the hypocrisy of groups proclaiming to ‘protect democracy’ while fighting against ballot access, and what Meijer thinks about the prospect of running against Justin Amash this year”:

* We spent some time in #442 discussing the court-of-Twitter rape allegations against Yascha Mounk (#124, #195). Diving headlong into the controversy was the Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em podcast, where Sarah Hepola (#354) and Nancy Rommelmann (#79, S.D. #27, S.D. #30, #198, #203, S.D. #34, S.D. #50, S.D. #64, S.D. #111) brought out of his anti-podcast cave the great lawyer/blogger Scott Greenfield to talk about his bracing piece, “The Atlantic Caves To #MeToo.”

* D’ya ever find yourself disagreeing with a smart friend about Israel/Palestine? Then you will likely take some sustenance from this Noam Dworman appearance on the podcast of Glenn Loury (#121, #188, #366), “Friendship in a Time of War”:

* Comment of the Week comes from Rageforthemachine:

Now I know what it is like to live in the back of the train.

Walkoff music is a guy who died with his metaphorical boots on singing about a guy who died with his actual boots on. RIP.