My "Joe and Mika" song is now on YouTube

"Mika and Joe"

I'm old enough to remember watching Barbara Walters and Frank Blair together on "The Today Show." Ah, the days of the "Big 3" TV networks. Our Channel 7 out of Alexandria would go off the air for the night. Early risers might see the "test pattern" on the screen, complete with the Indian headdress.
What a vast new media world we are in now. I'm watching "Morning Joe" on MSNBC as I write this early Tuesday morning. The media are harvesting the Trump scandals and controversies. Day after day it rolls on. Just imagine how "Morning Joe" would have helped us explore Watergate. Or, how such shows would have revealed the travesty of the Vietnam war, and most likely gotten us out quicker.
"Morning Joe" features Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski - I always have to look up the spelling of her last name - and it comes on at 5 a.m. CDT. It runs for three hours. Their guests are the sharpest for sifting through the issues of the day that are bubbling in the Beltway. Even us denizens of Flyoverland, here in Minnesota, can keep up with the insider Beltway whispering and gossip, thanks to "Morning Joe."
The Today Show still airs. But it seems superficial and dated now. I need the insider stuff!
In a previous blog post I shared lyrics for an original song of mine, "I'm Watching Joe and Mika." I'm pleased to announce that I have had this song recorded, at the Angello Sound Studio of Nashville TN (actually in Hermitage, but Bob Angello presents the address as being Nashville). I wrote one new stanza of lyrics since the post.
OK so I'd like to invite y'all to give a listen to my song! I'd sure appreciate it. Imagine you're snacking on a Goo Goo Cluster, a treat staple in the U.S. South. I hope Joe and Mika themselves eventually discover the song and enjoy it. I incorporated names of some of those regular guests like Heidi Przybyla whose last name I also have to always look up. I invite you to click on this YouTube link to listen to "I'm Watching Joe and Mika." Again thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L3sMJFPxBA

 
"Morning Joe" has been more than a TV show to me. It has been like a daily companion. It was on the air for all eight years of the Obama presidency.
Much was made of the Michael Wolff book that came out about the early Trump presidency. Thanks to our Morris Public Library for ordering the book for me. All the hype about the book made me most eager to read it. A similar new expose type of book about Trump is by David Frum: "Trumpocracy." I read both books for only a portion, maybe one-fourth, and then I had difficulty reading further. Why? It's because I watched "Morning Joe" for nearly the full three hours every morning, so I felt I was already aware of everything in the books!
It also helps that I watch Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell in the evening. No shows of that type were available for us to watch in the evening hours in "the old days." We'd watch "Bonanza" with Lorne Greene. Expose-type shows would have shown us that the Smothers Brothers TV show was right about Vietnam! I'd like to see a reality-based movie based on that edgy (for its time) Smothers Brothers show. The Smothers Brothers took on all the bulldog-type older Americans - "America love it or leave it" - who insisted we could "win" the war in Vietnam. The memories are so unpleasant, I have to dismiss them quickly.
The movie "LBJ" glossed over Vietnam. The movie "All the Way" showed the president too distracted to pay proper attention to early developments in Vietnam. The Gulf of Tonkin "incident" never happened - nothing happened.
So here we are, summer of 2018, and the media daily gives us exposes about Trump and his crew. I'm troubled because normally when the media does exposes, it forces resolution, i.e. the problems get solved due to public pressure. The big worry for me is that this process isn't happening. We're just filled with information every day about how Trump is unacceptable as both president and human being. It ought to be plain as the nose on your face. But the status quo just rolls on and on.
Trump is a slick-tongued demagogue just as George Wallace was. We see this story unravel every morning on the "Morning Joe" show with Joe, Mika and their guests. I keep watching even though the daily reports don't seem to lead to the proper resolution. But Mike Pence might be even more dangerous than Trump. Paul Ryan appears to have tail between legs - he will be remembered with the likes of Neville Chamberlain.
Maybe with some luck we'll get through the thicket of all this dangerous stuff. Hang in there, y'all, and keep watching Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on "Morning Joe." Encourage your friends to listen to my song. My recently-deceased mom liked to see me engaged in songwriting. She was more encouraging than my father about this. I guess my dad knew the rat race of the music business. One of the songs I may have recorded soon is "Ralph Williams Wrote the Tunes."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com