Welcome to the fifth installment of USELESS/USEFUL, in which we recommend things we think you should know about. We use the term USELESS to lovingly describe topics that have to do with pop culture, music, film, etc. And USEFUL covers topics like relief efforts, charitable campaigns, social issues, and other things that we want to encourage you to consider supporting. And we’ll also share about projects going on at Stereoactive Media. Here are our topics for this episode…

USELESS ITEM ONE: Netflix’s Adolescence is a 4 part limited series based in the UK that is really unlike anything I’ve seen on television before. It tells the story of a 13 year old boy accused of murdering a girl at his school and how the fallout of the murder and arrest affects the boy, his family, and those investigating him and the crime.

USELESS ITEM TWO: The Pitt is a show that I was initially skeptical of. Seeing Noah Wyle do another hospital drama three decades after he shot to fame with the rest of the original ER cast just seemed like it had to be lazy casting indicative of yet another cookie-cutter hospital drama. But my good friend – shout out to Stephen, by the way – told me it was actually pretty good and that actual ER doctors thought the portrayal of The Pitt’s emergency room was more realistic than most other hospital shows… so I downloaded several episodes to watch while traveling and quickly got hooked and realized my impressions of the show before watching it were way off the mark.

USEFUL ITEM: In case you haven’t been tuned into this, I just want to let you know that in the face of the oligarch-led dismantling of our civil society that we’ve been witnessing this year, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been on the road recently with Bernie Sanders doing what most Democrats elected to office or in the party establishment are failing to do well, if at all... So, please, if you’re not already, support AOC in whatever way you’re able. Follow her on social media – especially Bluesky – and pay attention to where she says support is needed. And obviously, please support whatever campaign she embarks on next, whether it’s reelection to the House, a primary challenge to Chuck Schumer, or to succeed Donald Trump or whatever ghoul happens to be in office by the time we hopefully have another free and fair election in which we can start to set things on a better path.

STEREOACTIVE BULLETIN BOARD: We’ve got a couple of things to let you know about in Stereoactive World…

1.We recently released our second Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby episode of the year. It’s called “The Boy who cried ‘Wow!’” and features Matt discussing how a 9 year old's excited exclamation at a symphonic concert reveals truths about how we experience the world.

2.And we also recently released our fourth episode of the relaunched When We See Each Other podcast in which, after nearly five years, R&B artist NYALLAH returns to the show!

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EPISODE CREDITS:

• Produced and presented by Jeremiah Lee McVay
• Music by Hansdale Hsu and Maia Macdonald

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LINKS & MENTIONS:

-Adolescence (Trailer) >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk5OxqtpBR4

-The Pitt (Trailer) >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufR_08V38sQ

-AOC >>> https://www.ocasiocortez.com/

-Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby Ep 39 // The boy who cried "Wow!" >>> https://www.stereoactivemedia.com/kind-of-a-lot-with-matt-ruby-ep-39-the-boy-who-cried-wow/

-When We See Each Other Ep 2.4 – NYALLAH >>> https://www.stereoactivemedia.com/when-we-see-each-other-ep-2-4-nyallah/

David Lynch is a generational talent whose work has come to symbolize – well, so many things to so many people. It's simultaneously almost immediately recognizable while somehow remaining largely undefinable. To very loosely paraphrase one of the contributing voices in this episode, it's as if he leaves room for his audience to collaborate in an ongoing moment of creation that is open-ended and truly never finished, but perhaps the clearest thing about his work is that the open-ended undefinable nature of the work is largely the point.

In this episode, Jeremiah is joined by Mike Miley, author of the new book, 'David Lynch's American Dreamscape: Music, Literature, Cinema,' set for release on February 6th by Bloomsbury Academic. The book asks the question:

How are David Lynch's films as much in dialogue with literary and musical traditions as they are cinematic ones?

Mike answers the question by "calling for a new approach to Lynch's films that goes beyond cinema and visual art to explore how Lynch's work engages with literary and musical works that have shaped the American imagination.As much as Lynch stands as a singular artistic voice, his work arises from and taps into the cultural zeitgeist in a way that illuminates not only his approach to creativity but also the way works interact with each other in an age of mass media."

Together, Jeremiah and Mike discuss Lynch's tremendous legacy and impact on cinema, television, and art, and the ways in which his work has touched each of them personally. Along the way, we also hear messages from friends of the show: Matt Tyson, Andréa DeFelice, and Michelle Brundige, who share their own thoughts and experiences of Lynch's work.

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Episode Credits:

Producer/Host - Jeremiah Lee McVay

Guest - Mike Miley

Contributors - Matt Tyson, Andréa DeFelice, Michelle Brundige

Produced by Stereoactive Media

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https://www.mikemiley.com/

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/david-lynchs-american-dreamscape-9798765102893/

https://www.tysonfilm.com/

https://www.andreadefelice.com/

J. McVay and Joe Virgillito discuss the final days of the campaign between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, including the following events that have happened since they spoke last month… 1) Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz, the Republican and Democratic nominees for Vice President, debated in New York, hosted by CBS. 2) Both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post withheld endorsements for Kamala Harris at the direction of their billionaire owners. 3) John Kelly, the longest serving White House Chief of Staff during Trump’s term in office, said in an interview that he believes that his former boss is indeed a fascist; this came apparently in response to Trump saying he would be willing to use active-duty military personnel against American citizens and also came after it was reported by Bob Woodward that General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, had called the former president “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country.” 4) Former President Donald Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden that many compared with a 1939 rally of American Nazis at the same venue. 5) Vice President Kamala Harris held a rally on the ellipse in Washington DC, the same spot where Trump urged his followers on January 6th, 2021, to march on the US Capitol – of course ultimately resulting in an insurrection and attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.

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Episode Credits:

Producer/Host - J. McVay

Guests - Joe Virgillito

Music - Hansdale Hsu

Produced by Stereoactive Media

Okay, so here I am again with a reminder about a simple truth about Donald Trump that, if the world were a rational place, would easily disqualify him from public life and public office. I’m mainly doing this as a means to maintain my own sanity in the run up to election day because considering how terrible a person Trump is, it’s ludicrous that the election is so close. He truly doesn’t deserve to have a platform for anything in public life and should not be close to the White House again… and he never should have been able to reach the office the first time around.

Somehow, though, here we are. Again.

And what I’m going to talk about in this episode could probably be considered the original sin of Trump – the thing that should have kept him out of public life before we had to ever suffer through all the other sins.

So, here’s just another reminder of one thing that should disqualify Donald Trump from being President: The man is a bigot.

I mean, seriously. What the hell? He started his career discriminating against black folks who wanted to live in the buildings owned by his family. Famously, the Nixon administration sued his family’s company over it. How racist do you have to be for Nixon, of all people, to come after you for discrimination. So that’s example one.

Example two, and I’m skipping ahead now, is his treatment of the so-called Central Park 5. These were children who were swept up by New York City police for supposedly attacking a jogger in Central Park in 1989. And those kids were the targets of racism from all sides. The NYPD essentially pinned the attack on them because of the color of their skin and little else. And that was good enough for Trump. He took out a full page ad in the NY Times calling for the death penalty to be brought back in New York so that these kids could be put to death. Over the years it became clear that they were innocent and police had coerced confessions out of them. As a result, all five were eventually released from prison and exonerated. But Trump still apparently thinks they’re guilty and they’ve even sued him for defamation in recent days because of comments he’s recently made to that effect.

Then of course, there’s Trump’s inane quest to prove that the first Black president of the United States wasn’t born here and therefore was illegitimate. Despite all his PT Barnum bluster about bombshell evidence that he was always on the verge of being able to share with the world, the evidence never came. And it never came due to a simple truth: it was complete and utter bulls**t. Barack Obama was born in the United States. But as has become abundantly clear through the years, if you’re not a rich, white, straight, cis man, Donald Trump just thinks you’re worth less and worthy of his scorn.

Then, of course, he launched his first presidential campaign with a thick dose of prejudice against Mexicans and went on, after taking office, to try and block people from Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. Fast forward to the COVID-19 pandemic, and he tried his damnedest to blame it on the Chinese. Oh, and let’s not forget the supposed horde of invading brown people he’d warn everyone about every time there was an election. Now, in recent weeks, he’s been demonizing trans people as yet another one of his many bigoted get-out-the-vote schemes. Plus, for all his supposed love of Jewish folks, you don’t have to dig very deep to connect how he talks about them to antisemitic tropes and conspiracies.

And here’s some late-breaking, wholly unsurprising news: The preferred candidate of David Duke and plenty of other American Nazis has, according to his former chief of staff, expressed admiration for Adolph Hitler and his generals.

So, yeah, these are pretty much the greatest hits of Trump’s prejudices… Suffice it to say, though, that you could devote a long-running weekly podcast to dissecting all the ways in which he’s a racist and a bigot. In a sane world, this would disqualify him from the presidency.

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Episode Credits:

Producer/Host - J. McVay

Music - Man In Gray, The Unsacred Hearts

Produced by Stereoactive Media

In a continuing attempt to maintain my own sanity in the run up to election day, I’m presenting reminders of some simple truths about Donald Trump that, if the world were a rational place, would easily disqualify him from public life and public office. This is the second in a series and, as I said in the first installment, I know I might be preaching to the choir to some extent. But as has become way too clear in the last decade or so, things that would have brought on certain consequences in the past have become normalized.

So, here’s just another reminder of one thing that should disqualify Donald Trump from being President: The man led an attempted coup against the United States of America.

On January 6th, 2021, Donald Trump stood before a crowd of his supporters and urged them to march on the US Capitol. This came after weeks and weeks of rhetoric and actions after his loss of the 2020 election that ratcheted up tensions around the prospect of a peaceful transfer of power. Through evidence and testimony uncovered by reputable reporters, as well as the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, it is clear that, at the start of that day, Donald Trump intended to stay in power despite 1) his clear loss of the election and 2) the clear inability of him or anyone on his disreputable team to uncover any evidence of election fraud that he claimed cost him the election.

The truth is Joe Biden won the 2020 election and, rather than accept that fact, Donald Trump followed the 3 rules of his mentor, Roy Cohn: Attack attack attack. Admit nothing, deny everything. Always claim victory.

In recent months, Trump and the people around him have tried to rewrite history, saying January 6th, 2021, was a quote “peaceful” day.

It was not.

Those of us who watched it live, or saw it after the fact, witnessed a violent mob storm the US Capitol with the intention of blocking the certification of a legitimate election. Police officers were injured and, in the aftermath, several died. One of Trump’s supporters died. Some in the mob sought to physically harm members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence.

Again, this was instigated by the then-sitting President of the United States, Donald Trump. He not only meant for his supporters to violently storm the capitol, he also meant for them to do worse harm than they even did. But failure to execute a successful coup does not mean nothing happened. I can’t recall who I’m paraphrasing here, but failing at attempted murder doesn’t mean you just get to go on living life; attempting a crime is still a crime. Donald Trump attempted a crime. In a sane world, this would disqualify him from the presidency.

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Episode Credits:

Producer/Host - J. McVay

Music - Man In Gray, The Unsacred Hearts

Produced by Stereoactive Media

In the first in a series of short episodes, I'm highlighting some of the many reasons that Donald Trump should be disqualified from the presidency... So look, I’m probably largely preaching to the choir here, but if you’re like me, this election might have you questioning your own sanity to some extent. And it’s not like this is new or anything. At this point, Donald Trump has been a fixture of American politics for going on a decade – or more, really. How anyone can find him to be anything other than a repulsive human being utterly unqualified to do anything, much less be President of the United States, is so far beyond me that I’ve tried my best to just just stop attempting to even figure it out. He’s always been a crook. He’s always been a bad person. He’s always aimed for the lowest common denominator and ended up falling short of even that. But even knowing all that, I personally find it helpful sometimes to just remind myself that if we were living in a 100% rational world, the things he has done would disqualify him from at least public life, but especially public office. If you’re like me, maybe just hearing a reminder of the facts helps you to keep some sort of perspective on things.

So, here’s just a reminder of one thing that should disqualify Donald Trump from being President: The man is a convicted felon.

Let’s remember that on May 30th of this year, a New York jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts related to paying hush money to Stormy Daniels to cover up an affair he had with her. As the Associated Press put it the day after the conviction, “For another candidate in another time, a criminal conviction might doom a presidential run…” It is just worth reminding ourselves that 1) it is not normal for a former president to be a convicted felon, and 2) it is not normal for a convicted felon to be so close to potentially being president. Trump not only clearly committed crimes, according to testimony and evidence presented to the public and to a jury, but was convicted of that crime. In a sane world, this would disqualify him from the presidency.

Check back in the coming days for more short episodes like this, as I continue to scream into the proverbial void.

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Episode Credits:

Producer/Host - J. McVay

Music - Man In Gray, The Unsacred Hearts

Produced by Stereoactive Media