Issue 3
Trivium's Paolo Gregoletto helps break down the new moral majority
First, hit play.
H/T Britin Foster
Welcome back to The Blue Note. Issue 3. I’m deeply humbled by your supportive comments, tweets and emails. It’s early, but I love putting these together every week and I’m lining up some stellar guests for the podcast, so stay tuned.
And keep sending over your song suggestions! I’m keeping a list and—in addition to starting each issue with one—will compile them in a Spotify playlist and share with you all so we can all enjoy. So send your favorite songs, thoughts, comments, suggestions, criticism, hate mail, whatever to: jordan@bluenote.news!
But first, if you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so here.
Lust Knows No Bounds
On Tuesday, Reuters reported that in 2015 prominent evangelist and Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. tapped Trump’s currently-imprisoned lawyer to procure and destroy “racy” photographs of Falwell and/or his wife that, by all accounts, sound sexual in nature, described “as racy personal’ photographs — the sort that would typically be kept ‘between husband and wife,’ Cohen said in the taped conversation.”
But Cohen’s relationship with the Falwell’s didn’t end there, Reuters reports:
The Falwells wanted to keep “a bunch of photographs, personal photographs” from becoming public, Cohen told Arnold. “I actually have one of the photos,” he said, without going into specifics. “It’s terrible.”
Cohen would later prove successful in another matter involving Falwell, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Cohen helped persuade Falwell to issue his endorsement of Trump’s presidential candidacy at a critical moment, they said: just before the Iowa caucuses. Falwell subsequently barnstormed with Trump and vouched for the candidate’s Christian virtues.
In December, it was reported Falwell “paid $1.8 million to a pool attendant at Miami Beach's Fontainebleau resort who had befriended the Falwell family.” It gets weirder:
Falwell Jr. and his wife appear to have simply "befriended" a then-21-year-old pool attendant while the husband and wife were staying at the ritzy Fontainebleau. They then welcomed the pool attendant into their lives, began flying him around on a private jet, and even put up millions of dollars to help his business ventures
This led to claims online regarding Falwell Jr.’s potential sexual relationship with the pool boy. While there aren’t actually reports confirming this, this new scandal that’s explicitly sexual in nature is sure to reignite speculation. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a colorful sex life. There is, however, an issue when your entirely livelihood revolves around furthering an antiquated, repressive lifestyle for everyone else.
And this kind of stuff is all-too-common with the celebrity evangelist types. Televangelism—and other forms of mega-church evangelizing—is a gross, exploitative scene.
Whether it’s Bill Hybels, pastor at Chicago mega-church, resigning after allegedly sexually harassing church staff, or—perhaps most notably—Jim Bakker, who has a lengthy and well-documented history of fraud. He was eventually convicted after he “[defrauded] followers who sent $158 million for partnerships” in his “ministry” PTL (Praise The Lord) but only served four years in prison due to a shortened sentence.
It doesn’t end there, either. In 1987, it was revealed Bakker “had had a 15-minute tryst and paid hush money to a young church secretary named Jessica Hahn,” allegedly paying her nearly $300,000 in hush money. Bakker’s numerous scandals—and incarceration—eventually led him to leave PTL.
His replacement? Why, none other than Jerry Falwell Sr.
Which brings us back to his son. Regarding Falwell Jr.’s latest scandal, Paolo Gregoletto, bassist for Trivium, pointed out that this is the type of person his band skewers:
He’s referring to their 2017 track “Thrown Into The Fire”:
That song, Paolo told me, was inspired by verses in the Bible, Matthew chapter 7:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
This is an apt passage for the moment we’re now in—and have been in for some time. A bunch of shiny-suited swindlers, using cherry-picked verses as a cudgel to dictate moral sentiment in the country while lining their pockets and, in many cases, living secret lives antithetical to their public persona. This isn’t just confined to pastors, either. You could apply that to a lot of folks in politics who use religion to pander for votes but are otherwise giant dirtbags.
“Since it seems like we are in the midst of a ‘Moral Majority’ redux run by the failsons of the original huckster televangelists, it felt relevant to go back to that evergreen subject on ‘Thrown Into The Fire,’ the last track on our last album,” Paolo said. “The lyrics are a story of a nameless preacher admitting to his personal failures and deviance in private to God and ruminating about the consequences of his potential exposure.”
You could just as easily supplant Falwell Jr.—or any of the aforementioned proselytizers—with the “nameless preacher” and it would be a near-perfect fit.
“Writing about corrupt religious figures and organizations is kinda like shooting fish in a barrel when it comes to metal lyrics,” Paolo said. “I guess a hypocrite being exposed and brought to some sort of justice is wishful thinking nowadays, but it does feel nice to at least imagine. And since it seems like we like we are doomed to repeat the same dumb shit endlessly, we will continue the time honored heavy metal tradition of bashing these goons until their even bigger idiot sons take over.”
As for Jim Bakker? Still grifting. He’s now a “doomsday prepper” guy, selling giant buckets of food to people he has convinced the end-of-the-world is near:
Quick Hits:
Here’s your weekly roundup of stories worth reading:
Alt.Latino Activists: Two Artists Who Mix Messages With Music | NPR (Featuring Taina Asili, who we talked about last issue!)
Sounds of social justice: How music, athletes and activism intersect for good | Tennessean
System of a Down's Serj Tankian Making a Movie About His Career | Loudwire
See Madonna Deliver Emotional Speech on AIDS Activism at GLAAD Awards | Rolling Stone
The Met Gala
Why is the Met Gala? The annual event, chaired by Vogue editor Anna Wintour (who runs it like her personal fiefdom) attracts A-list celebs, many of them musicians. It’s highly coveted but also widely derided for its opulence.
I mean, sure it raises money for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Recent years, it has raised tens of millions. But that’s not really the focus, it’s more about the outlandish, ostentatious attire. I’m pretty pessimistic on it. Maybe I’m just overly cynical. Could be. Would explain a lot.
But the Met’s endowment of $2.9 billion strikes me as a financial situation that would allow the Met Gala to be a bit more, well, charitable with where the money goes. Why not keep a cut, say 25% or even 50%, then use the event’s undeniable fundraising capacity to benefit an organization fighting homelessness in New York City. With nearly 1-in-5 people in NYC living in poverty, what better way to shirk criticism of an unnecessarily opulent fundraiser than sharing the wealth?
I asked you all on Twitter, and many of you felt similarly:
What do you think? Am I way off base? Do you agree? Send your comments to jordan@bluenote.news.
Nonetheless, the event generates a ton of great meme mocking the costumes. So, to thumb our nose at them, here’s some of the funniest ones:
And here’s a thread from the very funny Nick Dyer comparing Met Gala attendees to Taco Bell items:
You can see the whole thread HERE.
That’s all for this week, folks. A bit shorter than last week, but for good reason. I’m finishing my penultimate semester of grad school this week and have a ton of writing to do every night.
I’ll be back with more next week. What do you want to see more of? What song should kick off the next issue? I’d love to hear from you. Send your comments to jordan@bluenote.news.
-jordan
@jordanuhl/@thebluenotenews