Minimum
Wage Media Blog
Power
Supply Replacement
12/8/2023 Troubadour 1710 will be off the air
until the power supply to our main automation computer is either
repaired or replaced. High temperature
solder was used on the circuit board which requires
a soldering upgrade in the
neighborhood of $80. (Of course, this would also
simplify and facilitate all my other soldering work.)
A replacement power supply would cost about $30 plus shipping.
This is a difficult economic time for me with two major debt-financed
investments taking much longer to produce dividends than promised. If
you can make a contributuion to get us back on the air, it would be
appreciated. [Note: station returned to air the last week in December.]
Oliver Anthony and
the Future Orientation of Folk Music
08/15/2023
As a folk and Americana DJ who dates back to 1978,
conventional wisdom would dictate that you can't predict the life
expectancy of a new trend when it is only a week old. But it may
already be safe to declare that the days of folk music being dominated
by leftists, Communists, and atheists has officially ended.
For decades, the dismal impact folk music was having on American
culture and media, and its corresponding financial returns, inspired
the late Utah Phillips to rhetorically ask, "How do you make a million
dollars in folk music?" His answer: "Spend two million."
I think the reason for such futility is now obvious. The ability of
leftists, Communists, and atheists to truly connect with the struggles,
joys, and values of average Americans has always been quite limited.
The incubation of this dominant folk music orientation could not have
been more odious and inorganic. When you really trace it back, it would
not have existed without the University experience of the late 1950's
and '60's. A large number of Marxist professors infiltrated these
institutions after World War II, joined by their patriarch-hating,
feminist counterparts in the 1970's. They determined the curriculum,
the culture, and the policies.
As any adult knows, university life is a far cry from real life. Until
our youth get out of the classroom, pay their own bills, and experience
how the world really works, they are very impressionable, and to a
large degree, believe everything they are taught. King Solomon and
Vladimir Lenin didn't have much in common. But both realized the
importance of training up a child in the way he should go so that when
he is old, he will not depart from it. Furthermore, who financed these
professors and their activist groups? Often, the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the CIA's MK Ultra. Hardly the
prime demographic of folk music, wouldn't you say?
Fast forward to earlier this month, August 2023. An independent artist
suddenly emerges, not out of the most bureaucratic, privileged,
collectivist, over-priced, and wealthy institution in western society.
This artist, an aspiring farmer living off the grid, emerged from a
remote part of Virginia, eking out a living on his own. He is not a
Communist. He believes strongly in American free enterprise and
meritocracy. He is not an atheist. He's a Bible believing Christian
with traditional values. And yes, he is a male. And it's just him and
his dobro guitar.
When Oliver Anthony performed at his local farmer's market back in
June, twenty patrons shuffled by to watch him. A few days ago, he
returned for a repeat performance. It caused a traffic jam with well
over a thousand descending on the market. Back in the '80's and 90's,
it took a lot of work to get a thousand people to show up for a folk
concert. But for this gentleman, it was no work at all because he was a
true, overnight sensation.
At this post-covid point in history, people are waking up. The red pill
realities of who we truly are, and the reason the rulers of this world
want us weak, deceived, and prematurely dead, is hitting many quite
hard.
The struggles of the working class in 2023 are far more MAGA than Marx.
With Oliver Anthony, folk music is finally reflecting it. This turning
point is long overdue.