Los Angeles Times - 02.10.2019

E4 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2019 LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR

“detention facilities,” “witch
hunt.”
The irony of Miller blow-
ing the whistle on all that is
indeed the stuff of great
drama. Like Al Capone
going to jail for tax fraud.
Clearly no one can use
the term “whistleblower”
anymore because it’s fake
news, and anyway, Trump
and Giuliani, like kids fight-
ing over the front seat,
called it first.
It’s not the first time
Trump and his supporters
have taken the “I’m rubber,
you’re glue” high road, de-
flecting criticism by hijack-
ing the terminology and
turning it upside down.
It was Hillary Clinton
who first condemned “fake
news” back in 2016. She was
referring to all the anti-
Clinton conspiracy theories,
including Pizzagate, that
were circulating on social
media accounts (at least
some of which had been, as
the Mueller report later
indicated, planted by Rus-
sian operatives).
Rather than making any
attempt to discredit such
rumors, Trump simply took
up the term himself, and
aimed it back at Clinton and
the mainstream media
(with the exception, of
course, of Fox News, most
of the time).
Even by the high stand-
ards of a man who, despite
his businesses filing for
bankruptcy multiple times
and his refusal to make his

tax returns public, has

successfully maintained

his brand as a successful

businessman and billion-

aire, it was a stroke of

Orwellian black-is-white,

up-is-down brilliance.

“Fake news” quickly

became the mantra of the

Trump administration and

its supporters, proving to

Trump, anyway, that if you

say something often enough

you can make many people

believe it’s true. It has been

his two-word answer to all

criticism, from photos that

belied his claims of record-

breaking inauguration

crowds to the recent allega-

tions that he withheld ap-

proved aid to Ukraine in an

attempt to pressure the

president of Ukraine into

investigating the Bidens.

Which was obviously fake

news because the whistle-

blower can’t be a whistle-

blower when the president is

the whistleblower.

Right?

Unfortunately, the fake

news Clinton was referring

to is an actual thing, as the

Mueller report proved with

its countless examples of

Russian operatives using

false accounts to spread

false stories about Trump’s

opponents, and so is

whistleblowing.

For the last 50 years, the

term has been used to de-

scribe people who risk their

jobs, and sometimes their

lives, to expose corruption

within systems they do not

control. Daniel Ellsberg,

who as an employee of the

State Department in 1971

leaked the Pentagon Pa-

pers; Mark Felt, who as

“Deep Throat” helped Bob

Woodward and Carl Bern-

stein unravel the Watergate

scandal; and Karen Silk-

wood, who died mysteri-

ously while trying to draw

attention to faulty safety

procedures at a nuclear

facility.

The main characteristic

of a whistleblower is power-

lessness; he or she does not

have the authority to stop,

prosecute or reveal through

traditional channels the

wrongdoing in question.

Unlike, say, the president

of the United States.

For Miller to characterize

Trump as a whistleblower

assumes that he lacks the

power to investigate any

potential wrongdoing in an

official way, which is ridicu-

lous. So ridiculous that it

exposes not just the lie, but

the machinery of the lie.

That’s why it felt like a

Big Moment, the kind that

precedes the antihero’s fall.

Many have credited the

power of reality TV for

Trump’s rise from after-

thought candidate to presi-

dent, but Trump’s success

owes more to our recent

infatuation with antihero

dramas such as “The Sopra-

nos,” “24” and “Breaking

Bad” than “Big Brother” or

“Celebrity Apprentice.” If a

contestant on either of those

last two shows had bragged

about grabbing a woman’s

genitals or voiced support

for white supremacists, he

or she would have been

kicked off the show.

Antiheroes, on the other

hand, get away with murder,

often literally, and even as

we may deplore specific

actions, we admire their

general chutzpah just as

many of Trump’s support-

ers admire his. Tony So-

prano murdering a snitch

while taking his daughter on

a college tour? Amazing.

Jack Bauer expressing no

regret for the many people

he tortured because he

knew that was “no time” for

the niceties of legality?

Honorable. Trump paying

off a woman with whom he’d

had an affair, possibly with

campaign funds? A man’s

gotta do what a man’s gotta

do.

Many have also credited

the president with a formi-

dable understanding of the

media, and perhaps that’s

true in the short run. He has

certainly used Twitter like

no other person on the

planet, leaning hard on

words of one or two syllables

and high-octane sentiments

in the belief that “keep it

simple, say it often,” the

preferred method of early

education and propaganda,

will inevitably prevail.

But whether in scripted

drama or reality program-

ming, there is always a

moment when what used to

work doesn’t anymore, when

the antihero or the per-

ceived frontrunner slips up,

gives the game away. Sud-

denly a refusal to back down

looks less like personal

strength and more like a

desperate political tactic;

suddenly the “no, you’re

lying” strategy seems dan-

gerously childish and those

browbeaten opponents

seem suddenly well-armed.

Suddenly, in a moment,

the prism shifts and what

seemed like just another

cliffhanger is revealed to be

the final season.

Miller obviously thought

he was defending the presi-

dent with his whistleblower

power grab, but his words

sounded panicky, as if he too

had heard the whistle and

could see the ref reaching for

not the yellow card but the

red.

Whistleblowing on doublespeak, fake news

WHO ISthe whistleblower? It’s the president, Stephen Miller said on Fox News.

FoxNews.com

[Whistleblower,from E1]

Sturgill Simpson was
characteristically plain-
spoken Sunday night when
he told his audience at the
Troubadour why it had been
nearly a year since he’d
played his last full concert:
He and his wife recently wel-
comed the third of three
young sons, explained this
disruptive roots-music star,
which inspired him to quit
the road to stay home and
“chop firewood” in south-
east Tennessee.
“I figured they should
know what the ... their dad
looks like,” he said.
The rationale suited a
songwriter whose 2016 al-
bum, “A Sailor’s Guide to
Earth,” pondered the joy
and the pain of fatherhood
on its way to winning a
Grammy Award for country
album. What the explana-
tion left out, though, was
that Simpson, 41, also
seemed to need an escape
from his own success — from

its encouragement of a sim-

plistic view of his music and

from the expectations it cre-

ated for whatever he chose

to do next.

But maybe he didn’t

mention that because he

knew his songs would make

his feelings clear.

Simpson’s new album,

“Sound & Fury,” which came

out Friday, is a bracing in-

dictment of the phoniness

and stupidity he evidently

encountered in the wake of

the Grammys, where he be-

gan his acceptance speech

by noting that just a few

years earlier he’d been work-

ing on a railroad in Utah.

Over thick, churning South-

ern rock far noisier than the

homey country sounds on

his previous records — think

ZZ Top in the mid-’80s

rather than Waylon Jen-

nings in the mid-’70s —

Simpson sneers in his stran-

gled drawl at the “journalists

and sycophants” who invade

his tour bus and describes

the pleasure he takes from

“saying no to all the yes-men

just to see the look on their

face.” (The latter lyric comes

from a tune called “Make Art

Not Friends.”)

Ironically, the result is a

proudly rebellious record

about refusing the record in-

dustry’s attempts to make

Simpson the new face of so-

called outlaw country.

“If you’re wearing a cow-

boy hat and you heard the

record and you came any-

way, thank you very much,”

the singer said at the Trou-

badour, where he and his du-

rable live band — bassist

Chuck Bartels, drummer

Miles Miller and keyboardist

Bobby Emmett — played

“Sound & Fury” from front

to back. The show was the

first date in a brief U.S. tour

benefiting the Special

Forces Foundation, which

provides assistance to veter-

ans of the armed services

and their families. (Before

the railroad in Utah, Simp-

son served in the Navy.)

It was also part of a fairly

elaborate rollout for the new

album, which comes accom-

panied by a Netflix film that

sets Simpson’s songs to ani-

me sequences overseen by

some of Japan’s most re-

spected directors. Since he

finished recording “Sound &

Fury,” the singer has gotten

deeper into movies, acting in

Jim Jarmusch’s recent “The

Dead Don’t Die” and in the

upcoming “Queen & Slim”

opposite Daniel Kaluuya.

You can look at these

pursuits as the spoils of the

very showbiz glad-handing

that Simpson rails against in

“Mercury in Retrograde,”

which rhymes “traveling tro-

phies and awards-show

stands” with “all the haters

wishing they was in my

band.”

But consider the roles

Simpson has been attracted

to — a zombie in Jarmusch’s

movie and a hotheaded

white police officer who pulls

over a black couple in

“Queen & Slim” — or the var-

ious struggles against au-

thority depicted in the Net-

flix film, which he told the

New York Times is about

“hegemonic structures, poli-

tics, corruption, greed.”

Clearly this isn’t a guy

merely searching for glory

onscreen than he can’t get

onstage.

On Sunday he seemed to

acknowledge that “Sound &

Fury,” with its cranked

tempos and harsh electronic

textures, might not be what

some fans want from him.

After telling the crowd he

planned to play a handful of

older tunes to finish the

night, he offered this warn-

ing: “Don’t be surprised if

the old” stuff “sounds like

the new” stuff.

The way he sees it, an art-

ist’s responsibility is to re-

flect the world he or she lives

in — and right now, he added

with an unprintable flour-

ish, the world is messed up.

That meant extra jolts of

guitar fuzz for the once-gen-

tle “Turtles All the Way

Down” and “Welcome to

Earth (Pollywog)” and an

anxious-funky reggae

groove for “Breakers Roar,”

perhaps the loveliest cut on

“Sailor’s Guide.” And for the

songs from “Sound & Fury,”

he and his band further

bulked up riffs and beats

that are plenty muscular on

the record. His goal, he said,

was music that “sounds like

the noise in my head when I

watch the news.”

Yet even in his rage he

was unpredictable. At one

point in the show Simpson

lowered the volume to sing a

pair of vintage ballads — “I’d

Have to Be Crazy,” popu-

larized by Willie Nelson, and

William Bell’s “You Don’t

Miss Your Water” — that he’s

been doing for years, since

long before the yes-men be-

gan haunting him.

Both were completely

gorgeous; both made happi-

ness sound like a rare but at-

tainable resource. Perhaps

Simpson was thinking of

getting back home again.

COUNTRY MUSIC’Sreluctant star Sturgill Simpson, left, with his drummer Miles Miller, bassist Chuck Bartels and keyboardist Bobby Emmett (not pictured).

Gina FerazziLos Angeles Times

POP MUSIC REVIEW

Sturgill Simpson, country disrupter

STURGILLsaid he’s aiming for music that “sounds

like the noise in my head when I watch the news.”

Gina FerazziLos Angeles Times

The Grammy winner’s

confrontational new

album ‘Sound & Fury’

gets a raucous airing

at the Troubadour.

MIKAEL WOOD
POP MUSIC CRITIC