Trump turns the Oval Office into a replica of the whore house his grandfather ran in the late 1800s, and when a Grammy winning musician points it out, Trump’s cheap tricks start peeling off the walls.

(Photos, l. to r.: Jack & Meg White (The White Stripes) being selected for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame earlier in 2025; Dollar Store Gaudy Gold purchases by Donald Trump for the White House Oval Office; Steven Cheung, Trump Administration arbitor of art, beauty and joy.)

It all started innocently enough, with 13-time Grammy winning musician Jack White, co-founder of The White Stripes, saying what the entire nation was thinking about the gaudy whore-house look brought into the Oval Office by Donald Trump.

“It’s disgusting; tacky; what an embarrassment, “ White said echoing the assessment of billions of people around the world. In fact, the only tacky touch missing from the Awful Office was a gold-lame painting of Trump on Black Velvet, although there’s probably one hanging in Mar-A-Lago.

White’s honest and pure critique of the Gold Gaud being worshipped by Trump and his troglodytes, was greeted with fury by Trump’s dumpy-looking, UFC (United Fighting Championship) drop-out Steven Cheung.

“White’s a washed-up, has been loser…with a stalled career,” Cheung, a 43-year old washed up, has been loser political hack who has been bounced from over a half-dozen political campaigns told The Daily Beast, about Jack White, the astonishing guitarist, musician and musical producer who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in April 2025, and has won 13-Grammy Awards.

The ignorant, easily extinguished flatulence flowing from Cheung’s cheeks may owe its’ origins to Trump’s inability to understand even the most basic lyrics of one of White’s (and the White Stripes) songs from 2007 entitled “Icky Thump.” Trump’s so vain, he probably thought the song was about him.

White satirically sings of “Icky Thump, handcuffed to a bunk, “ and when Trump heard those lyrics, visions of his best friend, child sex trafficker and rapist of little girls, Jeffrey Epstein—hanging from his jailhouse bunk—must have furiously danced through Trump’s garbled gangland ganglia.

What must have driven Trump and Cheung—the son of Chinese Immigrants—even crazier—if that’s possible— was the song’s take on immigrants:

“White Amerians, What? Nothing better to do?

Why don’t you kick yourself out? You’re an immigrant, too.”

White, who will probably not be nominated for a Kennedy Center Award this year by the Gaud Squad but was selected by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the top 100 guitarists of all time, came right back at Cheap (Trump) and Cheung, and left them gagging for air:

JACK WHITE: “TRUMP IS MASQUERADING AS A HUMAN BEING.”

“Listen, I’m an artist and not a politician so I’m in no need to give my answer or opinion on anything if I’m not inspired or compelled, but how funny that it wasn’t me calling out trump’s blatant fascist manipulation of government, his gestapo ICE tactics, his racist remarks about Latinos, Native Americans, etc. his ridiculous ‘wall’ construction, his attacks on the disabled, his attempted coup and mob insurrection and destruction of the sacred halls of congress, his disparaging sexist and pedophilic remarks about women, his obvious attempts at distraction about being a close personal friend of Jeffrey Epstein and his inclusion in the Epstein files, his ignorance of the dying children in Sudan, Gaza, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his lack of empathy for military veterans and those struggling with poverty, his attempts to dismantle healthcare, his obvious wimpy and pathetic kowtowing to the dictators Putin and Kim Jong Un, his nazi like rallies, his attempts to sell merchandise and products like Goya beans through the office of the President, his fake ‘gunshot to the ear’ that he showed no medical records or photographs of, his constant, constant, constant lying to the American people, etc. etc. etc.”

“No, it wasn’t me calling out any of that, it was the f*cking DECOR OF THE OVAL OFFICE remarks I made that got them to respond with insults,” he continued. “How petty and pathetic and thin skinned could this administration get? ‘Masquerading as a real artist’? Thank you for giving me my tombstone engraving! Well here’s my opinion, trump is masquerading as a human being.”

“He’s masquerading as a christian, as a leader, as a person with actual empathy,” he wrote. “He’s been masquerading as a businessman for decades as nothing he’s involved in has prospered except by using other people’s money to find loophole after loophole and grift after grift.”

“His staff of professional liar toadies like Steven Cheung and Karoline Leavitt have been covering up and masking his fascism as patriotism and fomenting hatred and division in this country on a daily basis,” White went on. “And I have ‘ample time on (my) hands’? That orange grifter has spent more tax payer money cheating at golf than helping ANYONE in the country. Improve. Anything. There is no progress with him, only smoke and mirrors and tax breaks for the ultra wealthy.”

“So maga folk, enjoy your concrete paving over of the rose garden, your 200 million dollar ballroom in the White House, and your gaudy ass gold spray painted trinkets from Home Depot, cause he ain’t spending any money on helping YOU unless you fit into his white supremacist country club rich idiot agenda,”

“Wow, he hates who you hate….good for you, be proud of yourselves, how christian of you all,”

“The only way you can support this conman is because you are a victim of the 2 party system and you ‘defend your guy no matter what he does.'” he wrote. “No intelligent person can defend this low life fascist. This bankruptor of casinos. This failed seller of trump steaks, trump vodka, trump water, etc.”

“This man and his goon squad have failed upwards for decades and have fleeced the American people over and over,” wrote White. “This professional golf cheat, this grifter who has hundreds of thousands of deaths from his inaction of the pandemic on his hands, this man that the majority of the country somehow were fooled into supporting and voting into office (through the flawed electoral college) and their love of reality television stars.”

“Being insulted by the actual White House that this particular conman leads is a badge of honor to me, because anyone who trump supports and likes is a villain who gives nothing to their fellow man, only takes what can benefit themselves,”

“And no I’m not a Democrat either, I’m a human being raised in Detroit, I’m an artist who’s owned his own businesses like his own upholstery shop and recording label since he was 21 years old who has enough street sense to know when a 3 card monte dealer is a cheap grifter and a thief,”

“I was raised to believe that we defeated fascism in World War II and that we would never allow it again in the world. I don’t always state publicly my political opinions, and like anyone I don’t always know all of the facts, but when it comes to this man and this administration I’m not going to be like one of the silent minority of 1930’s Germany. This man is a danger to not just America but the entire world and that’s not an exaggeration, he’s dismantling democracy and endangering the planet on a daily basis, and we. all. know. it. -JW III…

‘To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.’ – Theodore Roosevelt”

We’ve all known utterly insufferable people like ICK.

I know Elise StefanICK:

A more repulsive Tracey Flick.

Narcissism in every pore,

Tracey StefanICK, the boor.

We all knew ICK’s like this in school,

Nothing could EVER make them cool.

They smiled too hard, and laughed too loud,

In search of ANYONE to call a crowd.

ICK’s hand shot up at every question,

Giving classmates indigestion.

First in line, last in friends,

ICK would do your deep-knee bends, if ICK could.

Consumed with ICKself,

Raised on Cable,

ICK sat alone

At an ICKKY lunch table.

ICK swallowed some pride,

And spit up that grin.

Trump’s team, of course,

Would welcome ICK in.

First Congress; Next regress;

Then groveling for the U.N.

ICK entered the Oval Bordello,

Oozing over the Corpulent One.

On Oval Office Day,

ICK’s smile cracked;

Cameras were all on the attack,

Each shutter shouting “click, click, click.”

“It’s me, it’s me, they’re all calling me,” said ICK,

Making her hometown constituents sick.

The lights! The greasepaint! The air was so thick!

All screaming ICK’s name. How so very ICK…

The biggest White Collar crime wave to ever hit Washington, DC, in American history is right in front of their bulging eyes, but all they see is Black.

Pirro, Nero & Zero,

The team to tackle crime.

All 3 prosecutors, all 3 slime.

Slither into DC, in the nick of time.

Felons everywhere they look,

Right before their eyes;

Extortion lurks in every nook,

Power built on lies.

Car-Jacking? Info-Hacking?

Big Balls needed for each job.

Bribery? Crypto Flacking?

What’s that Orange Blob?

“If it ain’t Black, don’t chase it,”

Blonde Zero says to Nero.

“Unless it’s Brown,” slurs Inspector Pirro,

Tipping a scotch glass toward her heroes.

Pirro, Nero & Zero

Eyes & tongues on fire;

So what if DC’s crime’s way low,

Leave THAT to SIR, the serial liar.

“The City’s Black, so we attack,

These streets look dark and mean;

Hit hard, lie fast, take no flack,

Don’t let them breathe “EPSTEIN.”

“Hange the Central Park 5,”

Felon #1 screams,

“All these Black boys look alike.”

No, says Nero, we do not,

Pointing to his pal, Tim Scott.

Felon #1 through 34,

Pushed his crime-team out the door.

“Clean the Streets, Guild the Suites,

TV wants more blood and gore!”

Pirro, Nero & the Blonde Zero

Running with the J-6 Gang;

Posing for selfies, pounding chests,

Pirro points at the Press: “Bang, Bang!”

“Crack Black skulls, bomb the Mex,

Anything to not say “CHILD SEX.”

“Epstein, Maxwell, who are they?

Pogrom 25 calls them gay…”

Pirro Nero & Zero,

Take to the streets and scatter;

When stopping, frisking & making arrests,

Only the Black & Brown ones matter!

I have always believed in peaceful change, the Rule of Law, fairness, love and non-violence. Trump, Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Gaza, Starvation, and the abuse of Children have all challenged that.

I am on the brink of violence.

No longer able to contain my silence,

Or content to have life unfold slowly

Since those who practice cruelty never rest,

Nor take a breath.

I have lived a life of reverence for love & the law,

But my faith is shaken in those north stars, anymore.

Especially, when abject evil is rewarded and applauded,

And consequences go unreported, or worse,

Are never borne.

I am on the brink of violence,

When I learn that children are abused

For the Rich and Powerful to play with,

Or be amused by their lithe little bodies

Lacking the strength to scream, or to resist.

I cannot contain my silence,

When children are subjected to sexual or emotional violence,

Denied love, compassion or simple humanity,

And made to question their own sanity,

As abusers imprison them in the narcissism of adult vanity.

I am on the brink of violence.

I have never owned a gun, nor desired one,

And believed all difference could be peacefully fixed,

Until power shifts, humaneness dies or drifts,

And then, the world we longed for, is long gone.

What is to be done to those who starve others to death?

Or take away the pure, sweet breath

Of children desperate to be loved, or fed, or cared for like a child?

What is to be done when their cries are met with silence?

How can one not be pushed to the brink of violence?

No one, Jew or non-Jew, has to apologize for standing up against inhumanity, cruelty, or the slaughter of non-combatants seeking food and humanitarian assistance.

(Photo and story from PBS News Hour, July 20, 2025)

One of the most thoughtful writers on Substack—more and more a portal for free, non-corporate owned expression in this country—is Jay Kuo in his column “The Status Quo.”

The author of the book and lyrics for Allegiance: The Musical, which told the story of the United States’ immoral and inhumane incarceration of tens of thousands of Japanese American citizens during World War II, Kuo has written incisively about abominable US Supreme Court decisions, which strip away the rights of the individual. A member of the National Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign, he is especially eloquent and effective in writing about crimes against humanity.

This weekend, Kuo posted a seering piece describing the methodical murder by Israeli forces in Gaza of another 60 innocent civilians—mostly women and children—gunned down while attempting to alleviate their war-caused starvation as they barely carried themselves to humanitarian centers. This utter brutality followed by a day the Israeli bombing and destruction of the only Catholic church in Gaza, and the murder of the Catholic priest who ministered to that tiny congregation of Christians and chatted with Pope Francis every evening to assure the Pontiff of their continued safety. That priest is dead, the church obliterated, that small Christian refuge in Gaza gone forever.

Jay wondered aloud that if by calling attention to the continuing mass murder of non-combatants in Gaza by Israeli forces, he would be accused by some of his Jewish friends of being “anti-semitic.” As one of his Jewish friends, I assured him he was on the right side of humanity, of history, and of the basic values of Judaism:

Here’s some of what I wrote:

‘Thank you, Jay. I am a Jew–having converted to Judaism 45 years ago.

I am adamantly opposed to the inhumane ultra Nationalism of the Netanyahu Government and his extreme Right Wing enablers.

Their actions are actions of genocide against the Palestinians, and experts on Genocide have defined them as such.

Israel’s actions are also against all of the fundamental teachings of Judaism, a humanitarian, inclusive and loving faith which existed more than 5,000 years before Israel did. Netanyahu has violated the values of Judaism, and the origins of Zionism, flipping it from a humanistic movement to create a safe homeland for Jews and other oppressed minorities, into an Ultra- Nationalist movement of hate, exclusion and constant war.

Israel, since its founding, was not governed by a Constitution, but by 14-separate laws, based on human rights and the protection of human life against murder and genocide. It was intended to be a haven for humanity, ethical behavior and diversity. Netanyahu has reversed and upended those laws, the essential foundation of Israel, and the bedrock of Judaism.

Even the IDF, which had a strict military Code of Ethics which included not killing non-combatants and only responding to attacks in a “proportional” manner, has had it’s Code of Ethics corrupted, its’ reputation for professional integrity politicized, and its place in Israeli history destroyed by Netanyahu and his Ultra- Nationalist extremists, and have turned the IDF into an instrument of brutality and of ethnic cleansing, much as Trump is using ICE in our own country.

The indiscriminate slaughtering of up to 100,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children and non-combatants in Gaza—is not a proportional nor appropriate response to the murder of 1,200 Israelis nor was it ever the intention of Netanyahu to adhere to the IDF Code of Ethics, under which he was trained, and be “proportionate” in his response. In no universe, except the most perverse, is the slaughter of 100,000 Palestinians considered justifiable or proportionate for the lives of 1,200 Israeli’s.

By continuing to kill innocent, unarmed Gazans seeking food, water or medical care—in the absence of attacks by Hamas on Israel—Israel has, like Russia, become a terrorist state. The United Church of Christ could have just as well included Israel in its condemnation of the United States this week, as a State sponsoring terror.

Like Trump, Netanyahu is seeking the domination and the destruction of all whom he judges to be an enemy. A constant state of war against someone is in Netanyahu’s, not Israel’s, best interest.

For many of us Jews, who love our faith but detest how Netanyahu has bastardized Israel and what it means to be a Jew, this is an extraordinarily painful time.

I had the great privilege of meeting in person with the last democratic leader of Israel, Yitzak Rabin, a hero of the 1967 War who later suffered a nervous breakdown from seeing so many young Israelis die under his command, in battle.

Just a few years after Mario Cuomo and I met with Rabin in Jerusalem, the great Israeli leader was assassinated by a disciple of the Ultra Radical Right Wing Jewish convicted terrorist Meir Kahane, the Brooklyn-born madman who founded the terrorist Jewish Defense League, and still serves as an inspiration and hero to the twisted tyrants of the Ultra Nationalist Right Wing now ruling Israel, pushing it far away from the fundamental values of Judaism.

Rabin was assassinated at a rally for peace, exactly 30 years ago, where he was advocating for a practical, two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. Even during that time, while Rabin was sacrificing his life for peace, Netanyahu—at the beginning of his political career— was campaigning against him, and against a two-state solution.

No, calling attention to or bearing witness to the horrors being committed by Israel in Gaza are not anti-Semitic; they are pro-humanity which has, for centuries, been the essence of Judaism. By extension, any inhumane actions are anti-Semitic, and a grotesque violation of Judaism. Netanyahu and his Ultra Extreme Nationalistic government is, at it’s core anti-Semitic, and an enemy of a democratic Israel, and of all of us Jews worldwide. Never, ever apologize for standing up for humanity.

One week after Hamas’ horrific massacre of 1,200 Jews in Israel on October 7, I was struck by the knee-jerk social media posting of many fellow Jews that they “Stand With Israel.” To me, they were missing the lessons taught by our faith. In response, I wrote a poem entitled “I Stand With Humanity.” ( villano.subtack.com., October 12, 2023, “I Stand with Humanity.)

In it, I cited the teaching of the great scholar of Judaism, Rabbi Hillel, the elder, who lived during the time of Christ:

“I stand with equality,

Either real or aspirational;

With the value of each life,

Being, by existence, inspirational.

I stand with Rabbi Hillel,

Who knew well, that, to be human,

When others were not,

Would point the way through hell.”

Like Rabbi Hillel, I stand with humanity, and, while he was considered progressive for his time, no sane person in the present day would call his teaching, his beliefs or his interpretation of Judaism “anti-Semitic.”

Harry Chapin’s sudden death 44 years ago on July 16, in a car crash on the Long Island Expressway, ended his life. But his musical & humanitarian legacies and his family’s devotion live on.

(This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the release of Harry Chapin’s one and only number one song “Cat’s in the Cradle.” The song, written first as a poem by Harry’s wife and partner Sandy, has gained a life of its’ own in movies, television shows, documentaries, and as a mantra for how people can too easily let the lives of those they love slip away from them as they pursue their own dreams.

In Harry Chapin’s too-short life of only 39 years he followed his dreams as a musician, an activist, a humanitarian, a father, and human being who wanted to live a life that made a difference in this world.

Chapin devoted the last decade of his life to his music and to fighting hunger and reducing poverty. He was inspired by his older brother James; the great anti-poverty champion Michael Harrington, author of The Other America; Harry’s spouse & partner Sandy Chapin; and his friend and former Catholic priest Bill Ayres, who followed the progressive Catholic Worker teachings of Harry’s great aunt, Dorothy Day.

The organizations which Harry Chapin co- founded, from WHYHunger to Harry Chapin Food Banks across the nation, continue to serve those most in need more than four decades after Chapin’s death. The tough, day-to-day work of those anti-poverty organizations, and the extraordinary dedication of the Chapin family has carried forward Harry’s hope, and given his social justice work a life that is now longer than the time on earth enjoyed by the singer/songwriter. His family continues to carry on his many legacies.)

When Tom Chapin, the younger brother closest in age to Harry, got a call on that July day in 1981, from the Nassau County, NY, cop who recovered Harry’s charred body near the Jericho exit of the busy Long Island Expressway (Interstate 495), he knew something wasn’t right.

“What’s your relation to the deceased?” the police office asked.

Tom was taken aback. “ Deceased?”

Someone had died in a terrible car accident on the L.I.E. and his wallet was incinerated, destroying all of the victim’s ID.

“We have a body here, and the only way we can identify it is by this pocket watch we found on him with a name inscribed on it,” the Nassau County Cop said.

“What does it say, “ Tom asked, fearful that he already knew.

“It says: “From the Flint Voice. To a great American, Harry Chapin,” the cop said.

Tom Chapin felt as if he had been punched in the stomach, and that the world stopped. He knew that Harry always carried a cherished pocket watch given to him by Michael Moore, the documentary filmmaker, before Moore made any films or was known beyond Flint, Michigan.

As a pushy 22-year old, Moore had thrust himself into Harry’s face backstage at intermission of a 1976 Grand Rapids, Michigan concert, begging Chapin to do a benefit for his fledgling, muckraking publication, the Flint Voice.

“He said, ‘sure,’ I’ll do it,” Moore told a crowd at the Huntington, N.Y., Book Review bookstore in October, 2011, some 30 years after Chapin’s death, “and two months later he came to Flint to do a benefit concert for us. Harry came for five years, every year — even when Flint was down and out — sometimes doing two to five concerts a year. When Harry died it sent shock waves through the people of Flint because we kind of adopted him.”

What Moore didn’t learn, until years later, was that it was the inscribed pocket watch he gave to Harry Chapin out of gratitude for his generosity, that enabled his brother Tom to identify the body.

Chapin’s simple act of human connection, of wanting to improve life for the people of Flint, Michigan; his great act of love for a cause championed by another idealistic organizer, and his spirit of making the world a bit better, had survived the fire, even though his body had not. It was a metaphor for how Harry’s social justice work lived on, longer than his 38 years on earth.

“Yes,” Tom said to the cop after he finished reading the inscription on the pocket watch. “I’m Harry Chapin’s brother.”

“Then you may want to come down to the Nassau County Medical Center and identify the body,” the cop said.

The shock of Harry’s death spread slowly, stubbornly, with each call Tom Chapin made, as if, not even the truth could believe itself.

Family and friends flocked to the Chapin home in Huntington Bay, to be with Sandy Chapin and her children — the youngest of whom, Jason, Jen and Josh, were 17, 10 and 8 ½ years old.

Fans flooded the band shell at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow for a benefit concert to fight hunger that Harry Chapin was scheduled to give that same night, refusing to leave for hours, refusing to believe that the news they heard was real.

The day after Harry’s death, thousands of people spontaneously showed up in downtown Flint, Michigan, to pay their respects to someone who’s “greatest gift and the curse he lived with was that he always cared,” about them, and people like them — a lyric Harry prophetically wrote about folk singer Phil Ochs, who killed himself in 1976.

The profound and prolonged reaction to Harry Chapin’s sudden death, and the work of WHYHunger and Harry Chapin Food Banks around the country over the next four decades to pull people out of poverty and make millions of families less food insecure, was, and continues to be, a reminder of why Harry’s life mattered, well beyond his music.

Yet, performing artists like Billy Joel, considered a consummate musician and songwriter who has received every conceivable musical honor, along with selection into the Rock & Roll and the Songwriters’ Halls of Fame, had the highest praise for Harry’s artistry, as well as his activism.

“He wrote the best story songs,” said the singer/songwriter from Hicksville, Long Island, who wrote some pretty good songs himself. “ A lot of people said to me, ‘you wrote Piano Man?’ I thought it was a Harry Chapin song.”

A slight grin brightened Billy Joel’s face, in the sunny front section of his motorcycle shop in the Village of Oyster Bay, Long Island.

“No I wrote that, I would say. Harry’s songs were about human beings, humanity. Whether his career was big enough, that’s not important. It was his impact. And he had an impact upon other songwriters that was all positive, all to the good,” said Billy Joel.

For Harry Chapin, as it was for one of his heroes, Pete Seeger, commitment to a cause, to his family and his craft, made his life full. Bruce Springsteen, who raised $2 million to fight food insecurity during the COVID-19 Pandemic, has picked up the musician’s mantle of social justice leadership carried by Chapin, Seeger, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Chilean folksinger Victor Jara and many others over the decades.

In his comments at the December 7, 1987, Carnegie Hall Tribute where Harry Chapin was posthumously awarded a Special Congressional Gold Medal for his Humanitarian work — only the fourth musician in US history to ever be so honored, along with Irving Berlin and George & Ira Gershwin — Springsteen talked about the legacy of an activist artist like Chapin.

“ Harry instinctively knew it would also take more than love to survive,” he said, before singing a haunting rendition of Chapin’s song Remember When, “it was going to take hard work, with a good, clear-eye on the dirty ways of the world.”

In his own autobiography Born to Run: Bruce Springsteen (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, NY, 2016, by Bruce Springsteen) Springsteen writes about his own “clear-eyed look at the dirty ways of the world,” after beginning his work with food banks and anti-poverty groups around the country in the mid-1980’s, following Harry’s death:

“I never had the frontline courage of many of my more committed musical brethren. If anything, over the years, too much has been made of whatever service we’ve provided. But I did look to develop a consistent approach. Something I could follow year in and year out, and find a way to assist the folks who’d been hit hardest by systematic neglect and injustice. These were the families who’d built America and yet whose dreams and children were, generation after generation, considered expendable. Our travels and position would allow us to support, at the grassroots level, activists who dealt, day to day, with the citizens who’d been shuffled to the margins of American life.” (P. 328).

At the Carnegie Hall Chapin Tribute concert in 1987, Springsteen acknowledged that Harry was one of those with such relentless “front-line courage.”

In fact, Harry was living the line he wrote in his own story song “The Parade’s Still Passing By” about Phil Ochs, the Civil Rights activist and anti-war folk singer who rivaled Bob Dylan for a time in the 1960’s, and killed himself in 1976, at the age of 35: “your greatest gift and the curse you lived with was that you could always care.”

Ochs had traveled to Hazard, Kentucky, to perform for the families of striking coal miners in 1963; to Mississippi in 1964 as part of the Caravan of Music to support the Freedom Fighters throughout the South; to Chicago, in the summer of 1968, to participate in demonstrations against the War in Vietnam at the Democratic National Convention; and to Chile, in 1971, following the election of Democratic Socialist President Salvador Allende to perform with the great Chilean political activist and folksinger, Victor Jara, who was executed four days after Allende was assassinated by Right Wing fascists, in 1973.

Och’s motivating mantra (There But For Fortune: The Life of Phil Ochs, by Michael Schumacher, University of Minnesota Press edition, Minneapolis, MN, 2018) could have been written by Harry Chapin, especially since both devoted significant portions of their careers, and earnings, to fighting poverty:

“ I have come to believe that this is, in essence, the role of the folksinger…I feel that the singer almost has a responsibility with political and social involvement. You can’t look at folk music as simply an element of show business, because it’s much deeper and more important than that.” (p. 74)

Harry’s cauldron of creativity and his own curse — similar to, but far more lasting that Phil Ochs’ — was the degree to which he cared about others, how much he desperately drove himself, how deeply he believed in things, and how determined he was to make his time on earth matter, and prove before he died — and for decades after — how much one person’s life could be worth.