not a talented guy

Editing to add: I missed the fact that this tantrum is from May 16 last year.

Making sure we all know just how stupid he is, again.

“to speak badly about” – he means slam or attack or bash or go after or even criticize. “Speak badly” means stutter or mumble or squeak or any other version of unskilled talking. It means doing the act of speaking in a bad, talentless way. It does not mean speaking of one too-powerful man in a way said man doesn’t like. This is in fact, tidily, an example of Trump…wait for it…speaking badly. He always speaks badly because he has a tiny vocabulary and he’s dumb as a stump. Springsteen, not so much.

Also, “importantly” is not a synonym for “what’s important is that”. I will use it correctly so that you can see what I mean: Trump tries hard to say things importantly but he always fails.

It’s hilarious to see Trump call anyone else on the planet “pushy”.

He said “If I wasn’t elected” when he meant “If I hadn’t been elected”. He can’t follow the most basic humdrum rules of grammar. He understands neither the subjunctive nor the past conditional. He is dumb as a stump.

He thinks it’s necessary or perhaps stylish to put quotation marks on the most banal of phrases, like “dumb as a rock”. Who ya quotin’ there Donny? Was it Henry James? Proust?

Springsteen’s skin is “all atrophied”??

No but Trump’s brain is.

Comments

7 responses to “not a talented guy”

  1. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    Springsteen has more talent in his left big toe than Trump has in his entire body, and possibly if you include all his family. There is a reason people buy tickets to go to Springsteen concerts; he is simply a huge talent.

  2. Your Name's not Bruce? Avatar
    Your Name’s not Bruce?

    Love the implicit threat, too. “Just wait ’til he gets home! ” What’s he going to do, take him to the woodshed? Send in his flying monkeys? And guess what? Springsteen gets to “speak badly” about the President of the United States wherever he wants. Trump has no compunction about running down other presidents (as is his right, too). But he is above all criticism. How long before America gets laws against lèse-majesté? If he has his way, any criticism of Trump will become illegal, maybe even treasonous.

  3. KBPlayer Avatar
    KBPlayer

    I only know the Springsteen songs that everyone knows but I’d always thought of him as an American patriot – the kind that has an idea of America and is angry when it does not live up to it. That’s the America of the Statue of Liberty that foreigners appreciate and of course where millions have yearned to live, the land of liberty and opportunity.

    Springsteen toured the UK last year. Here’s his introduction to his gig in Manchester.

    https://brucespringsteen.net/news/2025/land-of-hope-and-dreams/

    Tonight, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band opened their Land of Hope & Dreams Tour in Manchester, England. Bruce launched this run of shows with three statements about the situation in the United States, with comments preceding his songs “Land of Hope and Dreams,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” and “My City of Ruins.” Below are the transcripts of all three spoken segments.

    Introduction to Land of Hope and Dreams

    Good Evening!

    It’s great to be in Manchester and back in the U.K. Welcome to the Land of Hope & Dreams Tour! The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ‘n’ roll in dangerous times.

    In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.

    Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!

    Introduction to House of a Thousand Guitars

    The last check, the last check on power after the checks and balances of government have failed are the people, you and me. It’s in the union of people around a common set of values now that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. At the end of the day, all we’ve got is each other.

    Introduction to My City of Ruins

    There’s some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now. In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.

    In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.

    In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.

    They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that has led to a more just and plural society.

    They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands.

    They are removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now.

    A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.

    The America l’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real and regardless of its faults is a great country with a great people. So we’ll survive this moment. Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, “In this world, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough.” Let’s pray.

  4. Bjarte Foshaug Avatar
    Bjarte Foshaug

    Twice now I have had the privilege of seeing the legendary bass guitar virtuoso, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Marcus Miller on stage with his band. A highlight of both shows was the melancholy composition Gorée (Go-ray), featuring Miller on baritone clarinet. I was already familiar with the tune before the first show, but I didn’t know its back story. Gorée is an island off the coast of Dakar, Senegal where African slaves were stored as cargo before being loaded on ships heading for America to be auctioned off as commodities. Miller wrote the tune in protest against injustice, but also as an homage to human endurance and survival under the most inhumane conditions imaginable. During the last concert (in the autumn of 2025), Miller explained that a few years ago he decided to stop performing the composition live, but in light of recent events he had decided to bring it back since we were all going to need some endurance in the time ahead. No need to spell out what he was talking about. We all knew. And it was one of the most goosebumps-inducing performances I have ever witnessed.

  5. What a Maroon Avatar
    What a Maroon

    I had the good fortune to see John Prine in concert several times over the years, before his death in 2020 (he was one of the early victims of COVID). During the Bush administration and then again during the first Trump administration he resurrected his song “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore”, a song he wrote originally about the Vietnam War and which he thought he had retired for good.

    He also wrote “Some Humans Ain’t Human” about Bush, and “Caravan of Fools” about the first Trump administration.

  6. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    Neil Young opened his archives with free access to Greenlanders:

    https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/1/article?id=A+Message+from+Neil+1-23-26

    Waiting for a tweet from Trump denouncing Young as a not-talented-guy.

    Trump wants to be liked…no, respected and revered…by these celebrities. He wants celebrities to look up to him as the biggest celebrity. It must gall that they not only don’t revere him, a lot of them don’t even like him.

  7. Bjarte Foshaug Avatar
    Bjarte Foshaug

    I’m now looking forward to seeing Tori Amos (also for the second time) in May. Here is how Amos describes her upcoming album In Times of Dragons:

    In Times of Dragons is a metaphorical story about the fight for Democracy over Tyranny, reflecting the current abhorrent non accidental burning down of democracy in real time by the ‘Dictator believing Lizard Demons’ in their usurpation of America.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *