Alice Cooper – "Elected" (1972)

I never lied to you

I’ve always been cool

I wanna be elected!

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again” is a proverb you’ve probably heard many times.

The Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock rejected that adage:

There is an old motto that runs, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”  This is nonsense. 

It ought to read “If at first you don’t succeed, quit, quit at once.”

If you can’t do a thing, more or less, the first time you try, you will never do it.  Try something else while there is yet time.

It’s too bad that billionaire David Trone didn’t listen to Stephen Leacock.  If he had, he would have saved a lot of money.

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Saying that Trone spends money on his political campaigns like a drunken sailor is probably not fair to drunken sailors.

If you were as rich as David Trone,
you’d be laughing, too!

Trone knows drunken sailors, by the way – he and his brother Robert own Total Wine & More, which operates 250-odd liquor superstores in 28 states.  The company’s 2023 revenues exceeded $6 billion.  

Trone set a record in 2016 when he spent $13.4 million of his own money in an unsuccessful attempt to win the Democratic primary election for Maryland’s 8th congressional district.  No one had ever spent more money to lose a race for Congress.  (He got 35,400 votes, so his cost-per-vote was about $378.)

His estimated net worth is $2.5 billion, so dropping a mere $13.4 million didn’t discourage Trone.  When 2018 rolled around, he ran for Congress once more – but in Maryland’s 6th district instead of its 8th.  (Trone didn’t have to change his address to run in the 6th district – members of Congress don’t have to reside in the district they represent.)  

Trone outspent his Republican opponent by a 10-to-1 margin and cruised to victory in November.  He then  easily won re-election in 2020 and 2022.

He probably could have held on to his congressional seat for as long as he wanted to.  But when one of Maryland’s incumbent U.S. Senators announced his intention to retire in 2024, Trone decided he was just the man for the job.

That turned out to be a very costly mistake.  Trone spent a whopping $62.5 million seeking the Democratic nomination for that Maryland Senate seat, only to lose to Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks.

And it wasn’t even close.  Alsobrooks beat Trone by a 53-to-43 margin.

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But even a second expensive defeat wasn’t enough to teach Trone a lesson.  This year, he decided to run for his old 6th district seat.

Perhaps he thought that April McClain Delaney, the woman who took his place when he tried to move from the House to the Senate, would politely step aside for him.  But she quickly disabused him of that notion.

Like Trone, Delaney is a very wealthy person.  (She obtained her wealth the old-fashioned way – she married a very rich guy.)

The two candidates go way back.  Delaney’s husband John represented the 6th district in Congress from 2012 until 2018, when he resigned to run for the Democratic nomination for President.  (You weren’t aware that Delaney was a candidate for President in 2020?  You’re not alone – his poll numbers were infinitesimal.)

Who took over Delaney’s seat in Congress?  None other than David Trone.  The Delaneys supported Trone’s candidacy, and Trone returned the favor by endorsing John Delaney for President.  But friendship went out the window when Trone tried to claw back April Delaney’s 6th district seat.  

Delaney speculated that Trone had  decided to run against her because he was “a bored billionaire.”    

But Trone said boredom had nothing to do with it.  “If I felt the congresswoman was doing a good job in representing the district and the Democratic Party, I would definitely have not run,” Trone told the Washington Post.

Because there no real policy differences between the two candidates, I can’t help but believe that the whole kerfuffle was about ego more than anything else.  (If there’s something I know a lot about, it’s egos.  I may not have a Trone-sized bank account, but I’ll match my ego to his any day of the week.)

 *     *     *     *     *

The fight for the 6th district Democratic nomination was the most expensive Congressional primary campaign in history.  Delaney spent $7.5 million of her husband’s money in hopes of holding on to her seat.  Trone topped that by shelling out a cool $25 million.

Nevertheless Delaney ended up prevailing by a 44-38 margin.  (Six other wannabes shared the remaining votes.) 

Just under 21,000 votes were cast for Trone, which means each vote cost over $1000.

Because Maryland allows a candidate to win with only a plurality of votes, we will be spared the spectacle of a runoff campaign this summer.  One can only imagine how much do-re-mi Mommy and Daddy Warbucks would go through in such a contest.

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When I wrote about Trone’s expensive defeat in the 2024 Maryland Senate primary, I noted that I was old enough to remember when it was the Republicans who had the advantage when it came to buying elections.  But now it’s the Democrats who have a big edge in campaign spending.

According to Open Secrets, a nonpartisan research group, Democratic candidates for federal office in 2020 heavily outspent their Republican opponents:

Biden’s campaign became the first to raise over $1 billion from donors.  Biden’s cash advantage over Trump helped him pepper swing states with far more campaign ads.  Biden also received more help from super PACs and “dark money” groups. 

Trump’s campaign raised $774 million.  Trump raised over half of his money from small donors giving $200 or less, a stunning figure no other presidential candidate has matched. . . .

In Senate races, Democratic general election candidates raised over $1.1 billion, easily dwarfing Republicans’ $752 million.  In House races, Democrats outraised Republicans $898 million to $763 million. 

That Democratic advantage held up in 2024, when the total spending for Democratic candidates in all federal elections was $3.8 billion compared to $2.6 billion in spending for Republican candidates – which is close to a 50% advantage.

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Times may have changed when it comes to which political party has the most money to spend.  But what hasn’t changed is that Alice Cooper’s 1972 masterpiece, “Elected,” is still the record ever about political candidates

Click here to view the fabulous “Elected” music video.

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.   

"General" Larry Platt – "Pants on the Ground" (2010)

Lookin’ like a fool

With your pants on the ground

We get a lot of two-part questions at trivia.  

The first part of the question is usually easy enough that most of the teams competing will know the correct answer.  

The second part of the question is usually more challenging – it’s designed to help separate the contenders from the pretenders.  (At one time, I might have said those questions were designed to help separate the men from the boys, and gone on to repeat the tired old joke about how they separate the men from the boys in Greece.  But I’m far too enlightened now to do that today.)

Here’s the first part of a two-part question we had a couple of weeks ago:

The contestants on this reality competition TV show, which first aired 24 years ago, included William Hung, Mary Roach, and General Larry Platt.

Most of the teams playing that night knew that the answer to that question was American Idol.  But the second part of that question was much more difficult:

What was the title of the song performed by General Larry Platt on that show? 

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I occasionally watched American Idol back in the day.  I vaguely remember William Hung, who had his fifteen minutes after butchering Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” on a 2004 episode of the show.  (Hung quickly gained a cult following.  He appeared on all the late-night talk shows, was parodied on Saturday Night Live, and released an album that made it to #34 on the Billboard albums chart.)

But the other two names didn’t ring a bell, and I had no idea what song “General” Larry Platt might have performed.  And neither did my teammates.

(We didn’t know it at the time, but Larry Platt wasn’t an actual general – “General” was his nickname.  But at our trivia contests, the questions are read aloud – not printed – and you can’t hear quotation marks.)

We assumed that whatever he sang was a cover of someone else’s hit.  We kicked around a few guesses – “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Sharp-Dressed Man,” and “Wanted Dead or Alive” among them – but they were all shots in the dark.

“Didn’t some guy’s pants fall down on American Idol?” I asked my teammates.  “Could this be that guy?”

 “General” Larry Platt performs on American Idol

After pondering that for a moment, our youngest team member said, “There was a song on American Idol called ‘Pants on the Ground.’ Is that what you’re thinking of?”

“Maybe,” I said.  “I just remember something about pants falling down.”

We wrote down “Pants on the Ground” as our answer.  And much to our surprise – and my delight – that turned out to be the correct answer!

*     *     *     *     *

Larry Platt, who was born in 1947, was an African-American civil rights activist who was given the nickname “General” in recognition of his efforts on behalf of the civil rights movement.

(When we heard the American Idol trivia question, we assumed that Larry Platt was an active or retired military officer – we didn’t know that “General” was his nickname.  The questions are read aloud at our trivia contests, not printed – and you can’t hear quotation marks.)

Platt obviously didn’t think much of the younger generation.  “Pants on the Ground” was a jeremiad directed at young black men who walked around “lookin’ like a fool” with sagging pants and sideways baseball caps. 

Larry Platt auditioned for American Idol in 2010.  At that time, the show’s eligibility requirements provided that contestants had to be between the ages of 16 and 28.  The producers obviously recognized a good thing when they saw it and made an exception for the 62-year-old Platt.

The Youtube video of his performance of “Pants on the Ground” on American Idol has been viewed well over eleven million times.  Click here to watch that video.

Click here to listen to the studio recording of “Pants on the Ground” that was released subsequent to Platt’s American Idol appearance.  It reached #46 on the Billboard “Hot 100” singles chart.

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Twiddle – "Beethoven and Greene" (2011)

A cool breeze makes you

Think about the situation

Walking forwards, moving backwards

Here’s a photo I took earlier today at my local McDonald’s with my iPhone 16 (i.e., “The Official Smartphone of 2 or 3 Lines”):

Springfield and Sacramento stand out in that photo, but you may have trouble making out the other city names printed on the wall – which include Atlanta, Columbus, Denver, Nashville, Phoenix, and several other large cities. 

But the names of a number of smaller cities also appear on that wall – Augusta, Carson City, Concord, Dover, Frankfort, Jefferson City, Pierre, and Salem among them.

If you’re a denizen of trivia competitions like 2 or 3 lines is, you’ll immediately recognize what all those cities have in common: they are all state capitals.

But there’s one city on that wall that doesn’t belong there.  I’ll zoom in a little closer and you see if you can figure out which one of those cities is not like the others:

Still not sure which city I’m talking about?  Let’s zoom in even closer:

That’s right – I’m talking about Montpelier, which is the state capital of Vermont.

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Did you know that Montpelier is the smallest state capital in the United States?  According to the 2020 census, only 8074 souls live in Montpelier.

Montpelier is also the only state capital in the United States to not have a McDonald’s.  That may be because Montpelier prides itself on favoring locally-owned farm-to-table restaurants over national fast-food chains like Mickey D’s.  Or it may be because a town with only 8074 people doesn’t consume enough Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets to make a McDonald’s profitable.

If you were thinking about moving to Montpelier but are not sure that you can live without McDonald’s, fear not – there may not be one in Montpelier, but there’s one just three miles away in Barre.

*     *     *     *     *

Montpellier, France – the third-largest city on France’s Mediterranean coast – is the city that gave Montpelier, Vermont its name.

(Did you notice that the French city has one more “L” in its name than the Vermont city?  Perhaps you assumed that was a typo.  No way, José – 2 or 3 lines doesn’t have typos!  It’s the folks in Vermont who made the mistake!)

Here are a few other fun facts about Vermont:

1.  In addition to boasting the smallest state capital in the country, Vermont also has the smallest biggest city of any state.  (Burlington, the most populous city in Vermont, has only 44,743 residents.)

2.  Vermont is not quite the least-populated state in the country, but it probably will be in the relatively near future.  (Wyoming currently has fewer residents than Vermont, but Vermont had a hundred-year head start – Wyoming is catching up.)

3.  Vermont is the least diverse American state – 94% of its residents are white, while only 1.3% are black.  (The mixed-race population is about 2%.)  

4.  The country that supplies the most immigrants to Vermont is Canada – not surprising given that Vermont borders Quebec.  But you’ll never guess which countries rank next highest when it comes to the number of immigrants going to Vermont: Nepal, Jamaica, the Philippines, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.  

5.  Vermont has only 26 McDonald’s – the fewest of any state in the country.  (Alaska has 27, while Wyoming, North and South Dakota have 29 apiece.)

6.  Did you know that Vermont claimed to be an independent republic from 1777 until it became a state in 1791?  If you didn’t know that, you’re not alone.  In fact, very few people outside Vermont were aware of during the 14-year existence of the so-called “Vermont Republic,” which never received diplomatic recognition as an independent nation by any country.  

7.  The constitution of the Vermont Republic prohibited adult slavery, but allowed the enslavement of males below the age of 21 and females below the age of 18.  Doesn’t that seem backwards to you?

8.  During the Revolutionary War, Vermonters negotiated with the British in hopes of becoming part of Canada.  They withdrew from those negotiations when it became apparent that the British were going to lose to the Americans.

9.  Finally, Vermont is one of only three states that 2 or 3 lines has never visited.  I’d love to see Alaska someday.  And while I’m not sure that I’ll ever make it to North Dakota, I wouldn’t mind going there.  But I have no plans to ever set foot in Vermont.  (The dearth of McDonald’s restaurants in Vermont is bad enough, but the treachery to the fledgling United States during the Revolutionary War is even worse.)

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According to Wikipedia, the most prominent recording artists hailing from Vermont include The Cancer Conspiracy, Drowningman, Noah Kahan, Mellow Yellow, Phish, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, RAQ, Rough Francis, and Twiddle.

Until recently, the only name on that list that I had heard of was Phish, the Grateful Dead wannabe jam band that has been a plague on our nation for over four decades.

Last week, Noah Kahan was the answer to this trivia question: “Who was the first recording artist to ever sell out four consecutive nights at Boston’s Fenway Park?”  That was literally the only thing I knew about Noah Kahan.  Today I learned that he’s from Vermont and wears ridiculous clothes:

Photo

I have no intention of featuring something by Phish or Noah Kahan just because this post is about Vermont.  So I’m going to feature a Twiddle track instead.

The bad news about Twiddle is that they are a jam band like Phish.  (There must be something in the water in Vermont.)

The good news is that Twiddle went on indefinite hiatus in November 2023 “to explore their individual creative pursuits and spend more time with their families.”  So it’s possible that we’ve dodged the bullet of ever having to hear Twiddle perform again.

By the way, the page on the Twiddle website explaining that the band is on hiatus closes with this sentence:

Twiddle’s music and mission, however, will continue to live on in the hearts of every frend [sic] who ever embraced the movement that captured so many purple & green hearts across the country.

When I asked Gemini what the reference to purple and green hearts meant, here’s the reply I got:

In the LGBTQ+ community, green is the color for the aromantic flag, and purple is the color for the asexual flag. Using these heart emojis together often signifies being on both the aromantic and asexual spectrums.

I consider myself neither aromantic nor asexual.  But if those words apply to you, Twiddle’s music might be just what you’ve been looking for.

I decided to feature “Beethoven and Greene” – a track that was released in 2011 on Twiddle’s second studio album, Somewhere on the Mountain – after reading the following description of it on the Bearded Gentlemen Music website:

The song begins as a catchy rock tune with some infectious lyrics, which after a few minutes transitions into a Sublime-sounding reggae affair (Sublime is an obvious influence on this band), then back to the original song structure. Moments later the floodgates open and the band rips into a “zydeco-esque,” rock-jazz jam (does this make any sense?) for nearly the remainder of the cut, until they slow it down again returning to the reggae riff to finish up the piece. 

Click here to listen to the studio recording of “Beethoven and Greene.”

Click here to buy the recording of a 2018 live performance of “Beethoven and Greene” on Amazon.