Have had strange encounters during the last year with the woke, with people needing to perform what side they are on instead of open critical discussion. Many call it a new thing but I’m not sure it is any different than what’s always been. The Emperor’s New Clothes is not a new tale. I’ve been guilty of the same and now when I see it in others maybe that’s why I want to prick the balloon. But this isn’t deflatable, like a drug one is on it for the duration of the cells chemically reacting this way or that. Good luck telling the person tripping on LSD they’re just high, c’mon man act normal. Mendelson Joe told me thirty years ago if I present music that zig zags as much as I did on the Lake Michigan Soda record, I will be unliked by music critics. From his view to present more than one type of music as your identity solidifies a forever uphill struggle. I think there is a flip side which is that celebrated and accepted doesn’t necessarily mean people are listening deeply. Sometimes it only means, for whatever reason, you’re big in wokeland. I saw Bob Dylan once, I know his work significantly and assumed the crowd would be other freaks like me who knew the answer to Meet Me in the Morning was 56 and Wabashaw. But looking around hearing other conversations it seemed this was a conference of people attending over Blowin’ In The Wind. A friend in a band that took off in the 90s once said after their success, loads of people came but only because of one song on a music video station and gone was the relationship they previously had when they were less known with people who knew all the material.