It would absolutely break his heart if you told Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough that no one would go see his bad band perform if it weren’t for the fact that his real job is hosting a television show, so please, no one tell him.
Scarborough, who is pretty sensitive about this, doesn’t need to hear that there would not be this weird Yahoo News puff piece about his embarrassing dad-rock noodlings if he were a regular person attempting to make a living as a professional musician and songwriter, and not a very well-paid and reasonably famous man with a TV show clinging to an adolescent fantasy—that strangers would want to watch his band perform songs that he wrote and sings, based solely on the merits of his songwriting and performance.
I mean, he has to have noticed that everyone who voluntarily sees his band play and says nice things about it is, like, professionally involved in politics or media, right? Do you think he notices?
I mean, ah, jeez:
Fred Brown, chairman of the National Black Republican Council, was also in the crowd. When asked about the importance of having events like the performance to take a break from politics, he said, “It’s very important because it’s bringing people together. Music [is] outside of the politics.”
Brown was there with Michael Rendino, chairman of the Bronx Republican Party, who agreed, “It’s fantastic. It’s great. I mean, what could unite more than a Republican on MSNBC that’s well-liked coming out, having a good time?”
Joe Scarborough doesn’t need to hear the harsh truth—that his musical hobby makes him basically like a 45-year-old middle manager who “jams” with his fellow dads in one of their half-finished suburban basements, except it’s actually much worse because those dads are just having a harmless good time with their buds, but the fact that Joe Scarborough is a television host means that people around him have to indulge his fantasy and pretend to take it seriously, and say things like, “wow your band is worth listening to for fun and not out of a sense of obligation,” usually because those people hope to be invited to be on his TV show, or work for it in some capacity.
Maybe someday he’ll figure it out on his own, but for now we can try to shield Joe Scarborough from the harsh truth that his rock and roll vanity project is somehow even more embarrassing than James Dolan’s, because Dolan can at least afford to hire the best backing backing musicians in the country.
For now, let’s just let him have this, OK?
I think we all did a pretty good job not letting Scarborough know that his song (and music video!) about 9/11 that he did a few years ago was utterly mortifying, even though he had to have noticed that no one could watch or listen to it without involuntarily cringing in embarrassment for him, but, boy, the longer he keeps this up, the harder it’s going to be.
When asked which is his biggest passion, music or politics, Scarborough said that was easy: “Oh, music. It’s not even a close call.”
Oh, honey.
Answering the same question, Scarborough’s co-host, Mika Brzezinski, who was also at the show, told Golodryga, “I think it’s a tossup. I think, though, that his life has been more complete now that music is much a bigger part of it.”
Mika, it’s one thing to take it easy on him, but I don’t know if we should be encouraging it so much. It’s just going to make it even worse when he figures it out.