05F94E985748486CD2D946675F497A5E
Essays
What am i for?
Folk-Noir Songs

What Am I For?

🎵 What Am I For? A song about losing the work—and finding what’s left. We’re all sinking in private.The door doesn’t open anymore.No one tells

Looming Disaster
Christianity

The People Trump Left to Die

How the Big Beautiful Bill Gutted Rural America By Michael “Gene” Scott December 23, 2025 2027: Sarah Can’t Find a Doctor Tuesday morning, rural Kansas.

A Sickness in His Soul
Trump

A Sickness in His Soul

Two men. One washed beggars’ feet. The other gold-plates toilets. (Listen while reading) Jesus walked into leper colonies. Trump won’t shake hands without sanitizer. Christ

I know nothing
fascism

I Know Nothing

From Sitcom Laughs to Governing Strategy “I see nothing! I hear nothing! I know nothing!” Sergeant Hans Schultz, the bumbling guard at Stalag 13 in

The Inheritance
Boomers

The Inheritance

A girl stands quiet at the gate.She’s learned to wait, and wait, and wait. An American Reckoning Verse 1 – The Builders They built a

The Hoax is Him
Authoritarian

The Hoax is Him

Rent or Food, We Have to Choose Jane reads the letter by the stove Nine hundred dollars she ain’t got That’s rent or food —

Burger King
alt-conservative

Burger King

Will the Fat Lady Sing? Slid into town with a Bible and grin Sold us hope in a four-year spin Said he’d fix what the

Dozer
Christianity

Dozer

– The Nap Strikes Back (VERSE 1) He used to bark from a TV stage, “Sleepy Joe’s too old for the age!” Mocked the man

Incense for the Machine God
alt-conservative

Incense for the Machine God

The lamb was slaughtered; the wolf survived. I wrote “Machine God” because silence felt like agreement. I grew up in the ’60s, when faith still

Boss of the Bunker
alt-conservative

Boss of the Bunker

A demented soul lost in an echo chamber … Boss of the Bunker is a protest song about what happens when people trade thought for

Commander-in-Sleep
alt-conservative

Commander-in-Sleep

The Foolish Drooler Declares Your Grocery Bill a Hoax … We keep electing grandpas who should be fishing or golfing, their caddies dropping balls next

Boat blown out of water
Christianity

The Line We Swore

A song about what we did. What we chose. Michael “Gene” Scott · Dec 04, 2025 Men in the water. Hands raised. One still clutching

Trumplicans
Christianity

Trumplicans

Waitin’ on a savior out of gas. The song’s not about the man at the podium. It’s about the people in the lot. The sixty-year-old

Kill Them All

[Verse 1]Eleven strangers on a boat off Trinidad at dawnA missile from a cloudless sky and then another oneTwo men in the water reaching for

Empty Chair
Americana

Empty Chair

The picture tells the tale … Empty Chair Verse 1He stood like the lights were too brightArms down and his face turned to stoneHe didn’t

Shill-Billy
alt-conservative

Shill-Billy

Outlaw Country for Folks Who Don’t Kiss the Ring Happy Thanksgiving! We are blessed beyond belief. America. If you’ve travelled, you know. After a month in

Piggy Is as Piggy Does
Anti-Christ

Piggy Is as Piggy Does

Fluorescent lights. She said what he did. No tears. Voice flat. That’s how women testify. Hold still. Save the shaking for the car, the shower,

Christianity

Quiet, Piggy!

Smart women infuriate the president. Had he lost to a smart black woman, he’d probably be living in a Saudi Arabian pedo-hut with his butt-slapping rich degenerate Aye Rabb buddies.

snowflake 2
alt-conservative

Snowflakes Left and Right

Wussies on both sides of the political spectrum actually fuel the culture wars … Michael “Gene” Scott Oct 31, 2025 🎸 “Snowflakes Left and Right” — A

Servile No More
alt-conservative

Servile No More

For the Ones Who Wouldn’t Shut Up This isn’t music.It’s what I should’ve screamed. At the meeting.At the protest.At the funeral.When silence felt like survival

Thin Skin
Christianity

Trumple-Thin-Skin

The Ghost of Ronald Reagan Has Filled the President’s Pants … I woke up this morning to this headline: President Trump has terminated all trade negotiations

Small Fearful Men.
2nd Amendment

Small Fearful Men

You can’t build a country on the backs of small pitiful men. 🎵 Small Fearful Men Style: Country Noir, Haunting, Sorrowful, PoliticalTempo: 75 BPMKey: F♯ minorInstrumentation: Acoustic guitar, slide guitarVocal: Deep,

2nd Amendment

Two Ways to Get Assassinated in America

Preach Love. Or Preach Hate. What history teaches us about how radical love and radical hate both provoke violence—but only one path leaves a legacy

Hegseth Is an Idiot

Here’s the Proof The Quote: “I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength.’” —Pete Hegseth The Reality: Every major American

War Within
alt-conservative

It’s a War from Within

When Your Hometown Becomes the Training Ground: A Song for October 2025 On October 1, 2025, President Trump stood before hundreds of military commanders at

Submissive Stephen
Anti-Christ

Submissive Stephen

Bravest He Gets is a Tweet in His Bed “Submissive Stephen” starts with a man at 2:00 a.m.—all-caps fury, fingers flying like bayonets, a digital

Donald and Ivanka Trump attend the grand opening of New York City’s Harley Davidson Cafe in 1993. / Ron Galella Ltd / Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
alt-conservative

The Choirboy’s Secret

How Republican “Family Values” Became a Shield for Scandal A documented pattern of hypocrisy — from hush money to handcuffs. Disclaimer: This article is based

Never the Guns!
guns

Never the Guns!

A Protest Song for the American Contradiction We live in a country that counts painkillers like confessions and tracks prescriptions like parole violations—while AR-15s move

Felon 47
alt-conservative

Felon 47: Joke-in-Chief

“Spray-Tan Soul, Panic Stare” isn’t subtle—and it’s not meant to be. This track plays like a lyrical bodycam: raw, unflinching, fully loaded—hush money, mugshots, stolen

Lickspittle Parade
Authoritarian

The Lickspittle Parade

When politics licks boots instead of leading, satire is the only weapon left. Washington is theater, not governance, where loyalty outweighs law and sycophants replace

The Have Nots Versus the Have Yachts
alt-conservative

The Have Nots Versus the Have Yachts

Eviction taped to the door, bills on the windshield. Three jobs, still short on first and last. This is what inequality sounds like—not numbers, but

Malice Toward All, Charity for None
2nd Amendment

Malice Toward All, Charity for None

This song started with a question I couldn’t shake: What would Lincoln think if he saw America today? Malice Toward All, Charity for None turns

hope

A Prayer for Our Times

Remind us that our true citizenship is in a kingdom the world cannot see. First United Methodist Church (Johnson City, Tennessee) is blessed with three

alt-conservative

The Real Crime Wave

Don’t Believe You’re Lying Eyes! When it comes to reading comprehension, context is key. But what happens when the context is curated? Cropped? Controlled? Long

JFK, Jr.
Christianity

Look Into Their Faces

For the Kids Who Can’t Punch Back RFK Jr. is selling salvation with the track marks still visible under his sleeves. The hardest part wasn’t

The Law Don't Live Here Any More
Christianity

The Law Don’t Live Here Any More

A protest song for a broken system… Don’t know about you, but I’m about fed up with this blatant authoritarian blitzkrieg. Writing songs about it

KKK
Anti-Christ

What Would You Call It?

It’s not the past. It’s the present. There’s a particular kind of blindness that comes from being too close to the threat—a refusal to see

Temu Hitler
Authoritarian

Temu Hitler

“Temu Hitler” is a protest song built from anger, memory, and truth. It names what most try to soften: a system that redraws maps to

Aging Hippy Saviors!
American Symbols

Aging Hippy Saviors!

When Stephen Miller sneered at protesters in Washington, D.C.—mocking them as “elderly white hippies” who “need to go home and take a nap”—he meant to

Absolutely!
Christianity

Absolutely!

We’re drowning in ABSOLUTELYs. Forty-seven times in one day. I counted. That’s either a linguistic epidemic or we’ve all joined the same cult. My new

MAGA-WOKE!

TRIGGERED! [Intro – Melodic Trap Beat with Guitar] Yeah, yeah They started it first Now look who’s hurt Yeah [Hook – Simple & Hypnotic] MAGA-WOKE

Christianity

Don’t Poke The Bear!

Dear Readers,Saw this tee-shirt for sale, which inspired this tune. Enjoy! [Verse 1] There’s a sleeping giant up in the mountains highBeen resting peaceful underneath

Illinois Library Dates Announced!

FROM TUDOR POISON PLOTS TO BIG PHARMA LIES! One family. Five centuries. The deadliest secret. History remembers the poison. But not the testers. GENE SCOTT

Barbie and Superman and the Wussie Right
alt-conservative

Barbie, Superman, and the Snowflake Apocalypse

Barbie, Superman, and the Snowflake Apocalypse When grown men with law degrees are lighting dolls on fire for YouTube views, something’s broken in America. The

Alone.
alt-conservative

The Man Who Trusts No One

The Man Who Trusts No One: Inside Trump’s Hall of Mirrors Mar-a-Lago after dark. AC humming. Fox News on mute. He’s sitting there scrolling through

The Brunch Divide
sci-fi

The Appetite Engine

In a world where water is memory and hope is rationed by the drop, a mysterious transmission leads three scavengers across the wasteland toward an

Are you woke yet?
Christianity

Are You Woke Yet?

Trump’s Budget 2025 & The Chainsaw Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid: What’s Really Happening? Excerpt: Trump’s 2025 budget talks a big game about protecting Medicare

Still That Kid
alt-conservative

Still That Kid

Some kids never really grow out of who they are—they just grow into it. My son was one of those kids. From the time he

You Can’t Have Your Cake, and Edith, Too
alt-conservative

You Can’t Have Your Cake, and Edith, Too

Modern Patriotism in Crisis: National Identity, Nostalgia, and the American Myth Let’s talk about modern patriotism in America. Not the sticker-on-a-truck kind. Not the TikTok

Anti-Christ

King of the World?

Elon Musk’s Power, Politics, and the Cracks Beneath Leonardo DiCaprio stands at the bow of the Titanic, arms spread wide, wind in his face, shouting,

Don't Hit Me!
bicycle safety

Don’t Hit Me!

I wrote this song two months ago — but as soon as it was recorded — a female graduate student at ETSU was stuck by a

Welcome to Trousdale!

(Note:  We’re following up our recent blog “The Story of Howard Atkins” with Howard’s advice to anyone headed to one of the worst prisons in

The Flag Still Waves

By Phil Gray In the early hours of September 16, 1814, as smoke from the British bombardment choked the sky over Baltimore Harbor, Francis Scott

The Story of Howard Atkins

I met Howard Atkins in 2016 during a Kairos (Christian ministry) weekend at Northeast Correctional Complex near Mountain City, Tennessee. Later, when I began teaching

Don't Hit Me!
Bicycle

Don’t Hit Me

As a bicyclist / songwriter who’s undergone three (3) knee replacements, this popped into my head today as I rode to the post office dodging

Won’t Get Fooled Again?

We’ve been fooled before, but we don’t have to be fooled again. The power is in our hands, if only we’re brave enough to use it.

We Need Prayers

Here is the latest video. (Copyright MSNBC). I apologize for laughing. Seriously: We need to pray for this poor guy. I’m not being ironic. I’m

Let’s Play the Republican Game!

ALERT! Let’s play The Republican Game and foment chaos instead of working for the American people:  John Wayne Gacy and JD Vance appear to be

ME
2nd Amendment

A Battle Zone of His Own Making

Kerpow! He now lives in a battle zone of his own making. Where truth and lies collide:  the air thick with dread, fear, old Fox

Like Nobody’s Ever Seen!

Nobody’s ever seen anything like this, folks. Nobody. No president, no leader—nobody’s had to deal with what I’ve dealt with. But look at what’s coming,

Reflections

In their early twenties, Robb and Gene were thrust into a world where technology had become an inescapable presence. AI assistants were no longer just

Wind Powered Bacon Does the Trick
Abortion

Wind-Powered Bacon Does the Trick

I used to think that word-lovers like me had to awaken those with honest minds to rethink their loyalty to a television “personality” with no

The Future Arrives

Was pleasantly surprised last night by Josh Shapiro’s and Tim Walz’s speeches. There is hope! They both see the lunacy in the opposition’s policy of

Epiphany

Freight Train

This video honors our classmates we’ll miss at our Western High School (Buda, Illinois) 50th High School Reunion this summer.  You are not forgotten.  And

Lana Alarice Ferguson Scott
Christianity

Looking Back…

Happy Mother’s Day! This is celebration of the special life of Lana Ferguson Scott, born in the mountains of East Tennessee in 1948. She was

Thar She Blows!

Dear Editor, The Saturday paper listed The Wager as the current #1 non-fiction bestseller, and I’m enjoying the true story, a frightening account of life

Christianity

Everywhere We Look

The Big Guy is always available. Reminders are everywhere we look. But we must first let Him in. He believes in our freedom to choose

AR-15s Versus Viagra

If you are too weak to handle a large-caliber, bolt-action rifle or join the military, there is always Viagra.

Together We Stand, Divided We Fall
bb king

The Thrill Is Gone (BB King Cover)

This cover of the BB King classic is dedicated to Facebook, Fox News, and the Republican Party, which I used to admire when truth and

Jimbo

Wrote this song on 6-5-23, the twenty-first anniversary of my brother’s death. Miss him. ~ James Mitchell Scott 10/8/59 – 6/5/2002 ~

How Many More Rolls?

Verse 1 Woke up this morning With coffee on my mind, But a bad boy in the pipeline Put my plans in a bind. When

Dear Diary (Election Day 2022)

I’ve never shared an entry from my personal diary before, but today I got up and read the newspaper and discovered: On November 8, 1923,

There Was a Time

In high school, I worked two summers on the Hennepin Canal, a relic of the 19th Century connecting the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers allowing mules

Butt Shooting Reported

Looked like the GOP would gather new seats in the mid-terms.  They had it nearly sewn up. But then they stripped constitutional rights and freedoms

This Crazy Liberal Dude …

  You should read it! It’s a gruesome yet beautiful, redeeming love story about this crazy homeless liberal dude with long hair, one set of

Full Circle

Growing up on a hog farm, I saw hogs eat each other.  Especially when the “lunch” hog was sick, injured, or different in any way.

A True Story

[zoomsounds_player artistname=”Gene Scott” songname=”A True Story” config=”default” type=”audio” dzsap_meta_source_attachment_id=”4339″ source=”https://genescottbooksdotcom.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/A-true-story.-41722-2.55-PM.mp3″ post_content=’none’ cover=”https://genescottbooksdotcom.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/IMG_7619-scaled.jpeg” autoplay=”off” loop=”off” play_in_footer_player=”default” enable_download_button=”off” enable_downloads_counter=”off” download_custom_link_enable=”off” open_in_ultibox=”off”] A child desperately ill with stomach

A Cry from Behind Prison Walls

Dear Readers, I teach creative writing two days a month at a local state prison: Northeast Correctional Complex, Mountain City, Tennessee. I wrote a column

La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Fifteen years ago, a close friend of ours in Southern Illinois, Dana Simpson – a dedicated nurse who devoted thirty years to caring for others

Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum

Motorcycling is a genetic thread running through my family’s history. Grandfather Lawrence “Goofy” Scott delivered moonshine during Prohibition on a 1920 Harley Model J, bragging

Biblical Justice?

One of our church pastors – we’re blessed with a tag-team, a hard-working couple with big hearts, and vivacious children – decided to make a

Jesus and Germs

Dear Readers, Here’s the latest cut, inspired by a motorcycle ride through lovely Western North Carolina.  Thanks for listening, praying, and washing your hands! Jesus

Balance

We complain, blame God for Pain. Forget to give thanks for Pleasure. We suffer floods, curse His name, Forget to praise the sprouting Grain. Our

Momma Mamilla

Giorgia – a graduate school girlfriend – elevated her quiet nature into an imminent road hazard whenever we strolled down the sidewalk.  Male drivers –

The Pisgah Inn
alt-conservative

Blue Ridge Parkway: Spring 2021

Travel may be the one expense that makes us richer. Although it is often fraught with short-term displeasure, the long-term effect – if you survive

Grace in a Mail Bag

A letter and booklet arrived in the mail this morning from the little Midwestern town where I grew up, the village mortician reminding me that

Opioid Deaths Sky Rocket

When Jellybeaners appeared in 2017 the overall death toll linked to opioids was 40,000 Americans per year. Now? It’s topping 50,000. Here are the current

Political Potato Heads

Have you ever noticed how everything is political now?  Even Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.   So let’s focus on what’s important!  Plastic!  Tater heads! Mr.

Pearl

 Pearl was my first recording, issued seven years ago (4-2014). Verse 1 Justin was tired of it all, though he was only seventeen. Little Queenie

The Tongues

You saw. With your own eyes. How lies. Allow crazies to thrive.

Where Are We Now?

Where are truth and love? Where are we now? Where has America gone? Where are we now? Is this the swan song? Where have the

Once Again

We are a beacon.  Once again. Verse 1 People sat on their hands in ’16.Didn’t care much for the Democratic Queen.But now their eyes are

1979

Famous People I Almost Met

When I was twenty-three, I found myself unemployed and living in my girlfriend’s room in her parents’ beautiful brick home on the South Side of

A run on guns.
future

Viral Humans

Whether we buy into the idea that humans are a virus or not doesn’t matter. What matters is how we react to the situation. 

The Lifers’ Club

The church I attend is extremely generous with its time, talent, and resources, but it wasn’t always this way.  When my wife and I joined in 1990, many of the congregants were “intellectuals” from the university (myself included) who thought highly of the impoverished, but didn’t do much to help them physically. We threw money at them, mostly.  Kept our distance.

Standing Tall

A certified rock star, whose stage apparel and song lists hang in Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, graced Johnson City’s Down Home Saturday night

Big Pharma Throws Shade

My son and his fiancé asked us over for a tasty mid-morning outdoor breakfast –– her parents were visiting on their way to Texas ––

Photographing Faith

Our church family now publishes amateur photographs — scenes inspired by the Holy Spirit — on its social media site.  The response has been heartwarming,

A Plumber, A Marshmallow, and Love

I’m now teaching a creative writing class to an interesting group of folk who spend large portions of their day reading and scribbling, so they’re

Cabin Fever

My energetic wife and I retired years ago, and we’re good at being together. A big house helps, and we both like holing up in

Italy Captures the Gang of Ten

Grape-land never made our bucket list. We assumed it was hot, humid, dirty, overrun with tourists, smelly, and rife with Gypsies rifling pockets. All that’s

The Perfect Prison

When I was twenty-three, I found myself unemployed, and living in my girlfriend’s room in her parents’ beautiful brick house on the South Side of

Tribal Connections

Whenever my life begins to feel too “cushy” – which is often since I’m a spoiled American Baby Booming corpulent white male with a loving/doting

Train Wreck
alt-conservative

Trash Talk

You can’t make up this sort of thing. People would laugh and throw disgusting objects at you for inserting blatant — although natural — irony

Crawling Out of Health Care Hell

Our current health care mess is more a political debacle than a substantial challenge to the intellect when it comes to solvency. Morally? We can do

The Two-Tailed American Taliban

The polarization of America continues at a rapid pace, but we weren’t always at each other’s throats. Following WWII, soldiers of both political parties returned

Opioids in the News

Dear Readers, Today I’m simply re-posting recent articles — written by others — directly related to the opioid epidemic, which is the subject of my

Drug addiction

Opioids and Obituaries

The motivation behind Jellybeaners — to shine light upon the opioid epidemic taking Americans at the rate of fifty per day — remains front and center in the news, and burns