90 Minutes

I'd rather you did this 90 minutes of curated considering than listen to my upcoming retrospective album of my life's work

Friends, fans and longtime Noizeletter readers…

I long to live in a culture and country where it is responsible for me to send one happy and inspirational Noizeletter a month about my music and teaching.

I do not live in that culture and country anymore.

If you do one thing for me in your life, I don’t need you to listen to my retrospective Doctor Noize album coming out in a month — my life’s work, mind you. I don’t need you to spend any more time listening to my music or reading my hopefully inspirational words about kindness. I don’t need you to give me any awards or trophies for my work. I want you to do that, but I don’t need you to. And more importantly, we don’t need you to.

I need you to devote 90 minutes to reading both my words and the words of smarterer others below, and then to sit, think, and voice your own words in response. And commit to some form of action. Not necessarily to me. To your community.

This Noizeletter does nothing for my career as an artist or teacher, and most of you won’t read it due to its length — in fact, it almost certainly harms the biggest release of my life in one months’ time and will lose me subscribers and fans to my work as a children’s artist. And that is a very small sacrifice for me to pay in a culture that now requires all of us to understand courage and sacrifice are required to preserve and restore democracy, respectability and integrity in our country — and our world — before it is too late for us to respond with accurate knowledge from responsible objective media (which is methodically under attack by our current government). Before we willfully give away the strength required for us to save our beautiful culture.

If you have appreciated my work and my Noizeletter, and are willing to do one thing for me in my life, please set aside time for the 90 minutes or so of reading below. That 90 minutes is, coincidentally, as long as the retrospective Positive Energy! album that I’ll be sending you in a month. If you can do both, do both. But if you only have 90 minutes left to give me, do this instead of listening to my album.

Is 90 minutes a lot of time? In the internet era, it seems like it. In any other era, it’s nothing. But to get a clear sense of what is actually going on — both for our country and for the world — 90 minutes is actually an insufficient speed course. A Cliff’s Notes to open your eyes, mind and heart wide in the time of less than a movie. As usual, it all depends on your perspective.

In the text of the Noizeletter below — the longest Noizeletter I’ll ever write — are several linked articles, opinion pieces and a speech. One opinion piece is by me. The others are by people more influential, and probably wiser, than I am. I encourage you to read them all.

If you find this Noizeletter intrusive, inappropriate, or offensive… unsubscribe is always an option. Checking out of public discourse is always an option. Looking away is always an option. You can read the history of literally any authoritarian regime — and how it got started — to see how that goes and learn that is where we are right now. But that is absolutely a response you may choose in what is currently still a democracy for middle-aged white guys like me and a few other people… even though we might get murdered in broad daylight by government authorities like Alex Pretti was yesterday, which you can see firsthand in multiple videos from Minneapolis linked below if you choose not to look away. If you choose to believe your own eyes, mind and soul instead of the story being fed to you by an authoritarian American regime.

And if you choose to look away now, the Positive Energy children’s musician guy says: You deserve what’s coming to you. What’s coming to us. In fact, you’re making it happen.

A great life is always earned, not given. And we must earn ours now.

Here’s an internal friction I’ll bet many artists and children’s musicians are facing right now: I don’t want the Trump administration’s behavior to overshadow and prevent me from living and expressing my joy of life, or from releasing art that I sincerely hope make the world a better, more empathetic, and more loving place. But I also feel strange and tone-deaf releasing an album called Positive Energy! a month from now without specifically addressing and acknowledging in uncomfortable terms that we are are not living in a culture of positive energy right now, and we have specifically chosen to reelect a regime that enacts cruelty and infuses us all with negative energy. I am aware that regime is methodically destroying both democracy in this country and stability in the world order.

I asked my wife for guidance on how to reconcile this dichotomy. What to do about the disconnect of releasing my life’s work — a celebration of positivity for kids, families and educators — while somehow acknowledging what is actually going on politically in stark and straightforward terms to the detriment of my career’s biggest release. She said:

Just do both.

Imperfect times offer imperfect solutions. Doing both is the combined right thing to do, as best as I can determine, even though they are somewhat contradictory and confusing. And I’m trying, sometimes failing, to do my best. Don’t let this regime of deportations and bombings and mistruths end your life of taking meaningful adventures with your family and watching playoff sports with your friends and releasing your happy life works of art; but don’t pretend it is not our responsibility to also fight back and do more if we have the privilege to engage in the above activities. Especially those of us who have a little megaphone, a little audience. Part of appreciation and celebration and success is owning the gratitude and obligation to speak up and make the world a better place for others too. To at least risk trying.

There’s more on our plates than there used to be as Americans. Much more than we’ve ever had in our lifetimes. We’ve all grown accustomed to living in a world where we could turn on the TV and visit Sesame Street any morning we wanted to in fantasyland, an aspirational neighborhood literally funded and made possible by living in the most wealthy and inspirational democracy in the real world. But that funding has been cut. That aspiration is not only not communicated by our current government, it is killed and mocked by it. Diversity, empathy, objective reporting, higher education, even basic human kindness — everything Sesame Street stood for — is under attack by the Trump administration.

For many of us who are fortunate, this is the first time we’ve had to deal with the danger our communities — like those in Minnesota — are experiencing now. For many others who are less fortunate, and frankly many who are less white or male than I am, the only difference now is that we’re all experiencing it instead of just some of us. It’s an education for the rest of us. Perhaps one that was needed and overdue.

Regardless, we’re now in a situation where, in my opinion, every day we must simultaneously live our lives and dreams and fight back against the most important and dangerous inflection point in our lifetime.

So that’s what I’m doing. Music, writing and art are not the sole solution, but they can help. Here’s a brilliant example:

“Nice is different than good.”
-- James Lapine & Stephen Sondheim in Into The Woods, my favorite musical of all time and a deeply philosophical work about ethics, social standing, power dynamics and groupthink

Moments like this one in history establish whether you’re nice or good... or bad. There’s some of that too, but there’s more cowardice than bad. Rationalization is a form of cover for cowardice, and in times like this, functionally it is the same as being bad: If you enable bad, you are being bad. People who support people who oppress people are behaving badly. Even if you wouldn’t have shot the lady or imprisoned the brown guy.

We’re not good right now as a country -- we’re in the woods looking for people to fight, blame and oppress for our fears and insecurities -- but *you* can be good.

Now is the time. Later is too late for credit, except for from other nice people... who you will not respect when the smoke has cleared and history provides greater clarity of what went on here.

Don’t be nice.

Below, with some context, are the links and articles I hope you’ll explore and respond to, internally and externally. You don’t need to respond to me unless you want to. You need to respond, out loud, to the world. And you need to do it now.

I know that part of my professional identity is as a children's musician. As a summer teacher at Stanford helping people find joy in music. So I apologize for the cognitive dissonance of what I’m sharing next. The times call for it. Here is a detailed expert video analysis of the killing of US citizen and Veterans Affairs ICU Nurse Alex Pretti yesterday by ICE Agents who are wearing masks and dress and behave more like a third-world drug gang than police officers:

Alex Pretti Killing Multi-Angle Video Analysis

Here’s analysis of that killing by acclaimed American historian and Boston College Professor Heather Cox Richardson. You should read it. All of it. And you should subscribe to her Substack, Letters From An American.

History Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s 1/24/26 Post

Here’s the already-legendary, honest and brave speech in in Davos this week by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney about the impact of our decisions and apathy — not just Trump, but every US citizen and shopkeeper who enables Trump — on global stability and world history. A speech that will be referenced in history books. Carney begins his speech in beautiful French — a simple and profound demonstration of multicultural education an intention flying in the face of everything President Trump stands for — but you can fast forward to minute 1:22, which is where he switches to English for the rest of his talk. As you listen to this speech, I encourage you to imagine you — and all of us as citizens — as what he refers to as a “middle power.” What can and should you do with your middle power?

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s World Economic Forum Speech

A final note about this week’s World Economic Forum at Davos: The only leaders who signed on to Trump’s “Board Of Peace” are dictators or leaders of very small countries desperate to appease a United States government that has — in only a few short weeks — openly kidnapped another country’s leader (Venezuela) with our military to gain their oil and threatened military takeover of one of our NATO allies (Greenland, a territory of Denmark). The first breaks international law, and the second opens brazen direct hostility with an organization (NATO) we created with Europe after World War II to make sure it doesn’t happen again. All you have to know about this is that Trump — not the US President — is named as the leader of this “Board Of Peace” for perpetuity; he is charging leaders $1 billion to join the Board (this is not a misprint — it’s a commercial venture); and oppressive dictator Vladimir Putin of Russia, who invaded Ukraine, is on the Board, but no major Western democratic leader has accepted the invitation. Any media that tells you we should pay no attention to the opinions of our other democratic allies and stick to America First is selling you a dangerous instability, and any President who openly allies himself with dictators over democracies is a President who is leading you away from democracy.

While you should not simply get your facts and feels and links from normal schmucks without professional editors like me, normal people like you in normal jobs can give us brave and heartfelt honest takes on the world. As a reader, you do need to insist on fact-checking us citizen blowhards with trained investigative journalism and accountable institutions of higher learning (more on that below). But before we get back to the true professionals, here’s a passionate and profound piece by a Denver musician and “Not Just A Drummer” Michael Jochum that sums up your responsibility in this moment beautifully and nicely for anyone who has the courage, intellect and empathy to do so — and gives you a model for courage and insight of your own even if you’re not a professional professor or journalist:

Michael Jochum’s Hard Truth Post 12 Hours Ago

On that note, here’s my own post and essay a few weeks ago about the killing and character assassination — by our own government — of US citizen Renee Nicole Gould, whose final words to ICE agents, on camera, were: “I’m not mad at you.” The ICE agents’ response was to kill this unarmed woman point blank with a gun and then say, on camera, in the personal cellphone footage the ICE agent himself was taking while he shot her : “Fucking bitch.”

Cory Cullinan’s 1/8/26 Post On Renee Nicole Good

Note this post was reshared by a friend. Many friends, actually. Your influence and your dent don’t have to be national or network-sized. In fact, studies show influence is more profound and effective person-to-person in trusted local or smaller networks. It’s an unfortunate but true aspect of human nature, monetized to dangerous and corrosive advantage by social media companies that make money off your engagement — our addiction — to their algorithmic manipulations and “services.” But you can steal some of the destructive, predatory and commercial aspects of currently-constructed corporate social media back by insisting on sharing the stories of people like Renee Nicole Gould. The videos of ICE Agents’ infringements of your human rights. Speeches like Carney’s at Davos.

Posts like these from real people can inspire give strength to other real people to speak up and organize into protests. You’re a real person. But how do we stay educated in an increasingly challenging culture and world, and make sure we don’t fall into the trap of intentional misinformation and self-centeredness? How do you personally stay on top of reality and news — and act with integrity — without curated reading lists or Substack opinion posts by people like me?

One… You should not simply trust me, anyone else, or any one group. You should never trust a source — person, government or media outlet — that implies it’s your only accurate or reliable source of news, information and perspective. That’s a huge red flag. We all get things wrong. You should diversify your information sources and friend groups, and you should hold yourself accountable for a life that is curious about and empathetic to our diverse American community more than your own comfort and preservation.

Two… You should insist on supporting and protecting real investigative journalism and real institutions of research and learning. Note that both my first two are about educating yourself and others. About valuing diverse knowledge and human growth. Not just financial growth. Human growth, which leads to curiosity, which leads to a capacity to learn and connect and empathize and compromise.

And three, you need to take action — speaking out, protesting, and loving but holding your fellow human beings accountable. Believing in them instead of fearing and hating them. It’s energizing. It creates community. Community — and not government — creates democracy.

Here’s the thing: You’ll do #3 organically if you do #1 and #2.

One of the reasons so many Americans choose to be willfully uninformed is that our objective and investigative media is under extreme attack and takeover by government, wealthy and powerful corporate forces — a time-tested precursor to authoritarian regimes throughout history. Here’s one article on a 60 Minutes segment that was recently pulled by pressure and influence from the Trump administration.

CNN Report On December’s Pulled 60 Minutes Segment

If you haven’t heard about this, which was widely reported at NPR, the New York Times, Substack, and even Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch’s Washington Post — or you’re unaware of many similar recent stories of press censorship and attacks on colleges and news organizations with time-honored editorial standards — please proactively change your behavior patterns and choose to read objective commercial investigative news with time-honored editorial standards (there still is some), choose to support local news that is dangerously dying or being gobbled up by corporate media, and choose to support public, non-profit, and educational sources of research and information, instead of getting your news solely from corporate-owned social media or media getting rich on telling you the narrative they know you like to hear.

“These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.”
— Sharyn Alfonsi of 60 Minutes

Multiply the pressure on American media’s most storied news institution 60 Minutes by the same pressure at even smaller media outlets everywhere, which is creating an exponential increase in media caving, and you will quickly understand that the window of opportunity to return our country to an actual state of education, enlightenment and democracy — which, for all you “the old days were the best days” conservatives out there, is exactly what the Founding Fathers primarily wrote about and strove for in the founding of our country and its Constitution — is rapidly closing.

More than anything, our founders believed a concentration of power was dangerous, because human nature is corrupted by power. You do not need to study history to know this. Observe our billionaire tech bros who once acted like geniuses but now whine like toddlers after accumulating way too much power and wealth. Your regional soccer club and the soft corruption of that coach who loves how much everyone fears and sucks up to him. Your music industry board that has the same people on it for a decade despite their supposed dedication to diversity, inclusion and term limits. “It’s not bias ‘cause we’re friends and we’re great” is almost impossible to resist, especially when the gravy train seems pretty harmless to you and everyone in your camp says you’re one of the good guys.

So, most of all, our founders insisted on a separation of powers unlike anything the world had seen before; a President with more checks on power than any country had ever installed; power in your hands to debate and come to consensus on. Use the web for good: Google the story about George Washington voluntarily insisting that he only had two terms as President when term limits did not yet exist, despite the fact that he could easily have won a third, and deliberately orchestrated a formal, public ceremony to resign his military commission on December 23, 1783. A far cry from our modern President crying for trophies and whining when he doesn’t get ‘em, and creating a “Board Of Peace” with no peaceful members where he’s in charge for life.

George Washington didn’t want to be good. He wanted to be great. The best way to be great is to assume you’re just good. At best. And the only way to understand you’re good but not great — a work in progress — is to actually seek the humility of real education, real facts, reality, and real diversity of opinion. To practice real restraint in the accumulation of your power and wealth. Anyone who doesn’t do that risks ending up like President Trump, who was born with a gazillion dollar spoon in his mouth and decided he had actually made that spoon. A man who has gathered only sycophants around him to reinforce this fantasy as long as it will generate money or power for them and/or keep them out of prison.

Don’t be that person in your own little world. Don’t seek comfort. Don’t seek too much validation. Seek what our flawed founding fathers sought for you: Enlightenment.

You’re not stupid enough to believe objective reality is false — you only believe it if you want to believe it. I do not accept the narrative from anyone in this country that you are unintentionally ignorant and therefore innocent — you were gifted this democracy by history’s bravest freedom fighters in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War 2, the civil rights warriors of the 1960s who were assassinated for their courage. It has been preserved by the free press and the study of history, culture, arts and sciences made possible by the development of the finest higher education system in human history. In that context, your ignorance is either a choice to live a life of privilege and casual cruelty and/or passively allow others to do the damage you are too cowardly to prevent. Many people worked hard and even sacrificed their lives to build a society you are destroying with your enabling apathy now. Even at the seams, in places that seemingly don’t matter.

They matter. You matter. Don’t do cowardice and corruption because everybody does it. Everybody doesn’t. Let’s all demonstrate that.

And finally: Note that the government, billionaire and corporate forces who are trying to bully and silence segments like the above 60 Minutes segment for supposed “lack of depth and facts” are the same forces who insist we should not have any fact-checking or editorial editing on places like Facebook or X, where a majority of Americans report they receive all of their news. Please pause for a moment and examine the disconnect between those two seemingly contradictory positions, until you realize there’s no disconnect at all: They simply want the least-researched and most-powerfully promoted “stories” that help them go rich to go viral.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and X CEO Elon Musk are both worth hundreds of billions of dollars. That’s enough to fix our entire public education system. To cure countless diseases worldwide. To stave off global hunger. According to a recent investigative report bravely published by the New York Times Editorial Board, President Trump and his family have used the Presidency to personally make 1.4 billion dollars in the first year of his second term, breaking all ethical norms by all previous Republican and Democratic Presidents.

Is that for you? Is that who you wanna be? Is that what you’d do if you were President? If you had hundreds of billions of dollars? Do you think someone like Elon Musk should be able to buy a Presidency by giving over $250 million dollars to Trump’s second campaign? (That actually happened. How’d that go for Elon? It’s a textbook example of the danger of supporting an authoritarian.) If you’re conservative, would you like it if right-wing lightning rod George Soros (who is worth way less than Musk and Zuck, BTW, with an estimated net worth of around $7.5 billion) bought a Gavin Newsom Presidency by investing over $250 million into buying your vote?

If not, change it. Get informed. Get involved. Be part of a diverse community instead of a monochrome group singing a single song. Risk your own status. Your own album sales. Challenge your own assumptions. Experience the discomfort of enlightenment. It is still possible. It’s not too late.

I will close with an example of hope, and a perfect model for what we can do: The censored 60 Minutes story above aired last Sunday, a month after it was squelched, after extreme pressure and outcry from media and Americans nationwide. The power that is being taken from you can only be taken from you if you are willing to give it away.

I wish you all the hard work — us all the hard work — in saving this big, beautiful world, in preserving our amazing American experiment in democracy, opportunity, and intellectual progress of all kinds. For my children, for your children, and for all the children Doctor Noize has had the privilege of making music and creative experiences for over the years.

“Good night, and good luck.”

— Journalist Edward R. Murrow, known for his integrity and powerful commentary against McCarthyism & wartime reporting, in his nightly national send-off