The self-proclaimed Jew of Oklahoma and founding bassist with the Bad Livers and Killbilly recently cracked the Billboard Bluegrass chart with his solo release “The Triumph of Assimilation.” It’s a Judeo-Americana meditation on the present, with a view of the past and a cautiously hopeful eye to the future. Mark’s a master of slap upright bass and its use in rockabilly, swing, klezmer, and the conjunto style he played on accordion great Santiago Jimenez Jr.’s Grammy-nominated records. Tonight he kibitzes with the Troubled Men.

Topics include an empty nest, the Broadside, “POV: Neutral Ground,” trash, Donald Rumsfeld, Edwin Edwards, Dale Triguero and Chickie Wah Wah, the drop zone, Mordecai Gebertig poetry, Charlottesville, QAnon, blood libel, kosher food, a cross burning, punk and roots rock, Danny Barnes, Dallas, hate eating, Kevin Smith, Juan Viesca, Richard Linklater, “The Newton Boys,” sideman work, a regional music resurgence, klezmer in Europe, bluegrass heartbreak, Bill Monroe, the Butthole Surfers, John Paul Jones, steel guitar, Jimmy Day, the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, Leo Frank, and much more.

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Intro music: Styler/Coman

Break music: “It’s Burning” and outro music: “A Day of Revenge” from “The Triumph of Assimilation” by Mark Rubin, Jew of Oklahoma

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