The final, essential step in the art of gaslighting is mocking your victims for believing the thing you were gaslighting them about. Create US SENATE campaign website. Announce it's "real." Declare it's "very possible" you will in fact run for that seat. Do nothing to dissuade the country's biggest newspapers, and officials of both parties, from discussing your candidacy. Stake out positions on the issues. Literally wrap yourself in an American flag. When your questionable past is inevitably called into question, complain that "none of this would be going on if I were not thinking about running for office." Insult the popular incumbent senator you would be running against. Discover she is crushing you in a poll. Explain, finally, three months after you started, "F*** no, I'm not running." Complete the gaslight: "Are you kidding me? Who couldn’t figure that out?" And so on Tuesday KID ROCK joined JEFF FLAKE and BOB CORKER as people officially not running for office in 2018. In so doing, he switched from mocking you for not believing him to mocking you for in fact believing him. Gas. Lit. He also mentioned he has an album and tour on the way, at some point in the future, and please accept this as my announcement that this is the last time I intend to mention either of them. Worst publicity campaign of 2017? (There has been competition)... Ironic epilogue: The political watchdog group COMMON CAUSE claims Kid Rock's non-candidacy fit the legal definition of an actual candidacy and says it will continue pursuing a FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION complaint against him... Is BILLBOARD discounting the youth vote, and thus skewing its pop charts away from pop, by favoring paid streaming services over ad-supported ones including YOUTUBE and the more popular side of SPOTIFY? That's a point that eluded me when I wrote last week about the magazine's upcoming chart tweaks, but PIGEONS & PLANES' ERIC SKELTON makes the case here, and it's compelling... Sexual assault trigger warning: ALICE GLASS on why she left CRYSTAL CASTLES. Ex-bandmate ETHAN KATH responds... All four members of DECAPITATED plead not guilty to kidnapping and and rape charges... TWIGGY RAMIREZ fired from MARILYN MANSON following rape accusation... "Let the music become product placement." "I just posted a photo of me sleeping at the airport. People stay connected like that." LUPE FIASCO, RICH BOY and other rappers offer their ideas on how to fix the music industry, circa 2007... DJs who are women make way less money than, wait for it, DJs who are men... RIP PHIL MILLER of HATFIELD & THE NORTH and MATCHING MOLE (and more) and LARRY RAY of OUTRAGEOUS CHERRY.