Does not turn out the way you planned it.
Assuming you planned it at all.
Some of us come from pushy parents, with visions of our futures. We jump through preordained hoops and we get to a threshold, a fork in the road, and we're clueless as to how to move forward.
Others grow up ignored. Or with values focused on belonging as opposed to achievement. And it's hard if no one cares, but the truth is you've got to figure life out for yourself, and it's better if you do. It's just that you've got to avoid the potholes, the drugs, the diversions, the bad people who will lead you into backwaters that you may never recover from.
And the truth is it's all internal, external pressures don't ultimately work. Unless it's to put a roof over your head and food on the table and sometimes I think it would be better if we were not coddled, if we were all challenged, because it builds character and survival instincts, to learn that even if someone is looking out for you, that does not mean you can make it, in business, in life, that you can navigate the 24 hours 365 days a week that seem alternately long and short, depending upon whether you are happy.
And you won't always be, happy that is. There will be moments, completely unexpected. You'll be driving with the radio on, standing on a cliff, and everything will come together, you'll have a smile on your face, you'll be thrilled you are living. Then there are milestones that should thrill you that don't, like graduating, from college, even high school. It's kind of scary, because you don't know where you're going, but even more you're expecting to feel something you don't. Life is all about expectations that go unfulfilled. And I'm not talking about winning and losing so much as people telling you such and such is a big deal and it turns out it is not.
When I graduated from college no one got a straight job. Now college is a preparatory institution wherein you shine up your bona fides so you can enter the workforce, one leg up from the rest, on your way to success. But you wake up one day and wonder if this is the road you want to be on. And that's the scary thing about life, it's hard to jump the track, once you reach a certain age you are who you are, you can buy a self-help book telling you how easy it is to switch careers but it's not, especially if you've got obligations.
And society wants to tie you up, with a spouse and children and a mortgage and a car payment, and then you're a slave to the grind. But if you opt out, you're no longer a member of the tribe, you're the other, on you own path, and sometimes the stars align and your choice is exalted, like in the hippy-dippy sixties, but usually this isn't so. So if you're going to take the road less traveled, you've got to be secure, no one is gonna hold your hand, you're going against the grain and those who are with it are not going to to encourage and support you.
That's another thing about life. You need money. Absolutely. More than ever. Don't delude yourself that you do not. And more money brings more happiness and then it does not. Rich people are attractive, they have freedom, but then they start to believe their own hype become all about lifestyle and are then intolerable. Life is about your job, if you ain't got one, you're not very attractive. The pay isn't important, it can even be voluntary, just as long as you show up every day and do the work, treat those surrounding you with respect.
So you don't know when to jump off the cliff. When and if to get married and have kids.
Let me tell you, everybody else is flummoxed too. If you're waiting for that inner voice to say yes, to say this is the path, you're screwed. Everybody is unsure. But one thing's for sure, some are more comfortable with risk than others.
And actions have consequences. You can't extract yourself without pain. Divorce has a cost, primarily emotional. And you can abandon your children, but the guilt will haunt you forever. Which is why life is about character. Not that those with the best character get rich and survive, but they fit in best, and life is about fitting in. Isn't that amazing. No one wants to be alone, they all want to be accepted and understood, have friends. Find those like-minded and be loyal to them, they're all you've got, they'll get you through.
And you'll get fired and the industry will change and you'll get sick and there will be wrenching transitions. If you haven't been through them yet, just know they're coming. You're married for twenty years and then suddenly your spouse wants a divorce. Or the company moves to China, or suddenly there's no need for the company at all. Watcha gonna do? I'm not sure, you've got to figure it out for yourself, good luck.
And then suddenly you're old. Your parents told you about this. You look in the mirror and you don't recognize that person and you don't want to go back but you want to put the brakes on going forward. You can't do what you once did, remember everything you did do, and so many expectations have gone unfulfilled.
This is your life.
Be thankful you get to live it.
It's neither a race nor a competition. Rather a free-form art project. That's right, grow older and all the STEM courses become irrelevant and the liberal arts ones shine. Because life is about experiencing the world and thinking about it, putting the pieces together. How are you gonna do this? It's not just about getting up every day and doing what you should, that's emotional death.
And that's what you're avoiding, emotional death.
So listen to your elders and ignore them. Study history and discard it. Read the maps but bushwhack, create your own path. Information is key but it won't deliver anywhere near the answers you need. Be an individual but rely on others. And know when you get to the end, you'll be stunned at the choices you made, but realize they were inevitable, that you couldn't do it any other way.
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Saturday 6 May 2017
Friday 5 May 2017
The Health Care Bill
"Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together try to love one another
Right now
Right now
RIGHT NOW!"
"Get Together"
The Youngbloods
And the press said not to be afraid of Donald Trump, that he was ineffectual, and Paul Ryan was a small thinker, that they could nominate Supreme Court Justices but not break the government...
WRONG!
This is what I hate about today's America, you've got no idea what's going on. The elites were unaware of the working or out-of-work class and the right wing has its megaphone and is not listening to the left and everybody's blaming fake news when the problem is real news, and people living in echo chambers, unaware of what the other guy is saying.
Didn't used to be this way.
Not because of the Fairness Doctrine, not because of fewer media outlets, but because of the makeup of our society.
Remember "Peace and Love"? Seems like the only person still saying that is Ringo, and the days of listening to your rock star to tell you which way the wind blows died when MTV made performers richer than their wildest dreams and then the techies came along and ate their lunch, literally with Napster and figuratively as in how much richer the coders can be.
So we're sitting in the mud, listening to the Airplane, playing air guitar to Hendrix, sharing our food, looking out for one another, Max Yasgur tells us how amazing it is that we can all get together for three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music and then Reagan goes and blows a hole in the whole damn thing.
I just took a huge risk there in case you don't know. By mentioning the exalted one's name. You might think he was a dementia-ridden, astrology-abiding, grandfatherly nitwit, but to a whole swath of Americans he's god. He single-handedly stopped Communism and he denigrated the government and gave the power and the money back to the people and harmony reigned forever more, until that black guy became President and ruined it, which is kind of amazing if you think about it, since that black guy was a centrist and he didn't control Congress for most of his tenure and you might think this is about racism but this is really about a redefining of what America's about, which is I'm gonna grab mine, SCREW YOU!
As if the rich aren't rich enough.
That's the problem in America today, income inequality, but if you say that the right wing claims CLASS WARFARE! But why should that scare you, aren't classes just divisions amongst ourselves?
And the point here is by mentioning Reagan and "class warfare" my inbox will go berserk with people telling me how wrong I am and I have no respect. Used to be the African-Americans would tolerate no taunt, now it's the white right wing. And if you think about it, Huey and the Panthers did a lot to give their community respect. And now Trump is enabling everybody on the other side, who just want the foreigners to go home and the ethnicities to shut up, so they can all go home and shoot opioids and revel in their freedom.
Not that the left doesn't push it too far. Did you see that story in the "Times" about vocal coaching for transgendered people? I'm all for transgender rights, vocal coaching is cool with me, but when you're losing the World Series you don't start worrying about your bench, making sure the hitters far down the line are ready, YOU FOCUS ON THOSE WHO ARE GONNA PLAY! As in the left wing just does not know how to prioritize, doesn't know how to subordinate the little stuff to focus on the big stuff. Furthermore, the left is myopic, they've got no idea how anybody other than themselves live, and they're contemptuous of others.
Everybody in America has got contempt for everybody else. And we can't agree on the facts. It's as if in that aforementioned World Series the National League team believes it's winning by 3-2 and the American believes it's winning by 2-1, how do you even start, how do you even play the game?
As for the rules, even Congress just changed those. Which is how Gorsuch got his seat. A guy who wasted no time in making his views known, swaying decisions 5-4.
So I'm pretty depressed.
We don't listen to the same music, we don't go to the same schools, Betsy DeVos is about vouchers when the latest statistics say they actually cause scores to go DOWN and the truth is it's all about religious education, getting the government to pay for it, and now we're not even studying the same stuff.
And the President just stands up and lies. After all, he's an entertainer, and they lie for a living.
And no one can lose their job, everybody wants to protect what they have, and there's no cohesiveness whatsoever.
I'd love to tell you how it all works out, but I'm clueless. I can document the change, how we got here, but I feel powerless and there are no leaders on the left and like I said, the news outlets keep telling us not to worry, it can't happen her, BUT THEN IT DOES!
Ryan can't get his bill passed.
But he does.
Well now it can't get through the Senate.
WANNA BET?
And this doesn't even apply to me. I pay beaucoup bucks for a PPO with a multiple four grand deductible because of preexisting conditions but I want this level of service. The thought that I'm paying five figures a year and therefore everybody else should be screwed never crosses my mind. I'm worried about the disadvantaged, those who've lost their jobs, been the victims of unforeseen health problems and yes, maybe that single mother shouldn't have had that kid, but we're gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater, is that what we Americans do?
I know, I know, we can't get everything we want, we have to compromise.
But the joke is on the left. I voted for Barry and I'm down with him, but let's not forget that on his watch the Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress and all those governorships. I live in California, but the rest of the country is pretty damn red. Good luck having that union look out for you, the union is DEAD!
Because the unions are the problem.
The tort lawyers are the problem.
The government is the problem.
No, we are the problem. We're every one of those people. Just like every family has a gay member, we've all got relatives all over the place, in all walks of life, working for the man or being an entrepreneur, advantaged or less so.
The problem is us.
And we're gonna have to metabolize the effects of President Trump and his cronies ourselves. The media ain't gonna save us. Hell, half the people benefiting from the programs Trump wants to cut don't even know it. How many years is it gonna take them to realize this and get their voices heard, and what will be lost along the way?
And all these marches, they don't seem to be making a difference, they're too vague, whereas a town hall where you complain, make an elected official worry about his gig, those seem to have an effect, so maybe we need more targeted protest.
Or maybe whatever we do makes no difference.
The truth is we're all in it together.
But no one in America believes that anymore.
America is a great place if you're rich.
And if you ain't?
Not so much.
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Smile on your brother
Everybody get together try to love one another
Right now
Right now
RIGHT NOW!"
"Get Together"
The Youngbloods
And the press said not to be afraid of Donald Trump, that he was ineffectual, and Paul Ryan was a small thinker, that they could nominate Supreme Court Justices but not break the government...
WRONG!
This is what I hate about today's America, you've got no idea what's going on. The elites were unaware of the working or out-of-work class and the right wing has its megaphone and is not listening to the left and everybody's blaming fake news when the problem is real news, and people living in echo chambers, unaware of what the other guy is saying.
Didn't used to be this way.
Not because of the Fairness Doctrine, not because of fewer media outlets, but because of the makeup of our society.
Remember "Peace and Love"? Seems like the only person still saying that is Ringo, and the days of listening to your rock star to tell you which way the wind blows died when MTV made performers richer than their wildest dreams and then the techies came along and ate their lunch, literally with Napster and figuratively as in how much richer the coders can be.
So we're sitting in the mud, listening to the Airplane, playing air guitar to Hendrix, sharing our food, looking out for one another, Max Yasgur tells us how amazing it is that we can all get together for three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music and then Reagan goes and blows a hole in the whole damn thing.
I just took a huge risk there in case you don't know. By mentioning the exalted one's name. You might think he was a dementia-ridden, astrology-abiding, grandfatherly nitwit, but to a whole swath of Americans he's god. He single-handedly stopped Communism and he denigrated the government and gave the power and the money back to the people and harmony reigned forever more, until that black guy became President and ruined it, which is kind of amazing if you think about it, since that black guy was a centrist and he didn't control Congress for most of his tenure and you might think this is about racism but this is really about a redefining of what America's about, which is I'm gonna grab mine, SCREW YOU!
As if the rich aren't rich enough.
That's the problem in America today, income inequality, but if you say that the right wing claims CLASS WARFARE! But why should that scare you, aren't classes just divisions amongst ourselves?
And the point here is by mentioning Reagan and "class warfare" my inbox will go berserk with people telling me how wrong I am and I have no respect. Used to be the African-Americans would tolerate no taunt, now it's the white right wing. And if you think about it, Huey and the Panthers did a lot to give their community respect. And now Trump is enabling everybody on the other side, who just want the foreigners to go home and the ethnicities to shut up, so they can all go home and shoot opioids and revel in their freedom.
Not that the left doesn't push it too far. Did you see that story in the "Times" about vocal coaching for transgendered people? I'm all for transgender rights, vocal coaching is cool with me, but when you're losing the World Series you don't start worrying about your bench, making sure the hitters far down the line are ready, YOU FOCUS ON THOSE WHO ARE GONNA PLAY! As in the left wing just does not know how to prioritize, doesn't know how to subordinate the little stuff to focus on the big stuff. Furthermore, the left is myopic, they've got no idea how anybody other than themselves live, and they're contemptuous of others.
Everybody in America has got contempt for everybody else. And we can't agree on the facts. It's as if in that aforementioned World Series the National League team believes it's winning by 3-2 and the American believes it's winning by 2-1, how do you even start, how do you even play the game?
As for the rules, even Congress just changed those. Which is how Gorsuch got his seat. A guy who wasted no time in making his views known, swaying decisions 5-4.
So I'm pretty depressed.
We don't listen to the same music, we don't go to the same schools, Betsy DeVos is about vouchers when the latest statistics say they actually cause scores to go DOWN and the truth is it's all about religious education, getting the government to pay for it, and now we're not even studying the same stuff.
And the President just stands up and lies. After all, he's an entertainer, and they lie for a living.
And no one can lose their job, everybody wants to protect what they have, and there's no cohesiveness whatsoever.
I'd love to tell you how it all works out, but I'm clueless. I can document the change, how we got here, but I feel powerless and there are no leaders on the left and like I said, the news outlets keep telling us not to worry, it can't happen her, BUT THEN IT DOES!
Ryan can't get his bill passed.
But he does.
Well now it can't get through the Senate.
WANNA BET?
And this doesn't even apply to me. I pay beaucoup bucks for a PPO with a multiple four grand deductible because of preexisting conditions but I want this level of service. The thought that I'm paying five figures a year and therefore everybody else should be screwed never crosses my mind. I'm worried about the disadvantaged, those who've lost their jobs, been the victims of unforeseen health problems and yes, maybe that single mother shouldn't have had that kid, but we're gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater, is that what we Americans do?
I know, I know, we can't get everything we want, we have to compromise.
But the joke is on the left. I voted for Barry and I'm down with him, but let's not forget that on his watch the Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress and all those governorships. I live in California, but the rest of the country is pretty damn red. Good luck having that union look out for you, the union is DEAD!
Because the unions are the problem.
The tort lawyers are the problem.
The government is the problem.
No, we are the problem. We're every one of those people. Just like every family has a gay member, we've all got relatives all over the place, in all walks of life, working for the man or being an entrepreneur, advantaged or less so.
The problem is us.
And we're gonna have to metabolize the effects of President Trump and his cronies ourselves. The media ain't gonna save us. Hell, half the people benefiting from the programs Trump wants to cut don't even know it. How many years is it gonna take them to realize this and get their voices heard, and what will be lost along the way?
And all these marches, they don't seem to be making a difference, they're too vague, whereas a town hall where you complain, make an elected official worry about his gig, those seem to have an effect, so maybe we need more targeted protest.
Or maybe whatever we do makes no difference.
The truth is we're all in it together.
But no one in America believes that anymore.
America is a great place if you're rich.
And if you ain't?
Not so much.
--
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Thursday 4 May 2017
The P.F. Sloan Book
They didn't know what they were doing.
All those legendary hits, played ad infinitum on transistors way back when and Sirius today? The creators were just trying to get ahead, they were just trying to get paid.
I've been sifting through books and I came across "What's Exactly The Matter With Me?: Memoirs of a life in music," by P.F. Sloan and S.E. Feinberg.
P.F. Sloan, the guy who wrote "Eve of Destruction," right?
The dirty little secret of these rock bios is they're terrible. Interesting subject matter, with too often too little revealed (can you say Linda Ronstadt?), but they're poorly written and even when the celebrity is involved there are glaring factual mistakes and agendas and my plan was just to skim it and toss it, but then I got hooked.
P.F. Sloan hated Lou Adler. Now Lou only gets good press these days, even though he's been out of the game for eons. He's the legend that goes to Laker games. But he's just a guy screwing him in Sloan's eyes. And Adler went on to much greater success, whereas after Lou...crickets for P.F.
So P.F. is paired up with Steve Barri, who he feels responsible for, since Barri is married with a kid. And neither of those are their real last names, hell, Sloan's dad renamed the clan from "Schlein" after leaving New York for Los Angeles and there was no big plan, Sloan and Barri didn't want to become legends, they wanted to SURVIVE!
We forget once upon a time music was a backward business peopled by thieves and crooks where the records came and went and if you were involved you might end up with some fame but very little money.
This is so different from today. Where constructing a hit single is like building a skyscraper. Nothing's done on a whim, except by the wannabes, but it used to be that those on the bottom could not get a chance, recording deals were rare, so they worked.
They worked as recently as the nineties.
As you are probably aware, Col. Bruce Hampton died on stage this week. And I can't help thinking how I saw him with Phish back in '92. And I'm looking up the gig and I'm stunned, Phish is playing across the country every night. With no major record deal and no fame, they were building it as they want along.
But now you cannot do that, because there's nowhere to play. The clubs have disappeared and those that still exist want deejays and no one will tolerate mediocrity, never mind new music. The audience wants all hits all the time and if you don't provide them they'll just immerse themselves in their mobile devices, shutting you out.
So Col. Bruce Hampton paid his dues. I forgot that he was in the Hampton Grease Band, but remembered he opened for the Mothers at the Fillmore, used to see their name on the poster, in an era where you had no chance of hearing most records released, your department store didn't rack them and you couldn't afford them.
And Hampton played with Zappa and formed the Aquarium Rescue Unit with ultimately famous players and kept on working until his 70th birthday party which turned into a wake. He never got rich, didn't even get famous. But if you follow musicians, it was a veritable who's who who showed up to pay tribute to him the other night.
That's the way you used to do it, formed a band and hit the road and if you were any good you got more bookings and you got high and got laid and some people dropped out and some sustained and ended up being able to do the same thing today, even though you wonder if you should be home with your wife and kids. This is the life you chose. You can barely even choose this life anymore.
But in P.F. Sloan's era it was different. There was no glamour. Believe me, everybody didn't want to be a rock star before the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, what you heard on the radio was ENTERTAINMENT!
But someone had to make it. Someone had to work for bupkes writing songs.
And most of these songs were shite. But you choose a line of work and get better by doing it and then get to know everybody and opportunity opens up. In this case, with Jan & Dean, Adler's other charges.
But then Sloan starts talking about the studio. Not only the players, but the engineers. What their skills were. Using limiters. How Jan Berry employed multiple units to get that sound and suddenly you're hooked, you want to go deeper, you just can't get enough, this is what you lived for.
Yes, we lived to go to Manny's to look at the guitars.
We wanted to know everybody in the credits. We wanted to know the tricks, how the magic was created.
And you didn't need a famous father, you didn't even need an education or money to participate, you just had to move to L.A. and move through the social network, only this one wasn't online, but virtual. And I'll tell you every damn day that today is better than yesterday, I don't want to go back to the pre-internet era with its loneliness and its boredom, but something's been lost in the transition, kinda like when cars lost their vent windows to a/c... Every once in a while you just want to open the vent.
And if you lived through this era, the early to mid-sixties, you remember. Going to school, having crushes, and being addicted to the radio. EVERYBODY knew the hits, a number one track is a fraction of what it was back then. You felt part of a group, a movement, a tide.
And it was all based on the music and interacting. It wasn't about accumulating likes but being real friends, actually knowing people that could move you down the board. And when Sloan talks about being locked out of the arena in Hawaii at a Beach Boys and more gig... You resonate. You haven't played in Hollywood unless you've felt left out. He was the bass player, but his friend Carl Wilson, who he hung with in the studio, didn't remember him. He was scheduled to play but he couldn't get inside, how big a deal was he? How big a deal are you? How big a deal am I?
And the recently departed Bob Krasnow worked at a label called Domain which begged Adler for songs. Used to be songs were everything and acts didn't write their own and Krasnow, et al, were always puffing up their image, pontificating about nonexistent sales, because you fake it to make it, truly.
As for the studio cats, Sloan delineates their qualities, their essence, the way Leon Russell could play octave notes on the piano with his left hand and it made all the difference. He was not the Master of Space & Time, he was a studio cat making a living, not getting rich, but having fun.
And then Sloan hears a voice and writes five hit songs in a night. Including "Eve of Destruction." Who knows where inspiration comes from. Who knows how whacked our heroes are. Hell, this is the same guy who says he sold fifty newspapers to James Dean two years after he died. And we fans can never get over the fact that our heroes are done. They had hits once, now they no longer do. Styles change, people lose the muse, but the truth is music is a business of luck and it runs out very quickly, be stunned you make it at all.
And the people in this book were stunned. They were building an edifice, the foundations of classic rock, music that has lasted forever, and they thought they were building cheap motels that wouldn't last a decade. Hell, Peter Grant sold out Zeppelin's catalogue, who'd want to listen to that music decades hence?
And reading Sloan's book I realize as much as I know I don't know anything, about the music business, about life. There is no master plan. You just march forward and try to make the best of the opportunities. And when you're changing the world, you think you're just earning a living. It's only with hindsight that you can see what you accomplished. All the rules and regulations, the restrictions you carped about, ironically led to your success. They channeled your efforts and when they were truly inane, you revolted, like Terry Melcher and Sloan, who locked out the Columbia engineer when he wouldn't link up the echo chambers, they figured they had an hour to make "Mr. Tambourine Man" work themselves.
And they did. With a lot of reverb and effects. Same performances, same basic tracks, but the tweaks turned it into a hit.
I've got no idea if Lou Adler is a good guy or a bad one, I don't know him well enough. But I do know that Brian Epstein sent out a promo kit trying to get someone to release the Beatles in America, and when Sloan liked the four tracks Epstein told Andrew Loog Oldham to send on the Stones. You see it was just that simple, serendipity. And the business was smaller. You knew the players and were not inundated with product.
And you didn't think you were changing the world.
But you were.
https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Exactly-Matter-Me-Memoirs-ebook/dp/B00LFSGOJW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493939750&sr=1-1&keywords=p.f. sloan&utm_source=phplist5834&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=The+P.F.+Sloan+Book
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All those legendary hits, played ad infinitum on transistors way back when and Sirius today? The creators were just trying to get ahead, they were just trying to get paid.
I've been sifting through books and I came across "What's Exactly The Matter With Me?: Memoirs of a life in music," by P.F. Sloan and S.E. Feinberg.
P.F. Sloan, the guy who wrote "Eve of Destruction," right?
The dirty little secret of these rock bios is they're terrible. Interesting subject matter, with too often too little revealed (can you say Linda Ronstadt?), but they're poorly written and even when the celebrity is involved there are glaring factual mistakes and agendas and my plan was just to skim it and toss it, but then I got hooked.
P.F. Sloan hated Lou Adler. Now Lou only gets good press these days, even though he's been out of the game for eons. He's the legend that goes to Laker games. But he's just a guy screwing him in Sloan's eyes. And Adler went on to much greater success, whereas after Lou...crickets for P.F.
So P.F. is paired up with Steve Barri, who he feels responsible for, since Barri is married with a kid. And neither of those are their real last names, hell, Sloan's dad renamed the clan from "Schlein" after leaving New York for Los Angeles and there was no big plan, Sloan and Barri didn't want to become legends, they wanted to SURVIVE!
We forget once upon a time music was a backward business peopled by thieves and crooks where the records came and went and if you were involved you might end up with some fame but very little money.
This is so different from today. Where constructing a hit single is like building a skyscraper. Nothing's done on a whim, except by the wannabes, but it used to be that those on the bottom could not get a chance, recording deals were rare, so they worked.
They worked as recently as the nineties.
As you are probably aware, Col. Bruce Hampton died on stage this week. And I can't help thinking how I saw him with Phish back in '92. And I'm looking up the gig and I'm stunned, Phish is playing across the country every night. With no major record deal and no fame, they were building it as they want along.
But now you cannot do that, because there's nowhere to play. The clubs have disappeared and those that still exist want deejays and no one will tolerate mediocrity, never mind new music. The audience wants all hits all the time and if you don't provide them they'll just immerse themselves in their mobile devices, shutting you out.
So Col. Bruce Hampton paid his dues. I forgot that he was in the Hampton Grease Band, but remembered he opened for the Mothers at the Fillmore, used to see their name on the poster, in an era where you had no chance of hearing most records released, your department store didn't rack them and you couldn't afford them.
And Hampton played with Zappa and formed the Aquarium Rescue Unit with ultimately famous players and kept on working until his 70th birthday party which turned into a wake. He never got rich, didn't even get famous. But if you follow musicians, it was a veritable who's who who showed up to pay tribute to him the other night.
That's the way you used to do it, formed a band and hit the road and if you were any good you got more bookings and you got high and got laid and some people dropped out and some sustained and ended up being able to do the same thing today, even though you wonder if you should be home with your wife and kids. This is the life you chose. You can barely even choose this life anymore.
But in P.F. Sloan's era it was different. There was no glamour. Believe me, everybody didn't want to be a rock star before the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, what you heard on the radio was ENTERTAINMENT!
But someone had to make it. Someone had to work for bupkes writing songs.
And most of these songs were shite. But you choose a line of work and get better by doing it and then get to know everybody and opportunity opens up. In this case, with Jan & Dean, Adler's other charges.
But then Sloan starts talking about the studio. Not only the players, but the engineers. What their skills were. Using limiters. How Jan Berry employed multiple units to get that sound and suddenly you're hooked, you want to go deeper, you just can't get enough, this is what you lived for.
Yes, we lived to go to Manny's to look at the guitars.
We wanted to know everybody in the credits. We wanted to know the tricks, how the magic was created.
And you didn't need a famous father, you didn't even need an education or money to participate, you just had to move to L.A. and move through the social network, only this one wasn't online, but virtual. And I'll tell you every damn day that today is better than yesterday, I don't want to go back to the pre-internet era with its loneliness and its boredom, but something's been lost in the transition, kinda like when cars lost their vent windows to a/c... Every once in a while you just want to open the vent.
And if you lived through this era, the early to mid-sixties, you remember. Going to school, having crushes, and being addicted to the radio. EVERYBODY knew the hits, a number one track is a fraction of what it was back then. You felt part of a group, a movement, a tide.
And it was all based on the music and interacting. It wasn't about accumulating likes but being real friends, actually knowing people that could move you down the board. And when Sloan talks about being locked out of the arena in Hawaii at a Beach Boys and more gig... You resonate. You haven't played in Hollywood unless you've felt left out. He was the bass player, but his friend Carl Wilson, who he hung with in the studio, didn't remember him. He was scheduled to play but he couldn't get inside, how big a deal was he? How big a deal are you? How big a deal am I?
And the recently departed Bob Krasnow worked at a label called Domain which begged Adler for songs. Used to be songs were everything and acts didn't write their own and Krasnow, et al, were always puffing up their image, pontificating about nonexistent sales, because you fake it to make it, truly.
As for the studio cats, Sloan delineates their qualities, their essence, the way Leon Russell could play octave notes on the piano with his left hand and it made all the difference. He was not the Master of Space & Time, he was a studio cat making a living, not getting rich, but having fun.
And then Sloan hears a voice and writes five hit songs in a night. Including "Eve of Destruction." Who knows where inspiration comes from. Who knows how whacked our heroes are. Hell, this is the same guy who says he sold fifty newspapers to James Dean two years after he died. And we fans can never get over the fact that our heroes are done. They had hits once, now they no longer do. Styles change, people lose the muse, but the truth is music is a business of luck and it runs out very quickly, be stunned you make it at all.
And the people in this book were stunned. They were building an edifice, the foundations of classic rock, music that has lasted forever, and they thought they were building cheap motels that wouldn't last a decade. Hell, Peter Grant sold out Zeppelin's catalogue, who'd want to listen to that music decades hence?
And reading Sloan's book I realize as much as I know I don't know anything, about the music business, about life. There is no master plan. You just march forward and try to make the best of the opportunities. And when you're changing the world, you think you're just earning a living. It's only with hindsight that you can see what you accomplished. All the rules and regulations, the restrictions you carped about, ironically led to your success. They channeled your efforts and when they were truly inane, you revolted, like Terry Melcher and Sloan, who locked out the Columbia engineer when he wouldn't link up the echo chambers, they figured they had an hour to make "Mr. Tambourine Man" work themselves.
And they did. With a lot of reverb and effects. Same performances, same basic tracks, but the tweaks turned it into a hit.
I've got no idea if Lou Adler is a good guy or a bad one, I don't know him well enough. But I do know that Brian Epstein sent out a promo kit trying to get someone to release the Beatles in America, and when Sloan liked the four tracks Epstein told Andrew Loog Oldham to send on the Stones. You see it was just that simple, serendipity. And the business was smaller. You knew the players and were not inundated with product.
And you didn't think you were changing the world.
But you were.
https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Exactly-Matter-Me-Memoirs-ebook/dp/B00LFSGOJW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493939750&sr=1-1&keywords=p.f. sloan&utm_source=phplist5834&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=The+P.F.+Sloan+Book
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When was the last time you changed your word processor? Remember arguing over WordPerfect and WordStar? Maybe you were a fan of the Mac-only WriteNow. But now you just use Word, or some notes app, maybe something built-in, Google Docs, something that is free. The point being we saw decades of constant evolution, tumult, change, and then it all stopped. Now maybe word processors will be superseded, by collaborative tools like Slack, but you give not a thought to your word processor of choice, assuming you pay at all.
That's another thing that's gone by the wayside. Used to be you needed not only a word processor, but a standalone spell-checker. Then spell-checking and all the rest of the add-ons were baked into the behemoth word processing programs and the little companies disappeared. Hell, even the little mobile app companies have disappeared. Hell, software in general, the kind you buy, is a moribund field.
Change happens.
But so does consolidation.
We were so busy watching the movie, jumping from stone to stone, from Friendster to MySpace to...that we thought it would never stop. We believed this was the way of the world. The internet begat constant refinement, innovation, we were wowed on a regular basis. Then we saw no need to replace our iPad, our mobile phones lasted a lot longer, almost no one buys a desktop computer and the laptop you own, unless the company gives you a new one, provides service for the better part of a decade.
Yesterday Facebook delivered astounding numbers. But most of the talk on the street is negative. Commentators want the social network to solve the unsolvable. Decades on we still have e-mail spam, we've never been able to eradicate piracy, but somehow Facebook should be able to cleanse its system of all heinous activity and provide a fair and balanced look at the world.
Never gonna happen. No matter how much money Zuckerberg throws at the problem.
And before the brouhaha about Live, the advertising community was up-in-arms about metrics. If Facebook was so bad, wouldn't you pull your spots?
But no, Facebook is the new network TV, the one of yore, before cable, when there were only three outlets, you bitched about the content, you bitched about the price, but Madison Avenue overpaid for the privilege of reaching its customers, network TV was nearly the only game in town, it blew everything else away in terms of reach and effectiveness.
But now it's even worse. Because newspapers and magazines, those that still exist, pay fewer dividends than ever before. And other than Google, so much online advertising is pissing in the wind, you just pays Facebook and hope for the best.
No one saw this coming. No one saw the consolidation in power. No one saw this rise in power. No one saw the calcification of systems.
But that is where we are.
And one can argue this concentration of power is even more important than what's happening in D.C. Because just like politicians learned you got elected on television, now the populace pays attention on the internet. So if you're not Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft or Facebook, you're not in the game, you're irrelevant.
And it's funny how the same people complaining about Facebook are lauding Apple. Is it because those running Apple are older and more experienced? Is it because Facebook is always testing the limits? Is it because you denigrate the newbie and laud the establishment?
And let's not forget, that unlike Apple, Facebook laid down beaucoup bucks, double digit billions for the lack of income WhatsApp and the burgeoning Instagram. Credit Zuck for making good bets. For taking a risk. For knowing that you've always got to stay in front of your competitors online, however few those might be...
Facebook has become an institution. Like the radio chains of yore, it's got AM and FM, the original service and Instagram. You built your life there, your friends are all there and there's no reason to go anywhere else.
So the belief that a big, unforeseen revolution is gonna happen online? A tsunami from left field that's gonna blow us away? Ain't gonna happen, that's all in the rearview mirror. The internet has been carved up and distributed.
And Facebook rules.
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That's another thing that's gone by the wayside. Used to be you needed not only a word processor, but a standalone spell-checker. Then spell-checking and all the rest of the add-ons were baked into the behemoth word processing programs and the little companies disappeared. Hell, even the little mobile app companies have disappeared. Hell, software in general, the kind you buy, is a moribund field.
Change happens.
But so does consolidation.
We were so busy watching the movie, jumping from stone to stone, from Friendster to MySpace to...that we thought it would never stop. We believed this was the way of the world. The internet begat constant refinement, innovation, we were wowed on a regular basis. Then we saw no need to replace our iPad, our mobile phones lasted a lot longer, almost no one buys a desktop computer and the laptop you own, unless the company gives you a new one, provides service for the better part of a decade.
Yesterday Facebook delivered astounding numbers. But most of the talk on the street is negative. Commentators want the social network to solve the unsolvable. Decades on we still have e-mail spam, we've never been able to eradicate piracy, but somehow Facebook should be able to cleanse its system of all heinous activity and provide a fair and balanced look at the world.
Never gonna happen. No matter how much money Zuckerberg throws at the problem.
And before the brouhaha about Live, the advertising community was up-in-arms about metrics. If Facebook was so bad, wouldn't you pull your spots?
But no, Facebook is the new network TV, the one of yore, before cable, when there were only three outlets, you bitched about the content, you bitched about the price, but Madison Avenue overpaid for the privilege of reaching its customers, network TV was nearly the only game in town, it blew everything else away in terms of reach and effectiveness.
But now it's even worse. Because newspapers and magazines, those that still exist, pay fewer dividends than ever before. And other than Google, so much online advertising is pissing in the wind, you just pays Facebook and hope for the best.
No one saw this coming. No one saw the consolidation in power. No one saw this rise in power. No one saw the calcification of systems.
But that is where we are.
And one can argue this concentration of power is even more important than what's happening in D.C. Because just like politicians learned you got elected on television, now the populace pays attention on the internet. So if you're not Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft or Facebook, you're not in the game, you're irrelevant.
And it's funny how the same people complaining about Facebook are lauding Apple. Is it because those running Apple are older and more experienced? Is it because Facebook is always testing the limits? Is it because you denigrate the newbie and laud the establishment?
And let's not forget, that unlike Apple, Facebook laid down beaucoup bucks, double digit billions for the lack of income WhatsApp and the burgeoning Instagram. Credit Zuck for making good bets. For taking a risk. For knowing that you've always got to stay in front of your competitors online, however few those might be...
Facebook has become an institution. Like the radio chains of yore, it's got AM and FM, the original service and Instagram. You built your life there, your friends are all there and there's no reason to go anywhere else.
So the belief that a big, unforeseen revolution is gonna happen online? A tsunami from left field that's gonna blow us away? Ain't gonna happen, that's all in the rearview mirror. The internet has been carved up and distributed.
And Facebook rules.
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Wednesday 3 May 2017
Mud Slide Slim
http://spoti.fi/2pb8sh6
I've got no idea what this song is about. Oh, I could apply my collegiate interpretive skills and come up with some stuff, tell you what certain phrases mean, but really it's as impressionistic to me as a late nineteenth century French painting with as much obfuscation as a Picasso.
Most people think "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon" is James Taylor's second album. And for most purposes, it was. The first available so briefly on Apple Records before it disappeared. But I always preferred the original take of "Carolina In My Mind" and I love the segues and come on, "Circle 'Round The Sun," even back then it reminded me of the majesty of life, the power of interpersonal relationships.
But "Sweet Baby James" was simpler. Like an art restorer had scrubbed away the accoutrements and only the essence was left. And who could predict it would be such a gigantic hit. You see at that point, singer-songwriters did not dominate the hit parade. And it wasn't like JT worked with rappers on the side, wrote hits for pop acts, he was just doing his own thing by his lonesome and it clicked.
Not that they didn't know they had something special.
And the most special song on that second album for me was "Country Road," do you know even Al Kooper did a cover? Al could always pick the tracks.
But "Country Road," it took numerous plays for the title track to sink in, even though the references to the Berkshires puts "Sweet Baby James" over the top for me now. Yet the first cut that resonated was the one before the closer on side one, "Country Road." I guess I just like those songs that could never be a hit, that were never shooting for that, those that pick you up and take you somewhere, grab your hand, get you to stand up and walk into the wilderness, kinda like "Take Me To The Pilot" off of Elton John's first (really second!) album, "Your Song" was the hit, but I loved the romp that came thereafter. Eventually I got into "The King Must Die" and "Sixty Years On," but what made me an Elton John fan was "Take Me To The Pilot," I used to live to drop the needle on that in my dorm room, it just shot lightning through my body, made me feel powerful, like the guy on this disc and me were on the same page, I was always looking to belong, I was always looking for my tribe.
"Walk on down
Walk on down
Walk on down"
This was back when we saved our money for stereos and guitars. We adjusted the speed of the turntable to the LP and then we figured out the chords, "Country Road" was one of the songs I could play and sing, I had a big yellow legal pad of the songs I'd figured out, my own personal fake book.
And then came "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon."
Am I the only person who loves "Love Has Brought Me Around"? No one ever mentions it, but I got it from the very first play and did not love "You've Got A Friend," although I did cotton to Carole King's iteration, with her banging her hands on the piano like she meant it.
Now this was back when you had to buy an album to hear it. Before they decided to sell LPs by making it a value proposition, of multiple hit singles. No, you were a fan and you laid down your money, broke the shrinkwrap and found out what you got.
Now one of my favorite JT songs is on the second side of "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon." That cut is "You Can Close Your Eyes," which is billed a a lullaby, a tale from an oldster to a young 'un, but that's not how I ever saw it, I saw it as the words of someone world-weary, a traveler who's stopping by just this night and is worn down and exasperated but after a few drinks and a few smokes reveals the bond that you shared and always will. Isn't it great when an old friend connects? You used to see each other every day, now it's much rarer than that, but the connection is palpable, it's what you live for, it's what makes life worth living.
And then there's the next cut, "Machine Gun Kelly," with its spoken intro and studio talk and hypnotic groove, we read about this one in advance, in "Rolling Stone," the burgeoning music press, and unlike the Eagles' "Desperado" soon to come it was less a hearkening back to what once was than a modern tale with a criminal moniker. Listening is like being in the first grade, maybe second, remember singing in rounds? Remembering singing at all?
I'd ask you if you remembered laughter, but this was after the misfire of "Led Zeppelin III," ZOSO was yet to come.
And when I bought the CD, which was one of my initial digital purchases, I used to program three tracks ad infinitum, and the third was "Riding On The Railroad." Travel used to be the American Pastime, getting in your car with the journey being more important than the destination, before flight was de rigueur and you could be anywhere in a matter of hours, go to a football game out of state on a whim. Now no one ever moves, but they fly all kinds of places. Used to be we didn't fly hardly at all, it was too expensive, but moving was something we did on a regular basis. Ask a baby boomer how many apartments he's lived in. We went away to college and never thought about returning home, we led peripatetic lives and lord only knows how we ended up where we did. No, that's wrong, I ended up in California because of the music, because of the Beach Boys.
Now there are other good tracks on "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon," most especially the second side opener "Hey Mister, That's Me Up On The Jukebox," and "Places In My Past" and "Long Ago And Far Away," but the one going through my brain at the kitchen table was "Mud Slide Slim."
Snippets were floating through my mind...
"I've been letting the time go by
Letting the time go by"
Have I? And what does this mean anyway? Should he speed up or slow down? I wonder this all the time. Do I stop and smell the roses or buckle down?
"'Cause there's nothing like
The sound of sweet soul music
To change a young lady's mind"
That's what they were, young ladies. I remember my dad insisting the letters I sent to girls being addressed MISS! All our music had boys and girls, men and women, we were all looking for a relationship, we had our long hair and bell bottoms, our look, we were just waiting for someone to open their heart to us, in the meantime all we had were these records.
"I'm gonna cash in my hand and
Pick up on a piece of land
And build myself a cabin back in the woods"
This was during the Back To The Land movement. After the tumult of the sixties, the failures of the Movement, people wanted to check out, leave the metropolis, bake their own bread and experience nature. Just imagine, with no internet!
"Mud Slide, I'm depending upon you
Mister Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon"
Who am I depending upon? The older I get the more I realize you can only depend upon yourself. I've met too many famous people to believe they're vessels for our hopes and dreams, they're flawed just like you and me. But once or maybe twice, or if truly talented even thrice, they channeled genius, and their works still survive. It's funny, no one wants to watch the movies of yore, never mind the TV shows, but the music, we're still listening.
And when I listen I feel whole.
I've been in a spot where I can't eat, I can't sleep and then when my brain started singing "Mud Slide Slim" I realized that was my escape, my ticket out, to put on the record and...
Groove.
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I've got no idea what this song is about. Oh, I could apply my collegiate interpretive skills and come up with some stuff, tell you what certain phrases mean, but really it's as impressionistic to me as a late nineteenth century French painting with as much obfuscation as a Picasso.
Most people think "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon" is James Taylor's second album. And for most purposes, it was. The first available so briefly on Apple Records before it disappeared. But I always preferred the original take of "Carolina In My Mind" and I love the segues and come on, "Circle 'Round The Sun," even back then it reminded me of the majesty of life, the power of interpersonal relationships.
But "Sweet Baby James" was simpler. Like an art restorer had scrubbed away the accoutrements and only the essence was left. And who could predict it would be such a gigantic hit. You see at that point, singer-songwriters did not dominate the hit parade. And it wasn't like JT worked with rappers on the side, wrote hits for pop acts, he was just doing his own thing by his lonesome and it clicked.
Not that they didn't know they had something special.
And the most special song on that second album for me was "Country Road," do you know even Al Kooper did a cover? Al could always pick the tracks.
But "Country Road," it took numerous plays for the title track to sink in, even though the references to the Berkshires puts "Sweet Baby James" over the top for me now. Yet the first cut that resonated was the one before the closer on side one, "Country Road." I guess I just like those songs that could never be a hit, that were never shooting for that, those that pick you up and take you somewhere, grab your hand, get you to stand up and walk into the wilderness, kinda like "Take Me To The Pilot" off of Elton John's first (really second!) album, "Your Song" was the hit, but I loved the romp that came thereafter. Eventually I got into "The King Must Die" and "Sixty Years On," but what made me an Elton John fan was "Take Me To The Pilot," I used to live to drop the needle on that in my dorm room, it just shot lightning through my body, made me feel powerful, like the guy on this disc and me were on the same page, I was always looking to belong, I was always looking for my tribe.
"Walk on down
Walk on down
Walk on down"
This was back when we saved our money for stereos and guitars. We adjusted the speed of the turntable to the LP and then we figured out the chords, "Country Road" was one of the songs I could play and sing, I had a big yellow legal pad of the songs I'd figured out, my own personal fake book.
And then came "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon."
Am I the only person who loves "Love Has Brought Me Around"? No one ever mentions it, but I got it from the very first play and did not love "You've Got A Friend," although I did cotton to Carole King's iteration, with her banging her hands on the piano like she meant it.
Now this was back when you had to buy an album to hear it. Before they decided to sell LPs by making it a value proposition, of multiple hit singles. No, you were a fan and you laid down your money, broke the shrinkwrap and found out what you got.
Now one of my favorite JT songs is on the second side of "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon." That cut is "You Can Close Your Eyes," which is billed a a lullaby, a tale from an oldster to a young 'un, but that's not how I ever saw it, I saw it as the words of someone world-weary, a traveler who's stopping by just this night and is worn down and exasperated but after a few drinks and a few smokes reveals the bond that you shared and always will. Isn't it great when an old friend connects? You used to see each other every day, now it's much rarer than that, but the connection is palpable, it's what you live for, it's what makes life worth living.
And then there's the next cut, "Machine Gun Kelly," with its spoken intro and studio talk and hypnotic groove, we read about this one in advance, in "Rolling Stone," the burgeoning music press, and unlike the Eagles' "Desperado" soon to come it was less a hearkening back to what once was than a modern tale with a criminal moniker. Listening is like being in the first grade, maybe second, remember singing in rounds? Remembering singing at all?
I'd ask you if you remembered laughter, but this was after the misfire of "Led Zeppelin III," ZOSO was yet to come.
And when I bought the CD, which was one of my initial digital purchases, I used to program three tracks ad infinitum, and the third was "Riding On The Railroad." Travel used to be the American Pastime, getting in your car with the journey being more important than the destination, before flight was de rigueur and you could be anywhere in a matter of hours, go to a football game out of state on a whim. Now no one ever moves, but they fly all kinds of places. Used to be we didn't fly hardly at all, it was too expensive, but moving was something we did on a regular basis. Ask a baby boomer how many apartments he's lived in. We went away to college and never thought about returning home, we led peripatetic lives and lord only knows how we ended up where we did. No, that's wrong, I ended up in California because of the music, because of the Beach Boys.
Now there are other good tracks on "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon," most especially the second side opener "Hey Mister, That's Me Up On The Jukebox," and "Places In My Past" and "Long Ago And Far Away," but the one going through my brain at the kitchen table was "Mud Slide Slim."
Snippets were floating through my mind...
"I've been letting the time go by
Letting the time go by"
Have I? And what does this mean anyway? Should he speed up or slow down? I wonder this all the time. Do I stop and smell the roses or buckle down?
"'Cause there's nothing like
The sound of sweet soul music
To change a young lady's mind"
That's what they were, young ladies. I remember my dad insisting the letters I sent to girls being addressed MISS! All our music had boys and girls, men and women, we were all looking for a relationship, we had our long hair and bell bottoms, our look, we were just waiting for someone to open their heart to us, in the meantime all we had were these records.
"I'm gonna cash in my hand and
Pick up on a piece of land
And build myself a cabin back in the woods"
This was during the Back To The Land movement. After the tumult of the sixties, the failures of the Movement, people wanted to check out, leave the metropolis, bake their own bread and experience nature. Just imagine, with no internet!
"Mud Slide, I'm depending upon you
Mister Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon"
Who am I depending upon? The older I get the more I realize you can only depend upon yourself. I've met too many famous people to believe they're vessels for our hopes and dreams, they're flawed just like you and me. But once or maybe twice, or if truly talented even thrice, they channeled genius, and their works still survive. It's funny, no one wants to watch the movies of yore, never mind the TV shows, but the music, we're still listening.
And when I listen I feel whole.
I've been in a spot where I can't eat, I can't sleep and then when my brain started singing "Mud Slide Slim" I realized that was my escape, my ticket out, to put on the record and...
Groove.
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Tuesday 2 May 2017
Colbert & Kimmel
Funny is funny.
And sincerity never goes out of style.
I'm freaked out. Every day I read three newspapers from cover to cover, I refresh their apps, comb news sites, trying to get a handle on what is going on.
I can't.
I see Rupert Murdoch is sacrificing his Fox News empire to control Sky, which makes me wonder how much influence Rupert has anyway. It's positively frightening when the media consults with the elected officials and tells them what's going on, read Jim Rutenberg's column, that's exactly what Murdoch's apparatchiks did.
And then we've got a President who ricochets like a pinball from one opinion to another. If I acted this way in college, I'd have flunked out. It was all about preparation and staying the course, knowing the consequences. What are the consequences to the shenanigans in D.C? I don't know!
And then you have the "New York Times," which in an effort to appear unbiased, even though the right wing has completely neutralized the news outlet and believe it is, hires a right wing columnist who says the problem with climate scientists is they're just too strident, they're just too convinced.
Hmm... We grew up in a nation where free speech was a mantra. But at what point do you channel Howard Beale and say I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore?
Turns out that Middlebury professor apologized to protesting students for not keeping them in the loop. We all want to be in the loop, we all want to know what's going on, we all want to be considered.
And then there was that column re Ann Coulter and Berkeley... It's not like she's gone unheard, that she doesn't get a platform.
And my point is when are the libtards, as my inane uneducated readers label the left wing, gonna grow a pair?
Last night Stephen Colbert did. He ravaged Donald Trump. A complete no-no, Karl Rove still has his knickers in a twist.
But I thank god someone stood up. Furthermore, he was funny. They're trying to play gotcha politics, saying he made a homophobic comment, but the truth is money talks and Colbert is killing it in the ratings and CBS ain't gonna do nothing to upset the juggernaut.
You see, taking a stand is good business.
Those of us who lived through the sixties know this, but those who didn't, who came of age in the Ronald Reagan get mine before you can get yours MTV era, don't.
So we've got a false equivalency in promotion. We believe the number one rule is not to offend anybody. But this is plain wrong, especially in a world where it's nearly impossible to get attention anyway.
The world runs on buzz. How are you gonna get it?
By excelling at your job, by being sincere.
I know they are making new records, I know there's a business there, but it's peopled by self-centered wimps who are seemingly too dumb to take a stand. Don't tell me it's hard to write a hit protest song, Colbert's writers come up with new material every night. You mean you can't write a hit song if you try? Even with Max Martin and his team?
OF COURSE YOU CAN!
But you don't want to take the risk.
The Dixies were chicked nearly a decade ago. We no longer live in that world. We live in a world of tribes, where everybody gets their own news from their own source, and your only hope is to energize your tribe so they spread the word elsewhere. PR doesn't work, none of the usual marketing angles work. God, just open the paper, they're always hyping somebody, and then the record disappears, just like that.
Artists take a stand, that's what they do.
And then we come to the strange case of Jimmy Kimmel. Who built his career on irreverence and last night spent the better part of fifteen minutes telling the story of his newborn's heart disease, at the end coming down hard against the right wing's plan to eviscerate health care coverage and preexisting condition exclusion. Hell, his kid was BORN with a preexisting condition, what kind of chance did he have?
It's hard to argue with personal experience.
But that's what an artist does, channel personal experience.
For twenty five years, late night has been repeating the David Letterman hijinks formula. Until Agent Orange became President and Colbert decided to flip the script. And Jimmy Fallon, everybody's darling, became like Frankie Avalon after the advent of the Beatles. And Fallon can't change, he can't catch up, because it's not in his DNA.
But it is in Colbert's.
And maybe it's not in the DNA of today's musical artists, but like Mr. Avalon and Mr. Fallon that just means they're out of step with the times.
Taking a stand is good business. Controversy is good business. When it's sincere, when it's not fake.
And it's been about fake marketing in the music business for oh-so-long.
Something's gotta give. And chances are it won't come from the usual suspects. Someone from left field is gonna stand up and the media is gonna fan the flames of the conflagration and it's going to get ever bigger.
The only question is when.
Colbert-short version: http://bit.ly/2puHZOq
Colbert-long version: http://bit.ly/2qoW40W
Kimmel: http://bit.ly/2p3JTTB
Jim Rutenberg: "Murdochs' TV Deal in Britain Hinges on 3 Words 'Fit and Proper'": http://nyti.ms/2pDBWFA
"An Apology from PoliSci Chair to the Community": http://bit.ly/2pVZYhZ
"The Problem with NY Times and climate change isn't what you think": http://bit.ly/2qqaHkA
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And sincerity never goes out of style.
I'm freaked out. Every day I read three newspapers from cover to cover, I refresh their apps, comb news sites, trying to get a handle on what is going on.
I can't.
I see Rupert Murdoch is sacrificing his Fox News empire to control Sky, which makes me wonder how much influence Rupert has anyway. It's positively frightening when the media consults with the elected officials and tells them what's going on, read Jim Rutenberg's column, that's exactly what Murdoch's apparatchiks did.
And then we've got a President who ricochets like a pinball from one opinion to another. If I acted this way in college, I'd have flunked out. It was all about preparation and staying the course, knowing the consequences. What are the consequences to the shenanigans in D.C? I don't know!
And then you have the "New York Times," which in an effort to appear unbiased, even though the right wing has completely neutralized the news outlet and believe it is, hires a right wing columnist who says the problem with climate scientists is they're just too strident, they're just too convinced.
Hmm... We grew up in a nation where free speech was a mantra. But at what point do you channel Howard Beale and say I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore?
Turns out that Middlebury professor apologized to protesting students for not keeping them in the loop. We all want to be in the loop, we all want to know what's going on, we all want to be considered.
And then there was that column re Ann Coulter and Berkeley... It's not like she's gone unheard, that she doesn't get a platform.
And my point is when are the libtards, as my inane uneducated readers label the left wing, gonna grow a pair?
Last night Stephen Colbert did. He ravaged Donald Trump. A complete no-no, Karl Rove still has his knickers in a twist.
But I thank god someone stood up. Furthermore, he was funny. They're trying to play gotcha politics, saying he made a homophobic comment, but the truth is money talks and Colbert is killing it in the ratings and CBS ain't gonna do nothing to upset the juggernaut.
You see, taking a stand is good business.
Those of us who lived through the sixties know this, but those who didn't, who came of age in the Ronald Reagan get mine before you can get yours MTV era, don't.
So we've got a false equivalency in promotion. We believe the number one rule is not to offend anybody. But this is plain wrong, especially in a world where it's nearly impossible to get attention anyway.
The world runs on buzz. How are you gonna get it?
By excelling at your job, by being sincere.
I know they are making new records, I know there's a business there, but it's peopled by self-centered wimps who are seemingly too dumb to take a stand. Don't tell me it's hard to write a hit protest song, Colbert's writers come up with new material every night. You mean you can't write a hit song if you try? Even with Max Martin and his team?
OF COURSE YOU CAN!
But you don't want to take the risk.
The Dixies were chicked nearly a decade ago. We no longer live in that world. We live in a world of tribes, where everybody gets their own news from their own source, and your only hope is to energize your tribe so they spread the word elsewhere. PR doesn't work, none of the usual marketing angles work. God, just open the paper, they're always hyping somebody, and then the record disappears, just like that.
Artists take a stand, that's what they do.
And then we come to the strange case of Jimmy Kimmel. Who built his career on irreverence and last night spent the better part of fifteen minutes telling the story of his newborn's heart disease, at the end coming down hard against the right wing's plan to eviscerate health care coverage and preexisting condition exclusion. Hell, his kid was BORN with a preexisting condition, what kind of chance did he have?
It's hard to argue with personal experience.
But that's what an artist does, channel personal experience.
For twenty five years, late night has been repeating the David Letterman hijinks formula. Until Agent Orange became President and Colbert decided to flip the script. And Jimmy Fallon, everybody's darling, became like Frankie Avalon after the advent of the Beatles. And Fallon can't change, he can't catch up, because it's not in his DNA.
But it is in Colbert's.
And maybe it's not in the DNA of today's musical artists, but like Mr. Avalon and Mr. Fallon that just means they're out of step with the times.
Taking a stand is good business. Controversy is good business. When it's sincere, when it's not fake.
And it's been about fake marketing in the music business for oh-so-long.
Something's gotta give. And chances are it won't come from the usual suspects. Someone from left field is gonna stand up and the media is gonna fan the flames of the conflagration and it's going to get ever bigger.
The only question is when.
Colbert-short version: http://bit.ly/2puHZOq
Colbert-long version: http://bit.ly/2qoW40W
Kimmel: http://bit.ly/2p3JTTB
Jim Rutenberg: "Murdochs' TV Deal in Britain Hinges on 3 Words 'Fit and Proper'": http://nyti.ms/2pDBWFA
"An Apology from PoliSci Chair to the Community": http://bit.ly/2pVZYhZ
"The Problem with NY Times and climate change isn't what you think": http://bit.ly/2qqaHkA
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More Fyre Festival
Why did everybody GO?
The more I think about it, the longer this story stays in the news, the more I think the promoters were geniuses. I mean how in the hell did they get everybody to pay so much, to travel, to go to an untested event put on by nobodies?
Influencers.
By now you've probably read Nick Bilton's "Vanity Fair" piece on the Fyre pitch deck. No, I did not watch the video. Why does everybody who can write think that they can talk? Why does everybody who publishes want their writers to become talking heads? The worst are the ones on the "New York Times," who sound like they're giving a presentation in high school social studies class. But that's all a disclaimer, as in if anything I say below was covered by Bilton in his clip, I didn't see it, so don't accuse me of plagiarizing him.
But I do give Bilton credit for amplifying the key to Fyre's success. The 400 "Fyre Starters" who spread the word.
Think about that, major corporations, Fortune 500 entities, can't get the word out.
Talk to a traditional concert promoter, they'll tell you the number one problem is awareness, making people know the show is happening.
And then this wanker from nowhere, a veritable crook, sees the obvious and capitalizes on it. Call it a Napster moment. Where the ignorant turn tradition on its head. Who would want lousy sounding MP3s? Who would listen to nobody influencers?
THE PEOPLE WHO PAID TO GO TO THIS SHOW!
There's a shadow economy. A shadow mainstream. And it's not in the newspaper and it's not on the news sites, but on Instagram, all the social networks pooh-poohed by the mainstream. That's where the people hang out.
You wonder why people still believe all the fees go to Ticketmaster? Because they live in an echo chamber where reality never intrudes.
Kinda like going to a newbie festival. They know the new tech device works right out of the box, why shouldn't the festival? It's only the oldsters who've been burned before who know otherwise.
And the oldsters believe the draw is the talent.
It hasn't been that way for a long long time. Quick, scan the acts at Coachella, if you know more than half of them you work for Goldenvoice. But nobody cares, as long as there are a few well-known headliners and I can go and shoot selfies and say I was there.
This is contrary to everything we've always known. Shows have been sold on talent. People will show up in a barn to be treated like cattle if the right act is on stage. And that still might be true, but even more true is if you treat people with respect, deliver luxury, make them feel like they belong, they'll spend a whole hell of a lot more than the nobodies showing up in the cattle car.
We've got it upside down. We keep listening to people bitch that they cannot get a ticket at face value, they want to sit right up front for fifty bucks. But that is the vocal minority. Turns out most people have no problem shelling out dough for a good seat and a good experience, that's why StubHub, the entire secondary market, has triumphed!
Instead of castigating Fyre, we should be looking for lessons.
One, the barrier to entry is not that high. The acts all agreed to appear, it's only when the checks were not forthcoming that they balked. If you're expecting talent to take a stand, you're wrong. This is the same talent that salivates for privates, will show up to play for third world dictators.
So if Fyre just had deeper pockets and had hired someone who'd done it before...
It would have been genius.
Kinda like Burning Man in the beginning.
They call this disruption.
Yes, millennials like experiences. But they like to be INVOLVED in the experience. That was the selling point of Fyre, you were INCLUDED! And the music business has been based on exclusion from day one. And although the acts may be too big to deign to hang, turns out these social-influencer nobodies are not. But the truth is they are not nobodies, they might have no talent, but they're stars to the fans. They post more and are more accessible than real talent. And you believe you too can make it, just like them, get free gear from Old Navy, drive a Ford Fusion for a week, nothing makes you feel like a star more than getting free stuff.
And the advertisers love it. That's Bilton's point and I'm with him on that. Regular ads don't work, no matter how much money is spent. But if you can get real live human beings to use your product... We're all complicit, we love brands more than bands. Hell, if I write negative stuff about Apple my inbox goes berserk, with vitriol from fans who know more about the company than they do of any band. But if I excoriate an act, I'll just hear from a couple of people. The acts are not universal, the brands are, they're the ones with the power. And if you can find one social-influencer, one successful "artist" who will say no to the brands...
That's their income right there. That's who they're working for.
And, of course, under the law the social influencers should say they're getting paid to promote Fyre. But why don't they do that after they declare the perks as income on their taxes, worried that an IRS hobbled by the Republicans is gonna catch them, are you kidding me?
He who colors inside the lines is now a chump. We've got an uneducated nitwit for a President who does nothing but lie yet the rank and file should play by the rules?
You're dreaming if you think that's gonna happen.
Now there are some promoters making bank doing events featuring influencers/YouTube stars.
But the truly savvy oldsters will now utilize influencers to sell their shows. And those shows will be less band on stage and more events for the attendees to participate and feel good about themselves. It's kind of like the EDM ethos. WE'RE THE PARTY! The guy on stage is literally only the deejay.
And the oldsters can't understand that either.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/fyre-festival-pitch-deck?utm_source=phplist5830&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=More+Fyre+Festival
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The more I think about it, the longer this story stays in the news, the more I think the promoters were geniuses. I mean how in the hell did they get everybody to pay so much, to travel, to go to an untested event put on by nobodies?
Influencers.
By now you've probably read Nick Bilton's "Vanity Fair" piece on the Fyre pitch deck. No, I did not watch the video. Why does everybody who can write think that they can talk? Why does everybody who publishes want their writers to become talking heads? The worst are the ones on the "New York Times," who sound like they're giving a presentation in high school social studies class. But that's all a disclaimer, as in if anything I say below was covered by Bilton in his clip, I didn't see it, so don't accuse me of plagiarizing him.
But I do give Bilton credit for amplifying the key to Fyre's success. The 400 "Fyre Starters" who spread the word.
Think about that, major corporations, Fortune 500 entities, can't get the word out.
Talk to a traditional concert promoter, they'll tell you the number one problem is awareness, making people know the show is happening.
And then this wanker from nowhere, a veritable crook, sees the obvious and capitalizes on it. Call it a Napster moment. Where the ignorant turn tradition on its head. Who would want lousy sounding MP3s? Who would listen to nobody influencers?
THE PEOPLE WHO PAID TO GO TO THIS SHOW!
There's a shadow economy. A shadow mainstream. And it's not in the newspaper and it's not on the news sites, but on Instagram, all the social networks pooh-poohed by the mainstream. That's where the people hang out.
You wonder why people still believe all the fees go to Ticketmaster? Because they live in an echo chamber where reality never intrudes.
Kinda like going to a newbie festival. They know the new tech device works right out of the box, why shouldn't the festival? It's only the oldsters who've been burned before who know otherwise.
And the oldsters believe the draw is the talent.
It hasn't been that way for a long long time. Quick, scan the acts at Coachella, if you know more than half of them you work for Goldenvoice. But nobody cares, as long as there are a few well-known headliners and I can go and shoot selfies and say I was there.
This is contrary to everything we've always known. Shows have been sold on talent. People will show up in a barn to be treated like cattle if the right act is on stage. And that still might be true, but even more true is if you treat people with respect, deliver luxury, make them feel like they belong, they'll spend a whole hell of a lot more than the nobodies showing up in the cattle car.
We've got it upside down. We keep listening to people bitch that they cannot get a ticket at face value, they want to sit right up front for fifty bucks. But that is the vocal minority. Turns out most people have no problem shelling out dough for a good seat and a good experience, that's why StubHub, the entire secondary market, has triumphed!
Instead of castigating Fyre, we should be looking for lessons.
One, the barrier to entry is not that high. The acts all agreed to appear, it's only when the checks were not forthcoming that they balked. If you're expecting talent to take a stand, you're wrong. This is the same talent that salivates for privates, will show up to play for third world dictators.
So if Fyre just had deeper pockets and had hired someone who'd done it before...
It would have been genius.
Kinda like Burning Man in the beginning.
They call this disruption.
Yes, millennials like experiences. But they like to be INVOLVED in the experience. That was the selling point of Fyre, you were INCLUDED! And the music business has been based on exclusion from day one. And although the acts may be too big to deign to hang, turns out these social-influencer nobodies are not. But the truth is they are not nobodies, they might have no talent, but they're stars to the fans. They post more and are more accessible than real talent. And you believe you too can make it, just like them, get free gear from Old Navy, drive a Ford Fusion for a week, nothing makes you feel like a star more than getting free stuff.
And the advertisers love it. That's Bilton's point and I'm with him on that. Regular ads don't work, no matter how much money is spent. But if you can get real live human beings to use your product... We're all complicit, we love brands more than bands. Hell, if I write negative stuff about Apple my inbox goes berserk, with vitriol from fans who know more about the company than they do of any band. But if I excoriate an act, I'll just hear from a couple of people. The acts are not universal, the brands are, they're the ones with the power. And if you can find one social-influencer, one successful "artist" who will say no to the brands...
That's their income right there. That's who they're working for.
And, of course, under the law the social influencers should say they're getting paid to promote Fyre. But why don't they do that after they declare the perks as income on their taxes, worried that an IRS hobbled by the Republicans is gonna catch them, are you kidding me?
He who colors inside the lines is now a chump. We've got an uneducated nitwit for a President who does nothing but lie yet the rank and file should play by the rules?
You're dreaming if you think that's gonna happen.
Now there are some promoters making bank doing events featuring influencers/YouTube stars.
But the truly savvy oldsters will now utilize influencers to sell their shows. And those shows will be less band on stage and more events for the attendees to participate and feel good about themselves. It's kind of like the EDM ethos. WE'RE THE PARTY! The guy on stage is literally only the deejay.
And the oldsters can't understand that either.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/fyre-festival-pitch-deck?utm_source=phplist5830&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=More+Fyre+Festival
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Monday 1 May 2017
iPhone 8
There is no pent-up demand.
Tech is all about utility, not fashion. And there's no breakthrough coming, other than a curved screen.
You needed a new phone when they went from 3G to LTE.
You needed a new phone when they increased the screen size.
You no longer need a new phone, especially since the carriers have stopped subsidizing the purchase, now that the true cost is evident.
People drive their cars ever-longer, but analysts believe consumers are all gonna fork over a thousand bucks for a fashion statement?
Not gonna happen. Otherwise, 3-D TV would have been a juggernaut and you'd be throwing away your present flat screen for one with 4k.
Not that Apple isn't powerful.
While the fanboys cheered on ever more expensive and less unique products, all power was consolidated in the four horsemen, Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook. That's the story here, not the iPhone. With a beachhead in tech you can get ever-bigger. Hell, Facebook bought Instagram, never mind WhatsApp, and it looks like Snapchat is gonna struggle. Maybe not, but going it alone is nearly impossible these days, because of deep pockets and network effects.
Apple is a giant network. With people inured to their ecosystem. That's the power of the company, not some me-too, gussied-up new phone. How much does it cost to switch? Hell, a friend of mine just got a new 7 Plus. Transferring photos was a nightmare, because he's on WINDOWS! Yup, you want to be an all Mac all the time person, all Apple or all Android, not because one device is superior to another, but because you don't want to waste your life trying to make your devices work, especially in a world where they all speak to each other and one in which there's very little tech help.
So Apple will report its numbers tomorrow. They won't be terrible and they won't be great. It's like a new Air Supply album, only that band can still tour decades on with the same songs and no one will want anything Apple sells today that far in the future.
And the stock went up and if you read the newspaper you'll learn that the Cupertino company is a juggernaut.
But it's not.
Let's not focus on the stock split and what the increase in share price really is, let's just say that that the only thing Apple has got going for it is its ecosystem. I just paid four grand for a laptop that's good, with a ridiculous touch bar that no one who knows how to touch-type, who could afford a machine like this, would ever use. They admitted the Mac Pro was a failure and the Watch is about as important as Apple TV, which was overrun by also-rans.
So if you believe in Apple you're sheerly looking at the numbers. That giant cash hoard. And if you were looking to the future you wouldn't be worrying about that blip on the radar screen known as the iPhone 8, but what breakthrough is coming down the line, what will cement people's loyalty to the Apple ecosystem and get them to spend more bucks on hardware in a world where you lay down ever less frequently. Your computer is good enough, your phone is good enough, your tablet is good enough, which is why iPad sales have tanked. Where's the runway?
The internet is all about monopolies. When Apple was niche, even after Jobs came back, it was an interesting little company. It wasn't until the iPod that revenue soared.
Amazon has got a monopoly on retail.
Google has got a monopoly on search.
Facebook has a near-monopoly on social networks.
What is Apple's monopoly again?
P.S. It's been five years, as David Bowie once sang, since Jobs's death, name the breakthrough under Tim Cook.
P.P.S. Good is good enough, that's why the world is on Android, this is Clayton Christensen 101, it's why Windows 95 almost killed the Mac. Apple needs a great leap forward.
P.P.P.S. People will overspend for breakthrough items. Exhibit A, Tesla. Proving that people will buy a product from a company with no track record in that sphere.
P.P.P.P.S. Juggernauts are about belonging, can you say Beats headphones? A mediocre product Jimmy Iovine willed cool?
P.P.P.P.P.S. Services, schmervices. You'll hear talk about this tomorrow, Apple Music, storage, but the number isn't big enough to matter.
P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The cash hoard. They're afraid to spend it, they don't know what to buy, they're afraid of the stock stalling. Really, Apple is little different from AT&T and Verizon, forces of nature that hit a wall when the market became saturated.
P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. All of the above is long term. In the short term Apple is okay, but history tells us tech companies crater overnight. When will that be? In order to avoid this fate Apple must spend its cash hoard, to compete with Amazon, Facebook and Google. They must buy market share/influence, because based on Ping they sure don't know how to invent anymore.
Finally... Of course the iPhone 8 will sell well at first, there are always early adopters who want to parade the latest device, but then what? Remember the Mac? Launched in 1984 to great fanfare, then it sold well for about a minute. Even the record business has learned it's not about first week sales, but sustained listening.
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Tech is all about utility, not fashion. And there's no breakthrough coming, other than a curved screen.
You needed a new phone when they went from 3G to LTE.
You needed a new phone when they increased the screen size.
You no longer need a new phone, especially since the carriers have stopped subsidizing the purchase, now that the true cost is evident.
People drive their cars ever-longer, but analysts believe consumers are all gonna fork over a thousand bucks for a fashion statement?
Not gonna happen. Otherwise, 3-D TV would have been a juggernaut and you'd be throwing away your present flat screen for one with 4k.
Not that Apple isn't powerful.
While the fanboys cheered on ever more expensive and less unique products, all power was consolidated in the four horsemen, Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook. That's the story here, not the iPhone. With a beachhead in tech you can get ever-bigger. Hell, Facebook bought Instagram, never mind WhatsApp, and it looks like Snapchat is gonna struggle. Maybe not, but going it alone is nearly impossible these days, because of deep pockets and network effects.
Apple is a giant network. With people inured to their ecosystem. That's the power of the company, not some me-too, gussied-up new phone. How much does it cost to switch? Hell, a friend of mine just got a new 7 Plus. Transferring photos was a nightmare, because he's on WINDOWS! Yup, you want to be an all Mac all the time person, all Apple or all Android, not because one device is superior to another, but because you don't want to waste your life trying to make your devices work, especially in a world where they all speak to each other and one in which there's very little tech help.
So Apple will report its numbers tomorrow. They won't be terrible and they won't be great. It's like a new Air Supply album, only that band can still tour decades on with the same songs and no one will want anything Apple sells today that far in the future.
And the stock went up and if you read the newspaper you'll learn that the Cupertino company is a juggernaut.
But it's not.
Let's not focus on the stock split and what the increase in share price really is, let's just say that that the only thing Apple has got going for it is its ecosystem. I just paid four grand for a laptop that's good, with a ridiculous touch bar that no one who knows how to touch-type, who could afford a machine like this, would ever use. They admitted the Mac Pro was a failure and the Watch is about as important as Apple TV, which was overrun by also-rans.
So if you believe in Apple you're sheerly looking at the numbers. That giant cash hoard. And if you were looking to the future you wouldn't be worrying about that blip on the radar screen known as the iPhone 8, but what breakthrough is coming down the line, what will cement people's loyalty to the Apple ecosystem and get them to spend more bucks on hardware in a world where you lay down ever less frequently. Your computer is good enough, your phone is good enough, your tablet is good enough, which is why iPad sales have tanked. Where's the runway?
The internet is all about monopolies. When Apple was niche, even after Jobs came back, it was an interesting little company. It wasn't until the iPod that revenue soared.
Amazon has got a monopoly on retail.
Google has got a monopoly on search.
Facebook has a near-monopoly on social networks.
What is Apple's monopoly again?
P.S. It's been five years, as David Bowie once sang, since Jobs's death, name the breakthrough under Tim Cook.
P.P.S. Good is good enough, that's why the world is on Android, this is Clayton Christensen 101, it's why Windows 95 almost killed the Mac. Apple needs a great leap forward.
P.P.P.S. People will overspend for breakthrough items. Exhibit A, Tesla. Proving that people will buy a product from a company with no track record in that sphere.
P.P.P.P.S. Juggernauts are about belonging, can you say Beats headphones? A mediocre product Jimmy Iovine willed cool?
P.P.P.P.P.S. Services, schmervices. You'll hear talk about this tomorrow, Apple Music, storage, but the number isn't big enough to matter.
P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The cash hoard. They're afraid to spend it, they don't know what to buy, they're afraid of the stock stalling. Really, Apple is little different from AT&T and Verizon, forces of nature that hit a wall when the market became saturated.
P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. All of the above is long term. In the short term Apple is okay, but history tells us tech companies crater overnight. When will that be? In order to avoid this fate Apple must spend its cash hoard, to compete with Amazon, Facebook and Google. They must buy market share/influence, because based on Ping they sure don't know how to invent anymore.
Finally... Of course the iPhone 8 will sell well at first, there are always early adopters who want to parade the latest device, but then what? Remember the Mac? Launched in 1984 to great fanfare, then it sold well for about a minute. Even the record business has learned it's not about first week sales, but sustained listening.
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See And Ignore
It's not that you can't reach us, it's that we don't CARE!
Even worse, if you overload us, we go on backlash.
Kinda like Mac DeMarco... I knew the name, but there was an exquisite article on him in yesterday's "Times," saying how he gave out his address so his fans could stop by, and it made me wonder, who was his publicity agent? Getting into the "Times" is so hard.
It's Jessica Linker at Pitch Perfect PR. But if you use her beware. Now I HATE MAC DEMARCO!
How did this happen? How did he go from hero to zero so fast in my book?
It was the plethora of stories based around his new release that I immediately saw as I started to Google.
That's right, marketing is still old school in a new school environment. No one is as bad a spammer as a marketer. Who believes if they keep telling us again and again we'll care. Or if they try to be hip we'll embrace them, like Pepsi. Or that they are our friend and will give us money to keep us in business
I recommend the story #VANLIFE in the April 24th edition of the "New Yorker." You've read about this couple, these wankers traveling around in their VW getting rich posting to Instagram.
Only it's not true. In 2016 they made $18,000, which won't even pay for a semester at school, and they're beholden to these sponsors who want it a certain way when they want it.
But it even gets worse...
The audience is only interested in sex.
The more they say it's different, the more it stays the same.
If they post a pic of Emily half-naked, they get a lot of likes. A sunset? That's a stiff and the sponsors are pissed.
But you keep reading in today's world you can go your own way, use the new tools to sustain your dream. Yeah, that's right, if your dream is driving all night for bupkes on Uber.
But there was an interesting tidbit in that VANLIFE story. Micro-influencers tend to have higher engagement rates, their followers are more active, therefore sponsors who want to sell something very specific to those people are interested. In other words, mass can work against you.
But we keep hearing of the mass with the Kardashians and PewDiePie but this is less about the distraction of an ignorant audience, which believes it too can get rich in our pyramid scheme world, than an indictment of the purveyors, the marketers, who just can't fathom that the world has changed, never mind adjust to it.
Google wins because it's all pull. You Google what you want and you find it there and the advertiser pays for that view/real estate.
Then there's the canard that we must all turn off our ad-blockers so we can be followed around the web by companies we checked out once, as if being reminded over and over again will soften us up. Never worked for me, I just hate these companies, feel proud I use an ad-blocker. Because it's a scam wherein those with space sell it to those with dollars under the illusion it works. But it doesn't. So many of the dollars spent on Facebook and YouTube are a complete waste.
So we need a new way.
Then again, if we had that new way we all wouldn't have spam in our inbox, never mind our mobile phones. But if you follow the spam, you find out an infinitesimal number of people have to respond for the hackers to get rich. And you hate the detritus.
But that's what's going on in the aboveboard world too. You're telling me again and again and again and I'm just not interested. And now, with so many more places to tell me, I'm hearing it to the point of extreme frustration.
How many people read more than the local newspaper in the pre-internet era?
Very few. But now we all see multiple stories online. And they're all the same. Revealing that most are not news at all, but publicity, and that it's all about selling, selling, selling.
It just doesn't work. Marketers have to come up with new techniques to sell their wares. Tech firms must lead the way. Then again, these tech firms, led by lauded Zuck and Sheryl, are lying, cheating, scumbags too. They're busted every few months for heinous activities. As for Sheryl Sandberg, I'm sorry her husband passed, but who woke up and made her the queen of coping and recovery? Her message has been blasted all through the media for the past two weeks, to the point I abhor her, she's a national joke, AND SHE DOESN'T REALIZE IT!
Isn't she making enough money over there at Facebook?
What makes her an expert?
But the old school media believes it's a feel good story and they've got to make somebody a star.
But most of today's stars last minutes, can you say Milo Whatshisname? If you get bumped up to first class you become ridiculed and ejected. The second decade of the twenty first century is about putting your head down and doing the work. Otherwise, you're a target, just like Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly and the rest of Fox became, to their detriment. When you're flying high, you shut up. Be thankful we're paying attention and listening at all.
We need a giant reset. We've got a modern communications system run by old school rules. We've amped up to 11 what we used to know and do. Yes, in the days of three networks overloading us with Colgate commercials worked. But in a wired world where we're bombarded with messages 24/7 it does not. It'd be like saying no to a date and then getting asked twenty times a day for the rest of your life. Do you think you wouldn't hate that person at this point?
Forget the offense, it's just not working. No matter how many times you ask I'm still saying no, despite the tropes about being persistent.
If you've got something to sell, make it really damn good and let its fans sell it. Isn't that the point with micro-influencers above? People become passionate and spread the word. Is there anybody passionate about Sheryl Sandberg other than the media hawking her? I've never heard anybody anywhere say anything positive about this woman in my presence. They've talked about her status and her books, but true believers are nowhere to be found.
We're looking for true believers. Who resonate and spread the word because of this belief, not because they were paid, but because it makes them feel good, they want others to experience what they have.
We can see all the machinery. This is not the 1970's. We know how the world works. Everybody knows how the world works. And they hate marketers the same way they hate politicians. Trump's election was a middle finger to the elites doing business as usual. There's a middle finger to the marketers too, they just refuse to see it.
But it's standing tall.
"#VANLIFE, THE BOHEMIAN SOCIAL-MEDIA MOVEMENT, What began as an attempt at a simpler life quickly became a life-style brand": http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/24/vanlife-the-bohemian-social-media-movement?utm_source=phplist5828&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=See+And+Ignore
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Even worse, if you overload us, we go on backlash.
Kinda like Mac DeMarco... I knew the name, but there was an exquisite article on him in yesterday's "Times," saying how he gave out his address so his fans could stop by, and it made me wonder, who was his publicity agent? Getting into the "Times" is so hard.
It's Jessica Linker at Pitch Perfect PR. But if you use her beware. Now I HATE MAC DEMARCO!
How did this happen? How did he go from hero to zero so fast in my book?
It was the plethora of stories based around his new release that I immediately saw as I started to Google.
That's right, marketing is still old school in a new school environment. No one is as bad a spammer as a marketer. Who believes if they keep telling us again and again we'll care. Or if they try to be hip we'll embrace them, like Pepsi. Or that they are our friend and will give us money to keep us in business
I recommend the story #VANLIFE in the April 24th edition of the "New Yorker." You've read about this couple, these wankers traveling around in their VW getting rich posting to Instagram.
Only it's not true. In 2016 they made $18,000, which won't even pay for a semester at school, and they're beholden to these sponsors who want it a certain way when they want it.
But it even gets worse...
The audience is only interested in sex.
The more they say it's different, the more it stays the same.
If they post a pic of Emily half-naked, they get a lot of likes. A sunset? That's a stiff and the sponsors are pissed.
But you keep reading in today's world you can go your own way, use the new tools to sustain your dream. Yeah, that's right, if your dream is driving all night for bupkes on Uber.
But there was an interesting tidbit in that VANLIFE story. Micro-influencers tend to have higher engagement rates, their followers are more active, therefore sponsors who want to sell something very specific to those people are interested. In other words, mass can work against you.
But we keep hearing of the mass with the Kardashians and PewDiePie but this is less about the distraction of an ignorant audience, which believes it too can get rich in our pyramid scheme world, than an indictment of the purveyors, the marketers, who just can't fathom that the world has changed, never mind adjust to it.
Google wins because it's all pull. You Google what you want and you find it there and the advertiser pays for that view/real estate.
Then there's the canard that we must all turn off our ad-blockers so we can be followed around the web by companies we checked out once, as if being reminded over and over again will soften us up. Never worked for me, I just hate these companies, feel proud I use an ad-blocker. Because it's a scam wherein those with space sell it to those with dollars under the illusion it works. But it doesn't. So many of the dollars spent on Facebook and YouTube are a complete waste.
So we need a new way.
Then again, if we had that new way we all wouldn't have spam in our inbox, never mind our mobile phones. But if you follow the spam, you find out an infinitesimal number of people have to respond for the hackers to get rich. And you hate the detritus.
But that's what's going on in the aboveboard world too. You're telling me again and again and again and I'm just not interested. And now, with so many more places to tell me, I'm hearing it to the point of extreme frustration.
How many people read more than the local newspaper in the pre-internet era?
Very few. But now we all see multiple stories online. And they're all the same. Revealing that most are not news at all, but publicity, and that it's all about selling, selling, selling.
It just doesn't work. Marketers have to come up with new techniques to sell their wares. Tech firms must lead the way. Then again, these tech firms, led by lauded Zuck and Sheryl, are lying, cheating, scumbags too. They're busted every few months for heinous activities. As for Sheryl Sandberg, I'm sorry her husband passed, but who woke up and made her the queen of coping and recovery? Her message has been blasted all through the media for the past two weeks, to the point I abhor her, she's a national joke, AND SHE DOESN'T REALIZE IT!
Isn't she making enough money over there at Facebook?
What makes her an expert?
But the old school media believes it's a feel good story and they've got to make somebody a star.
But most of today's stars last minutes, can you say Milo Whatshisname? If you get bumped up to first class you become ridiculed and ejected. The second decade of the twenty first century is about putting your head down and doing the work. Otherwise, you're a target, just like Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly and the rest of Fox became, to their detriment. When you're flying high, you shut up. Be thankful we're paying attention and listening at all.
We need a giant reset. We've got a modern communications system run by old school rules. We've amped up to 11 what we used to know and do. Yes, in the days of three networks overloading us with Colgate commercials worked. But in a wired world where we're bombarded with messages 24/7 it does not. It'd be like saying no to a date and then getting asked twenty times a day for the rest of your life. Do you think you wouldn't hate that person at this point?
Forget the offense, it's just not working. No matter how many times you ask I'm still saying no, despite the tropes about being persistent.
If you've got something to sell, make it really damn good and let its fans sell it. Isn't that the point with micro-influencers above? People become passionate and spread the word. Is there anybody passionate about Sheryl Sandberg other than the media hawking her? I've never heard anybody anywhere say anything positive about this woman in my presence. They've talked about her status and her books, but true believers are nowhere to be found.
We're looking for true believers. Who resonate and spread the word because of this belief, not because they were paid, but because it makes them feel good, they want others to experience what they have.
We can see all the machinery. This is not the 1970's. We know how the world works. Everybody knows how the world works. And they hate marketers the same way they hate politicians. Trump's election was a middle finger to the elites doing business as usual. There's a middle finger to the marketers too, they just refuse to see it.
But it's standing tall.
"#VANLIFE, THE BOHEMIAN SOCIAL-MEDIA MOVEMENT, What began as an attempt at a simpler life quickly became a life-style brand": http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/24/vanlife-the-bohemian-social-media-movement?utm_source=phplist5828&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=See+And+Ignore
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Sunday 30 April 2017
Anything Is Possible
https://www.amazon.com/Anything-Possible-Novel-Elizabeth-Strout-ebook/dp/B01LY2BN5I/ref=la_B001IXSAFK_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493539096&sr=1-1&utm_source=phplist5827&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=Anything+Is+Possible
This is an incredible book.
Not the easiest book to read. Not one you can't put down. Not a better one than "Olive Kitteridge" or "Amy & Isabelle," but one that will get under your skin, creep you out and give you the feeling that you are not only not special, but that Elizabeth Strout knows it.
Novelists, the pop stars of the pre-Beatles era. Does anybody even talk about writing the Great American Novel anymore? There are more graduate programs than ever, modeled on the Iowa Workshop, but they all result in me-too fiction that is over-rewritten, where substance is secondary to style, and the choice of words is more important than what they say.
But that's the world we live in. The hoi polloi is living on the surface and the artsy-fartsys believe they're superior, even though they're wearing no clothes.
And then Elizabeth Strout writes a book and illuminates the entire landscape, illustrates all our foibles and misgivings, removes the faux optimism and tells us we can be good people, but don't expect goodness in return.
When we last we visited, Strout had written a novella about Lucy Barton. The story of a woman who escaped from poverty.
This book is about where she escaped from.
Do you want to escape? I believe we all do. Even those so deep into their own situations that they cannot see the opportunities. We're burdened by our families of origin, our looks, our financial situation, and we keep faking it for others while we feel absolutely horrible inside, other than when we don't. It's these moments of happiness, these stolen glances, these crushes, that carry us through.
Don't tell me your secrets, I'm not gonna tell you mine. Because some stuff you can't say out loud. Even though it's burning a hole in your heart.
Twenty years ago, back in the days of AOL by the minute, when I had a free subscription, I checked out every nook and cranny, I found out there was a chat room for every sexual predilection known to man, even yours, certainly mine, and I know you've got one. And if you think chat rooms were inane that just shows your puffed-up superiority, you never used one, you didn't know how to scour the profiles and IM and the point is not for me to educate you technologically, teach you how to get all the power out of your devices, but to say that Strout has gone into taboo territory, third rail topics. She's ventured into sex and hatred and homosexuality and the truth is we cannot deal with these topics other than in cartoons, we live in a puritanical society, but we can't stop our thoughts, and we think about these things.
"Anything Is Possible" is not an HBO movie. Oprah won't be making it for Netflix, unless she's leaving a whole hell of a lot out. When one of America's most revered artists takes a leap over the line, stops worrying about acceptance and does what's in her heart, then you know she's on to something.
"Anything Is Possible" is about people. You and me. You may be wearing a three piece suit, believe you're better than so many, but the truth is you're not. And we all come from somewhere. And people can see the trick, they can see through you, but even though we hold these truths to be self-evident they're nowhere to be seen, not on sitcoms, procedurals, in records...
Remember when being an artist was going on a quest for truth?
Now it's a quest for cash, or respect.
I'm not sure Strout is gonna get respect for "Anything Is Possible."
Some people are just bad people. Some people get away with their crap. Some people think they're getting away with their crap but aren't. Some are takers and some are givers. And it all doesn't balance out, no way. You can complain all day, but it makes no difference, you have to decide who you want to be, you have to grow up, make your own choices.
So turn off the TV. Shut down Spotify. If you experience one artistic work this month, let it be "Anything Is Possible."
You've got an electronic device. Buy it for your Kindle app right now. Buy it for your Kindle itself. Even get the hardcover. But don't wait. Because the longer you wait the longer you're fooling yourself. You need to be confronted with the cold hard irony that we're all in it together in this world and you can fake it but you usually can't make it.
Read this book and when you finish reeling start creating. Use it as a jumping off point, a matter of inspiration. School will give you the tools, marketing comes last, but that spark that starts the journey...
You'll be ready to say something when you're done with "Anything Is Possible."
We all need to say something.
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This is an incredible book.
Not the easiest book to read. Not one you can't put down. Not a better one than "Olive Kitteridge" or "Amy & Isabelle," but one that will get under your skin, creep you out and give you the feeling that you are not only not special, but that Elizabeth Strout knows it.
Novelists, the pop stars of the pre-Beatles era. Does anybody even talk about writing the Great American Novel anymore? There are more graduate programs than ever, modeled on the Iowa Workshop, but they all result in me-too fiction that is over-rewritten, where substance is secondary to style, and the choice of words is more important than what they say.
But that's the world we live in. The hoi polloi is living on the surface and the artsy-fartsys believe they're superior, even though they're wearing no clothes.
And then Elizabeth Strout writes a book and illuminates the entire landscape, illustrates all our foibles and misgivings, removes the faux optimism and tells us we can be good people, but don't expect goodness in return.
When we last we visited, Strout had written a novella about Lucy Barton. The story of a woman who escaped from poverty.
This book is about where she escaped from.
Do you want to escape? I believe we all do. Even those so deep into their own situations that they cannot see the opportunities. We're burdened by our families of origin, our looks, our financial situation, and we keep faking it for others while we feel absolutely horrible inside, other than when we don't. It's these moments of happiness, these stolen glances, these crushes, that carry us through.
Don't tell me your secrets, I'm not gonna tell you mine. Because some stuff you can't say out loud. Even though it's burning a hole in your heart.
Twenty years ago, back in the days of AOL by the minute, when I had a free subscription, I checked out every nook and cranny, I found out there was a chat room for every sexual predilection known to man, even yours, certainly mine, and I know you've got one. And if you think chat rooms were inane that just shows your puffed-up superiority, you never used one, you didn't know how to scour the profiles and IM and the point is not for me to educate you technologically, teach you how to get all the power out of your devices, but to say that Strout has gone into taboo territory, third rail topics. She's ventured into sex and hatred and homosexuality and the truth is we cannot deal with these topics other than in cartoons, we live in a puritanical society, but we can't stop our thoughts, and we think about these things.
"Anything Is Possible" is not an HBO movie. Oprah won't be making it for Netflix, unless she's leaving a whole hell of a lot out. When one of America's most revered artists takes a leap over the line, stops worrying about acceptance and does what's in her heart, then you know she's on to something.
"Anything Is Possible" is about people. You and me. You may be wearing a three piece suit, believe you're better than so many, but the truth is you're not. And we all come from somewhere. And people can see the trick, they can see through you, but even though we hold these truths to be self-evident they're nowhere to be seen, not on sitcoms, procedurals, in records...
Remember when being an artist was going on a quest for truth?
Now it's a quest for cash, or respect.
I'm not sure Strout is gonna get respect for "Anything Is Possible."
Some people are just bad people. Some people get away with their crap. Some people think they're getting away with their crap but aren't. Some are takers and some are givers. And it all doesn't balance out, no way. You can complain all day, but it makes no difference, you have to decide who you want to be, you have to grow up, make your own choices.
So turn off the TV. Shut down Spotify. If you experience one artistic work this month, let it be "Anything Is Possible."
You've got an electronic device. Buy it for your Kindle app right now. Buy it for your Kindle itself. Even get the hardcover. But don't wait. Because the longer you wait the longer you're fooling yourself. You need to be confronted with the cold hard irony that we're all in it together in this world and you can fake it but you usually can't make it.
Read this book and when you finish reeling start creating. Use it as a jumping off point, a matter of inspiration. School will give you the tools, marketing comes last, but that spark that starts the journey...
You'll be ready to say something when you're done with "Anything Is Possible."
We all need to say something.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/?utm_source=phplist5827&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=Anything+Is+Possible
--
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If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25&utm_source=phplist5827&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=Anything+Is+Possible
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