https://youtu.be/OL-StDEcMRw
What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast is more important than any TV show?
One in which Howard Stern gets all the A-listers. They make news on Stern, it's all fluff on TV.
We're in the era of the cult of personality. And the most important personalities are those who've been in the game for decades, honing their chops, just waiting for that moment when word spreads enough that they turn into a supernova. I can talk all day about what I've seen on TV and no one else has a clue, but if I talk about what happened on Stern, everybody knows! (And if you don't, the joke is on you.) The biggest news splash re Billie Eilish was her interview with her brother on Stern last week. She appeared three-dimensional, and she reached the unreachable, so many in Howard's audience have no time for anything else, they ignore hype, but they check out what Howard promotes, which is what makes him so powerful.
I remember when Joe Rogan hosted "Fear Factor," back in the beginning of network reality TV, after "Survivor," when it was about games and quasi-truth as opposed to the fake crap that followed it. I didn't get Rogan and the show was canceled and I knew who he was and then I heard...
He was the king of MMA. Instead of worrying about whether boxing is relevant, whether it should be banned, the younger generation moved on to MMA and the UFC, where Rogan was a host. That turned him into one of them, someone on the edge, he became part of the fabric, to the point when he launched his podcast he had a built-in audience.
Not that I listen. I don't find him that funny and I've got limited bandwidth, like all of us. But today I got an e-mail about the Black Keys being on his show:
Hi Bob,
I think you'll enjoy this short video from the Joe Rogan show in which The Black Keys talk about the state of the music business (stay for the end for the story about Aerosmith at the MTV video awards)
https://youtu.be/OL-StDEcMRw
Cheers,
Stephen Humphries
Note, Humphries was not promoting himself. I laugh at those e-mails that say whatever I'm writing about is junk and _____ is the shit. And then I realize ___________ is the writer's band! And I wanted to hear what the Black Keys had to say, so I clicked through.
Patrick Carney is explaining the bundle game. Wherein the act has to pay money from their tickets to get to number one on the Soundscan chart, how the money ends up in the label's hands, and it only counts on Soundscan if the purchaser clicks for the digital album, and only half of them do this.
In other words, the Black Keys would be paying to be number one. WHAT WOULD THAT DO FOR THEM?
You see it every damn day, someone here or there promoting that they went to number one on the chart, the newspapers write about it, the brain-dead websites repeat it...BUT WHAT DOES IT REALLY BUY YOU?
You're impressing people in the media, who matter less than ever before, there's a reason why social media posters are called "influencers."
It's all a sham and you lose money in the process!
And everybody in the biz knows it's a joke, oftentimes your album immediately drops off the chart.
And then Carney goes deeper. About kids running records up the chart by playing them a zillion times, like he did with Vanilla Ice. But is that good music, is that what people really want to hear, is that what music FANS really want to hear?
Now never forget, it's this system that built the Black Keys. So, it's easy to pooh-pooh it when you've been the beneficiary of it and can coast on the spoils, but...
Today a new act like the Black Keys can't even play that game, the major labels don't want to promote anything but hip-hop and pop.
Now it used to be there were two sides of the story, the outward-facing hype and the truth, and the hoi polloi were never privy to the truth. But in the era of the internet, it's out there (along with a lot of b.s., but that's another story). Artifice is revealed. And it's credibility that has longevity.
Patrick Carney brilliantly delineates today's music business. How the Spotify Top 50 is just a niche, oftentimes a manipulated niche, and only a small, relatively young audience is even listening.
The point is, where do we go from here?
If you're chasing trends, the joke is on you. Sure, if you top the streaming chart, you can make real money. But never forget if the devil gets you there, i.e. the major label, he wants his pound of flesh. Whereas if you go your own way and own everything you can make all that money every musician is complaining they haven't got.
But very few players deserve the attention. The barrier to entry is too low in all creative fields, anybody can make a record.
But if you can get on Joe Rogan...
People are gonna pay attention.
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Saturday, 5 October 2019
The Deaf Installer
I bought a file cabinet.
Actually, that's not what I'd call it, but that was the heading I found it under. I needed some storage in my new office. But I didn't want to wait until I found the exact right unit, I wanted something cheap, to store the stuff in boxes.
So I started surfing. Actually, Felice surfed first and she was pushing to get a response, otherwise she'd stop helping me, so I dug in.
Wow, it's tough. There are a zillion units and a zillion sellers, never mind a zillion price points. But based on the suggestion of my physical therapist, I checked out Target. And eventually found a unit that looked reasonable, for $249, I forwarded the page to Felice, she agreed it would work, so...
I went to buy it. And in the process, I found it at Staples for $189, a whopping difference. I was done, gonna purchase at Target, but Google showed me Staples and then I looked at the fine print and it said..."unassembled." Now how hard could assembly be? I'm actually good at following the directions. But maybe the Target unit was more expensive because it came built, but that turned out to be untrue, Target required assembly too.
So I looked up the instructions. You can find that kind of stuff online. And it did not look easy.
But I was ready to buy...and then I wondered if Amazon sold it, because I'd get it much quicker via Prime. Amazon had it too, at the same $189 price point, and just as I was putting it in the cart, I was offered assembly. Hmm... $112 on a less than $200 unit? But then I thought of other jobs I'd done, the learning curve is so steep, the second one would be much easier, but you're only buying one, and oftentimes you screw up and scratch/damage the unit, so I agreed to pay to have it put together.
And you've got to make sure you've got the right zip code and then you schedule online and my schedule has been jam-packed but I had to be home this afternoon to do a Skype call for a conference in Toronto, so the 2-5 PM window looked good.
Meanwhile, my TV was not getting any of the pay channels and Spectrum said they had to send someone out. Now normally I can only deal with one thing at one time, but since I was home, I decided to go for it.
And I kept on getting e-mail from the installation company, was I really gonna be there on Friday? And if the unit had to be moved, it would be another $75. Huh? This unit is not that big. And then the unit, which was supposed to arrive on Thursday, did not, until late afternoon, when I was on the phone to Sydney.
So I missed Felice's text. She had the delivery man leave it by the side of the house. She said it was heavy, and boy was it. So would I have to pay the additional $75 to get it up the steps? But I told myself the call to Sydney was more important and paid well enough for me to eat the $75, so...there was no other option anyway.
And last night while at the Sunset Marquis, I got a text from the installer, could he come at 9 AM instead of 2 PM? This made me uptight, I could not do it in the morning, but I was afraid of pissing him off. He told me his name was Vincent and he'd be there at 2.
And at the appointed hour, Felice texted me that he was here.
I walked out in front of the house and I noticed something funny, we had a hard time communicating. He could barely speak. Was he unable to speak?
But I pointed him to the box and when he got there, he whipped out his phone and started typing.
I AM DEAF.
Wow. That explains it. And I've got OCD, and I like everything perfect, I'm constantly quizzing workers, and I realized I'd be unable to do so in this case. But I'm not gonna keep the handicapped from working, I've got to buck up and be the better man.
So he asks me to lift the box with him.
I think no way, but I can't talk to him, so I whip out my phone and text that we should take the pieces out of the box to make it much lighter, we're only going about thirty five feet.
But he types NO. So what am I gonna do?
I should have put my foot down. But I felt too guilty, so I picked up one end of the box and started to walk and after about fifteen feet as my arm started to ache...I REALIZED IT WAS MY BAD ARM, THE ONE I HAD SURGERY ON!
Now I've had a ton of surgeries, and this rotator cuff operation is the only one I've ever had with a 100% success rate, but I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say I still babied it. And I felt my tendons tugging and...
I put down the box.
And then I had to start typing to the installer, what was going on, which was difficult, the ultimate solution was to take the back of the box and use my other arm, but my sixth sense was right...going up steps, the back is heavier.
And I only stopped the anti-inflammatories two months ago. I took prednisone for thirteen months and weaning myself from it my back went nuclear, the neurosurgeon kept telling me to have an operation, that I could be back on skis in January...but I didn't want to miss December, I decided to take the risk, I got more injections and took the anti-inflammatory and it worked. Although I did have to pass on heli-skiing all season, and I didn't ski bumps until March, but I made it.
But every time I tried to decrease the dosage of the NSAID, my back would go nuclear again.
But finally I got off it. In the middle of August.
And I've been feeling pretty good, but now carrying this box I realize there's going to be a penalty, my belief is I screwed up my back to begin with by helping my friend's father move out of a store, we were lifting file cabinets, we were young and strong.
My back has never been the same. There's no disk there. The doctor who did the injections asked me who did my surgery. I told him I'd never had back surgery. He then told me those two vertebrae were fused.
So the installer came with enough tools to build a house. And part of OCD treatment is to not watch the worker do their work, because you'll find problems, so I sat at the computer and tried to ignore him.
Meanwhile, Spectrum came. Someone on the payroll as opposed to an independent contractor.
I was not getting the pay channels because the previous guy had put in a Spectrum box and we have a Time Warner legacy system. So, should we go all Spectrum? He advised against it, the DVR features are not as good, so he put a new box on my TV, but I could not use the DVR to record myself, because only one DVR can be in a Time Warner household, so I had him switch the DVR box from the bedroom to the living room, so if Felice was asleep, I could still program it. Bottom line, when connected properly, you can run the DVR from any box. I could go deeper, but if that's not clear to you... I loved talking to the installer from Spectrum, because we could go into all this tech stuff and he explained that in a Time Warner household you needed these filters so the modem wouldn't get jammed by the TV signal and he installed them and then I heard his life story and It was so interesting, he's from Israel and he married a woman from Peru, and he's really an animator, but he's freelance and there's not that much work now so since he's married and he feels the pressure to earn, he took this job.
Meanwhile, the file cabinet installer is still working.
They budgeted the job at 2-3 hours. I didn't see how it could take that long, but it was a flat fee and... Felice remarked, did he know what he was doing? I didn't want to say no, he was so focused and he was deaf and I was worried I'd miss something while I was talking to the Spectrum guy in the other room but...
There were a few incidents. He put a hammer on the table and it fell to the floor, the floor that the builder said would scratch easily.
And he didn't put a tarp or anything underneath, to protect the floor, but it was nearly impossible to converse with him, I didn't want to bug him and I decided to bite the bullet.
And then I heard a crash!
Now I was upset, I walked over to see if there was a dent/scratch in the floor. It looked o.k., so I went back to the computer.
And that's when the installer tapped me on the shoulder.
He walked me to the drawer that had fallen on the floor. I didn't think much of it.
But then he pointed out the crack, the break.
Well, the guy's deaf and maybe I should be amenable and then...
I notice the crack is on the outward facing panel. That a corner is essentially broken off.
And then my brain starts racing. They're gonna want to write off the labor and make me keep the damaged unit. But I don't want to, I've got a brand new office and anybody would see the broken corner.
So the installer starts typing that he's gonna call his boss. How he's gonna communicate with him I do not know.
And nothing is happening.
So after about fifteen minutes he types that he needs the wifi info. I know what he's doing, he's trying to hook up wifi calling, I've done it to everybody's phone, works great.
But he's on AT&T and it doesn't work exactly the same way.
So, I just type in the password and give him the phone back.
Meanwhile, another person had texted me about confirming the appointment, yup they were relentless with the timing, so I texted that person.
She had to get in touch with the manager, who was unavailable. After a few back and forths, telling me said manager wouldn't pick up, she gave me the number and I had the same experience.
Well, if she's not the manager, who is she?
Meanwhile, about half an hour has gone by and the installer types that he can't get ahold of his boss. Obviously, the same boss.
And now it's nearly six and...
I go on Amazon, they've got a "Happiness Guarantee." Woo-hoo!
But you go through the prompts and you end up sending a message to the installation company and are told to wait two days for a response.
Now I've got no idea what to do.
Meanwhile, the deaf guy is heaving. Audibly. I feel so bad for him. I mean being deaf, what are his job opportunities anyway? I don't want him to get in trouble, I don't want him to lose his job. I was going to tip him $30, but obviously not now, the project wasn't even finished.
So now he starts typing on his phone again. Saying he's sorry he broke the unit. I want to let him off the hook, but I'm not sure why I should bite the bullet and be confronted with a broken cabinet for years. I want a new one, one that is right, how hard can that be?
And suddenly the installer starts cleaning up. He pushes the unit on the floor, making me anxious about scratches again, but at this point what am I going to say.
And part of the deal is they throw out the detritus, the packaging. And he wants to know where to put it and I point to the garbage and then he forgets a bunch of cardboard and I'm lucky he turns toward me as I'm waving my hands and comes back.
And then he's gone.
Actually, that's not what I'd call it, but that was the heading I found it under. I needed some storage in my new office. But I didn't want to wait until I found the exact right unit, I wanted something cheap, to store the stuff in boxes.
So I started surfing. Actually, Felice surfed first and she was pushing to get a response, otherwise she'd stop helping me, so I dug in.
Wow, it's tough. There are a zillion units and a zillion sellers, never mind a zillion price points. But based on the suggestion of my physical therapist, I checked out Target. And eventually found a unit that looked reasonable, for $249, I forwarded the page to Felice, she agreed it would work, so...
I went to buy it. And in the process, I found it at Staples for $189, a whopping difference. I was done, gonna purchase at Target, but Google showed me Staples and then I looked at the fine print and it said..."unassembled." Now how hard could assembly be? I'm actually good at following the directions. But maybe the Target unit was more expensive because it came built, but that turned out to be untrue, Target required assembly too.
So I looked up the instructions. You can find that kind of stuff online. And it did not look easy.
But I was ready to buy...and then I wondered if Amazon sold it, because I'd get it much quicker via Prime. Amazon had it too, at the same $189 price point, and just as I was putting it in the cart, I was offered assembly. Hmm... $112 on a less than $200 unit? But then I thought of other jobs I'd done, the learning curve is so steep, the second one would be much easier, but you're only buying one, and oftentimes you screw up and scratch/damage the unit, so I agreed to pay to have it put together.
And you've got to make sure you've got the right zip code and then you schedule online and my schedule has been jam-packed but I had to be home this afternoon to do a Skype call for a conference in Toronto, so the 2-5 PM window looked good.
Meanwhile, my TV was not getting any of the pay channels and Spectrum said they had to send someone out. Now normally I can only deal with one thing at one time, but since I was home, I decided to go for it.
And I kept on getting e-mail from the installation company, was I really gonna be there on Friday? And if the unit had to be moved, it would be another $75. Huh? This unit is not that big. And then the unit, which was supposed to arrive on Thursday, did not, until late afternoon, when I was on the phone to Sydney.
So I missed Felice's text. She had the delivery man leave it by the side of the house. She said it was heavy, and boy was it. So would I have to pay the additional $75 to get it up the steps? But I told myself the call to Sydney was more important and paid well enough for me to eat the $75, so...there was no other option anyway.
And last night while at the Sunset Marquis, I got a text from the installer, could he come at 9 AM instead of 2 PM? This made me uptight, I could not do it in the morning, but I was afraid of pissing him off. He told me his name was Vincent and he'd be there at 2.
And at the appointed hour, Felice texted me that he was here.
I walked out in front of the house and I noticed something funny, we had a hard time communicating. He could barely speak. Was he unable to speak?
But I pointed him to the box and when he got there, he whipped out his phone and started typing.
I AM DEAF.
Wow. That explains it. And I've got OCD, and I like everything perfect, I'm constantly quizzing workers, and I realized I'd be unable to do so in this case. But I'm not gonna keep the handicapped from working, I've got to buck up and be the better man.
So he asks me to lift the box with him.
I think no way, but I can't talk to him, so I whip out my phone and text that we should take the pieces out of the box to make it much lighter, we're only going about thirty five feet.
But he types NO. So what am I gonna do?
I should have put my foot down. But I felt too guilty, so I picked up one end of the box and started to walk and after about fifteen feet as my arm started to ache...I REALIZED IT WAS MY BAD ARM, THE ONE I HAD SURGERY ON!
Now I've had a ton of surgeries, and this rotator cuff operation is the only one I've ever had with a 100% success rate, but I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say I still babied it. And I felt my tendons tugging and...
I put down the box.
And then I had to start typing to the installer, what was going on, which was difficult, the ultimate solution was to take the back of the box and use my other arm, but my sixth sense was right...going up steps, the back is heavier.
And I only stopped the anti-inflammatories two months ago. I took prednisone for thirteen months and weaning myself from it my back went nuclear, the neurosurgeon kept telling me to have an operation, that I could be back on skis in January...but I didn't want to miss December, I decided to take the risk, I got more injections and took the anti-inflammatory and it worked. Although I did have to pass on heli-skiing all season, and I didn't ski bumps until March, but I made it.
But every time I tried to decrease the dosage of the NSAID, my back would go nuclear again.
But finally I got off it. In the middle of August.
And I've been feeling pretty good, but now carrying this box I realize there's going to be a penalty, my belief is I screwed up my back to begin with by helping my friend's father move out of a store, we were lifting file cabinets, we were young and strong.
My back has never been the same. There's no disk there. The doctor who did the injections asked me who did my surgery. I told him I'd never had back surgery. He then told me those two vertebrae were fused.
So the installer came with enough tools to build a house. And part of OCD treatment is to not watch the worker do their work, because you'll find problems, so I sat at the computer and tried to ignore him.
Meanwhile, Spectrum came. Someone on the payroll as opposed to an independent contractor.
I was not getting the pay channels because the previous guy had put in a Spectrum box and we have a Time Warner legacy system. So, should we go all Spectrum? He advised against it, the DVR features are not as good, so he put a new box on my TV, but I could not use the DVR to record myself, because only one DVR can be in a Time Warner household, so I had him switch the DVR box from the bedroom to the living room, so if Felice was asleep, I could still program it. Bottom line, when connected properly, you can run the DVR from any box. I could go deeper, but if that's not clear to you... I loved talking to the installer from Spectrum, because we could go into all this tech stuff and he explained that in a Time Warner household you needed these filters so the modem wouldn't get jammed by the TV signal and he installed them and then I heard his life story and It was so interesting, he's from Israel and he married a woman from Peru, and he's really an animator, but he's freelance and there's not that much work now so since he's married and he feels the pressure to earn, he took this job.
Meanwhile, the file cabinet installer is still working.
They budgeted the job at 2-3 hours. I didn't see how it could take that long, but it was a flat fee and... Felice remarked, did he know what he was doing? I didn't want to say no, he was so focused and he was deaf and I was worried I'd miss something while I was talking to the Spectrum guy in the other room but...
There were a few incidents. He put a hammer on the table and it fell to the floor, the floor that the builder said would scratch easily.
And he didn't put a tarp or anything underneath, to protect the floor, but it was nearly impossible to converse with him, I didn't want to bug him and I decided to bite the bullet.
And then I heard a crash!
Now I was upset, I walked over to see if there was a dent/scratch in the floor. It looked o.k., so I went back to the computer.
And that's when the installer tapped me on the shoulder.
He walked me to the drawer that had fallen on the floor. I didn't think much of it.
But then he pointed out the crack, the break.
Well, the guy's deaf and maybe I should be amenable and then...
I notice the crack is on the outward facing panel. That a corner is essentially broken off.
And then my brain starts racing. They're gonna want to write off the labor and make me keep the damaged unit. But I don't want to, I've got a brand new office and anybody would see the broken corner.
So the installer starts typing that he's gonna call his boss. How he's gonna communicate with him I do not know.
And nothing is happening.
So after about fifteen minutes he types that he needs the wifi info. I know what he's doing, he's trying to hook up wifi calling, I've done it to everybody's phone, works great.
But he's on AT&T and it doesn't work exactly the same way.
So, I just type in the password and give him the phone back.
Meanwhile, another person had texted me about confirming the appointment, yup they were relentless with the timing, so I texted that person.
She had to get in touch with the manager, who was unavailable. After a few back and forths, telling me said manager wouldn't pick up, she gave me the number and I had the same experience.
Well, if she's not the manager, who is she?
Meanwhile, about half an hour has gone by and the installer types that he can't get ahold of his boss. Obviously, the same boss.
And now it's nearly six and...
I go on Amazon, they've got a "Happiness Guarantee." Woo-hoo!
But you go through the prompts and you end up sending a message to the installation company and are told to wait two days for a response.
Now I've got no idea what to do.
Meanwhile, the deaf guy is heaving. Audibly. I feel so bad for him. I mean being deaf, what are his job opportunities anyway? I don't want him to get in trouble, I don't want him to lose his job. I was going to tip him $30, but obviously not now, the project wasn't even finished.
So now he starts typing on his phone again. Saying he's sorry he broke the unit. I want to let him off the hook, but I'm not sure why I should bite the bullet and be confronted with a broken cabinet for years. I want a new one, one that is right, how hard can that be?
And suddenly the installer starts cleaning up. He pushes the unit on the floor, making me anxious about scratches again, but at this point what am I going to say.
And part of the deal is they throw out the detritus, the packaging. And he wants to know where to put it and I point to the garbage and then he forgets a bunch of cardboard and I'm lucky he turns toward me as I'm waving my hands and comes back.
And then he's gone.
--
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--
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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Friday, 4 October 2019
The Who Song
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2oU63fw
YouTube: https://bit.ly/2IpBzsM
What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where the Who come back from nostalgia to release a track superior to anything on the Active Rock chart?
One in which you no longer have to have a great voice and you can get away with uttering platitudes, getting a facelift to look young and hip when you're not.
The amazing thing is there's no 808, none of those synthetic handclaps, it sounds exactly like the Who. Remember when all the bands were unique? Come on, who sounded exactly like the Who? The key was to go down your own path.
But somewhere during the nineties, when radio still ruled, when MTV went all hip-hop and pop, it was determined by the gatekeepers that no one wanted to hear the music of the old farts. I realized this when Danny Buch told me that programmers rejected Robert Plant's "29 Palms." Sometimes people return to form, Neil Young is a perfect example. Suddenly Plant releases a near masterpiece, "Fate Of Nations," and no one cares anymore.
A
s for the twenty first century... Most oldsters have given up putting out new music, believing it's going to go straight into the dumper, that no one cares and it's hard to get motivated when no one is listening. But somehow Pete Townshend maintains his edge, the edge of the blade.
"I don't care
I know you're gonna hate this song"
Yup, it's like Townshend is living in 2019, reflecting on the world we live in, where if you play new music the audience gets up for a bathroom break and haters online will tell you it sucks.
"It's not new, not diverse
It won't light up your parade
It's just simple verse"
The oldsters and the critics retain the concept of the holy grail, they remark that the new music sucks, which in truth it does, of course there's good stuff out there, too much of which goes unrecognized, but nothing approaches the tracks of the classic acts. And it's easy for the cognoscenti to be haters, you've got to be cool, incomprehensible by the masses, out there.
But now no one cares about that stuff either.
"All this music will fade
Just like the edge of a blade"
Townshend's right. The Beatles will be remembered for a while, but almost everything else will fall by the wayside. Remember Steve Jobs? Ask someone under fifteen, they might not know his name. Furthermore, get old enough, having lived through the trials and tribulations, and you realize...it's all b.s., we're here and then we're gone, if you're trying to leave your mark you're on the wrong path.
"I don't mind
Other guys ripping off my song
I'd be lying
If I said I never done no wrong
All this sound that we share
Has already been played
Ant it hangs in the air"
We're all in it together. How sad is it that fifty years later greedy attorneys are convincing broke heirs to sue the classics, costing everybody money. As for the new music, everybody's scared, where there's a hit there's a writ.
"Yours is yours and what's mine is mine
And what's mine is mine and what's mine is yours
WHO GIVES A FUCK?"
Yup, listen to the end and Pete utters that profanity. He's lived long enough to have seen truth, it's about the music more than commerce, he doesn't take the music that seriously, it's only rock and roll, right?
And I like it.
Now "All This Music Must Fade" is not as great as "Baba O'Riley" or "Won't Get Fooled Again," but it's in the same league, and anybody creative will tell you if you get motivated and keep at it that's when genius emerges, and it's best when it's singular, one person...hell, most of the Beatle songs were written by either Paul or John, even though they both got credit, today songs have so many writers and are worked over by executives to the point where their essence is lost.
And I love Pete's solo stuff.
But what puts "All This Music Must Fade" over the top is Roger's vocal. This is definitely a Who song.
And being a Who song, it's got Pete's slashing guitar, and the tinkling synths in the background, it's powerful, but it's not noise.
"All This Music Must Fade" is not a bathroom song, you want to hang with the crowd and listen.
And if you still have a big rig, if your stereo still has power, if you're not limited to AirPods, you can't help but turn it up and become enveloped in the sound. That's the power of rock and roll, it squeezes everything out.
It's like we're lost in the desert, like we've lost the formula, all those new rock acts, they're retreads, bombastic, with little sense of dynamics, never mind melody.
It may sound like I'm overstating the case. But it's like being in a cave with no light and stumbling upon a beacon which illuminates your world and makes you optimistic, a believer once again.
Pete may be telling us it's all gonna fade...
But it's everything to us.
This is not nostalgia, it's brand new, and the key point is listening to it doesn't make you think you're fifteen, you're old and craggy, but your music still matters, Pete and Roger are still on your wavelength, they're delivering for you.
Oh, what a glorious sound.
And it is all about the sound.
And the power.
It could move mountains, change society. It could not be denied back then...
And suddenly it can't once again!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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YouTube: https://bit.ly/2IpBzsM
What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where the Who come back from nostalgia to release a track superior to anything on the Active Rock chart?
One in which you no longer have to have a great voice and you can get away with uttering platitudes, getting a facelift to look young and hip when you're not.
The amazing thing is there's no 808, none of those synthetic handclaps, it sounds exactly like the Who. Remember when all the bands were unique? Come on, who sounded exactly like the Who? The key was to go down your own path.
But somewhere during the nineties, when radio still ruled, when MTV went all hip-hop and pop, it was determined by the gatekeepers that no one wanted to hear the music of the old farts. I realized this when Danny Buch told me that programmers rejected Robert Plant's "29 Palms." Sometimes people return to form, Neil Young is a perfect example. Suddenly Plant releases a near masterpiece, "Fate Of Nations," and no one cares anymore.
A
s for the twenty first century... Most oldsters have given up putting out new music, believing it's going to go straight into the dumper, that no one cares and it's hard to get motivated when no one is listening. But somehow Pete Townshend maintains his edge, the edge of the blade.
"I don't care
I know you're gonna hate this song"
Yup, it's like Townshend is living in 2019, reflecting on the world we live in, where if you play new music the audience gets up for a bathroom break and haters online will tell you it sucks.
"It's not new, not diverse
It won't light up your parade
It's just simple verse"
The oldsters and the critics retain the concept of the holy grail, they remark that the new music sucks, which in truth it does, of course there's good stuff out there, too much of which goes unrecognized, but nothing approaches the tracks of the classic acts. And it's easy for the cognoscenti to be haters, you've got to be cool, incomprehensible by the masses, out there.
But now no one cares about that stuff either.
"All this music will fade
Just like the edge of a blade"
Townshend's right. The Beatles will be remembered for a while, but almost everything else will fall by the wayside. Remember Steve Jobs? Ask someone under fifteen, they might not know his name. Furthermore, get old enough, having lived through the trials and tribulations, and you realize...it's all b.s., we're here and then we're gone, if you're trying to leave your mark you're on the wrong path.
"I don't mind
Other guys ripping off my song
I'd be lying
If I said I never done no wrong
All this sound that we share
Has already been played
Ant it hangs in the air"
We're all in it together. How sad is it that fifty years later greedy attorneys are convincing broke heirs to sue the classics, costing everybody money. As for the new music, everybody's scared, where there's a hit there's a writ.
"Yours is yours and what's mine is mine
And what's mine is mine and what's mine is yours
WHO GIVES A FUCK?"
Yup, listen to the end and Pete utters that profanity. He's lived long enough to have seen truth, it's about the music more than commerce, he doesn't take the music that seriously, it's only rock and roll, right?
And I like it.
Now "All This Music Must Fade" is not as great as "Baba O'Riley" or "Won't Get Fooled Again," but it's in the same league, and anybody creative will tell you if you get motivated and keep at it that's when genius emerges, and it's best when it's singular, one person...hell, most of the Beatle songs were written by either Paul or John, even though they both got credit, today songs have so many writers and are worked over by executives to the point where their essence is lost.
And I love Pete's solo stuff.
But what puts "All This Music Must Fade" over the top is Roger's vocal. This is definitely a Who song.
And being a Who song, it's got Pete's slashing guitar, and the tinkling synths in the background, it's powerful, but it's not noise.
"All This Music Must Fade" is not a bathroom song, you want to hang with the crowd and listen.
And if you still have a big rig, if your stereo still has power, if you're not limited to AirPods, you can't help but turn it up and become enveloped in the sound. That's the power of rock and roll, it squeezes everything out.
It's like we're lost in the desert, like we've lost the formula, all those new rock acts, they're retreads, bombastic, with little sense of dynamics, never mind melody.
It may sound like I'm overstating the case. But it's like being in a cave with no light and stumbling upon a beacon which illuminates your world and makes you optimistic, a believer once again.
Pete may be telling us it's all gonna fade...
But it's everything to us.
This is not nostalgia, it's brand new, and the key point is listening to it doesn't make you think you're fifteen, you're old and craggy, but your music still matters, Pete and Roger are still on your wavelength, they're delivering for you.
Oh, what a glorious sound.
And it is all about the sound.
And the power.
It could move mountains, change society. It could not be denied back then...
And suddenly it can't once again!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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The Republican Viewpoint
Pauline Kael famously said she couldn't believe Nixon won because nobody she knew voted for him.
Herein please find the viewpoint of the right. You should know this to know what you're up against. The key is to know your enemy. Too many educated elites are in a bubble and don't know what others think.
Furthermore, very few of these people interact with regular folk, except for opinion writers in newspapers, they don't get the contrary feedback. But if you're online, like me, you get it each and every time you write something even vaguely political, that's why I knew Trump had a chance in 2016. You need to read these.
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Love you man, but you are missing a big point here, one you've written about many times.
Re: Biden, yes he is toast and yes, he did nothing illegal. Repeat, nothing illegal. Neither did Hunter. BUT..... it stinks. You know it. I know. The public knows it. The Chinese could invest 1.5B with best investors in the world, Sequoia, Benchmark, you name it. They were all my competitors. They are without equal. But they invested in Hunters bullshit fund to curry favor with a possible, yet unlikely, President to be.
Ditto, Clinton Foundation, Ditto Chelsea's first job at NBC. Nothing illegal, but simply our version of the Chinese Communist Party's sons and daughters, the Pricelings." who magically become multi millionaires because the Party Leaders dole out their largess to them and them alone. Hunter is our American Priceling. Nothing illegal. But very very bad judgment from Joe.
Elites in both parties do it. Dems don't have a corner on this. The public is sick of it. Lori Loughlin adios. It's all the same. We can't wait to see her in an orange jump suit.
What Hunter should do but cannot is stand up, show his investment record and say, "this is why the Chinese invested in me." But he can't. They invested in him because of his last name. Come on man, you know this.
All the best, buddy. Hope to see you sometime in LA.
Sorry about typos or autocorrect.....
John Hummer
______________________________________________
This battle Bob is about the Constitution. Is it a Written in stone Constitution? (yes) or a Living Constitution (No Constitution at all) It's also about the wealth of the country. When you work, is it your money or not? The Conservative says it's yours, you earned it. The Democrat says, no, it's not yours. It's unfair you have it, so we're gonna force some of it from you (51% force against the 49%)
I have trouble understanding how you can vote for force against your neighbor the way you do??? I also wonder how you can believe some bureaucrat knows better than you how to allocate the wealth you produce? Lastly, you can always write a check to do all those things you believe are right. No one's stopping you from handing over 70% of what you earn ya know? You don't have to force anyone else. You do it.
Rich Case
______________________________________________
Why can't you be fair & balanced plus deal with facts?
Or stick to why we all love you...the Arts?
Thank-you...
Michael K. Clifford
VentureCatalyst
______________________________________________
"guilty of something"? His son received billions of dollars from foreign governments only while he was VP. There was an entire expose published by the Hill called "Biden Money" three years ago exposing his questionable finances from foreign sources. And he had a quid pro quo arrangement with Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating the company his son was on the board of (ON VIDEO). This is highly specific stuff and more than "guilty of something" your cribbing the Democrats when the said "some people did something" on 9/11
Russ Motta
______________________________________________
So, Bob, you think that impeachment - or whatever the Hell Pelosi is doing without a formal vote of the House - is about a straight nullification of the 2016 election. No "high crime or misdemeanor", no problem. We won the House so we can Impeach.
It is difficult to fathom how dumb this view is.
But at least you are passionate about it and that has to count for something.
Trump is going to win so big his big old orange head will explode.
Cheers,
Jay Currie
______________________________________________
Trump 2020
Haley 2024
The Nation will be back on track.
Clarence Jay
Lefty sore loser of 2016. If Dems thought they'd win 2020 they wouldn't try to impeach the President of the USA now and let the election play out.
James Davis
______________________________________________
If Eric Trump went on Air Force One with Donald and came back with a Board seat on some company in Korea you would have a fit.
But Bidens done nothing wrong
Balrama Balrama
______________________________________________
Trump landslide 2020. The Democrats are a mess. I was one for 30 years. Never again. Thanks
Thomas Ryan
______________________________________________
ask yourself one simple question:
if it was don trump jr with the same $$$ deal as hunter biden
if he had traveled to ukraine and russia on air force one with his father to secure these deals...
would the LEFT have their hair on fire?
Ira Transport
______________________________________________
Change the narrative to "Democrat" and you can write the same story. Except the majority of all types of media are onboard with them, not just a few sites. smh,..
Craig Nickman
______________________________________________
"And at least Warren said that nobody likes their health insurance company. A truism we all know."
Another truism we all know: whatever the government does, it will always do it worse than the private sector.
Cheers!
Steve Hurlburt
______________________________________________
If you stopped right here, you'd finally be correct, Watch news from something other than what you watch,,,
You're not getting the whole story. You never do. You just don't.
John Warden
______________________________________________
The United States is a REPUBLIC, not a democracy.
The two political parties are the Republicans and the Democrats.
The REPUBLICAN party and the DEMOCRAT party.
NOT the "Democratic" party.
Bob Askey
______________________________________________
Bob, you blame 'politics' but really your party betrayed you and the rest of America a long time ago. Wake up!
Ax Hayssen
______________________________________________
Everything you say is probably true.
However, it must be acknowledged that everywhere that the democrats have total control, California, Chicago, NYC. etc. all have major, major problems the rest of the country does not have.
I live in LA, as you do, we don't need to go into these issues.
People in the rest of the country see these problems and say "Hell no, I don't want the democrats in charge".
They have a point.
Regards
Thaddeus Graham
______________________________________________
Bob,
Thanks for the truth...as always.
I'm voting (again) for Trump in 2020 because his administration is making progress in many areas, despite the stalling in Congress. This administration is serving "us" while doing what we asked (before we knew how bad it really was)..."clean up the government."
And when both sides realize that once the stink on the Hill is at least under some control, perhaps both sides can actually work together again.
It's so simple, yet seems impossible today...both sides have ideas worthy of consideration. However, you can't hear another's story or idea when all you do is receive and vomit the morning talking points, created by a group of out-of-touch, greedy, narcissistic, and sophomaniac fucks.
While I'd like to say "we are the government and via the elections, we employ those to serve us and the country," I cannot with a straight face. However, this administration is as close to what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Perhaps after a few drinks, but close.
I have to remind myself that those on either side are not all geniuses. Hardly any in fact! And for those who are, that doesn't qualify them to not represent who got them to the dance. Nor does it provide in any way, shape or form, a right to be an outright, disrespectful, idiot that in the real world would fail or be ostrasized. Or at the very least, made to spend his/her career as CNN's White House reporter...along side the current genius.
Thanks again Bob. I hope this article goes viral.
Bill in Indy
______________________________________________
When the Democratic party starts respecting our constitution, which has laws we agreed to, then people will take the party more seriously.
Taxes - the dems have consistently raised taxes, with little regard to budgets.
It's embarrassing to watch Pelosi talk about ANYTHING other than taking care of her district, that 'elected' her; yet she has failed them.
Homeless people crapping on public streets, in front of businesses, and she is going to talk about problems". Does she just drive past that
and pretend it doesn't exist? She'll proudly fight for illegal immigration, yet ignore her own people? And that is really the microcosm of
the problem. When Obama was in office, it just fine to stand up to our immigration laws, but when it comes from big bad Trump, it's racist?
The democratic party's double standard and proof of lack of actual progress is starting to catch up with them. People are getting tired of excuses and nice speeches with little progress. Democrats are more focused on finding ANYTHING to impeach Trump, that they are unfocused on doing the job they were "elected" to do; which is serve the people. In fact, if they are such a stand-up group of people, why are they not for term-limits?
While both parties are lacking efficiency and focus; the democratic party is so far out there, that they really are disconnected from America.
They don't even realize that many of the speeches they give are speaking to the wrong group of people. Just look at Illinois, where the democratic
taxes are driving people out of the state to move out. Or Chicago, a democratic controlled city that is a war zone. There is even a analytical website built on the daily crime in Chicago: http://heyjackass.com
But the dems want to tell you it's all about gun control. Never mind judicial responsibility and accountability. Neverminf addressing mental health. Never mind standing up for the police. Never mind the HUGE debt. They want to spend $500 million on a Obama library and focus on great drawings. Never mind focusing on REAL problems. It's kind of like Hollywood, the rich and famous drive past the highest level of homeless people on the streets, then arrive the award show to posture themselves and their egos; and then say 'we need more equality'!! Really???? And then they blame Trump for that?
The word is seeing thru the bullshit. See the ratings? See who won the presidency? How's the ratings for CNN doing? See the attendance at Trump rally's? I don's recall a single democratic candidate say "America first"; I hear it from Trump all the time. And as much of a jackass of the mouth/twitter he is, I can see many positive things he has accomplished. Think about all the time and money we (the tax payers of costs they spend) have lost for investigations, hearings, trials, speeches, interviews, stories and social media/media on things that are UNFOCUSED at our needs.
I will not be surprised to see Trump win again in 2020. And I would say it's more because of the behavior of the democratic party than the positive accomplishments Trump achieves. If I was a democratic candidate, I wouldn't even bring Trump into my pitch to gain votes. I would focus on solutions to AMERICAN problems. The debates next year will be the best drama TV the world has ever seen. I bet ratings will be higher than the Super Bowl.
Richard Hofherr
www.7thheavenband.com
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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--
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Herein please find the viewpoint of the right. You should know this to know what you're up against. The key is to know your enemy. Too many educated elites are in a bubble and don't know what others think.
Furthermore, very few of these people interact with regular folk, except for opinion writers in newspapers, they don't get the contrary feedback. But if you're online, like me, you get it each and every time you write something even vaguely political, that's why I knew Trump had a chance in 2016. You need to read these.
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Love you man, but you are missing a big point here, one you've written about many times.
Re: Biden, yes he is toast and yes, he did nothing illegal. Repeat, nothing illegal. Neither did Hunter. BUT..... it stinks. You know it. I know. The public knows it. The Chinese could invest 1.5B with best investors in the world, Sequoia, Benchmark, you name it. They were all my competitors. They are without equal. But they invested in Hunters bullshit fund to curry favor with a possible, yet unlikely, President to be.
Ditto, Clinton Foundation, Ditto Chelsea's first job at NBC. Nothing illegal, but simply our version of the Chinese Communist Party's sons and daughters, the Pricelings." who magically become multi millionaires because the Party Leaders dole out their largess to them and them alone. Hunter is our American Priceling. Nothing illegal. But very very bad judgment from Joe.
Elites in both parties do it. Dems don't have a corner on this. The public is sick of it. Lori Loughlin adios. It's all the same. We can't wait to see her in an orange jump suit.
What Hunter should do but cannot is stand up, show his investment record and say, "this is why the Chinese invested in me." But he can't. They invested in him because of his last name. Come on man, you know this.
All the best, buddy. Hope to see you sometime in LA.
Sorry about typos or autocorrect.....
John Hummer
______________________________________________
This battle Bob is about the Constitution. Is it a Written in stone Constitution? (yes) or a Living Constitution (No Constitution at all) It's also about the wealth of the country. When you work, is it your money or not? The Conservative says it's yours, you earned it. The Democrat says, no, it's not yours. It's unfair you have it, so we're gonna force some of it from you (51% force against the 49%)
I have trouble understanding how you can vote for force against your neighbor the way you do??? I also wonder how you can believe some bureaucrat knows better than you how to allocate the wealth you produce? Lastly, you can always write a check to do all those things you believe are right. No one's stopping you from handing over 70% of what you earn ya know? You don't have to force anyone else. You do it.
Rich Case
______________________________________________
Why can't you be fair & balanced plus deal with facts?
Or stick to why we all love you...the Arts?
Thank-you...
Michael K. Clifford
VentureCatalyst
______________________________________________
"guilty of something"? His son received billions of dollars from foreign governments only while he was VP. There was an entire expose published by the Hill called "Biden Money" three years ago exposing his questionable finances from foreign sources. And he had a quid pro quo arrangement with Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating the company his son was on the board of (ON VIDEO). This is highly specific stuff and more than "guilty of something" your cribbing the Democrats when the said "some people did something" on 9/11
Russ Motta
______________________________________________
So, Bob, you think that impeachment - or whatever the Hell Pelosi is doing without a formal vote of the House - is about a straight nullification of the 2016 election. No "high crime or misdemeanor", no problem. We won the House so we can Impeach.
It is difficult to fathom how dumb this view is.
But at least you are passionate about it and that has to count for something.
Trump is going to win so big his big old orange head will explode.
Cheers,
Jay Currie
______________________________________________
Trump 2020
Haley 2024
The Nation will be back on track.
Clarence Jay
Lefty sore loser of 2016. If Dems thought they'd win 2020 they wouldn't try to impeach the President of the USA now and let the election play out.
James Davis
______________________________________________
If Eric Trump went on Air Force One with Donald and came back with a Board seat on some company in Korea you would have a fit.
But Bidens done nothing wrong
Balrama Balrama
______________________________________________
Trump landslide 2020. The Democrats are a mess. I was one for 30 years. Never again. Thanks
Thomas Ryan
______________________________________________
ask yourself one simple question:
if it was don trump jr with the same $$$ deal as hunter biden
if he had traveled to ukraine and russia on air force one with his father to secure these deals...
would the LEFT have their hair on fire?
Ira Transport
______________________________________________
Change the narrative to "Democrat" and you can write the same story. Except the majority of all types of media are onboard with them, not just a few sites. smh,..
Craig Nickman
______________________________________________
"And at least Warren said that nobody likes their health insurance company. A truism we all know."
Another truism we all know: whatever the government does, it will always do it worse than the private sector.
Cheers!
Steve Hurlburt
______________________________________________
If you stopped right here, you'd finally be correct, Watch news from something other than what you watch,,,
You're not getting the whole story. You never do. You just don't.
John Warden
______________________________________________
The United States is a REPUBLIC, not a democracy.
The two political parties are the Republicans and the Democrats.
The REPUBLICAN party and the DEMOCRAT party.
NOT the "Democratic" party.
Bob Askey
______________________________________________
Bob, you blame 'politics' but really your party betrayed you and the rest of America a long time ago. Wake up!
Ax Hayssen
______________________________________________
Everything you say is probably true.
However, it must be acknowledged that everywhere that the democrats have total control, California, Chicago, NYC. etc. all have major, major problems the rest of the country does not have.
I live in LA, as you do, we don't need to go into these issues.
People in the rest of the country see these problems and say "Hell no, I don't want the democrats in charge".
They have a point.
Regards
Thaddeus Graham
______________________________________________
Bob,
Thanks for the truth...as always.
I'm voting (again) for Trump in 2020 because his administration is making progress in many areas, despite the stalling in Congress. This administration is serving "us" while doing what we asked (before we knew how bad it really was)..."clean up the government."
And when both sides realize that once the stink on the Hill is at least under some control, perhaps both sides can actually work together again.
It's so simple, yet seems impossible today...both sides have ideas worthy of consideration. However, you can't hear another's story or idea when all you do is receive and vomit the morning talking points, created by a group of out-of-touch, greedy, narcissistic, and sophomaniac fucks.
While I'd like to say "we are the government and via the elections, we employ those to serve us and the country," I cannot with a straight face. However, this administration is as close to what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Perhaps after a few drinks, but close.
I have to remind myself that those on either side are not all geniuses. Hardly any in fact! And for those who are, that doesn't qualify them to not represent who got them to the dance. Nor does it provide in any way, shape or form, a right to be an outright, disrespectful, idiot that in the real world would fail or be ostrasized. Or at the very least, made to spend his/her career as CNN's White House reporter...along side the current genius.
Thanks again Bob. I hope this article goes viral.
Bill in Indy
______________________________________________
When the Democratic party starts respecting our constitution, which has laws we agreed to, then people will take the party more seriously.
Taxes - the dems have consistently raised taxes, with little regard to budgets.
It's embarrassing to watch Pelosi talk about ANYTHING other than taking care of her district, that 'elected' her; yet she has failed them.
Homeless people crapping on public streets, in front of businesses, and she is going to talk about problems". Does she just drive past that
and pretend it doesn't exist? She'll proudly fight for illegal immigration, yet ignore her own people? And that is really the microcosm of
the problem. When Obama was in office, it just fine to stand up to our immigration laws, but when it comes from big bad Trump, it's racist?
The democratic party's double standard and proof of lack of actual progress is starting to catch up with them. People are getting tired of excuses and nice speeches with little progress. Democrats are more focused on finding ANYTHING to impeach Trump, that they are unfocused on doing the job they were "elected" to do; which is serve the people. In fact, if they are such a stand-up group of people, why are they not for term-limits?
While both parties are lacking efficiency and focus; the democratic party is so far out there, that they really are disconnected from America.
They don't even realize that many of the speeches they give are speaking to the wrong group of people. Just look at Illinois, where the democratic
taxes are driving people out of the state to move out. Or Chicago, a democratic controlled city that is a war zone. There is even a analytical website built on the daily crime in Chicago: http://heyjackass.com
But the dems want to tell you it's all about gun control. Never mind judicial responsibility and accountability. Neverminf addressing mental health. Never mind standing up for the police. Never mind the HUGE debt. They want to spend $500 million on a Obama library and focus on great drawings. Never mind focusing on REAL problems. It's kind of like Hollywood, the rich and famous drive past the highest level of homeless people on the streets, then arrive the award show to posture themselves and their egos; and then say 'we need more equality'!! Really???? And then they blame Trump for that?
The word is seeing thru the bullshit. See the ratings? See who won the presidency? How's the ratings for CNN doing? See the attendance at Trump rally's? I don's recall a single democratic candidate say "America first"; I hear it from Trump all the time. And as much of a jackass of the mouth/twitter he is, I can see many positive things he has accomplished. Think about all the time and money we (the tax payers of costs they spend) have lost for investigations, hearings, trials, speeches, interviews, stories and social media/media on things that are UNFOCUSED at our needs.
I will not be surprised to see Trump win again in 2020. And I would say it's more because of the behavior of the democratic party than the positive accomplishments Trump achieves. If I was a democratic candidate, I wouldn't even bring Trump into my pitch to gain votes. I would focus on solutions to AMERICAN problems. The debates next year will be the best drama TV the world has ever seen. I bet ratings will be higher than the Super Bowl.
Richard Hofherr
www.7thheavenband.com
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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Thursday, 3 October 2019
The Republicans
They're all on the same page:
1. The Bidens are guilty of something and it needs to be investigated.
2. Trump committed no crime.
3. The Democrats are out to get Trump, and they've been on this path from day one.
Yes, Trump is positively off his rocker, but one thing is for sure, he's an UNSTABLE genius. Come on, admitting that he did it in Ukraine, and then imploring the Chinese to do the same thing publicly? This is not playing by the rules, this is jujitsu.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are afraid. Of public opinion. Polling ad infinitum to make sure they don't step on anybody's toes and prevent people from voting Democratic in 2020.
That's "Democratic" I said. The right wing code is the DEMOCRAT party. Listen closely, all the Republicans say that, including Trump, they want to take the imprimatur, the meaning of "democratic," away from the Democratic party, and they're doing a good job of it.
Now one thing the left wing media does not understand is it's been vilified to irrelevance by the right. Listen to Fox News, seemingly every night Tucker Carlson excoriates the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post." He nitpicks, says they're duplicitous and need to apologize and if you had this message hammered into you every night, you'd believe it.
That's right, the right has neutralized facts. Everything's up for grabs, even that which has been proven. Global warming? Anything involving science? It's undecided. As for Biden's activity with Ukraine re his son...every newspaper has debunked it. Everybody wanted that prosecutor gone, not only the Americans, but once again facts don't matter, you can twist them anyway you want to, because there's no one true source.
The battle for hearts and minds is fought in only two places...Fox News and online. That's it, done. As for the radio talk shows like Rush...that's so last century.
And online, you can pretty much say whatever you want, as long as you don't threaten someone or break the law.
So what we're fighting for here, and the Democrats don't understand this, is hearts and minds. The Democrats think it's the 1950s, as long as their position is right, that's all that matters. They don't advocate, they don't fight for it. Oh, there are a couple of players on the left wing side, like Paul Begala and James Carville. Listen to them, they get incensed, they recite the party line, they almost turn into cartoons, but they're loyal to the team and stay on message.
Like the Republicans.
One thing's for sure, Biden's candidacy is toast. Yup, he let Trump and the right define him. He's shady, he must have done something wrong.
Biden had to go postal from day one. He should have raised a ruckus. Gone insane like Trump himself. That's the only thing that works against the Donald. Instead, Biden didn't start fighting back until now, when he's no longer on the front page. Biden gives the impression he's covering up, that he did something wrong. The public believes his behavior should be investigated by a 2-1 margin according to "USA Today." You'd think he'd realize he's in jeopardy, that his candidacy is in a death spiral, but he's still behaving like Trump never happened and it's still the 1970s.
Like Hillary Clinton.
Hillary was on Rachel Maddow last night. She still hasn't gotten the message. Oh, she was erudite and insightful, but nearly monotonistic (that may not be a word, but you get what I'm driving at). That playbook went out the window with Trump. We don't want educated wonks, we want people who will fight for us, not government insiders. It's about personality, baby, and Clinton just doesn't have it, not strong enough to play the new game.
That's why Bernie was so successful in 2016. The intensity and the truth. If his delivery hadn't been so emotional, he wouldn't have gotten any traction.
As for the canard that the Democrats wanted to get rid of Trump from day one...
The Democrats don't surface nearly thirty years of Republican stonewalling, from the Clinton era until now. Hell, under Obama the Republicans were the party of no, and they even admitted it. But is there anybody in the news fighting back on the left?
OF COURSE NOT!
As for Trump's behavior...every Republican has been talking about Johnson today...as in ANDREW Johnson! That's right, we have to go back to the 1860s for insight, before the automobile, never mind the internet. I mean they're defending Andrew Johnson when we learned in school he was a b.s. President. But NO, the Republicans have resurrected him, he was unjustly tried, just like Trump!
As for Trump committing a crime... Nowhere is it said that impeachment requires a crime. But everywhere there was a Republican today, they uttered this message, and they wouldn't back down.
How in the hell are the Democrats supposed to win?
Instead of saying they're having an impeachment "inquiry," they should be saying it's a done deal, it's just a matter of the legal process, Trump is guilty and he's gonna go, end of story. Instead, Pelosi and the wimps keep deferring to the "process." Are the Republicans talking about the process? Hell no! They're like the sweepers in curling, hell, you've seen them in the Olympics, ensuring the stone lands in the right spot. Meanwhile, the Democrats are sitting on the sidelines debating whether curling is a sport while their asses are getting kicked.
If someone admits everything can there be an impeachable offense?
Of course. But if you're a member of the hoi polloi, if you're just a rank and file voter, you start to believe it can't be that bad.
Trump and the Republicans are so far ahead of the Democrats they don't even seem to be playing the same game. All the Democrats can do is sit by silently as Trump makes news, says and does inane things over and over again. They think this is enough to win. Didn't they learn that Trump rode this behavior to victory in 2016? Trump swears, the Democrats can't even utter the words, they say "blank." Meanwhile, everybody in America says these things.
You've got to fight to win.
But the Democrats don't. They gave up a Supreme Court seat, they've been the victims of gerrymandering and voter suppression. But all they can say is they've been ripped-off, that it's unfair. How is it working for them? IT'S NOT!
Today's news cycle is uber-fast. People don't remember what happened this morning, never mind last week. Come on, Trump is bloviating every day, we've lost track of what he's said. So, the Democrats will work very slowly, afraid of any blowback, and they'll sacrifice the narrative, they'll grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
Don't get started unless you're gonna finish the deal. Either Trump is guilty and needs to go or forget about it.
As for those candidates running next year...
They've got to fight back now, build their identities now, because one thing's for sure, the Republicans are gonna do their best to paint them negatively. Hell, they killed Biden in a week! And they killed the Clintons and... Don't you know that the Democrats are a bleeding-heart liberal party that wants to overspend your money on unworthy projects and unworthy people, that taxes are inherently bad and men have the right to tell women what to do?
Yup, the Republicans keep saying the above message over and over again, to the point the Democrats are afraid to even SAY the word "tax." The belief is raising taxes is a nonstarter, you're going to automatically lose, it's a third rail topic. Give Sanders credit, he owns the truth, of course your taxes are gonna go up if there's Medicare for All.
And at least Warren said that nobody likes their health insurance company. A truism we all know.
But what do the Democrats say about these two authentic candidates? THEY'RE LOSERS! THEY'RE TOO FAR TO THE LEFT! And then the Republicans double-down on these messages and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Being right is not enough. You've got to have game. You've got to play hard. You've got to convince people.
Right now, only the Republicans are doing that.
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Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
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1. The Bidens are guilty of something and it needs to be investigated.
2. Trump committed no crime.
3. The Democrats are out to get Trump, and they've been on this path from day one.
Yes, Trump is positively off his rocker, but one thing is for sure, he's an UNSTABLE genius. Come on, admitting that he did it in Ukraine, and then imploring the Chinese to do the same thing publicly? This is not playing by the rules, this is jujitsu.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are afraid. Of public opinion. Polling ad infinitum to make sure they don't step on anybody's toes and prevent people from voting Democratic in 2020.
That's "Democratic" I said. The right wing code is the DEMOCRAT party. Listen closely, all the Republicans say that, including Trump, they want to take the imprimatur, the meaning of "democratic," away from the Democratic party, and they're doing a good job of it.
Now one thing the left wing media does not understand is it's been vilified to irrelevance by the right. Listen to Fox News, seemingly every night Tucker Carlson excoriates the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post." He nitpicks, says they're duplicitous and need to apologize and if you had this message hammered into you every night, you'd believe it.
That's right, the right has neutralized facts. Everything's up for grabs, even that which has been proven. Global warming? Anything involving science? It's undecided. As for Biden's activity with Ukraine re his son...every newspaper has debunked it. Everybody wanted that prosecutor gone, not only the Americans, but once again facts don't matter, you can twist them anyway you want to, because there's no one true source.
The battle for hearts and minds is fought in only two places...Fox News and online. That's it, done. As for the radio talk shows like Rush...that's so last century.
And online, you can pretty much say whatever you want, as long as you don't threaten someone or break the law.
So what we're fighting for here, and the Democrats don't understand this, is hearts and minds. The Democrats think it's the 1950s, as long as their position is right, that's all that matters. They don't advocate, they don't fight for it. Oh, there are a couple of players on the left wing side, like Paul Begala and James Carville. Listen to them, they get incensed, they recite the party line, they almost turn into cartoons, but they're loyal to the team and stay on message.
Like the Republicans.
One thing's for sure, Biden's candidacy is toast. Yup, he let Trump and the right define him. He's shady, he must have done something wrong.
Biden had to go postal from day one. He should have raised a ruckus. Gone insane like Trump himself. That's the only thing that works against the Donald. Instead, Biden didn't start fighting back until now, when he's no longer on the front page. Biden gives the impression he's covering up, that he did something wrong. The public believes his behavior should be investigated by a 2-1 margin according to "USA Today." You'd think he'd realize he's in jeopardy, that his candidacy is in a death spiral, but he's still behaving like Trump never happened and it's still the 1970s.
Like Hillary Clinton.
Hillary was on Rachel Maddow last night. She still hasn't gotten the message. Oh, she was erudite and insightful, but nearly monotonistic (that may not be a word, but you get what I'm driving at). That playbook went out the window with Trump. We don't want educated wonks, we want people who will fight for us, not government insiders. It's about personality, baby, and Clinton just doesn't have it, not strong enough to play the new game.
That's why Bernie was so successful in 2016. The intensity and the truth. If his delivery hadn't been so emotional, he wouldn't have gotten any traction.
As for the canard that the Democrats wanted to get rid of Trump from day one...
The Democrats don't surface nearly thirty years of Republican stonewalling, from the Clinton era until now. Hell, under Obama the Republicans were the party of no, and they even admitted it. But is there anybody in the news fighting back on the left?
OF COURSE NOT!
As for Trump's behavior...every Republican has been talking about Johnson today...as in ANDREW Johnson! That's right, we have to go back to the 1860s for insight, before the automobile, never mind the internet. I mean they're defending Andrew Johnson when we learned in school he was a b.s. President. But NO, the Republicans have resurrected him, he was unjustly tried, just like Trump!
As for Trump committing a crime... Nowhere is it said that impeachment requires a crime. But everywhere there was a Republican today, they uttered this message, and they wouldn't back down.
How in the hell are the Democrats supposed to win?
Instead of saying they're having an impeachment "inquiry," they should be saying it's a done deal, it's just a matter of the legal process, Trump is guilty and he's gonna go, end of story. Instead, Pelosi and the wimps keep deferring to the "process." Are the Republicans talking about the process? Hell no! They're like the sweepers in curling, hell, you've seen them in the Olympics, ensuring the stone lands in the right spot. Meanwhile, the Democrats are sitting on the sidelines debating whether curling is a sport while their asses are getting kicked.
If someone admits everything can there be an impeachable offense?
Of course. But if you're a member of the hoi polloi, if you're just a rank and file voter, you start to believe it can't be that bad.
Trump and the Republicans are so far ahead of the Democrats they don't even seem to be playing the same game. All the Democrats can do is sit by silently as Trump makes news, says and does inane things over and over again. They think this is enough to win. Didn't they learn that Trump rode this behavior to victory in 2016? Trump swears, the Democrats can't even utter the words, they say "blank." Meanwhile, everybody in America says these things.
You've got to fight to win.
But the Democrats don't. They gave up a Supreme Court seat, they've been the victims of gerrymandering and voter suppression. But all they can say is they've been ripped-off, that it's unfair. How is it working for them? IT'S NOT!
Today's news cycle is uber-fast. People don't remember what happened this morning, never mind last week. Come on, Trump is bloviating every day, we've lost track of what he's said. So, the Democrats will work very slowly, afraid of any blowback, and they'll sacrifice the narrative, they'll grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
Don't get started unless you're gonna finish the deal. Either Trump is guilty and needs to go or forget about it.
As for those candidates running next year...
They've got to fight back now, build their identities now, because one thing's for sure, the Republicans are gonna do their best to paint them negatively. Hell, they killed Biden in a week! And they killed the Clintons and... Don't you know that the Democrats are a bleeding-heart liberal party that wants to overspend your money on unworthy projects and unworthy people, that taxes are inherently bad and men have the right to tell women what to do?
Yup, the Republicans keep saying the above message over and over again, to the point the Democrats are afraid to even SAY the word "tax." The belief is raising taxes is a nonstarter, you're going to automatically lose, it's a third rail topic. Give Sanders credit, he owns the truth, of course your taxes are gonna go up if there's Medicare for All.
And at least Warren said that nobody likes their health insurance company. A truism we all know.
But what do the Democrats say about these two authentic candidates? THEY'RE LOSERS! THEY'RE TOO FAR TO THE LEFT! And then the Republicans double-down on these messages and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Being right is not enough. You've got to have game. You've got to play hard. You've got to convince people.
Right now, only the Republicans are doing that.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
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Dirty Honey
"How Dirty Honey Became the First Unsigned Band to Top the Mainstream Rock Songs Chart": https://bit.ly/2oaRRyM
They're managed by Mark DiDia and Winky Fairorth.
This is what Winky wrote me last March:
"I play ice hockey here in LA with a great bunch of guys. One of them has been working hard on a music career with his band. His name is Marc Labelle and he's the lead singer and a big fan of rock. I have showed him several of your letters regarding the industry and how to do this properly in 2019. Not that you say what to do as much as you say what NOT to do. They are out playing club dates now across the US. 24 dates in 30 days driving the sprinter van around. Good old fashioned hard work.
I've heard you speak a lot about Greta and I have also heard you say there ain't enough rock. I think these boys have something. It's all their own music and it's produced at a very high level. They will open for Slash this summer and hit a few festivals.
They released an EP today and I wanted you to hear it. I'll be curious to hear your take. I've been in it so long with them now that I feel like I can't be objective any more.
Enjoy Dirty Honey!"
I was wary, the guys in Dirty Honey are nowhere near as young as those in Greta. And to tell you the truth, I didn't love the song. It sounds like rock, but despite containing the building blocks, I didn't find that irresistible hook. I mean the chorus is weak, right?
But then Winky e-mailed me yesterday. And told me to "Check out my boyz:)" and provided a link to the above "Billboard" article.
Now the band is with Red Light. And not only does DiDia have radio experience, Mark Gorlick is doing the promotion, and he used to work at major labels.
And then I got e-mail from John Boyle raving about the track and then...
I figured I was wrong.
So today, I pulled up the numbers.
"When I'm Gone" has 2,204,532 streams on Spotify. Respectable, too many acts have under seven figures, but #50 on the U.S. Spotify chart, "Writing on the Wall," had 441,590 streams YESTERDAY! As for number one, Post Malone's "Circles," it had 1,431,492 streams on Spotify yesterday.
But maybe rockers are not streamers.
So I went to YouTube. "When I'm Gone" has 333,586 streams...THAT'S PEANUTS!
So maybe the "Billboard" article was wrong, let me go to Mediabase, the radio Bible. Yup, there was Dirty Honey's "When I'm Gone" topping the Active Rock chart, Winky's information was correct.
But then I looked at the number of spins, "When I'm Gone" had 1,721 spins, with an audience rating of 5.262.
Number one on Triple A was Cage The Elephant's "Social Cues," it had...661 spins this week. 661!! That's not even a thousand, it's positively anemic! The audience rating was 1.151.
Lana Del Rey's "Doin' Time" tops the Alternative chart, with 3,339 spins this week, with an audience of 11.186. But she gets a lot of press, she's got an established career. Illenium is number two, with 2,961 spins and a smaller audience share of 8.103.
Now I'm seeing how small these numbers are, I wonder how they compare to Top Forty.
Lizzo is number one there. With 19,384 spins this week, with an audience number of 95.136.
But she's a phenomenon, how about a new act?
Lewis Capaldi's "Someone You Loved" is number three and has 16,906 spins, with an audience number of 75.303.
In other words, Lizzo's cut is eleven times bigger than Dirty Honey's.
It's almost like rock doesn't even exist, it's a zit on the ass of the business. But if you're in that sphere, there's absolutely no reason to sign with a major label, nada. The Red Light team did it all by their lonesome, for their management percentage, the act owns the track and does not pay a label. So, it's a win!
Furthermore, some of these rock acts sell tickets. They may not be big on the radio or streaming, but they've got live audiences, and that's where the money is. Is it that every rock listener is buying a ticket?
Streaming and radio are dominated by hip-hop/pop. But, the truth is hip-hop/pop is a smaller fraction of the marketplace than ever before. Sure, there's a chart, but not everyone on it can sell tickets, a lot of acts come and go. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?
Well, I'd like to tell you "Dirty Honey" is slam dunk irresistible, but I don't think so. If you want a new version of the old sound, it delivers, as far as inspiring new, younger listeners...I don't think so.
But, once again, unless you make hip-hop/pop, don't sign with a major label, you can truly do it yourself. It's nearly free to get on the streaming services, but the truth is those guys at Red Light are experienced.
So what does this portend?
Hip-hop/pop will continue to have an ever decreasing share of the pie. But what will fill the growing hole is unknown. It's not really driven by radio, and it's not really driven by streaming. Somehow, people are finding out. But so far, there hasn't been one track that everyone agrees can be pushed to mainstream success. Then again, maybe all-dominating successes are history.
Dirty Honey's "When I'm Gone": https://spoti.fi/2AIhCJr
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
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They're managed by Mark DiDia and Winky Fairorth.
This is what Winky wrote me last March:
"I play ice hockey here in LA with a great bunch of guys. One of them has been working hard on a music career with his band. His name is Marc Labelle and he's the lead singer and a big fan of rock. I have showed him several of your letters regarding the industry and how to do this properly in 2019. Not that you say what to do as much as you say what NOT to do. They are out playing club dates now across the US. 24 dates in 30 days driving the sprinter van around. Good old fashioned hard work.
I've heard you speak a lot about Greta and I have also heard you say there ain't enough rock. I think these boys have something. It's all their own music and it's produced at a very high level. They will open for Slash this summer and hit a few festivals.
They released an EP today and I wanted you to hear it. I'll be curious to hear your take. I've been in it so long with them now that I feel like I can't be objective any more.
Enjoy Dirty Honey!"
I was wary, the guys in Dirty Honey are nowhere near as young as those in Greta. And to tell you the truth, I didn't love the song. It sounds like rock, but despite containing the building blocks, I didn't find that irresistible hook. I mean the chorus is weak, right?
But then Winky e-mailed me yesterday. And told me to "Check out my boyz:)" and provided a link to the above "Billboard" article.
Now the band is with Red Light. And not only does DiDia have radio experience, Mark Gorlick is doing the promotion, and he used to work at major labels.
And then I got e-mail from John Boyle raving about the track and then...
I figured I was wrong.
So today, I pulled up the numbers.
"When I'm Gone" has 2,204,532 streams on Spotify. Respectable, too many acts have under seven figures, but #50 on the U.S. Spotify chart, "Writing on the Wall," had 441,590 streams YESTERDAY! As for number one, Post Malone's "Circles," it had 1,431,492 streams on Spotify yesterday.
But maybe rockers are not streamers.
So I went to YouTube. "When I'm Gone" has 333,586 streams...THAT'S PEANUTS!
So maybe the "Billboard" article was wrong, let me go to Mediabase, the radio Bible. Yup, there was Dirty Honey's "When I'm Gone" topping the Active Rock chart, Winky's information was correct.
But then I looked at the number of spins, "When I'm Gone" had 1,721 spins, with an audience rating of 5.262.
Number one on Triple A was Cage The Elephant's "Social Cues," it had...661 spins this week. 661!! That's not even a thousand, it's positively anemic! The audience rating was 1.151.
Lana Del Rey's "Doin' Time" tops the Alternative chart, with 3,339 spins this week, with an audience of 11.186. But she gets a lot of press, she's got an established career. Illenium is number two, with 2,961 spins and a smaller audience share of 8.103.
Now I'm seeing how small these numbers are, I wonder how they compare to Top Forty.
Lizzo is number one there. With 19,384 spins this week, with an audience number of 95.136.
But she's a phenomenon, how about a new act?
Lewis Capaldi's "Someone You Loved" is number three and has 16,906 spins, with an audience number of 75.303.
In other words, Lizzo's cut is eleven times bigger than Dirty Honey's.
It's almost like rock doesn't even exist, it's a zit on the ass of the business. But if you're in that sphere, there's absolutely no reason to sign with a major label, nada. The Red Light team did it all by their lonesome, for their management percentage, the act owns the track and does not pay a label. So, it's a win!
Furthermore, some of these rock acts sell tickets. They may not be big on the radio or streaming, but they've got live audiences, and that's where the money is. Is it that every rock listener is buying a ticket?
Streaming and radio are dominated by hip-hop/pop. But, the truth is hip-hop/pop is a smaller fraction of the marketplace than ever before. Sure, there's a chart, but not everyone on it can sell tickets, a lot of acts come and go. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?
Well, I'd like to tell you "Dirty Honey" is slam dunk irresistible, but I don't think so. If you want a new version of the old sound, it delivers, as far as inspiring new, younger listeners...I don't think so.
But, once again, unless you make hip-hop/pop, don't sign with a major label, you can truly do it yourself. It's nearly free to get on the streaming services, but the truth is those guys at Red Light are experienced.
So what does this portend?
Hip-hop/pop will continue to have an ever decreasing share of the pie. But what will fill the growing hole is unknown. It's not really driven by radio, and it's not really driven by streaming. Somehow, people are finding out. But so far, there hasn't been one track that everyone agrees can be pushed to mainstream success. Then again, maybe all-dominating successes are history.
Dirty Honey's "When I'm Gone": https://spoti.fi/2AIhCJr
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
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Phil Carson-This Week's Podcast
Phil Carson was there, in the heyday of Atlantic Records in the U.K. He signed AC/DC and was the only guy at the label Led Zeppelin would talk to. He's managed everyone from Plant and Page to ELP and still handles Foreigner. This guy's got stories!
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/phil-carson/id1316200737?i=1000452140396
https://open.spotify.com/episode/40Cwjs3qEKnSyT2UbNUKrp
https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=64332189
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--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/phil-carson/id1316200737?i=1000452140396
https://open.spotify.com/episode/40Cwjs3qEKnSyT2UbNUKrp
https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=64332189
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Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Tuesday, 1 October 2019
E-Mail(s) Of The Day
That's my cousin, Mitch, and his son, Max!
Josh Dorf
______________________________________
So Bob,
L'shana Tova U'Metukah. The newsletter is always great. Read it this morning.
The shofar blowing you referenced are my husband and son.
Here is the link to a story about them and their 11 years of blowing shofar at WBT and why in the most recent Jewish Journal.
Enjoy the read, we sure enjoy reading you!
https://jewishjournal.com/news/los_angeles/community/304893/the-family-that-plays-shofar-together/
Lynda Dorf
Communications-Marketing-Strategy
______________________________________
Happy New Year Bob,
My wife Lynda just responded to you about the shofar blowers you referenced in last night's news letter. I believe she sent you this weeks JJ article about our story:
https://jewishjournal.com/news/los_angeles/community/304893/the-family-that-plays-shofar-together/
Btw, we used to be Sunset Park Neighbors.
Monday was my son Max's and my 11th out of the past 12 years blowing shofar together at WBT. Musically, here's what's happening when we play and why and how it sounds that way. It's a bit technical but so incredible that these two instruments purchased 6 years and 6,000 miles apart from each other are naturally almost perfectly in tune with each other.
Both shofars can play the root - 5th - and octave of a major chord. My shofar's natural root is an Eb. For the calls TE'KI'AH, SH'VA'RIM, TE'RU'AH and TE'KI'AH GE'DO'LAH, I play the root (Eb) - 5th (Bb) - and octave (Eb) producing the basis of an Eb major chord Eb - Bb – Eb.
Max's shofar's root is a G and can play the 5th above that (D) and octave (G). So he can make the foundation of a G Major chord G – D – G
Separate, they make two distinct chords, Mitch's Eb Major and Max's G Major. Now this is all due to the natural size and shape of the shofar as well as which of the three natural pitches we play.
However, when we blow in combination together for the first and last sections of the shofar service Malchiyot (G-d is the incomparable King of The Universe) and Shofarot (Blasts of the Shofar), I play the root - 5th - Octave (Eb - Bb - Eb) and Max just plays his root (G) in tempo. Here we make a G Maj chord Eb – G – Bb – Eb, which sounds triumphant and exhilarating and brings up emotions of happiness, cheerfulness, confidence, brightness and satisfaction. His G is about 5 cents flat of a perfect 3rd from my Eb so there's a bit of dissonance, which makes it sound even more interesting.
Another really cool thing happens during the middle section of the Shofar service is called Zichronot, which is about remembrance. This is the section you referenced. For those 30 blasts, we invert the horns where Max plays his root - 5th and octave (G – D – G) and I just play my 5th (Bb) in tempo with him. That becomes a Minor 3rd above his root (G). So, now we create a G minor chord. Minor chords are considered to be somewhat sad, reflective or more serious and may even create an emotion of mystery, which is exactly Zichronot!
Yesterday we blew at 5 services.
If you go to your link (https://www.wbtla.org/live) and choose the 8:45am service then go to 2:14:00 you'll hear a TE'KI'AH GE'DO'LAH for the ages.
Shana Tovah,
Mitch Dorf
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Josh Dorf
______________________________________
So Bob,
L'shana Tova U'Metukah. The newsletter is always great. Read it this morning.
The shofar blowing you referenced are my husband and son.
Here is the link to a story about them and their 11 years of blowing shofar at WBT and why in the most recent Jewish Journal.
Enjoy the read, we sure enjoy reading you!
https://jewishjournal.com/news/los_angeles/community/304893/the-family-that-plays-shofar-together/
Lynda Dorf
Communications-Marketing-Strategy
______________________________________
Happy New Year Bob,
My wife Lynda just responded to you about the shofar blowers you referenced in last night's news letter. I believe she sent you this weeks JJ article about our story:
https://jewishjournal.com/news/los_angeles/community/304893/the-family-that-plays-shofar-together/
Btw, we used to be Sunset Park Neighbors.
Monday was my son Max's and my 11th out of the past 12 years blowing shofar together at WBT. Musically, here's what's happening when we play and why and how it sounds that way. It's a bit technical but so incredible that these two instruments purchased 6 years and 6,000 miles apart from each other are naturally almost perfectly in tune with each other.
Both shofars can play the root - 5th - and octave of a major chord. My shofar's natural root is an Eb. For the calls TE'KI'AH, SH'VA'RIM, TE'RU'AH and TE'KI'AH GE'DO'LAH, I play the root (Eb) - 5th (Bb) - and octave (Eb) producing the basis of an Eb major chord Eb - Bb – Eb.
Max's shofar's root is a G and can play the 5th above that (D) and octave (G). So he can make the foundation of a G Major chord G – D – G
Separate, they make two distinct chords, Mitch's Eb Major and Max's G Major. Now this is all due to the natural size and shape of the shofar as well as which of the three natural pitches we play.
However, when we blow in combination together for the first and last sections of the shofar service Malchiyot (G-d is the incomparable King of The Universe) and Shofarot (Blasts of the Shofar), I play the root - 5th - Octave (Eb - Bb - Eb) and Max just plays his root (G) in tempo. Here we make a G Maj chord Eb – G – Bb – Eb, which sounds triumphant and exhilarating and brings up emotions of happiness, cheerfulness, confidence, brightness and satisfaction. His G is about 5 cents flat of a perfect 3rd from my Eb so there's a bit of dissonance, which makes it sound even more interesting.
Another really cool thing happens during the middle section of the Shofar service is called Zichronot, which is about remembrance. This is the section you referenced. For those 30 blasts, we invert the horns where Max plays his root - 5th and octave (G – D – G) and I just play my 5th (Bb) in tempo with him. That becomes a Minor 3rd above his root (G). So, now we create a G minor chord. Minor chords are considered to be somewhat sad, reflective or more serious and may even create an emotion of mystery, which is exactly Zichronot!
Yesterday we blew at 5 services.
If you go to your link (https://www.wbtla.org/live) and choose the 8:45am service then go to 2:14:00 you'll hear a TE'KI'AH GE'DO'LAH for the ages.
Shana Tovah,
Mitch Dorf
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Records You Regret Buying-SiriusXM This Week
Tune in today, Tuesday October 1st, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive
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Monday, 30 September 2019
Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood
I went this morning.
Oh no, I know it's Rosh Hashanah. I was supposed to see Sturgill Simpson last night at the Troubadour, with even dinner after at Dan Tana's, but I felt too guilty.
But my last two years of high school we played the Rosh Hashanah Open.
On a bitterly cold day, while I skied at Bromley and my parents and Wendy did not, my father decided to go house hunting. And stunningly, when they picked me up at the end of the day, my father told me he'd bought. Which stunned me and thrilled me. Stunned me because my father was not that big a spender and thrilled me because this would ensure we came to Vermont and went skiing more.
The house cost $14,000 and change. This was back in '68. It was down the street from the Equinox Hotel, which was closed at the time but is back in business, in Manchester, Vermont.
And I bet my mother a pair of Head skis that one of the holes of the golf course, which was between us and the hotel, went over the road. She'd never seen such a thing, I was right, and I got a used pair of Head Comps the following fall.
My father made friends with the real estate agent, who turned out to be Jewish, so the following Rosh Hashanah, and the one after that, we went to shul up in Manchester. Want to get that religious feeling? Have so few people in attendance that no one is on the same page during the responsive reading. Oh, they're on the same page, they just don't speak in unison. And we went to services the night of and the following morning of Rosh Hashanah back in Connecticut, but in Vermont, the evening was enough, in the afternoon we played golf, ergo the Rosh Hashanah Open. After all, Rosh Hashanah is supposed to be joyful, right?
So I woke up early and went to the ArcLight for the 11:15 show.
Now I left my parking ticket in the car. I realized this as I got out of the elevator on the first floor. You see I'd been scrounging for my energy bars in my automobile and forgot all about the parking ticket, which you need, otherwise you're going to get charged up the yin-yang.
And on the way back up I got off on the wrong floor. You see the stairs were closed for repairs. And I started to get antsy, was I gonna miss part of the movie? I'm like Woody Allen, I've got to start at the beginning, otherwise I'm convinced I've missed something.
Then I see people who are obviously going to the ArcLight. So I put it in high gear, I don't want to wait in line for a ticket. I pass people on the escalators, and I ran up to the counter just before a woman and her two little kids and purchased my ducat and immediately went to the bathroom. That's right, I'm old, what are the odds I can sit through a three hour picture without peeing? Pretty low.
Actually, I'd had nothing to drink in the morning, I was prepared.
And when I entered the theatre, a big one, #1, I saw the usual beshirted usher ready to give the ArcLight rap. But she didn't, because I was the only person in the theatre. She said when big movies open, sometimes they start 'em at 9 AM and nobody is there, so this wasn't the biggest surprise to her, but it was to me.
So I'd picked one seat from center, so I moved over.
And then I realized I was looking up ever so slightly, so I went to the row behind, and then the sound was a bit softer, so I went back to the prior row. I know, it's OCD, but really, the lower row was better. And I'm constantly checking my pockets to make sure I've got all my gear. And it's then that I realize...
I've lost my wallet.
Oh boy. You mean I killed myself to get here on time and now I'm gonna miss some of the movie to look? Hell, maybe I'll just wait until the end, someone will turn it in, but will I be calm during the show?
No.
There are only two trailers at the ArcLight. At least that used to be the pitch, I haven't been in a long time, I haven't been in eons, because it's just too much of a hassle. I plan, and then when I'm there I wish I wasn't, my mind can't slow down.
So I'm standing by the exit, waiting to see... AND THERE'S A THIRD TRAILER!
I rush out to the ticket-taker, has anybody turned in a wallet?
No. But he said lost and found was handled by the concession.
So I walked over and interrupted a man pulling popcorn, but he didn't have it either.
I went to the bathroom.
Gone.
And now I'm starting to flip. Forget the money, it's the credit cards and IDs I'm worried about.
And the trailer is still going, so I whip out the flashlight on my iPhone and look for said wallet beneath the seats in my row and the row behind.
No go, it's not there.
Now I'm starting to freak, this doesn't add up, so I retrace my steps from the first of my rows to the second, and on the edge of the concrete, in the row behind, there it is.
So, I could be calm during the film.
Now I paid fourteen something for the ticket. Too much, considering Sharon Tate is gonna be charged seventy five cents in Westwood in 1969. I've been to that theatre zillions of times, I used to use my college ID to get fifty cents off, in 1974 the sticker price was $3.50, but then I got too old to use the picture and...
Concerts cost a staggering amount. Maybe fifteen bucks is worth it.
Oh, screw the concessions. I don't want people eating, talking or checking their phone, if I bother to get out, can't I watch the movie in peace?
And then the flick begins. It made me want to move to L.A., except I'm already here.
I'm not a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio, he never seemed grown-up to me, even when he became so. But he's got this scene with this little girl where he kills and...
The real star is Brad Pitt.
Now if you're a woman, you probably noticed him in "Thelma & Louise." To me he was just another actor, but the women swooned.
But that was thirty years ago. You look in the mirror every day, you see your friends, you notice gradual aging, but you always think of old girlfriends and movie stars as how they look in pictures. But the truth is Brad Pitt still looks pretty damn good, even though he's fifty five.
But it's his attitude that kills.
Now male attitude is in question these days. You certainly don't want to be macho in big business. As a matter of fact, men no longer know how to act, they're afraid. But here's Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth and he just doesn't care what you think about him or what's gonna play out, he's got to be himself 24/7. I mean you can see trouble coming. Especially when he makes that guy fix his flat tire, I would have bolted immediately.
But he got there by picking up a hitchhiker. That's something you used to do. No one would pick up a hitchhiker today. But even Sharon Tate does in this flick. Oh, do I need a spoiler alert? I don't think so, the movie's been out for months, not that I want to reveal too much.
But I'm a wuss. If I smell trouble, I'm out of there.
But not Cliff Booth.
Not that he's doing well, he's living in a trailer with his pit bull...
That's behind the Van Nuys Drive-In. I remember going there to see the original "Friday the 13th," back when you still hung the speaker on your window, before you turned on the FM radio. I was always worried about my battery draining down, but there are no drive-ins left, so I guess that's not an issue.
And then when we hear that Cliff killed his wife, or at least it's commonly believed...
Kurt Russell is killer in his role. He's gotten old, but he's grown into his skin. And the scene where Cliff's widow is on the boat calling him a loser...
That's one of the things I thought about during the whole film. I wasn't here in '69, but I arrived not long thereafter. I was never one of the insiders. They were considered a separate breed, it was unfathomable. But some people came to L.A. and some people made it and...
It was very different from today. People took a chance. Today if you're middle class or above, you don't. You go to a good school to get a good job and you're on the track to success right away, you don't want to be a loser.
Now we all know the women in this film, the hot ones trading on their looks. These are not MBAs, not MDs, these are people who sat in front of the mirror and then used their looks and charisma to snag a man and move on up the food chain, and if you didn't have anything worth latching on to, you had no chance, no way.
Men have money. Women have their looks.
Oh, of course that's not the rule, but it is in Hollywood, where no one's got a CV and no one's got a safety net, everybody's making it up as they go along, faking it until hopefully they make it.
So Cliff is worried about losing his job as a stuntman, he ferries Rick Dalton around, but he's got no other gigs. But he's not humbled, not broken, he takes care of Bruce Lee and...Cliff is the antihero we all rally around, someone just going through the motions with enough charisma to make it work.
As for Rick Dalton...
He's seen better days. He laments forgoing the last year of his series for films. And then Al Pacino, as jive as any business guy in Hollywood ever, says Dalton will never get ahead if he keeps on playing the heavy.
This is not working for Procter & Gamble, there is no insurance, it can disappear any day. And chances are you blew the money anyway. And you can criticize these people for their lack of financial acumen, you'd save the money, but you'd never risk it all in Hollywood.
As for the girls in the Family...
They're too nice. At least at first.
Yes, you're stoked, you're remembering the sixties, when we all listened to the same radio stations, watched the same TV shows, you're nostalgic, and then you remember...this is a shined-up version. The women in the real Manson Family were grittier. As for those who lived here, who grew up here, this was their everyday reality, which was beamed across America, across the world, every night, which is one of the reasons I moved to California. I'd say most people don't have the cojones, but to tell you the truth, I'm not worried about most people. You want to drive with the top down in the middle of winter, you want society to be fluid, you want to feel the energy...
And in L.A. it doesn't matter who your parents are, where you went to school. Oh, it might get you in the door, but everybody's hustling every damn day, are you willing to?
So Tarantino gets the feel exactly right. And the Dolby Atmos is thrilling.
Oh, that's a point I wanted to make. They've got to give up making niche pictures, that'll never work and it isn't. It should be all about event pictures all the time, that's the only way to save the movies. And, like it used to be, with platform releases, they should make it harder to get in, you need to salivate, with only shows at night, it's got to be an experience like going to a concert.
Did I need to see "Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood" on the big screen?
Don't ask me that question.
So you're wondering what the arc is, where the film is going. Then you realize it must be Rick's career. But there's all that Manson stuff and...
The flick ends and you go...WHAT?
It was a great ride with no payoff. Oh, there's the typical Tarantino gore, but in terms of story, it was light, the film was more impressionistic.
Is it because I was overhyped, seeing the movie too late?
I don't know, I think I would have been disappointed if I'd seen it when it first came out. I expected to be wowed, like "Hamilton."
So what did I learn?
Well, that movies should be events. And all the money Tarantino spent was on the screen, there were the old cars and nuances... Although the truth is the 747 didn't start flying until 1970, but that was almost fifty years ago and unless you lived back then and were an aviation fan, you would not know.
And of course Tarantino makes excellent use of music, but...
Going to the movies in 1969 was part of your life, you went on a regular basis, to see "Goodbye Columbus" and "Butch Cassidy" and...this film evoked those times, and on that level it's a ten, but not in story.
And when it was all over, I called my mother, and she told me how she'd debated going to services. This made me feel guilty. She's barely ambulatory, I don't think she's a believer, and she was gonna go?
So I came home and fired up my browser and went to services online, at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple. I'd like to tell you I didn't surf the web while I was watching, but I'd be lying, and the truth is I rarely paid attention at the temple anyway.
But you've got to see this.
Fire up your browser and go to: https://www.wbtla.org/live And then fast-forward to 1:38, that's one hour and thirty eight minutes. And hang in there until...THEY START TO BLOW THE SHOFAR!
It'll blow your mind. We just used to have little horns akin to Daniel Boone's gunpowder carrier. But these rams horns...
Check it out.
So the sun has set.
Actually, it's been cold in L.A. the past two days, into the fifties at night, but it's gonna go back into the eighties by Wednesday.
And it's fall, when the air is pregnant with possibilities.
"These things we do to keep the flame burnin'
And write our fire in the sky
Another day to see the wheel turnin'
Another avenue to try"
It's not really the luck of the draw, but luck does play a huge part in it. But really it's about your personality. That's what gets you ahead in Hollywood, everybody believes you've got the goods if you can get inside.
But that's a tough road.
Which Rick Dalton is afraid he's gonna fall off of, and end up in his hometown in the Midwest.
But Cliff Booth will survive. Back when you could make it on minimum wage. But the truth is we're all scrambling, we're all hustling, and if you live long enough you'll hit hard times - career, health, marriage, money...
Yup, life is the luck of the draw. You don't want to have any regrets. And the people who come to Hollywood to make it, they don't, they give it a good shot, because they want some of what's in this movie.
And I can tell you how it's different today, with social media and cameras.
But it's more the same, if you can become a member of the club...
But not only is it hard to make it, it's hard to stay there.
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll, if you wanna be a movie star, if you want the brass ring.
But someone has to make it, why not you?
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Oh no, I know it's Rosh Hashanah. I was supposed to see Sturgill Simpson last night at the Troubadour, with even dinner after at Dan Tana's, but I felt too guilty.
But my last two years of high school we played the Rosh Hashanah Open.
On a bitterly cold day, while I skied at Bromley and my parents and Wendy did not, my father decided to go house hunting. And stunningly, when they picked me up at the end of the day, my father told me he'd bought. Which stunned me and thrilled me. Stunned me because my father was not that big a spender and thrilled me because this would ensure we came to Vermont and went skiing more.
The house cost $14,000 and change. This was back in '68. It was down the street from the Equinox Hotel, which was closed at the time but is back in business, in Manchester, Vermont.
And I bet my mother a pair of Head skis that one of the holes of the golf course, which was between us and the hotel, went over the road. She'd never seen such a thing, I was right, and I got a used pair of Head Comps the following fall.
My father made friends with the real estate agent, who turned out to be Jewish, so the following Rosh Hashanah, and the one after that, we went to shul up in Manchester. Want to get that religious feeling? Have so few people in attendance that no one is on the same page during the responsive reading. Oh, they're on the same page, they just don't speak in unison. And we went to services the night of and the following morning of Rosh Hashanah back in Connecticut, but in Vermont, the evening was enough, in the afternoon we played golf, ergo the Rosh Hashanah Open. After all, Rosh Hashanah is supposed to be joyful, right?
So I woke up early and went to the ArcLight for the 11:15 show.
Now I left my parking ticket in the car. I realized this as I got out of the elevator on the first floor. You see I'd been scrounging for my energy bars in my automobile and forgot all about the parking ticket, which you need, otherwise you're going to get charged up the yin-yang.
And on the way back up I got off on the wrong floor. You see the stairs were closed for repairs. And I started to get antsy, was I gonna miss part of the movie? I'm like Woody Allen, I've got to start at the beginning, otherwise I'm convinced I've missed something.
Then I see people who are obviously going to the ArcLight. So I put it in high gear, I don't want to wait in line for a ticket. I pass people on the escalators, and I ran up to the counter just before a woman and her two little kids and purchased my ducat and immediately went to the bathroom. That's right, I'm old, what are the odds I can sit through a three hour picture without peeing? Pretty low.
Actually, I'd had nothing to drink in the morning, I was prepared.
And when I entered the theatre, a big one, #1, I saw the usual beshirted usher ready to give the ArcLight rap. But she didn't, because I was the only person in the theatre. She said when big movies open, sometimes they start 'em at 9 AM and nobody is there, so this wasn't the biggest surprise to her, but it was to me.
So I'd picked one seat from center, so I moved over.
And then I realized I was looking up ever so slightly, so I went to the row behind, and then the sound was a bit softer, so I went back to the prior row. I know, it's OCD, but really, the lower row was better. And I'm constantly checking my pockets to make sure I've got all my gear. And it's then that I realize...
I've lost my wallet.
Oh boy. You mean I killed myself to get here on time and now I'm gonna miss some of the movie to look? Hell, maybe I'll just wait until the end, someone will turn it in, but will I be calm during the show?
No.
There are only two trailers at the ArcLight. At least that used to be the pitch, I haven't been in a long time, I haven't been in eons, because it's just too much of a hassle. I plan, and then when I'm there I wish I wasn't, my mind can't slow down.
So I'm standing by the exit, waiting to see... AND THERE'S A THIRD TRAILER!
I rush out to the ticket-taker, has anybody turned in a wallet?
No. But he said lost and found was handled by the concession.
So I walked over and interrupted a man pulling popcorn, but he didn't have it either.
I went to the bathroom.
Gone.
And now I'm starting to flip. Forget the money, it's the credit cards and IDs I'm worried about.
And the trailer is still going, so I whip out the flashlight on my iPhone and look for said wallet beneath the seats in my row and the row behind.
No go, it's not there.
Now I'm starting to freak, this doesn't add up, so I retrace my steps from the first of my rows to the second, and on the edge of the concrete, in the row behind, there it is.
So, I could be calm during the film.
Now I paid fourteen something for the ticket. Too much, considering Sharon Tate is gonna be charged seventy five cents in Westwood in 1969. I've been to that theatre zillions of times, I used to use my college ID to get fifty cents off, in 1974 the sticker price was $3.50, but then I got too old to use the picture and...
Concerts cost a staggering amount. Maybe fifteen bucks is worth it.
Oh, screw the concessions. I don't want people eating, talking or checking their phone, if I bother to get out, can't I watch the movie in peace?
And then the flick begins. It made me want to move to L.A., except I'm already here.
I'm not a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio, he never seemed grown-up to me, even when he became so. But he's got this scene with this little girl where he kills and...
The real star is Brad Pitt.
Now if you're a woman, you probably noticed him in "Thelma & Louise." To me he was just another actor, but the women swooned.
But that was thirty years ago. You look in the mirror every day, you see your friends, you notice gradual aging, but you always think of old girlfriends and movie stars as how they look in pictures. But the truth is Brad Pitt still looks pretty damn good, even though he's fifty five.
But it's his attitude that kills.
Now male attitude is in question these days. You certainly don't want to be macho in big business. As a matter of fact, men no longer know how to act, they're afraid. But here's Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth and he just doesn't care what you think about him or what's gonna play out, he's got to be himself 24/7. I mean you can see trouble coming. Especially when he makes that guy fix his flat tire, I would have bolted immediately.
But he got there by picking up a hitchhiker. That's something you used to do. No one would pick up a hitchhiker today. But even Sharon Tate does in this flick. Oh, do I need a spoiler alert? I don't think so, the movie's been out for months, not that I want to reveal too much.
But I'm a wuss. If I smell trouble, I'm out of there.
But not Cliff Booth.
Not that he's doing well, he's living in a trailer with his pit bull...
That's behind the Van Nuys Drive-In. I remember going there to see the original "Friday the 13th," back when you still hung the speaker on your window, before you turned on the FM radio. I was always worried about my battery draining down, but there are no drive-ins left, so I guess that's not an issue.
And then when we hear that Cliff killed his wife, or at least it's commonly believed...
Kurt Russell is killer in his role. He's gotten old, but he's grown into his skin. And the scene where Cliff's widow is on the boat calling him a loser...
That's one of the things I thought about during the whole film. I wasn't here in '69, but I arrived not long thereafter. I was never one of the insiders. They were considered a separate breed, it was unfathomable. But some people came to L.A. and some people made it and...
It was very different from today. People took a chance. Today if you're middle class or above, you don't. You go to a good school to get a good job and you're on the track to success right away, you don't want to be a loser.
Now we all know the women in this film, the hot ones trading on their looks. These are not MBAs, not MDs, these are people who sat in front of the mirror and then used their looks and charisma to snag a man and move on up the food chain, and if you didn't have anything worth latching on to, you had no chance, no way.
Men have money. Women have their looks.
Oh, of course that's not the rule, but it is in Hollywood, where no one's got a CV and no one's got a safety net, everybody's making it up as they go along, faking it until hopefully they make it.
So Cliff is worried about losing his job as a stuntman, he ferries Rick Dalton around, but he's got no other gigs. But he's not humbled, not broken, he takes care of Bruce Lee and...Cliff is the antihero we all rally around, someone just going through the motions with enough charisma to make it work.
As for Rick Dalton...
He's seen better days. He laments forgoing the last year of his series for films. And then Al Pacino, as jive as any business guy in Hollywood ever, says Dalton will never get ahead if he keeps on playing the heavy.
This is not working for Procter & Gamble, there is no insurance, it can disappear any day. And chances are you blew the money anyway. And you can criticize these people for their lack of financial acumen, you'd save the money, but you'd never risk it all in Hollywood.
As for the girls in the Family...
They're too nice. At least at first.
Yes, you're stoked, you're remembering the sixties, when we all listened to the same radio stations, watched the same TV shows, you're nostalgic, and then you remember...this is a shined-up version. The women in the real Manson Family were grittier. As for those who lived here, who grew up here, this was their everyday reality, which was beamed across America, across the world, every night, which is one of the reasons I moved to California. I'd say most people don't have the cojones, but to tell you the truth, I'm not worried about most people. You want to drive with the top down in the middle of winter, you want society to be fluid, you want to feel the energy...
And in L.A. it doesn't matter who your parents are, where you went to school. Oh, it might get you in the door, but everybody's hustling every damn day, are you willing to?
So Tarantino gets the feel exactly right. And the Dolby Atmos is thrilling.
Oh, that's a point I wanted to make. They've got to give up making niche pictures, that'll never work and it isn't. It should be all about event pictures all the time, that's the only way to save the movies. And, like it used to be, with platform releases, they should make it harder to get in, you need to salivate, with only shows at night, it's got to be an experience like going to a concert.
Did I need to see "Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood" on the big screen?
Don't ask me that question.
So you're wondering what the arc is, where the film is going. Then you realize it must be Rick's career. But there's all that Manson stuff and...
The flick ends and you go...WHAT?
It was a great ride with no payoff. Oh, there's the typical Tarantino gore, but in terms of story, it was light, the film was more impressionistic.
Is it because I was overhyped, seeing the movie too late?
I don't know, I think I would have been disappointed if I'd seen it when it first came out. I expected to be wowed, like "Hamilton."
So what did I learn?
Well, that movies should be events. And all the money Tarantino spent was on the screen, there were the old cars and nuances... Although the truth is the 747 didn't start flying until 1970, but that was almost fifty years ago and unless you lived back then and were an aviation fan, you would not know.
And of course Tarantino makes excellent use of music, but...
Going to the movies in 1969 was part of your life, you went on a regular basis, to see "Goodbye Columbus" and "Butch Cassidy" and...this film evoked those times, and on that level it's a ten, but not in story.
And when it was all over, I called my mother, and she told me how she'd debated going to services. This made me feel guilty. She's barely ambulatory, I don't think she's a believer, and she was gonna go?
So I came home and fired up my browser and went to services online, at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple. I'd like to tell you I didn't surf the web while I was watching, but I'd be lying, and the truth is I rarely paid attention at the temple anyway.
But you've got to see this.
Fire up your browser and go to: https://www.wbtla.org/live And then fast-forward to 1:38, that's one hour and thirty eight minutes. And hang in there until...THEY START TO BLOW THE SHOFAR!
It'll blow your mind. We just used to have little horns akin to Daniel Boone's gunpowder carrier. But these rams horns...
Check it out.
So the sun has set.
Actually, it's been cold in L.A. the past two days, into the fifties at night, but it's gonna go back into the eighties by Wednesday.
And it's fall, when the air is pregnant with possibilities.
"These things we do to keep the flame burnin'
And write our fire in the sky
Another day to see the wheel turnin'
Another avenue to try"
It's not really the luck of the draw, but luck does play a huge part in it. But really it's about your personality. That's what gets you ahead in Hollywood, everybody believes you've got the goods if you can get inside.
But that's a tough road.
Which Rick Dalton is afraid he's gonna fall off of, and end up in his hometown in the Midwest.
But Cliff Booth will survive. Back when you could make it on minimum wage. But the truth is we're all scrambling, we're all hustling, and if you live long enough you'll hit hard times - career, health, marriage, money...
Yup, life is the luck of the draw. You don't want to have any regrets. And the people who come to Hollywood to make it, they don't, they give it a good shot, because they want some of what's in this movie.
And I can tell you how it's different today, with social media and cameras.
But it's more the same, if you can become a member of the club...
But not only is it hard to make it, it's hard to stay there.
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll, if you wanna be a movie star, if you want the brass ring.
But someone has to make it, why not you?
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