And today it reached ninety four degrees in the Coachella Valley.
When I lived in Utah, I was stuck in Utah. I could get in my car and drive twelve hours to Los Angeles, but flying was out of the question, and long distance phone calls were expensive. You left town and never heard of your friends thereafter, unless you returned to town. You instantly lost touch with your college buddies.
But that was then and this is now.
The world has shrunk. And it's only going to get smaller. People get on planes just to see a concert. You never lose touch with anyone you've ever known. And you never feel at your limits, like you're in danger, no matter where you are. Happens all the time, unprepared hikers call for rescue on their cell phone. Furthermore, if you've got a new iPhone, you can SOS via satellite, from everywhere. And except for a few places, like the top of Mount Everest, a helicopter can land and pick you up. I'm not saying you cannot die out in the elements, but that feeling, of freaking out, in the danger zone, it doesn't happen that often anymore.
Today it was twenty degrees and windy at the top of Vail. And I mean WINDY! Dan said he felt like he was being blown backward. I loved it. I love being in the elements. It makes me feel alive. Especially in a snowstorm, when it gets so quiet.
I never went to Florida or Puerto Rick or the Virgin Islands on school vacations. Those were for skiing, for going to Vermont. But at some point, the season would end, the snow would disappear, and you'd have to wait until November to ski again.
But if you're in the west...
The west used to be exotic. Going to Colorado or Utah, never mind Wyoming, to go skiing! Wow, most people never did. As far as Mammoth Mountain in California, open to July 4th, that was nearly unfathomable. You heard about it, but information was scarce. There was no internet, never mind cams.
So when I graduated from college I wanted to go west.
That was when you were afraid of rednecks, when you didn't want to drive with long hair south of the Mason-Dixon line. But I'd cut all my hair off back in '71. I'm a contrary. I don't want to be a member of the group. I don't want to be judged just like everybody else in the group.
And now there isn't even a group. Except a very large one, the baby boomers. But like that old Kinks song, I'm not like everybody else. I chalk it up to my father. All the lessons a dad teaches his son, about fitting in, being a member of the group, holding your tongue, girls... My father was not that person, whatsoever. He'd talk about money, getting ripped-off, how the world worked. He taught us how to stand up. But he never taught us how to be a cog in the system. Get along to keep a job. It's natural to most people, but not me. Hold my personality back? Make friends just so I can move up the ladder and get another job if I get fired? I had no idea. As a matter of fact, I kinda believed the world ran on merit. What a crock. The world runs on relationships. Unless you are unique and have merit beyond the usual suspect, but you still need relationships.
I also thought my path was forever. Those musicians who now work straight jobs... I'm gonna pursue my goal until I die, even if I starve along the way. Isn't that what life is about, pursuing your dream? Going all in? I remember my shrink asking me about a fallback position. I told him THERE IS NONE! And if there is one, you're never going to make it. Because that's how hard it is to make it. But people don't know this. People would prefer to live on the outside, sans risk. Go to the show, but not become an equal with the artist, never mind being friends with them. And most people don't want to know how the world works. Because it's too disillusioning and they feel bad about themselves. They tell themselves they could have made it if they wanted to, but they didn't want it that bad. But they don't know how bad you have to want it, like in that old Don Henley song, not bad enough.
I listen to "The End of the Innocence" constantly. And I sing it in my head. It makes so much sense. But that was about Reagan, and Reagan is deep in the rearview mirror. And no one wants to hear what oldsters have to say about anything, so the oldster artists stop producing. Yet oldsters run the government, how does that work? No wonder today's youth are disillusioned. If you have to explain to the person how a computer, or a smartphone, works, you know they're over the hill. There are no instructions, you have to learn by doing. But these are the same people who don't know how to work their televisions. It's a steep learning curve, but once you get over the hurdle...
I'm thinking about all this, because tomorrow is my birthday. A milestone. A number that no one can say is young. I'm old. How did this happen?
I look back and realize I lived all those years, I had all those experiences, but somehow I thought there was more. But there's not. My brethren are passing. It's downhill from here. You can try to deny it, but you can't beat father time. You live, you die, that's the way of the world.
So I'm riding up the gondola two weeks ago and the woman across asks me how old I am. She's the same age I am. And she looked terrible. So how did I look?
The youngsters look at me different. I feel no different, but they perceive me differently. I'm old. Like my parents. So many try to deny it, with hogwash about sixty being the new forty and crap like that.
But I wouldn't want to repeat it all, it was too hard. I don't wan to go back to high school. Nor college. Going back to school? Never!
I don't want to be twentysomething going to the bar, trying to meet someone, unsuccessfully.
Man, life is tough.
It's easier if you jump through the hoops, but how much fun is that?
So my goal is to ski on my birthday. Vail isn't open every year on April 22nd, but when it is, I'm here. I've also gone to Mammoth on my birthday, because this is who I am. If I ski on my birthday, I'm still myself. I haven't given in, or given up. I'm still me. I haven't lost a step in my mind. I don't care what others think.
And when I'm in the elements...
I like that best. The aforementioned quiet in a snowstorm. A stormy day or a sunny one. It makes me feel alive. My mantra is you walk out the front door and you never know what will happen.
And that's what life is about.
Two weeks ago it was in the fifties. Now it's like the middle of winter, although the sun doesn't set until after seven. It's like Christmas is around the corner.
Really, it's like late October, early November in Vermont. A terrible season. When it's cold, sometimes bitter, and it snows, but then it melts. You know something is coming, winter. I like the summer, but winter is my favorite. I'd rather be cold than hot. And today I was wearing Under Armour 3.0 underwear and down mittens and...
It felt good to be alive.
The modern skis, with their sidecut. You lay them on edge and they turn. It's magic. You get a feeling, that isn't quite as good as sex, but it's in the ballpark.
So tomorrow I'll get back out there. I go every day, it keeps me regular. Even if I don't want to go. Because I'll be riding the chair in a mediocre mood and then something will happen. The sun will come out, I'll have that one special run, the perfect turn.
That's me.
And the fact that it's snowing out...shows there are no rules anymore. It's not that it never happens at this time of year in Vail, but we've got global warming, it didn't snow in New York City and they're partying at Coachella and...
I'm trying to party in my mind. This birthday is scary. But it's just one day, and then it will be past. I've got one special day, where I can eat crap and everybody has to defer to me and...
On too many birthdays I've been bummed out and missed it.
I'm going to try and enjoy tomorrow.
Wish me luck!
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Friday 21 April 2023
My Favorite Bob Dylan Songs-This Week On SiriusXM
Tune in Saturday April 22nd to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
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Thursday 20 April 2023
Re-AI Music
You got a lot right here. It's just sad that the gimmicky sound-a-likes is what people's first impression of AI is. A few examples of tech's disruption in music:
1. Beatles/Abbey road and the 8-track, and then mellotron (first sampler IMO)
2. Herbie Hancock breaking the rules and using synths in jazz mid 70s with the Jupiter 8
3. Drum machines early 80s putting drummers out and people panicking.
4. CDs mid 80s and changing the feel from vinyl
5. Late 80s sampling which so many people called "not artistic"
6. 90s computer tracking replacing tape which echo'd a lot of above
7. Autotune in the 2000s and its implications
8. Plug ins and minimal prices (or subscription) that mimic any instrument to the common.
9. 2010's Distribution available to all that allows anyone to get their art to the world
10. 2020's Bandlab and iphone apps that bringing competitive recording to everyone with a smart phone.
Hard to see anytime people reverted back with the exception of the vinyl boom. Sure it's fun to occasionally record on tape or other. Personally I think we'll have another creative boom when technology advances and you can record into a computer (or other) without needing a screen (combo of voice commands and AI) which will unlock all perceived screen/grid oriented boundaries.
Embrace tech, enjoy the disruption, even a little chaos, and get ready for the next boom and creative breakthroughs that makes the music industry the best industry.
Mike Caren
__________________________________________
Like when the Mellotron first appeared. The musician's union tried to ban it, thinking that orchestras would be put out-of-business. Which would have never given us "In the Court of the Crimson King".
Rich Nisbet
__________________________________________
Preach Bob! You are absolutely right in this analysis. When Lucien demanded the DSP's remove AI tracks a few weeks ago, I laughed out loud. This is tantamount to standing in the middle of a rainstorm yelling at the sky for the sun to come out. The genie is out of the bottle and we can't put it back. I hope the industry reacts the way you describe- embrace it, leverage it, license it. I remain dubious.
Tom Truitt
__________________________________________
Re AI music, Seen this?
Very interesting article in the Guardian…….
"We got bored waiting for Oasis to re-form': AIsis, the band fronted by an AI Liam Gallagher": https://bit.ly/41O98LB
It sounds great, but now I can go and see an artificial ABBA, listen to an artificial OASIS……
I dunno man……..
Should I be excited or scared??
I Really don't know……
Alan Pell
__________________________________________
You'll like this:
"Liam Gallagher says AI version of himself sounds 'mega'
"We've heard a lot of stories about artists and labels complaining about AI-generated music recently. It's about time we had some good news AI stories. Well, while Drake might not like hearing himself re-voicing tracks by other artists, Liam Gallagher thinks he sounds "mega" on a new - and entirely fake - Oasis album purporting to be a lost recording from the late 90s.
"Billed as being by AIsis, 'The Lost Tapes Vol 1' is the creation of musician Bobby Geraghty. It's actually a collection of songs written and recorded by his former band Breezer. He then trained an AI on Liam Gallagher's voice and replaced his own vocals with new ones created by the AI technology. Aside from the fact that it often sounds like Gallagher is singing with a mouth full of wool, it's pretty convincing.
"Asked for his opinion of the album by a fan on Twitter, Gallagher replied: 'Mad as f*ck. I sound mega'.
He told another that 'it's better than allthe other snizzle out there'.
So, it seems there's one big name artist sold on the AI revolution. He'll no doubt be glad to hear that there's a second volume of AIsis tracks ready to go.
Listen to 'The Lost Tapes Vol 1' here: https://bit.ly/3KU5x7U
Jake Gold
__________________________________________
I think I sent you this link from Steve Blank before, but here it is again. The entertainment leaders never get tired of claiming that new technology will hurt the industry.
An excerpt of the article from 2012 follows:
https://steveblank.com/2012/01/04/why-the-movie-industry-cant-innovate-and-the-result-is-sopa/
The Movie Industry and Technology Progress
The music and movie business has been consistently wrong in its claims that new platforms and channels would be the end of its businesses. In each case, the new technology produced a new market far larger than the impact it had on the existing market.
1920's – the record business complained about radio. The argument was because radio is free, you can't compete with free. No one was ever going to buy music again.
1940's – movie studios had to divest their distribution channel – they owned over 50% of the movie theaters in the U.S. "It's all over," complained the studios. In fact, the number of screens went from 17,000 in 1948 to 38,000 today.
1950's – broadcast television was free; the threat was cable television. Studios argued that their free TV content couldn't compete with paid.
1970's – Video Cassette Recorders (VCR's) were going to be the end of the movie business. The movie businesses and its lobbying arm MPAA fought it with "end of the world" hyperbole. The reality? After the VCR was introduced, studio revenues took off like a rocket. With a new channel of distribution, home movie rentals surpassed movie theater tickets.
1998 – the MPAA got congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), making it illegal for you to make a digital copy of a DVD that you actually purchased.
2000 – Digital Video Recorders (DVR) like TiVo allowing consumer to skip commercials was going to be the end of the TV business. DVR's reignite interest in TV.
2006 – broadcasters sued Cablevision (and lost) to prevent the launch of a cloud-based DVR to its customers.
Today it's the Internet that's going to put the studios out of business.
Sound familiar?
Why was the movie industry consistently wrong? And why do they continue to fight new technology?
Regards,
John Swetye
P.S. Lessons Learned
Studios are run by financial managers who lack the skills to exploit disruptive innovation
Studio anti-piracy/copyright lawyers trump their technologists
Studios have no concern about collateral damage as long as it optimizes their revenue
Studios $110M/year lobbying and political donations trump consumer objections
Politicians votes will follow the money unless it will cost them an election
__________________________________________
You're so right Bob. But like Napster before it, one of the REAL issues here is lack of control. You remember that in the final negotiations, the Majors who were offered $1B and they STILL said no - for no other reason than it would totally usurp their control.
Ritch Esra
__________________________________________
I have been a computer programmer for almost 55 years, and change is constant, and not always in the areas you expect.
Ultimately we will transition to cyborgs (computer embedded technology - some people have the beginnings of it already). Then finally uploaded to the cloud.
Isaac Asimov wrote a story about this where finally all humans uploaded and merged with the master computer with the final task to reverse entropy.
And in Asimov fashion, the computer finally came up with the solution and ended the story with "Let there be light".
Regards,
Dave Machanick
__________________________________________
Jackson Pollock famously said, "I deny the accident." In other words, the work he did that may have looked random to others was anything but. The creative impulse originating in his brain and ending up on the canvas, was a culmination of thousands of moments, gestures, memories, visions - like throwing a lasso over and over until there ARE no accidents. That is the humanity in the work. AI might imitate a Pollock with imitative or random choices, store information about every square inch of every painting Pollock ever painted.
But AI will never paint a Pollock, and we all know it.
Liz Dean
__________________________________________
Nearly everybody is missing the bigger opportunity for creators with AI - applying the tools to our own content instead of relying on public web content. Imagine the power for a musician to upload all their work, released or not, to a proprietary database that they control. Then AI tools can help them to generate more music from their own existing work!
I did that with my writing. I created a database with nineteen years of blog content, over 1,500 individual posts plus six of my books and I use a closed ChatGPT interface. I can create new posts from my own work, summarize my own ideas, craft email responses based on my words, and much more. The future of AI is using it with our own stuff.
Where's the Bob Bot? I can help you make it!
David Meerman Scott
__________________________________________
Great topic Bob! I signed up for ChatGPT and it is a great tool. However, that's it. It's tool! It will be up to all of us as to how to incorporate AI into our music creation processes. AI won't replace us!
People have told me that I'm good at math. That is laughable! I am terrible at math, but really good at using Excel!
Cheers!
Sarra J-G
__________________________________________
Are you sure about that? Chat GPT 4 can already write AI Lob Befsetz exponentially better than it could a week ago. Give it a month and it will have you down pat. It's going faster than we are able to catch up to.
Please listen to this from the people who created the social dilemma.:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0KQbUp5WoeSTUSRYATnKTZ?si=_t8xNOuVQ8Whom-KE10huA
The jaw dropping part here is that when polled 50% of AI programmers say there is a 10% chance that AI will destroy humanity. They ask, would you fly in a plane that 50% of engineers of the plane said there was a 10% chance of crashing?
This is society level changes at speeds we cannot deal with, by capitalists racing to just "see where it goes"
Sherry Kondor
__________________________________________
Imagine. Artificial Intelligence studies thousands of hours (within 12 hours) of Robin Williams or Richard Pryor or Joan Rivers, the passed-on comedians. Their characterizing-speech, intonation, jokes, laughter and timing etc, what could happen ? Their 'characters' could be brought back to 'life' with new jokes (initially just audio), as AI would learn from a database of thousands of jokes which would be a Robin or a Richard or a Joan style joke. Those characters, all three, Williams, Pryor and Rivers would have been gleeful at their 'return', if they knew then what we know now !!!
On the music side, this is only the beginning of the unfathomable intelligence range that AI will accumulate. We, as a species, are on the cusp of having 'forever' artists and the first in the queue to join that will be the female artist called Madonna. She will absolutely LOVE having new songs she has written being released by her AI 'artist' in her classic style, impersonating her as a 25 year old artist when she is 80 !!
I can totally see that happening, very soon, with new contract clauses being added to include the AI 'formatted' artist catalogue as part of the ownership of the major label, if it hasn't been written already. You being a lawyer may know that more than most...
There needs to be an alternative universe for the new music era other than the Big Three because they'll just embrace anything that returns a profit for their shareholders, irrespective of the need for creative musical growth for the next generation. The Beatles or Prince didn't start off being brilliant, they grew into those shoes, I Wanna Be Your Lover to Purple Rain took some learning time as did I Wanna Hold Your Hand to Let It Be. Really no company should be allowed to own music for life. Melody is, after all, our first communicative language globally. Think about that - how you were communicated with as a one day old baby until a year old. Loving tone (melody). Whether you were Chinese, French, Indian, African, American, Italian and whatever religion...
Also, hold onto your record collection folks, that's where the real stuff will still sound amazing. Will there be a Bob Lefsetz AI newsletter arriving in our emails in the future? I have hundreds stored, no doubt others have too. Could your Intelligence be Artificially created too Bob !! Who knows....
Eddie Gordon
__________________________________________
Hey Bob, hope you're well. Couldn't agree with you more.
Please check out this article on a song that is the talk of the country in Israel, showing how a great song combined with cutting edge AI, is making such a difference.
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/all-news/article-739367
Video: https://youtu.be/7ND1Pw6QD_0
MICHAEL MICHEL
__________________________________________
It's not Napster redux, but it's an effective opening line. You say lots of accurate things and some that miss the point. Copping people's voices without their approval or compensation is just plain wrong, against copyright and right of publicity precedent. Laws upon which m living depends.
Can we stop the technology? Nope, and we're not trying. As you say, it's never worked, and never will. I get it. Can AI be of help to creatives? Of course.
But should a streaming service be able to post something that is not what it says it is, whether it is created by AI or by real people using old school real techniques? I don't think so.
And is the stuff that AI is creating right now actually pretty bad? Pretty much, everything I've heard. Low common denominator brown food product, devoid of flavor, ultimately unsatisfying. Might not always be that way.
Your licensing concept makes a certain sense on paper, co-opt it, don't try to kill it. But, when it's a voice or a likeness, what if the AI entity says something in a way the scraped artist doesn't like, libelous, slanderous, or simply unbecoming? Or is it in violation of an exclusive contract? Don't they have some say in what goes out under their name? Especially when they had eff-all to do with its creation other than to exist?
Can I make a fake Lefsetz Letter, pass it off as you (not as a cop or a parody or satire) and say a ton of really bad inhuman off-the-charts uglyuglyugly baaaaad stuff? But, hey man, it burnishes your brand, you're worthy of being imitated, people really like you. Sorry, buddy, it's wrong, and if I did it, I would deserve to be sued by you, and shut down. Hard.
Should labels have AI departments? Of course. Does AI music have a place in the market? See my brown food product statement above. Will these end runs keep happening. Or course. We're looking at the wild west until some true actionable guidelines are laid down by the USCO, or the CRB, or some other detested government agency.
But back in the earliest days of sampling, sampled songs and records weren't being credited or compensated. Now they are. The same thing applies here. Get permission, get a license, give credit, and PAY US.
Drake and The Weeknd, or Eminen, they had no say in their voices being scraped, and that ain't right. There was no disclaimer, no "in the style of", just the letters "AI" in parentheses. And the reason people are doing it is because they can. Or they might profit from the use of something someone else owns. Not right.
What if there was a technology that allowed me to copy your house key just by pointing a beam at your front door. What if I just wanted to see if could do it, give copies to my friends, be a big shot. And what if one of my friends actually used it. That one is easy, right? There's no reason why this one should be hard.
We're not going to kill the tech, we don't want to. I ain't afraid of the future, we've had this conversation before. It wouldn't work anyway. But I will fight for the rights of artists to not allow their work to be copied, deployed and monetized without permission and compensation. To fight for free speech while prohibiting screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre.
Responsible, actionable guidelines. Not the wild west. That's what I believe
Dan Navarro
__________________________________________
For the last 40 years I've been asking for a 'computer program' that you feed 1000 number one songs into and see what it comes up with
Chris Stein
__________________________________________
At the risk of sounding snarky, I mean no disrespect to these artists, but AI easily generated credible copies of them because their music is already computer generated. Computer beats, computer sounding voices, little or no melodic structure or chord changes. Mumbled lyrics.
Let's hear a credible AI-generated Beatles song.
Steve Schalchlin
__________________________________________
For years, artists have used technology (autotune etc) to sound robotic.
For robots to use technology now to sound like the artists is just fair game.
Aloha
Steve London
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1. Beatles/Abbey road and the 8-track, and then mellotron (first sampler IMO)
2. Herbie Hancock breaking the rules and using synths in jazz mid 70s with the Jupiter 8
3. Drum machines early 80s putting drummers out and people panicking.
4. CDs mid 80s and changing the feel from vinyl
5. Late 80s sampling which so many people called "not artistic"
6. 90s computer tracking replacing tape which echo'd a lot of above
7. Autotune in the 2000s and its implications
8. Plug ins and minimal prices (or subscription) that mimic any instrument to the common.
9. 2010's Distribution available to all that allows anyone to get their art to the world
10. 2020's Bandlab and iphone apps that bringing competitive recording to everyone with a smart phone.
Hard to see anytime people reverted back with the exception of the vinyl boom. Sure it's fun to occasionally record on tape or other. Personally I think we'll have another creative boom when technology advances and you can record into a computer (or other) without needing a screen (combo of voice commands and AI) which will unlock all perceived screen/grid oriented boundaries.
Embrace tech, enjoy the disruption, even a little chaos, and get ready for the next boom and creative breakthroughs that makes the music industry the best industry.
Mike Caren
__________________________________________
Like when the Mellotron first appeared. The musician's union tried to ban it, thinking that orchestras would be put out-of-business. Which would have never given us "In the Court of the Crimson King".
Rich Nisbet
__________________________________________
Preach Bob! You are absolutely right in this analysis. When Lucien demanded the DSP's remove AI tracks a few weeks ago, I laughed out loud. This is tantamount to standing in the middle of a rainstorm yelling at the sky for the sun to come out. The genie is out of the bottle and we can't put it back. I hope the industry reacts the way you describe- embrace it, leverage it, license it. I remain dubious.
Tom Truitt
__________________________________________
Re AI music, Seen this?
Very interesting article in the Guardian…….
"We got bored waiting for Oasis to re-form': AIsis, the band fronted by an AI Liam Gallagher": https://bit.ly/41O98LB
It sounds great, but now I can go and see an artificial ABBA, listen to an artificial OASIS……
I dunno man……..
Should I be excited or scared??
I Really don't know……
Alan Pell
__________________________________________
You'll like this:
"Liam Gallagher says AI version of himself sounds 'mega'
"We've heard a lot of stories about artists and labels complaining about AI-generated music recently. It's about time we had some good news AI stories. Well, while Drake might not like hearing himself re-voicing tracks by other artists, Liam Gallagher thinks he sounds "mega" on a new - and entirely fake - Oasis album purporting to be a lost recording from the late 90s.
"Billed as being by AIsis, 'The Lost Tapes Vol 1' is the creation of musician Bobby Geraghty. It's actually a collection of songs written and recorded by his former band Breezer. He then trained an AI on Liam Gallagher's voice and replaced his own vocals with new ones created by the AI technology. Aside from the fact that it often sounds like Gallagher is singing with a mouth full of wool, it's pretty convincing.
"Asked for his opinion of the album by a fan on Twitter, Gallagher replied: 'Mad as f*ck. I sound mega'.
He told another that 'it's better than allthe other snizzle out there'.
So, it seems there's one big name artist sold on the AI revolution. He'll no doubt be glad to hear that there's a second volume of AIsis tracks ready to go.
Listen to 'The Lost Tapes Vol 1' here: https://bit.ly/3KU5x7U
Jake Gold
__________________________________________
I think I sent you this link from Steve Blank before, but here it is again. The entertainment leaders never get tired of claiming that new technology will hurt the industry.
An excerpt of the article from 2012 follows:
https://steveblank.com/2012/01/04/why-the-movie-industry-cant-innovate-and-the-result-is-sopa/
The Movie Industry and Technology Progress
The music and movie business has been consistently wrong in its claims that new platforms and channels would be the end of its businesses. In each case, the new technology produced a new market far larger than the impact it had on the existing market.
1920's – the record business complained about radio. The argument was because radio is free, you can't compete with free. No one was ever going to buy music again.
1940's – movie studios had to divest their distribution channel – they owned over 50% of the movie theaters in the U.S. "It's all over," complained the studios. In fact, the number of screens went from 17,000 in 1948 to 38,000 today.
1950's – broadcast television was free; the threat was cable television. Studios argued that their free TV content couldn't compete with paid.
1970's – Video Cassette Recorders (VCR's) were going to be the end of the movie business. The movie businesses and its lobbying arm MPAA fought it with "end of the world" hyperbole. The reality? After the VCR was introduced, studio revenues took off like a rocket. With a new channel of distribution, home movie rentals surpassed movie theater tickets.
1998 – the MPAA got congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), making it illegal for you to make a digital copy of a DVD that you actually purchased.
2000 – Digital Video Recorders (DVR) like TiVo allowing consumer to skip commercials was going to be the end of the TV business. DVR's reignite interest in TV.
2006 – broadcasters sued Cablevision (and lost) to prevent the launch of a cloud-based DVR to its customers.
Today it's the Internet that's going to put the studios out of business.
Sound familiar?
Why was the movie industry consistently wrong? And why do they continue to fight new technology?
Regards,
John Swetye
P.S. Lessons Learned
Studios are run by financial managers who lack the skills to exploit disruptive innovation
Studio anti-piracy/copyright lawyers trump their technologists
Studios have no concern about collateral damage as long as it optimizes their revenue
Studios $110M/year lobbying and political donations trump consumer objections
Politicians votes will follow the money unless it will cost them an election
__________________________________________
You're so right Bob. But like Napster before it, one of the REAL issues here is lack of control. You remember that in the final negotiations, the Majors who were offered $1B and they STILL said no - for no other reason than it would totally usurp their control.
Ritch Esra
__________________________________________
I have been a computer programmer for almost 55 years, and change is constant, and not always in the areas you expect.
Ultimately we will transition to cyborgs (computer embedded technology - some people have the beginnings of it already). Then finally uploaded to the cloud.
Isaac Asimov wrote a story about this where finally all humans uploaded and merged with the master computer with the final task to reverse entropy.
And in Asimov fashion, the computer finally came up with the solution and ended the story with "Let there be light".
Regards,
Dave Machanick
__________________________________________
Jackson Pollock famously said, "I deny the accident." In other words, the work he did that may have looked random to others was anything but. The creative impulse originating in his brain and ending up on the canvas, was a culmination of thousands of moments, gestures, memories, visions - like throwing a lasso over and over until there ARE no accidents. That is the humanity in the work. AI might imitate a Pollock with imitative or random choices, store information about every square inch of every painting Pollock ever painted.
But AI will never paint a Pollock, and we all know it.
Liz Dean
__________________________________________
Nearly everybody is missing the bigger opportunity for creators with AI - applying the tools to our own content instead of relying on public web content. Imagine the power for a musician to upload all their work, released or not, to a proprietary database that they control. Then AI tools can help them to generate more music from their own existing work!
I did that with my writing. I created a database with nineteen years of blog content, over 1,500 individual posts plus six of my books and I use a closed ChatGPT interface. I can create new posts from my own work, summarize my own ideas, craft email responses based on my words, and much more. The future of AI is using it with our own stuff.
Where's the Bob Bot? I can help you make it!
David Meerman Scott
__________________________________________
Great topic Bob! I signed up for ChatGPT and it is a great tool. However, that's it. It's tool! It will be up to all of us as to how to incorporate AI into our music creation processes. AI won't replace us!
People have told me that I'm good at math. That is laughable! I am terrible at math, but really good at using Excel!
Cheers!
Sarra J-G
__________________________________________
Are you sure about that? Chat GPT 4 can already write AI Lob Befsetz exponentially better than it could a week ago. Give it a month and it will have you down pat. It's going faster than we are able to catch up to.
Please listen to this from the people who created the social dilemma.:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0KQbUp5WoeSTUSRYATnKTZ?si=_t8xNOuVQ8Whom-KE10huA
The jaw dropping part here is that when polled 50% of AI programmers say there is a 10% chance that AI will destroy humanity. They ask, would you fly in a plane that 50% of engineers of the plane said there was a 10% chance of crashing?
This is society level changes at speeds we cannot deal with, by capitalists racing to just "see where it goes"
Sherry Kondor
__________________________________________
Imagine. Artificial Intelligence studies thousands of hours (within 12 hours) of Robin Williams or Richard Pryor or Joan Rivers, the passed-on comedians. Their characterizing-speech, intonation, jokes, laughter and timing etc, what could happen ? Their 'characters' could be brought back to 'life' with new jokes (initially just audio), as AI would learn from a database of thousands of jokes which would be a Robin or a Richard or a Joan style joke. Those characters, all three, Williams, Pryor and Rivers would have been gleeful at their 'return', if they knew then what we know now !!!
On the music side, this is only the beginning of the unfathomable intelligence range that AI will accumulate. We, as a species, are on the cusp of having 'forever' artists and the first in the queue to join that will be the female artist called Madonna. She will absolutely LOVE having new songs she has written being released by her AI 'artist' in her classic style, impersonating her as a 25 year old artist when she is 80 !!
I can totally see that happening, very soon, with new contract clauses being added to include the AI 'formatted' artist catalogue as part of the ownership of the major label, if it hasn't been written already. You being a lawyer may know that more than most...
There needs to be an alternative universe for the new music era other than the Big Three because they'll just embrace anything that returns a profit for their shareholders, irrespective of the need for creative musical growth for the next generation. The Beatles or Prince didn't start off being brilliant, they grew into those shoes, I Wanna Be Your Lover to Purple Rain took some learning time as did I Wanna Hold Your Hand to Let It Be. Really no company should be allowed to own music for life. Melody is, after all, our first communicative language globally. Think about that - how you were communicated with as a one day old baby until a year old. Loving tone (melody). Whether you were Chinese, French, Indian, African, American, Italian and whatever religion...
Also, hold onto your record collection folks, that's where the real stuff will still sound amazing. Will there be a Bob Lefsetz AI newsletter arriving in our emails in the future? I have hundreds stored, no doubt others have too. Could your Intelligence be Artificially created too Bob !! Who knows....
Eddie Gordon
__________________________________________
Hey Bob, hope you're well. Couldn't agree with you more.
Please check out this article on a song that is the talk of the country in Israel, showing how a great song combined with cutting edge AI, is making such a difference.
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/all-news/article-739367
Video: https://youtu.be/7ND1Pw6QD_0
MICHAEL MICHEL
__________________________________________
It's not Napster redux, but it's an effective opening line. You say lots of accurate things and some that miss the point. Copping people's voices without their approval or compensation is just plain wrong, against copyright and right of publicity precedent. Laws upon which m living depends.
Can we stop the technology? Nope, and we're not trying. As you say, it's never worked, and never will. I get it. Can AI be of help to creatives? Of course.
But should a streaming service be able to post something that is not what it says it is, whether it is created by AI or by real people using old school real techniques? I don't think so.
And is the stuff that AI is creating right now actually pretty bad? Pretty much, everything I've heard. Low common denominator brown food product, devoid of flavor, ultimately unsatisfying. Might not always be that way.
Your licensing concept makes a certain sense on paper, co-opt it, don't try to kill it. But, when it's a voice or a likeness, what if the AI entity says something in a way the scraped artist doesn't like, libelous, slanderous, or simply unbecoming? Or is it in violation of an exclusive contract? Don't they have some say in what goes out under their name? Especially when they had eff-all to do with its creation other than to exist?
Can I make a fake Lefsetz Letter, pass it off as you (not as a cop or a parody or satire) and say a ton of really bad inhuman off-the-charts uglyuglyugly baaaaad stuff? But, hey man, it burnishes your brand, you're worthy of being imitated, people really like you. Sorry, buddy, it's wrong, and if I did it, I would deserve to be sued by you, and shut down. Hard.
Should labels have AI departments? Of course. Does AI music have a place in the market? See my brown food product statement above. Will these end runs keep happening. Or course. We're looking at the wild west until some true actionable guidelines are laid down by the USCO, or the CRB, or some other detested government agency.
But back in the earliest days of sampling, sampled songs and records weren't being credited or compensated. Now they are. The same thing applies here. Get permission, get a license, give credit, and PAY US.
Drake and The Weeknd, or Eminen, they had no say in their voices being scraped, and that ain't right. There was no disclaimer, no "in the style of", just the letters "AI" in parentheses. And the reason people are doing it is because they can. Or they might profit from the use of something someone else owns. Not right.
What if there was a technology that allowed me to copy your house key just by pointing a beam at your front door. What if I just wanted to see if could do it, give copies to my friends, be a big shot. And what if one of my friends actually used it. That one is easy, right? There's no reason why this one should be hard.
We're not going to kill the tech, we don't want to. I ain't afraid of the future, we've had this conversation before. It wouldn't work anyway. But I will fight for the rights of artists to not allow their work to be copied, deployed and monetized without permission and compensation. To fight for free speech while prohibiting screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre.
Responsible, actionable guidelines. Not the wild west. That's what I believe
Dan Navarro
__________________________________________
For the last 40 years I've been asking for a 'computer program' that you feed 1000 number one songs into and see what it comes up with
Chris Stein
__________________________________________
At the risk of sounding snarky, I mean no disrespect to these artists, but AI easily generated credible copies of them because their music is already computer generated. Computer beats, computer sounding voices, little or no melodic structure or chord changes. Mumbled lyrics.
Let's hear a credible AI-generated Beatles song.
Steve Schalchlin
__________________________________________
For years, artists have used technology (autotune etc) to sound robotic.
For robots to use technology now to sound like the artists is just fair game.
Aloha
Steve London
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Larkin Poe-This Week's Podcast
Sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell front Larkin Poe, a blues-based rock band that will knock your socks off. This is their story from home-schooling in Georgia to touring with their sister Jessica in the acoustic act the Lovell Sisters, to ultimately forging a new sound and backing Elvis Costello, Bright Eyes and more as they slowly gained traction on their own. My favorite part of the conversation is when the Lovell Sisters break up and Rebecca and Megan are struggling. Struggle is the essence of making it.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/larkin-poe-113471017/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/larkin-poe/id1316200737?i=1000609786607
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3k0Hmyt16CNQvPv1RNT8lt?si=RJyrg24ETtqVbscjcXkoNQ
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/87381933-59c7-4244-989f-3b96db743650/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-larkin-poe
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/larkin-poe-302269115
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https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/larkin-poe-113471017/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/larkin-poe/id1316200737?i=1000609786607
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3k0Hmyt16CNQvPv1RNT8lt?si=RJyrg24ETtqVbscjcXkoNQ
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/87381933-59c7-4244-989f-3b96db743650/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-larkin-poe
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/larkin-poe-302269115
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Wednesday 19 April 2023
AI Music
It's Napster redux.
Universal telling DSPs not to host AI music... What could be better! Think about it, you're an act that's so popular, so desirable, that the audience wants even more of your music!
Can we stop trying to hold back the future? It has never ever worked, why should it now? Furthermore, we've seen this movie already. What looks scary at first ends up adding to as opposed to taking away.
Let's talk Napster vs. CDs. There's no debate that file-trading put a dent in recorded music revenues. But forgetting the evolution, the intermediary steps like iTunes, streaming is better for the music business. Not only have recorded music revenues rebounded, they're still growing and...
Live music, the touring business, is through the roof.
Think about this. If everybody couldn't hear the music for free on YouTube or for a de minimis cost on a streaming service like Spotify, et al, would they all be going to the show?
There are acts with little or no radio airplay that are selling thousands of tickets, they wouldn't have been able to do this in the pre-internet era. First, they can record the music for a very low cost using computer equipment in their house and they can distribute it for almost nothing. And if people want to listen to it...
We still haven't scraped away the detritus of the past, all those who won in the old world who aren't doing so well in the new. In a closed market if they got signed by a label they were one of the few and were the beneficiary of all that marketing and promotion. So now they say their streaming royalties are low... But all these people bitching can still work on the road. Think of the old paradigm, physical and retail. Only old fans would be aware of their tunes and as far as new fans... There's a good chance most retail outlets wouldn't even be stocking their records!
And as far as progress goes, something is always lost in the march to the future. Like vent windows. Pretty cool, but seen as unnecessary when all automobiles came with air conditioning.
So someone uses a platform to create a new song based on what you've done previously. What we've learned in the past twenty-odd years is you don't try to eradicate it, you license it! At the software level, like they used to tax blank cassettes, or at the distribution level, or both. You want to host AI music, you have to pay for it! And the underlying artist gets most of the money.
We lived through this with sampling. The music was stolen, and once you needed a license...many rightsholders refused to grant one, and as a result we now have beats created by newbies. If we'd had a clearinghouse to license samples...
And if we don't license AI songs built on old songs, do you know what is going to happen? There are going to be new AI songs not based on the work of any preexisting artist and the rightsholders will lose out. You embrace the future, it pays.
And can we stop being afraid of AI?
So AI can write a term paper. Well, pocket calculators came along fifty years ago, did they eliminate math? If anything, they made calculation easier and more precise. Just think about it, when you go to Venmo the cost of your lunch to your buddy... It's the software in the phone that splits the bill for you. Where's the loss here?
I'd be more worried about the opposite. That there would be new AI songs based on underlying works/artists that no one wanted to listen to. That's the crisis in the internet world today, you can make it, but no one can find it, never mind listen, play or experience it.
As for replacement of the underlying artist... Give me a break. I've been sent AI versions of my newsletter. Sure, I'm in there somewhere, but it's not even a reasonable facsimile. Don't forget, AI works based on data that is scraped from the internet. As far as coming up with new ideas... They say that's going to happen, but so far nothing has come close, and I'm not worried. Because machines have no humanity.
Steve Jobs and Apple are the classic example here. Steve made decisions based on his gut. He did no research, because research will tell you where you've been, but not where you're going.
Innovation, disruption, how often does it come from the established company? Almost never. Tesla broke the electric car. GM was even there first and didn't know how to do it. Furthermore, to this day none of the traditional companies has realized that the key to Tesla's success is software, and that the body/electronics are nearly fungible. It's a computer on wheels. That's not what GM delivered. And VW still can't get the software right. If you're waiting for change from the established outfits, keep waiting, because they don't believe it's in their interest, they want to maintain the status quo, they abhor disruption.
Lucian Grainge should be starting an AI division of Universal Music. We still don't know where AI music is going. Maybe it starts off sounding like Drake but the end result isn't human at all. Go along for the ride or be left behind. You must disrupt yourself to survive.
So back to me. Let's say the internet is flooded with fake Lefsetz Letters. Man, if the demand is there, think how big I'll be! As far as the authentic me... Come on, you know whether you're buying a fake Rolex, but somehow you're not going to be able to tell whether the screed was written by me?
As for "Business Insider" and other outlets firing people and employing AI instead... Have you read any of the articles? Almost all of what is already online is clickbait, unreadable. Google anything. Go to the Apple News. Writers who can't write trying to hook readers who can't read. Are we losing anything if this crap is written by machines? Maybe the humans who used to do the work can get more productive jobs. This stuff, both human and AI, is so boring, usually just a recitation of facts that you already know underneath a deceptive headline. This is what we're trying to keep alive?
And should we throw over the entire industrial revolution while we're at it, never mind the computer revolution? The machines make our jobs easier. What, do you want to wash your clothes on a rock?
And I find it hilarious that all these acts employing technology to make their records want to draw a line. Come on, endless software, plug-ins, Autotune... They can use it but nobody else can?
And then there's the theory that posits all these negative articles about AI are spread by those behind AI, to get the word out.
And we've been hearing about AI for decades, and it's finally arrived. Remind you of anything? Digital photography. Was going to kill film and it never happened, and then overnight it did. Now we all have high-end cameras in our pockets.
So film companies are history. Kodak is unknown to the younger generation. But think of all the benefits. Come on, you shoot the pillar showing the location you parked at before you enter the venue. Forget all the little things, you can share photos with your friends and families... So, old wave camera companies bit the dust. Is that enough to hold back digital photography?
You cannot replace humanity. Absolutely impossible. Inject humanity into what you are doing, be honest and real, and not only can the machine not replicate this, your work will resonate with the public even more.
Got a problem with electronic instruments? Go acoustic. Stop comping the vocals, leave the mistakes in recordings. Sure, you can tell AI to put in mistakes, but where, and of what character? Art is about the surprise. And to be honest, that's not where music is at right now, AI could help push the envelope. Like synthesizers. Or the drum machine. They're additive, not subtractive.
Stop being scared. Do we need to work out rights and distribution? Of course. But let's start down that path instead of trying to shut things down. God, it took forever for record companies to realize this. You license and reap the rewards, you don't litigate and try to kill that which can never be buried.
Man, I'd love a new Beatles song. Do I think AI can generate a good one? No. But if AI does, and people want to listen to it and the Beatles get paid...what is wrong with that?
Nothing!
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Universal telling DSPs not to host AI music... What could be better! Think about it, you're an act that's so popular, so desirable, that the audience wants even more of your music!
Can we stop trying to hold back the future? It has never ever worked, why should it now? Furthermore, we've seen this movie already. What looks scary at first ends up adding to as opposed to taking away.
Let's talk Napster vs. CDs. There's no debate that file-trading put a dent in recorded music revenues. But forgetting the evolution, the intermediary steps like iTunes, streaming is better for the music business. Not only have recorded music revenues rebounded, they're still growing and...
Live music, the touring business, is through the roof.
Think about this. If everybody couldn't hear the music for free on YouTube or for a de minimis cost on a streaming service like Spotify, et al, would they all be going to the show?
There are acts with little or no radio airplay that are selling thousands of tickets, they wouldn't have been able to do this in the pre-internet era. First, they can record the music for a very low cost using computer equipment in their house and they can distribute it for almost nothing. And if people want to listen to it...
We still haven't scraped away the detritus of the past, all those who won in the old world who aren't doing so well in the new. In a closed market if they got signed by a label they were one of the few and were the beneficiary of all that marketing and promotion. So now they say their streaming royalties are low... But all these people bitching can still work on the road. Think of the old paradigm, physical and retail. Only old fans would be aware of their tunes and as far as new fans... There's a good chance most retail outlets wouldn't even be stocking their records!
And as far as progress goes, something is always lost in the march to the future. Like vent windows. Pretty cool, but seen as unnecessary when all automobiles came with air conditioning.
So someone uses a platform to create a new song based on what you've done previously. What we've learned in the past twenty-odd years is you don't try to eradicate it, you license it! At the software level, like they used to tax blank cassettes, or at the distribution level, or both. You want to host AI music, you have to pay for it! And the underlying artist gets most of the money.
We lived through this with sampling. The music was stolen, and once you needed a license...many rightsholders refused to grant one, and as a result we now have beats created by newbies. If we'd had a clearinghouse to license samples...
And if we don't license AI songs built on old songs, do you know what is going to happen? There are going to be new AI songs not based on the work of any preexisting artist and the rightsholders will lose out. You embrace the future, it pays.
And can we stop being afraid of AI?
So AI can write a term paper. Well, pocket calculators came along fifty years ago, did they eliminate math? If anything, they made calculation easier and more precise. Just think about it, when you go to Venmo the cost of your lunch to your buddy... It's the software in the phone that splits the bill for you. Where's the loss here?
I'd be more worried about the opposite. That there would be new AI songs based on underlying works/artists that no one wanted to listen to. That's the crisis in the internet world today, you can make it, but no one can find it, never mind listen, play or experience it.
As for replacement of the underlying artist... Give me a break. I've been sent AI versions of my newsletter. Sure, I'm in there somewhere, but it's not even a reasonable facsimile. Don't forget, AI works based on data that is scraped from the internet. As far as coming up with new ideas... They say that's going to happen, but so far nothing has come close, and I'm not worried. Because machines have no humanity.
Steve Jobs and Apple are the classic example here. Steve made decisions based on his gut. He did no research, because research will tell you where you've been, but not where you're going.
Innovation, disruption, how often does it come from the established company? Almost never. Tesla broke the electric car. GM was even there first and didn't know how to do it. Furthermore, to this day none of the traditional companies has realized that the key to Tesla's success is software, and that the body/electronics are nearly fungible. It's a computer on wheels. That's not what GM delivered. And VW still can't get the software right. If you're waiting for change from the established outfits, keep waiting, because they don't believe it's in their interest, they want to maintain the status quo, they abhor disruption.
Lucian Grainge should be starting an AI division of Universal Music. We still don't know where AI music is going. Maybe it starts off sounding like Drake but the end result isn't human at all. Go along for the ride or be left behind. You must disrupt yourself to survive.
So back to me. Let's say the internet is flooded with fake Lefsetz Letters. Man, if the demand is there, think how big I'll be! As far as the authentic me... Come on, you know whether you're buying a fake Rolex, but somehow you're not going to be able to tell whether the screed was written by me?
As for "Business Insider" and other outlets firing people and employing AI instead... Have you read any of the articles? Almost all of what is already online is clickbait, unreadable. Google anything. Go to the Apple News. Writers who can't write trying to hook readers who can't read. Are we losing anything if this crap is written by machines? Maybe the humans who used to do the work can get more productive jobs. This stuff, both human and AI, is so boring, usually just a recitation of facts that you already know underneath a deceptive headline. This is what we're trying to keep alive?
And should we throw over the entire industrial revolution while we're at it, never mind the computer revolution? The machines make our jobs easier. What, do you want to wash your clothes on a rock?
And I find it hilarious that all these acts employing technology to make their records want to draw a line. Come on, endless software, plug-ins, Autotune... They can use it but nobody else can?
And then there's the theory that posits all these negative articles about AI are spread by those behind AI, to get the word out.
And we've been hearing about AI for decades, and it's finally arrived. Remind you of anything? Digital photography. Was going to kill film and it never happened, and then overnight it did. Now we all have high-end cameras in our pockets.
So film companies are history. Kodak is unknown to the younger generation. But think of all the benefits. Come on, you shoot the pillar showing the location you parked at before you enter the venue. Forget all the little things, you can share photos with your friends and families... So, old wave camera companies bit the dust. Is that enough to hold back digital photography?
You cannot replace humanity. Absolutely impossible. Inject humanity into what you are doing, be honest and real, and not only can the machine not replicate this, your work will resonate with the public even more.
Got a problem with electronic instruments? Go acoustic. Stop comping the vocals, leave the mistakes in recordings. Sure, you can tell AI to put in mistakes, but where, and of what character? Art is about the surprise. And to be honest, that's not where music is at right now, AI could help push the envelope. Like synthesizers. Or the drum machine. They're additive, not subtractive.
Stop being scared. Do we need to work out rights and distribution? Of course. But let's start down that path instead of trying to shut things down. God, it took forever for record companies to realize this. You license and reap the rewards, you don't litigate and try to kill that which can never be buried.
Man, I'd love a new Beatles song. Do I think AI can generate a good one? No. But if AI does, and people want to listen to it and the Beatles get paid...what is wrong with that?
Nothing!
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Tuesday 18 April 2023
Fox/Dominion Settlement
Nothing lives up to the billing anymore.
I first noticed this phenomenon in 1974, with Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon jump. We heard about it for months, and then the rocket misfired and...I think it was the same day Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Nixon had resigned, that was momentous, there was talk about a trial but we were still caught up in the reverie of his exit when Ford cut us off at the knees and left a sour taste in our mouths. If you weren't of age back then you have no idea how big the Watergate story was. Not only did they write a book about it, "All the President's Men," they made a first class movie based on the book. Everybody knew the story, it dominated. Does everybody know about the Fox/Dominion suit? What it was about? All the information that came out in discovery? No. Because you can't reach everybody anymore and falsehood rules. You make up your own news today. And that came out in the aforementioned discovery, Fox was afraid of alienating its viewers who believed the "Big Lie" which Fox knew was a complete lie in itself. The lunatics have taken over the asylum. Not only on the right, but the left too. No one trusts the government, no one trusts institutions. People trust their friends and what they read online more than a traditional news outlet. "Mainstream media" is a pejorative.
Not that the mainstream media is perfect, far from it, but at least this is their business, news. The people pontificating about the efficacy of vaccines are not doctors, other than a few quacks. Ditto on climate change. And you can always find some cockamamie site supporting your opinion online. And even educational institutions have been undercut. They're too woke. They're controlled by the rich left. When in truth you get quite a fine education at an elite college. But now the word "elite" has a negative aura.
So we had Elon Musk and Twitter. Last year's story. What was gonna happen in the Delaware court, was he going to be forced to buy it? We had endless screeds on the inner-workings of the Delaware legal system. And then it didn't come into play.
However there does seem to be a contrary example, with Elizabeth Holmes. She got convicted and it appears she's going to jail. Chalk one up for the little people. The woman who said she was too pretty to go to jail is going to be an inmate.
So...
If you're on the right you may be unaware of the Fox/Dominion lawsuit. You may actually believe that Dominion rigged the election for Biden, even though this is patently false. Ultimately Fox News did post today's story on its website, but it's not the headline, and needless to say Fox ends up looking good.
And it was never about the money to us, the hoi polloi, we wanted the truth to come out, we wanted everybody to know what Fox did and what its personnel said. We did not want it buried.
But Dominion is owned by a private equity firm, and they're all about the money. They wanted two things. For Dominion's voting machines to be declared inviolate, as in they did not throw the election for Biden, and to get a ton of cash.
As for the cash... When it comes to defamation, libel laws...there is a standard and it's nearly impossible to reach. The company must have stated the falsehood with actual malice, as in they knew what they were doing. And truth is an absolute defense. So if what the Fox people were saying about Dominion was true, there would have been no lawsuit.
And it may seem like a no-brainer to you, but except with today's Supreme Court, the law is based on stare decisis, i.e. what the previous cases have determined, and there are not a ton of cases in the defamation area, meaning a victory for Dominion was not guaranteed. Furthermore, Fox did not want a decision, they wanted libel law to remain somewhat vague, a case could change the landscape, just like the "Blurred Lines"/Marvin Gaye lawsuit changed copyright law. Under the law, "Blurred Lines" was not infringement. It had the same sound and feel as Marvin Gaye's song, but the criterion used to be the same notes. So now copyright law is blurred, and acts and record companies are uptight about infringement in a way they never were before.
So, if Fox lost at trial, there could be a weakening of protection in libel law. And Fox does not want this, it wants to act with impunity.
Can it continue to perpetrate falsehoods? Well, one thing we know for sure, we're not sure exactly where the line is.
As for the money... The truth is Rupert Murdoch is not that rich. Compared to the techies. Less than a billion dollars is a drop in the bucket to Elon Musk, and he's not the only one in that category of wealth, far from it. But Rupert has more than money, he who controls the narrative ultimately wins. That's been Murdoch's game from day one, that's the news business. And irrelevant of what Musk said in the run-up to his purchase of Twitter, he now sees it as a news entity, and he wants to personally control the narrative, by whim. But the truth is Twitter is bigger than any traditional news outlet, which makes everything Musk does news. So we have to keep hearing about Musk and Twitter every day in the news.
Assuming one reads the news.
Those on the left were out for blood. They wanted to put a stake in the heart of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, and Tucker Carlson too. But this was not a governmental action, this was a private civil suit. The goals of Dominion don't necessarily align with those of the public at large.
So, Dominion emerges with its image and a boatload of cash.
As for Fox... Well, there's a bit of a chilling effect, then again, the law already says you shouldn't knowingly state falsehoods. And this case shows that it takes a ton of bread to sue Fox, and if it thinks it's got a chance of losing, it will settle, probably at the last minute.
As for Fox viewers... They can believe whatever they want to. There's no law against that. And many still believe that the election was stolen, that Trump really won. Meanwhile, every educated thinking person, even those at Fox itself, knows this is hogwash. But that's the world we now live in, perception trumps facts. And anger the lowest common denominator at your peril.
Now the truths that came out in discovery are important, the record has been established. Fox lied outright. And continued to do so.
But the trial was a big nothingburger. And unless you work for Dominion or Fox, ultimately the lawsuit didn't affect you at all. Either you're a believe in the "Big Lie" or you're not, either you think Fox News is heinous or it is not.
Sure, we can talk about a cumulative effect.
But I'd be more worried about the right's war against the legal system and the metropolis than Fox possibly lying outright again.
In other words, the ball didn't move much.
We can't even understand the game anymore. Baseball lost touch with the public and they instituted new rules, like the pitch clock, and they made the bases bigger. Politics? We've got an outright liar in Congress, and he's going to run again. Never mind the purely ignorant. You've got to pass a test to be a driver, maybe we need one to be an elected official, never mind to own a gun.
And public financing of campaigns would go a long way towards changing the playing field, but that ain't never gonna happen, because in truth money wants influence.
All you can do is watch D.C. and throw up your hands. It's like school council.
So...
I'm gonna tell you right now, what you're looking forward to is probably going to be a disappointment. Especially when it's on a grand scale, national. The hype is too long in a world where instant is everything.
So, the end result is we're all turning inward. Everybody believes the game is rigged. DeSantis talking about building a prison by Disney World...nobody wants this, not only Disney, but its devotees, the general public. Its just a personal war. Petty.
And you feel like you have no power. Sure, vote. It can make a difference, but in truth all elected officials want is to stay in power and make money, altruism can't even be seen in the rearview mirror anymore.
And consensus is impossible. This is what the internet has wrought.
As for California and New York City... If you don't want to live there, that's fine. But I don't want to live anywhere other than Los Angeles. I don't mind the taxes. Nor the high costs. Because you can get an abortion and there are some gun laws and the state cares about the environment and the regulations protect me, the nobody who doesn't want to die in an earthquake when the building collapses.
Rail all you want, you're not going to get me to move.
I want to be at the epicenter of the entertainment business. I know Amazon ships everywhere, but you can't see first class theatre everywhere, for that you have to go to New York.
If you want to live in the hinterlands and are a big proponent of stand your ground laws, that's fine. But it's not what I want. And you're never going to convince me otherwise.
So it turns out so much is noise. The Fox/Dominion lawsuit. Musk and Twitter. Even Ticketmaster. A lot of blabber and ultimately there's no change.
As George Carlin famously claimed, save yourself. That's the modern era, what you do, see and say is important, the rest is just chaos, juggling for position. Fight if you want to, but most people are sick of fighting, they just want to live their lives. We're worried about the future, but we seem to be powerless to stop the insanity.
And that sucks.
I first noticed this phenomenon in 1974, with Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon jump. We heard about it for months, and then the rocket misfired and...I think it was the same day Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Nixon had resigned, that was momentous, there was talk about a trial but we were still caught up in the reverie of his exit when Ford cut us off at the knees and left a sour taste in our mouths. If you weren't of age back then you have no idea how big the Watergate story was. Not only did they write a book about it, "All the President's Men," they made a first class movie based on the book. Everybody knew the story, it dominated. Does everybody know about the Fox/Dominion suit? What it was about? All the information that came out in discovery? No. Because you can't reach everybody anymore and falsehood rules. You make up your own news today. And that came out in the aforementioned discovery, Fox was afraid of alienating its viewers who believed the "Big Lie" which Fox knew was a complete lie in itself. The lunatics have taken over the asylum. Not only on the right, but the left too. No one trusts the government, no one trusts institutions. People trust their friends and what they read online more than a traditional news outlet. "Mainstream media" is a pejorative.
Not that the mainstream media is perfect, far from it, but at least this is their business, news. The people pontificating about the efficacy of vaccines are not doctors, other than a few quacks. Ditto on climate change. And you can always find some cockamamie site supporting your opinion online. And even educational institutions have been undercut. They're too woke. They're controlled by the rich left. When in truth you get quite a fine education at an elite college. But now the word "elite" has a negative aura.
So we had Elon Musk and Twitter. Last year's story. What was gonna happen in the Delaware court, was he going to be forced to buy it? We had endless screeds on the inner-workings of the Delaware legal system. And then it didn't come into play.
However there does seem to be a contrary example, with Elizabeth Holmes. She got convicted and it appears she's going to jail. Chalk one up for the little people. The woman who said she was too pretty to go to jail is going to be an inmate.
So...
If you're on the right you may be unaware of the Fox/Dominion lawsuit. You may actually believe that Dominion rigged the election for Biden, even though this is patently false. Ultimately Fox News did post today's story on its website, but it's not the headline, and needless to say Fox ends up looking good.
And it was never about the money to us, the hoi polloi, we wanted the truth to come out, we wanted everybody to know what Fox did and what its personnel said. We did not want it buried.
But Dominion is owned by a private equity firm, and they're all about the money. They wanted two things. For Dominion's voting machines to be declared inviolate, as in they did not throw the election for Biden, and to get a ton of cash.
As for the cash... When it comes to defamation, libel laws...there is a standard and it's nearly impossible to reach. The company must have stated the falsehood with actual malice, as in they knew what they were doing. And truth is an absolute defense. So if what the Fox people were saying about Dominion was true, there would have been no lawsuit.
And it may seem like a no-brainer to you, but except with today's Supreme Court, the law is based on stare decisis, i.e. what the previous cases have determined, and there are not a ton of cases in the defamation area, meaning a victory for Dominion was not guaranteed. Furthermore, Fox did not want a decision, they wanted libel law to remain somewhat vague, a case could change the landscape, just like the "Blurred Lines"/Marvin Gaye lawsuit changed copyright law. Under the law, "Blurred Lines" was not infringement. It had the same sound and feel as Marvin Gaye's song, but the criterion used to be the same notes. So now copyright law is blurred, and acts and record companies are uptight about infringement in a way they never were before.
So, if Fox lost at trial, there could be a weakening of protection in libel law. And Fox does not want this, it wants to act with impunity.
Can it continue to perpetrate falsehoods? Well, one thing we know for sure, we're not sure exactly where the line is.
As for the money... The truth is Rupert Murdoch is not that rich. Compared to the techies. Less than a billion dollars is a drop in the bucket to Elon Musk, and he's not the only one in that category of wealth, far from it. But Rupert has more than money, he who controls the narrative ultimately wins. That's been Murdoch's game from day one, that's the news business. And irrelevant of what Musk said in the run-up to his purchase of Twitter, he now sees it as a news entity, and he wants to personally control the narrative, by whim. But the truth is Twitter is bigger than any traditional news outlet, which makes everything Musk does news. So we have to keep hearing about Musk and Twitter every day in the news.
Assuming one reads the news.
Those on the left were out for blood. They wanted to put a stake in the heart of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, and Tucker Carlson too. But this was not a governmental action, this was a private civil suit. The goals of Dominion don't necessarily align with those of the public at large.
So, Dominion emerges with its image and a boatload of cash.
As for Fox... Well, there's a bit of a chilling effect, then again, the law already says you shouldn't knowingly state falsehoods. And this case shows that it takes a ton of bread to sue Fox, and if it thinks it's got a chance of losing, it will settle, probably at the last minute.
As for Fox viewers... They can believe whatever they want to. There's no law against that. And many still believe that the election was stolen, that Trump really won. Meanwhile, every educated thinking person, even those at Fox itself, knows this is hogwash. But that's the world we now live in, perception trumps facts. And anger the lowest common denominator at your peril.
Now the truths that came out in discovery are important, the record has been established. Fox lied outright. And continued to do so.
But the trial was a big nothingburger. And unless you work for Dominion or Fox, ultimately the lawsuit didn't affect you at all. Either you're a believe in the "Big Lie" or you're not, either you think Fox News is heinous or it is not.
Sure, we can talk about a cumulative effect.
But I'd be more worried about the right's war against the legal system and the metropolis than Fox possibly lying outright again.
In other words, the ball didn't move much.
We can't even understand the game anymore. Baseball lost touch with the public and they instituted new rules, like the pitch clock, and they made the bases bigger. Politics? We've got an outright liar in Congress, and he's going to run again. Never mind the purely ignorant. You've got to pass a test to be a driver, maybe we need one to be an elected official, never mind to own a gun.
And public financing of campaigns would go a long way towards changing the playing field, but that ain't never gonna happen, because in truth money wants influence.
All you can do is watch D.C. and throw up your hands. It's like school council.
So...
I'm gonna tell you right now, what you're looking forward to is probably going to be a disappointment. Especially when it's on a grand scale, national. The hype is too long in a world where instant is everything.
So, the end result is we're all turning inward. Everybody believes the game is rigged. DeSantis talking about building a prison by Disney World...nobody wants this, not only Disney, but its devotees, the general public. Its just a personal war. Petty.
And you feel like you have no power. Sure, vote. It can make a difference, but in truth all elected officials want is to stay in power and make money, altruism can't even be seen in the rearview mirror anymore.
And consensus is impossible. This is what the internet has wrought.
As for California and New York City... If you don't want to live there, that's fine. But I don't want to live anywhere other than Los Angeles. I don't mind the taxes. Nor the high costs. Because you can get an abortion and there are some gun laws and the state cares about the environment and the regulations protect me, the nobody who doesn't want to die in an earthquake when the building collapses.
Rail all you want, you're not going to get me to move.
I want to be at the epicenter of the entertainment business. I know Amazon ships everywhere, but you can't see first class theatre everywhere, for that you have to go to New York.
If you want to live in the hinterlands and are a big proponent of stand your ground laws, that's fine. But it's not what I want. And you're never going to convince me otherwise.
So it turns out so much is noise. The Fox/Dominion lawsuit. Musk and Twitter. Even Ticketmaster. A lot of blabber and ultimately there's no change.
As George Carlin famously claimed, save yourself. That's the modern era, what you do, see and say is important, the rest is just chaos, juggling for position. Fight if you want to, but most people are sick of fighting, they just want to live their lives. We're worried about the future, but we seem to be powerless to stop the insanity.
And that sucks.
--
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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Sunday 16 April 2023
Today At Vail
It was one of the best days of the year.
It's been a good season. 345 inches. 103% of the average, which is 350, but there's still another week to go.
But not only is that a lot of snow, it came early. And that matters. Especially at Vail, where one-third of the ski area faces south.
Still, Vail's total is not in the league of Utah and California this year. But you've got to know the snow in California is heavy, it's called "Sierra Cement." Utah's got the lightest snow in the world, but the runs are not that long. If you want long runs, come to Colorado, or go to Europe. Or Whistler. The map does not do Whistler justice, Symphony Bowl is larger than many ski areas, and it looks small on the map. But the snow is iffy in Whistler. The altitude is so low that sometimes you get rain. They usually get enough, but if you're looking for the feathery stuff, go to Little or Big Cottonwood Canyons in Utah. The powder in Vail doesn't even come close.
But people live for the powder. And we actually got 8" Friday night/Saturday morning.
I've got no problem with the powder, it's just not my favorite condition. I like corn snow, in the spring.
Vail is vast.
If you drove by Vail you wouldn't even think there was a mountain, it looks like a hill. But what you can't see is the bowls in the back, there's nothing like them in the States. There are seven bowls and they stretch for six miles. And then there's Blue Sky Basin beyond that, with its trees.
Bottom line, there's a lot of terrain at Vail. Used to be the most in the country, before Big Sky bought Moonlight Basin and Park West/The Canyons was merged with Park City. Big Sky is a big place, with some very serious skiing. But it's the rockiest place I've ever been, by far, and some of the altitude is extremely low. This is the same problem with Jackson Hole. The base is 6,311 feet. Which means it can be the middle of winter and you can have slush at the bottom. Or even worse, set up slush. Vail's base is at 8,150. There's even a chair at a lower altitude than that at Snowbird, 7,759, but really most people never come near Baby Thunder. The main Snowbird base, the Plaza, where the tram is, is 8,100 feet. The top is 11,000 feet. The highest point in Vail is 11,570 feet, but that's at Blue Sky Basin. The top of the frontside is 11,250. My point being that Vail is high, and that makes a difference in the snow. Steamboat gets great snow, but the base altitude is 6,900 feet. The bases of Breckenridge, Copper and Keystone are actually higher than Vail, but they don't get as much snow, in the case of Keystone, much less. And Breck is notoriously windy. As for Park City...the base elevation is at 6,900 feet and the top is 10,026. And that makes a difference.
You now understand why Vail is the most popular ski resort in the country. Oh, sometimes Breck gets more visitors, but that's because it's one pass closer to Denver.
But people hate the parent company, Vail Resorts. Because Vail is the Universal Music of skiing. The big kahuna, owning a zillion resorts. And during Covid, they were not fully-staffed. There was stuff to complain about, most coming down to not enough employees, so this year Vail made the minimum wage $20 an hour, and gave 40% off equipment in their company-owned stores. But still, people hate Vail. Because it's the biggest.
It's also essentially the cheapest. For less than a grand, you can ski every day at so many resorts you can't even remember them all, all over the world, from the Rockies to New England to Europe to Australia to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin... You get the idea.
You can go to your local ski area, but your pass for just this one area will cost more and the infrastructure won't be as good. Because it costs a lot of money to make all that snow and groom it.
And yes, the village at Vail is ersatz, it's not a real town, like Aspen or Telluride. But every lift connects, unlike at Aspen's four different mountains, and let's not even talk about the fakokta lift system at Telluride, where you've got to take multiple chairs to get where you want to go, never mind Telluride getting less than 300 inches of snow per year, the average is 217, and Telluride is steep and rocky and you need a lot. So...
We always come for the last week of the season. But having a big birthday this year I decided to arrive ten days before that, as a treat to myself. And my first day on the hill, it was warm instead of cold, the snow had turned. Sometimes spring skiing starts in March. This was an unusual year. Except for a couple of days it's been winter snow all season.
And for three days, the snow was good.
And then...
It got warm. I mean hot. Over fifty degrees.
Charley said he lost a foot and a half of snow at his house in one day.
But it's all about the snow on the hill. And although there's plenty, the problem is at that temperature, the snow gets sticky, unskiable. Wax can help, but only so much. And once the snow snakes come out, I go in.
So it was hit or miss last week. One day I went out too late, so the next I woke up at the crack of dawn and... They'd closed the Back Bowls because of an avalanche. If you know Vail, this sounds ridiculous, avalanches are very rare, but it was so hot that the snow slid and you wouldn't want to be caught in that. And it happened right next to a very popular slope, the Slot. Let me be clear, it slid from Milt's Face to Campbell's, and they're pretty popular themselves. You can see a picture here:
"Vail's Back Bowls closed Wednesday, Thursday out of wet slide safety precaution - Danger of wet slides considerable": https://bit.ly/3GJngNN
So I'd gotten up early for no reason.
But still, it was very warm. So I was on the lift at 8:58 AM on Thursday, and you'll never even see me up at that hour in the city. And it was firm for a few runs, then it started to soften up, and then...the clouds came in, and as a result I could ski all day, which was previously impossible, because of the heat and the ultimate stickiness.
And all day is too much. Unlike in the old days, you don't have to fight for your runs. The lifts run two and a half times faster than they used to as a result of detachable technology, as for lines... I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, even at Vail you never really have to wait in a line, as long as you get in the singles line. As for that pic of the crowd at Chair 5 on a powder day... Laugh all you want, but they put in another high speed lift back there this year to take care of the crowds, which are de minimis at most times. As for that pic of the crowd at the gondola, those people were lining up before the lift even opened, that's how much they wanted to ski the powder. And if you line up, you can get maybe one purely untracked run, maybe two, but the good thing is Vail is so vast you can ski crud all day, multiple days. Crud is cut-up powder and...if you have the right equipment, it's a thrill.
You need multiple pairs of skis. I know you're rolling your eyes now, but that's a function of the improvement in equipment. Yes, back in the seventies we'd ski the powder and the crud with 67mm waisted skis, but at Vail no shop even sells boards that narrow. The standard Vail ski is in the nineties.
So my standard ski is a K2 Mindbender at 99mm.
And I've got a pair of Rossi powder skis at 117. But those are really for powder, you can't really ski them on the groomed. And I've got narrower stuff than 99, but this year I also popped for a 108.
So let me be perfectly clear. This year I bought two pairs of skis. Both Mindbenders. At 99mm and 108mm. And installed Look Pivot 15s on them, which are totally metal, and are the standard amongst freestylers... Well, let me just say they retail for $500, and you can buy usable Salomons for just over $200, and most people don't want to pop.
And I've got my Lange RS130 boots. What they call a racing boot. 130 is the stiffness, which is top of the line at the companies. Although the number is not comparable at each and in truth the World Cup racers ski on even stiffer boots, 150s, but...
Langes notoriously had great performance and terrible fit. I've got the bone spurs to prove it.
So I gave up on Langes this century and switched to Nordicas, which are more comfortable. And then I spent one year in Salomons, which are a joke. Sure, they're light, but that's not what you really want. And they were so stiff it was hard to get forward in them and I was going to buy another pair of Nordicas, my third, until Greg Hoffmann, one of the foremost boot experts in the country, who was at Vail until Covid, told me the only boot to buy was the Lange RS130, because of the heel hold, and he didn't even sell it! There are two extensions on each side of the liner that hold you in.
But I was still leaning towards the Nordica, but when I tried both on...there was no contest. Because the Langes have a progressive flex, it's smooth, unlike the Nordica, furthermore they've made advancements and these are the most comfortable and best boots I've had in fifty years, and the performance makes a difference, truly.
As for the K2s... I bought the Mindbender 99s because they hold, and my previous long time brand did not. As for the 108s... They're magic, you're either hip to them, or not.
So like I told you, it snowed. And the race for powder began. But my college buddy John was visiting and... I'll make it simple, he can't ski the powder, he's scared of it, as many are. And it was cold. And we did not go out early. And he was still freaked by the crud, which tired him out, so when he went in at 2 PM...
I got the 108s.
But it turned out most of the runs were skied out. And then it was 3 PM, and I was skiing past the entrance to Sun Down Bowl and I remembered that they'd groomed Ricky's Ridge, so I figured it would be relatively packed out and...
I was wrong.
I'm past the point of no return. And the problem isn't the crud, but that's it's set up, it's become firm. Like I said, Vail is so vast...let's just say the Back Bowls never get completely skied out.
And to be honest, I'm tired. And I know I have to commit, and I'm out in the wilderness alone and...
I do commit. Thank god I was on my 108s.
At the cliff I traversed to the bumps, and I got down, but the entire journey was a mistake.
So I went back to the front and skied until the lifts closed. Once again, pushing it beyond my limit.
Oh, I left out Friday... We got snow so hard and concentrated it was like being hit by BBs. As if God was shooting his gun. Almost everybody went in. I was going to go to the gondola for a respite...but then it lightened up and it was so good I skied until closing, once again too hard.
So if you're following the narrative, I skied very hard for three days straight.
And today?
There's not a cloud in the sky. And stunningly, the snow is still winter! It was a bit firm, but Felice and I went out and were really digging it, but then she was tired and wanted to go in so we took the classic way down, to Bear Tree, and...
The snow had turned.
Let me explain this to you. The slopes are rolled, literally, by snowcats. And if they get no traffic and they soften up...it's like skiing in Carvel, it's absolute heaven.
And most people only ski Bear Tree at the end of the day, so we were skiing Carvel and I was thrilled and Felice went in and I took the gondola to Chair 3 to the top to ski Morningside Ridge in Sun Down Bowl...
And it was too late. It was slushed out. As a result of too much traffic. I did a nonstopper, because I could manage the slush and at points the surface was clean...but this was enough for the Back Bowls. I was tempted to ski Forever, the classic run under Chair 5 in the back, but I knew I really needed my 108s, to run roughshod through the crud, and in truth I was worn out.
So I skied Northstar, in the Northeast Bowl, and I was stunned to find...
It was still firm. I really expected it to be torn up and soft. But it wasn't, but what I really wanted was...
More of that Carvel.
So I took Chair 6 in reverse, to the top of Golden Peak.
At the absolute bottom of Golden Peak is where the beginners learn how to ski.
And on the left side of Golden Peak looking up is where the racers train. And let's be clear, I'm talking Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn.
And to the right of the race course, there's a terrain park, for the snowboarders, although skiers go in there now too.
And to the right of the park is...
Ruder's Run.
I get off Chair 6 and I ski onto Ruder's and...
It's total Carvel, almost no one has skied it, all the way down to the bottom of Chair 6.
Let me see... It'd be like finding your favorite rare record. Like seeing McCartney or the Stones in a club. Then again, there's nothing like it. Because you're alone, and it's the essence of freedom. You're totally in control, but going so fast you're approaching your limit, and you're gliding on a surface so smooth, you feel no resistance. Its heaven.
So I go up and do it again.
There was no rope on the race course, which was rolled, so I skied that too.
And then Ruder's again. And again. And even WhipperSnapper, which is like a roller coaster and used to be groomed regularly but not anymore yet it was today and it was...baked-out and sticky.
So after eating up the runs on Golden Peak, I decide I'm going to ride Chair 6 to the top, not get off at the mid-station, go far beyond Golden Peak, and then take 11 to the other side of the mountain.
But Blue Ox is staring me in the face. They usually groom it twice a week, but it hadn't been groomed at all in the last week and today is the last day for Chair 10, which gives access to the run, and I'm totally tired, believing I should can it, and then...
I go up Chair 10 to Blue Ox and...
It's awful. Firm, with solid crud. Just like Morningside, but even worse, I had to work at it. And I could feel the day in my legs and there's no way out but what a mistake.
And literally the only way out, other than a notorious catwalk that is flat upon which you must walk, is Chair 10. Which is taking me back up to the opposite side of the mountain from where I want to be.
But I ride it and I'm making my way back to Chair 11, to go back to the other side of the mountain and...
It's still firm. I'm shocked. Especially because the bottom is usually one of the first places to bake out.
So I ride up Chair 11 and I'm gonna ski Northwoods. Which I do not prefer, because that's the main way down that side and there's always so much traffic. But not today...
I've got the run to myself, I'm ripping, right over the roll and then there's the fall-away...which most people avoid. A short, extremely steep pitch.
And it was essentially ice and my skis were chattering but I was on the edge and I was loving it.
And on the ride back up 11 I shared the chair with an investment banker, who raises money for medical devices. How does he do it? Well, he worked at Lazard, and he made all these contacts and he only picks five companies out of three hundred fifty a year and when he calls, investors pony up, but... He works from 5 AM to 8 AM. Then 5 PM into the evening. Because in-between... He's got to ski! A hundred days a year. His home base is Miami, but he's rarely there and...
Even though he'd gone to MIT, and had an MBA, he was bitten by the bug, he lived to go skiing.
I know that's hard to understand, but it's a cult. And you know if you're a member.
A week a year is not enough. Two weeks are not enough. All winter long you're fighting to get back to the mountain. You may like to drink, but it's not about après.
And there's not a cloud in the sky. And I'm at 11,000 feet in the Rockies. The vista would blow your mind. And inside, I start to smile.
Because this is who I am.
I mean how can that be? I'm a middle class Jewish suburbanite.
But I got bitten by the bug. I went to a college with a ski area. After two years in Little Cottonwood Canyon after graduation I moved to L.A. and tried to get over it and...
The only way this works is if you don't ski. Because when you do you know if you only skied another couple of weeks in a row you'd be back in the groove, but you're not going to and it's more depressing than fun.
I don't want to tell you how many days I've skied this year. You won't believe it. Never mind the week I was sick back in December, in Vail, when I would have been out on the slopes. Never mind the days coming in Mammoth, which announced it will be open through at least July.
And it's a conundrum. I'm outside, feeling my fullest, and I'm thinking about who I once was.
You're little, at least when I was little, and you spend all your time outside. And then you get old and you're inside. But today I was outside and it was a jolt, was I still the same person I was when I was growing up, the one who lived to play baseball, who went to summer camp, who did not live in front of a computer, did not play video games, was not on my phone, because they all didn't exist?
And this is not an anti-technology screed. The phone has made skiing so much easier, in terms of meeting your friends on the hill and being able to respond to e-mail, i.e. work, but...
There are mountains 14,000 feet high in the distance. And they'll survive you and me. And even though you can probably get signal up there, at least satellite SOS on your iPhone, it's very different from being inside.
You feel alive. It's palpable.
So it was still firm under Chair 4, astoundingly, and I ski over to Chair 2 and...
It's like I'm on drugs. Anointed by God. I was tired when I woke up, I should have gone in two hours before, but I can't, I can't let go of this feeling, of skiing on this snow, of being in the mountains.
And I'm starting to think of the attrition, after all these runs. I'm going to be hurting tomorrow.
But somehow I'm even stronger than I was earlier in the day. And the sun is still shining and then...
I'm afraid of losing the feeling. I'm so high, it's amazing. I want to convey it to you. And it comes to me, this is the last run.
And as I go from the top of the mountain down the hill, it goes from firm to soft. Upper Berries was firm. Middle Columbine was getting soft.
And then I hit the Carvel snow once again.
There was no one to tell. There was no posse. This was an internal feeling, that is hard to communicate.
But I just tried.
It's been a good season. 345 inches. 103% of the average, which is 350, but there's still another week to go.
But not only is that a lot of snow, it came early. And that matters. Especially at Vail, where one-third of the ski area faces south.
Still, Vail's total is not in the league of Utah and California this year. But you've got to know the snow in California is heavy, it's called "Sierra Cement." Utah's got the lightest snow in the world, but the runs are not that long. If you want long runs, come to Colorado, or go to Europe. Or Whistler. The map does not do Whistler justice, Symphony Bowl is larger than many ski areas, and it looks small on the map. But the snow is iffy in Whistler. The altitude is so low that sometimes you get rain. They usually get enough, but if you're looking for the feathery stuff, go to Little or Big Cottonwood Canyons in Utah. The powder in Vail doesn't even come close.
But people live for the powder. And we actually got 8" Friday night/Saturday morning.
I've got no problem with the powder, it's just not my favorite condition. I like corn snow, in the spring.
Vail is vast.
If you drove by Vail you wouldn't even think there was a mountain, it looks like a hill. But what you can't see is the bowls in the back, there's nothing like them in the States. There are seven bowls and they stretch for six miles. And then there's Blue Sky Basin beyond that, with its trees.
Bottom line, there's a lot of terrain at Vail. Used to be the most in the country, before Big Sky bought Moonlight Basin and Park West/The Canyons was merged with Park City. Big Sky is a big place, with some very serious skiing. But it's the rockiest place I've ever been, by far, and some of the altitude is extremely low. This is the same problem with Jackson Hole. The base is 6,311 feet. Which means it can be the middle of winter and you can have slush at the bottom. Or even worse, set up slush. Vail's base is at 8,150. There's even a chair at a lower altitude than that at Snowbird, 7,759, but really most people never come near Baby Thunder. The main Snowbird base, the Plaza, where the tram is, is 8,100 feet. The top is 11,000 feet. The highest point in Vail is 11,570 feet, but that's at Blue Sky Basin. The top of the frontside is 11,250. My point being that Vail is high, and that makes a difference in the snow. Steamboat gets great snow, but the base altitude is 6,900 feet. The bases of Breckenridge, Copper and Keystone are actually higher than Vail, but they don't get as much snow, in the case of Keystone, much less. And Breck is notoriously windy. As for Park City...the base elevation is at 6,900 feet and the top is 10,026. And that makes a difference.
You now understand why Vail is the most popular ski resort in the country. Oh, sometimes Breck gets more visitors, but that's because it's one pass closer to Denver.
But people hate the parent company, Vail Resorts. Because Vail is the Universal Music of skiing. The big kahuna, owning a zillion resorts. And during Covid, they were not fully-staffed. There was stuff to complain about, most coming down to not enough employees, so this year Vail made the minimum wage $20 an hour, and gave 40% off equipment in their company-owned stores. But still, people hate Vail. Because it's the biggest.
It's also essentially the cheapest. For less than a grand, you can ski every day at so many resorts you can't even remember them all, all over the world, from the Rockies to New England to Europe to Australia to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin... You get the idea.
You can go to your local ski area, but your pass for just this one area will cost more and the infrastructure won't be as good. Because it costs a lot of money to make all that snow and groom it.
And yes, the village at Vail is ersatz, it's not a real town, like Aspen or Telluride. But every lift connects, unlike at Aspen's four different mountains, and let's not even talk about the fakokta lift system at Telluride, where you've got to take multiple chairs to get where you want to go, never mind Telluride getting less than 300 inches of snow per year, the average is 217, and Telluride is steep and rocky and you need a lot. So...
We always come for the last week of the season. But having a big birthday this year I decided to arrive ten days before that, as a treat to myself. And my first day on the hill, it was warm instead of cold, the snow had turned. Sometimes spring skiing starts in March. This was an unusual year. Except for a couple of days it's been winter snow all season.
And for three days, the snow was good.
And then...
It got warm. I mean hot. Over fifty degrees.
Charley said he lost a foot and a half of snow at his house in one day.
But it's all about the snow on the hill. And although there's plenty, the problem is at that temperature, the snow gets sticky, unskiable. Wax can help, but only so much. And once the snow snakes come out, I go in.
So it was hit or miss last week. One day I went out too late, so the next I woke up at the crack of dawn and... They'd closed the Back Bowls because of an avalanche. If you know Vail, this sounds ridiculous, avalanches are very rare, but it was so hot that the snow slid and you wouldn't want to be caught in that. And it happened right next to a very popular slope, the Slot. Let me be clear, it slid from Milt's Face to Campbell's, and they're pretty popular themselves. You can see a picture here:
"Vail's Back Bowls closed Wednesday, Thursday out of wet slide safety precaution - Danger of wet slides considerable": https://bit.ly/3GJngNN
So I'd gotten up early for no reason.
But still, it was very warm. So I was on the lift at 8:58 AM on Thursday, and you'll never even see me up at that hour in the city. And it was firm for a few runs, then it started to soften up, and then...the clouds came in, and as a result I could ski all day, which was previously impossible, because of the heat and the ultimate stickiness.
And all day is too much. Unlike in the old days, you don't have to fight for your runs. The lifts run two and a half times faster than they used to as a result of detachable technology, as for lines... I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, even at Vail you never really have to wait in a line, as long as you get in the singles line. As for that pic of the crowd at Chair 5 on a powder day... Laugh all you want, but they put in another high speed lift back there this year to take care of the crowds, which are de minimis at most times. As for that pic of the crowd at the gondola, those people were lining up before the lift even opened, that's how much they wanted to ski the powder. And if you line up, you can get maybe one purely untracked run, maybe two, but the good thing is Vail is so vast you can ski crud all day, multiple days. Crud is cut-up powder and...if you have the right equipment, it's a thrill.
You need multiple pairs of skis. I know you're rolling your eyes now, but that's a function of the improvement in equipment. Yes, back in the seventies we'd ski the powder and the crud with 67mm waisted skis, but at Vail no shop even sells boards that narrow. The standard Vail ski is in the nineties.
So my standard ski is a K2 Mindbender at 99mm.
And I've got a pair of Rossi powder skis at 117. But those are really for powder, you can't really ski them on the groomed. And I've got narrower stuff than 99, but this year I also popped for a 108.
So let me be perfectly clear. This year I bought two pairs of skis. Both Mindbenders. At 99mm and 108mm. And installed Look Pivot 15s on them, which are totally metal, and are the standard amongst freestylers... Well, let me just say they retail for $500, and you can buy usable Salomons for just over $200, and most people don't want to pop.
And I've got my Lange RS130 boots. What they call a racing boot. 130 is the stiffness, which is top of the line at the companies. Although the number is not comparable at each and in truth the World Cup racers ski on even stiffer boots, 150s, but...
Langes notoriously had great performance and terrible fit. I've got the bone spurs to prove it.
So I gave up on Langes this century and switched to Nordicas, which are more comfortable. And then I spent one year in Salomons, which are a joke. Sure, they're light, but that's not what you really want. And they were so stiff it was hard to get forward in them and I was going to buy another pair of Nordicas, my third, until Greg Hoffmann, one of the foremost boot experts in the country, who was at Vail until Covid, told me the only boot to buy was the Lange RS130, because of the heel hold, and he didn't even sell it! There are two extensions on each side of the liner that hold you in.
But I was still leaning towards the Nordica, but when I tried both on...there was no contest. Because the Langes have a progressive flex, it's smooth, unlike the Nordica, furthermore they've made advancements and these are the most comfortable and best boots I've had in fifty years, and the performance makes a difference, truly.
As for the K2s... I bought the Mindbender 99s because they hold, and my previous long time brand did not. As for the 108s... They're magic, you're either hip to them, or not.
So like I told you, it snowed. And the race for powder began. But my college buddy John was visiting and... I'll make it simple, he can't ski the powder, he's scared of it, as many are. And it was cold. And we did not go out early. And he was still freaked by the crud, which tired him out, so when he went in at 2 PM...
I got the 108s.
But it turned out most of the runs were skied out. And then it was 3 PM, and I was skiing past the entrance to Sun Down Bowl and I remembered that they'd groomed Ricky's Ridge, so I figured it would be relatively packed out and...
I was wrong.
I'm past the point of no return. And the problem isn't the crud, but that's it's set up, it's become firm. Like I said, Vail is so vast...let's just say the Back Bowls never get completely skied out.
And to be honest, I'm tired. And I know I have to commit, and I'm out in the wilderness alone and...
I do commit. Thank god I was on my 108s.
At the cliff I traversed to the bumps, and I got down, but the entire journey was a mistake.
So I went back to the front and skied until the lifts closed. Once again, pushing it beyond my limit.
Oh, I left out Friday... We got snow so hard and concentrated it was like being hit by BBs. As if God was shooting his gun. Almost everybody went in. I was going to go to the gondola for a respite...but then it lightened up and it was so good I skied until closing, once again too hard.
So if you're following the narrative, I skied very hard for three days straight.
And today?
There's not a cloud in the sky. And stunningly, the snow is still winter! It was a bit firm, but Felice and I went out and were really digging it, but then she was tired and wanted to go in so we took the classic way down, to Bear Tree, and...
The snow had turned.
Let me explain this to you. The slopes are rolled, literally, by snowcats. And if they get no traffic and they soften up...it's like skiing in Carvel, it's absolute heaven.
And most people only ski Bear Tree at the end of the day, so we were skiing Carvel and I was thrilled and Felice went in and I took the gondola to Chair 3 to the top to ski Morningside Ridge in Sun Down Bowl...
And it was too late. It was slushed out. As a result of too much traffic. I did a nonstopper, because I could manage the slush and at points the surface was clean...but this was enough for the Back Bowls. I was tempted to ski Forever, the classic run under Chair 5 in the back, but I knew I really needed my 108s, to run roughshod through the crud, and in truth I was worn out.
So I skied Northstar, in the Northeast Bowl, and I was stunned to find...
It was still firm. I really expected it to be torn up and soft. But it wasn't, but what I really wanted was...
More of that Carvel.
So I took Chair 6 in reverse, to the top of Golden Peak.
At the absolute bottom of Golden Peak is where the beginners learn how to ski.
And on the left side of Golden Peak looking up is where the racers train. And let's be clear, I'm talking Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn.
And to the right of the race course, there's a terrain park, for the snowboarders, although skiers go in there now too.
And to the right of the park is...
Ruder's Run.
I get off Chair 6 and I ski onto Ruder's and...
It's total Carvel, almost no one has skied it, all the way down to the bottom of Chair 6.
Let me see... It'd be like finding your favorite rare record. Like seeing McCartney or the Stones in a club. Then again, there's nothing like it. Because you're alone, and it's the essence of freedom. You're totally in control, but going so fast you're approaching your limit, and you're gliding on a surface so smooth, you feel no resistance. Its heaven.
So I go up and do it again.
There was no rope on the race course, which was rolled, so I skied that too.
And then Ruder's again. And again. And even WhipperSnapper, which is like a roller coaster and used to be groomed regularly but not anymore yet it was today and it was...baked-out and sticky.
So after eating up the runs on Golden Peak, I decide I'm going to ride Chair 6 to the top, not get off at the mid-station, go far beyond Golden Peak, and then take 11 to the other side of the mountain.
But Blue Ox is staring me in the face. They usually groom it twice a week, but it hadn't been groomed at all in the last week and today is the last day for Chair 10, which gives access to the run, and I'm totally tired, believing I should can it, and then...
I go up Chair 10 to Blue Ox and...
It's awful. Firm, with solid crud. Just like Morningside, but even worse, I had to work at it. And I could feel the day in my legs and there's no way out but what a mistake.
And literally the only way out, other than a notorious catwalk that is flat upon which you must walk, is Chair 10. Which is taking me back up to the opposite side of the mountain from where I want to be.
But I ride it and I'm making my way back to Chair 11, to go back to the other side of the mountain and...
It's still firm. I'm shocked. Especially because the bottom is usually one of the first places to bake out.
So I ride up Chair 11 and I'm gonna ski Northwoods. Which I do not prefer, because that's the main way down that side and there's always so much traffic. But not today...
I've got the run to myself, I'm ripping, right over the roll and then there's the fall-away...which most people avoid. A short, extremely steep pitch.
And it was essentially ice and my skis were chattering but I was on the edge and I was loving it.
And on the ride back up 11 I shared the chair with an investment banker, who raises money for medical devices. How does he do it? Well, he worked at Lazard, and he made all these contacts and he only picks five companies out of three hundred fifty a year and when he calls, investors pony up, but... He works from 5 AM to 8 AM. Then 5 PM into the evening. Because in-between... He's got to ski! A hundred days a year. His home base is Miami, but he's rarely there and...
Even though he'd gone to MIT, and had an MBA, he was bitten by the bug, he lived to go skiing.
I know that's hard to understand, but it's a cult. And you know if you're a member.
A week a year is not enough. Two weeks are not enough. All winter long you're fighting to get back to the mountain. You may like to drink, but it's not about après.
And there's not a cloud in the sky. And I'm at 11,000 feet in the Rockies. The vista would blow your mind. And inside, I start to smile.
Because this is who I am.
I mean how can that be? I'm a middle class Jewish suburbanite.
But I got bitten by the bug. I went to a college with a ski area. After two years in Little Cottonwood Canyon after graduation I moved to L.A. and tried to get over it and...
The only way this works is if you don't ski. Because when you do you know if you only skied another couple of weeks in a row you'd be back in the groove, but you're not going to and it's more depressing than fun.
I don't want to tell you how many days I've skied this year. You won't believe it. Never mind the week I was sick back in December, in Vail, when I would have been out on the slopes. Never mind the days coming in Mammoth, which announced it will be open through at least July.
And it's a conundrum. I'm outside, feeling my fullest, and I'm thinking about who I once was.
You're little, at least when I was little, and you spend all your time outside. And then you get old and you're inside. But today I was outside and it was a jolt, was I still the same person I was when I was growing up, the one who lived to play baseball, who went to summer camp, who did not live in front of a computer, did not play video games, was not on my phone, because they all didn't exist?
And this is not an anti-technology screed. The phone has made skiing so much easier, in terms of meeting your friends on the hill and being able to respond to e-mail, i.e. work, but...
There are mountains 14,000 feet high in the distance. And they'll survive you and me. And even though you can probably get signal up there, at least satellite SOS on your iPhone, it's very different from being inside.
You feel alive. It's palpable.
So it was still firm under Chair 4, astoundingly, and I ski over to Chair 2 and...
It's like I'm on drugs. Anointed by God. I was tired when I woke up, I should have gone in two hours before, but I can't, I can't let go of this feeling, of skiing on this snow, of being in the mountains.
And I'm starting to think of the attrition, after all these runs. I'm going to be hurting tomorrow.
But somehow I'm even stronger than I was earlier in the day. And the sun is still shining and then...
I'm afraid of losing the feeling. I'm so high, it's amazing. I want to convey it to you. And it comes to me, this is the last run.
And as I go from the top of the mountain down the hill, it goes from firm to soft. Upper Berries was firm. Middle Columbine was getting soft.
And then I hit the Carvel snow once again.
There was no one to tell. There was no posse. This was an internal feeling, that is hard to communicate.
But I just tried.
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