Taking A Stand Is Good Business

In case you missed the memo, voter registrations went way up after Taylor Swift took a side.

You should too, it humanizes you.

Call it the millennial ethos. To succeed in the world today you must have an identity, and be proud of it. Sure, there will be backlash from those who don't agree, but if you think everybody loves you, you're absolutely wrong. That's what the internet has taught us, there is no monoculture, chances are people have never heard of you or don't know your music. Then again, it's those who are uninvolved who take umbrage and protest the most. Like the Republicans who attacked Taylor Swift. Were they really her fans, did they really listen to her music? OF COURSE NOT! So what does it matter? Music is not about the court of opinion, people vote with clicks on streaming services, by buying concert tickets, never forget your fans keep you alive, not the media, so play to them, and what fans want most is a 3-D personality that they can relate to. They're looking to identify, they're looking for instruction, I learned more about love and life listening to Joni Mitchel and Jackson Browne than I did from my friends, I thought they got me, I thought they understood me, fans feel the same way about Taylor Swift. And the truth is Taylor Swift is an oddball who doesn't fit in, didn't she tell us that from the very beginning, on her first two albums? She couldn't believe she got all the adulation, then she tried to create a girl posse to counteract the backlash, she grew up in public but she never grew up. Taylor Swift is not a rapper, not part of a community, she's sui generis, a party of one, as are all true artists, by taking a stand she only burnishes her image, when an artist lets their freak flag fly, shows their true beliefs, it bonds fans to them. It's the wishy-washy pop stars who fade away.

This is a turning point, but it's also the way it always was, post Beatles. The Beatles took stands, they were cheeky and irreverent and rarely apologized, and they're the biggest act of all time! And the acts that followed them, wearing their street clothes on stage, they were sending the message that you should focus on the music, they were, once we went to spandex it was over. Of course Elton John pushed the envelope with costumes, but following in his footsteps would be a mistake, we're not looking for me-too, we're looking for original!

As was Dylan went he went Christian. "Slow Train Coming" was one of his best albums, listen and see, the backup playing is superb. And you may not have agreed, but you definitely got the sense that Bob believed. We want people who believe, who just don't focus on the dollars.

Yup, you'd better not do that because you may alienate sponsors!

But the Eagles never had a sponsor, and Adele avoids them, and they're the two biggest acts of their respective eras. You've got no doubt Henley and Adele believe what they're singing. Too much of what's on the hit parade today is pap, which is why it doesn't resonate.

You're not a performer, you're an ARTIST! You have to learn to say no, think for yourself. This does not mean you have to get drunk or doped-up and break laws, but...

Remember Neil Young canceling his tour with Stephen Stills right before it started? A jerky move, but it illustrated that what he felt was more important than the money, that's Neil's identity, and he now matters when CSN does not, he can sell many more tickets, even though Stills is a vastly underrated guitarist with a great catalog. When you do what's expedient, you pay for it.

So all those stories talking about the cost of Taylor Swift going on the record have got it wrong.

As for musicians having opinions... The reason they're shouted down is because people are afraid of their power, their influence. They say performers are dumb and uneducated because they're afraid they'll move the needle, and they do!

And Taylor Swift just did. Sure, she's got a radio hit, but her demo never listens to the radio, just ask them. Swift's last album was a stiff, because she's been trying too hard to be something she's not, a pop star.

Rumor has it she's going back to country.

I don't know. But when she speaks from the heart she has her greatest triumphs.

You should follow her, then you'll win too. Truly.

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Lying

How can we expect the Saudis to tell the truth when our own President tells whoppers on a regular basis?

The WaPo, which I started subscribing to a few months back, because I was sick of running out of free articles, following the paper on Twitter because the NYT overtweets and needing to read Margaret Sullivan's screeds, and you righties don't get your knickers in a twist, I get the WSJ too, reports that our President says the Saudis deny killing Khashoggi.

At least Trump says it's possible, whereas he keeps believing Putin when he denies his illegalities and Kavanaugh lies in Congress.

Am I the chump, the only person who refuses to lie in court? Putting my hand on the Bible and solemnly swearing, at the risk of perjury if I tell a fib?

I don't know if Kavanaugh would have been confirmed if he'd admitted to occasionally being blackout drunk, I've been, but he certainly lied about it, and some other little things. And as my friend Tony Wilson used to say, if you get the little things wrong, how can we trust you on the big ones?

Meanwhile, Putin keeps denying he poisoned that ex-spy in England, even as the press documents not only the identities of the perps, but their true occupations, in contradiction to Vladimir's statements, and in "Icarus" not only testimony, but visual evidence of cheating is provided and Putin keeps denying it. What kind of world do we live in?

One where character is subservient to cash.

That's right.

It started in entertainment, which is built on lies. And that's what Trump is, an entertainer. Lied about his ascension, and built an empire of identity without investigation. The NYT admitted that he bamboozled them, that he was so busy creating chaos with his image burnishing that they didn't bother to stop and see if it was true.

Character and honesty are something intrinsic. There are not enough police people in the world to make sure you're toeing the line. Never mind enough IRS people to make sure you don't cheat on your taxes. Meanwhile, the GOP keeps cutting the IRS to whose advantage, ask yourself that. We all hate paying taxes, but we all hate being called out on our behavior, but is the solution to loosen the reins so that people get away with bad behavior?

When I went to college there was an honor code. No proctors. You could take an exam in your dorm room. Because if we can't trust the people, if they don't live up to societal values internally, what chance does society have. And sure, I'll admit that everybody lies a bit, but where is the line? Like I said, court used to be one. But not anymore.

Or maybe it's always been this way and it's me that is clueless as to the true ways of the world.

Then again, there are cameras everywhere these days and the hoi polloi can't get away with it but the rich can. White collar crime is where it's at, baby.

So this appears to be a total breakdown of society.

Or maybe we just had fewer checks and balances back then, like I said no cameras in the street, that's what the Turks are saying, Saudi Arabia has security cameras everywhere, there's got to be footage.

But when our own President lies incessantly, and a Supreme Court nominee too, why should I tell the truth?

Hell, that's my reputation, saying the unsayable, it's what draws people to me in a world of duplicity. Can I be the only one?

I hope not.


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Boston-2

You never know how something will play out until you experience it.

I learned this lesson when I was 9, when I didn't want to go to T.O. Baum's party. We went to SAAC together, that's "Science And Arts Camp." It was held at an elementary school in Westport, Connecticut that no longer exists. It's weird, you drive around in a circle, you check Google Maps, and then you research online and find out it's been torn down. And it wasn't that old. Ah, progress.

This is where I first wanted to be a writer, I think I told you that. I had this small black binder my father had given me and I wrote articles for the paper and the editors laughed at me, they wouldn't run them, the most I got was sports scores, which were meaningless, since they were in the regular paper previously. And even though T.O. was a year older, I really didn't know him, and wanted to ignore the invitation, but my mother insisted. That's my mother, with no social anxiety at all, she's a goer, she's a doer, even near ninety two. You couldn't watch TV during the daytime and not much at night either. But if you wanted to go to a cultural event, the movies, a concert, a play, there was always money for that. Every opera, every Shakespeare play they offered in school, she and my dad coughed up the cash. My dad always said we didn't live in a fancy house but we ate the best meals and went to the best places. So I went, and had a fantastic time, the party got out of control, we ran through the sprinklers, got all wet, and I remember it to this day. So when I was searching on Yelp for dinner...

My dad had a policy. You never ate dinner in the hotel. He would have loved Yelp!, he was always looking for the best restaurants. And I just searched, and found a place called Eventide, with fabulous reviews, an outpost of the main Maine eatery, I read the menu and decided I was gonna go for the fried oysters, even though I'm temporarily off Crestor, seeing if it's contributing to my back pain, which I don't think it is.

And in the seventies, the streets were unsafe. You didn't walk far in the city. But now that seems untrue, and Google said Eventide was only nine minutes away so I started to walk.

And immediately encountered Fenway Park.

Which proves the point. I was just ragging on baseball, but confronted with the stadium I had a religious experience, akin to the old Yankeee Stadium, I mean the truly old one, the House That Ruth Built, before they redid it in the seventies and then tore the whole thing down. Now only Fenway exists. Oh, and Wrigley Field. But somehow the Chicago park is not the same, even though for a long time it had no lights. And going to Wrigley checks a mark off in your history, but going to Fenway...

It was so SMALL! It didn't even hold thirty thousand people. There was only one deck. They've expanded it a bit. But still... I was walking by it and wanted to be inside, to experience that feeling, of being in a private universe where nothing else matters. And the scale... Fenway is small, and right downtown, but it still dwarfs the surroundings.

But then I got to Eventide.

The help couldn't care less. The fried oysters were just this side of edible. I remembered the ones I had in Wellfleet, on the Cape. Toasty brown, dripping with gizzards... These seemed to be previously frozen, one step away from McNuggets. And there were so few of them I needed more, I hadn't eaten for half a day. And the sign said fresh oysters were a dollar, but that was only for the very first one, ain't that America. And I thought a lobster roll would do the trick, and they were priced at $15 and $23 and I asked the cashier how big the small one was and when she showed me with her hands I decided to pop for the large one which was small-sized and the roll was inedible and all the way there I'd been planning to write about fried oysters, fried clams, the east coast delicacies, but that was no longer possible. I'd have been better off having a sausage from the stand the proprietor had just set up. Seems kinda early, 9 PM the night before a game, maybe he's saving his space.

I had it all figured out, waxing rhapsodic about Wellfleet, talking about my old roommate Lyndon's house on a pond there, but the bad food eviscerated that possibility.

And I didn't know whether to go to Star Market or...

Oh, that's another thing, the hotel is ABOMINABLE! And nearly four hundred dollars a night. Stinks of disinfectant. And has no amenities, you couldn't raid the minibar if you wanted to, because there isn't one.

And I thought I saw a CVS and the Star Market was in the wrong direction and it was cold...

That's one thing you can't fathom if you're from L.A. You start to believe it only gets cold in the mountains. But I'm wearing a fleece, and a windbreaker on top of that, and that's enough, but I'm contemplating the winter coming, walking in the rain and the snow. And I'm thinking of the skiing, but then I remember, after it gets cold, it gets warm, ah the perils of New England.

So I went to the convenience store where New England Music City used to be, I forgot how small the store was.

But they had no inventory.

So I went to the 7-11, which stunningly had everything I wanted.

And if this is coming across as negative, you're reading it wrong, or maybe I'm telling it with the wrong spin. You see travel is invigorating, new experiences are fulfilling, kinda like my mother said, you have to go outside, you have to take chances, you never know what you'll encounter.

That's life.

P.S. Rereading the above before hitting send, as I always do twice, I suddenly realized it was Michael Baum, not T.O. Ah, memory.

P.P.S. T.O. was my age, his real name was Steven but his older brother said T.O and it stuck, back when we all had nicknames and David was Dave, Steven was Steve and Robert was Bob, or Bobby.

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Boston

"Well I love that dirty water
Oh, Boston you're my home"

But it's not. But it was my mother's. She grew up in Peabody. Which is not pronounced like Mr. Peabody and his Pet Boy Sherman, but Pea-BUDDY! Kinda like San Pedro if you live in SoCal. Outsiders would pronounce it in Spanish, but locals know it's San PEEDRO!

So I've spent a lot of time here, but not recently. The Salem Witch House, the Salem Willows, candlepin bowling...they're in my blood. Along with blueberry muffins from Jordan Marsh. That's what too many bakeries get wrong today, the ratio of fruit to muffin, it must be HIGH!

So I left Dublin at the crack of dawn and just got here. Why is it there's always something broken on airplanes. The divider between Felice and myself wouldn't go down, and her seat was wet, and when you're paying beaucoup bucks you feel ripped off. But the truth is the world is really small. I used to luxuriate in long plane flights, reading, I never buy the wifi. But the respite is just not long enough to disengage. And I flew through Chicago which makes no sense, I know, but the airfare game is a riddle wrapped in an enigma and I was waiting for my flight back east and...

A guy started hassling me. First he told me the flight wasn't boarding and then he kept refusing to let me on the plane. I was Group 1, I may have been jumping the gun, but he was a self-appointed cop keeping me in line. And it was then that I realized...

I was dealing with east coast people.

Yes, it's one nation, with mostly one language, but the people are oh-so-different. You don't do this on the west coast, you don't get in people's business, you lay back, you're mellow, of course there are exceptions, but California is all about live and let live, so now I understand the divisions in our nation better. I actually asked this guy why he had a problem with me, he didn't respond. And I realized how people got in fights and got kicked off planes. I held myself back, I wasn't going to play his game, and then I peered over at his ticket and freaked out that he might be sitting next to me, but he wasn't, and I didn't let it bother me, which kinda shocks me, which is all to say THIS is why I live in California. I moved because of the Beach Boys, because of sixties television, but I didn't realize I was going to a place where where you went to college and what your parents did for a living didn't matter. Hell, nobody even knew what Middlebury College was until they shouted down Charles Murray, and that was fine with me, if you want to get ahead in Los Angeles have a good rap, get a good look, an education is secondary.

And the beefy guy next to me was watching a movie on his iPad Pro smudged with fingerprints, eating the carbs, but it wasn't until we were ready to exit that I noticed the MLB tag on his backpack. I Googled him, turns out he's an umpire, Mark Carlson, here to officiate at the Red Sox game. Now I'm not saying I used to know all the umps, but at this point I don't even know most of the players. Sure, some people do. But baseball used to be everything to me and now it's just another diversion. I still love the game, but I loved it more when I still played, I felt embedded in the culture. And then I realized nothing's that big anymore these days, everything's a sideshow.

And when I got to Boston the baggage belt was creaking up a storm, and it made me think of infrastructure, how we have to invest, how we have to pay taxes to keep up our country. And then I could hear in my brain the people saying money is wasted. And I know, erect any edifice and there is waste, but does that mean we have to stop all construction?

Seems so.

Which gets to politics, the sports of today. With the teams and the cheating and the desire to get revenge. I just read a statistic that most people were against the confirmation of Kavanaugh, but that game has been played, there is no instant replay in politics.

And I'm scrolling on my phone. Stay in the air for a day and you're convinced you've missed something, and sometimes you have, but not today. Yesterday the stock market crashed, today it rebounded. And everybody's on Twitter giving their take, that's the world we now live in, everybody gets to speak but nobody listens. Makes you want to move to Alaska and live off the grid, at least before the polar ice caps melt and we're all swept away. That's another thing, now hurricanes are like school shootings, we've seen too many of them, now they happen and we shrug our shoulders.

Not that Logan is decaying, the airport was pretty modern. But it was hard to figure out some of the signs. And when I ultimately made it to the Uber stop it was loaded with people. And I texted my driver exactly where I was and then he called me and...

I couldn't understand him. I mean there's so much noise and he's got such an accent and now I have to be weary of appearing racist, it's just that it's funny that so many Uber drivers are now the old taxi drivers, doing it for a living. And for those who say I should take Lyft... I find Uber arrives faster, but that's not the point, boycotting Uber is like boycotting In-N-Out, which cannot be done, even though left wing politicians in California tried. And at least these Uber drivers have a gig, I saw so many people sleeping on the street in Dublin, it looked like Santa Monica, is this how our world has evolved, where the left behind are ignored? They lift people off the streets in tech-laden India and we keep putting them down in the western world.

And sitting in the tunnel, where I had signal, I read about Lindsey Buckingham's suit against Fleetwood Mac. Aren't bands gangs? And if you act atrociously they kick you out? Lindsey's quoting California partnership law and I'm laughing, weren't the acts supposed to exist outside the system, be an antidote thereto? But that was before money triumphed over message. That's what everybody in the arts today says...WHERE'S MY MONEY? As if they're entitled to get paid, as if there's federal welfare for musicians. Certainly not in the good old USA, where some of the musicians are now fascists anyway, hell, I hear from them.

And then sitting in traffic the buildings started to look familiar. And I was wondering whether it was a trick, but it turned out my orientation was correct. To my right was Myles Standish Hall, where my sister lived during her freshman year at BU. But they'd given the building a cleaning, it looked nearly new, I wonder if it's still a dump inside.

And then that record store on the corner, in Kenmore Square, what was it called, "New England Music City"? Where I bought "Mad Dogs & Englishmen." It's gone, it's something else now. And no one would ever know.

Actually, Boston's been spiffed-up. All of America has been. The changes are palpable if you were around back then. No one flew on a whim. Now people fly to sporting contests, or concerts, and think not a whit about it. And there was bad food everywhere, you ate a boiled hot dog on a spongy bun. But now you expect gourmet options wherever you go.

And I'm reading about the television wars on my phone. How AT&T is now gonna compete with Netflix, Wal-Mart too. Used to be we had our favorite bands, now we've got our favorite TV distributors! And Netflix is rock in an age of soporific pop. We thought it was HBO, but that was just a harbinger. Netflix doubled-down. Invested. Caught everybody unawares. Hell, they just bought a studio in New Mexico. Who wants to work in New Mexico?

Can I say that?

On one side we have people who can say anything, insult and tell lies.

On the other, one that issues trigger warnings, is so busy protecting special interests that it hobbles itself.

And I'm thinking about what Bob Geldof said, how rock infected us, was everything. Even music isn't everything these days, everybody's a hero on social media, fighting for attention.

And those in the business, the fans, keep expecting music to triumph once again. As if it's entitled. But I'm not sure. Mariah Carey broke nearly thirty years ago, that's how long vapidity has lasted. And we've got Kanye West self-destructing right in front of our eyes. This guy is absolutely bipolar and is denying it, now saying he was just "sleep-deprived." But the truth is bipolar people hate taking the meds, because they miss the highs. That's what Kanye's on right now, a high. That's where all the EPs came from, the SNL rant, the Trump appearance. But rather than labeling him sick and having sympathy we're just watching the show, waiting to see what's next, we're not that far different from the Romans, when Kanye jumps out a window it'll be like Christians being fed to the lions in the Colosseum.

Then again, the antics, the penumbra, are much more compelling than the music.

And the rants, about being a genius, about inventing a new plane...

Then again, today Elon Musk announced Teslaquila, and it doesn't seem to be a joke.

As Felice's father used to say, it's a Barnum & Bailey world.

Then again, the circus is gone now too!

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Bob Geldof

The best story was playing Boggle with Barbra Streisand and Gregory Peck.

Or maybe it was getting a call from the Pope, after telling a Cardinal how to deal with the Russians.

Not that Bob was boasting, but this is is his life.

I was worried, that he'd be irascible and withholding...ANYTHING BUT!

First he came into the dressing room and was so charismatic and conversational I kept telling him he had to stop, to save it for the stage. Talking about being a Boy Scout and going to Lourdes, his very first plane trip. And being excluded from going to the World Jamboree in Seattle. You see some people are square pegs who never fit into the round hole. Geldof was the guy who wouldn't conform, who questioned authority, and people beholden to hierarchy don't like that.

And despite being a force of nature, Bob doesn't see himself that way. Which is always strange, one's own perception of oneself. I think Bob would make it no matter what he chose to do, he thinks he was lucky...after his mother died when he was so young that he doesn't remember her and he was raised by his older sisters while his father was a traveling salesman, gone from Monday to Friday. That's one of the main things he got from his dad, how to pack, he never checks luggage, and insists that those with him don't either.

So he goes to boarding school and hates it. Picks up a guitar and loves it and...

Here is where we've got to get to the philosophizing thing. Bob's a great philosopher, with a take on everything. Especially the importance and impact of rock music back when. Seeing it as a thread he grabbed on to that saved his life, gave him direction, made him who he was. It doesn't do that anymore, his words, not mine, although I agree, and they don't make them like Bob anymore.

Bob is BRILLIANT! Better informed with better analysis than most of the people running our country. Oh, by the way, he thinks Trump will get reelected, because the economy is burgeoning, although the stock market did slide yesterday, and that the rest of the world is beholden to the States, they always were, but now it's obvious. It's because of the dollar. It can't tank, or else the whole world will.

And thus begins an endless take on world politics. You'll be stunned and your head will spin as you listen. How often do you get an educated, unfiltered opinion about what's going on? Most people don't know, and those who do won't tell you. And Bob has access... I don't know anybody like this in the music business, I asked Bob who he talked to, what musicians other than the obvious could even discuss these issues. One he said was Jon Bon Jovi, which caught me off guard, since Bon Jovi only went on the record when he was angry at his record company, maybe he needs to lead.

Which today's musicians don't.

And Bob is anti-Spotify and won't use a smartphone because it's insecure, so the longer you talk with him the more you realize that maybe not everything he says is correct, but you're wowed in the process, bowled over, this is a guy who leads.

Even though he's not eager to be a leader.

Then again, did you see his screed against Brexit, how it was gonna negatively impact musicians? He walked me through how he got people to sign it, needing acts from every era. Not that he thinks it'll have an impact. He thinks first and foremost Britain is a FEELING, and people feel they've sacrificed it. But Britain is a wedge and a referee between Germany and France, and if Britain pulls out of the EU, not only is it bad for Britain, it's bad for the world, trade keeps the world safe.

Actually, I read an analysis of this in the WaPo the other day. The writer said Trump might think he's winning in his war with China over trade, but the writer said that when a country is crippled in trade, they often turn to war. And Bob thinks war is coming too. And for those who lived through the past seventy years of relative prosperity, that concept is daunting.

Then again...

I think it's the net effect of globalization. But Bob says globalization is good! And I forthrightly agree, it's just that there was no provision for those left behind by its effects. But that's talking to Bob, you basically concur, but he starts and he's hard to interrupt and you have a hard time telling him it's the nuances that you disagree with. Like Bob says the problem is social media, we used to get our messages from records, of which there was not an overwhelming number, but now everything gets lost in the shuffle. I wholeheartedly agree, but I mention that this started with the public, with Napster, they dictate and we follow. Spotify is trying to herd the cats.

So you put a dime in the jukebox and Bob goes on, lengthily. We could have talked for ten hours. About Irish history, the power of rock, the world today... And you want to hear it all, he's fascinating and charming.

And when we went for drinks later, he let his hair down. He poked fun at himself. He ain't easy to live with, as Don Henley once sang, but it's one of the things you've got to love about him, they broke the mold, there's not another like him.

As he plies the boards today, on tour. I asked him whether he was selling nostalgia, but he said no, it was about the performance, the energy, what everybody was wrapped up in is brand new, even though it's based on the old.

Not that he's got any illusion he can top the charts once again. Hell, he didn't want the reformed Rats to make another record, but his bandmates said that's what a band does, so they did. He's excited about it.

So on one hand Bob can tell stories from the past, but he's not living in it.

Oh, and what you think are taboo subjects, that have been combed over ad infinitum? He's got no problem talking about Band Aid and Live Aid, telling insider stories I'm not gonna repeat here, they're his, but when I run into you....


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Dublin Day Three

I just had the best chocolate souffle of my life. McGuinness recommended the restaurant, Chapter One, it has a Michelin star, not that that was the reason we went there.

I'm all wired up. After said souffle, and some additional chocolate, which doesn't sit so well with the aged, and I'm one of them, I journeyed to do hype for my Geldof appearance with Tom Dunne at Newstalk radio, I thought it was a fish out of water story, you know, Californian in Ireland, pick out your favorite Irish tracks, put you on the spot kind of thing, but instead it turned out Tom was a fan and wanted to know about ME! No one ever asks me about me, so I riffed with my greatest hits and gave away a few secrets.

First it must be entertaining. That's the first rule of show business, ignored by so many.

Kinda like all those articles forwarded to me all day long. Maybe a good topic, but dreadful writing, and therefore I don't read, I CAN'T READ!

And I was hotter when I walked in the door of the hotel room, but I was giving Felice a post mortem and the inspiration started to drift away. Ah, being an artist, you've got to strike when the iron is hot, capture the moment, the zeitgeist, otherwise you miss the mark. I know, I know, some people do it the other way, but not me! "Satisfaction" came to Keith Richards in a dream! If I hear one more person tell me writing is rewriting I'm gonna puke. That means they go over it so many times it no longer resembles normal speech, they're trying to impress cognoscenti who don't care. Remember this, who were the biggest acts of the last twenty years? Adele, *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. All with good vocals and singable songs. That's the music business for you, so up its own ass that it takes an outsider like Lou Pearlman to teach it some lessons. We've gotten so far from the garden we don't even know how to grow things anymore. All we keep hearing is disinformation, you don't get it, it's not for you, you've got to listen to it a dozen times, IT'S MUSIC, when done right it resonates, with almost everybody, when done wrong...oh, we specialize in doing it wrong.

So today we went up the country. Or down the country. To the mountains, to the moors, to see peat. Pretty cool actually. Although I must say I got sleepy on the ride home, the Irish music blasting through the speakers, the tour done. The coach was driven by John who also narrated. He grew up in a family of nine, after dropping out of school at 13 he drove "articulated" trucks all over the U.K. and Europe until he found this gig, his favorite of all time. Made me wonder, how does everybody survive. How you choose a path without realizing it. Like those people in college who needed to get good grades to get into a good graduate school, I couldn't do that anymore. But at least I'm in a field where education is irrelevant, in music it's who you are, it's unquantifiable, it's a free-for-all, which is why it never gets any respect, which is fine with me.

So this was where they filmed "Braveheart." The driver kept on going on about this flick "P.S. I Love You," which neither Felice nor myself had ever viewed, but that's modern society, where there are no points of reference.

And the tour guides at the prison and the Little Museum of Dublin, they were good, but what is it like doing the same thing every day? That's the funny thing about life, you can choose to be happy or choose to be rich, and usually those are not the same thing/path. I keep vacillating, I know what rich is, but I want to be happy. Right now happy is winning, but I vacillate. Then again, tech and finance are interesting from the outside, but on the inside, they're drudgery, I can never imagine doing them all day, and right now I'm at the peak of my career, but I endured so many hardships, not that anybody believes that, but that's America, where the goal is to prove you're poorer than the next. If that's your goal, you're missing the plot.

And Chapter One was not cheap. Actually, it's the extras that made it expensive. And of the four courses, the two in the middle were nothing to write home about. But the starter and the dessert, whew!

I began with "Japanese tapioca, St. Tola, Ballyhoura mushroom, leek."
Don't ask me to explain it, but the texture was incredible. Like eating soft-boiled ball bearings floating in gelatin. And uber tasty.

As for that souffle...

It was billed as "64% chocolate souffle, tobacco & lime ice cream."

And I can't tell you I could truly taste the tobacco. But this is the first souffle I've ever had that wasn't runny. Sure, the inside was molten lava, but the exterior was firm, I ate the whole damn thing, as you do when you're on vacation.

As for Paul McGuinness, he's in the South of France producing season two of "Riviera," he just told me you can see season one on Sundance Now. But the point is, McGuinness parted ways with U2 and continues to be successful, he's doing something new whereas U2 retreated into the past. That's what a successful manager does, no act ever made it without a good one. They usher projects to fruition, they make it happen, and they don't teach that in school.

And they're uncontrollable, they can never work for the man, THEY ARE THE MAN!

That's what made the music business great, the outsiders.

That's why tech is hobbled, you can start it, but either the FANG brothers will buy you or compete with you and put you out of business, unlike Fleetwood Mac you cannot go your own way. And it's tough to go your own way in music, the labels are all run by people with no skin in the game, they're managers, not entrepreneurs, and they wield their catalogs to carve out their pound of flesh, maybe two pounds. And some people sit at home and cry that the game is rigged and the odds are stacked against them. But you can win, it's getting better for you. Terrestrial radio is fading, you can sign directly to Spotify. Assuming you want to jump off the cliff and do it your own way, without whining.

Maybe something is coming.

Then again, maybe not.

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Graham Gouldman-Sirius XM TODAY!

That's right, Mr. 10cc. The man who also wrote "For Your Love," "Heart Full Of Soul," Look Through Any Window," "Bus Stop," "No Milk Today," "Listen People"...

He's on the road with Ringo, actually, he just finished, and when in L.A., we sat down at the mic and I got his story. An only child, writing songs with his dad, being a songwriter for hire and then ultimately joining the gang at Strawberry Studios and becoming a member of the aforementioned 10cc.

"Wall Street Shuffle" is just as accurate as the day it was written.

"I'm Not In Love" is legendary.

And "The Things We Do For Love" is the definition of ear candy, with an indelible bridge.

Graham is a mensch who revealed his history. TUNE IN!

7 PM East, 4 PM West, Volume 106


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Dublin Day Two

RORY GALLAGHER CORNER

"What do you think of that
I'm sleeping down at the laundromat"

https://spoti.fi/2yoa4Kv

He's been forgotten, but maybe if kids listen to "Laundromat" they'll be inspired to pick up a Stratocaster and make a glorious noise.

I was late to the Rory Gallagher party, or maybe I was early. I saw his group Taste open for Blind Faith in the summer of '69, but I had no idea who Rory was. And then I was turned on to him by my friend John Hughes in college, back in the day when an act could break out regionally, they never played this cut in New York, but it was on the airwaves in K.C.

I wasn't gonna go to the corner, the pictures didn't seem that impressive, but then I started getting e-mail about going and I just sauntered down there. On one hand it's easy to ignore, just a sign high on a wall, but underneath that is a bronze Stratocaster, actual size, and that struck my heart, even though no one else was looking up. Because that's the essence, the axe. What you could do with one, even the punk bands used one, but in the hands of true players you'd hear this mellifluous sound, sometimes edgy, always different, a far cry from the repetitious 808 heard on endless tracks back in '82, and now today.

My favorite Rory Gallagher cut is "Walkin' Wounded," because of the groove, because of the majesty, try not nodding your head to this, it's like he's breaking ice with his guitar and the drums pound and Rory emotes like he cares, cool is not what he's going for, then again, that's what he ends up with.

The blues. We've all got 'em. They blew up because people could identify. Never underestimate the power of connection, it's what holds the world together.

https://spoti.fi/2Pns8vt

TEMPLE BAR

It's a neighborhood, it's an actual bar, and it's where Rory's corner is.

Now if I were still in college, if I still drank, I'd spend my evenings there. Reminds me of the Alibi back in Middlebury, all wood, rough edges, not sharp. Where it's about your personality as opposed to your look. And the guitarist was playing Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" and it was like the internet era never existed. It was just a guy with a Martin, strumming and singing, how did it become about beats? But that's only on streaming services, seems like songs sustain, not that they get any press, but they are the oral tradition that will survive, they penetrate your heart, that's humanity, when you get rid of the tricks and just start playing and singing.

https://spoti.fi/2C3AtAz

THE BOOK OF KELLS

Kind of a disappointment actually. There are endless exhibits of build-up that supersede the ultimate book itself. Then again, it is old, and it is colorful and it's amazing how they made it, but...

The library on the floor above is positively JAW-DROPPING!

They stocked every book published in England and Ireland. It's overwhelming, you get the feeling that all the knowledge is RIGHT HERE!

That's how you learn most, the written word. It supersedes the spoken word, which is kind of funny if you think about it. But book lovers would just like to sit there and marinate in the vibe of the Trinity Library. And it's not only the feel, but the look... The vaulted ceiling, the ladders...

We ain't got nothing like this in the New Land.

KILMAINHAM GAOL

It's the hottest ticket in Dublin. It's the PRISON!

And you wouldn't want to be there. One tiny room, with only a blanket to keep you warm, the candle needing to last two weeks. And it's amazing the people they executed, and the people who were locked up and let out and are now seen as heroes. It was illegal to beg during the potato famine, and if you got locked up you were better fed than you were on the street, so cells built for one were inhabited by nearly ten!

But mostly it's about revolution. The Irish wanted self-rule. They eventually got it, after a long hard fight. We are no longer warding off the English in America, but somehow the majority is no longer ruling. Is it in our destiny to fight?


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Taylor Takes A Side

https://www.instagram.com/p/BopoXpYnCes/

You play offense, not defense.

Ever since Kavanaugh was confirmed the spin is Republicans have benefited, the Democrats have been pointing fingers, will it become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Republicans are spinmasters, they understand the game, the Democrats are wimps who believe in their hearts they're on the right side and should win and when they don't they whine. GROW A PAIR!

Oh, can I say that?

Now that's one place the Democrats have lost the plot, with the political correctness, the trigger warnings, the decision to offend no one. Get over it, go on the playground, your mommy and daddy cannot defend you there, you've got to fight for your right to party, and the Democrats keep laying down arms until...

Taylor Swift takes a side.

Now you can be cynical and ask where she was during the last election cycle. But never criticize someone for becoming woke too late. At least Taylor Swift woke up. Now if she'd only write a song!

History told her not too. My inbox is filling up with messages about the Dixie Chicks. Are you too afraid to take a side? Don't be. You too can make a difference. Hell, why is it in Tennessee you can't register to vote election day to begin with! You've got to push back and...

Ignore the news.

Don't you get it, THE MEDIA IS LOVING THIS! THEY'VE SUDDENLY GOT A HORSE RACE! They love telling stories about the Republican resurgence.

As for the pollsters... Are they reaching millennials on landlines? If you trust the polls today, you probably trust the news, and never in our history has the fourth estate been more wrong.

This is the sixties all over again, in other words, WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

And what we learn is the inequitable side stuck in the past always loses in the end. That's right, we've got abortion, we've got gay marriage, the Republicans are on the wrong side of history, don't default to them, SPEAK UP!

Hell, the Republicans have their ducks in a row, their talking points set up. Protests are funded by Soros. Innocent until proven guilty. Ignore your past statements as you double down on your new. And what do the Democrats do? BLAME AVENATTI!

As if the confirmation of Kavanaugh was the World Series, but it's just a playoff game, the real contest takes place in November. As for Kavanaugh...there's always another season.

I'm not saying I'm optimistic. But I am saying I'm willing to take a side and stick with it, and point fingers at their team, not ours.

Wake up! Supporting women is a GOOD THING! A WINNING STRATEGY! Everybody has a mother, you don't want to stop pushing on this. Furthermore, this is what Republicans do best, agitate and define the debate. It's about time the Democrats defined the debate. Sure, I'm temporarily demoralized, we lost the game, but we did a hell of a job. We revealed the temperament of Kavanaugh, we exposed the duplicity of Susan Collins, who always says she feels one way but goes the other. This is to our BENEFIT!

All those professors coming down on Kavanaugh, the ex-justice, wow, I'd say we're on a WINNING STREAK!

But the Republicans keep telling us we're not and we're buying it, blaming ourselves, and they're laughing as we cripple our message.

Let your freak flag fly. Now is the time to be yourself, to stand up for something. They keep telling us we're breaking America, when THEY DID! They marched on Charlottesville or endorsed it. They are the ones who didn't put all of Kavanaugh's past in evidence. But like good prosecutors, they keep blaming it on us. WE'RE BLAMELESS! We just want fairness for ALL! Is that a bad thing? OF COURSE NOT!

P.S. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift reaches many more voters than Fox. That's the power of our side. When they say entertainers aren't entitled to a voice tell them politics is show business for ugly people and that it's all the same game.


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Dublin

Now that bummed me out. I figured I'd go see Phil Lynott's statue. Hokey, I know, but what the hell, I'm here, and it's not that far from the hotel. Not that I was so sure it was gonna be there, research told me it had been defaced, moved for construction, fans were frustrated they could not see it. I could not find it. I'm good with maps, but it eluded me. So, I turned on the directions and...

There it was. And it looked exactly like him. And I was the only one looking at him.

He was on a side street, behind those poles they use so cars won't bump into things. You felt as if you came back tomorrow he could be gone, that his placement was temporary. But it was so eerie, because as I said above, it looked exactly like him, and we no longer expect this, in an era where there are constant brouhahas over art veering from reality, where commissioned portraits and sculptures are excoriated. It was like he was there but he wasn't. The ringlets in his hair, his moustache, his lanky frame, his tie and jacket flowing in the wind. But he's gone, dead and gone, for a long time. He lived until 36, he's been gone since '86, and I realized that as the assembled multitude walked by many had no idea who Phil Lynott was, they weren't even born before he died.

And this was so different from the U2 exhibit at the Little Museum of Dublin. At this point, everybody hates Bono, except for a few dyed-in-the-wool Gen-X'ers. He's so busy being larger than life that his identity has superseded the music, and that's anathema. Everything is subservient to the tracks, your identity should be baked into the cuts, then again, U2 hasn't created anything worth listening to in years. They've lost the thread, they made it to the pinnacle and took chances, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, and now they're known best for invading your iPhone, if you think about them at all. And now they're chasing hits, when it's impossible for them to have one. Somehow they have to get back to basics, make music for themselves, and then possibly we can identify with it.

But once upon a time they were nobodies. That's what you forget, how hard it is to make it. We live in an instant culture. It appears acts pop up on our radar screen and then disappear. And this does happen in the hip-hop world, usually aided by a more successful act, but it used to be you struggled, you were absolutely nowhere before you were somewhere, all you had was the dream, which you kept in your eye as you tried to dodge the minefields on the way to making a living, never mind becoming a household name.

That's what interested me, the genesis. A lot was in that movie "It Might Get Loud," but in this exhibit you could see the struggle. Changing names, being way down on the bill, playing to just a handful of people until...

That's the funny thing about success, it's not gradual. It trends upward, but then it goes thermonuclear, your dreams are fulfilled and you can barely cope with it.

So four unknowns from Dublin end up touring the world and impacting it. Going from local to global. This is the way it used to be. You formed a band. Unlike U2, it usually broke up. You found other players, you kept bouncing from here to there until you believed this one could truly go. But it never went without a manager, never ever. In this case Paul McGuinness. Since he's been gone, the band's not the same, they've been doing things they shouldn't. Kinda like the "Joshua Tree" tour, which turned them into has-beens overnight, once you start playing albums from start to finish your days on the hit parade are over, those shows are a dash for cash, nostalgia, which is fine, unless you want to be au courant, and you know Bono wants to be.

And Bono is alternately out of the loop and a seer. Remove yourself from the street and you've got no idea what's really happening. Fly at 35,000 feet in a private jet and you gain wisdom the punter can never get, like:

"In America you look up at the mansion on the hill and say, 'One day that could be me.' In Ireland they look up at the mansion on the hill and go 'One day I'm gonna' get that bastard.'"

There's so much to unpack there that I won't. But if you've been to both places it resonates.

And I'm here to interview Bob Geldof: https://bit.ly/2y51C3k That's how far rock and roll will take you, from the Hollywood Bowl to the Liverpool docks to Liberty Hall. That's what you'll get by following the music. It's all I did.

P.S. Looking at all the artifacts in the Little Museum I was stunned to realize that we only remember politicians and artists, and mostly the latter, and most of those we remember struggled and never got rich. And were pilloried by the populace on their journey. Meanwhile, all the businessmen are plowed under. Funny how everybody in America used to want to be an artist, now they all want to be businessmen, or famous, and there are a lot easier ways to become famous than being a musician.

P.P.S. Honestly, I thought "The Boys Were Back In Town" was a Bruce Springsteen rip-off. That Lynott had distilled the popular music of the States and fed it back to them, kinda like Tom Scholz with Boston. Then again, if you were alive back in '76, the track was pounded into your brain with incessant radio play in an era where hits were known by everybody with ears, we burned out on stuff that now resonates, like "The Boys Are Back In Town." But cruising the promo bin later that year I found "Johnny The Fox," the follow-up to "Jailbreak," and I took a chance. And this was when music was scarce, if you bought it, you played it, and you ended up knowing it. And one cut off of "Johnny The Fox" penetrated my brain, I thought of it when I saw Phil's statue today.

"There's a girl I'll remember
Oh, for such a long, long time
This girl I'll remember
She was an old flame of mine"

Rock, especially since punk, is known for being boisterous and in-your-face, as if without a whiskey in your hand it's meaningless, but that's not true, it's the melancholy tunes that touch us most, the songs absent from the hit parade. The kind Taylor Swift sang before she became a whining winner. Everybody's a winner in music today, they fear if they show vulnerability they'll be voted off the island. But true artists are living in their own private Idaho anyway, so what different does it make?

"Once this flame it did brightly blaze
Among the ashes there still remains
A glowing spark in my heart
For that old flame of mine"

For Phil Lynott

For rock and roll.

"Old Flame": https://spoti.fi/2zWnQpN


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