Book Report

1

When I was in fifth grade Mr. Luti had a metal box where you placed your book reports. These were for pseudo credit. Kind of like when he asked everybody to tell him how much time they watched PBS. I didn't watch it at all, but I said something like three and a half hours a week, everybody lied. Actually, today Felice watches a ton of PBS, and donates in support thereof, but in the sixties, it was all about sitcoms and "Bonanza" and except for this heroin documentary I watched over my mother's shoulder, I don't remember ever watching PBS. Oh, now I remember, the show everybody said they watched was "Japanese Brush Painting." Don't forget, this was in the era of black and white, I can't draw a straight line, one of my elementary teachers was hip to me, saying somehow I always managed to wiggle my way out of art class. And, back to the heroin doc, there was a lithe blonde-haired woman who seemed normal and I'll tell you, the more I watched that documentary, the more I wanted to try heroin. Just to have the experience. I felt out of the loop.

So the books we reported on came from the Arrow Book Club. They were paperbacks and they cost about a quarter. A big package would come every month and Mr. Luti would break it down and we'd get our books and we'd feel special. Nothing like a little retail therapy to boost one's mood, even at age nine.

And that was the problem. I was nine and everybody else was ten. I used to think this caused all my problems, skipping a grade, but after years of therapy I realized I would have turned out the same no matter what, it was the house I grew up in, my parents and sisters. They made me who I am. In some ways positive, in some ways nonfunctional.

So having skipped a grade they thought I was behind, that they needed to ease me into fifth grade, and therefore they put me in the slow reading group. Doesn't that screw up people for life? Knowing that they don't measure up? Meanwhile, in the slow reading group...some people had problems reading. Oh, there was a truly slow reading group, of just a handful of people, but this was back before they held people back, talk about traumatizing, you didn't want to be so old you wouldn't fit behind the desk. Then again, in the melting pot suburbs of the sixties the middle class ruled, and everything was equitable. If you were rich you drove a Cadillac. Illustrating that no one was really that rich. And sure, there were no Black people in school, but Black people were all around, right next door in Bridgeport, and by time I got to high school there were a number of Black kids, but I'd be lying if I didn't tell you their parents were doctors. This was back in the era when the thought of having a Black family move into the neighborhood was anathema. Something everybody would talk about. Then again, we didn't live in such an upscale neighborhood. Then again, almost no one ever moved.

So, pissed they'd left me behind in reading, I decided the only way to get ahead was to file book reports, hoping that Mr. Luti would notice. I remember I was up to twentysomething reports when no one else had five and finally, two-thirds of the way through the school year, I was moved up to the smart reading group, where I had no adjustment period whatsoever. You either love to read or you don't. Books are a treasure, if you don't have the key try to borrow one, you might find out you love books too. It's just that books are not cool, smoking and drugs are. Books are a solitary experience, the opposite of today's social society. But I love to read.

And almost all of the books I reported on back in fifth grade were unmemorable. There was one about a kid who batted a thousand. He had one hit and then he fouled everything off. And the other one about a kid who mailed himself across the country, I think to his grandparents. Then again, if you mailed yourself today you'd truly starve in the interim, it might take you months to get there.

And that's all to tell you that the books I'm going to report on today are not A plusses. They're very good. But don't buy them or borrow then and then get mad at me when you find them tedious and don't like them. If you're looking for one book to get you started, I'm going to send you somewhere else. But what I read this week were "Deacon King Kong" and "Nomadland."

2

"Deacon King Kong" is on everybody's Top Ten list. I read about it and wasn't interested in it. But the e-mail was so heavy, I reserved it at the library, via Libby, and then I was able to jump the line, it became available for seven days. And then it becomes a race to finish. So, you've got to start as soon as you get it and...

I liked it at first. But then it became too difficult.

You see James McBride, the author, has a certain style. He injects seven descriptors when one will do. And you keep waiting for the story. Turns out about forty percent of the book was setup, and then it got really good, when the story truly kicked in. But by that time I was reading two books.

After watching the movie, I'd reserved "Nomadland," and finally that became available. I jumped from "Deacon King Kong" to "Nomadland" and back, chapter by chapter, and I never read two books at one time, but if I didn't, there'd be no way to finish "Deacon King Kong," I needed a palate cleanser, like the sherbet they serve you in little cones in highfalutin' restaurants.

But when I hit the aforementioned forty percent point, I powered through the rest of "Deacon King Kong," I wanted to read it, I dug it. You see it's the story of the inner city fifty years ago, New York in sixty-nine in fact. Yes, the Mets are winning and the city is on the way to becoming what it was in the seventies, i.e. bankrupt and crime-ridden. So what you've got here is people going nowhere who are thrilled to be out of the south. Yes, these are Blacks and they come to New York City and there's less racism, but your gig is as a domestic, or a maintenance man, or a drug dealer. Upward mobility was nonexistent. To a great degree it's still nonexistent. But now since the white people don't have money, they don't want to help out anybody else. Even the "Wall Street Journal" ran an opinion piece saying it was all about income inequality, and the Republicans must stop okaying deficit and debt increases when they're in power and abhor them when they are not. Don't shoot the messenger, I'd link you but it's behind a paywall.

So to get by you hang on to God, the church is the center of activity, and activity there is. It's all about relationships and gossip, fun. You remember fun, don't you? You can still have it, even if you're living from paycheck to paycheck.

And there's a Mafia strain and ultimately all the personages merge into a story that's kind of interesting. More interesting is who they are and how they act. Oftentimes it's the broke people who are good and the rich people who are bad. And there's a bit of romance. Just a hint, not sex scenes. You know when you find someone and you click, you know it from the first note? That's in here. That's life. We're always looking to connect. And one day you're buds and one day you're enemies and one day you're friends again, funny how this world works.

So would I recommend "Deacon King Kong"?

No. Not unless you're a voracious reader. The plot is too often obscured by description. But those who do complete it rave about it, because they feel good about trumpeting the work of a Black man.

I can't just leave it at that. You'll judge me too harshly. But let me just say that those waving the flag of equality the most noisily are the same ones who'd freak if a person of color moved into their neighborhood, never mind having a homeless person camp out on their sidewalk. Out of sight, out of mind is the American mantra. And the people in "Nomadland" are truly out of sight.

3

There were about three times reading "Nomadland" I wanted to jump up to the keyboard and testify. We live in a screwed-up nation where it is easy to fall between the cracks and once there, nobody cares about you.

The movie is excellent.

But the book is more fully fleshed-out, and ultimately way more depressing.

Frances McDormand's character was made up. But the ultimate facts of the movie remain true. That company town in Nevada did close up shop. There is the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. And the houseless do work temporarily at Amazon.

That's what they say, they're not homeless, they're HOUSEless. It's a difference, of mind-set, of class. You don't want to see yourself as homeless, that's rock bottom, it's hard to maintain your optimism, and that's one thing all the vandwellers possess, optimism, blind optimism, because otherwise life would just be too hard, with its endless setbacks.

You ain't got any money, otherwise you wouldn't be living on the road. But your automobile is your house, and one thing we know for sure is autos need maintenance. And the vehicles the nomads buy are never new. And the older a vehicle, the more prone it is to breakdowns. Major breakdowns. Even if you have a AAA card, the club won't service vehicles on dirt roads, that's their policy. So you can be in the middle of the desert, with a broken vehicle and no money to fix it and...

Maybe you get an advance on your Social Security, which is minimal to begin with, since you worked all those low-paying jobs. And you have to pay the cash back at an exorbitant interest rate, so you're always behind.

And you can't live with your family because you're either too proud or they don't want you or they don't have room. Reach a certain age and there's no place in society for you.

And that's the age of most of the people here. Sixties and seventies. And they're working, HARD! Putting in unpaid overtime supervising campsites. Running the rides at an amusement park. All of the gigs temporary, there's no health insurance, no benefits, you just show up when they need you, and then you're back on the road.

But the worst is Amazon.

Maybe they give you four months, you know, the run-up to Christmas. But what you're doing is working twelve hours a day, literally, those are the shifts, for almost nothing. In this case, $10.25 an hour only a few years ago. And you get three breaks, a half hour for lunch and then two fifteen minute bathroom breaks. I'd never make it, I can't hold it that long. And you have to be able to lift fifty pounds. That's surprisingly heavy. And some of these people are EIGHTY!

They give away free over-the-counter painkillers. And the truth is you can't make it without Advil, Aleve, the anti-inflammatory of your choice. And even if you buck up to this boring work, yes, you've got to play games in your head just to get through the day, there's a strong chance you'll get injured on the job. Taken off the playing field or going on injured reserve for overuse injuries. Yes, one person can't go back to Amazon the next year because of wrist issues caused by holding the scanner. Her wrist took three years to heal. And you're walking on concrete and you've got ancient muscles and bones, you're brittle and broken to begin with, this is the final insult, judgment day, where you learn you've got to work in Hades just to survive.

Yes, survive. That's what it comes down to. For all these complaints about welfare queens, the truth is oftentimes you cannot get money or if you do it's insufficient. Then again, those on the road look out for each other. To a degree anyway, almost all of them are introverted, loners.

4

Now the truth is ultimately it was harder to finish "Nomadland," which is easier to read. Because "Nomadland" is non-fiction, fiction is almost always superior, there's a story, it's not just about facts, information.

But I believe everybody should read "Nomadland." Everybody in America, a national book club. Because you cannot read it without having your viewpoint changed. Things are much worse in America than we think. The truth is, the underclass is just given lip service, most people have no idea what is going on at the bottom, there's not enough news and either they're too self-centered or worried about falling down themselves.

And I finished "Nomadland" this afternoon. But I just couldn't get into the new books on my Kindle. Sometimes this is definitive, sometimes this is not, sometimes it's just your mood. But the truth is there's very little worth reading. Most of what is reviewed you can ignore. As for what is not... Writing is a skill, which most people don't possess, but you can have the skill and still turn out a turkey. As for recommendations...it's just like music, people tell you what they like, not what you'd like, so I always turn to the web, trying to find what might interest me, and it's not an easy journey.

Not that I write about everything I read, or watch. I bought Kristin Hannah's "The Four Winds" the night it came out, literally, just after midnight Monday on my Kindle, before it went to number one, I liked "The Great Alone" just that much. Not "The Nightingale," but "The Great Alone." But "The Four Winds" was a disappointment. It does a great job of portraying the Dust Bowl era, especially before the characters journey to California. It's just that the description ultimately overwhelms the story. To a degree it's a polemic.

I'm slicing hairs here. People hate when I do this. I should like everything, especially what they've produced, they've put in so much time and effort! But that's not the way it works. My time is limited, everybody's time is limited, we're all looking for the very best we can find, and like I said, there's little that great out there.

So tonight we're going back to our streaming series. It's Israeli, and it's good, but I'm not telling you the name, because even though I'll do my best not to reveal the plot someone always e-mails me the ending of the show, without fail.

So I'm just informing you of the landscape, that's the goal in life today, to assess the world and figure out where you fit in it. And whether you're on the right path or need to make radical change. And change is hard for most people, it's easier to put on the blinders and stay where you are. But to make change first you need inspiration, and that's what you get in books. I guess that's my main point.

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More NFTs

It's an inside job. And that's been publicized by all the major media. But since the "New York Times" is a left wing rag that should be ignored and the "Wall Street Journal" is behind a paywall the hoi polloi have not realized this, and are still trying to scam a sale.

It's kind of like Spotify. Did you see those bozos protesting for a penny a stream? Spotify would be bankrupt nearly instantly. Not that musicians are good with math. But you can't get more money than a company has, literally impossible.

So these purchasers of NFTs made a boatload on cryptocurrency. Come on, even you've seen that news. About the price of Bitcoin. What did I read, someone paid for a pizza with a Bitcoin and if he still had it today he'd have 50k. BUT HE DOESN'T!

You see crypto is a long game. Hell, if I owned it, I would have sold it after it went into the twenties and dropped down near ten. But if you've got more money than you know what to do with, especially if you're diversified, you believe in digital currency and want to make beaucoup bucks in the future. It's not that different from being a venture capitalist. Quick, are you a VC? Could you handle that success ratio? Maybe one in twenty hit and you're rolling in dough. Look at Masayoshi Son and SoftBank, talk about a violent seesaw. He bought Sprint, he bought WeWork, he's famous for doing little due diligence, he just gives you the cash and tells you to spend it. And he's looking for big wins, not little ones. That's another thing the hoi polloi don't know about business. That there's too much cost in hitting singles. Best to spend the money for home runs, at least if they happen you can make big money. Kind of like movies and music. You want to make a movie for a million dollars, make a record for $100. And if you double your money, you're dancing, ecstatic! But those victories cannot sustain a major enterprise, the costs are too heavy. Do these major enterprises sometimes miss cheap productions which make bank? Of course! This is what disruption is all about. Clayton Christensen said the new product is cheap and inferior but ultimately it gets better and the new enterprise topples the old, unless the old enterprise topples itself, or buys all the new product, which happens in movies and music, if the big guys come along almost all of the small guys will sell out, irrelevant of the possible upside, they want that cash up front.

So, if you speculated in Bitcoin and made all that money... You're a speculator at heart, you're willing to take risks, what are your new opportunities? NFTs!

You're reading about these immense sales numbers, like with Beeple. That Beeple NFT was purchased by a guy who made so much money in cryptocurrency that he decided to invest some of it in this new area, NFTs. He'd already purchased a bunch of the artist's work. Will NFTs ultimately be worth something? WHO KNOWS!

Of course there are the idiots blowing their money on well-distributed sports clips. Never underestimate the ability of the unsophisticated to blow their cash. Like with GameStop. Sure, the man on the street showed Wall Street it is vulnerable, but almost all the profits went to Wall Street, which knows how to ride a rise and the subsequent fall. You can make money on anything if you know where it's going. And everybody inside knew GameStop was overvalued, EVERYBODY!

As for NFTs and art... As has also been well-documented, the value of art became detached from the physical product eons ago. Art is an investment vehicle, sometimes the purchasers don't even display it! So, an enterprise that is already detached from reality is ripe for movement into a financial product that is detached from reality. Then again, there's the sale of NFTs for ephemeral or digital art to begin with. I won't go down that rabbit hole because it doesn't apply to you.

What we've got is a lot of sellers, or potential sellers, with no knowledge of the buyers. These crypto speculators disappear and the value of your NFT goes down to NOTHING! If you can't sell something, that's what it's worth.

It was too good to be true. Selling essentially nothing for big bucks.

But maybe this nothing will have value in the future, it's possible. Or maybe the buyers will create a market detached from reality, like with fine art. Is this a game for you? OF COURSE NOT!

And when those without previous relationships with crypto kings/buyers have tried to sell NFTs...in many cases they've fallen flat. Like the Kings of Leon. There was some mania so fans bought a few, but this is not what the crypto investors want to pay for.

It was a momentary blip. It's just a matter of when it crashes. I believe it's crashed already, or will very soon. It just makes no sense. Who wants to buy this stuff? You don't even get a Beanie Baby!

Are you in the physical game or the money game? Do you make products or do you invest in products? These are radically different enterprises. Don't equate an hour of work at the factory, in the recording studio, to finance. So much of Wall Street is legalized gambling. Now, more than ever. It's no place for amateurs. Ever talk to an elite athlete? PGA Tour golfers play a completely different game than you do, even if your handicap is zero. They're working the ball in ways you can't even think of. And they compete under pressure that would have you shanking almost every shot. But when it comes to NFTs, it's all just easy money, it's a flat landscape, you understand it as well as the players. OF COURSE NOT!

What is the real story. That's what my father taught me to figure out. If someone is driving a hundred thousand dollar car and doesn't have a job...either they inherited a ton of money or they stole it or borrowed it. Never accept the exterior for what it appears. Try to peel back the layers and try to understand it.

And the amazing thing is there's so much information out there, assuming you're willing to put in the time to find it and read it.

But people would rather hang with their buddies and dream up schemes that will net them millions.

Ain't gonna happen.

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Warren Haynes-This Week's Podcast

Warren Haynes is the number one utility player in rock music today. Whether with the Allman Brothers, Gov't Mule, the Dead or other acts, for decades Warren has been playing guitar, without airs, depending only on chops, on stages and in studios throughout the nation. Furthermore, his vocals are as sweet as his guitar licks. Here we cover Warren's start in North Carolina as well as the breakup of the Allman Brothers and more. Unassuming, yet articulate, Warren has miles of experience and is as vital as ever.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/warren-haynes/id1316200737?i=1000513536367

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1bB3fvkQMNcsbarFBMregm?si=2dpY-l6jQwWrzgCyOzHY5A

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1bB3fvkQMNcsbarFBMregm?si=2dpY-l6jQwWrzgCyOzHY5A

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/The-Bob-Lefsetz-Podcast

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Ethos/Bir Baskadir

I want to know the people who love this show. Because they're right on my wavelength.

I like shows about people, their situations. And I'm not bothered by whether they're likable or not, people in real life aren't always likable, why do we need someone to identify with on the screen?

Not that that's a big issue here. But it seems that people want a show that reflects their lives, and only their lives, but the truth is by watching "Ethos" they'll feel more connected than with any of the American tripe on TV.

That's right, "Ethos" is not American. It's Turkish!

And yes, there are real people with real problems living in Turkey. All we hear about is Erdogan, who's a strongman, causing unrest to the point where the U.S. recommends you not visit the country, then again, if you're a foreigner, are you safe in the U.S?

It's just utterly astounding to watch these shows set in faraway countries and find that really, the people are not so different from us. You should see the house Peri's parents live in! It's on the water, it's like Venice, only it's a wide river, not a dirty canal. And Peri laments the sale of the family vacation home. And there are pictures of her skiing. And she's got the dream job of every parent, at least Jewish, SHE'S A DOCTOR! A psychiatrist. And she's beautiful but a tight-ass and her life doesn't really work.

Everybody's got problems.

But there's backlash. Unless you're starving on the street in a third world nation you're not entitled to talk about your woes. Why? Didn't Depeche Mode sing that "people are people"? We share our humanity. And yes, some people think all day long about survival, and that's sad, and should be addressed, but not at the cost of the discussion of our issues.

So Meryem keeps fainting so she ends up seeing Peri. Meryem is hobbled by religion and the weighty finger of her brother. You know how it is, then again, hopefully you don't. There's someone in the household who's more powerful than you and if you're yourself not only do they tell you to shut up, but that you are wrong. And you start to wonder, "maybe I am?" You lose track of what is right. Maybe you go away to college and gain another perspective, but too many people are beholden to their parents' mores, their attitudes, it's sad.

And Meryem's sister-in-law is depressed. Anybody would see she needs treatment. But what if you've got no money, if you believe religion can solve all your problems, if you just pray to God...

That's a running theme... Between the believers and the deniers.

And then there's Sinan. Who lives larger than most of us and believes he's God's gift to women. That with cunning he can get whatever he wants. We all know this is not true.

And Peri sees Gulbin for supervision. And she talks and we're privy to Gulbin's perspective on her. Don't you always wonder what your shrink thinks about you? You've got to be quite narcissistic to think you're not sometimes boring them, or that they're sick of hearing the same damn stories over and over and over again.

And Melisa is an actress, she's recognized wherever she goes. But she's pissed she's in a soap opera, that she's not doing real work.

So, on one hand we've got the story of Meryem, Yasin and his wife Ruhiye. They all live under one roof. And Yasin is a tyrant. You can't get away with this behavior in the U.S. Then again, he's bringing home the bacon, doing a job he doesn't want to do.

And then there's the Hodja, and his wife and daughter. The daughter wants to be modern, but the Hodja supposedly descends from God. Western music, dancing, really?

And Peri's parents treat her like a child, but in some ways Peri is a child. Keeping herself in tip-top shape so she can meet a guy...but no guy would be interested in her, once they got to know her. You know people like this, who've jumped through all the hoops but when you pry below the surface, there's trouble, you either retreat or it's like riding a bucking bronco, trying to get the other to open up, to trust you.

And Gulbin... Like Peri, she too appears to have everything. But what is everything these days? Is it a good job with a concomitant lifestyle, or is it really all about family?

We make our choices, but none of us really know. You wake up one day and you realize this is the path you are on, sure you could change it, but you'd be starting from scratch when you've got an investment in this one.

And psychiatric help is a taboo in so many worlds. Even the U.S. Tell someone you're seeing a shrink and the first question they'll have is WHY? Never mind telling your parents, or the cause of your pain. You're supposed to buck up, be optimistic and fly straight. But what if you can't?

And what if you want to investigate life on this planet. What if you want to address the issues?

The funny thing is the U.S. is getting more like a third world country every day. Everything is black or white. You're right or your wrong. You fight to the finish to defend your opinion, winning is more important than truth.

But the truth is we're all confused, we've all got tons to learn, and we can only get this by talking to each other.

Most men don't. Talk to each other that is.

That's what I like most. Call me up with your problems, I'd much rather hear about them than your business. I'm not talking about your car breaking down and overwork, I mean what you feel! Guys are afraid of revealing their feelings. Which is why conversation is so much better with women, they'll open up, every conversation is not a competition.

So "Ethos," or "Bir Baskadir" in Turkish, is a slice of life drama. With people all over the economic stratum. They're all equal, but they're not. But they've all got wants, they've all had losses. Many question their choices, their lifestyles...

They call this life. "Ethos" is about life. There are no superheroes, there are few laughs, it's about what life is like on this planet, all over the world. We're all struggling, not all the time, but too much of the time. Unless we bury ourselves in work or religion so we don't have to think, having been provided all the answers.

"Ethos" is on Netflix. You can search for it under that name. Be sure to watch in Turkish, with subtitles. It's not hard to achieve. You ultimately feel like the characters are talking in English, not that I'm exactly sure how that happens.

I'm looking for series that draw me to the TV set, that I think about all day, that I can't wait to watch. But too often series disappointment me. I'm interested in something shooting for the moon, that is not made for an audience, but is the true vision of the producer/director/writer. No compromise for the studio, no playing to the audience. It's when you're true to yourself that your work resonates.

And we'd tried another Turkish show and it had disappointed.

But I'd read a review of "Ethos" in the "Wall Street Journal." I researched the ratings. All signs were thumbs-up. So I put it on the list.

And after the show we planned to watch was behind another paywall, we fired it up.

Turns out Turkey is a hotbed of dramas. That like Israel, the country is known for these programs, which play throughout the world. And the truth is they don't make shows like this in the U.S., not this true to life. Even "thirtysomething," which I adored, was not this gritty, not this down to earth, there was a patina of flash that real life doesn't possess. But you could see yourself in "Ethos." As a matter of fact, you will.

This is not "Call My Agent." This is not lightweight farce. Not that it's unbearably heavy, it's just higher brow than most shows, it's not pandering. You know if this is your kind of show. If so, put it at the top of your list. Well, after you've watched "Borgen," "The Bureau," and "Spiral" and...

"Ethos" is a show for those who hunt. Who believe streaming television is superior to film, because the length allows the story to be deeper, more fleshed-out. "Ethos" is a show for those who've already got the hits under their belts. "Ethos" is a show you'll think about. And I don't know you, but my mind is working all the time, nonstop. I cannot turn it off, I don't want to turn it off! But so much of the time my thoughts and feelings are internalized, I feel alone. I'm looking to feel connected, to be known, to bond. Too often I feel like I'm the only person on the planet who feels this way. But when I watch a show like "Ethos," I know I am not.

Maybe you're like me. You're going through the motions of life, but you're looking for that edge, that extra zest. And I'm not talking about alcohol or drugs, the best highs are always natural. I'm talking about that feeling of being alive, on the planet, fully-realized, almost powerful. It's thrilling. You focus, the rest of the world recedes. You have a peak experience that you hope never ends.

But it always does.

It's unclear if there'll be another season of "Ethos."

Then again, one is not necessary, we're not left wondering who shot J.R.

But it's what I want. I want to invest, I want to binge. That's why I hate HBO and Apple TV+ and the rest of the weekly dribblers. Give it to me all at once, let me marinate, this is not entertainment, to me it's REAL LIFE!

Yes, "Ethos" is real life.

And if you're real, you should watch it, you'll dig it.


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No One Is Interested

There's a fiction that everybody cares, they do not.

That's what sank the Grammys. Sure, they went young, but the belief that all young people care about these acts is plain wrong. Not that you'd expect an organization influenced by the major labels to understand that.

The ratings for everything are falling. Not only awards shows and sports. We all had to pay for ESPN on our cable system. Turns out many people don't even want a cable subscription, they can live without sports entirely! But I thought baseball was the national pastime, I thought football was up front and center in the culture of America, embedded in our psyches, turns out that's not true!

But we keep being told they are. Because of the investment of the perpetrators and a media that in many cases is blind to the truth and when it come to anything other than hard news is peopled by reporters so inured to the activity, or such rubes, that the truth never outs.

Let's go back to Adele. "21" sold ten times its competitors. One has to ask, how popular was the competition? But that was ten years ago.

As for music, every week a manipulated chart is released to the press that references sales in a world where most people don't even have a CD player, and despite the hype about a return to vinyl, the truth is a gross number is published, not a net, and when it comes down to actual sales numbers, the consumption is de minimis compared to streaming.

As for streaming... Spotify has gone on record that the pool of money keeps reaching further down. In other words, hit acts are getting less of it. And catalog keep growing. But that's lost in the shuffle of the narrative that Spotify is the devil and is ripping off artists when that's patently untrue. As for remuneration of "artists," I point you to OnlyFans, which gets little press because it's dominated by porn. Everybody now has an OnlyFans account, your next door neighbor. Women throughout the country are displaying their bodies in search of cash, but there's not enough cash to go around. The "New York Times" did an exploration of this:

"Jobless, Selling Nudes Online and Still Struggling - OnlyFans, a social media platform that allows people to sell explicit photos of themselves, has boomed during the pandemic. But competition on the site means many won't earn much.": https://nyti.ms/3eLdP3m

But to really know what is going on you must go to Reddit, where these women advertise their wares ad infinitum. Furthermore, because of the disinformation campaign, half of America discounts the "New York Times," they trust opinion bloviation on the flat screen and rampant falsehoods online so the truth cannot get out. Which is funny, because the entertainment business has been built on falsehoods, they call it hype. You make up a story and people believe it. Did Frank Zappa really take a crap on stage? Of course not! But that's a rumor that has sustained over fifty years, never mind what has come thereafter.

As for the declines in entertainment and sports ratings... The "Wall Street Journal," has done a good job, along with the "Times," of delineating them, after all it's business. But the "Wall Street Journal" is behind a paywall, despite all this repetition of the falsehood that information wants to be free, because the rest of that aphorism is that information wants to be expensive! God, if people can't get a statement like that right for decades, what are the odds truth is well-disseminated and well-known? And no, Hunter Thompson did not say the music business is a "cruel and shallow money trench," etc. Thompson did write, but it was about TV, and he did not say "There's also a negative side." Read the truth here: https://bit.ly/3cHV9yX But you'd rather wallow in your delusion, believing you know best and are better than those who believe in Trump when you're just as susceptible to disinformation and falsehoods, never mind the truth hiding in plain sight, all over the web.

But it's easier to just say awards shows are dead. Or that baseball must be quicker. Or the NBA is sans stars most people can relate to. Or the NHL always had limited appeal. The truth is the head of the pin is shrinking, while the pin itself gets ever longer, not that those at the end of the pin can make bucks. The truth is at the end of the pin you've got tracks posted to Spotify that have never ever been listened to, not even by the artists' parents!

Come on, watch the Grammys. Do you truly think most people care about these acts? As for the awards themselves, in an era where acts like Mariah Carey compete with the Beatles for most number ones and awards are given out like candy, we're supposed to be impressed that Beyonce tied or broke some record? Most of the public has never ever heard her latest music, if any of her music at all!

If you're atop the Spotify Top 50, you get in the neighborhood of a million plays a day. Now, if you're a fan of an act, how many times do you play their music? Especially if you're young. And you might even have it on in the background. There's a very good chance that a hundred thousand people are playing the track ten times. And the next day, it's not a different hundred thousand, but many of the same people. And we live in a country of 328.2 million. As for number 50, it gets fewer than half of the streams of number 1.

And then we've got concert tours. Let's say you go on the road and play 50 dates at 50 arenas. Let's say there are 20,000 seats available and you sell out, when the truth is it's a very rare arena that's got that many seats. That means you played to a million fans. In a country of 328.2 million? That's nothing! And Garth Brooks has illustrated that demand is not unlimited. He plays in a city until demand is filled, to keep ticket prices low, he does not play for months, he doesn't even play for one month, most people just have no interest in seeing him!

But Garth made it in the old days.

And the old days were very different. There was no streaming TV. Today, unless you're on SNL or "CBS Sunday Morning" an appearance generates nothing...other than a high quality video. And SNL doesn't sell an act as much as it shows the rest of the industry that it's a priority. Still, people grovel for late night appearances. And the ratings of these shows keep going down, as the pie keeps growing. There's the Jimmys and Colbert, never mind their competitors. In the reign of Carson, no one could compete, no one! Dick Cavett had a run appealing to intellectuals, but that was relatively brief. Now, with choice, turns out people would rather watch someone else, never mind not watch at all. Jimmy Fallon, who has national mindshare because of his SNL appearances in the old days, draws fewer than two million people a night. Can we stop hearing about him and his show! And ratings of these late night shows were propped up by Trump, now they're falling.

But even worse is music. In the old days radio was king. Terrestrial radio is a pauper today, but not if you listen to the disinformation spread by the industry ad infinitum. You can't find someone under twenty who listens to terrestrial radio, but the industry keeps telling us this is untrue. Meanwhile, being the easiest platform to manipulate, which reaches the most people, despite fewer than ever before, major labels concentrate on radio, make it seem important when it is not. As for satellite radio... SiriusXM has 34.91 million paying subscribers. But it also has over 150 channels. That's what people are paying for, choice and no commercials on music channels. Do you think all 34.91 million are tuning into the same channel at the same time? Do you think all 34.91 million are actually listening all the time? Of course not! SiriusXM is a modern product, with nearly unlimited choice, otherwise people wouldn't subscribe. As for politics...it has both left and right! It's a big country out there.

And then there are the old days of record sales... The Eagles and Michael Jackson sold in excess of 30 million of one album! In the nineties, 10 million sales were de rigueur! They even had to invent a new sales award for that plateau, "diamond." There hasn't been a diamond record in forever, no one can reach that many people. Never mind in those days not only was radio still key, there was only one MTV, one national station that everybody tuned into, a veritable monoculture. So if you made it prior to the internet, chances are you can still tour today, that's how impactful your music was. Quick, check the chart from ten years ago...can any of these acts even sell a ticket, never mind in a prodigious number?

Turns out people don't only hate commercials, if they're under 60, they live in a pure on demand world. And what they want is so varied. Music used to be everything in the sixties, there was very little competition for mindshare. Today? Music is background to many, who cares about the music and lives of these self-promoting nincompoops constantly trolling for dollars and telling us about it. Which is why acts keep popping from TikTok. Turns out the public wants to be involved, and the public oftentimes has different interests than the so-called titans of industry. Is there any label whatsoever who would have signed Lil Nas X? Of course not! He had to make it and promote it himself. And in a fast-moving world he will never reach that pinnacle of mindshare ever again. He created a novelty hit pumped up by the industry and the media into a fake controversy about blacks in country music. There's little there there. Which makes sense in a world where the performers are ever younger and surrounded by a team to create their product. Come on, the Beatles did not need a team. They had the band, a producer and an engineer. They didn't need outside writers, never mind ones for the beat and another for the lyrics. Sometimes you get so far from the garden that there's no there there!

Dua Lipa makes music to move your body to. It's nice. But if you're looking to her for answers...you must be an uneducated nitwit. Post Malone is a rocker who went hip-hop to break through and now we're not sure who or what he is, never mind those inane face tattoos that make him look like a freak. How hard can hip-hop be then? Which is one attraction of the format, it's more of a democracy, the trophy is passed around, but if you're not in the scene do you really care? As for the face tattoos...you can call me an oldster all day long, but you're never going to be able to get a job at Apollo with those. And if you don't know what Apollo is, or BlackRock, the joke is on you. Certainly everybody at the elite institutions does, they want a job there upon graduation, and everybody in the financial sector. But the public does not. And most don't even care, they're too busy down in their own niche!

Yes, we have endless stimulation, information at our fingertips.

There are over 300+ magazines on Apple News+. I guarantee you there's not a person in the world who's got the same favorites as me. I subscribe to 63 publications. You can't tell me of a single person who ever had that many print subscriptions, never ever. And how many people even have an Apple News+ subscription? The number is low. And irrelevant of the cost, I can tell you there's not much there. Turns out many publications are just b.s., filler by freelancers in between high gloss ads. The writing is bad and oftentimes the writers are far from experts. As for "Billboard"... Never have this many blind incompetents constructed a magazine. Yes, you get "Billboard" with Apple News+. It reads like press releases written by junior high school students. But it calls itself the "Bible." For whom, the illiterate? And the industry quotes its aforementioned manipulated numbers, there's almost nothing there! As for "Rolling Stone"...it's behind a paywall, resulting in instant marginalization. And it's branched out into product recommendation, never mind allowing people to pay for inclusion: https://bit.ly/30StJRr I tweeted that, it had no impact, no legs, despite my having 67,400 followers. Not only are a ton inactive, the truth is Twitter is an endless firehose and most people never see your tweets, even if they're following you!

You want to make it to the top. But the truth is the top doesn't even exist anymore. Nothing has that level of mindshare, nothing! Other than politics. Because that truly impacts people's lives. Not entertainment fodder, not as presently constructed. Then again, story is still king, and if you do it right people will still be riveted to the flat screen. But how many other people are watching the Turkish drama that is so true to life that I'm loving it right now? Not many!

If you've got anybody interested in your work, give yourself a pat on the back. And the truth is very little builds. And once you build it, don't expect to become dominant. At best you can become someone in your niche, like jam band music. You can have fans, you can make a good living, but most people will never hear of you, and you'll never get on the Grammy stage. And if for some reason you do and you expect it to blow up your career? The laugh will be on you. There's nothing we can't ignore in today's world. Nothing!

It's not like the lights have not been flashing. Bruce Springsteen sang of 57 channels, now there are too many channels to count! As for Springsteen himself, people know his name, as a result of MTV. But not only do his records have few listeners, he doesn't sell out everywhere. Yes, Bruce Springsteen! We don't even have to evaluate the music, most people just don't care!

The internet offered seemingly infinite choice. And not only from the professionals. Turns out you could generate your own content, which can be very fulfilling. Yet, the old institutions keep repeating the old formulas like nothing has changed. Come on, think about it. An almost four hour TV show featuring multiple acts in different genres all fawning over each other over irrelevant awards, with endless commercials interspersed? And if you are interested in music, there's a good chance the kind you prefer wasn't even included.

We live in a completely different world and no one will acknowledge this. The "New York Times" has 7.5 million subscribers. Tell me, why should I pay nearly as much to subscribe to the local rag, which is thin and nowhere near the quality? The L.A. "Times" is the size of a pamphlet and the entertainment section, which isn't even published every day, is often just an extension of the entertainment industrial complex. Who needs that? Not many. Which is why subscriptions are so low.

But the inane people in the news industry keep saying we need to save these papers. Why? We need local news, but they're doing a piss-poor job of covering and disseminating it.

We're living in an era of chaos, we're all in our own little worlds. For twenty years, the internet wreaked havoc, disrupting and destructing. Now the dust has settled, why do we think everything is the same as it ever was? The disruption has calmed down. Now it's about content. We, as a society, are trying to figure it out. One thing is for sure, everybody in the old, pre-disrupted world, is doing their best to cling to the old model instead of facing the truth and marching into the future. And they keep telling us they're important and we should pay attention WHEN MOST PEOPLE DON'T EVEN CARE!

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Reinventing The Oscars

1. Include TV. Television is no longer the poor stepsister to movies. The line between TV and film is fluid. Those both in front and behind the camera work in both paradigms. Forget the charter, forget the past, you either disrupt yourself or you get disrupted. Next year, TV too!

2. Story, story, STORY! Traditional awards shows are dead. Trying to be everything to everybody went out with the last century. You're creating a movie. Something that can be watched again and again, irrelevant of the awards presentations. Today if you missed the Oscars, you never go back and watch the show, you know who the winners are and that's the only thing that counts. But if the show had story, which Hollywood specializes in, that would be different.

3. Edgy! It's like Velcro. Our loops are eager to be grabbed by your hooks. But with no hooks, with all the rough edges smoothed off, there's nothing to attach the viewer to the enterprise. In this era truth rules. We can argue all day long whose truth it is. But worst case scenario there's argument about elements...THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT! You want the show to elicit conversation, to have legs. There's not much to say about today's high concept, superhero movies, but prior to the high concept/tent pole era, this was de rigueur. And this high concept stuff may do boffo at the b.o., but streaming television has taught us it's all about the niches, going deep therein.

4. No monologue. The monologue is only good if you make fun of yourself, for having bad jokes. The best at this was David Letterman, and he failed as an Oscar host! Then again, he was TV in an era of film, pre-internet. What do jokes have to do with movies? Vaudeville died and the monologue should too.

5. FAN INVOLVEMENT! Time to come down from the high horse and engage with the hoi polloi, who are creating all day long on platforms like YouTube and TikTok. First, you have a publicly voted Oscar. Call it "Movie of the Year," the CMAs have "Entertainer of the Year," despite giving out awards in very specific categories, you can do it too. And on TikTok they've even recreated whole movies! The best fan made movie gets shown on the telecast and the winner gets money, a deal, who knows, SOMETHING! Actually, exposure is more important than cash, people want to be stars, you've got to blow the winner up!

6. Social media presence. Trump showed us the power of this. The Oscars should have a daily presence on all social platforms. Facebook for old people, Twitter for the info hungry, Instagram for the visually focused and regular discussions on Clubhouse, assuming that platform still exists a year from now. An audience takes a long time to build. You've got to start now, with a plan, and keep at it, perseverance is everything online, and wait for word to spread. You can't create virality artificially, you've got to release great content on a regular basis to achieve this.

7. STATISTICS/DATA! We live in an era of data transparency, the younger generation knows this, it's only the older people who are ultra-concerned about privacy, the younger generations are open books. How about releasing the final vote totals? Maybe even have run-offs to make it more interesting. There shouldn't be so many Best Picture nominees UNLESS there is ranked voting.

8. Where are they now? This clickbait always works. Check in with the stars of yore, even the ones who've led less than successful lives. This is what made "28 Up" so great. Neil was the most interesting character. We're trying to get emotional involvement, people need to care!

9. No more backslapping! Just like there are salary caps in sports, there must be advertising limits. Ads just cheapen the whole affair, they're a waste of money, it appears the studios are just trying to buy the Oscars and in many cases have succeeded, can you say Gwyneth Paltrow in "Shakespeare in Love"? Maybe a complete advertising ban. Hell, they have that in Vermont, it's called Act 250, no billboards, and the landscape is much more beautiful.

10. No elitism. Today everybody is equal. Come down off your throne, you're no better than we are. Maybe some footage of stars living their own boring lives. Bring the Oscars down to earth.

11. MAKE ALL THE FILMS VIEWABLE! Every film must be viewable by the audience on an established streaming platform.

12. If you die you're immediately disqualified from competing, you get a special Oscar. We're trying to get rid of sympathy wins here.

13. Funny/niche categories. This is what the MTV Movie Awards pioneered, and like Apple does with Android, you should steal the best ideas. They can be frivolous or serious. Best kiss or best acting against type. If you can't laugh at yourself, you're not worth watching these days.

14. One time is not enough! Look at music, Ariana Grande put out three albums in a year, today's young acts constantly release singles, it's only the old farts who are invested in albums, which oftentimes come and go in a weekend, despite being labored over for years. You've got to come up to bat constantly. And a failure no longer hurts you. As long as you have enough winners. Oscars should not be one Sunday in the winter, they must be a year-round thing!

15. Streaming platforms are your friend. I know you're inured to that network money, but the truth is networks are history, which is why they all have streaming platforms. There must be on demand Oscar content on EVERY streaming platform!

16. Maybe instead of one show on one night, it's Oscar week. One award per night, each on a different streaming service, and then YouTube the next day. You've got to build excitement.

17. Outfits. If you can't immediately buy 'em, you can't wear 'em. Hook up with the designers, get the goods in the store the very next day, Steve Jobs was an expert at this, immediate gratification. There's probably more money in selling clothing than TV rights!


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