He's a DINO. As in "Democrat In Name Only."
This doesn't happen in the Republican party. Go against the tribe and not only are you ostracized, YOU'RE PRIMARIED!
The Democrats have to put the fear of God into Joe Manchin. Because this guy is holding up the entire Democratic agenda, which is putting the Democratic party in jeopardy in toto. Yes, "supposed Democrat" Joe Manchin is single-handedly disillusioning the youth and turning the country towards Republicans. Meanwhile, he sits self-satisfied on his boat believing he's the grand pooh-bah, everybody kowtowing to him.
Screw that.
So he's going to turn Republican. That's the threat? No problem! Go that way Joe. Append yourself to the party of Trump. And we'll run a Democrat against you in West Virginia and you'll be forced to defend your biased positions. Pro old energy when you're invested in it. How's that gonna look when someone runs to the left of it and hammers it all day long on television and online, where the young voters live. The young voters are not getting rich off oil and coal, it's the oldsters. Running a candidate to the left of Manchin will motivate them to vote. And if enough of them do, there's no way Manchin can win, NO WAY!
Joe needs to be scared. Made to quake in his boots.
Enough with Schumer talking nice. What you do with a guy like this is freeze him out. Remove all access. Treat him as a pariah. It's like nobody in government has ever won in business, never mind in sports. When someone believes they're bigger than the game, when they're holding up the works, you make that person PAY!
Instead, "supposed Democrat" Manchin is a hero to the right. While being paid fealty by the left.
Sure, the guy is in the middle of his term. But he's got to be told he's being primaried, period. The Democrats hew to conventional wisdom, about a theoretical center, akin to the "silent majority" of Nixon's era. That's B.S. Wanna know how you win? Run further to the left, energize people! Stop telling me about the non-vocal centrists who you're so convinced exist and are the majority voting pool.
This isn't the strategy the Republicans employed to dominance. They took the whole party to the right. And if you go against them... Hell, they primaried Liz Cheney, who despite her participation in the January 6th committee was as loyal a Republican soldier as existed. Let's see, to get her to change lanes, stand up for the truth, was Donald Trump trying to overthrow the government. What is making Manchin go against the Democratic party, there is no equivalent reasoning.
Live in the past at your peril. Haven't we seen this demonstrated for the last twenty five years, with tech?
And then there's electric cars. Now all automobile companies, ALL have said they're going totally electric. Meanwhile, Tesla, with first mover advantage, not only dominates the sphere, but is far ahead technologically and is more valuable than the next eight car companies combined.
But old Joe is defending the fossil fuel industry in his state. Resisting green energy initiatives. This guy needs to be dragged around behind a smoke spewing automobile in a parade. This guy needs to be exposed to his choices. Yes, pollution kills. How come all the kids know this and this ancient creep does not? Oh, he knows it, he's just voting with his pocket book, and trying to keep his job. Which is what old folks do, put themselves first. And this dude is so compromised he's not even compromising!
Let's look at the cost of Manchin's obstinance.
Health care? Kablooey. National health care is so popular that the Republicans can't bring it down, now that the public has it, it loves it. But as far as expanding it, Joe's got his finger in the dike, protecting...exactly who?
Climate... There's a mustard shortage in France, because the seeds from Canada died because of heat in Alberta, and unfavorable growing conditions in the home country. Evidence of global warming right there. (https://nyti.ms/3yCrn9y)
Taxes? This prick is against raising them for the wealthiest and the corporations. This is something EVERYBODY in America wants other than the rich themselves. This is incredibly popular amongst not only Gen-Z, but the Millennials, now in their thirties, who've seen their futures hobbled by these riggers of the financial system. Talk about something popular, that will get you votes. But NO! Joe is siding with the rich!
But where is a Democratic voter in West Virginia supposed to go? It's either Joe or a Republican. But if someone ran to the left of Joe...
Oh, the seat could be lost!
Boohoo. How could that be worse than what we've got now? If you're not willing to risk, you cannot win.
Incremental change my ass. If we don't give the rank and file hope, they're going to disengage from the system, many of them already have. I'm running on fumes, things have been going the wrong way for years. I'd like to sit down with Biden and Schumer, the first thing I'd tell them is GROW A PAIR!
What do you do with bullies? Which is essentially what Manchin is? YOU STAND UP TO THEM! You don't appease them, try to reason with them, it never works, as they ask for more and more and deliver less and less.
I'd like to look at the news and see a victory for a change, instead of endless losses and wimpy Democrats saying their hands are tied.
Let's see... Inflation and gas prices. Irrelevant of the truth, Biden owns them, it's his fault, the Republicans have hammered this and most people are too uneducated to know, never mind understand, the truth.
Guns? How come the Republicans win this endlessly. Hell, propose a Constitutional amendment, who cares if it passes or not, it will demonstrate to the public, which overwhelmingly supports gun control, that they are heard, that something is being tried.
Income inequality? Come on, I feel it. No matter how hard I work, I cannot make the kind of money these Wall Street titans have. Or even the execs following in the footsteps of Jack Welch, overpaid to ruin corporations. Where's my incentive?
As for those of you licking the boots of the rich, eating the crumbs, believe me, as soon as the winds start blowing in a different direction, as soon as the "benefactors"'s needs change, you'll be starving, the crumbs will no longer fall. You're a slave, you just won't admit it. Yes, you flew on the private jet, but you couldn't pick your seat, you had to kiss the ass of the owner... Or you were on their yacht. You're a patsy. Speak English to these people, see how they react. Behind every great fortune there is a crime. And I'm sure Joe Manchin has committed a few too. How about we look into his finances, his history, to the point where he has to resign. Who's going to stand up for this mealy-mouthed jerk. He'll complain, it's unfair! Too bad! This goes two ways, you mess with us, we mess with you.
How come I know all this and nobody in D.C. does.
This is what happens when you strive for consensus. These proposals date back to the beginning of Biden's presidency. He should have rammed them through. All this hogwash about Obama spending political capital getting the Affordable Care Act passed at the expense of other initiatives is just that. The Affordable Care Act is his signature piece of legislation, and it helped get him elected to a second term. Biden, if you plan to try to get re-elected, what are you gonna run on? That you're better than the person on the right? DON'T COUNT ON IT!
And if you follow polls, Trump is fading in the hearts of Republicans every damn day. So I don't want to hear we must believe in Biden because he beats Trump. Hell, everyone expected Jeb Bush to be the nominee in 2016, but it was Trump. And the January 6th committee may not reach diehard election results deniers, but it's making inroads every damn day.
I'm not gonna beg Manchin to see the light. I'm gonna offer him a deal he can't refuse. Either you toe the party line or it's war. It's all of us against the single you. Everybody's got baggage, and everybody can be nailed by it. You're gonna look bad Joe Manchin. And you're gonna be squealing like Lindsey Graham once we start putting the pressure on you. Do you want all that? Do you want to sacrifice the entire country to appease your donor base, a limited number of rich people?
I don't think so.
This is much easier than it looks.
It's just that Schumer and Biden have never been in a street fight, they've never watched "The Godfather," they've got no idea what is truly going on out there. They can't handle the truth.
Be afraid Joe Manchin, be very afraid. You're going to be toppled from your perch. By time we're done with you you're going to be crying "uncle," begging us to keep your job.
It's all here Democrats. GO FOR IT!
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Friday, 15 July 2022
Thursday, 14 July 2022
Streetlife Serenader
Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/3O70Erp
1
"Songs In the Attic" is my favorite Billy Joel album.
I got on the Billy Joel train with "Glass Houses," his "new wave" album. By this time Billy was an established quantity, a man with tracks on AM and FM, but that was not the case previously, especially nationally.
You see "Piano Man" was a hit single, when you only listened to AM in the car and FM and albums ruled at home. Billy was never perceived as cool. You couldn't avoid the hit single, but unless you bought it you probably never heard the album.
And then came two more that were stiff out of the box. You see Billy had no built-in fanbase, to keep his music and career alive. Not at a prodigious level. It wasn't until "The Stranger" that Billy Joel became a ubiquitous superstar. Never underestimate the influence of Phil Ramone, he gave the album a sheen, he levitated Billy's sound to a whole new level, and it was embraced by many.
But not all, because "Just the Way You Are" was perceived to be too sappy, especially the change at the end. Oh, it was a gigantic hit, but it seemed to be an exercise as opposed to a reach. And those days were different, the cognoscenti, the FM crowd, only respected you if you tested limits, if you pushed the envelope, if you shot for the stars. Today if you have a hit single you're considered a god, a success, that's the goal, but it wasn't back then.
Then came "52nd Street." With "My Life."
"My Life" was bigger than any track of the last ten years, maybe twenty. "My Life" was everywhere. Maybe it was a bit too poppy, but the message resonated with boomers in the seventies, after the youthquake of the sixties had passed and they were forced to take the working world seriously. Their parents told them to do one thing, was that the path they should take? And in truth, most did what their parents wanted, they played it safe, they lived through musicians taking a risk.
But the opening track "Big Shot" had balls.
I could never get over the fact that Billy was pictured on the cover with a horn he didn't play, but "Big Shot" exploded out of the speakers, I had to drop the needle on it whenever I went to Tony's house, he owned it, I wasn't ready to take the risk.
"Because you had to be a big shot, didn't you
You had to open up your mouth
You had to be a big shot, didn't you
All your friends were so knocked out
You had to have the last word, last night
You know what everything's about
You had to have a white hot spotlight
You had to be a big shot last night"
Rock stars were anti-establishment, they didn't want in, they wanted to stay out, which was part of their great appeal. That's what being a rock star is all about, doing it your way, not caring what everybody else thinks or says.
You didn't want to hang with the glitterati, the rich and famous, YOU were rich and famous, they needed to come to you, not vice versa. This is the opposite of today's paradigm where the goal is to become a brand and become a TMZ insider, partying and hanging with the empty drivers of culture, who live to be seen as opposed to create, those who constantly need to tell you where they've been, what they've done. A true rock star doesn't have to do this. If you see a banker posting pictures on Instagram on his yacht, laugh hysterically, because they don't get it, they're not a rock star, they're just on the greased totem pole of finance, where there's always someone richer and money is the only thing that counts. The truly great don't have to tell anybody, IT'S SELF-EVIDENT!
Then came "Glass Houses."
Far from one of my favorites today, I don't know why I jumped in at that point. And I went to see Billy at the Forum. I was worried about being judged, Billy still had little rock credibility, but he gave it all on stage, as much as anybody, no wonder he needed artificial hips.
But then came "Songs In the Attic."
2
Just drop the needle. That's what I did, and boy did I get a surprise.
I'd read the hype, I knew the story, this was a re-recording of all of Billy's songs from the early era that most people didn't know, he wanted them re-exposed with more dynamics, more oomph.
I didn't know "Miami 2017 (I've Seen the Lights Go Out On Broadway)." It wasn't a hit, wasn't played on the radio, it was part of "Turnstiles," the second step in the wrong commercial direction, but in that case the song ended the album, on "Songs In the Attic" it opened it."
"You know those lights were bright on Broadway
That was so many years ago
Before we all lived here in Florida
Before the Mafia took over Mexico"
This was when Times Square was still dangerous, Ford had told the city to "Drop Dead." It was still the greatest city in the world, but it seemed to be in peril. But you can leave New York physically, but you can't emotionally. You're always a New Yorker. You still believe, even if you live in Florida.
"Miami 2017" EXPLODES out of the speakers. It's almost like a rocket liftoff at Cape Canaveral. And when Billy starts to tickle the ivories you're ALL IN!
But as great as "Miami 2017" is, it's the following cut that's my favorite, "Summer, Highland Falls," also originally on "Turnstiles."
"They say that these are not the best of times
But they're the only times I've ever known"
You may think you were born at the wrong time, but you've got to own your experience, which only you know, don't let others define you, do the best to create your own reality in the era you walk the earth.
"It's either sadness or euphoria"
Life is up and down. It's even worse for musicians. Many are prone to depression. They have the highs, and then...
As for the feel of the song... Have you ever been to upstate New York? Outside of New York City? Highland Falls is not that far, but it's a totally different mind-set. New York is a big state, it's got the most ski areas of any state on the east coast. There's a mentality, a feeling upstate, you're in the hinterlands but you're still on the east coast, unlike in the west, where you may be ten hours from the next city.
And some might say the killer is "Captain Jack," but the tour-de-force on the second side is "The Ballad of Billy the Kid."
"From a town known as Oyster Bay, Long Island
Rode a boy with a six-pack in his hand"
You were a suburban outlaw. Feeling like a big shot at the shopping center. Talk about dynamics... The track starts slowly, a horse clopping down the path, and then it's shot out of a cannon. You're listening alone, but you're caught up in the mania as if you were at a live concert.
But in the middle of the first side of "Songs In the Attic" were two songs I knew from radio play, but never loved. "Los Angelenos" and...
"Los Angelenos" has it right. Billy nails it. But the feel is wrong. L.A. at the time was most definitely a rock town, and the original was too soft. The live version had more energy. But it was the song before "Los Angelenos" on the album that resonated, "Streetlife Serenader."
3
"Streetlife serenader
Never sang on stages"
Frank Zappa knew about doo-wop. But that whole turn of the decade New York sound, the street corner singing, where Dion made his bones, was already in the rearview mirror by time the Beatles hit. Most boomers had no familiarity with it. Billy sang about it, kinda, but mostly we didn't get it. And the version on "Songs In the Attic" is definitive.
"Midnight masqueraders
Workin' hard for wages
Need no vast arrangements
To do their harmonizing"
Now before the CD era, in the eighties, the record labels started discounting catalog, which is when I filled out my Billy Joel collection. And in truth, "Turnstiles" is the one I play most, actually the Billy Joel album I play most today, usually when hiking in the mountains, it's otherworldly, as in it puts you in an alternative reality, in a bubble, you can see the rest of the world if you choose, but you no longer have to pay attention, it's a release from the real world.
And like I said, "Turnstiles" contains "Miami 2017" and "Summer, Highland Falls," and it also contains the originals of "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" and "I've Loved These Days," which were contained on "Songs In the Attic."
But "Turnstiles" also contains Billy Joel's piece-de-resistance.
"New York State of Mind."
"Some folks like to get away
Take a holiday from the neighborhood
Hop a flight to Miami Beach
Or to Hollywood
But I'm taking a Greyhound
On the Hudson River Line
I'm in a New York state of mind"
Billy wasn't looking for America, he'd already found it. And Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck were still in the city, he was with the rest of the silent strivers looking at the beautiful countryside.
If you grew up on the east coast, listening to "New York State of Mind" makes you want to go back there, immediately. In Los Angeles it's about your body, in New York it's about your mind. And that's very different.
But "New York State of Mind, one of Billy Joel's most famous songs today, was nowhere yesterday. One can argue strongly that it didn't ascend into the pantheon until after the Twin Towers fell and it became an anthem of belief. Sure, Frank Sinatra sings about New York, New York, but there just isn't the gravitas, the underlying feeling contained in "New York State of Mind," which is now a standard.
3
Now if you pull up the Legacy Edition of "Piano Man" on your streaming service of choice, you'll hear a phenomenal concert broadcast on Philadelphia's WMMR back in April 1972, fifty years ago, which broke Billy in the city. "Captain Jack" was a local hit, it sustained his career until he ultimately broke through nationally.
But that's not what I wanted to hear today.
I had to hear "Songs In the Attic." You see it's in Hi-Res Lossless on Apple Music. Not that every Billy Joel album is, "Piano Man" is not. The logic here? I cannot tell you.
So I decided to go through Billy's albums and see which ones were in Hi-Res. I went back in time, usually the old albums are not, but not only was "Turnstiles" in Hi-Res, so was Billy's second Columbia album, probably his least successful commercial endeavor, 1974's "Streetlife Serenade."
Unlike "Turnstiles," "Streetlife Serenade" is not laden with songs that ultimately became classics. The most famous song on the LP is "The Entertainer," which supposedly is a reaction to Columbia's handling of Billy's career, but to this radio listener it seemed to be cut in the same mold as "Piano Man." And it had this ersatz non-FM rock feel. I mean this was not the way to win your way into the hearts of fans who lived for music.
And they played "Entertainer" on the radio. But even more "Los Angelenos" in L.A. They played "Streetlife Serenade" rarely.
"Streetlife serenader
Never sang on stages"
Today's musical acts play to the last row. Their songs are not intimate. But this album-opening cut played to you only, it tugged on your heartstrings, it made you think. You were a bit nostalgic, and pondered your choices, your future.
"Child of Eisenhower"
Now that's someone who's been forgotten. People still reference JFK and those who came after, but the fifties, despite rampant racism, were perceived to be quiet, with an undercurrent of rebellion that most people could neither see nor feel.
"Midnight masquerader
Shopping center heroes"
There's that localism. Bringing it right back to the suburbs, where everybody wanted to live back then, to escape the grit of the city, the rebellion against these lands of split-levels and lawns came later.
And the definitive version of "Streetlife Serenader' is on "Songs In the Attic," but after listening to a bit of "Los Angelenos," I pulled up the original on Apple Music.
This is decades ago. You think about all the technological improvements since. You'd think the old records would sound quaint, as if the seventies were a backwater. They were not.
But the studio "Streetlife Serenade" lacked something from the live version. But then it slid into the second verse.
Don't let anybody say you can't hear the difference between Hi-Res and regular lossless, regular HD, CD quality. If you've got the equipment to play it back the differences are self-evident, it's the difference between being out of focus and crystal clear.
And the goal of yore used to be to get a stereo system that reproduced all the music. That got as close to the original as possible.
But in this headphone world, we're used to compromised sound, THAT'S THE STANDARD!
So when the second verse started to play, underneath the crystal clear piano and Billy's vocal was this overpowering bass and drums. It's like someone lifted the curtain and the band kicked into gear. And kick is the appropriate term, I could feel it in my gut.
I never heard it like this before.
But I'd never heard it in Hi-Res before. Where the bottom was not only present, but defined, not a mass of distortion. The music is there, I just needed a system to reproduce it. The subwoofer was proving its worth. THIS is what music sounds like, THIS is rock and roll, despite being at times quiet. Because rock and roll is about dynamics, soft to loud, emphasis, it's played with all your heart, as well as all your energy. You lay it all on the line. This is not the Philharmonic, on salary, going through the motions. These are people with no safety net, who either get it right or go back to their hometown, oftentimes to a dead end job. Billy and the band are playing like they need it. They're not showing off, they're just doing what they do, and that's enough.
It's not like we lament not having been able to shoot selfies at the show way back when. It was a personal experience. There were usually seats. The music was respected. It was just you and the sound. That was more than enough, it was EVERYTHING!
--
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1
"Songs In the Attic" is my favorite Billy Joel album.
I got on the Billy Joel train with "Glass Houses," his "new wave" album. By this time Billy was an established quantity, a man with tracks on AM and FM, but that was not the case previously, especially nationally.
You see "Piano Man" was a hit single, when you only listened to AM in the car and FM and albums ruled at home. Billy was never perceived as cool. You couldn't avoid the hit single, but unless you bought it you probably never heard the album.
And then came two more that were stiff out of the box. You see Billy had no built-in fanbase, to keep his music and career alive. Not at a prodigious level. It wasn't until "The Stranger" that Billy Joel became a ubiquitous superstar. Never underestimate the influence of Phil Ramone, he gave the album a sheen, he levitated Billy's sound to a whole new level, and it was embraced by many.
But not all, because "Just the Way You Are" was perceived to be too sappy, especially the change at the end. Oh, it was a gigantic hit, but it seemed to be an exercise as opposed to a reach. And those days were different, the cognoscenti, the FM crowd, only respected you if you tested limits, if you pushed the envelope, if you shot for the stars. Today if you have a hit single you're considered a god, a success, that's the goal, but it wasn't back then.
Then came "52nd Street." With "My Life."
"My Life" was bigger than any track of the last ten years, maybe twenty. "My Life" was everywhere. Maybe it was a bit too poppy, but the message resonated with boomers in the seventies, after the youthquake of the sixties had passed and they were forced to take the working world seriously. Their parents told them to do one thing, was that the path they should take? And in truth, most did what their parents wanted, they played it safe, they lived through musicians taking a risk.
But the opening track "Big Shot" had balls.
I could never get over the fact that Billy was pictured on the cover with a horn he didn't play, but "Big Shot" exploded out of the speakers, I had to drop the needle on it whenever I went to Tony's house, he owned it, I wasn't ready to take the risk.
"Because you had to be a big shot, didn't you
You had to open up your mouth
You had to be a big shot, didn't you
All your friends were so knocked out
You had to have the last word, last night
You know what everything's about
You had to have a white hot spotlight
You had to be a big shot last night"
Rock stars were anti-establishment, they didn't want in, they wanted to stay out, which was part of their great appeal. That's what being a rock star is all about, doing it your way, not caring what everybody else thinks or says.
You didn't want to hang with the glitterati, the rich and famous, YOU were rich and famous, they needed to come to you, not vice versa. This is the opposite of today's paradigm where the goal is to become a brand and become a TMZ insider, partying and hanging with the empty drivers of culture, who live to be seen as opposed to create, those who constantly need to tell you where they've been, what they've done. A true rock star doesn't have to do this. If you see a banker posting pictures on Instagram on his yacht, laugh hysterically, because they don't get it, they're not a rock star, they're just on the greased totem pole of finance, where there's always someone richer and money is the only thing that counts. The truly great don't have to tell anybody, IT'S SELF-EVIDENT!
Then came "Glass Houses."
Far from one of my favorites today, I don't know why I jumped in at that point. And I went to see Billy at the Forum. I was worried about being judged, Billy still had little rock credibility, but he gave it all on stage, as much as anybody, no wonder he needed artificial hips.
But then came "Songs In the Attic."
2
Just drop the needle. That's what I did, and boy did I get a surprise.
I'd read the hype, I knew the story, this was a re-recording of all of Billy's songs from the early era that most people didn't know, he wanted them re-exposed with more dynamics, more oomph.
I didn't know "Miami 2017 (I've Seen the Lights Go Out On Broadway)." It wasn't a hit, wasn't played on the radio, it was part of "Turnstiles," the second step in the wrong commercial direction, but in that case the song ended the album, on "Songs In the Attic" it opened it."
"You know those lights were bright on Broadway
That was so many years ago
Before we all lived here in Florida
Before the Mafia took over Mexico"
This was when Times Square was still dangerous, Ford had told the city to "Drop Dead." It was still the greatest city in the world, but it seemed to be in peril. But you can leave New York physically, but you can't emotionally. You're always a New Yorker. You still believe, even if you live in Florida.
"Miami 2017" EXPLODES out of the speakers. It's almost like a rocket liftoff at Cape Canaveral. And when Billy starts to tickle the ivories you're ALL IN!
But as great as "Miami 2017" is, it's the following cut that's my favorite, "Summer, Highland Falls," also originally on "Turnstiles."
"They say that these are not the best of times
But they're the only times I've ever known"
You may think you were born at the wrong time, but you've got to own your experience, which only you know, don't let others define you, do the best to create your own reality in the era you walk the earth.
"It's either sadness or euphoria"
Life is up and down. It's even worse for musicians. Many are prone to depression. They have the highs, and then...
As for the feel of the song... Have you ever been to upstate New York? Outside of New York City? Highland Falls is not that far, but it's a totally different mind-set. New York is a big state, it's got the most ski areas of any state on the east coast. There's a mentality, a feeling upstate, you're in the hinterlands but you're still on the east coast, unlike in the west, where you may be ten hours from the next city.
And some might say the killer is "Captain Jack," but the tour-de-force on the second side is "The Ballad of Billy the Kid."
"From a town known as Oyster Bay, Long Island
Rode a boy with a six-pack in his hand"
You were a suburban outlaw. Feeling like a big shot at the shopping center. Talk about dynamics... The track starts slowly, a horse clopping down the path, and then it's shot out of a cannon. You're listening alone, but you're caught up in the mania as if you were at a live concert.
But in the middle of the first side of "Songs In the Attic" were two songs I knew from radio play, but never loved. "Los Angelenos" and...
"Los Angelenos" has it right. Billy nails it. But the feel is wrong. L.A. at the time was most definitely a rock town, and the original was too soft. The live version had more energy. But it was the song before "Los Angelenos" on the album that resonated, "Streetlife Serenader."
3
"Streetlife serenader
Never sang on stages"
Frank Zappa knew about doo-wop. But that whole turn of the decade New York sound, the street corner singing, where Dion made his bones, was already in the rearview mirror by time the Beatles hit. Most boomers had no familiarity with it. Billy sang about it, kinda, but mostly we didn't get it. And the version on "Songs In the Attic" is definitive.
"Midnight masqueraders
Workin' hard for wages
Need no vast arrangements
To do their harmonizing"
Now before the CD era, in the eighties, the record labels started discounting catalog, which is when I filled out my Billy Joel collection. And in truth, "Turnstiles" is the one I play most, actually the Billy Joel album I play most today, usually when hiking in the mountains, it's otherworldly, as in it puts you in an alternative reality, in a bubble, you can see the rest of the world if you choose, but you no longer have to pay attention, it's a release from the real world.
And like I said, "Turnstiles" contains "Miami 2017" and "Summer, Highland Falls," and it also contains the originals of "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" and "I've Loved These Days," which were contained on "Songs In the Attic."
But "Turnstiles" also contains Billy Joel's piece-de-resistance.
"New York State of Mind."
"Some folks like to get away
Take a holiday from the neighborhood
Hop a flight to Miami Beach
Or to Hollywood
But I'm taking a Greyhound
On the Hudson River Line
I'm in a New York state of mind"
Billy wasn't looking for America, he'd already found it. And Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck were still in the city, he was with the rest of the silent strivers looking at the beautiful countryside.
If you grew up on the east coast, listening to "New York State of Mind" makes you want to go back there, immediately. In Los Angeles it's about your body, in New York it's about your mind. And that's very different.
But "New York State of Mind, one of Billy Joel's most famous songs today, was nowhere yesterday. One can argue strongly that it didn't ascend into the pantheon until after the Twin Towers fell and it became an anthem of belief. Sure, Frank Sinatra sings about New York, New York, but there just isn't the gravitas, the underlying feeling contained in "New York State of Mind," which is now a standard.
3
Now if you pull up the Legacy Edition of "Piano Man" on your streaming service of choice, you'll hear a phenomenal concert broadcast on Philadelphia's WMMR back in April 1972, fifty years ago, which broke Billy in the city. "Captain Jack" was a local hit, it sustained his career until he ultimately broke through nationally.
But that's not what I wanted to hear today.
I had to hear "Songs In the Attic." You see it's in Hi-Res Lossless on Apple Music. Not that every Billy Joel album is, "Piano Man" is not. The logic here? I cannot tell you.
So I decided to go through Billy's albums and see which ones were in Hi-Res. I went back in time, usually the old albums are not, but not only was "Turnstiles" in Hi-Res, so was Billy's second Columbia album, probably his least successful commercial endeavor, 1974's "Streetlife Serenade."
Unlike "Turnstiles," "Streetlife Serenade" is not laden with songs that ultimately became classics. The most famous song on the LP is "The Entertainer," which supposedly is a reaction to Columbia's handling of Billy's career, but to this radio listener it seemed to be cut in the same mold as "Piano Man." And it had this ersatz non-FM rock feel. I mean this was not the way to win your way into the hearts of fans who lived for music.
And they played "Entertainer" on the radio. But even more "Los Angelenos" in L.A. They played "Streetlife Serenade" rarely.
"Streetlife serenader
Never sang on stages"
Today's musical acts play to the last row. Their songs are not intimate. But this album-opening cut played to you only, it tugged on your heartstrings, it made you think. You were a bit nostalgic, and pondered your choices, your future.
"Child of Eisenhower"
Now that's someone who's been forgotten. People still reference JFK and those who came after, but the fifties, despite rampant racism, were perceived to be quiet, with an undercurrent of rebellion that most people could neither see nor feel.
"Midnight masquerader
Shopping center heroes"
There's that localism. Bringing it right back to the suburbs, where everybody wanted to live back then, to escape the grit of the city, the rebellion against these lands of split-levels and lawns came later.
And the definitive version of "Streetlife Serenader' is on "Songs In the Attic," but after listening to a bit of "Los Angelenos," I pulled up the original on Apple Music.
This is decades ago. You think about all the technological improvements since. You'd think the old records would sound quaint, as if the seventies were a backwater. They were not.
But the studio "Streetlife Serenade" lacked something from the live version. But then it slid into the second verse.
Don't let anybody say you can't hear the difference between Hi-Res and regular lossless, regular HD, CD quality. If you've got the equipment to play it back the differences are self-evident, it's the difference between being out of focus and crystal clear.
And the goal of yore used to be to get a stereo system that reproduced all the music. That got as close to the original as possible.
But in this headphone world, we're used to compromised sound, THAT'S THE STANDARD!
So when the second verse started to play, underneath the crystal clear piano and Billy's vocal was this overpowering bass and drums. It's like someone lifted the curtain and the band kicked into gear. And kick is the appropriate term, I could feel it in my gut.
I never heard it like this before.
But I'd never heard it in Hi-Res before. Where the bottom was not only present, but defined, not a mass of distortion. The music is there, I just needed a system to reproduce it. The subwoofer was proving its worth. THIS is what music sounds like, THIS is rock and roll, despite being at times quiet. Because rock and roll is about dynamics, soft to loud, emphasis, it's played with all your heart, as well as all your energy. You lay it all on the line. This is not the Philharmonic, on salary, going through the motions. These are people with no safety net, who either get it right or go back to their hometown, oftentimes to a dead end job. Billy and the band are playing like they need it. They're not showing off, they're just doing what they do, and that's enough.
It's not like we lament not having been able to shoot selfies at the show way back when. It was a personal experience. There were usually seats. The music was respected. It was just you and the sound. That was more than enough, it was EVERYTHING!
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David Gelles-This Week's Podcast
"New York Times" reporter David Gelles is the author of the best-selling book about Jack Welch entitled "The Man Who Broke Capitalism." In addition to going deep into the Chairman and CEO of General Electric, we discuss Boeing and the climate, Gelles's beats too.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/david-gelles-99385616/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-gelles/id1316200737?i=1000569882042
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6rUM1M220ipIZNNvqmqhbN?si=CL2_tnNrTjSdE_LfMxmpfg
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/89ad8316-7eb5-4eae-a8f7-ab980f66deda/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-david-gelles
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/david-gelles-204873625
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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/david-gelles-99385616/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-gelles/id1316200737?i=1000569882042
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6rUM1M220ipIZNNvqmqhbN?si=CL2_tnNrTjSdE_LfMxmpfg
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/89ad8316-7eb5-4eae-a8f7-ab980f66deda/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-david-gelles
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/david-gelles-204873625
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Biden
There's an enthusiasm crisis. As in there is none. No excitement, no defense, to a great degree an ostracization. How are you supposed to win hearts and minds this way? YOU CAN'T!
From before he took office, the right has defined Biden as old, doddering and senile. And the left wing defense? NONEXISTENT! To the point where Biden is now discounted, seen as a placeholder who has no effect.
Now everybody has weighed in on Trump's tweetmania. They thought it was about Trump, but in truth it's about the changing world we live in. The Democrats are still living in the twentieth century, whereas the Republicans are living in the twenty first, at least when it comes to communications, getting the word out. All the headlines are about Fox News, but that's a blip on the radar compared to the online assault, not only the "Daily Caller" and its ilk, but the acolytes posting ad infinitum, shoring up the base, feeding people with outrageous information, frequently false, but the base is rallied. Who is rallying the base on the left? NO ONE!
As a matter of fact, it's internecine warfare on the left. With AOC and her squad on the left, and the usual suspects demanding that they be silenced and the party hew to an antique paradigm that lost its power long ago.
Now let me see... The Republicans won by running ever further to the right. But on the left, this paradigm is dismissed. You see it's about exciting people. And no one is excited about Biden, NO ONE! You've got to light a fire under those who vote and will possibly vote. And you can only do that by owning the twenty first century, by playing by modern rules.
So time keeps on passing. It's amazing. People born in the year 2000 have now graduated from college. Yet the Democrats keep operating like it's still the nineties, maybe even the seventies. What applied in 2016 no longer applies. What applied in 2020 no longer applies. The thought was we run Biden to beat Trump and end the chaos. But then what? NOTHING!
Oh, there was some progress, especially in the first six months of his term, but then he focused on building consensus, which is impossible in Congress, and legislation was stalled. And he appeared neutered, powerless. So even those who gave him the benefit of the doubt soured on him.
Let's be clear, Biden can't run in 2024. No way. We don't need a placeholder, we need a person of action, who will move this country forward, who people can rally around, who will foment change.
In all honesty, I'd be behind Biden resigning. The Pope did, he was too old, lost control, wasn't up to the challenge, they brought in new blood. After the midterms, Biden could resign and Kamala Harris could take his place. Oh, don't give me the negative talk, speak of her ineffectuality up to this point, after all, what does a VP do other than wait for the President to die or become incapacitated? Don't tell me about her likability. Don't buy into all the right wing blowback. Harris doesn't have to be elected, SHE ALREADY HAS BEEN!
What do we know about Kamala Harris?
She's a fighter, she knows how to stand up to people, how to bite back, SHE KNOWS HOW TO MAKE NEWS! And that's what it's about here folks, making news, building enthusiasm. Trump may be off Twitter but that does not mean the game changed. From now on, you have to have your name in the news every damn day, YOU have to control the narrative, not your opponents, not the press. I'm not saying you have to spread falsehoods like Trump, I'm just saying you have to communicate constantly.
Like social media stars, which Trump was. Social media runs our country, but you'd never know it by the efforts, or lack thereof, of the Democrats.
Who bitches about social media? THE OLDSTERS! Does it have an inhibiting effect, does it decrease the numbers of participants? OF COURSE NOT! The youngsters rule online, they leave television and newspapers to the oldsters. The two of which have ever less effect.
It's the oldster musicians who bitch about having to post on social media, YouTube, keeping their name alive. Youngsters don't, they know this is the game, this is what you have to do. If you're not posting constantly, you're dead.
Like those writing books. I'm talking nonfiction here, not fiction. Let's see, you take years to write the book, the publisher delays publication to fit the release schedule and then needs time to drum up support and then the book is released and despite the ink, almost no one reads it! If your goal is to write a book, give up now. You've got to dive in online, and write each and every day. Those are the people who are moving the needle, not the academics and long in the tooth analysts and politicians functioning in a dead tree world. Hell, one of the other pet peeves of the book business is digitization. Let's see... The authors write on computers, they send the file to publishers on computers, they're edited on computers, BUT THE BOOK MUST COME OUT IN PHYSICAL FORM! Everybody reads online, by taking this rearguard position the book business is preventing itself from growing, reducing its influence and illustrating that it is out of touch with the younger generations who've been reading online since kindergarten. It'd be like musical acts sending CDs... Oh, that trope still exists. Someone can't feel good about themselves unless there's a physical copy which they can send to people even though today's computers don't even have disk drives.
You've got to live in the future, at least the now.
So the Democratic party is run by boomers, people like Biden who are older than boomers. How can younger generations relate? THEY CAN'T! What's end game? Rule as long as you can and then fold the party? That's what it looks like. I don't know any young people who are excited about the Democratic party. I know tons who are excited about the Republican party, but not the reverse. This has to be addressed.
And you've got to speak to the issues that young people are concerned with. Debt, the minimum wage, income inequality. To be born knowing it's nearly impossible to make it? Why even bother to vote? No one is helping you, no one is addressing your issues. I mean where else are you gonna go, you're never gonna go right. End result, YOU GO NOWHERE!
So when Harris takes over it's not about her automatically getting the nomination in 2024, anything but. Her reign is about shoring up the party, putting things in motion. But the primaries? Open to all. Shall the best person win. If it's Harris, so be it. But right now, it appears to be Newsom.
Don't tell me about Pritzker. Can you imagine the governor of Illinois winning? Not only was Pritzker born rich, a bad look on the left, but he rules in a state that the right has been vilifying for years. Yes, Chicago is in Illinois, and even though Pritzker is not the mayor, he's tarred with the crime rate in that city. The right will make hay.
I've met Newsom. He's slick and good-looking. Am I sure he's not an empty suit? No. He's no Jerry Brown. But Jerry Brown is in his eighties.
And Newsom has misstepped. But the truth doesn't matter. They say he broke the law by taking his family to Montana when this was untrue. He, unlike most of the wimps on the left, pushed back hard. Which is what you have to do about falsehoods. But it's only Newsom who is being aggressive, taking the right to task.
You should read this story:
"Newsom slams red state governors on D.C. trip, stoking speculation about his future": https://lat.ms/3uK2Le0
Some relevant excerpts:
"Gov. Gavin Newsom said he's frustrated with Republicans and Democrats.
He's tired of conservatives criticizing California and rolling back rights. And he's irked that his own national party isn't fighting harder in the culture war.
If they won't, he said, he will. He pushed back in a recent television ad in Florida. In an interview Monday. And in a speech in Washington, D.C., Wednesday as he accepted an education award on behalf of the state he governs — while stoking speculation about his possible presidential ambitions.
'This is someone very proud of the state, that's sick and tired of the state getting bashed 24/7 by the right wing," Newsom told The Times before heading east. "I can't take it.
'I'm not going to just sit back and watch these guys dominate that narrative.'"
And:
"'I'm not looking to fill a void, be the guy,' Newsom told The Times. 'But I'm also not going to regret not expressing myself at this moment. I'd rather take the hits from pundits. I'll accept all that. But what I can't accept is being absent in this national debate when democracy is quite literally in peril, when the rights revolution is being rolled back in real time.'"
He's not pussyfooting, not fearful of offending people, he's speaking the truth and reading this article today I got excited, and I haven't been excited by the left in a very long time. Hell, the star of the January 6th committee is Liz Cheney, a Republican, whose voting record is atrocious, she's a new national hero. I mean good for her for standing up for the truth, but no one on the left can carry the torch?
Yes, we need a turnover. The old guard must go. Biden first.
And we have to take risk. Speak to the people who are going to own the future, live with climate change, and not a theoretical center. God, if the center was so powerful you'd think there would be people hewing that line with a profile, but mostly we've got crickets. It's no longer politics as usual, speak to the OUTRAGE!
And don't own the woke badge, so some kids at college are out of control, as well as some nincompoops in San Francisco, but most of what young people want MOST people want. Not only the aforementioned climate issue, but a higher minimum wage, higher taxes on the rich and corporations, more OPPORTUNITY!
The problem is that those who have don't want to lose anything, don't want to sacrifice. Now a lot of America was disrupted by technology. This is happening in politics right now. The Democrats are the major labels, who sued their customers to try to ensure a past that was never coming back. Not only do you own the present, you delve into the future, you get AHEAD of your constituents. That's the essence of Spotify. Most people didn't want it, didn't understand it, but now streaming owns music, despite the loud voices talking about vinyl and the labels with their irrelevant charts based on physical. The public knows the truth, and the public is streaming.
Time to throw the long ball. We are definitely in the fourth quarter. There's not enough time to employ the ground game, we've got to air it out, play for victory.
Biden is not playing for victory. Neither are Pelosi and Schumer. I'll give Pelosi credit, she barks back at the right, she refuses to be labeled, but she's just too damn old. I don't care if she's got all her marbles, she's got more than one foot in the past, as opposed to Bernie Sanders, who has both feet in the future, which is why young people rally around him. And the point isn't that Sanders didn't get the nomination the past two times, but that he came so CLOSE!
And this is not about Sanders himself, but what he represents. Hillary Clinton said no one likes him, no one wants to work with him, which is exactly why so many people love him. He's not seen as inured to the game, he's not seen as a member of the old boy network. He's looking out for his constituents, THE PEOPLE! Not the corporations.
Now maybe there will be a complete disruption. Like Napster, like streaming television. Could be coming, because the game is broken.
Like that self-righteous idiot Andrew Sullivan saying if you don't like what is going on vote. Sure, in Texas, where gerrymandering has made your vote irrelevant?
"Gerrymander, U.S.A. - In Texas' new political map, the 13th Congressional District stretches about 450 miles from Denton, a fast-growing, multiracial city near Dallas, to sparsely populated rural towns along the western border of the state's panhandle.": https://nyti.ms/3IHwc6b
Or how about Wisconsin. Where the popular vote is Democratic, yet the state legislature is overwhelmingly Republican!
We could see spontaneous conflagration. Not only from the left, but the right too. The political landscape is just that heated.
But shy of that, before that happens, the Democrats have to plan and play for the future. They've already decided to abandon Biden, you don't see anybody voicing support, defending him, it's like he's got a contagious disease.
So far, the left has only been excited negatively. Turned somnambulant by the Democrats' failure to stand up to the right wing assault on their rights, their books, democracy itself. Do I expect the usual suspects to take action and make a difference? No. They've had two years and the Republicans still control the debate. Yes, conventional right wing wisdom is pandemic payments were too high. Do you see any Democrats standing up and saying the opposite? Saying sure, some people abused the system, but the average citizen was kept from financial ruin by government payments? Even when the left does something right it doesn't trumpet its success and build upon it.
So what we need is enthusiasm.
James Carville had it right, it's always about the economy, stupid. Focus there first. Stop telling us inflation is worldwide, that nothing can be done about gas prices and so much more. I mean it would be one thing if Democrats had taken that position and amplified it, instead they've abdicated and let the right run with public pain.
Speak truth. Proffer a path. Give people HOPE!
It's the only way to get out of this mess.
From before he took office, the right has defined Biden as old, doddering and senile. And the left wing defense? NONEXISTENT! To the point where Biden is now discounted, seen as a placeholder who has no effect.
Now everybody has weighed in on Trump's tweetmania. They thought it was about Trump, but in truth it's about the changing world we live in. The Democrats are still living in the twentieth century, whereas the Republicans are living in the twenty first, at least when it comes to communications, getting the word out. All the headlines are about Fox News, but that's a blip on the radar compared to the online assault, not only the "Daily Caller" and its ilk, but the acolytes posting ad infinitum, shoring up the base, feeding people with outrageous information, frequently false, but the base is rallied. Who is rallying the base on the left? NO ONE!
As a matter of fact, it's internecine warfare on the left. With AOC and her squad on the left, and the usual suspects demanding that they be silenced and the party hew to an antique paradigm that lost its power long ago.
Now let me see... The Republicans won by running ever further to the right. But on the left, this paradigm is dismissed. You see it's about exciting people. And no one is excited about Biden, NO ONE! You've got to light a fire under those who vote and will possibly vote. And you can only do that by owning the twenty first century, by playing by modern rules.
So time keeps on passing. It's amazing. People born in the year 2000 have now graduated from college. Yet the Democrats keep operating like it's still the nineties, maybe even the seventies. What applied in 2016 no longer applies. What applied in 2020 no longer applies. The thought was we run Biden to beat Trump and end the chaos. But then what? NOTHING!
Oh, there was some progress, especially in the first six months of his term, but then he focused on building consensus, which is impossible in Congress, and legislation was stalled. And he appeared neutered, powerless. So even those who gave him the benefit of the doubt soured on him.
Let's be clear, Biden can't run in 2024. No way. We don't need a placeholder, we need a person of action, who will move this country forward, who people can rally around, who will foment change.
In all honesty, I'd be behind Biden resigning. The Pope did, he was too old, lost control, wasn't up to the challenge, they brought in new blood. After the midterms, Biden could resign and Kamala Harris could take his place. Oh, don't give me the negative talk, speak of her ineffectuality up to this point, after all, what does a VP do other than wait for the President to die or become incapacitated? Don't tell me about her likability. Don't buy into all the right wing blowback. Harris doesn't have to be elected, SHE ALREADY HAS BEEN!
What do we know about Kamala Harris?
She's a fighter, she knows how to stand up to people, how to bite back, SHE KNOWS HOW TO MAKE NEWS! And that's what it's about here folks, making news, building enthusiasm. Trump may be off Twitter but that does not mean the game changed. From now on, you have to have your name in the news every damn day, YOU have to control the narrative, not your opponents, not the press. I'm not saying you have to spread falsehoods like Trump, I'm just saying you have to communicate constantly.
Like social media stars, which Trump was. Social media runs our country, but you'd never know it by the efforts, or lack thereof, of the Democrats.
Who bitches about social media? THE OLDSTERS! Does it have an inhibiting effect, does it decrease the numbers of participants? OF COURSE NOT! The youngsters rule online, they leave television and newspapers to the oldsters. The two of which have ever less effect.
It's the oldster musicians who bitch about having to post on social media, YouTube, keeping their name alive. Youngsters don't, they know this is the game, this is what you have to do. If you're not posting constantly, you're dead.
Like those writing books. I'm talking nonfiction here, not fiction. Let's see, you take years to write the book, the publisher delays publication to fit the release schedule and then needs time to drum up support and then the book is released and despite the ink, almost no one reads it! If your goal is to write a book, give up now. You've got to dive in online, and write each and every day. Those are the people who are moving the needle, not the academics and long in the tooth analysts and politicians functioning in a dead tree world. Hell, one of the other pet peeves of the book business is digitization. Let's see... The authors write on computers, they send the file to publishers on computers, they're edited on computers, BUT THE BOOK MUST COME OUT IN PHYSICAL FORM! Everybody reads online, by taking this rearguard position the book business is preventing itself from growing, reducing its influence and illustrating that it is out of touch with the younger generations who've been reading online since kindergarten. It'd be like musical acts sending CDs... Oh, that trope still exists. Someone can't feel good about themselves unless there's a physical copy which they can send to people even though today's computers don't even have disk drives.
You've got to live in the future, at least the now.
So the Democratic party is run by boomers, people like Biden who are older than boomers. How can younger generations relate? THEY CAN'T! What's end game? Rule as long as you can and then fold the party? That's what it looks like. I don't know any young people who are excited about the Democratic party. I know tons who are excited about the Republican party, but not the reverse. This has to be addressed.
And you've got to speak to the issues that young people are concerned with. Debt, the minimum wage, income inequality. To be born knowing it's nearly impossible to make it? Why even bother to vote? No one is helping you, no one is addressing your issues. I mean where else are you gonna go, you're never gonna go right. End result, YOU GO NOWHERE!
So when Harris takes over it's not about her automatically getting the nomination in 2024, anything but. Her reign is about shoring up the party, putting things in motion. But the primaries? Open to all. Shall the best person win. If it's Harris, so be it. But right now, it appears to be Newsom.
Don't tell me about Pritzker. Can you imagine the governor of Illinois winning? Not only was Pritzker born rich, a bad look on the left, but he rules in a state that the right has been vilifying for years. Yes, Chicago is in Illinois, and even though Pritzker is not the mayor, he's tarred with the crime rate in that city. The right will make hay.
I've met Newsom. He's slick and good-looking. Am I sure he's not an empty suit? No. He's no Jerry Brown. But Jerry Brown is in his eighties.
And Newsom has misstepped. But the truth doesn't matter. They say he broke the law by taking his family to Montana when this was untrue. He, unlike most of the wimps on the left, pushed back hard. Which is what you have to do about falsehoods. But it's only Newsom who is being aggressive, taking the right to task.
You should read this story:
"Newsom slams red state governors on D.C. trip, stoking speculation about his future": https://lat.ms/3uK2Le0
Some relevant excerpts:
"Gov. Gavin Newsom said he's frustrated with Republicans and Democrats.
He's tired of conservatives criticizing California and rolling back rights. And he's irked that his own national party isn't fighting harder in the culture war.
If they won't, he said, he will. He pushed back in a recent television ad in Florida. In an interview Monday. And in a speech in Washington, D.C., Wednesday as he accepted an education award on behalf of the state he governs — while stoking speculation about his possible presidential ambitions.
'This is someone very proud of the state, that's sick and tired of the state getting bashed 24/7 by the right wing," Newsom told The Times before heading east. "I can't take it.
'I'm not going to just sit back and watch these guys dominate that narrative.'"
And:
"'I'm not looking to fill a void, be the guy,' Newsom told The Times. 'But I'm also not going to regret not expressing myself at this moment. I'd rather take the hits from pundits. I'll accept all that. But what I can't accept is being absent in this national debate when democracy is quite literally in peril, when the rights revolution is being rolled back in real time.'"
He's not pussyfooting, not fearful of offending people, he's speaking the truth and reading this article today I got excited, and I haven't been excited by the left in a very long time. Hell, the star of the January 6th committee is Liz Cheney, a Republican, whose voting record is atrocious, she's a new national hero. I mean good for her for standing up for the truth, but no one on the left can carry the torch?
Yes, we need a turnover. The old guard must go. Biden first.
And we have to take risk. Speak to the people who are going to own the future, live with climate change, and not a theoretical center. God, if the center was so powerful you'd think there would be people hewing that line with a profile, but mostly we've got crickets. It's no longer politics as usual, speak to the OUTRAGE!
And don't own the woke badge, so some kids at college are out of control, as well as some nincompoops in San Francisco, but most of what young people want MOST people want. Not only the aforementioned climate issue, but a higher minimum wage, higher taxes on the rich and corporations, more OPPORTUNITY!
The problem is that those who have don't want to lose anything, don't want to sacrifice. Now a lot of America was disrupted by technology. This is happening in politics right now. The Democrats are the major labels, who sued their customers to try to ensure a past that was never coming back. Not only do you own the present, you delve into the future, you get AHEAD of your constituents. That's the essence of Spotify. Most people didn't want it, didn't understand it, but now streaming owns music, despite the loud voices talking about vinyl and the labels with their irrelevant charts based on physical. The public knows the truth, and the public is streaming.
Time to throw the long ball. We are definitely in the fourth quarter. There's not enough time to employ the ground game, we've got to air it out, play for victory.
Biden is not playing for victory. Neither are Pelosi and Schumer. I'll give Pelosi credit, she barks back at the right, she refuses to be labeled, but she's just too damn old. I don't care if she's got all her marbles, she's got more than one foot in the past, as opposed to Bernie Sanders, who has both feet in the future, which is why young people rally around him. And the point isn't that Sanders didn't get the nomination the past two times, but that he came so CLOSE!
And this is not about Sanders himself, but what he represents. Hillary Clinton said no one likes him, no one wants to work with him, which is exactly why so many people love him. He's not seen as inured to the game, he's not seen as a member of the old boy network. He's looking out for his constituents, THE PEOPLE! Not the corporations.
Now maybe there will be a complete disruption. Like Napster, like streaming television. Could be coming, because the game is broken.
Like that self-righteous idiot Andrew Sullivan saying if you don't like what is going on vote. Sure, in Texas, where gerrymandering has made your vote irrelevant?
"Gerrymander, U.S.A. - In Texas' new political map, the 13th Congressional District stretches about 450 miles from Denton, a fast-growing, multiracial city near Dallas, to sparsely populated rural towns along the western border of the state's panhandle.": https://nyti.ms/3IHwc6b
Or how about Wisconsin. Where the popular vote is Democratic, yet the state legislature is overwhelmingly Republican!
We could see spontaneous conflagration. Not only from the left, but the right too. The political landscape is just that heated.
But shy of that, before that happens, the Democrats have to plan and play for the future. They've already decided to abandon Biden, you don't see anybody voicing support, defending him, it's like he's got a contagious disease.
So far, the left has only been excited negatively. Turned somnambulant by the Democrats' failure to stand up to the right wing assault on their rights, their books, democracy itself. Do I expect the usual suspects to take action and make a difference? No. They've had two years and the Republicans still control the debate. Yes, conventional right wing wisdom is pandemic payments were too high. Do you see any Democrats standing up and saying the opposite? Saying sure, some people abused the system, but the average citizen was kept from financial ruin by government payments? Even when the left does something right it doesn't trumpet its success and build upon it.
So what we need is enthusiasm.
James Carville had it right, it's always about the economy, stupid. Focus there first. Stop telling us inflation is worldwide, that nothing can be done about gas prices and so much more. I mean it would be one thing if Democrats had taken that position and amplified it, instead they've abdicated and let the right run with public pain.
Speak truth. Proffer a path. Give people HOPE!
It's the only way to get out of this mess.
--
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--
Listen to the podcast:
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Tuesday, 12 July 2022
Opening Acts-This Week On SiriusXM
Tune in today, July 12th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive
Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive
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Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
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Listen to the podcast:
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive
Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive
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Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
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Monday, 11 July 2022
Genelecs/More DragonFly
1
All my old records are new again.
I'm not sure the younger generations have the same relationship, the same experience with music. First and foremost they're multitasking, doing other stuff while listening, but also they have so many other ways to interact with artists, whereas we only had the music. Sure, there were some magazines, we were hungry for info, when they reviewed a concert or record in the paper we were thrilled, but the music itself was primary, and we were always trying to get closer to it.
We started off with mono, there was double inventory, with stereo albums a dollar more, never mind that at that point many people were just buying singles. Then the manufacturers decided to raise the price of mono to that of stereo and mono disappeared nearly instantly. The funny thing was we'd heard that playing a stereo record with a mono needle would ruin it, but once mono disappeared they said just the opposite. Who do you trust?
So we started off with all-in-one record player boxes. And as the sixties progressed we cashiered those for something with detachable speakers, and then maybe even separates, and by the seventies there was an entire stereo industry. Think of it like today's mattress industry on steroids. That's right, you can't avoid advertising for online mattress companies, and you could not avoid advertising for stereo equipment back then. And just like with automobiles previously, we became experts, we were familiar with terms like Total Harmonic Distortion, referenced as THD, and we mixed and matched cartridges with turntables and amplifiers and speakers to get the best sound. And the irony is the stereos of yore produced a better response than almost all of the systems people are employing to listen to music today. Sure, you can get good headphones, but that's a different listening experience. There's nothing like turning up the music in a confined space, your bedroom, living room, even your car, and luxuriating in the sound.
It sounded like music. Too much of today's "music" does not. What people love about vinyl is the analog sound, which most experts will tell you can be achieved with Pro Tools today, but after forty years of digital the idea of the thin, crisp, high-end, inferior digital sound is baked-in. Even worse, those who make the music reinforce this notion. The music is compressed, it's made to play back in headphones. The bottom is emphasized. The key is to make the music POP, whereas back then the music itself was enough.
Which is all to say for the last day and a half I've had the experience of yore.
First and foremost I've got my Genelec system, superior to what most people had in the seventies. I've been inundated with e-mail from people asking exactly what it is.
Well, it's a three-way system.
All of the speakers are "Active," as in self-powered, as in they contain their own amplifiers.
So my two satellites are G Ones: https://www.genelec.com/g-one
The G One is readily available. They cost $350 each. Good luck getting a discount, you can't.
My subwoofer is the F One: https://www.genelec.com/f-one
The F One is easily purchased, it costs $825.
So if you buy the complete system, you'll end up spending $1525.
You can see the complete system here: https://www.genelec.com/home-listening/g-one-f-one-stereo-system
Genelec is a professional product, as in designed primarily for studios. But the products in my system are designed for home audio specifically.
Now to make it just a bit more confusing...
There are five models in the G series, the G One through the G Five.
Also, there's another subwoofer, the F Two.
Now prices jump considerably as you go up the line. The G Five is $1795. Apiece! The F Two subwoofer is $1,495.
However, the G Two is $525.
Bottom line... If you're looking for computer speakers, anything beyond the G One/F One system is overkill.
And they'll play quite loud. But if you're looking to have your three-way system be your primary stereo in a pretty large room, you might want to buy G Twos or...
To get the complete picture go here and scroll down: https://www.genelec.com/home-speakers
As it says atop the page, "our G and F Series speakers and subwoofers finally bring professional audio quality into the home. For music, movies and gaming, nothing matches Genelec's purity of sound, unique minimalistic design, total reliability and ease of use."
In other words, are you ready for a professional, studio quality experience in your home? That's what these Genelec deliver.
And I was blown away with them. Still am. But now with the DragonFly Cobalt the music has been brought to a whole new level, as I said yesterday, it's ASTOUNDING!
2
So I can't tear myself away from my computer. I skipped lunch, didn't ultimately eat until five, when I finally had to take a pee or explode. Do you remember the experience of yore? Being so into the music you can't tear yourself away, listening is the only thing you want to do? THAT'S IT!
And let's be clear, I'm listening to music BETTER THAN CD QUALITY!
Now on Amazon Music you can search on "Ultra HD." Then scroll down to Playlists and you'll find twenty two of them, broken down by genre.
I started off with Folk, because I felt the improvement in sound quality would be most noticeable there.
I played Joni Mitchell's "River"...and let me tell you I don't think you could get closer unless you were with Joni playing in her living room.
And after sampling a few other songs, by John Prine and Neil Young, I went to the Ultra HD Classic Rock playlist.
Tracks that I rarely pull up, like ZZ Top's "La Grange"... It was like Billy Gibbons was right in front of me, telling me the story of that shack out on the range. There was a bite in the guitar, I'm smiling writing and listening now, because you can only hear that edge live these days.
Stunningly, the burned-in-my-brain "Gimme All Your Lovin'" revealed nuances I'd missed even though I know it by heart. LISTEN TO THE GUITAR!
Then there was "Free Fallin'."
"And it's a long day livin' in Reseda
There's a freeway runnin' through the yard"
That's the second best part of the song, other than the chorus, because it's personalized, that's what I loved about those Frank Zappa albums, all the references to Southern California locales, like El Monte Legion Stadium. Not so special, but part of everyday life. And the drums...sounded like real drums.
Which is all to say you should hear "Paradise City," my favorite track from "Appetite For Destruction." That's the first thing you notice, that I noticed, the drums, like Steven Adler was banging on cardboard boxes with a lot of echo. And you could hear the separation in the vocals, they didn't all run together like they normally do. You probably don't even know there are multiple voices in the verses!
And another song I never have to play, because it's always on the radio... "Behind Blue Eyes," I was even closer. Those fingers on the acoustic, whew!
And "Sweet Emotion." That bass, there was a real person playing it, it wasn't just a sound!
And "Dreams," although my favorite track on that Fleetwood Mac album is "Over My Head." I looked up the album, it was released on July 11, 1975. The band opened for Loggins & Messina and Rod Stewart and the Faces on August 31st, the songs from that album were already well known, they played "Over My Head."
And then "Kashmir"...
Now if a song is on the Ultra HD playlist, that means the whole album is in Ultra HD. So...
I went back to those early Zeppelin albums.
After playing "Good Times Bad Times" I clicked on "Dazed and Confused," the song I sing to myself most from the first album. And it sounded so great I let the record continue to play, to the second side opener "Your Time Is Gonna Come" and then...
"Black Mountain Side," which seems a mere segue on the album, not a throwaway, but not essential. Oh, don't argue with me, you know what I mean. But today, TODAY! All the instruments were separated, I can see Jimmy Page playing as I listen right now, I SWEAR! My brain got so deep into the song that I truly got it for the first time ever, fifty three years later, I bought that album in '69.
And "Dancing Days." Many people think "Houses of the Holy" is the best album, I don't agree, but I love "Dancing Days." The magic here is in Robert's vocals, all the rough edges, all the nuances are suddenly there, the record stops being iconic and reverts to music, it's new again.
And after playing some of "III," I went to "II," an album I couldn't listen to for years, I'd played it that much, it was EVERYWHERE! And I'm not gonna play "Whole Lotta Love," I start with "Ramble On." John Paul Jones's bass is rounded and fat. As for Jimmy's guitar, it rehabilitates his rep instantly. Too many people crap on Jimmy today, for ripping off old bluesmen, but in truth everybody has roots, there are only so many notes in the scale. Here Jimmy's just a guitar player, he's not a writer, not a producer, he's just part of the sauce, and you can TASTE HIM!
"What Is and What Should Never Be"... Almost like listening to it the first time.
I mean the DragonFly sharpens the sound and I hear bass that I never do, making me wonder sometimes if the subwoofer is connected.
And I needed to hear "Going to California" and "The Battle of Evermore," and, of course, after the latter, comes...
"Stairway to Heaven."
Which I wasn't going to play. But now the instruments were all separated, it was like the music was being played in a meadow and only me and the band members were there. It sounded so good, I let it play through. And I learned all over again why it's the #1 FM classic rock track. There's a magic there, embedded in the sound, it's all flat and packed together on the radio, but here...it was almost like I'd never heard it before, I couldn't turn it off. It's so AMAZING, I wish you were here right now so you could hear it with me, you'd be smiling, looking at me with a magical look of disbelief.
And then the Doobie Brothers. I played all my favorites. And at the end I went back to "Toulouse Street" to hear the title track once again, and while I was there...
I decided to play "Listen to the Music." The experience was similar to that of listening to "Stairway to Heaven," a stone cold overplayed classic was stripped down to its essence, or should I say the tracks were cleaned and, once again, it was instantly clear it would be a smash. I mean this is the sound the Doobies heard in the studio, did they know what they had here?
3
Now in truth, I was hooked on Apple Music last night. And it was great, but so many of the albums I wanted to listen to were not in Hi-Res Lossless, just Lossless, and it makes a difference, believe me, I compared the two. (Don't ask me why so many albums, even the same album are in Ultra HD on Amazon, but not Hi-Res Lossless on Apple Music.)
And I'm thinking of what I love, that resonates, that I lived with and... I decided to play "Face Value."
You have to know at that point, Phil Collins was almost unknown, the drummer for Genesis who'd become the lead singer, this was before the MTV mania.
And my favorite song on "Face Value" is "You Know What I Mean."
But halfway through that, I realized I had to play the iconic "In the Air Tonight."
Now I bought this album when it came out, not long after I'd stopped living with my girlfriend, it was personal, it spoke to me, I could own it.
"In the Air Tonight" was known by no one, no one talked about its drums, no one sampled it. I'm listening again now, I can't take it off, I can't let it go, remember when the track had to finish before you could leave the house?
And after "You Know What I Mean" comes "Thunder and "Lightning." You have the loss and the rebirth, that's the highlight of the LP for me. And the funny thing is that neither has a Wikipedia page, even though so many of the other tracks do. Am I the only one who feels this way?
Yes, listening to "Face Value" I had to go to the Wikipedia page. Oh, I know so much, nearly everything. But I had to relive it, I had to look for new crumbs. Some of the album was cut at the Village Recorder, not far from my house, to think that all that music was being created there and I didn't know, if only I'd been there!
But listening to the albums now I feel like I am.
And yes, these are old albums, "classic rock." But that's why they call it "classic." And listening yesterday and today I realized that it won't be long before classic rock is like the blues, where people study it, are immersed in it. Turns out rock and roll really never will die.
But it was a point in time. A few decades in fact. These acts spent so much time in the studio trying to get it right, knowing we'd break the shrink wrap and drop the needle on our stereos and dive in, we'd have jumped into the speakers if we could, anything to get closer.
Today all of that is a lost art. The music made sounds good on AirPods, lousy systems, why take all that time, spend all that money to make it so honest and real?
Some of these records are fifty years old. They should sound dated, out of time, but if you can reproduce them in full fidelity they sound more modern than what's in the Spotify Top 50, they sound more HUMAN! I'm not anti-machine, but at some point in music the machines took over from the people. You could not only create sounds, you could fix them, to the point where all the edges were smoothed off, there was no humanity left.
I know you think I'm full of it, that the experience I'm having can't be this good. BUT IT IS! Like I said above, I can't tear myself away from my computer, there's so much more I want to hear.
And you should too.
All my old records are new again.
I'm not sure the younger generations have the same relationship, the same experience with music. First and foremost they're multitasking, doing other stuff while listening, but also they have so many other ways to interact with artists, whereas we only had the music. Sure, there were some magazines, we were hungry for info, when they reviewed a concert or record in the paper we were thrilled, but the music itself was primary, and we were always trying to get closer to it.
We started off with mono, there was double inventory, with stereo albums a dollar more, never mind that at that point many people were just buying singles. Then the manufacturers decided to raise the price of mono to that of stereo and mono disappeared nearly instantly. The funny thing was we'd heard that playing a stereo record with a mono needle would ruin it, but once mono disappeared they said just the opposite. Who do you trust?
So we started off with all-in-one record player boxes. And as the sixties progressed we cashiered those for something with detachable speakers, and then maybe even separates, and by the seventies there was an entire stereo industry. Think of it like today's mattress industry on steroids. That's right, you can't avoid advertising for online mattress companies, and you could not avoid advertising for stereo equipment back then. And just like with automobiles previously, we became experts, we were familiar with terms like Total Harmonic Distortion, referenced as THD, and we mixed and matched cartridges with turntables and amplifiers and speakers to get the best sound. And the irony is the stereos of yore produced a better response than almost all of the systems people are employing to listen to music today. Sure, you can get good headphones, but that's a different listening experience. There's nothing like turning up the music in a confined space, your bedroom, living room, even your car, and luxuriating in the sound.
It sounded like music. Too much of today's "music" does not. What people love about vinyl is the analog sound, which most experts will tell you can be achieved with Pro Tools today, but after forty years of digital the idea of the thin, crisp, high-end, inferior digital sound is baked-in. Even worse, those who make the music reinforce this notion. The music is compressed, it's made to play back in headphones. The bottom is emphasized. The key is to make the music POP, whereas back then the music itself was enough.
Which is all to say for the last day and a half I've had the experience of yore.
First and foremost I've got my Genelec system, superior to what most people had in the seventies. I've been inundated with e-mail from people asking exactly what it is.
Well, it's a three-way system.
All of the speakers are "Active," as in self-powered, as in they contain their own amplifiers.
So my two satellites are G Ones: https://www.genelec.com/g-one
The G One is readily available. They cost $350 each. Good luck getting a discount, you can't.
My subwoofer is the F One: https://www.genelec.com/f-one
The F One is easily purchased, it costs $825.
So if you buy the complete system, you'll end up spending $1525.
You can see the complete system here: https://www.genelec.com/home-listening/g-one-f-one-stereo-system
Genelec is a professional product, as in designed primarily for studios. But the products in my system are designed for home audio specifically.
Now to make it just a bit more confusing...
There are five models in the G series, the G One through the G Five.
Also, there's another subwoofer, the F Two.
Now prices jump considerably as you go up the line. The G Five is $1795. Apiece! The F Two subwoofer is $1,495.
However, the G Two is $525.
Bottom line... If you're looking for computer speakers, anything beyond the G One/F One system is overkill.
And they'll play quite loud. But if you're looking to have your three-way system be your primary stereo in a pretty large room, you might want to buy G Twos or...
To get the complete picture go here and scroll down: https://www.genelec.com/home-speakers
As it says atop the page, "our G and F Series speakers and subwoofers finally bring professional audio quality into the home. For music, movies and gaming, nothing matches Genelec's purity of sound, unique minimalistic design, total reliability and ease of use."
In other words, are you ready for a professional, studio quality experience in your home? That's what these Genelec deliver.
And I was blown away with them. Still am. But now with the DragonFly Cobalt the music has been brought to a whole new level, as I said yesterday, it's ASTOUNDING!
2
So I can't tear myself away from my computer. I skipped lunch, didn't ultimately eat until five, when I finally had to take a pee or explode. Do you remember the experience of yore? Being so into the music you can't tear yourself away, listening is the only thing you want to do? THAT'S IT!
And let's be clear, I'm listening to music BETTER THAN CD QUALITY!
Now on Amazon Music you can search on "Ultra HD." Then scroll down to Playlists and you'll find twenty two of them, broken down by genre.
I started off with Folk, because I felt the improvement in sound quality would be most noticeable there.
I played Joni Mitchell's "River"...and let me tell you I don't think you could get closer unless you were with Joni playing in her living room.
And after sampling a few other songs, by John Prine and Neil Young, I went to the Ultra HD Classic Rock playlist.
Tracks that I rarely pull up, like ZZ Top's "La Grange"... It was like Billy Gibbons was right in front of me, telling me the story of that shack out on the range. There was a bite in the guitar, I'm smiling writing and listening now, because you can only hear that edge live these days.
Stunningly, the burned-in-my-brain "Gimme All Your Lovin'" revealed nuances I'd missed even though I know it by heart. LISTEN TO THE GUITAR!
Then there was "Free Fallin'."
"And it's a long day livin' in Reseda
There's a freeway runnin' through the yard"
That's the second best part of the song, other than the chorus, because it's personalized, that's what I loved about those Frank Zappa albums, all the references to Southern California locales, like El Monte Legion Stadium. Not so special, but part of everyday life. And the drums...sounded like real drums.
Which is all to say you should hear "Paradise City," my favorite track from "Appetite For Destruction." That's the first thing you notice, that I noticed, the drums, like Steven Adler was banging on cardboard boxes with a lot of echo. And you could hear the separation in the vocals, they didn't all run together like they normally do. You probably don't even know there are multiple voices in the verses!
And another song I never have to play, because it's always on the radio... "Behind Blue Eyes," I was even closer. Those fingers on the acoustic, whew!
And "Sweet Emotion." That bass, there was a real person playing it, it wasn't just a sound!
And "Dreams," although my favorite track on that Fleetwood Mac album is "Over My Head." I looked up the album, it was released on July 11, 1975. The band opened for Loggins & Messina and Rod Stewart and the Faces on August 31st, the songs from that album were already well known, they played "Over My Head."
And then "Kashmir"...
Now if a song is on the Ultra HD playlist, that means the whole album is in Ultra HD. So...
I went back to those early Zeppelin albums.
After playing "Good Times Bad Times" I clicked on "Dazed and Confused," the song I sing to myself most from the first album. And it sounded so great I let the record continue to play, to the second side opener "Your Time Is Gonna Come" and then...
"Black Mountain Side," which seems a mere segue on the album, not a throwaway, but not essential. Oh, don't argue with me, you know what I mean. But today, TODAY! All the instruments were separated, I can see Jimmy Page playing as I listen right now, I SWEAR! My brain got so deep into the song that I truly got it for the first time ever, fifty three years later, I bought that album in '69.
And "Dancing Days." Many people think "Houses of the Holy" is the best album, I don't agree, but I love "Dancing Days." The magic here is in Robert's vocals, all the rough edges, all the nuances are suddenly there, the record stops being iconic and reverts to music, it's new again.
And after playing some of "III," I went to "II," an album I couldn't listen to for years, I'd played it that much, it was EVERYWHERE! And I'm not gonna play "Whole Lotta Love," I start with "Ramble On." John Paul Jones's bass is rounded and fat. As for Jimmy's guitar, it rehabilitates his rep instantly. Too many people crap on Jimmy today, for ripping off old bluesmen, but in truth everybody has roots, there are only so many notes in the scale. Here Jimmy's just a guitar player, he's not a writer, not a producer, he's just part of the sauce, and you can TASTE HIM!
"What Is and What Should Never Be"... Almost like listening to it the first time.
I mean the DragonFly sharpens the sound and I hear bass that I never do, making me wonder sometimes if the subwoofer is connected.
And I needed to hear "Going to California" and "The Battle of Evermore," and, of course, after the latter, comes...
"Stairway to Heaven."
Which I wasn't going to play. But now the instruments were all separated, it was like the music was being played in a meadow and only me and the band members were there. It sounded so good, I let it play through. And I learned all over again why it's the #1 FM classic rock track. There's a magic there, embedded in the sound, it's all flat and packed together on the radio, but here...it was almost like I'd never heard it before, I couldn't turn it off. It's so AMAZING, I wish you were here right now so you could hear it with me, you'd be smiling, looking at me with a magical look of disbelief.
And then the Doobie Brothers. I played all my favorites. And at the end I went back to "Toulouse Street" to hear the title track once again, and while I was there...
I decided to play "Listen to the Music." The experience was similar to that of listening to "Stairway to Heaven," a stone cold overplayed classic was stripped down to its essence, or should I say the tracks were cleaned and, once again, it was instantly clear it would be a smash. I mean this is the sound the Doobies heard in the studio, did they know what they had here?
3
Now in truth, I was hooked on Apple Music last night. And it was great, but so many of the albums I wanted to listen to were not in Hi-Res Lossless, just Lossless, and it makes a difference, believe me, I compared the two. (Don't ask me why so many albums, even the same album are in Ultra HD on Amazon, but not Hi-Res Lossless on Apple Music.)
And I'm thinking of what I love, that resonates, that I lived with and... I decided to play "Face Value."
You have to know at that point, Phil Collins was almost unknown, the drummer for Genesis who'd become the lead singer, this was before the MTV mania.
And my favorite song on "Face Value" is "You Know What I Mean."
But halfway through that, I realized I had to play the iconic "In the Air Tonight."
Now I bought this album when it came out, not long after I'd stopped living with my girlfriend, it was personal, it spoke to me, I could own it.
"In the Air Tonight" was known by no one, no one talked about its drums, no one sampled it. I'm listening again now, I can't take it off, I can't let it go, remember when the track had to finish before you could leave the house?
And after "You Know What I Mean" comes "Thunder and "Lightning." You have the loss and the rebirth, that's the highlight of the LP for me. And the funny thing is that neither has a Wikipedia page, even though so many of the other tracks do. Am I the only one who feels this way?
Yes, listening to "Face Value" I had to go to the Wikipedia page. Oh, I know so much, nearly everything. But I had to relive it, I had to look for new crumbs. Some of the album was cut at the Village Recorder, not far from my house, to think that all that music was being created there and I didn't know, if only I'd been there!
But listening to the albums now I feel like I am.
And yes, these are old albums, "classic rock." But that's why they call it "classic." And listening yesterday and today I realized that it won't be long before classic rock is like the blues, where people study it, are immersed in it. Turns out rock and roll really never will die.
But it was a point in time. A few decades in fact. These acts spent so much time in the studio trying to get it right, knowing we'd break the shrink wrap and drop the needle on our stereos and dive in, we'd have jumped into the speakers if we could, anything to get closer.
Today all of that is a lost art. The music made sounds good on AirPods, lousy systems, why take all that time, spend all that money to make it so honest and real?
Some of these records are fifty years old. They should sound dated, out of time, but if you can reproduce them in full fidelity they sound more modern than what's in the Spotify Top 50, they sound more HUMAN! I'm not anti-machine, but at some point in music the machines took over from the people. You could not only create sounds, you could fix them, to the point where all the edges were smoothed off, there was no humanity left.
I know you think I'm full of it, that the experience I'm having can't be this good. BUT IT IS! Like I said above, I can't tear myself away from my computer, there's so much more I want to hear.
And you should too.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
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Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Sunday, 10 July 2022
DragonFly Cobalt
https://bit.ly/3PkyJWf
This thing is ASTOUNDING!
I mean it's tinier than a pack of gum, MUCH smaller, yet it packs an AMAZING PUNCH!
You see I wanted a DAC so I could listen to hi-res music on my Mac. I've got an external DAC/Amplifier, the ALO International, that's about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but it needs power, as in having to plug it in, and when I unplug it from my Mac it goes crazy, as in the screen starts flashing in and out and...
I'd been reading about these DragonFlys for years, but how could something so tiny make that big a difference?
Now I'm not the average guy, I'm not even sure I'm a jealous guy, but John Lennon would have loved the DragonFly Cobalt, anybody with a passion for music would!
So what I'm starting with here is an iMac 5k. And in order to get a DAC that plays a sample rate up to 96kHz you have to have a Mac notebook introduced in 2021 or later, or one of those new Mac Studios that are supposedly on back order. (Meanwhile I was lamenting the inclusion of legacy USB-A ports, Steve Jobs would have excised them, but the DragonFly comes with such, although a cable for the modern standard, USB-C is included.) And needless to say my iMac 5k doesn't qualify, even the new iMac doesn't qualify!
So what is a DAC?
It's a digital to analog converter. Yes, today music is digital. Unless you're playing vinyl, or maybe cassettes or some other antique format. And in order to hear it, it has to be converted to analog. And your device has a DAC built-in, at least my devices have one, but...
This is what I say about cars. If you're willing to spend six figures you can get state of the art. Is a hundred thousand dollar car worth twice what a fifty thousand dollar car costs? Absolutely not. But in order to meet a price point, they have to cut corners on the fifty thousand dollar car. And they're cutting corners on just about all the computer equipment you have, your smartphone too. They'll turn digital into analog, but at a low resolution, and if you try to play "High Resolution Lossless (ALAC up to 24-bit/192 kHz)" in Apple Music you'll get the following message:
"To play content in Hi-Res Lossless at full resolution, you will need an external digital-to-analog converter."
Ergo, the DragonFly.
Not that the AudioQuest DragonFly is the only DAC available. (Also, here I must also say there's an amplifier included, which can't be a typical one, the device is so small, but I'll save investigation for later.) Hell, if you want to drop some bread it's easy to spend thousands. It reminds me of the stereo mania of the seventies, we didn't only hang out at record stores. Remember when you searched for the ultimate sound? I do.
Now there are three DragonFlys. They range from the $119.95 Black to the $229.95 Red to the $329.95 Cobalt. I'm listening through the Cobalt.
Now I want to check it out with my iPhone, but it turns out I need a USB 3 Camera Adapter, which I do not have. But I have an iPad Pro with a USB-C port and I'll try that out with headphones later, but right now I'm MESMERIZED listening to the sound coming out of my Genelecs.
Oh, that's another thing, most people use awful computer speakers. Maybe they even use the built-in speakers. And if they have externals, they have stuff that's cheap and sounds like it. I'll use my car analogy above. Sure, it sounds like the song, but to hear it the way it was meant to be listened to, you've got to pony up. Think about the speakers in your car as opposed to what you can purchase in the aftermarket, even though car speakers are better than they used to be, when you went to the BMW dealer and could get a replacement for fifteen bucks.
Now with the subwoofer this three-way Genelec package retails for about $1,500, so I don't expect your system to be in that range, but having said that... If you buy this Genelec system you won't need any other stereo, and for $1,500 that's cheap.
So I was wondering if I'd hear the difference. I figured it would have to be subtle, I'd have to A-B endlessly. But I plugged in the DragonFly Cobalt and...
I went to Amazon Music for hi-res. I decided to listen to Boston's "Foreplay/Long Time," since I know it so well, and if you pooh-pooh it you're a punk. And from the very first note...IT SOUNDED LIKE MUSIC!
You could almost see the fingers roaming the keyboard.
And honestly, "Foreplay" is not my favorite part of the song, but when it segues into "Long Time," that's PRICELESS! The track slows down, as if someone jammed on the brakes, the instruments rise to a fever pitch and then it gets quiet, it's like a summer evening, and then, AND THEN...the bass drum pounds and the guitar starts to WAIL! Darting around the sky, doing loops, you can't take your eyes off it, or in this case ears.
So I was blown away. I'd been planning to spend an hour or two trying to hear the difference, but it was IMMEDIATE! It's like the music was suddenly in focus and with more punch. It's like there was nothing left out. This was the sound we yearned to attain back in that seventies heyday with our big rigs.
So then I removed the DragonFly from the chain. The punch was gone, the sound was tinny.
This thing really shouldn't make that much difference, BUT IT DOES!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
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This thing is ASTOUNDING!
I mean it's tinier than a pack of gum, MUCH smaller, yet it packs an AMAZING PUNCH!
You see I wanted a DAC so I could listen to hi-res music on my Mac. I've got an external DAC/Amplifier, the ALO International, that's about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but it needs power, as in having to plug it in, and when I unplug it from my Mac it goes crazy, as in the screen starts flashing in and out and...
I'd been reading about these DragonFlys for years, but how could something so tiny make that big a difference?
Now I'm not the average guy, I'm not even sure I'm a jealous guy, but John Lennon would have loved the DragonFly Cobalt, anybody with a passion for music would!
So what I'm starting with here is an iMac 5k. And in order to get a DAC that plays a sample rate up to 96kHz you have to have a Mac notebook introduced in 2021 or later, or one of those new Mac Studios that are supposedly on back order. (Meanwhile I was lamenting the inclusion of legacy USB-A ports, Steve Jobs would have excised them, but the DragonFly comes with such, although a cable for the modern standard, USB-C is included.) And needless to say my iMac 5k doesn't qualify, even the new iMac doesn't qualify!
So what is a DAC?
It's a digital to analog converter. Yes, today music is digital. Unless you're playing vinyl, or maybe cassettes or some other antique format. And in order to hear it, it has to be converted to analog. And your device has a DAC built-in, at least my devices have one, but...
This is what I say about cars. If you're willing to spend six figures you can get state of the art. Is a hundred thousand dollar car worth twice what a fifty thousand dollar car costs? Absolutely not. But in order to meet a price point, they have to cut corners on the fifty thousand dollar car. And they're cutting corners on just about all the computer equipment you have, your smartphone too. They'll turn digital into analog, but at a low resolution, and if you try to play "High Resolution Lossless (ALAC up to 24-bit/192 kHz)" in Apple Music you'll get the following message:
"To play content in Hi-Res Lossless at full resolution, you will need an external digital-to-analog converter."
Ergo, the DragonFly.
Not that the AudioQuest DragonFly is the only DAC available. (Also, here I must also say there's an amplifier included, which can't be a typical one, the device is so small, but I'll save investigation for later.) Hell, if you want to drop some bread it's easy to spend thousands. It reminds me of the stereo mania of the seventies, we didn't only hang out at record stores. Remember when you searched for the ultimate sound? I do.
Now there are three DragonFlys. They range from the $119.95 Black to the $229.95 Red to the $329.95 Cobalt. I'm listening through the Cobalt.
Now I want to check it out with my iPhone, but it turns out I need a USB 3 Camera Adapter, which I do not have. But I have an iPad Pro with a USB-C port and I'll try that out with headphones later, but right now I'm MESMERIZED listening to the sound coming out of my Genelecs.
Oh, that's another thing, most people use awful computer speakers. Maybe they even use the built-in speakers. And if they have externals, they have stuff that's cheap and sounds like it. I'll use my car analogy above. Sure, it sounds like the song, but to hear it the way it was meant to be listened to, you've got to pony up. Think about the speakers in your car as opposed to what you can purchase in the aftermarket, even though car speakers are better than they used to be, when you went to the BMW dealer and could get a replacement for fifteen bucks.
Now with the subwoofer this three-way Genelec package retails for about $1,500, so I don't expect your system to be in that range, but having said that... If you buy this Genelec system you won't need any other stereo, and for $1,500 that's cheap.
So I was wondering if I'd hear the difference. I figured it would have to be subtle, I'd have to A-B endlessly. But I plugged in the DragonFly Cobalt and...
I went to Amazon Music for hi-res. I decided to listen to Boston's "Foreplay/Long Time," since I know it so well, and if you pooh-pooh it you're a punk. And from the very first note...IT SOUNDED LIKE MUSIC!
You could almost see the fingers roaming the keyboard.
And honestly, "Foreplay" is not my favorite part of the song, but when it segues into "Long Time," that's PRICELESS! The track slows down, as if someone jammed on the brakes, the instruments rise to a fever pitch and then it gets quiet, it's like a summer evening, and then, AND THEN...the bass drum pounds and the guitar starts to WAIL! Darting around the sky, doing loops, you can't take your eyes off it, or in this case ears.
So I was blown away. I'd been planning to spend an hour or two trying to hear the difference, but it was IMMEDIATE! It's like the music was suddenly in focus and with more punch. It's like there was nothing left out. This was the sound we yearned to attain back in that seventies heyday with our big rigs.
So then I removed the DragonFly from the chain. The punch was gone, the sound was tinny.
This thing really shouldn't make that much difference, BUT IT DOES!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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Change
Change starts from the bottom up. If you're waiting for your elected officials to go against the grain, to foment change, you're going to wait forever for something which never comes to pass.
The most important article you will read today is this:
"One Small Step for Democracy in a 'Live Free or Die' Town - A Cautionary tale from Croydon, N.H., where one man tried to foist a change so drastic it jolted a community out of political indifference": https://nyti.ms/3nSRCUq
I've never heard of of the Free State Project, have you?
Probably because I live in the mainstream news bubble. Like most people. I'm not a crackpot trying to undermine America. Therefore I'm out of the loop.
Check it out:
https://www.fsp.org/mission/
Bottom line? These wingnuts have moved to New Hampshire to remake the government in their "libertarian" viewpoint. And this resulted in the firing of the one and only policeman in Croydon and the lowering of the school budget from $1.7 million to $800,000. Yes, the Free State Project infiltrated this one town of 800 and remade it to its liking. And what about the populace? It was PISSED!
This is happening all over America. The worst is people who take over the school board yet home school their kids. They want to change the curriculum which their kids are not exposed to.
This is a stealth operation. Kind of like the Federalist Society, albeit with even a lower profile. These are long term plans, which end up with results like the Dobbs decision, throwing abortion back to the states, effectively eliminating it in so many of them.
We are asleep at the wheel. We figure someone else is doing the hard work, but this is not the case.
So what did they do in Croydon? Under a state law they held a special meeting where a quorum of half the town's population was required, and took a vote on the school budget. End result? 377 voted against the cut, 2 were in favor of it.
Yes, we can undermine the tyranny of the minority, if we just wake up and participate.
But when you scratch the surface of Ian Underwood, the man responsible for the cuts, you find it gets even worse. He doesn't want to pay for someone else's kids' education. I don't have any children, but I've been paying for public schools my whole working life. And I'm fine with that, I don't want to live in a land with uneducated nincompoops, it's bad enough they're banning books and declaring what you can and cannot teach in classrooms as it is.
Also, no arts, no extracurricular activities, they're unnecessary. I won't bother to quote statistics, but I will say one of the reasons popular music is so rotten in America is because of the lack of school arts programs. Isn't it interesting that Canada and the U.K. and Sweden all punch way above their weight when it comes to popular music. It's a result of EDUCATION! And a bit of government funding.
So next we have the Kavanaugh dinner at Morton's. You know, where they were protesting outside.
First and foremost, corporate made a big mistake, it bit back, end result being the restaurant was inundated with false reservations. You see if you align with the minority, you're at risk of the wrath of the majority.
Targeted protests like this have a result, as opposed to the mass gatherings that resemble music festivals. You've got to go where the people live, you've got to make it personal. Actions have consequences.
Needless to say the right wing was up in arms. And what was the left wing response? TO DOUBLE DOWN!
That's the problem with Democrats, they cower in fear. Meanwhile, tons of lefties came out and laughed, tweeted away, names you would recognize. As for Fox News? Of course they thought it was heinous, but the goal here isn't to convince the minority watching that execrable channel, but to awaken those who are asleep, and motivate them!
This is paying back the right and treating it with some of its own medicine.
And some of the analyses are priceless.
"There Is No Constitutional Right to Eat Dinner - Claims that Justice Brett Kavanaugh had his rights violated by protesters outside a D.C. restaurant fail on originalist grounds.": https://bit.ly/3atm30k
The Dobbs decision was illogical, originalist thinking is irrational. This article illustrates it. Too bad so many people have had such poor educations, too often blind in parochial schools, to understand this.
Never underestimate the power of the individual:
"Post-Roe, Her Facebook Group Went Viral - Veronica Risinger made a little online spot for neighbors to share information on abortion. Then 30,000 people joined.": https://nyti.ms/3OYLrdq
This is the future of change, not showing up with a sign at some government building hoping for a smidgen of coverage in the local news that almost no one sees. This is how the Republicans do it, why can't the Democrats?
As for Congress solving our problems:
"Putting the Public Back in Public Service - A group of academics and lawmakers, citing a new study that found voters feel shut out of congressional deliberations, is pushing to engage citizens more directly in the work of Congress.": https://nyti.ms/3yv6oFJ
Here are a couple of relevant passages:
"'There is strong evidence that they actually don't even know the views of their constituents,' said Steven Kull, a psychologist who heads the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. 'They might know the squeaky wheel who shows up at a town hall meeting, but they don't really know.'"
And:
"In a new study based on a survey of more than 4,300 registered voters last year, Mr. Kull's group found that the public's low opinion of Congress stems at least in part from the impression that lawmakers 'have little interest in the views of their constituents, have a poor understanding of the public's views and do what the majority of Americans would do less than half the time."
So if you're depending on your elected officials in D.C. to be aligned with your viewpoints, you're dreaming.
So the situation was articulated perfectly today by Ezra Klein:
"The danger Democrats face in November is hopelessness and apathy among their base. Why turn out to vote if nothing will pass anyway, and if the Supreme Court will gut whatever slips through the Republican blockade?"
This describes my hopelessness exactly. I'll still vote, but the only way I can survive emotionally is by disconnecting from the fracas in D.C.
You see the majority wants abortion rights. The majority wants stricter gun control. But elected officials beholden to vocal minorities are thwarting this. While we remain silent.
But reading the stories above I am given hope.
You see unlike the gun rights/mass shootings stories, abortion is personal, it affects essentially everybody. And when I read about the Kavanaugh/Morton's situation, and the left wing pushback to the right wing blowback, I am given hope. This issue just won't die, it has legs, when seemingly nothing else does in America today.
What price will Elon Musk pay for pulling out of the Twitter deal? I'm not talking about financially, for which he should pay handsomely, I'm talking about image-wise. You'd think marching through business and the legal system as if the rules don't apply to you would cause a long-lasting hit to his image. But that probably won't be the case. Especially in a country where Donald Trump repeatedly broke the law and it looks like not only will he emerge unscathed, he's got a good chance of being president once again.
I wish this wasn't so, I wish there was a moral code. But not enough people have one. The same Free Staters who feel they shouldn't have to pay for someone else's education.
But it's worse than this. All the anti-tax agitators, they lament the government spending THEIR money. Okay, stop paying, and the roads will have potholes and the bridges will collapse and it will be chaos 24/7 and if you die in the process, don't go looking to the government to make you whole.
Even worse are the rich, who want to control how the money is spent. Now let me see, you made your money in a single vertical... Do we really want you running the country? History is littered with the rich and celebrities who gained office on their names and then failed in their duties. You see it's more complicated than that. You wouldn't want a home-schooled doctor to operate on you and you don't want an amateur running the government. But that does not mean you don't want a hand in selecting who is in power.
I can't believe the Dobbs decision. It does not compute. Abortion is gone? Oh, don't tell me you can get it here and there, the fact that you can't get it elsewhere is unfathomable. Why does the minority rule over the majority? You want to take away my rights but whenever we tell you to do something for the good of society, like getting a damn vaccine, you cry FREEDOM, and the sanctity of the human body. Shouldn't that work both ways?
It doesn't, just like with the inane Supreme Court Dobbs decision. Where stories from the past were cherry-picked to create a decision that was a foregone conclusion in the minds of the justices. They didn't weigh the law and the facts, they just figured out how to create a legal narrative that fit their conclusion.
I am not preaching to the other side. They already know all this. The Democrats were ahead online, but they've been superseded by the Republicans, it happened years ago. Good luck getting change re misinformation. The goal is not to complain, but compete! Go online yourself, make some noise, create a group.
Just one more thing...
Yesterday in the "Wall Street Journal" behavioral economist Dan Ariely fielded a question from a conservative who was weary of airing his views at parties after soccer games. He felt being neutral was to his benefit.
Ariely's response was priceless:
"Studies have shown that when you don't take sides, people tend to assume you hold the opposite views of the group. Research also shows that people tend not to like or trust people who remain neutral on controversial topics—particularly when withholding an opinion appears to be strategic, such as when a conservative politician deliberately avoids taking sides on an issue in front of a liberal audience."
https://on.wsj.com/3AEDl5e
You think it behooves you to be silent, to avoid disruption, to have your life run smoothly when exactly the opposite is true!
You've got to play. That's the only way out of this mess. It's personal. I know so many are defeated, I certainly am. But when I keep reading stories of personal triumphs, especially online, I gain hope.
We can do this.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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The most important article you will read today is this:
"One Small Step for Democracy in a 'Live Free or Die' Town - A Cautionary tale from Croydon, N.H., where one man tried to foist a change so drastic it jolted a community out of political indifference": https://nyti.ms/3nSRCUq
I've never heard of of the Free State Project, have you?
Probably because I live in the mainstream news bubble. Like most people. I'm not a crackpot trying to undermine America. Therefore I'm out of the loop.
Check it out:
https://www.fsp.org/mission/
Bottom line? These wingnuts have moved to New Hampshire to remake the government in their "libertarian" viewpoint. And this resulted in the firing of the one and only policeman in Croydon and the lowering of the school budget from $1.7 million to $800,000. Yes, the Free State Project infiltrated this one town of 800 and remade it to its liking. And what about the populace? It was PISSED!
This is happening all over America. The worst is people who take over the school board yet home school their kids. They want to change the curriculum which their kids are not exposed to.
This is a stealth operation. Kind of like the Federalist Society, albeit with even a lower profile. These are long term plans, which end up with results like the Dobbs decision, throwing abortion back to the states, effectively eliminating it in so many of them.
We are asleep at the wheel. We figure someone else is doing the hard work, but this is not the case.
So what did they do in Croydon? Under a state law they held a special meeting where a quorum of half the town's population was required, and took a vote on the school budget. End result? 377 voted against the cut, 2 were in favor of it.
Yes, we can undermine the tyranny of the minority, if we just wake up and participate.
But when you scratch the surface of Ian Underwood, the man responsible for the cuts, you find it gets even worse. He doesn't want to pay for someone else's kids' education. I don't have any children, but I've been paying for public schools my whole working life. And I'm fine with that, I don't want to live in a land with uneducated nincompoops, it's bad enough they're banning books and declaring what you can and cannot teach in classrooms as it is.
Also, no arts, no extracurricular activities, they're unnecessary. I won't bother to quote statistics, but I will say one of the reasons popular music is so rotten in America is because of the lack of school arts programs. Isn't it interesting that Canada and the U.K. and Sweden all punch way above their weight when it comes to popular music. It's a result of EDUCATION! And a bit of government funding.
So next we have the Kavanaugh dinner at Morton's. You know, where they were protesting outside.
First and foremost, corporate made a big mistake, it bit back, end result being the restaurant was inundated with false reservations. You see if you align with the minority, you're at risk of the wrath of the majority.
Targeted protests like this have a result, as opposed to the mass gatherings that resemble music festivals. You've got to go where the people live, you've got to make it personal. Actions have consequences.
Needless to say the right wing was up in arms. And what was the left wing response? TO DOUBLE DOWN!
That's the problem with Democrats, they cower in fear. Meanwhile, tons of lefties came out and laughed, tweeted away, names you would recognize. As for Fox News? Of course they thought it was heinous, but the goal here isn't to convince the minority watching that execrable channel, but to awaken those who are asleep, and motivate them!
This is paying back the right and treating it with some of its own medicine.
And some of the analyses are priceless.
"There Is No Constitutional Right to Eat Dinner - Claims that Justice Brett Kavanaugh had his rights violated by protesters outside a D.C. restaurant fail on originalist grounds.": https://bit.ly/3atm30k
The Dobbs decision was illogical, originalist thinking is irrational. This article illustrates it. Too bad so many people have had such poor educations, too often blind in parochial schools, to understand this.
Never underestimate the power of the individual:
"Post-Roe, Her Facebook Group Went Viral - Veronica Risinger made a little online spot for neighbors to share information on abortion. Then 30,000 people joined.": https://nyti.ms/3OYLrdq
This is the future of change, not showing up with a sign at some government building hoping for a smidgen of coverage in the local news that almost no one sees. This is how the Republicans do it, why can't the Democrats?
As for Congress solving our problems:
"Putting the Public Back in Public Service - A group of academics and lawmakers, citing a new study that found voters feel shut out of congressional deliberations, is pushing to engage citizens more directly in the work of Congress.": https://nyti.ms/3yv6oFJ
Here are a couple of relevant passages:
"'There is strong evidence that they actually don't even know the views of their constituents,' said Steven Kull, a psychologist who heads the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. 'They might know the squeaky wheel who shows up at a town hall meeting, but they don't really know.'"
And:
"In a new study based on a survey of more than 4,300 registered voters last year, Mr. Kull's group found that the public's low opinion of Congress stems at least in part from the impression that lawmakers 'have little interest in the views of their constituents, have a poor understanding of the public's views and do what the majority of Americans would do less than half the time."
So if you're depending on your elected officials in D.C. to be aligned with your viewpoints, you're dreaming.
So the situation was articulated perfectly today by Ezra Klein:
"The danger Democrats face in November is hopelessness and apathy among their base. Why turn out to vote if nothing will pass anyway, and if the Supreme Court will gut whatever slips through the Republican blockade?"
This describes my hopelessness exactly. I'll still vote, but the only way I can survive emotionally is by disconnecting from the fracas in D.C.
You see the majority wants abortion rights. The majority wants stricter gun control. But elected officials beholden to vocal minorities are thwarting this. While we remain silent.
But reading the stories above I am given hope.
You see unlike the gun rights/mass shootings stories, abortion is personal, it affects essentially everybody. And when I read about the Kavanaugh/Morton's situation, and the left wing pushback to the right wing blowback, I am given hope. This issue just won't die, it has legs, when seemingly nothing else does in America today.
What price will Elon Musk pay for pulling out of the Twitter deal? I'm not talking about financially, for which he should pay handsomely, I'm talking about image-wise. You'd think marching through business and the legal system as if the rules don't apply to you would cause a long-lasting hit to his image. But that probably won't be the case. Especially in a country where Donald Trump repeatedly broke the law and it looks like not only will he emerge unscathed, he's got a good chance of being president once again.
I wish this wasn't so, I wish there was a moral code. But not enough people have one. The same Free Staters who feel they shouldn't have to pay for someone else's education.
But it's worse than this. All the anti-tax agitators, they lament the government spending THEIR money. Okay, stop paying, and the roads will have potholes and the bridges will collapse and it will be chaos 24/7 and if you die in the process, don't go looking to the government to make you whole.
Even worse are the rich, who want to control how the money is spent. Now let me see, you made your money in a single vertical... Do we really want you running the country? History is littered with the rich and celebrities who gained office on their names and then failed in their duties. You see it's more complicated than that. You wouldn't want a home-schooled doctor to operate on you and you don't want an amateur running the government. But that does not mean you don't want a hand in selecting who is in power.
I can't believe the Dobbs decision. It does not compute. Abortion is gone? Oh, don't tell me you can get it here and there, the fact that you can't get it elsewhere is unfathomable. Why does the minority rule over the majority? You want to take away my rights but whenever we tell you to do something for the good of society, like getting a damn vaccine, you cry FREEDOM, and the sanctity of the human body. Shouldn't that work both ways?
It doesn't, just like with the inane Supreme Court Dobbs decision. Where stories from the past were cherry-picked to create a decision that was a foregone conclusion in the minds of the justices. They didn't weigh the law and the facts, they just figured out how to create a legal narrative that fit their conclusion.
I am not preaching to the other side. They already know all this. The Democrats were ahead online, but they've been superseded by the Republicans, it happened years ago. Good luck getting change re misinformation. The goal is not to complain, but compete! Go online yourself, make some noise, create a group.
Just one more thing...
Yesterday in the "Wall Street Journal" behavioral economist Dan Ariely fielded a question from a conservative who was weary of airing his views at parties after soccer games. He felt being neutral was to his benefit.
Ariely's response was priceless:
"Studies have shown that when you don't take sides, people tend to assume you hold the opposite views of the group. Research also shows that people tend not to like or trust people who remain neutral on controversial topics—particularly when withholding an opinion appears to be strategic, such as when a conservative politician deliberately avoids taking sides on an issue in front of a liberal audience."
https://on.wsj.com/3AEDl5e
You think it behooves you to be silent, to avoid disruption, to have your life run smoothly when exactly the opposite is true!
You've got to play. That's the only way out of this mess. It's personal. I know so many are defeated, I certainly am. But when I keep reading stories of personal triumphs, especially online, I gain hope.
We can do this.
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