"Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg": https://tinyurl.com/2dwp2duv
1
It's on Hulu. And if you're a dedicated Stones fan it's a must-see. But if you're just looking for a film to watch, and not interested in how all the pieces fit together, you can skip it.
I know, I know, I'm supposed to write about the fires.
I get it. And I respect those who've lost their houses. And if the wind kicks back up tonight the way they say it's going to, that puts us back in harm's way.
However, life goes on.
That sounds terrible, I know. But it's the truth. We're human beings, and if we don't march forward...
Having said that, if you live in L.A. you're in shock. Kind of like when a parent dies. I don't really think the true effect will be felt for a month, when the reality truly sinks in, when we realize those houses are truly gone and people are displaced and the Palisades will never come back...
Oh, it will. I can't tell you in how long, but it will. That's the nature of America, we rebuild, even when we shouldn't. Like all those seashore houses in the east.
I'd be lying if I didn't say that all this California bashing bugs me.
Forget all the lies. No, the fire department budget was not cut, in fact it went up. As for North Carolina...do you know the Republicans in that state changed the law so they could build houses on floodplains and then...it flooded?
The funny thing is we in California are getting the last laugh, because we know how good life is here. We get the benefit, like in that old 10cc song. You don't know how great life is out here. Move back if you want to. But there's nowhere I'd rather live than Los Angeles. I can complain about the traffic, but I've been around the world and this is my favorite place. You don't have to agree. But that column that stated if California falls the rest of the country is screwed had it right. Bitch about us all you want, but the country depends upon us. This is where innovation is fostered and dreams come true.
We could go all the way back to the beginning, there wouldn't even be much of a Los Angeles if it weren't for Mulholland and his waterway. Then again, we're not the only western state that depends upon diverted waters. The entire nation is jerry-rigged. And long in the tooth to boot. We need to rebuild our infrastructure, we should have done it when interest rates were low, but we're so busy bitching at each other, fearful of being taxed and ripped-off, that we can't get anything done. If you were alive in the fifties and sixties, when the U.S. was still a can-do country, you don't recognize our nation anymore.
But this is where we live.
2
I was talking to David Gray today, he's got a new album, and he was saying that music means something different to his two daughters, ages 20 and 22. Oh, they're fans, but back in his day it was EVERYTHING!
And it all started with the Beatles, and the Stones were not far behind.
Now in truth Brian Jones and John Lennon had it good, because they died with their images intact. Because if you live long enough...it turns out you're just like the rest of us. Maybe with a few more bucks, vacationing in more exclusive places, but the truth is we can all screw and eat and laugh and...
The internet has leveled the playing field. It's shown we truly live in a global village. That no one is above anybody else. Try raising your head and thinking otherwise. Elon Musk is cruisin' for a bruisin'.
But in the sixties...
We knew Cynthia Lennon, and ultimately Jane Asher.
And eventually we knew Anita Pallenberg. And just from looking at her, we knew she played by her own rules. And had her own fame, she didn't need to trade on that of the Stones. But in the sixties music drove the culture, even a movie star wanted to get closer to the musicians. And Anita Pallenberg did. She zoomed in on Brian Jones.
Who is viewed as a sad story today, but he was the coolest Stone before he fell off the edge. And Anita made him cooler. Everybody wanted to hang at their apartment, despite it being a mess, because that's where the action was.
The film goes into Anita's transition from Brian to Keith. Makes the case that Brian cooked his own goose, that Anita wasn't just an opportunist. But you get insight into how those songs from "Let It Bleed" were written.
Mick Jagger couldn't always get what he wanted, Anita wouldn't fall for him. One of the great tossed off lines in the movie is when Pallenberg says something happened before Mick danced. I love that! Since Mick's dancing is so jive and so not rock and roll. Back then he was just shaking his maracas and singing and...
You get today's laid back pirate Keith Richards in this movie, but in the sixties, he appears to be a caught in the spotlight suburbanite. Unsophisticated. Anita affected the musicians' clothes and look and...
Keith wrote "You Got the Silver" spontaneously for Anita.
As for "Sister Morphine"... That was written about Anita.
And they go to South America to avoid the spotlight, when the average American couldn't even find Peru on a map (maybe they still can't find Peru on a map...)
And you get Marlon and his rarely viewed sister Angela, who was raised by her grandparents. I'm always fascinated by the progeny of rock stars, especially when they're superseded by a second family. We hear about Keith's kids with Patti Hansen... I remember the Osbournes' TV show, when Ozzy's older kid Louis showed up, he was so out of place.
And then there's the escapade in the Catskills where Anita's young lover plays Russian Roulette inspired by the scene in "The Deer Hunter" and kills himself,
Anita's living on the edge. And some of those in her orbit fall off it.
But she survives.
And it's hard being a has-been movie star/rock star significant other. She's living in New York where everybody knows her name (at least the in crowd), but she's got no money, and very little portfolio.
But she carries on...acts, walks the fashion runway and gets no plastic surgery.
You're gonna watch this movie and say to yourself...THAT'S A STAR!
Anita lived her life unconstricted. She was always testing limits. Sure, she was beautiful and that greased the rails, but it was her personality, her feminine wiles that had men glued to her, women paying attention to her.
And they go into what was going down during the making of "Exile on Main Street" in France and living in Switzerland to avoid the law...
And the rich hangers-on. One who is their dope dealer in the South of France. And another who is just a friend who is there when Tara Jo dies of SIDS.
That's one thing the average person doesn't know, but in the world of celebrities, of star musicians, there's this whole coterie of rich hangers-on, who in exchange for access provide money, housing, a shoulder to cry on...
And all that is in "Catching Fire." Which is based on the writings of Anita herself. And in truth, I was skeptical. Too often these documentaries of those from half a century ago depend upon very little archival material and are made on a shoestring budget and are pure hagiography. This film deserved to be made. It illuminates so much about the Stones.
Like I said, if you're a fan, if you know those albums by heart...
You've gotta see it.
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Monday, 13 January 2025
Saturday, 11 January 2025
Sreaming TV-SiriusXM This Week
Assuming we don't have to evacuate, which is suddenly a real possibility, we will be talking about what streaming services you subscribe to and how you decide what to pay for.
Tune in Saturday January 11th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.
Phone #: 844-686-5863
Twitter/X: @lefsetz
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
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Tune in Saturday January 11th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.
Phone #: 844-686-5863
Twitter/X: @lefsetz
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
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Friday, 10 January 2025
The Moon Zappa Book
"Earth to Moon": https://shorturl.at/8Fvqk
I spent all afternoon finishing this book.
I hadn't planned to, I hadn't planned on finishing it all. I tried a couple of pages a few weeks back and the style...let's just say the writing did have a style, and it was interior dialogue, somewhat choppy, and this was not the exposé of Frank and Gail Zappa I had expected it to be.
That's what all the press said over the summer. And I'm a big Zappa fan. And you do learn about Frank, but really this book is about Moon and her mother.
Yes, another book about a daughter and her mother. That's what some might think. But I got e-mail from Gail... Out of the blue. And she was the exact person Moon depicts in this book. Running at 100 miles an hour spitting fire and...
If I write about you and you're this angry, go for it. But if I haven't said anything negative about you, even worse, if I've complimented you, this has always flummoxed me. Then again, some people can't help themselves. Interestingly, my worst experiences have been with the wives of legendary musicians...and they haven't been defending their spouses so much as lashing out from their own perspective and...
I grew up always wanting to move to Hollywood, be on television.
Reading this book you'd never want to grow up in Hollywood.
Moon is a seeker. If you grew up in the east, you'll be rolling your eyes, with all the touchy-feely crap, the gurus, the mantras... People do what they need to do to cope, but knowing the progeny of famous entertainers, this is not uncommon, this search for answers.
And so many of these famous musicians didn't go to college themselves, in many cases they were poor students, music was all they could do, not by choice but by gene. So you have Moon getting her GED three years before she was scheduled to graduate from high school.
On one hand she's free of constraint, on another she's under the thumb of her mother.
All Frank does is work and screw. Ahmet told me his father was a swordsman. And it's all documented here. Frank keeps threatening to leave Gail for Gerda in Germany. And there's the groupie from New Zealand who actually lived in their house for a while who contacts Gail when Frank is dying and asks for some sperm so she can have his baby...
You've never experienced the weirdness that famous musicians endure. It's not just fame, it's not movie stars, you see musicians speak through their music, they are that person, and fans want to get closer and will...
Meanwhile, Moon has a crush on Jon Bon Jovi.
Moon is famous. With a hit record and TV appearances but she can't get a date, she's self-conscious over her looks, especially her acne. If you want to get into the mind of an adolescent and then teenage girl/woman...Moon does an excellent job here.
But mostly the family is living in isolation, up on Woodrow Wilson. Everybody knew that was Frank's house, with a studio in the basement, it was legendary.
But the kids might as well have not been living in regular society. It's only when Moon goes to high school that she truly learns how the other half lives. Everybody in the family has dinner at the same time, eating the same thing, and no one can get up until everybody's finished? UNHEARD OF IN THE ZAPPA HOME!
And Gail herself is street smart, but that's about it. She's got all these crazy theories about witches and...
She just doesn't know how to come through. Moon keeps waiting for her to deliver and she doesn't, no matter how many times she is given a chance.
And then there is the money... They tool around in a Rolls, which ultimately doesn't run yet is bequeathed to Ahmet, but cash is always an issue. When Frank gets sick he's got no health insurance and they make Moon sell her house to pay the bills.
So when Moon finally leaves the house she has the adventures the hoi polloi do not. She hangs with famous actors, even dates Woody Harrelson, but when you read the stories you don't feel like you're missing out.
And when a married musician asks her to come visit him on the road, Moon asks her parents and they say to go. You can imagine how that plays out.
And then there's the legal issues. Gail f*cks with Moon and Dweezil from the grave.
And I've heard Ahmet's version of this, but all I'll tell you is you've got to split up your estate equally, leave every child the same amount, or...
A sibling kept on asking my ever more frail mother to carve out money for her challenged child. My mother couldn't believe I wouldn't agree to this. This was after she wanted to split family money seven ways, so I got the same amount as my four nephews, and their mothers.
I told her I could never catch up financially with all the money she'd given to my sisters and their kids, for real estate, education...that I had written off that money, but now she was going to F*CK ME IN THE ASS?
She couldn't understand that this wasn't fair.
And this sibling kept on leaning on my mother, and finally I told my mother that if she didn't split up the money equally, I'd never speak to my sisters again.
And then one day I got a letter from the lawyer saying to sign something. What was this? This same sibling had gone behind my back and made it so all three kids were executors of the estate. Just before he died my father told me he made me the executor because I was the only one who had any business sense.
But when it comes to money...
As a friend of mine once told me, you never really know your family until you share an inheritance.
And I'll tell you I was positively stunned when I read my mother's will and I got a third, after a de minimis payment to my nephews. And I ended up being the executor of the estate anyway...and unlike the fears of an in-law...OF COURSE I WASN'T GOING TO CHARGE TO DO IT!
And there's a great segment in the book about Moon's ill child and...
If you're looking for Zappa gossip, just read a review. If you want to know the travails of the child of a musical icon and his unpredictable, self-centered, tempestuous wife...
THIS BOOK IS THE PLACE!
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I spent all afternoon finishing this book.
I hadn't planned to, I hadn't planned on finishing it all. I tried a couple of pages a few weeks back and the style...let's just say the writing did have a style, and it was interior dialogue, somewhat choppy, and this was not the exposé of Frank and Gail Zappa I had expected it to be.
That's what all the press said over the summer. And I'm a big Zappa fan. And you do learn about Frank, but really this book is about Moon and her mother.
Yes, another book about a daughter and her mother. That's what some might think. But I got e-mail from Gail... Out of the blue. And she was the exact person Moon depicts in this book. Running at 100 miles an hour spitting fire and...
If I write about you and you're this angry, go for it. But if I haven't said anything negative about you, even worse, if I've complimented you, this has always flummoxed me. Then again, some people can't help themselves. Interestingly, my worst experiences have been with the wives of legendary musicians...and they haven't been defending their spouses so much as lashing out from their own perspective and...
I grew up always wanting to move to Hollywood, be on television.
Reading this book you'd never want to grow up in Hollywood.
Moon is a seeker. If you grew up in the east, you'll be rolling your eyes, with all the touchy-feely crap, the gurus, the mantras... People do what they need to do to cope, but knowing the progeny of famous entertainers, this is not uncommon, this search for answers.
And so many of these famous musicians didn't go to college themselves, in many cases they were poor students, music was all they could do, not by choice but by gene. So you have Moon getting her GED three years before she was scheduled to graduate from high school.
On one hand she's free of constraint, on another she's under the thumb of her mother.
All Frank does is work and screw. Ahmet told me his father was a swordsman. And it's all documented here. Frank keeps threatening to leave Gail for Gerda in Germany. And there's the groupie from New Zealand who actually lived in their house for a while who contacts Gail when Frank is dying and asks for some sperm so she can have his baby...
You've never experienced the weirdness that famous musicians endure. It's not just fame, it's not movie stars, you see musicians speak through their music, they are that person, and fans want to get closer and will...
Meanwhile, Moon has a crush on Jon Bon Jovi.
Moon is famous. With a hit record and TV appearances but she can't get a date, she's self-conscious over her looks, especially her acne. If you want to get into the mind of an adolescent and then teenage girl/woman...Moon does an excellent job here.
But mostly the family is living in isolation, up on Woodrow Wilson. Everybody knew that was Frank's house, with a studio in the basement, it was legendary.
But the kids might as well have not been living in regular society. It's only when Moon goes to high school that she truly learns how the other half lives. Everybody in the family has dinner at the same time, eating the same thing, and no one can get up until everybody's finished? UNHEARD OF IN THE ZAPPA HOME!
And Gail herself is street smart, but that's about it. She's got all these crazy theories about witches and...
She just doesn't know how to come through. Moon keeps waiting for her to deliver and she doesn't, no matter how many times she is given a chance.
And then there is the money... They tool around in a Rolls, which ultimately doesn't run yet is bequeathed to Ahmet, but cash is always an issue. When Frank gets sick he's got no health insurance and they make Moon sell her house to pay the bills.
So when Moon finally leaves the house she has the adventures the hoi polloi do not. She hangs with famous actors, even dates Woody Harrelson, but when you read the stories you don't feel like you're missing out.
And when a married musician asks her to come visit him on the road, Moon asks her parents and they say to go. You can imagine how that plays out.
And then there's the legal issues. Gail f*cks with Moon and Dweezil from the grave.
And I've heard Ahmet's version of this, but all I'll tell you is you've got to split up your estate equally, leave every child the same amount, or...
A sibling kept on asking my ever more frail mother to carve out money for her challenged child. My mother couldn't believe I wouldn't agree to this. This was after she wanted to split family money seven ways, so I got the same amount as my four nephews, and their mothers.
I told her I could never catch up financially with all the money she'd given to my sisters and their kids, for real estate, education...that I had written off that money, but now she was going to F*CK ME IN THE ASS?
She couldn't understand that this wasn't fair.
And this sibling kept on leaning on my mother, and finally I told my mother that if she didn't split up the money equally, I'd never speak to my sisters again.
And then one day I got a letter from the lawyer saying to sign something. What was this? This same sibling had gone behind my back and made it so all three kids were executors of the estate. Just before he died my father told me he made me the executor because I was the only one who had any business sense.
But when it comes to money...
As a friend of mine once told me, you never really know your family until you share an inheritance.
And I'll tell you I was positively stunned when I read my mother's will and I got a third, after a de minimis payment to my nephews. And I ended up being the executor of the estate anyway...and unlike the fears of an in-law...OF COURSE I WASN'T GOING TO CHARGE TO DO IT!
And there's a great segment in the book about Moon's ill child and...
If you're looking for Zappa gossip, just read a review. If you want to know the travails of the child of a musical icon and his unpredictable, self-centered, tempestuous wife...
THIS BOOK IS THE PLACE!
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More Fires
"Nobody on the road
Nobody on the beach
I feel it in the air..."
One thing you can be sure of is the boys of summer will return. Human beings are incredibly resilient.
As for Pacific Palisades?
That's another matter.
So it's akin to lockdown, but instead of arguments over vaccines, it's over California. Was the dreaded left coast bastion of liberal excess asleep at the wheel, or was this an act of God, or maybe more accurately man, as in climate change.
That was my first reaction, that's what my instincts tell me, but it doesn't matter, America doesn't have the political will to address the problem head-on. Either it doesn't exist, or like a teenager the finger is pointed at other countries not doing their part. Ain't that America, all people can do is complain and nothing gets done. Best to demonize someone rather than look at the root causes of the problem and try to fix it.
So we're living in suspended animation. We don't know where it's going to light up next. As the reality of Tuesday night was being metabolized on Wednesday, just when so many felt lucky, it started to blaze in Runyon Canyon. And although all the press was about the fire crawling down from the hills and invading Hollywood, the true fear was the wind would blow the embers west, and burn everything from Hollywood to Beverly Hills to Bel Air and down the other side of Mulholland all the way to Ventura Boulevard, taking everything from Studio City to Sherman Oaks. And then would the embers cross the 405 and burn up Encino and then Tarzana and...
It's hard to believe that fire wasn't set. In the middle of nowhere, a park. Then again, I thought Richard Jewell was guilty and he turned out to be innocent.
But they think the Kenneth fire just over the border in Ventura County was arson...
As for those few houses that burned up in Studio City... Even the assistant fire chief on TV doubted whether the embers could fly all the way from Runyon. Then again, fires do happen everywhere on a regular basis, isn't that why we've got the fire department to begin with?
And you wouldn't catch me doing that job, putting myself in harm's way. I'm not saying I wouldn't volunteer, do my part if called upon, but it's a special breed of people who join the fire department. And it's not quite like crabbing in the waters off Alaska, but it's pretty damn dangerous.
But humanity cannot always triumph over nature. What do they keep telling us, Silicon Valley will solve the climate change problem? What, when they can't even put out fires?
So people have been contacting me from all over the world. How am I?
Well, I'd be lying if I told you Wednesday night I wasn't shook up when it started to burn in Runyon.
And then last night there was that notice to evacuate, which made no sense and then turned out to be false.
And if the Runyon fire had spread as per above, it would have truly wiped out Los Angeles. A city decimated, period. Because most of the power in Los Angeles lives in these hills.
Then again, living in the flats is no longer an insurance policy protecting you from devastation. South of Sunset was wiped out. Taking the houses of...
Very close friends.
This is when relationships count, they already got a new apartment in Westwood. Is everybody else this networked?
And my shrink's house was wiped out. I thought he'd want to cancel our virtual session on Thursday, but he said it was business as usual. He's out in his house in the desert, he's got his laptop and...it's just stuff.
But what he really lamented was the loss of community. He and his wife had become best friends with their next door neighbors, that's toast. I mean it's one thing to be connected via the smartphone, quite another to be just twenty feet away in real life.
Some of these people have second homes.
A lot of them don't.
Where are they going to go?
Where did all the evacuated go?
No one is untouched by this disaster, everybody knows someone who lost their home.
And not everybody was rich.
So now what... You've got NOTHING! You're starting all over, from your toothbrush on up.
And then this morning Felice started to remark about the housekeepers and the gardeners and...their business has been wiped out.
And yes, a lot of those workers are undocumented. Because you can't find citizens to do this work. Meaning the government safety net might elude them.
And it's going to start blowing again.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk has been excoriating the state. This guy doesn't realize people are turning against him. But he's addicted to the attention, if not the power.
And it's interesting to see the media's response...
The "Los Angeles Times" has been stripped to the point that its coverage is no better than the "New York Times," which today published a picture of exactly which houses have been lost:
"Mapping the Damage So Far From the Palisades Fire"
Free link: https://shorturl.at/0OxHZ
When it comes to natural disasters, it's about boots on the ground. And if you're running a lean operation... It's like the public living paycheck to paycheck, you're not prepared for a disaster.
And then I'm getting e-mails telling me I can't go on with my regular life, I can't write about anything but this disaster. Then again, maybe regular life is paused, I had a pneumonia vaccine canceled at the last minute by CVS this afternoon, that's a first.
And my exercise of choice was hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains, exactly where Palisades fire was. But the air is too bad to exercise outside anyway.
Ergo, the feeling of lockdown.
And you can donate all the money you've got and it still won't solve the problem. The losses are in the billions.
I can't wrap my head around it, if you don't live here...
You see the view from 30,000 feet.
But on the ground the whole city is in shock.
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Nobody on the beach
I feel it in the air..."
One thing you can be sure of is the boys of summer will return. Human beings are incredibly resilient.
As for Pacific Palisades?
That's another matter.
So it's akin to lockdown, but instead of arguments over vaccines, it's over California. Was the dreaded left coast bastion of liberal excess asleep at the wheel, or was this an act of God, or maybe more accurately man, as in climate change.
That was my first reaction, that's what my instincts tell me, but it doesn't matter, America doesn't have the political will to address the problem head-on. Either it doesn't exist, or like a teenager the finger is pointed at other countries not doing their part. Ain't that America, all people can do is complain and nothing gets done. Best to demonize someone rather than look at the root causes of the problem and try to fix it.
So we're living in suspended animation. We don't know where it's going to light up next. As the reality of Tuesday night was being metabolized on Wednesday, just when so many felt lucky, it started to blaze in Runyon Canyon. And although all the press was about the fire crawling down from the hills and invading Hollywood, the true fear was the wind would blow the embers west, and burn everything from Hollywood to Beverly Hills to Bel Air and down the other side of Mulholland all the way to Ventura Boulevard, taking everything from Studio City to Sherman Oaks. And then would the embers cross the 405 and burn up Encino and then Tarzana and...
It's hard to believe that fire wasn't set. In the middle of nowhere, a park. Then again, I thought Richard Jewell was guilty and he turned out to be innocent.
But they think the Kenneth fire just over the border in Ventura County was arson...
As for those few houses that burned up in Studio City... Even the assistant fire chief on TV doubted whether the embers could fly all the way from Runyon. Then again, fires do happen everywhere on a regular basis, isn't that why we've got the fire department to begin with?
And you wouldn't catch me doing that job, putting myself in harm's way. I'm not saying I wouldn't volunteer, do my part if called upon, but it's a special breed of people who join the fire department. And it's not quite like crabbing in the waters off Alaska, but it's pretty damn dangerous.
But humanity cannot always triumph over nature. What do they keep telling us, Silicon Valley will solve the climate change problem? What, when they can't even put out fires?
So people have been contacting me from all over the world. How am I?
Well, I'd be lying if I told you Wednesday night I wasn't shook up when it started to burn in Runyon.
And then last night there was that notice to evacuate, which made no sense and then turned out to be false.
And if the Runyon fire had spread as per above, it would have truly wiped out Los Angeles. A city decimated, period. Because most of the power in Los Angeles lives in these hills.
Then again, living in the flats is no longer an insurance policy protecting you from devastation. South of Sunset was wiped out. Taking the houses of...
Very close friends.
This is when relationships count, they already got a new apartment in Westwood. Is everybody else this networked?
And my shrink's house was wiped out. I thought he'd want to cancel our virtual session on Thursday, but he said it was business as usual. He's out in his house in the desert, he's got his laptop and...it's just stuff.
But what he really lamented was the loss of community. He and his wife had become best friends with their next door neighbors, that's toast. I mean it's one thing to be connected via the smartphone, quite another to be just twenty feet away in real life.
Some of these people have second homes.
A lot of them don't.
Where are they going to go?
Where did all the evacuated go?
No one is untouched by this disaster, everybody knows someone who lost their home.
And not everybody was rich.
So now what... You've got NOTHING! You're starting all over, from your toothbrush on up.
And then this morning Felice started to remark about the housekeepers and the gardeners and...their business has been wiped out.
And yes, a lot of those workers are undocumented. Because you can't find citizens to do this work. Meaning the government safety net might elude them.
And it's going to start blowing again.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk has been excoriating the state. This guy doesn't realize people are turning against him. But he's addicted to the attention, if not the power.
And it's interesting to see the media's response...
The "Los Angeles Times" has been stripped to the point that its coverage is no better than the "New York Times," which today published a picture of exactly which houses have been lost:
"Mapping the Damage So Far From the Palisades Fire"
Free link: https://shorturl.at/0OxHZ
When it comes to natural disasters, it's about boots on the ground. And if you're running a lean operation... It's like the public living paycheck to paycheck, you're not prepared for a disaster.
And then I'm getting e-mails telling me I can't go on with my regular life, I can't write about anything but this disaster. Then again, maybe regular life is paused, I had a pneumonia vaccine canceled at the last minute by CVS this afternoon, that's a first.
And my exercise of choice was hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains, exactly where Palisades fire was. But the air is too bad to exercise outside anyway.
Ergo, the feeling of lockdown.
And you can donate all the money you've got and it still won't solve the problem. The losses are in the billions.
I can't wrap my head around it, if you don't live here...
You see the view from 30,000 feet.
But on the ground the whole city is in shock.
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Thursday, 9 January 2025
Mark Morton-This Week's Podcast
Mark Morton is lead guitarist of Lamb of God. Even if you have not heard of them or are not of a fan of their music, you're going to love Mark!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-morton/id1316200737?i=1000683302491
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3iBR6BiC8523eIeWXP7JEc?si=ns7I8z6IRPa8EeJg2cR9jg
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/mark-morton-256069847/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/e56a6b0b-eb4f-4e52-913e-437122adae47/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-mark-morton
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-morton/id1316200737?i=1000683302491
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3iBR6BiC8523eIeWXP7JEc?si=ns7I8z6IRPa8EeJg2cR9jg
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/mark-morton-256069847/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/e56a6b0b-eb4f-4e52-913e-437122adae47/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-mark-morton
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Oscar Nonsense
Nine out of ten of last year's biggest grossing movies were sequels. And the tenth was "Wicked." But the mainstream press is caught up in Oscar fever. Why?
The vaunted Golden Globes didn't even get 10 million viewers. But it dominated coverage in the same mainstream press. As for why I even bothered to write about Nikki Glaser... If you were reading the mainstream press there was a one month run-up, tons of stories orchestrated by publicists building up to this pebble falling into the lake.
There are 340 million people in America. And most don't bother to go to the movies. Not that they're not consumed by entertainment. It's just that feature films are a construct of the past, of the last century. Kind of like writing the Great American Novel. That went out with the fifties, maybe the sixties... Thank god no one writes about that anymore. Although there are still novels, purveyed by an antique business run by English majors with some of the worst marketing of all time. Which is why James Patterson came along and dominated the business, he knows how to SELL!
Unless you're living outside internet range, and with the advent of Starlink, that's impossible, you know that the mainstream press has lost credibility. The general public pooh-poohs it and doesn't trust it. You'd think the publishers would notice this and adjust, but they keep on keepin' on like they're the record companies in 1999.
Napster was all about disruption. Giving the people what they wanted, which the labels refused to do. Breaking apart the album into the desirable singles. Making available rare and live cuts.
And there are musicians still complaining about this. Songwriters bitching that only the single drives revenue anymore. Meanwhile, YouTube is a plethora of live, everybody is recording on their smartphone when the acts themselves are not putting up videos.
Things change.
And a lot has changed in the music business. Concerts have superseded recordings. The majors have less market share and less influence. The big acts have never been so small. The barrier to entry is essentially nonexistent.
Then again, all we get in the mainstream is a printing of the weekly Top Ten, which is woefully inaccurate, a complete manipulation. Taylor Swift's last album was kept atop the heap by endless iterations, sold to brain dead lemmings.
So the pandemic put a stake in the heart of theatrical distribution. Movie theatres don't work anymore, not as a ritual. The films don't start when you want them to in an on demand world, the tickets are expensive and for the price of one movie you can get a month of Netflix, or another streamer. Why go?
Which is why people do not. But Hollywood doesn't want to adjust. Which is one reason why its business has been stolen by Silicon Valley. The studio heads used to be icons, now not even people in Los Angeles know who they are.
As for what is streamed... It's not the endless films that open in theatres to little box office, but old and new series.
But series are seen as second-rate in the mainstream press. Even though every A-list actor seems to have deigned to participate in them.
But if you read the "Times," either New York or Los Angeles, you'd think that the entire nation has Oscar fever. That the general public cares about movies they have not seen and really have no interest in seeing.
I'm not saying you can't make a movie, I'm not saying a movie can't be good, but if you want to have an impact upon hearts and minds, which is what the mainstream media desires, you have to wake up and follow the people and admit things have changed.
There is some coverage of video games now, but it's de minimis, despite video games eclipsing films in revenue.
As for series...
The "New York Times" reviews every film that is released in the city, but not every series that launches on Netflix or its competitors. Why?
Because series are déclassé. For the hoi polloi. The intellectuals...
Who? Those old fart boomers and Gen-X'ers who think they know better? Who keep on excoriating the smartphone and hate on technology?
The internet is the best thing that ever happened to me. I can reach and maintain contact with people around the world. You too. But in the "New York Times" you constantly read about people who use flip-phones, who digitally detox. This is like trying to get people to stop drinking, but even worse. Sure, there can be overuse/harm from smartphones, but the solution is not abstention, but going through, possibly changing the use.
You're not going to get me to put down my smartphone, which tells me the news, the weather, allows me to research any point, make contact... Enough with the mind police.
The world changes. If you want to make a difference you must keep up with it.
The Democrats were so out of touch they lost control of D.C. They thought they could hide Biden's decline like it was FDR in the forties. But there's just too much media today, the truth always outs. And people were ultimately offended by this dishonesty. And then they told us Kamala Harris was the candidate as if we lived in a third world country. And if you were on the left and didn't line up for Harris...you were a traitor, you were the enemy.
And the end result is the further marginalization of those living in the past who keep telling us they know better. The same people and press who told us the economy was great when prices were out of control and people were hurting.
This does not make me a Trumper, but it does say I want to live in reality. Face the facts.
Movies other than the few blockbusters are a marginal business. Nearly the novel of our day. If it's not a sequel most people don't see it and most people don't care. But they keep telling us to care. Hell, the "New York Times" talked about last night's fire putting the Dolby Theatre in danger. There's nothing special about the Dolby, it was initially called the Kodak, there's no gravitas there. Maybe the foot and handprints at the Chinese Theatre, but the era of the movie star is kaput. It's been eclipsed by the dreaded influencers, who execute a completely different paradigm. Rather than withhold and massage, they're posting incessantly, with much more raw footage.
The entire landscape has changed. The general public has never had more power. And it doesn't like being talked down to. The paradigm of reading the press and watching the network news with no pushback, feeling powerless, in thrall to icons, is gone. I'm not saying to let the lunatics take over the asylum, but at least report on them and respect them, because they are what is truly happening in these United States.
People don't care about awards shows. They can get endless fashion displays and tips online. And actors are two-dimensional vessels, if you want truth you're better off listening to a musician, then again too many of them are compromised, brands with no core, like the Silicon Valley titans kowtowing to Donald Trump. These techies used to be heroes, now they're zeros. We can see what you're doing, you're playing a game to curry favor, to avoid retribution, that's not what an artist does, and you were the new artists, but no longer.
America is hungry for truth from uncompromised people in touch with the landscape. And if you think you get that in the mainstream press...
Hell, the "New York Times" is propped-up by gaming and cooking subscriptions.
The mainstream news has already been disrupted, but they don't know it.
What a sorry state of affairs.
As for the Oscars... Who won last year?
And if you haven't seen the movies why would you care?
PEOPLE DON'T!
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The vaunted Golden Globes didn't even get 10 million viewers. But it dominated coverage in the same mainstream press. As for why I even bothered to write about Nikki Glaser... If you were reading the mainstream press there was a one month run-up, tons of stories orchestrated by publicists building up to this pebble falling into the lake.
There are 340 million people in America. And most don't bother to go to the movies. Not that they're not consumed by entertainment. It's just that feature films are a construct of the past, of the last century. Kind of like writing the Great American Novel. That went out with the fifties, maybe the sixties... Thank god no one writes about that anymore. Although there are still novels, purveyed by an antique business run by English majors with some of the worst marketing of all time. Which is why James Patterson came along and dominated the business, he knows how to SELL!
Unless you're living outside internet range, and with the advent of Starlink, that's impossible, you know that the mainstream press has lost credibility. The general public pooh-poohs it and doesn't trust it. You'd think the publishers would notice this and adjust, but they keep on keepin' on like they're the record companies in 1999.
Napster was all about disruption. Giving the people what they wanted, which the labels refused to do. Breaking apart the album into the desirable singles. Making available rare and live cuts.
And there are musicians still complaining about this. Songwriters bitching that only the single drives revenue anymore. Meanwhile, YouTube is a plethora of live, everybody is recording on their smartphone when the acts themselves are not putting up videos.
Things change.
And a lot has changed in the music business. Concerts have superseded recordings. The majors have less market share and less influence. The big acts have never been so small. The barrier to entry is essentially nonexistent.
Then again, all we get in the mainstream is a printing of the weekly Top Ten, which is woefully inaccurate, a complete manipulation. Taylor Swift's last album was kept atop the heap by endless iterations, sold to brain dead lemmings.
So the pandemic put a stake in the heart of theatrical distribution. Movie theatres don't work anymore, not as a ritual. The films don't start when you want them to in an on demand world, the tickets are expensive and for the price of one movie you can get a month of Netflix, or another streamer. Why go?
Which is why people do not. But Hollywood doesn't want to adjust. Which is one reason why its business has been stolen by Silicon Valley. The studio heads used to be icons, now not even people in Los Angeles know who they are.
As for what is streamed... It's not the endless films that open in theatres to little box office, but old and new series.
But series are seen as second-rate in the mainstream press. Even though every A-list actor seems to have deigned to participate in them.
But if you read the "Times," either New York or Los Angeles, you'd think that the entire nation has Oscar fever. That the general public cares about movies they have not seen and really have no interest in seeing.
I'm not saying you can't make a movie, I'm not saying a movie can't be good, but if you want to have an impact upon hearts and minds, which is what the mainstream media desires, you have to wake up and follow the people and admit things have changed.
There is some coverage of video games now, but it's de minimis, despite video games eclipsing films in revenue.
As for series...
The "New York Times" reviews every film that is released in the city, but not every series that launches on Netflix or its competitors. Why?
Because series are déclassé. For the hoi polloi. The intellectuals...
Who? Those old fart boomers and Gen-X'ers who think they know better? Who keep on excoriating the smartphone and hate on technology?
The internet is the best thing that ever happened to me. I can reach and maintain contact with people around the world. You too. But in the "New York Times" you constantly read about people who use flip-phones, who digitally detox. This is like trying to get people to stop drinking, but even worse. Sure, there can be overuse/harm from smartphones, but the solution is not abstention, but going through, possibly changing the use.
You're not going to get me to put down my smartphone, which tells me the news, the weather, allows me to research any point, make contact... Enough with the mind police.
The world changes. If you want to make a difference you must keep up with it.
The Democrats were so out of touch they lost control of D.C. They thought they could hide Biden's decline like it was FDR in the forties. But there's just too much media today, the truth always outs. And people were ultimately offended by this dishonesty. And then they told us Kamala Harris was the candidate as if we lived in a third world country. And if you were on the left and didn't line up for Harris...you were a traitor, you were the enemy.
And the end result is the further marginalization of those living in the past who keep telling us they know better. The same people and press who told us the economy was great when prices were out of control and people were hurting.
This does not make me a Trumper, but it does say I want to live in reality. Face the facts.
Movies other than the few blockbusters are a marginal business. Nearly the novel of our day. If it's not a sequel most people don't see it and most people don't care. But they keep telling us to care. Hell, the "New York Times" talked about last night's fire putting the Dolby Theatre in danger. There's nothing special about the Dolby, it was initially called the Kodak, there's no gravitas there. Maybe the foot and handprints at the Chinese Theatre, but the era of the movie star is kaput. It's been eclipsed by the dreaded influencers, who execute a completely different paradigm. Rather than withhold and massage, they're posting incessantly, with much more raw footage.
The entire landscape has changed. The general public has never had more power. And it doesn't like being talked down to. The paradigm of reading the press and watching the network news with no pushback, feeling powerless, in thrall to icons, is gone. I'm not saying to let the lunatics take over the asylum, but at least report on them and respect them, because they are what is truly happening in these United States.
People don't care about awards shows. They can get endless fashion displays and tips online. And actors are two-dimensional vessels, if you want truth you're better off listening to a musician, then again too many of them are compromised, brands with no core, like the Silicon Valley titans kowtowing to Donald Trump. These techies used to be heroes, now they're zeros. We can see what you're doing, you're playing a game to curry favor, to avoid retribution, that's not what an artist does, and you were the new artists, but no longer.
America is hungry for truth from uncompromised people in touch with the landscape. And if you think you get that in the mainstream press...
Hell, the "New York Times" is propped-up by gaming and cooking subscriptions.
The mainstream news has already been disrupted, but they don't know it.
What a sorry state of affairs.
As for the Oscars... Who won last year?
And if you haven't seen the movies why would you care?
PEOPLE DON'T!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Wednesday, 8 January 2025
The Fires
I don't know anything you don't.
Having said that, if you're living in L.A., I recommend KABC, channel 7, which overlays streets onto the landscape, making it a bit easier to see what has burned.
Actually, that's pretty amazing, that we don't have specifics re which houses are gone and which are not. That map does not exist.
But what we've got here is a war between technology and nature...and nature is winning. You can't put out a fire with the internet.
Now I was in a meeting yesterday when the person on the other side of the screen got a text to evacuate. His house is south of Sunset, I figured he'd be fine.
Now it appears that everything in that neighborhood is gone.
Generally speaking, if you live in the flats in Los Angeles, you're safe...from fire, from rains, from mudslides... So I was surprised these neighborhoods south of Sunset were torched. The fire had to come down the hills, cross the business district and then march all the way to the sea. Hasn't happened previously, but it happened last night.
I first got an inkling that these houses were in trouble when they showed Theatre Palisades burning. That's on Temescal, south of the Boulevard. Furthermore, there's flat land, Temescal Canyon, on the other side of Sunset. No way I figured that would go, but it's history now. I've been there numerous times, to see plays of the kids of my friends, other events.
And on the other side of the road is the high school. We kept hearing that was on fire, but there were no distinct images last night.
As for what you're hearing about Pacific Palisades being a rich neighborhood...
What you've got to know is this didn't used to be true. L.A. is unique in that it's a giant suburb, spread out for miles. But they're not making any more land, yet they are making more people. So property that was reasonably priced yesterday ends up being mega-expensive today. Used to be you could live on Monument in a starter home (that's north of the Boulevard, where the landscape starts to slope up). Maybe you had to be a lawyer, upper middle class, but if you drove through you'd see small ranch houses, you wouldn't be impressed.
South of the Boulevard... What we've seen more and more over the years is teardowns. McMansions on tiny slivers of property. Because south of the Boulevard means closer to the beach... And the closer to the beach you are the better the weather is in Los Angeles, and the clearer the air.
And it used to be the Palisades were too far away to commute. The drive to downtown was unfathomable. The Palisades was a suburb unto itself. A small town. And to some degree it still is. But about thirty years ago the traffic flipped. Now west of the 405 is horrendous, whereas it used to be empty. Santa Monica is gridlocked in the afternoon whereas it used to be sleepy. But Santa Monica is no longer a distant beach town, it's got tons of offices and it too is riddled with teardowns and McMansions.
Even the dreaded San Fernando Valley... Benjamin's mother told him relatives came all the way from Tarzana for his party in "The Graduate." But the disdain has evaporated, now you have to be rich to live on the other side of the hill. From Malibu to the Palisades to Santa Monica to Brentwood to Bel Air to Beverly Hills...this is where the money is in Los Angeles.
As for the hills... They're long and languid on the city side, steep and short on the Valley side. But if you live in the hills, you're susceptible to disaster. You have to constantly cut back the vegetation, it's a regular battle against the elements, and you may be vigilant but your neighbor may not be and therefore their land can slide on top of yours.
We live in the hills. Meaning we are susceptible. Hell, you should see it when it rains, the water coursing down the street.
And it used to be everybody laughed about L.A. disasters. The earthquakes. But now there are all these floods on the east coast and shoreline that is constantly in danger and...is it global warming? Some of it definitely is, and that's one of the first things I thought of yesterday, but you may think differently. Doesn't matter, no one is really doing anything about it anyway.
Other than canceling property insurance. It's a regular discussion in Los Angeles, and coverage is hard to replace. I just watched a video on TikTok of someone whose house was in danger in the Palisades who had had their insurance canceled and if their house went up in flames, they were SOL.
Funny about the government, people can't stop complaining about it, but when they experience a loss... And there's this fiction that the government will make you whole, it will not. If you lose your house and have no insurance...you're not only homeless now, you probably can't afford to build on the same piece of property, maybe you have to move to an apartment. Then again, land is so valuable in Los Angeles.
As for personal effects...
I went to the doctor for a physical this morning and there's no way his house survived, like I said above, presently there is no accounting. But he just recovered from prostate cancer, so he's got perspective. And we were talking about aged parents, how they end up living in small spaces with few possessions in retirement homes/care facilities. Everything that's so valuable to you is gonna get tossed. But I've told Felice over and over not to toss my vinyl records, they're worth a FORTUNE!
And historically I've been very into my possessions. After cancer a little bit less so. But that feeling doesn't last. Over the years you normalize. But the older you get so much becomes meaningless. It's about you and your life and then you're gone too.
You've got your memories. Sure, it's great to have the photos, but how often do you look at them? And even if you're someone who puts them on the wall...
But the funny thing is so much is virtual these days. Contemplating evacuating I figured I'd take my laptop and two medications, everything else can go. My world is on my computer, in the cloud. Don't they say that life is about experiences today?
So I used to spend a ton of time in the Palisades. Friends moved there in the early eighties, and then Kate opened a bookstore, but in the last few years there's been a diaspora. But I still know so many people there.
And Felice's mother used to have a beach house, that appears to have been torched.
The scale is devastating.
As for the living... Man, I woke up yesterday and you could feel the wind blowing, not only see it. And in certain places the smoke is dense and dark, in others perfectly clear. Credit the wind. But when I woke up today there was that hazy yellow light, which is familiar from previous fires.
But usually not in the winter, and usually not of this scale.
So how do you make those who lost their properties whole? I'm not talking about monetarily, but emotionally. What can you say and do?
And just like with school shootings, there's a plethora of compassion and then everybody moves on. They live their life, you're still hobbled.
But eventually it happens to you. No one is immune.
And then there are those who have nothing... Unlike in the Bob Dylan song, unless they're truly homeless they've got plenty to lose. If you're scraping along paycheck to paycheck and a disaster happens, unless you have insurance...
But the thing about America is everybody gets to live their own life, make their own choices. I'm paying so much in premiums and never collecting, you're going bare and triumphing. But we're all just one disaster away from being beaten down.
When he was still alive, my father always used to start our phone calls asking about my health. Which didn't resonate when I was in my twenties. But I totally get it now.
No one here gets out alive. Don't skimp on medical attention. You may think you're winning, but statistically the wealthy live longer than the poor because of the health care they receive. You've got to get your priorities straight.
I just hope you don't have to experience a disaster to realize this.
But one thing is for sure, a disaster is coming down the pike, no one lives a completely charmed life, it's just a matter of when.
Thank god it wasn't you today.
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Having said that, if you're living in L.A., I recommend KABC, channel 7, which overlays streets onto the landscape, making it a bit easier to see what has burned.
Actually, that's pretty amazing, that we don't have specifics re which houses are gone and which are not. That map does not exist.
But what we've got here is a war between technology and nature...and nature is winning. You can't put out a fire with the internet.
Now I was in a meeting yesterday when the person on the other side of the screen got a text to evacuate. His house is south of Sunset, I figured he'd be fine.
Now it appears that everything in that neighborhood is gone.
Generally speaking, if you live in the flats in Los Angeles, you're safe...from fire, from rains, from mudslides... So I was surprised these neighborhoods south of Sunset were torched. The fire had to come down the hills, cross the business district and then march all the way to the sea. Hasn't happened previously, but it happened last night.
I first got an inkling that these houses were in trouble when they showed Theatre Palisades burning. That's on Temescal, south of the Boulevard. Furthermore, there's flat land, Temescal Canyon, on the other side of Sunset. No way I figured that would go, but it's history now. I've been there numerous times, to see plays of the kids of my friends, other events.
And on the other side of the road is the high school. We kept hearing that was on fire, but there were no distinct images last night.
As for what you're hearing about Pacific Palisades being a rich neighborhood...
What you've got to know is this didn't used to be true. L.A. is unique in that it's a giant suburb, spread out for miles. But they're not making any more land, yet they are making more people. So property that was reasonably priced yesterday ends up being mega-expensive today. Used to be you could live on Monument in a starter home (that's north of the Boulevard, where the landscape starts to slope up). Maybe you had to be a lawyer, upper middle class, but if you drove through you'd see small ranch houses, you wouldn't be impressed.
South of the Boulevard... What we've seen more and more over the years is teardowns. McMansions on tiny slivers of property. Because south of the Boulevard means closer to the beach... And the closer to the beach you are the better the weather is in Los Angeles, and the clearer the air.
And it used to be the Palisades were too far away to commute. The drive to downtown was unfathomable. The Palisades was a suburb unto itself. A small town. And to some degree it still is. But about thirty years ago the traffic flipped. Now west of the 405 is horrendous, whereas it used to be empty. Santa Monica is gridlocked in the afternoon whereas it used to be sleepy. But Santa Monica is no longer a distant beach town, it's got tons of offices and it too is riddled with teardowns and McMansions.
Even the dreaded San Fernando Valley... Benjamin's mother told him relatives came all the way from Tarzana for his party in "The Graduate." But the disdain has evaporated, now you have to be rich to live on the other side of the hill. From Malibu to the Palisades to Santa Monica to Brentwood to Bel Air to Beverly Hills...this is where the money is in Los Angeles.
As for the hills... They're long and languid on the city side, steep and short on the Valley side. But if you live in the hills, you're susceptible to disaster. You have to constantly cut back the vegetation, it's a regular battle against the elements, and you may be vigilant but your neighbor may not be and therefore their land can slide on top of yours.
We live in the hills. Meaning we are susceptible. Hell, you should see it when it rains, the water coursing down the street.
And it used to be everybody laughed about L.A. disasters. The earthquakes. But now there are all these floods on the east coast and shoreline that is constantly in danger and...is it global warming? Some of it definitely is, and that's one of the first things I thought of yesterday, but you may think differently. Doesn't matter, no one is really doing anything about it anyway.
Other than canceling property insurance. It's a regular discussion in Los Angeles, and coverage is hard to replace. I just watched a video on TikTok of someone whose house was in danger in the Palisades who had had their insurance canceled and if their house went up in flames, they were SOL.
Funny about the government, people can't stop complaining about it, but when they experience a loss... And there's this fiction that the government will make you whole, it will not. If you lose your house and have no insurance...you're not only homeless now, you probably can't afford to build on the same piece of property, maybe you have to move to an apartment. Then again, land is so valuable in Los Angeles.
As for personal effects...
I went to the doctor for a physical this morning and there's no way his house survived, like I said above, presently there is no accounting. But he just recovered from prostate cancer, so he's got perspective. And we were talking about aged parents, how they end up living in small spaces with few possessions in retirement homes/care facilities. Everything that's so valuable to you is gonna get tossed. But I've told Felice over and over not to toss my vinyl records, they're worth a FORTUNE!
And historically I've been very into my possessions. After cancer a little bit less so. But that feeling doesn't last. Over the years you normalize. But the older you get so much becomes meaningless. It's about you and your life and then you're gone too.
You've got your memories. Sure, it's great to have the photos, but how often do you look at them? And even if you're someone who puts them on the wall...
But the funny thing is so much is virtual these days. Contemplating evacuating I figured I'd take my laptop and two medications, everything else can go. My world is on my computer, in the cloud. Don't they say that life is about experiences today?
So I used to spend a ton of time in the Palisades. Friends moved there in the early eighties, and then Kate opened a bookstore, but in the last few years there's been a diaspora. But I still know so many people there.
And Felice's mother used to have a beach house, that appears to have been torched.
The scale is devastating.
As for the living... Man, I woke up yesterday and you could feel the wind blowing, not only see it. And in certain places the smoke is dense and dark, in others perfectly clear. Credit the wind. But when I woke up today there was that hazy yellow light, which is familiar from previous fires.
But usually not in the winter, and usually not of this scale.
So how do you make those who lost their properties whole? I'm not talking about monetarily, but emotionally. What can you say and do?
And just like with school shootings, there's a plethora of compassion and then everybody moves on. They live their life, you're still hobbled.
But eventually it happens to you. No one is immune.
And then there are those who have nothing... Unlike in the Bob Dylan song, unless they're truly homeless they've got plenty to lose. If you're scraping along paycheck to paycheck and a disaster happens, unless you have insurance...
But the thing about America is everybody gets to live their own life, make their own choices. I'm paying so much in premiums and never collecting, you're going bare and triumphing. But we're all just one disaster away from being beaten down.
When he was still alive, my father always used to start our phone calls asking about my health. Which didn't resonate when I was in my twenties. But I totally get it now.
No one here gets out alive. Don't skimp on medical attention. You may think you're winning, but statistically the wealthy live longer than the poor because of the health care they receive. You've got to get your priorities straight.
I just hope you don't have to experience a disaster to realize this.
But one thing is for sure, a disaster is coming down the pike, no one lives a completely charmed life, it's just a matter of when.
Thank god it wasn't you today.
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Tuesday, 7 January 2025
Say Nothing
Hulu trailer: https://rb.gy/f5lk4w
For the first six or so episodes I didn't get the hoopla, this is considered to be one of the best series of the past year.
But then...
I've been to Belfast. I went by Van Morrison's home, I actually walked down into the hollow, but didn't see that brown eyed girl.
And I learned about the Troubles, I saw the paintings on the walls, the walls themselves, there was now peace but the remnants of what once was were highly visible.
And I thought I had somewhat of a grasp on what had gone on there until I watched this series.
"Give Ireland back to the Irish"
That's what Paul McCartney sang back in '72, it was the first Wings single.
And of course Bono sang about Bloody Sunday.
Then again, that was in the early eighties, when we took our music seriously, before Bono decided to save the entire world, before how much you made eclipsed what you had to say.
And there were the Catholics and the Protestants and the Brits and...
I live in America, where we believe it's the greatest country in the world, to the point where we don't have to even learn about the rest of the globe.
Meaning, chances are you don't know the essence of this story either.
Now the initial episodes are all about IRA activities. Shooting, blowing things up, death and...
It doesn't wholly ring true. I mean you accept the story, but the series is lacking a realistic edge, you don't feel the grit, you don't feel the danger.
Having said that... Lola Petticrew as Dolours Price is beyond belief. She's got that devil may care attitude, the belief in the cause the young possess. But she can feel fear too.
And the story revolves around the activities of Dolours and her sister Marian. And it's good TV.
And then...
Gerry Adams becomes a politician and negotiates peace.
I guess I thought Gerry Adams was a hero. But after watching this series...
But I don't want to ruin it, I just want you to commit to it.
This is a true story. People fighting for their freedom. You wonder if this can happen in America...
And the fight goes on for decades and then...
You'll remember some of this, the bombs, assuming you were alive back then. You'll remember when all the terrorism happened over there, when we believed we were immune.
But not anymore. Can you say not only 9/11, but New Orleans?
There is a visceral quality that emerges in the story deep into the series. Ironically, it's got less to do with action than feelings. How certain people feel sold out, feel duped.
And if you're living over there, in Ireland, this is all 101.
But if you're over here...
You mean people truly risked their lives for freedom? Killed in the name of the cause?
When this series is over you'll feel this sense of emptiness. And you don't have to have experienced the Troubles to understand it. You only have to get older.
You think ultimately things are going to work out. That you will always be able to depend upon certain people.
But then those you trusted most do what's expedient. It's like you don't even know them anymore. They treat you like you're still friends, but they've changed and you have not, and you're creeped out about it.
Commit to all nine episodes. "Say Nothing" will stay with you.
At first it might seem like lightweight Scorsese, but ultimately it's more meaningful than most of Scorsese's work. There's a gravitas along with an emptiness, more questions than answers... Is this how the world really works?
You watch it and you decide.
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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For the first six or so episodes I didn't get the hoopla, this is considered to be one of the best series of the past year.
But then...
I've been to Belfast. I went by Van Morrison's home, I actually walked down into the hollow, but didn't see that brown eyed girl.
And I learned about the Troubles, I saw the paintings on the walls, the walls themselves, there was now peace but the remnants of what once was were highly visible.
And I thought I had somewhat of a grasp on what had gone on there until I watched this series.
"Give Ireland back to the Irish"
That's what Paul McCartney sang back in '72, it was the first Wings single.
And of course Bono sang about Bloody Sunday.
Then again, that was in the early eighties, when we took our music seriously, before Bono decided to save the entire world, before how much you made eclipsed what you had to say.
And there were the Catholics and the Protestants and the Brits and...
I live in America, where we believe it's the greatest country in the world, to the point where we don't have to even learn about the rest of the globe.
Meaning, chances are you don't know the essence of this story either.
Now the initial episodes are all about IRA activities. Shooting, blowing things up, death and...
It doesn't wholly ring true. I mean you accept the story, but the series is lacking a realistic edge, you don't feel the grit, you don't feel the danger.
Having said that... Lola Petticrew as Dolours Price is beyond belief. She's got that devil may care attitude, the belief in the cause the young possess. But she can feel fear too.
And the story revolves around the activities of Dolours and her sister Marian. And it's good TV.
And then...
Gerry Adams becomes a politician and negotiates peace.
I guess I thought Gerry Adams was a hero. But after watching this series...
But I don't want to ruin it, I just want you to commit to it.
This is a true story. People fighting for their freedom. You wonder if this can happen in America...
And the fight goes on for decades and then...
You'll remember some of this, the bombs, assuming you were alive back then. You'll remember when all the terrorism happened over there, when we believed we were immune.
But not anymore. Can you say not only 9/11, but New Orleans?
There is a visceral quality that emerges in the story deep into the series. Ironically, it's got less to do with action than feelings. How certain people feel sold out, feel duped.
And if you're living over there, in Ireland, this is all 101.
But if you're over here...
You mean people truly risked their lives for freedom? Killed in the name of the cause?
When this series is over you'll feel this sense of emptiness. And you don't have to have experienced the Troubles to understand it. You only have to get older.
You think ultimately things are going to work out. That you will always be able to depend upon certain people.
But then those you trusted most do what's expedient. It's like you don't even know them anymore. They treat you like you're still friends, but they've changed and you have not, and you're creeped out about it.
Commit to all nine episodes. "Say Nothing" will stay with you.
At first it might seem like lightweight Scorsese, but ultimately it's more meaningful than most of Scorsese's work. There's a gravitas along with an emptiness, more questions than answers... Is this how the world really works?
You watch it and you decide.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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--
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Monday, 6 January 2025
Artistry
Giving people what they want is commerce.
Doing what you want is art. But that does not mean everybody will be interested in what you do. But when you get art right, it's forever, when you get commerce right, it's evanescent. Think of all the legendary companies and products that have gone out of business/ceased to exist. But art...when done right, it lasts for the ages.
Artists don't compromise, artists don't do what's expedient, artists don't put the money first and won't do just anything for the money (not that they don't like to get paid).
Artists are born, not made, and people don't like this. You can study forever, practice, and still not be an artist, even though you might call yourself one. Artistry is a sensibility, an otherness, a perspective, a need to express oneself.
And once again, just because you want to put it out there, that does not mean you'll gain any attention.
Just because you can post to Spotify that does not mean you can get paid. If anything, fewer artists/acts can be ultra-successful today, because unlike in the past, the greatest of yesterday and the greatest of today are only a fingertip away online. Yes, if you're a singer-songwriter and you don't sing and write as well as Joni Mitchell...you're never going to be as big as her, at least not for long.
Since art cannot be measured, non-artists default to numbers, qualifications, chart positions, touring income. But think of all the acts that did boffo at the b.o. who can't get arrested today. Here today, gone tomorrow, isn't that what they say?
And artists know what their specialty is, and they don't stray from it, unless they're having fun and letting their audience know this is the case. Which is why most brand extensions don't ring true. Yes, you can sell clothing and perfume but are you really a designer? People might buy your products, but it undercuts whatever credibility you have, assuming you have any at all.
Sometimes the public embraces artistry out of the box. A good case would be Elton John's "Your Song." Then again, Elton had put out a previous solo album in the U.K. that meant nothing in America, never mind playing piano for acts before that. Chances are if you're starting today you're not going to be embraced tomorrow as an artist. Artists develop, they hone their chops, they figure out what works.
A true artist knows when they ring the bell.
Hacks don't.
Ask someone who has a legendary cut... They knew it when they made it. It might not have gone to number one, but they knew it was phenomenal. And you can only create something phenomenal occasionally, no matter how hard you try. But you keep trying.
But business doesn't like artistry, business likes insurance, guarantees. Which is why business insists that you work with others, they keep polishing the turd, thinking they know what is successful. But most of this work doesn't hit and even if it does it's forgotten. Sure, there can be artistry in collaboration, the push and pull of creation, but when the goal is commerciality and you get multiple people involved you lose the vision, and songwriting is all about the vision, and the chops.
But usually artistry takes a while to be embraced by the public. People don't understand it, because it's so different. They have to be exposed to it, it has to percolate in their brains.
And don't let anybody tell you that the game trumps the art. People who will say today's #1 is just as good as yesterday's. That's patently untrue.
All great art has an edge. It doesn't go down easily, or if it does it engenders feelings that never go away. Art makes you feel something, it could be anger, it could be love, but it's not mindless drivel, to be heard today and forgotten tomorrow.
But art, like I said above, is not easily quantified, nor is success predictable, so gatekeepers hate art. Which is why you get sequels in the movie business.
As for the public... It always wants the new and different and unpredictable. But the bar is extremely high, the work must resonate, and this is difficult to achieve, oftentimes you fail in your effort.
Think about all the acts that have hit records and then try to repeat the formula, make another record that sounds just like the last one. That almost never works, because even though people say they want something like what came before, they really don't, they want something new and different.
Artists are leaders, ahead of the game. Commerce comes to them.
And artists constantly reinvent themselves. Sure, there's business in going on the road and playing your greatest hits year after year, but that's not artistry.
Sometimes edge/artistry is about shock. That worked for Frank Zappa and Alice Cooper. But right now, in the unfettered internet era, almost nothing is shocking, not even Rammstein.
Art causes a reaction, it oftentimes rubs people the wrong way.
But when artists get it right, fans need to tell everybody they know about it.
The lack of artistry not only killed the mainstream movie business, but network television. If you're playing to everybody, you're losing. Everybody is never going to agree. If you're not hated, you're not an artist. It goes with the territory.
You want to be pushing people's buttons, you want to be challenging them, you want them eager to hear what you're going to do next.
But it used to be in the pre-internet era that the world was small, and the artists coexisted alongside the hacks. They could be seen, they were in the landscape. To get a major label deal and distribution, never mind press and radio, was nearly impossible, it was only for a select few.
But now everybody can play, and everybody tells you to compromise, to give the public what it wants.
That might get you a look, but not a sustained one. If you hit overnight today, chances are you're going to be forgotten tomorrow. Hell, most people don't even know what is #1 these days. Despite the press banging them over the head with it. The press is about consensus, the press is last when it comes to artistry. Just like most news stories break somewhere online before they end up in the major media. Today you go straight to the people, the audience, they are the tastemakers, not the intermediaries, who are too invested in the system to understand breakthroughs.
And just because it is outside and championed by fans that does not make it art. That's all tastemakers have got, their taste, and if they like what you do they have nothing. Which is why you oftentimes disagree with the critics. If something makes an impact and lasts forever, and is embraced by the public at large, there's a good chance that it's art. Back in the seventies all the rockers hated the Carpenters, now they love them. and one thing you've got to know about the Carpenters is they went against the grain. When everybody else was getting dirtier in their music and physical appearance, they were purveying clean and sweet.
Artists read an audience, but they don't kowtow to the public.
As for Grammy Awards... They belong in the closet or the bathroom. Chances are if you're boasting about your Grammys, you're a hack.
Now, more than ever, we want artists.
But the system is built for commerce.
But the barrier to entry is nearly nonexistent, and therefore it's hard to get noticed.
Artists always get noticed, even though it might take decades.
There are very few artists, even though so many people believe they are one.
And artistry is not enough to be successful. You have to have the desire, the perseverance, the ability to forgo almost everything...family, material wealth...in pursuit of your art.
True artists don't complain about Spotify payments, about the cost of going on the road, they know it all works out in the end.
Assuming they stay true to their art, their vision and keep on keepin' on.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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--
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Doing what you want is art. But that does not mean everybody will be interested in what you do. But when you get art right, it's forever, when you get commerce right, it's evanescent. Think of all the legendary companies and products that have gone out of business/ceased to exist. But art...when done right, it lasts for the ages.
Artists don't compromise, artists don't do what's expedient, artists don't put the money first and won't do just anything for the money (not that they don't like to get paid).
Artists are born, not made, and people don't like this. You can study forever, practice, and still not be an artist, even though you might call yourself one. Artistry is a sensibility, an otherness, a perspective, a need to express oneself.
And once again, just because you want to put it out there, that does not mean you'll gain any attention.
Just because you can post to Spotify that does not mean you can get paid. If anything, fewer artists/acts can be ultra-successful today, because unlike in the past, the greatest of yesterday and the greatest of today are only a fingertip away online. Yes, if you're a singer-songwriter and you don't sing and write as well as Joni Mitchell...you're never going to be as big as her, at least not for long.
Since art cannot be measured, non-artists default to numbers, qualifications, chart positions, touring income. But think of all the acts that did boffo at the b.o. who can't get arrested today. Here today, gone tomorrow, isn't that what they say?
And artists know what their specialty is, and they don't stray from it, unless they're having fun and letting their audience know this is the case. Which is why most brand extensions don't ring true. Yes, you can sell clothing and perfume but are you really a designer? People might buy your products, but it undercuts whatever credibility you have, assuming you have any at all.
Sometimes the public embraces artistry out of the box. A good case would be Elton John's "Your Song." Then again, Elton had put out a previous solo album in the U.K. that meant nothing in America, never mind playing piano for acts before that. Chances are if you're starting today you're not going to be embraced tomorrow as an artist. Artists develop, they hone their chops, they figure out what works.
A true artist knows when they ring the bell.
Hacks don't.
Ask someone who has a legendary cut... They knew it when they made it. It might not have gone to number one, but they knew it was phenomenal. And you can only create something phenomenal occasionally, no matter how hard you try. But you keep trying.
But business doesn't like artistry, business likes insurance, guarantees. Which is why business insists that you work with others, they keep polishing the turd, thinking they know what is successful. But most of this work doesn't hit and even if it does it's forgotten. Sure, there can be artistry in collaboration, the push and pull of creation, but when the goal is commerciality and you get multiple people involved you lose the vision, and songwriting is all about the vision, and the chops.
But usually artistry takes a while to be embraced by the public. People don't understand it, because it's so different. They have to be exposed to it, it has to percolate in their brains.
And don't let anybody tell you that the game trumps the art. People who will say today's #1 is just as good as yesterday's. That's patently untrue.
All great art has an edge. It doesn't go down easily, or if it does it engenders feelings that never go away. Art makes you feel something, it could be anger, it could be love, but it's not mindless drivel, to be heard today and forgotten tomorrow.
But art, like I said above, is not easily quantified, nor is success predictable, so gatekeepers hate art. Which is why you get sequels in the movie business.
As for the public... It always wants the new and different and unpredictable. But the bar is extremely high, the work must resonate, and this is difficult to achieve, oftentimes you fail in your effort.
Think about all the acts that have hit records and then try to repeat the formula, make another record that sounds just like the last one. That almost never works, because even though people say they want something like what came before, they really don't, they want something new and different.
Artists are leaders, ahead of the game. Commerce comes to them.
And artists constantly reinvent themselves. Sure, there's business in going on the road and playing your greatest hits year after year, but that's not artistry.
Sometimes edge/artistry is about shock. That worked for Frank Zappa and Alice Cooper. But right now, in the unfettered internet era, almost nothing is shocking, not even Rammstein.
Art causes a reaction, it oftentimes rubs people the wrong way.
But when artists get it right, fans need to tell everybody they know about it.
The lack of artistry not only killed the mainstream movie business, but network television. If you're playing to everybody, you're losing. Everybody is never going to agree. If you're not hated, you're not an artist. It goes with the territory.
You want to be pushing people's buttons, you want to be challenging them, you want them eager to hear what you're going to do next.
But it used to be in the pre-internet era that the world was small, and the artists coexisted alongside the hacks. They could be seen, they were in the landscape. To get a major label deal and distribution, never mind press and radio, was nearly impossible, it was only for a select few.
But now everybody can play, and everybody tells you to compromise, to give the public what it wants.
That might get you a look, but not a sustained one. If you hit overnight today, chances are you're going to be forgotten tomorrow. Hell, most people don't even know what is #1 these days. Despite the press banging them over the head with it. The press is about consensus, the press is last when it comes to artistry. Just like most news stories break somewhere online before they end up in the major media. Today you go straight to the people, the audience, they are the tastemakers, not the intermediaries, who are too invested in the system to understand breakthroughs.
And just because it is outside and championed by fans that does not make it art. That's all tastemakers have got, their taste, and if they like what you do they have nothing. Which is why you oftentimes disagree with the critics. If something makes an impact and lasts forever, and is embraced by the public at large, there's a good chance that it's art. Back in the seventies all the rockers hated the Carpenters, now they love them. and one thing you've got to know about the Carpenters is they went against the grain. When everybody else was getting dirtier in their music and physical appearance, they were purveying clean and sweet.
Artists read an audience, but they don't kowtow to the public.
As for Grammy Awards... They belong in the closet or the bathroom. Chances are if you're boasting about your Grammys, you're a hack.
Now, more than ever, we want artists.
But the system is built for commerce.
But the barrier to entry is nearly nonexistent, and therefore it's hard to get noticed.
Artists always get noticed, even though it might take decades.
There are very few artists, even though so many people believe they are one.
And artistry is not enough to be successful. You have to have the desire, the perseverance, the ability to forgo almost everything...family, material wealth...in pursuit of your art.
True artists don't complain about Spotify payments, about the cost of going on the road, they know it all works out in the end.
Assuming they stay true to their art, their vision and keep on keepin' on.
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Sunday, 5 January 2025
The Park City Ski Patrol Strike
Someone should get fired for this, hopefully CEO Kirsten Lynch.
Vail is the most hated name in skiing, justifiably or unjustifiably. Rob Katz revolutionized the skiing business not quite twenty years ago. He flipped the script. Unlike previous ski conglomerates, Katz decided that Vail Resorts would make its money on skiing and its ancillaries as opposed to real estate. And the effort was wildly successful.
Skiing has never been cheaper.
This is kind of like Ticketmaster, the truth doesn't seem to matter, even though you'll see that M. Shadows finally spoke the truth here:
"Avenged Sevenfold's M. Shadows Unmasks Truth Behind 'Dynamic' Ticket Pricing: 'Artists Love to Hide Behind Live Nation and Ticketmaster and Go, 'Oh. We Had No Clue'''
https://shorturl.at/85Aug
In other words, the big corporation must be guilty, and an occasional bad story gets amplified as opposed to the truth.
Yes, you can walk up to the window during the holiday at Vail and pay in excess of $300 for a lift ticket, but if you buy before the first week of December deadline, you can get unlimited skiing at 42 ski areas around the world for about $1000. Talk about a deal... Break even is in four days. And there's nothing like a season's pass... If the weather is bad, you quit, you don't have to eke out the value of a day pass.
But never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Furthermore, Vail invested heavily in the ski areas it purchased, most prominently in lift structure. Other than beginner lifts, every chair at Vail Mountain is now high-speed. And those lifts are very expensive with relatively short lifespans (approximately 30 years).
But now, when there's a lift line it must be Vail's fault. If you're unhappy, it must be Vail's fault.
Skiing is akin to surfing. In that there are always people who say you should have been here yesterday, that it was better. When Vail proposed replacing the slow triple chair with a high-speed quad in the original Back Bowls, the locals were up in arms, the powder was going to get skied out! But once the lift was installed, everybody was happy. And you may have seen the photos of endless lines for this new lift on a powder day. Forget that powder days are insane, Vail dealt with this problem by installing another high speed quad chairlift in the same area.
But all this doesn't matter. Because in life it always come down to perception, not reality. And perception is that Vail is evil. It has homogenized the sport, it has ruined it.
Never mind that Alterra created the rival IKON pass with the same formula, albeit a tiny bit more expensive with fewer resorts, and restrictions at number of the legendary ones.
But Vail is Ticketmaster. Or UnitedHealthcare, the enemy, the root of all problems.
So how do you deal with this?
Not by being ignorant of perception.
The Park City ski patrol went on strike, for a few dollars more. They want $23 dollars an hour to open the area and keep it safe (a raise from $21).
That's too much for Vail. Which believes if it raises wages for these patrollers, it will have to raise wages across the board.
And one might possibly understand it when it comes to the numbers, but not when it comes to the effect.
The ski patrol went on strike and most of Park City didn't open and the vacations of thousands of people were ruined, over the Christmas holidays. You're paying a grand a night for a hotel room, or maybe you're staying in a fleabag hotel in Salt Lake City. You've come all this way and...
You can't ski.
Or you can wait in an endless line for limited skiing.
If it were me, I'd never give Vail another dollar, I'd never vacation at one of their resorts again. I spent all this money and you F*CKED ME? Without people like me, without customers, YOU'VE GOT NO BUSINESS!
This makes me crazy, all these rich CEOs believe they live in a vacuum, they don't acknowledge that if we don't buy/use their products, there is no company.
So how do you solve this problem?
Well, you never ever should have let the ski patrol go on strike during the holiday. And, if they ever were going to go on strike, you needed to give the public advance warning. It's not like this was a completely hidden issue if you were paying attention, but how many skiers pay attention to the minutiae of the ski business? Not many.
You pay the patrollers to work during the holiday, with the promise of negotiation thereafter. Furthermore, unionization/strikes have been bubbling up for the past few years, and the public is on the unions' side. Look at Shawn Fain and the autoworkers. He's a hero!
And Kirsten Lynch, paid millions a year, is a schlemiel.
Vail was already behind the 8-ball, and Lynch stuck a knife in the corporation's heart. All in the name of money, but as a result the stock went down.
There is only one side to this story, and Vail needs to deliver a mea culpa immediately. You just don't screw hard-paying customers this way, NEVER EVER!
If Lynch doesn't lose her job, there's no justice.
Those Ivy League college presidents lost their jobs as a result of their mishandling of the protests in the wake of October 7th.
You've got to send a message, you've got to set an example.
And the fact that Kirsten Lynch is a woman...SO WHAT? She's the decider, she has to go!
And if Vail was smart, it would find a way to give reparations. This may be impossible to do in practice, but an effort should be made. Everybody who actually showed up on the hill should get a discount on next year's Epic Pass. This won't make everybody happy, but it's an olive branch, and you can never make everybody happy.
Then again, are the lawsuits coming?
You want to cut them off at the pass. You want to control the situation, not let it control you.
This is not Vail's first faux pas, there was the Stevens Pass fiasco just a few years ago... But the trend is going in the wrong direction. This is now international news, only because Vail corporate was too stupid to read the tea leaves.
Kirsten Lynch has got an MBA, begging the question what they teach in these programs. Is it Milton Friedman all the time, does no one think of customers?
This is an atrocious situation. You might as well have a tornado on my wedding day, or a typhoon on my honeymoon. But those are truly acts of God, this strike is not.
I already came to Park City. I planned, I was looking forward to it. This is not like other strikes where I can buy coffee somewhere else, or buy a different brand of car. I'm already invested AND YOU SCREWED ME!
Vail's obliviousness is hurting the entire ski industry, making it look like an elite sport when as I said above, skiing has never been cheaper.
Good work Kirsten Lynch! It's your fault, the buck stops with you, tender your resignation before the board fires you.
As for the patrollers...
All I know is that Park City MUST STAY OPEN! The complete ski area. Everything else is subsidiary to this.
Ain't that obvious?
At least to everybody but Kirsten Lynch and Vail Resorts.
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Vail is the most hated name in skiing, justifiably or unjustifiably. Rob Katz revolutionized the skiing business not quite twenty years ago. He flipped the script. Unlike previous ski conglomerates, Katz decided that Vail Resorts would make its money on skiing and its ancillaries as opposed to real estate. And the effort was wildly successful.
Skiing has never been cheaper.
This is kind of like Ticketmaster, the truth doesn't seem to matter, even though you'll see that M. Shadows finally spoke the truth here:
"Avenged Sevenfold's M. Shadows Unmasks Truth Behind 'Dynamic' Ticket Pricing: 'Artists Love to Hide Behind Live Nation and Ticketmaster and Go, 'Oh. We Had No Clue'''
https://shorturl.at/85Aug
In other words, the big corporation must be guilty, and an occasional bad story gets amplified as opposed to the truth.
Yes, you can walk up to the window during the holiday at Vail and pay in excess of $300 for a lift ticket, but if you buy before the first week of December deadline, you can get unlimited skiing at 42 ski areas around the world for about $1000. Talk about a deal... Break even is in four days. And there's nothing like a season's pass... If the weather is bad, you quit, you don't have to eke out the value of a day pass.
But never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Furthermore, Vail invested heavily in the ski areas it purchased, most prominently in lift structure. Other than beginner lifts, every chair at Vail Mountain is now high-speed. And those lifts are very expensive with relatively short lifespans (approximately 30 years).
But now, when there's a lift line it must be Vail's fault. If you're unhappy, it must be Vail's fault.
Skiing is akin to surfing. In that there are always people who say you should have been here yesterday, that it was better. When Vail proposed replacing the slow triple chair with a high-speed quad in the original Back Bowls, the locals were up in arms, the powder was going to get skied out! But once the lift was installed, everybody was happy. And you may have seen the photos of endless lines for this new lift on a powder day. Forget that powder days are insane, Vail dealt with this problem by installing another high speed quad chairlift in the same area.
But all this doesn't matter. Because in life it always come down to perception, not reality. And perception is that Vail is evil. It has homogenized the sport, it has ruined it.
Never mind that Alterra created the rival IKON pass with the same formula, albeit a tiny bit more expensive with fewer resorts, and restrictions at number of the legendary ones.
But Vail is Ticketmaster. Or UnitedHealthcare, the enemy, the root of all problems.
So how do you deal with this?
Not by being ignorant of perception.
The Park City ski patrol went on strike, for a few dollars more. They want $23 dollars an hour to open the area and keep it safe (a raise from $21).
That's too much for Vail. Which believes if it raises wages for these patrollers, it will have to raise wages across the board.
And one might possibly understand it when it comes to the numbers, but not when it comes to the effect.
The ski patrol went on strike and most of Park City didn't open and the vacations of thousands of people were ruined, over the Christmas holidays. You're paying a grand a night for a hotel room, or maybe you're staying in a fleabag hotel in Salt Lake City. You've come all this way and...
You can't ski.
Or you can wait in an endless line for limited skiing.
If it were me, I'd never give Vail another dollar, I'd never vacation at one of their resorts again. I spent all this money and you F*CKED ME? Without people like me, without customers, YOU'VE GOT NO BUSINESS!
This makes me crazy, all these rich CEOs believe they live in a vacuum, they don't acknowledge that if we don't buy/use their products, there is no company.
So how do you solve this problem?
Well, you never ever should have let the ski patrol go on strike during the holiday. And, if they ever were going to go on strike, you needed to give the public advance warning. It's not like this was a completely hidden issue if you were paying attention, but how many skiers pay attention to the minutiae of the ski business? Not many.
You pay the patrollers to work during the holiday, with the promise of negotiation thereafter. Furthermore, unionization/strikes have been bubbling up for the past few years, and the public is on the unions' side. Look at Shawn Fain and the autoworkers. He's a hero!
And Kirsten Lynch, paid millions a year, is a schlemiel.
Vail was already behind the 8-ball, and Lynch stuck a knife in the corporation's heart. All in the name of money, but as a result the stock went down.
There is only one side to this story, and Vail needs to deliver a mea culpa immediately. You just don't screw hard-paying customers this way, NEVER EVER!
If Lynch doesn't lose her job, there's no justice.
Those Ivy League college presidents lost their jobs as a result of their mishandling of the protests in the wake of October 7th.
You've got to send a message, you've got to set an example.
And the fact that Kirsten Lynch is a woman...SO WHAT? She's the decider, she has to go!
And if Vail was smart, it would find a way to give reparations. This may be impossible to do in practice, but an effort should be made. Everybody who actually showed up on the hill should get a discount on next year's Epic Pass. This won't make everybody happy, but it's an olive branch, and you can never make everybody happy.
Then again, are the lawsuits coming?
You want to cut them off at the pass. You want to control the situation, not let it control you.
This is not Vail's first faux pas, there was the Stevens Pass fiasco just a few years ago... But the trend is going in the wrong direction. This is now international news, only because Vail corporate was too stupid to read the tea leaves.
Kirsten Lynch has got an MBA, begging the question what they teach in these programs. Is it Milton Friedman all the time, does no one think of customers?
This is an atrocious situation. You might as well have a tornado on my wedding day, or a typhoon on my honeymoon. But those are truly acts of God, this strike is not.
I already came to Park City. I planned, I was looking forward to it. This is not like other strikes where I can buy coffee somewhere else, or buy a different brand of car. I'm already invested AND YOU SCREWED ME!
Vail's obliviousness is hurting the entire ski industry, making it look like an elite sport when as I said above, skiing has never been cheaper.
Good work Kirsten Lynch! It's your fault, the buck stops with you, tender your resignation before the board fires you.
As for the patrollers...
All I know is that Park City MUST STAY OPEN! The complete ski area. Everything else is subsidiary to this.
Ain't that obvious?
At least to everybody but Kirsten Lynch and Vail Resorts.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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--
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Nikki Glaser's Golden Globes Monologue
She performed this 91 times in preparation?
This is why music is the hottest art form, because when done right it breathes, it's alive, it's a different experience every night. Which is why the more you play to hard drive, the more you kill the essence. At the bigger venues, the stadiums, acts are afraid of getting it wrong, just like Nikki Glaser, and they've got it prerecorded with vocals sweetened and tons of production and maybe the brain dead audience has an experience to put in their trophy case, but it's far from rock and roll.
But comedy is more cutting edge than today's music. Used to be if you wanted truth, you watched "The Simpsons" or some other animated program. Only two-dimensional characters could be honest. But today comedy rules, that's where the truth is, that's where the bleeding edge is... Where Chappelle rides on the edge of cancellation and Seinfeld says colleges are too politically correct/woke to perform at. Bill Burr is more honest than Nikki Glaser...
I'm not saying that Glaser has not performed well at roasts, then again she's filling the slot vacated by Amy Schumer, who performed the role much better, more believably. Glaser appears to be a sorority girl who stumbled into the wrong room and can't believe she's there, she's not comfortable with herself, and it's not endearing.
I know, I know, you can't criticize a woman. Then again, in the era of Trump can you?
Let me see... When did women decide that lipstick should go above and beyond their lips? I mean we're watching you in hi-def and it doesn't look good.
And Glaser looks different and...
Most people are not watching at all.
The Golden Globes shouldn't exist, it was run by a tiny cabal and the truth was exposed but the television property is just too valuable. To be the first awards show of the season?
But in truth the public doesn't care about the movies, it's all sequels and events. You can read today's "New York Times" on the Oscars, I wonder who that's for. These are the same people who believed Kamala was a shoo-in for victory. The public runs on streaming television and social media, then again seemingly every day in the "Times" there's an anti-social media rant. Endless stories about disconnecting from the internet... Yeah, like we had telephone holidays in the last century, EXCEPT WE DIDN'T! Why do educated Democrats hate technology, they're the ones who want to bring us back to the past, not Trump.
You can't have an awards show of social media because it's all Balkanized. Then again, so is music, but they continue to have their bogus awards shows as if we all pay attention to the same acts anymore. There are two trains running, one from the past, the left wing MAGA, that believes we live for the movies and the smartphone is the devil, and the other that believes just the opposite.
So, if you're not a fan of mainstream media, you probably escaped the Nikki Glaser hype. She was everywhere recently, even more than Taylor Swift. And now she comes on and
Doesn't exactly blow it, but kinda falls flat. Chris Rock operates without a net, and tonight Nikki Glaser was all net.
When you overthink art you screw it up. Too many cooks in the kitchen kill not only movies, but music. You may end up with a monetary success, but there's no lasting value. Bring back the auteurs of the seventies.
In music, the auteurs are already back. There's a parallel scene of acts who play live...you go to see them and it's a visceral experience. It's smaller venues, you have to be in the know to go. And they are not hit dependent, that's not what you're going for.
Once upon a time movie stars were icons. But now that all their warts have been revealed online, we know they're just like you and me. We want something more, something to truly believe in.
Then again, if you can make it through a Nikki Glaser special, you're better than me, enough with the scatological material... Hell, I can pull up porn in Google, this is no longer summer camp with dog-eared copies of "Playboy."
So who are Nikki Glaser and the Golden Globes for?
It's not like we don't have options, we've got a plethora of them.
And I'm not a fan, but there's more honesty despite the occasional insanity in a Joe Rogan podcast than there is in tonight's show. With Rogan you never know exactly what you're going to get. Tonight, we're getting exactly what we thought we'd get, assuming we're paying attention at all!
But you can't sh*t on Hollywood anymore. Their hearts are in the right place, they give to charity, people love the movies... How out of touch can you be? Once again, this is why Trump won, people are sick and tired of an elite telling them that everything is the same and they should be happy. People want change, they want someone to listen to them.
And tonight Nikki Glaser was so busy listening to her out of touch inner circle that her vaunted monologue fell flat.
If you want me I'll be in the bar.
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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
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This is why music is the hottest art form, because when done right it breathes, it's alive, it's a different experience every night. Which is why the more you play to hard drive, the more you kill the essence. At the bigger venues, the stadiums, acts are afraid of getting it wrong, just like Nikki Glaser, and they've got it prerecorded with vocals sweetened and tons of production and maybe the brain dead audience has an experience to put in their trophy case, but it's far from rock and roll.
But comedy is more cutting edge than today's music. Used to be if you wanted truth, you watched "The Simpsons" or some other animated program. Only two-dimensional characters could be honest. But today comedy rules, that's where the truth is, that's where the bleeding edge is... Where Chappelle rides on the edge of cancellation and Seinfeld says colleges are too politically correct/woke to perform at. Bill Burr is more honest than Nikki Glaser...
I'm not saying that Glaser has not performed well at roasts, then again she's filling the slot vacated by Amy Schumer, who performed the role much better, more believably. Glaser appears to be a sorority girl who stumbled into the wrong room and can't believe she's there, she's not comfortable with herself, and it's not endearing.
I know, I know, you can't criticize a woman. Then again, in the era of Trump can you?
Let me see... When did women decide that lipstick should go above and beyond their lips? I mean we're watching you in hi-def and it doesn't look good.
And Glaser looks different and...
Most people are not watching at all.
The Golden Globes shouldn't exist, it was run by a tiny cabal and the truth was exposed but the television property is just too valuable. To be the first awards show of the season?
But in truth the public doesn't care about the movies, it's all sequels and events. You can read today's "New York Times" on the Oscars, I wonder who that's for. These are the same people who believed Kamala was a shoo-in for victory. The public runs on streaming television and social media, then again seemingly every day in the "Times" there's an anti-social media rant. Endless stories about disconnecting from the internet... Yeah, like we had telephone holidays in the last century, EXCEPT WE DIDN'T! Why do educated Democrats hate technology, they're the ones who want to bring us back to the past, not Trump.
You can't have an awards show of social media because it's all Balkanized. Then again, so is music, but they continue to have their bogus awards shows as if we all pay attention to the same acts anymore. There are two trains running, one from the past, the left wing MAGA, that believes we live for the movies and the smartphone is the devil, and the other that believes just the opposite.
So, if you're not a fan of mainstream media, you probably escaped the Nikki Glaser hype. She was everywhere recently, even more than Taylor Swift. And now she comes on and
Doesn't exactly blow it, but kinda falls flat. Chris Rock operates without a net, and tonight Nikki Glaser was all net.
When you overthink art you screw it up. Too many cooks in the kitchen kill not only movies, but music. You may end up with a monetary success, but there's no lasting value. Bring back the auteurs of the seventies.
In music, the auteurs are already back. There's a parallel scene of acts who play live...you go to see them and it's a visceral experience. It's smaller venues, you have to be in the know to go. And they are not hit dependent, that's not what you're going for.
Once upon a time movie stars were icons. But now that all their warts have been revealed online, we know they're just like you and me. We want something more, something to truly believe in.
Then again, if you can make it through a Nikki Glaser special, you're better than me, enough with the scatological material... Hell, I can pull up porn in Google, this is no longer summer camp with dog-eared copies of "Playboy."
So who are Nikki Glaser and the Golden Globes for?
It's not like we don't have options, we've got a plethora of them.
And I'm not a fan, but there's more honesty despite the occasional insanity in a Joe Rogan podcast than there is in tonight's show. With Rogan you never know exactly what you're going to get. Tonight, we're getting exactly what we thought we'd get, assuming we're paying attention at all!
But you can't sh*t on Hollywood anymore. Their hearts are in the right place, they give to charity, people love the movies... How out of touch can you be? Once again, this is why Trump won, people are sick and tired of an elite telling them that everything is the same and they should be happy. People want change, they want someone to listen to them.
And tonight Nikki Glaser was so busy listening to her out of touch inner circle that her vaunted monologue fell flat.
If you want me I'll be in the bar.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
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Friday, 3 January 2025
Even More Non-Hit Favorites-SiriusXM This Week
Tune in Saturday January 4th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
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If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
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Thursday, 2 January 2025
Neil Sedaka-This Week's Podcast
The one and only!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/neil-sedaka/id1316200737?i=1000682395153
https://open.spotify.com/episode/75MSjoCBIEi8C87WKHdx8j?si=NDp54Zf4SIeJatGyvwTOiQ
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/neil-sedaka-253956335/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/ec1224c3-9825-4222-8500-706d1f01aa8f/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-neil-sedaka
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/neil-sedaka/id1316200737?i=1000682395153
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Wednesday, 1 January 2025
Justin Baldoni Sues The New York Times
"'It Ends With Us' Actor and Director and His Publicists Sue The Times for Libel - Justin Baldoni claims that The Times defamed him and his team in an article about the actress Blake Lively's allegations that she had been the victim of a smear campaign."
Free link: https://shorturl.at/jU3ro
This is why ABC never should have settled with Trump.
Anybody can sue anybody, but that does not mean you win.
This Blake Lively situation is being played out in the press, where the mainstream media has faltered in the opinion of the public and anything goes online and celebrities are idols of the public because everybody in politics and business is so venal and duplicitous as to be looked down upon. Hell, in the last election cycle Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz burned whatever credibility they still had. The tech titans want to be able to operate unfettered and the public is concerned about privacy and abuse and there are two tiers in society, the overlords and the oppressed, and if you're in the latter camp, your heroes are social media influencers and celebrities, at least there you believe your vote, your clicks, make a difference. But having said that, we're evolving into a narcissistic society where only the self matters, it's like we no longer live in a society but a country of lone oftentimes gunmen.
So, it's nearly impossible to prove libel of a public figure in America.
The law is clear, the statements must be wrong and published with malicious aforethought.
In other words, the "New York Times" must have been lying with the intention of hurting Mr. Baldoni. Good luck with that.
But in truth this is not about legal court, today everything's played out in the court of public opinion, you posture, you posit, and that's what this case is all about.
Which I have been following tangentially. Blake Lively is entitled to make a living, but that does not mean I need to pay attention to her. That's the world of today, we all live in our own niches and can ignore that which doesn't interest us. But utilizing a public relations team in an effort to spin a situation to your advantage, that I'm interested in.
Now let's play this out...
Each and every day people from around the world send me hate mail, or express their negative views of me on social media. Hell, the "WSJ" printed an article about me and the Swifties are out to get me.
That's the price of doing what I'm doing.
Would I like the hate to go away? On some level yes, but without the hate I wouldn't know how some people feel, and I need to, I need to take the temperature of the public to be able to do what I do. It's the price of doing what I'm doing. If you don't play, if you don't post online, if you don't endeavor in the public to some fame/notoriety, you're immune.
Which is why the law of libel is different for private individuals.
But that's not who we're talking about here.
So Baldoni hires a bulldog of a lawyer, Bryan Freedman, who comes out with both guns blasting, believing that a strong offense is better than ever playing defense.
So the goal here is to get people to believe that Baldoni is innocent.
Because the odds of a case like this actually going to trial are de minimis (there's a legal term for you!)
And the "Times," unlike ABC, knows that its reputation and business are at stake. Once you do what's efficient in the name of business...that doesn't work in the media, because first and foremost you must have credibility, and you must make a stand so that frivolous actions in the future will be inhibited. The "Times" and most of the press have a long history of fighting libel lawsuits.
As for Donald Trump, he's got a long history of suing the press. And it isn't about the money, but spin. But now that he's President...talk about a public figure, what does he want?
Well, he already got the WaPo and the L.A. "Times" to back down, both papers refusing to endorse a presidential candidate in the past election.
And it's clear it was fear. After Trump got elected, seemingly every business titan/corporation kissed his ring and donated to his reelection campaign.
Is this the country we want to live in, where everybody is afraid to say what they choose?
Furthermore, the right wing trope is freedom of speech. Yeah, right.
Trump won fair and square. The Republicans control both houses of Congress. They've got the power, let them rule. And if they cross the line, we've got the legal system to stop them...
You can speak all day long as to whether the lawsuits against Trump were frivolous, but when the Supreme Court narrows the legal system's ability to prosecute Trump...our whole system caves.
We have a system of laws and they must be obeyed.
Do Baldoni and Freedman truly care about the law? I sincerely doubt it. They can drop this lawsuit whenever they want. The odds of it going to court... As far as the "Times" suing Baldoni for malicious prosecution...it's expensive and hard to prove and most people forgo this effort.
This is big money and famous people.
Which is why if you're a member of the hoi polloi you're essentially powerless against the man. You've got the RIGHT to sue, but can you AFFORD IT?
We need a strong press. Let's talk about the freedom of the press, not freedom of speech. And all these social media companies, they're private corporations, they can restrict speech however they want. But Musk wants to intimidate them to do otherwise. And Trump proved the point by establishing Truth Social. You can start a social media outlet to purvey your thoughts and write the rules as you see fit. Elon took over Twitter/X and if you can't see the changes, you're not on it.
Who is going to keep people in line if the press is hobbled?
The corporations have caved, under the rubric of possibly losing money, as if that's the only thing they're' involved in, as if these companies don't employ humans and sell to humans.
The press's job is to keep politicians and business people honest. They're the last line of defense. Which is why it's so hard to sue for libel and win!
And once we get rid of the rules, once people are intimidated to the point where the laws don't matter, we're screwed.
The "Times" is standing up for you.
But you've excoriated the "Times" to the point where the paper is considered the enemy, by those on both the right and the left.
This is the world we live in today, where there's no truth. And if someone tries to tell the truth, you undercut their bona fides.
This is not the world we want to live in.
But this is the one those with power and influence are creating.
Beware.
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Free link: https://shorturl.at/jU3ro
This is why ABC never should have settled with Trump.
Anybody can sue anybody, but that does not mean you win.
This Blake Lively situation is being played out in the press, where the mainstream media has faltered in the opinion of the public and anything goes online and celebrities are idols of the public because everybody in politics and business is so venal and duplicitous as to be looked down upon. Hell, in the last election cycle Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz burned whatever credibility they still had. The tech titans want to be able to operate unfettered and the public is concerned about privacy and abuse and there are two tiers in society, the overlords and the oppressed, and if you're in the latter camp, your heroes are social media influencers and celebrities, at least there you believe your vote, your clicks, make a difference. But having said that, we're evolving into a narcissistic society where only the self matters, it's like we no longer live in a society but a country of lone oftentimes gunmen.
So, it's nearly impossible to prove libel of a public figure in America.
The law is clear, the statements must be wrong and published with malicious aforethought.
In other words, the "New York Times" must have been lying with the intention of hurting Mr. Baldoni. Good luck with that.
But in truth this is not about legal court, today everything's played out in the court of public opinion, you posture, you posit, and that's what this case is all about.
Which I have been following tangentially. Blake Lively is entitled to make a living, but that does not mean I need to pay attention to her. That's the world of today, we all live in our own niches and can ignore that which doesn't interest us. But utilizing a public relations team in an effort to spin a situation to your advantage, that I'm interested in.
Now let's play this out...
Each and every day people from around the world send me hate mail, or express their negative views of me on social media. Hell, the "WSJ" printed an article about me and the Swifties are out to get me.
That's the price of doing what I'm doing.
Would I like the hate to go away? On some level yes, but without the hate I wouldn't know how some people feel, and I need to, I need to take the temperature of the public to be able to do what I do. It's the price of doing what I'm doing. If you don't play, if you don't post online, if you don't endeavor in the public to some fame/notoriety, you're immune.
Which is why the law of libel is different for private individuals.
But that's not who we're talking about here.
So Baldoni hires a bulldog of a lawyer, Bryan Freedman, who comes out with both guns blasting, believing that a strong offense is better than ever playing defense.
So the goal here is to get people to believe that Baldoni is innocent.
Because the odds of a case like this actually going to trial are de minimis (there's a legal term for you!)
And the "Times," unlike ABC, knows that its reputation and business are at stake. Once you do what's efficient in the name of business...that doesn't work in the media, because first and foremost you must have credibility, and you must make a stand so that frivolous actions in the future will be inhibited. The "Times" and most of the press have a long history of fighting libel lawsuits.
As for Donald Trump, he's got a long history of suing the press. And it isn't about the money, but spin. But now that he's President...talk about a public figure, what does he want?
Well, he already got the WaPo and the L.A. "Times" to back down, both papers refusing to endorse a presidential candidate in the past election.
And it's clear it was fear. After Trump got elected, seemingly every business titan/corporation kissed his ring and donated to his reelection campaign.
Is this the country we want to live in, where everybody is afraid to say what they choose?
Furthermore, the right wing trope is freedom of speech. Yeah, right.
Trump won fair and square. The Republicans control both houses of Congress. They've got the power, let them rule. And if they cross the line, we've got the legal system to stop them...
You can speak all day long as to whether the lawsuits against Trump were frivolous, but when the Supreme Court narrows the legal system's ability to prosecute Trump...our whole system caves.
We have a system of laws and they must be obeyed.
Do Baldoni and Freedman truly care about the law? I sincerely doubt it. They can drop this lawsuit whenever they want. The odds of it going to court... As far as the "Times" suing Baldoni for malicious prosecution...it's expensive and hard to prove and most people forgo this effort.
This is big money and famous people.
Which is why if you're a member of the hoi polloi you're essentially powerless against the man. You've got the RIGHT to sue, but can you AFFORD IT?
We need a strong press. Let's talk about the freedom of the press, not freedom of speech. And all these social media companies, they're private corporations, they can restrict speech however they want. But Musk wants to intimidate them to do otherwise. And Trump proved the point by establishing Truth Social. You can start a social media outlet to purvey your thoughts and write the rules as you see fit. Elon took over Twitter/X and if you can't see the changes, you're not on it.
Who is going to keep people in line if the press is hobbled?
The corporations have caved, under the rubric of possibly losing money, as if that's the only thing they're' involved in, as if these companies don't employ humans and sell to humans.
The press's job is to keep politicians and business people honest. They're the last line of defense. Which is why it's so hard to sue for libel and win!
And once we get rid of the rules, once people are intimidated to the point where the laws don't matter, we're screwed.
The "Times" is standing up for you.
But you've excoriated the "Times" to the point where the paper is considered the enemy, by those on both the right and the left.
This is the world we live in today, where there's no truth. And if someone tries to tell the truth, you undercut their bona fides.
This is not the world we want to live in.
But this is the one those with power and influence are creating.
Beware.
--
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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If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
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