It knocked the sh*t out of me. Literally.

As you might remember, after taking the steroid dosepak, I was supposed to return to UCLA hospital for a follow-up cystoscopy three months later.

Today was the day.

I haven’t pissed blood since. So I was optimistic there would be no problem, but you never know. The body is made to deteriorate, no one here gets out alive, something’s gonna get you.

Now no matter how calm you feel, you never get a good night’s sleep before procedures like this. Actually, I had a wild dream where this waiter in Vail sold me a jacket. It was $495. Really pretty cool. I was supposed to be having dinner with friends and family downstairs at Russell’s, which doesn’t even have a downstairs, but after sitting at the table silently I excused myself to go to the bathroom and when I was done, I took a seat at a two-top and this waiter came along and after sizing me up he left and returned with this jacket. Kinda hard to describe, it was fabric, not leather, something you’d wear at night, it had a lining, which was removable and…thinking about it afterward it reminded me of this Guess jacket I had back in the eighties.

Anyway… I find it nearly impossible to shop for clothes. I question my taste and the ultimate fit but this guy sized me up perfectly! So I was excited when he said we should go downstairs for jeans, but they didn’t have my size, and this guy wasn’t going to sell me anything that wasn’t exactly right. Turns out his name is Fred and really he runs a bookstore and he’s not going to be back at the restaurant until Tuesday, when new threads are delivered, so I’m making a mental note to dream about him a week from now.

The dream was a good diversion, you never know where this stuff comes from, what it means, and it kept me distracted while I showered and ate and then… I had to skedaddle for the hospital.

I’ve learned to check the map app first, you never know where the traffic might be, and I was routed on Sepulveda instead of the 405, and it was crowded at first but I got there in time and after checking in, I had to provide a urine sample.

I wondered if I had enough in me. This had occurred to me just before I left the house, and I tried to imbibe, but I just wasn’t thirsty. Really, I was standing in the bathroom with the plastic cup and I felt that I would be unable to deliver, wondering if I eked out a few drops whether it would be enough, but eventually I got a flow going and returned to the waiting room.

Where I didn’t have to wait long until I was called inside by the football expert.

I guess I always feel obligated to service people. I’m trying to work on this with my shrink. But I was stunned that this woman didn’t remember our prior conversation, unlike the guy I ran into the hall after I peed, who had sent his Tudor watch in for repair, I wanted to ask him how it was doing.

And after taking off my clothes, donning the robe but leaving it open in the back, the NFL expert came back in with another woman, and she told me how great this replacement was, and I casually said that I guess we’d talk about football another time.

This stopped her in her tracks. She lamented handing me off. Rather than leaving, she wanted to get into it. Who was my team and..? I read enough news to fake it, but I was just trying to make her feel comfortable, so I let her go for her replacement who told me she had four jobs.

You see I asked her what she did when she didn’t work. She told me she loved to work! I asked if this was for the money, but no…it was the work itself. As for the four jobs… The two in the middle had to do with working at a charitable organization and the fourth was being a mother, she said she had four kids. I immediately wondered about supervision and behavior. But when I asked her about this she said there was no problem, you could tell she ran her household with an iron fist.

And then she raised my gown, scrubbed my dick, placed it in a hole of fabric so it was akin to SNLs Dick in a Box, and I’m thinking how this is de rigueur, an unknown woman manhandling my penis. Well, she was gentle, and it wasn’t sexy and it wasn’t weird emotionally, but intellectually… You’d think they’d have a guy do this, but no…

And then another woman came in! To inject me with the lidocaine!

Yup, they fill up this big syringe and shoot it right up your dick. And if you think that’s painful… Well, let’s  just say it’s somewhere between uncomfortable and painful.

Meanwhile, we’re b.s.’ing…

And I’m thinking how this is my socialization. I don’t go to an office, I’m hearing from people all day long in e-mail and iMessage, but face to face?

That has fallen off since Covid, for everybody.

Then again, is this a problem, have I gotten too removed from society?

And I’m thinking about it… If I get together with someone from the music business, they’re going to sell me. It’s the nature of the game. They’re gonna promote what they’re involved in. The worst are the managers, but if they’re bothering to get together with you, they want something, it’s just another move on the giant chessboard.

And even if they’re not promoting, they’re building their network, it’s ultimately transactional. This is not like hanging with your buds from school.

I will say not everybody falls into this category. And the more successful people are the less this occurs, but…

I’m sitting there thinking about how I’m chatting it up with all these people. I asked this third woman what she liked to do when she wasn’t working and she immediately told me she loved to cook, that she’d gone to culinary school, but this paid better. After all, she was raising two kids…their father did not live in the house.

The kids were thirteen and eighteen and…

These conversations require navigation. You want to make sure you don’t come across as special, better than them, so the eighteen year old… I’m not going to ask if she’s going to college, because what if she isn’t? That would come across as judgment. So I asked this woman what her eighteen year old daughter did all day. And after hearing about a McJob and hanging with her buds, this nurse revealed her daughter was going to Pierce in the fall. (That’s a community college if you don’t live in L.A. Unlike where I’ve lived before, many start at the community college and then fly up to UCLA or Cal State Northridge or San Luis Obispo…)

And then she shoots the lidocaine up my dick, as we’re talking about all this, like this is an everyday occurrence, like we’re buds and this is not weird that she’s addressing my penis.

And then she leaves and tells me the doctor will be in soon.

Soon?

Time is going by and the second woman returns to check on me and I’m thinking of asking her to retrieve my phone. I’d heard the bell for a text. I was bored out of my mind and I was fearful of falling asleep.

But I felt if I’d waited this long…

And then the doctor arrived. Like a relief pitcher in the last innings. With a determined face, ready to address the problem. He was all business. There was no warmup, he immediately got the gun, pushed the tube up the canal and started shooting me up with water and retrieving urine…

Now the first time this was done, it was uber-painful. But that was a different doctor. The last time, with this guy, it was much more gentle. But this time???

He’s pumping out two giant tubes of urine. And it seems in order to do this he’s got to inject enough water to force it out and to say I’m uncomfortable is an understatement.

I mean I’m at almost a constant 9 on the pain scale. And every few seconds or so, he’s injecting me with more water.

And he’s not stopping, this is going on and on.

WHAT THE HELL IS HE LOOKING FOR!

WHAT THE HELL IS HE SEEING?

I’ve been around this block, when the M.D. spends a lot of time on the test, it’s almost never a good thing. They’re assessing the landscape and… I won’t say I’m quite worried, but what’s up?

I mean the doctor is staring at the monitor. Last time he turned it so I could play along. But this time, he’s concentrating…

And I’m wondering what’s going on as he keeps injecting water into me, like a knife to the groin. Can he not see what he’s looking for? Is it that hazy inside of me? Is that why he’s shooting me up with so much water as I’m starting to arch my back in pain?

Finally, after poking around inside me way longer than he did the last time, he doesn’t remove the catheter, but he does stop shooting in water, and tells me he doesn’t see any cancer.

WELL, THAT’S GOOD!

And then he pokes around a bit more and reiterates this point and then pulls out…

Now what?

Medical issues when you’re old are very different from when you’re young. They’re testing on a regular basis, you’re constantly going back, it’s like you’re a Formula 1 car and you must be kept in tip-top shape for the rest of the race, knowing that what seems tiny can be the difference between winning and losing, life and death.

But the M.D. is now getting it together to leave the room.

Wait! So when is the next cystoscopy, do I have to come again?

NO! I’m done!

I get a clean bill of health.

Then again, the doctor tells me that they’re going to test the urine that they extracted from me and something could show up, but he was saying that almost as an afterthought.

And I tell him I hope I don’t see him again.

And he tells me not here, i.e. the hospital.

And he exits.

And then woman number two, who is not a nurse, but is qualified to handle my dick, gives me all these paper towels… Well, maybe they weren’t paper, they were thick and… There’s a stack of wet ones and a stack of dry ones. She lays down a carpet of paper and tells me to squat and clean myself up and leave the detritus on the floor.

And I’m thinking this is like taking a crap in a European bathroom. Or maybe having a baby standing up.

And I’m washing and drying and my dick is hurting and…

I’ve got to go to the bathroom. All that water they shoot up you, it’s got to come out.

But no one comes back to ask how I’m doing, so I walk into the hall in my gown where I’m promptly stopped and…

This guy wants to know what I’m doing, I’m obviously breaking protocol. But I tell him I’ve got to pee and I scoot to the bathroom where I stand there and let free a stream of the most yellow urine you’ve ever seen.

And then return to my room, change my clothes and then…

Nothing.

I mean isn’t someone gonna come and lead me out?

Isn’t it breaking the rules to leave by myself?

But after waiting for a while I decide to poke my head into the hall, I’ve seen so many people, odds are one of them is going to be passing by and I can ask them.

But there’s no one there.

Eventually I stop someone new and put forth my dilemma, he tells me I can leave.

And then I head back to the bathroom. Where I sit on the throne and I start to crap.

Wait a minute, this makes no sense. I mean they didn’t go up that end!

But it’s continuing on a regular basis, intermittently. I can tell I’m not done, but I’m getting anxious about taking up space, using the bathroom. I feel like I’m doing something wrong, sitting there for ten plus minutes. That someone is going to knock on the door and tell me to get the hell out.

But then I’m thinking there aren’t quite a plethora of bathrooms in the Clark Urology Center, but there’s always a free one, so I sit there until…

Now the nature of this is you don’t leave pain-free. The tip of your dick… And you do have this urge to pee.

And when I get back home I take an immediate pee and then…

I get the urge to go #2 again. I mean I’m sitting on the toilet ultimately for about half an hour. And I’m still producing, however intermittently.

Eventually I get up, and I’m so wasted.

I mean I’ve had a lot of medical procedures. They can take a toll on your body. But this was minor when it comes to invasiveness and drugs, it was not surgery and other than the localized lidocaine, there was no anesthesia and…

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Unlike on the east coast sunny days in L.A. are usually cloud-free, as if we’re living in “The Truman Show” or something. And although it’s hot, it ain’t really humid and…

It’s f*cking great to be alive!

And for now, it’s clear sailing.

At least as it comes down to my bladder…

As for my regular leukemia checkup, that’s next week!

https://shorturl.at/F1xh8

I don’t want the Ellisons and Bari Weiss in charge of CNN, I don’t want Zaslav to get three-quarters of a billion in payment, but that does not mean this merger should be stopped.

Funny how those in Hollywood are freaking out over this merger, I didn’t hear them go ballistic when Disney purchased the assets of Fox. And the filmmaking division of Disney is such a minor part of the operation that the company no longer breaks out revenues separately.

But no one fears the future as much as those in the creative industries.

Tilly Norwood starring in a movie? Let me know how this is different from a Pixar production.

As for AI in music…enough with the freak-out, at this late date we’ve lived through digital disruption again and again in the past two and a half decades and the end result is after a period of turmoil, caused to a great degree by the major labels’ refusal to accept the future, suing not only distributors but their customers, the fans, to try and keep everybody in an overpriced CD for one good track world, revenues have returned as a result of streaming, sans all the costs of physical distribution.

As for the book business, they did a good job, along with the federal government’s antitrust division, in raising the price of e-books, going to the agency model, and the end result is not only have the sales of e-books been hampered, but the overall business is stagnant. Jeff Bezos was trying to build a business, growing the overall pot for books, and the publishers and writers didn’t want to give a techie power and ended up shooting themselves in the foot.

Then again, book publishing is a gnat on the ass of the music and movie industries.

So we had consolidation in the music business, Universal has in excess of a 30% share. More than Paramount would have after the merger. Turns out the major label game doesn’t have the power it once did. Which was based on distribution. Now anybody can get their music on streaming services essentially for free, competing with the big boys and girls. As a matter of fact, indie share keeps increasing! As for breaking new music… It’s not only the indies who are having trouble here, but the majors themselves. Actually, a good case can be made that the majors are only interested in moonshots, leaving so many genres to indies.

As far as you not getting paid what you feel you deserve, chances are you wouldn’t have been able to play at all in the old world, never mind getting a deal, but getting your music in a retail shop, and good luck getting paid as an indie if you did! You can now make the music on your laptop, essentially for free, and you can promote it online for free. This is a disaster? Then again, everybody believes they’re entitled to make a living in music. Furthermore, as a result of pure demand for a unique experience, concert ticket prices have gone into the stratosphere, far exceeding inflation. If you think you can set an artificially high price for concert tickets you’re uninformed, no one is forcing people to go, and people want to go so badly that they’ll pay a scalper much more than face value to attend. 

Has the landscape changed, are winners bigger and losers smaller? Absolutely, but this is not only in music. As a result of the flattening of distribution, the removal of friction, all music is available to all people at the same price in the same place and people gravitate to hits.

Now what will the music landscape look like in the future? We’re in a period of evolution, but one thing is for sure, by refusing to enter the future, the business only hurt itself.

As for AI…

Where’s Frank Zappa when you need him? AI labels are akin to PMRC labels, only the acts of yore are the censors of today. AI is a tool. Rightsholders should be paid for the ingestion of works, one could argue that they should be able to refuse the ingestion of works, but that ship seems to have already sailed. As for the result… Demos are cheap, pros love this. As for fully AI productions, so far none has been a hit. Oh, ignore the headlines about manipulated projects where the company buys a de minimis number of tracks and the song goes to number one at the iTunes Store. That’s like having the most productive horse at the Central Park Carriage Rides.

Then again, misinformation, as well as disinformation, is a greater force than ever. This is a problem, but this does not mean we should return all power to the usual suspects of yore.

As far as Bari Weiss at CBS… She installed Tony Dokoupil as anchor on the “CBS Evening News” and not only are ratings half of those on ABC, and nowhere close to those on NBC, they’re shrinking to boot! This is what happens when people are in over their heads, when amateurs gain power, they end up destroying what they’re in control of and leaving holes for new players. Can you say “60 Minutes”?

As for news… There are more places than ever to get it. Who even watches the network TV news? And CBS got rid of its radio news division… It’s shrinking, not growing. And if you tune in CNN you get constant arguments more than hard reporting of facts.

As for the movie business…

Despite the legacy press being fascinated with film, the big story in visual media today is the encroachment of YouTube in terms of viewing share. Even Netflix is freaked out.

But YouTube is not like the movie business and not like Netflix. As a matter of fact, YouTube tried to do this and failed, green-lighting big budget productions to crickets and abandoning the business. No, YouTube is about user-generated content. Which is not what theatrical movies are, and is not what big outlet streaming is, but the public is cottoning to it.

So the major challenge to movie theatres is not consolidation of studios, but the alternatives, both TV streaming and YouTube. Who says story needs to be produced for tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars when you can shoot an entire flick in 4k on your iPhone. And two of the biggest movie hits of the summer were made by young YouTubers!

So if there is consolidation of studios…

There are fewer places for people to work. The Ellisons say they’ll make 30 movies a year, but even if they don’t… Workers don’t understand, studios make what the market can hold. And theatre revenues keep going down. This is a declining business. Maybe it will survive for event pictures, but irrelevant of this merger theatres will close, there are just not enough desirable movies to keep them in business.

So what is going to happen in visual entertainment? Indies will soar and continue to eat up market share.

I mean look at Netflix itself. With no portfolio it became the biggest online streamer completely in plain sight. The studios were asleep, licensing their product as Netflix built a monolith. Should we sustain these studios at the expense of Netflix? I’m not in favor of that, and I’m sure you’re not either.

That’s what you get when you try to live in the past.

So maybe visual entertainment changes. Made by a plethora of indies on smaller budgets. Who says an actor or director should be entitled to so much per film? Look at recording budgets, they’ve fallen through the floor.

As for the canard that with one fewer studio prices to theatres will be leveraged… First, there are still four major studios left, one more than in the music business, and this is an industry that is based on customer desire. This is not milk or shoes. It all depends on hits. Raise the prices on mediocre films and what happens? NO ONE GOES!

Actually, these same people railing against this merger are the same ones who complain about RottenTomatoes… Talk about harming the consumer, they want everybody to spend their hard-earned bread to find out if a picture is good enough, wasting their time. You can research products on Amazon, all over the web, but movies are sacrosanct?

So what we’ve got here is a bunch of both above the line and below the line professionals in Hollywood who believe they’re entitled to continue to flourish at the same level of remuneration as they have in the past. Auto workers can lose their jobs, but not them. Why?

Opportunity is rampant.

Content is not king, distribution is. And on YouTube…DISTRIBUTION IS FREE! Where is the problem? You can build a new business using the new tools but that would require you to re-evaluate everything you know and get back into the trenches and do the hard work. This is almost laughable. Do I want everybody in Hollywood to be out of work? Of course not. But maintaining the old model would truly hurt the consumer.

Seems the smarter and richer you are, the more educated you are, unless you’re in tech, you’re railing against the future, wanting everything to stay the same. Yet these same people are bitching about Trump and the MAGA movement wanting to return to a fictitious past.

Where is it written that the cheese can’t be moved, no one can ever lose a dollar. That certainly ain’t America.

So when you leave emotion out, you’re left with the law.

Yes, the Trump administration has rubber-stamped mergers that needed more investigation, but that does not mean they’re wrong here.

Remember the Biden administration? They prevented Amazon from purchasing Roomba, the maker of iRobot… Yeah, that’ll show ’em, don’t let the Seattle behemoth become any bigger! But the end result is Roomba went bankrupt and now the computerized floor cleaning business is owned by the Chinese.

And then there was the blocking of the JetBlue/Spirit merger. Yup, American and United are too big already, let’s not let there be any more consolidation of power! End result? Spirit went bankrupt, out of business, and Jet Blue is struggling.

Why do Democrats always get it wrong on this stuff? They can see the issue, but not the future. If the Democrats had been in power, they would have prevented the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint…and the end result would have been Sprint going bankrupt!

But got to keep consolidation from happening…

Now creating a new telecom company would be a heavy lift. But making art and distributing it? God, the problem is that there’s now too much of this stuff! And the movie studios are always on the back foot, innovation comes from elsewhere.

As for the merged Paramount/Warner company controlling basic cable channels… They’re worth little and every day they’re worth less. What next, protecting the market for 78 RPM records?

The future cannot be stopped. And every operation that has tried to do this has ended up behind the 8-ball. Never mind those who were oblivious to the future, like Kodak. Huge market share and then…essentially nothing.

Not that I’m endorsing Trump’s killing of alternative energy and his elimination of electric car subsidies. 20% of new autos in Europe are electric. And China is eating the lunch of the European carmakers in their home territory, because they were busy banking profits rather than being nimble and investing in the future. Yes, you can buy an electric VW in China today, but it’s got fewer features and less efficient software. What’s the market demand for that?

Of course China subsidized battery and electric car development. But the U.S. used to be the leader on this, now funds for scientific discovery are being cut.

Clowns to the left of me.

Jokers to the right.

Here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Today you’re selling streams, not physical product, and they’re doing a piss-poor job of it.

There are two issues in today’s music business: attention and friction.

The Stones have the attention element down pretty well, but they’re flummoxed by friction, how are they going to get people to actually listen to “Foreign Tongues”?

Now the hype used to be a set-up for sales. And with physical product as an overweighted part of the chart equation, maybe the Stones can eke out a number one, before the album crashes into the troposphere. But that’s a circle jerk. You get press attention, but that press doesn’t generate many streams, just ask Paul McCartney.

But as good a job as McCartney did promoting “The Boys of Dungeon Lane,” the Stones’ press campaign is of a scorched-earth variety we haven’t seen for a classic rock act since the days of Tom Petty’s last studio album, and maybe Steely Dan’s comeback 25 years ago.

You remember that comeback, wherein Donald revealed the story of “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and…

That was a quarter century ago. The Dan wen ton late night TV. You were exposed to the music. Today?

I mean an interview in the “New York Times” is key if you want to sell tickets, but streams? I don’t think it has much of an effect.

Now let me be clear, unlike a lot of old acts, the Stones are all over TikTok. However, most of the clips are interview segments. I searched earlier and found there was a live gig in London a few nights back where the Stones played…

Oldies.

Is this a good way to sell new music? I can’t see how.

Once again, it’s about streams, not sales. And the dirty little secret is the Stones sold poorly anyway. They were in your face, but albums might have gone platinum, diamond records were for others. Richard Branson signed the Stones to a rich deal at Virgin so he could sell the company, the buyers not aware of how poor their sales actually were.

So, I wouldn’t expect sales to be great this time around. In an era where sales mean so much less.

The first thing they needed was a single.

Now let me be clear, I’m not forcing you to have one, but if you want your attention campaign to ignite you must have a track that is a one listen smash. So far, I haven’t heard one on “Foreign Tongues.” Which is fine, but sans said hit, how are you going to get the masses involved? You’re not!

It’s not only the Stones, everybody faces this question, even some of the younger stars, how are you going to get people to actually listen to the music?

By using online platforms to expose them to it.

The Stones clips shouldn’t be conversations with Zane Lowe or the “Times,” they should be one or more members sitting in the studio explaining how they wrote this song, how they came up with it, how they built it. Then people would be forced to listen to the new music, assuming they cared, and many do. Talking about music, isn’t that like dancing about architecture?

Now if there is a single, a one listen smash, every clip should focus on that one track. I mean come on, you expect the audience to immediately grasp an entire album? I don’t care who you are, that’s a heavy lift. Bash me over the head with the track again and again, you’re your own radio station today.

The biggest mistake the Stones made was not going on Rick Beato’s show. Beato is not subject to the algorithm, his fans are dedicated. They tune in just for him. And Beato specializes in the music itself, how it was created. That’s the kind of information that needs to be spread if you want people to actually stream a song. Go DEEPER!

Otherwise, it’s all a wank.

I mean this could be the last time, so the fact that the Stones seem to be revealing that which they held back previously… I mean how do you hype the next album? After you’ve shot your wad?

And one thing is for sure, we know the hype campaign is not working.

Morgan Wallen or Taylor Swift drop a new album and it dominates the Spotify Top 50 immediately. But the Stones are nowhere to be found on that chart, whether it be the U.S. or the U.K.

Now if the Stones really care about this new music…

They’ll promote it for longer than this week.

Want to promote it?

Create mania.

Starting live.

Show up and open for acts. For Olivia Rodrigo. For Morgan Wallen (after all, country is the new rock and roll). Play only the new album, and if you think that will bore people, play only four songs. Once again, you should be hyping the new stuff. Such that when people shoot YouTube videos, that’s what people will see and that’s what they’ll hear!

As far as social media…

The oldsters are on Facebook and Instagram, the youngsters are on TikTok. Focus accordingly.

But in truth, it’s youngsters who keep a band alive. How do you reach them? WITH A HISTORY LESSON!

Who knows more about the blues?

The Stones should have clips tracing their new material to the Delta blues, or whatever roots they’ve got. Thread the needle, don’t exist in a vacuum. And you must focus on the MUSIC!

All the interviews online, they’re talking about Mick’s personality, whether we know the real him. About his physical condition and dancing. What has that got to do with the music? Once again, it might sell tickets, but they’re not going on the road.

Now tomorrow, the media genuflecting to the Stones, up the band’s ass, will be on to something else. That’s the way the news business works. Once again, you’ve got to promote yourself.

And the Stones should do this by appearing to be outsiders.

And stunting.

Stunts? It’s so easy. Forget the inane press party in London, the Stones should have worked up two numbers for the Sphere. Either appeared on a dark night or during the afternoon. After all, it’s the STONES! And the new music would be helped by the visuals.

Right now the Stones look like aged grandpas with their edges shorn off deigning to talk to us plebes for a week until they go back to their mansions. Rock, especially the Stones, is supposed to be rough and savage, to the gut, it’s something you feel more than talk about. Where is it in this hype campaign, where is something new? An AI video? Not a bad idea, but it’s not really pushing the envelope to blow our minds. And it doesn’t require repeat viewings. For that, the music must hook you immediately!

I mean if the Stones don’t care about whether anybody listens to their new music, fine. But that’s not the way they’re approaching it, this isn’t a stealth operation like the U2 EPs.

And speaking of U2, the new track “Street of Dreams” starts off quietly, but if you stick with it it revs up and becomes hooky, in a way “Beautiful Day” did back in the day. I might sound like a heretic, but they should just chop off the first thirty seconds of “Street of Dreams,” especially in an era where most people only give new material a few seconds anyway. I won’t say “Street of Dreams” breaks new ground, but after that first half a minute when the music plays out you’ll find yourself nodding your head, a fan will be satiated, will want to hear the track again. Bono is a student of the business. He knew he needed something hooky and easy, just like he did with the aforementioned comeback single, “Beautiful Day.”

So far I haven’t heard an equivalent track on “Foreign Tongues.”

Then again, I haven’t listened to the whole thing. How are the Stones gonna get me to listen to the whole thing?

Not by blabbing about their past career ad infinitum to talking heads, but by actually playing the new music and dissecting it.

I mean this is a band that was built on riffs. Couldn’t they have gone back into the studio and just written one that closed people? Wasn’t there anybody involved who could tell them they just didn’t have that one track, and if they wanted more than attention, if they wanted people to actually listen more than once, they needed it?

Focus on the music first. The story is irrelevant unless it relates to the  music itself.

You’re selling repeat listens and longevity, that’s the streaming game. Focus there first. The Stones seem to have it reversed, they want attention on the band itself for a week and then…

Exactly what?

Tune in July 11th 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