https://t.ly/vi5fH

I loved this book!

I got it from the library a couple of months ago and read the first page and gave up. I’d just finished another book, and it’s oftentimes difficult to get into a new one. The tone is different, in so many books you have to get halfway through to get into it.

But then I saw “Shred Sisters” listed as one of the best books of the year.

So I reserved it again.

I’d just finished Jami Attenberg’s “All Grown Up,” which took me the better part of two weeks, since I’d been on the road. Which is to say when I ultimately finished it, there were only a few pages left, so I had no hangover, I immediately started “Shred Sisters,” and wow!

This is the kind of book that cuts like butter, it’s not hard work and it’s not long until you get invested.

What you’ve got here are two sisters with the last name Shred. One a nerdy science lover and the other a beautiful free spirit who…

Colors outside the lines, gets in trouble, and the mother can’t handle it and the father keeps being supportive and…

Life is a mystery. You truly realize this as you get older. You wake up one day and say HOW DID I GET HERE? How did I end up with this person, how did I end up doing this work… It never turns out the way you planned. You think you’re going to have one occupation but then the wheels turn and you end up doing something else. You get married and think it’s forever, but then it’s not.

People. And society.

Sometimes you get locked out. The opportunities in your chosen field dry up, and you’re forced to pivot. One thing I’ve learned about getting fired is you always end up in a better place. It may be hell getting there, but when you do you marvel how happy and fulfilled you are, and look back and can’t conceive of continuing to do what you once did.

And the people you meet along the way… They influence you. Some people risk constantly and flame out, others do so and become billionaires. Then there are others who are afraid of their shadows, but they’re victimized anyway. The factory closes, their spouse dies, your beloved has an affair with a coworker and you’re forced to deal…with situations you could never fathom.

So Ollie (short for Olivia), breaks the code, does all this stuff you’re not supposed to. How do parents cope with this? As Stewart Copeland told me about his seven kids…you never know what you’re going to get. You want them to love sports but they’re into the arts. They’re infatuated with something you pooh-pooh. Do you let them go on their way or try to corral them into being the person you want them to be?

And not everybody’s feet are planted firmly on the ground, not everybody is reliable. You can have a great conversation, a great sexual connection with someone you ultimately can’t depend on, who can’t be changed. You have to accept them as they are. But that’s almost impossible to do. You keep having hope that this time they’ll come through, you think this time they’re on the right path, but then they jump the tracks and you’re left holding… The emotions. That’s one thing popular culture never unearths, the pain of relationships, family, love, the breakups, the trauma, it can go on for years, DECADES!

So what we’ve got here is a family drama. Which really hits its stride in the 1970s. No one here is famous. No one here is rich. But the father’s lumberyard is successful and…

The story unfolds.

You’ll see yourself in this book. Not throughout, but at moments. And you’ll wonder how Betsy Lerner knows this stuff, you thought you were alone.

And then you’ll be pissed when it’s over, you’ll want more.

I always have to give these caveats… If you only read books to learn something, to help you further your career, “Shred Sisters” is not for you. But it will make you feel less alone.

If you’re a macho guy, doing the bro thing with your buddies, “Shred Sisters” won’t ring your bell either. Then again, are you hiding who you really are?

Books are not like records, they take more than a few minutes to consume. And too often people recommend stuff that is difficult to get into, stuff that makes them feel good about themselves that you want nothing to do with. This is not a tough book. But if you want to go on a ride with a family, you’ll ultimately find connection, and that’s what we’re all looking for, to not feel so all alone.

And that’s a paradigm that has been marginalized in the present. Everybody’s got their public face, their lives are so wonderful. The whole world is an Instagram post, filtered for consumption to make the poster appear superior and you to feel like a loser.

There are constantly divides in life.

Oh, I want to mention how you never know who your friends are, you’ll disconnect and then reconnect… Sometimes they’ll burn you and you’ll forgive them, sometimes you won’t.

I don’t want to tell you what happens in this book.

But I do want to tell those who the above resonates with to read it.

It wasn’t a vote FOR Trump, it was a vote AGAINST the Democrats.

I adopted a wait and see attitude. Like Bill Maher I wasn’t going to freak out about Trump’s presidency. But then seemingly every corporation kowtowed to the man as if he was a dictator.

This is the America we live in, where the corporations rule and the people are just pawns.

Mark Zuckerberg used to give the middle finger to the government. Jeff Bezos acted as if Amazon was the government. As for Elon Musk…he ignored the government and now he IS the government.

If you want to be horrified, read this article from yesterday’s “New York Times.”

“Los Angeles Times Owner Wades Deeper Into Opinion Section – Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong’s public comments and actions, including recently blocking an editorial weighing in on President-elect Trump’s cabinet picks, have concerned many staff members.”

Free link: https://t.ly/41amG

There was all this horsesh*t from Patrick Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos that they didn’t endorse a presidential candidate in the election because…

We knew they were afraid of retribution if Trump won, but in the case of Soon-Shiong, now we know, now it’s like we live in Hungary, or maybe even Russia.

“One writer prepared an editorial arguing that the Senate should follow its traditional process for confirming nominees, particularly given the board’s concerns about some of his picks, and ignore Mr. Trump’s call for so-called recess appointments.

“The paper’s owner, the billionaire medical entrepreneur Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, had other ideas.

“Hours before the editorial was set to be sent to the printer for the next day’s newspaper, Dr. Soon-Shiong told the opinion department’s leaders that the editorial could not be published unless the paper also published an editorial with an opposing view.

“Baffled by his order and with the print deadline approaching, editors removed the editorial, headlined ‘Donald Trump’s cabinet choices are not normal. The Senate’s confirmation process should be.’ It never ran.”

As for Soon-Shiong himself…read the “New Yorker” exposé, he’s a typical billionaire, when you look at the details of how they made that money…

But Soon-Shiong doesn’t really care about the paper, he cares about his pocketbook.

Now to be equally horrified, read this article from the “Wall Street Journal,” the business paper of record.

“The Week CEOs Bent the Knee to Trump – Companies abandoned him after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Now, they are rushing to curry favor with the president-elect as he prepares to return to the White House.”

Free link: https://t.ly/enDbV

Then there’s Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s speechwriter and Special Assistant also in yesterday’s “Journal.”

“Biden Gets Lost in Trump’s Shadow – The president-elect acts as if he’s already in charge. There’s never been a transition like this before.”

Free link: https://t.ly/yz4ta

As for the Democrats, they keep insisting Harris ran a “perfect” campaign and the Trump voters are ignorant people who voted against their own self-interests. There is no introspection. And if you question the orthodoxy, the brass shouts you down. Meanwhile, their greatest fear, that democracy would erode in the wake of a Trump election, is already happening.

The border, inflation, the feebleness of Biden, the inauthenticity of Harris…these are the reasons people voted for Trump, not because they love the man and approve of his plans. They’re just sick and tired of being ignored and told that everything is okay and they should just stay the course. Meanwhile, with the Biden fiasco, the Democrats have been seen to be just as bad as the Republicans. What did Michelle Obama say, “When they go low, we go high?” Not anymore!

Everybody’s kowtowing to Trump. As if he were a king. Everybody’s afraid of retribution.

Remember when the press was an independent force keeping everyone honest?

Those days are through, except at the “New York Times,” which has been vilified by both the left and the right to the point where everyone ignores it except those in D.C. and opinion news channels. The Grey Lady has more of a backbone than almost all the news outlets, and I must say even the WSJ questions Trump when it is not hewing to the Republican line.

Meanwhile, everyone with power on the left believes the internet doesn’t exist. Trump harnessed its power to victory, the Democrats can’t stop pillorying social media and podcasts. It’s like an oldster castigating the Beatles back in the sixties. I mean can’t you wake up and smell the coffee, see which way the wind blows, obey some other cliché?

Bob Dylan, et al, pointed the way back then. The San Francisco bands plotted their own course, refused to play by the rules of the man.

But today every act wants to be the man. They want some of those corporate dollars. As for the rappers… They break the law and shoot each other and many people like the fact that they’re being cut down and others lament the fact that law enforcement can’t stop it.

Art is about speaking truth to power. But that train left the station years ago.

But I’m less worried about music than our country at large.

Here is where age is an advantage, it not only delivers wisdom, there’s the benefit of hindsight. And let me tell you, there has never ever been a situation like this prior to the election of a president. The media and corporations didn’t bend the knee and pledge fealty after the election of Nixon, nor after Reagan or the two Bushes. No, the country admitted who won and the battle continued. Now the corporations and some of the media are capitulating before Trump’s term has even started. Talk about a bloodless coup.

As for obeying the law… We watched 1/6 on television and he’s going to pardon these people?

And Biden’s not much better, pardoning Hunter. If you’re not a scion of the rich and famous no one is fighting for you. They make a TV show about the Menendez brothers and there’s a chance they’ll get out of jail, no one is making a TV show about you.

And if you want to challenge Trump and his policies, there’s no movement.

Hell, turns out women weren’t that worried about losing the right to an abortion.

And all this resistance nonsense of Trump’s first term didn’t make a difference whatsoever. And the oldsters behind these efforts don’t understand that today battles are fought online, not in the streets. Isn’t that how Trump won to begin with?

Sure, maybe 30% of the country are true believers in Trump. But that leaves the rest of the nation, 70%, which are not. But somehow everybody has laid down their sword, shrugged their shoulders and said Trump is the man.

And Trump is just one person. Showing the power of the individual, in a nation that was all about the individual. But now we’re sheep, believing our lifestyle is more important than our beliefs.

Let’s be clear, the woke left was out of control and needed to be counteracted. And the mainstream Democrats couldn’t even delineate the fact that the woke left is a small fraction of their party. The Democrats were so busy playing to a minority that they ceded control of the game. The Big Tent Democrats, where everyone gets a voice and no one has a backbone. Parents discipline children, but in the Democratic party no one can keep outliers in order, no one can speak truth for fear of offending someone. The Democrats play defense and Trump plays offense and you can’t win without offense.

Meanwhile, I’m angered and disillusioned. I don’t want anything to do with an organization that f*cked this up so badly. Yet I’m anti-Trump. Who is with me?

Certainly not the corporations. We’ve seen that movie. We can’t seem to count on anyone with money. Where are the Harris Silicon Valleyites now? SILENT!

Everybody is afraid.

And ABC settled Trump’s defamation suit when if they went to court they probably would have won. Remember when reporters went to jail for refusing to testify? Now ABC gets in bed with Trump for fear of the future. I thought news organizations were supposed to tell the truth and stand up to power.

Not anymore.

This is so far worse than 2016 it’s scary. The man hasn’t even been inaugurated yet!

Don’t tell me to roll over and play dead. When you can’t even trust the news media to be independent, who can you trust?

John Lennon said “Yoko and me.”

But that was fifty years ago. When John Lennon was fighting deportation by Nixon and his minions.

Meanwhile, the ignoramuses and profiteers in Britain convinced the public that Brexit was good for them and have decimated touring for acts on the continent. And the NHS, that was supposed to flourish, is in the dumper. Everybody wanted to go back to an England that wasn’t so great and will never return. In America people want to make an America great that wasn’t so great to begin with! And the world never goes backward. For two solid years all we’ve been hearing about is AI, but somehow we can return to what once was? Hogwash.

Being a citizen means putting it all on the line. Not fighting for your right to party, but truth, justice and the American way.

But they haven’t made a Superman movie in years.

Instead we’ve got the fantasy of the Marvel universe.

And in real life, we are not living in a fantasy, but a disaster.

I’m just warning you.

Tune in Saturday December 14th  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

Keira Knightley and Sarah Lancashire have bigger names.

But I can’t take my eyes off of Ben Whishaw in “Black Doves.”

Really, we wanted to watch “Silo,” but that’s week to week and isn’t ending until the middle of January. Apple is fumbling here, because no one survives without the youth and the youngsters want it all and they want it NOW! Which is why they’re on YouTube for streaming, and addicted to TikTok. To employ the old model is to abandon hope of snagging young people and their turbocharged word of mouth. Youngsters live online, and that’s why their choices dominate in culture, that’s why it’s hard to break musical acts that appeal to oldsters. This won’t last for long, as the boomers and Gen-X’ers die off. We thought the major labels were forever, but it turns out their power was based on an old construct, the domination of the few, and that’s not how it works anymore. Even the news business doesn’t get it. You may be following the lowering of salaries for TV news stars. When no one is watching, you can’t pay exorbitant salaries. The money is online and this is anathema to oldsters, who believe the smartphone is the devil.

So we pulled up “Black Doves” because Karen and Jake raved. That’s right, I didn’t get turned on to the show by the media, everything is bottom up today as opposed to top down. There’s an alternative network for news and information that far exceeds that of the mainstream. But since it can’t be easily categorized and distilled, it’s to a great degree ignored. That’s what the mainstream does. If it doesn’t understand something, assuming it’s even aware of it, it pooh-poohs it.

Think about this. The older someone gets the harder it is for you to change their preconceptions. They’ll tell you the new is trash. They don’t want to re-evaluate their underpinnings. But to survive and win in today’s society you must do this, everything you believe must be up for grabs. We live in a fluid society. As for politics… Now you understand why the general public has detached, now you understand why fewer people voted for Kamala than Joe. People no longer believe, they no longer have trust, in a world where RFK, Jr. wants to get rid of the polio vaccine. I mean you throw your arms up and get on with your life. Sure, there are true believers, but they are the minority, and the rest of us are sick of the tyranny of the minority so we’ve given up. Talk about a cynical society.

But it gets even worse. If I read one more story on the Taylor Swift Eras tour… This is what the mainstream does best, promote the already existing while it ignores the developing outside. And statistics mean less than soul. Swift waited until the tour was over to release the gross, an exact total of $2,077,618,725, as if art were sports and was quantifiable. Like when I put on a record I think of how much money the artist took in. Talk about getting so far from the garden.

What is there to believe in?

Netflix. Which knows you succeed today by diversifying your product portfolio so you can appeal to the entire public, which doesn’t want to consume the same thing, the exact OPPOSITE of what the major labels are doing.

So don’t tell me what happens in “Black Doves.” We’re only two episodes into the six total.

And somewhere along the line Keira Knightley aged. And I’m not referencing her looks, but the fact that she’s now a woman not a kid, is pushing forty, and this begs the question…HOW OLD AM I???

And Keira is good.

And Sarah Lancashire is never bad. But she’s more one note here, less the rounded role she played in “Happy Valley.”

But Ben Whishaw?

HE’S SPECTACULAR!

I’m watching “Black Doves” and wondering where I know this guy from.

And when we turned off the TV last night I went to Wikipedia and saw he was in “The Hour,” an English series about a current affairs TV show set in 1956. The tone, both in look and substance, was delicious. And not over the top like in U.S. productions.

And in “Black Doves”…

Whishaw’s performance is subtle. Which draws you to him. You not only look at him, but into him, you contemplate what’s in his brain. He can be quiet, thinking.

Whishaw looks kinda like a young Mick Jagger, as in you can’t really decided if he’s ugly or beautiful, maybe just a sexy beast.

And Whishaw as Sam… He’s got this high hair and beard, he’s scruffy, yet together.

His removed personality… You’re never quite sure what he’s thinking, what he’s going to say. He’s a bit of a mystery, which is intriguing, which draws you to him.

And Sam makes mistakes. Which is something the hero rarely does.

And he’s torn by thoughts of a past love.

He’s a hit man but he’s human. Not an assassin with a heart of gold, but someone who’s more than an automaton. There are emotions involved in killing.

Knightley and Lancashire are more two-dimensional. Whereas Whishaw is akin to a real person. You don’t know anyone quite like this, but you want to. Quiet, with charisma, an inner strength, even though he’s not a hunk.

I don’t know how he does it. They call it acting. It’s not just a pretty face, a model, who is now an actor.

And Whishaw has got a list of credits an arm’s length long. He was even in “Fargo,” but that’s American TV, and I never warmed up to the show.

And I’d like to say “Black Doves” is of the quality of “The Bureau,” which has now been remade as “The Agency” for those who can’t handle foreign productions, but Whishaw is a cut above.

Ben Whishaw is a star.

A star is not someone who has to convince you of this. A star is someone whose power emanates from within. Today everybody is so busy selling, so busy batting us over the head with their achievements, saying LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, that we’ve forgotten what stardom is.

Humphrey Bogart, that’s a star.

And I’m going back all those years because that’s when the formula was intact, when the public was truly intrigued.

And then movie stars were eclipsed by musicians and…

Now we know so much about these people but adore them so little.

It isn’t easy to articulate why Ben Whishaw is so great. It’s something you feel. And feeling is the essence of great art. We’ve abandoned that in search of attention and profits. Everybody wants to throw everything at the wall. Everything is massaged before it’s promoted, the edges rubbed off for mass consumption, like the paint-by-numbers, made by committee songs purveyed by the majors that succeed less and less.

The public doesn’t want them.

The public wants something more subtle, more meaningful.

Like Ben Whishaw.