I was laughing uproariously watching this last night. (Is that the proper use of the word? I’m gonna leave it in, you’ll tell me.)

We were up to the final episode of “Berlin and the Lady With an  Ermine,” but it was an hour and twenty one minutes long and that would be past Felice’s bedtime so we hopped over to Hulu for “Alice and Steve,” which I’d been reading about, which I wanted to see primarily for the inclusion of Nicola Walker.

Now I was a big “Money Heist” fan, but this second prequel is not as good as the first, and the first wasn’t even in the league of the original series. Is it the absence of the Professor? Or Lisbon, who switches sides from police to robber? I’m not sure. But it’s slower, much slower.

And the funny thing is I read no press about it. Which is unusual, especially for a hit show. I just saw it on the Netflix homepage, however they trick you, they say there’s a new season of one of your favorite shows, like “Bonus Family,” and you get all excited and fire it up and find out you’ve already seen it.

If you’re a diehard “Money Heist” fan, watch “Berlin and the Lady With an Ermine,” otherwise I’d skip it.

But I HIGLY recommend “Alice and Steve,” even though I’ve only seen two episodes.

I know, I know, I should wait until I watch all six, but by then you will have heard about it elsewhere, and I will lose my first recommender advantage, and I wouldn’t want to do that.

So Nicola Walker… Where do we start?

Well, I’d begin with her star turn in “The Split,” about divorce and divorce attorneys. Right now it’s on Hulu and Disney+, you always have to check with these foreign shows, they move around (JustWatch.com is your friend).

And from there I’d go to “Collateral” and then “River” and if you’re already a fan you may have personal favorites I have not mentioned here, Walker is far from an unknown, but the interesting thing about her role in “Alice and Steve,” at least in the beginning, is SHE PLAYS AGAINST TYPE!

Most of Nicola Walker’s roles are serious, often with a hint of darkness. But in the beginning of “Alice and Steve” she’s positively FRIVOLOUS! It’s a revelation, the range she’s demonstrating, and unlike with our American hero, Meryl Streep, she doesn’t eclipse the role, she fades/blends right into it.

As for Steve… Felice immediately recognized him from “Flight of the Conchords.” I must say I’ve never seen that. But Jemaine Clement as Steve radiates the vibe of a less outrageous Austin Powers. He walks between the verge of drama and comedy, you’re not quite sure whether you’re going to wince or laugh and he might be sliding into a New Zealand accent here and there, but my radar on accents is not that good, you’ll decide.

As for the main plot line…

It’s been everywhere but I’m not going to lay it out here. Felice went in raw and her experience was different from mine, so I believe you’re best going in fresh, but even if you know the set-up, it doesn’t detract from your enjoyment.

Now the thing about comedy is it’s hard to do.

And I don’t know, with so many offerings I find recently it’s been hard for me to stick with a show, to be entranced right away so I continue watching. I don’t want my viewing to be a chore, just the opposite, I want it to be THE PEAK OF MY LIFE!

Now “Alice and Steve” gets funny in the first episode, but it reaches its peak in the second.

Marcia Warren as Val, Nicola Walker’s mother… She’s a fount of wisdom and in many ways laissez-faire and more hip than Alice. That’s the thing about oldsters, some become set in their ways and others go in the opposite direction, they’ve seen the movie, been to the circus, and it has liberated them to be in the moment and speak their truth. And when Val nods off while the shenanigans are ensuing…I laugh just thinking about it, it’s these little touches that put a show over the top. (And speaking of touches, when I saw Alice drinking Coke for breakfast I was thrilled, because I do. But when I saw a Coke pointing face-out when the fridge was opened, I realized it was probably a paid placement. Why, how much cash could this generate?)

So it’s the clash between generations that really got me going, both knowledge and mores.

You’ve got Rome, who knows all the answers, even though she’s only a teenager, showing up everybody else in the room. You’ve been there.

But then there’s the issue of cancellation. Steve drops a reference to a cultural hero who is now a pariah and the kids pooh-pooh and then excoriate him. And to watch him squirm is exquisite, Steve doesn’t realize he can’t possibly say the right thing. First he tries to argue his position, saying there was not absolute proof, but there’s proof enough for the younger generation!

Now “Alice and Steve,” unlike “Berlin and the Lady With an Ermine,” has gotten a good amount of press. If you pay attention to these things, and I do, because I’m always ferreting out what to watch next, you’re aware of it.

Now if “Alice and Steve” were on Netflix, it would have the impact of “The Four Seasons,” but it’s on Hulu (it’s also on Disney+, the two are supposed to merge, it’s so confusing…), which doesn’t have the same cachet, never mind an equal number of subscribers.

Will I tell you to sign up for one of these two services just to watch “Alice and Steve”?

Well, before you do that, you should get Paramount+ to watch “The Bureau,” which in terms of sheer quality is a solid A on an absolute scale (not the one employed at Harvard, where everybody gets an A). I saw it on a different service, I’ve never even watched Paramount+, although I do think we get a free ad-supported version with cable. However ,”The Bureau” is drama.

But if you already have Hulu or Disney+, check out “Alice and Steve,” it’s six half hour episodes. If this was an American show it would be the talk of the town. Then again, Americans can’t do this kind of show, either it’s too broad or stars famous people who trump the plot or…

I’m looking forward to more laughing tonight!

What does “Reader’s Digest” say, laughter is the best medicine?

But will it work?

Apple presentations are not the must see TV they were in the Steve Jobs era, if for no other reason than the lack of…one more thing…

But those presentations were live, ever since Covid, Apple prerecords, which eliminates mistakes, but sucks the life out of the presentation. It’s kind of like music. You can fix it in the studio, but in the process do you eliminate all the energy, everything that makes it appealing? People are imperfect, and that’s how they like their art, that allows them to relate, whereas they expect their products to work out of the box, seamlessly.

Unlike the original Siri that was launched with the iPhone 4s, back in 2011. It was a novelty, if you’re still using it, you’re one of the few.

Now the buzzword today is AI, i.e. artificial intelligence, and conventional wisdom is Apple is behind the 8-ball, that it missed the window. But historically Apple doesn’t create totally new products, it refines what’s out there in a way that engenders mass appeal via usability, never mind filling a desired function.

So, owning the AI platform, is that where the money lies, or..?

We can debate all day long whether these AI platforms can make money in the short term, or whether their burn rate will cause them to go out of business or be sold to another company. Then again, there are enterprises like Meta, which is doing quite well despite the billions lost on virtual reality. In other words, if Meta’s AI dreams don’t pan out, the company can survive. But AI-only companies like Open AI and Anthropic? It’s unclear.

Never mind the AI backlash. It’s NIMBYISM on steroids. No one wants a data farm in their neighborhood, never mind the incredible electricity drain. Ireland just passed a law that new AI data centers must provide their own electricity, after the existing farms ate up one third of the nation’s power.

And then there’s the end of the world scenario. The University of Toronto just revealed the possibility of the easy creation of AI worms, that could penetrate existing systems… Maybe these same AI agents can get rid of spam e-mail while they’re at it, which has clogged our inboxes for thirty years now.

And for these thirty years when the mainstream public has been computing, conversing on the internet, the primary means of communication has been text. To the point where if you call someone from the younger generation…they probably won’t pick up and they won’t even let you leave a message, and if you’re allowed to do so, they won’t check it.

This burgeoning use of text has been overlooked by those who lament the past focus on reading and books. But just like the younger generations now know more news as a result of the internet, they’re writing and reading more too.

But will this survive?

YouTube now eclipses Netflix usage. In other words, the lunatics have taken over the asylum, individual content creation rules. But what I want to focus on here is the power of the moving image. For all the talk of Substack monetization, that’s for Luddites, the real money for creators is on YouTube.

And this creeping emphasis on video has changed the podcast landscape. Now it’s about blockbusters with a concurrent video stream, which costs more money to do well. In other words, it’s just like in music, everybody can make a video podcast, but very few can make money doing so, there are very few winners.

So as video eats text, will AI come along to supersede the conventional computing platforms, from the smartphone to the tablet to the computer?

That’s the concept behind AI. Can you just talk to your device to get answers, to get your work done. According to today’s WWDC presentation, Apple says you can.

Now if everything Apple promises is delivered, the company will have triumphed. Because it’s Apple that has the relationship with the ultimate customer. Google may dominate search, but it pays billions to be the preferred engine on the iPhone. (Once again, distribution is everything.) Will AI companies have to pay to play on Apple devices? Right now with all the mania on the AI development companies, this is not the case, but in the future?

That’s the history of the personal computer, what once was a standalone product with its own revenue stream becomes a feature. Once spellcheck was a separate app, today it’s built into your word processor, has been for a very long time. The consolidators triumph.

So the key here is usability. Is Apple’s new Siri going to drive usage?

We live in a very different world today. There are no instruction manuals, no lessons, you just dive in and figure it out. This is how people interact with video games. But if the lift is too heavy, the product fails.

So not only does Siri AI have to work, it has to be easy to use.

But if it does work and it is as easy to use as demonstrated in today’s presentation we are at the beginning of a giant revolution.

After AOL got everybody on the internet, the next triumphs were hardware-based, the iPod, the iPhone… Everybody keeps looking for new hardware, like the inane AI pin devices, as if we’re going to go back to individual items when a product that consolidates all these uses, like the smartphone, triumphs.

And then there are smart glasses. They have been percolating for years, but adoption has still been minimal. But if Apple gets into the field as rumored…

But is the future just talking to your device?

That is what Apple previewed today.

Screw all those apps, all that cross-referencing, all that selection, AI will do it for you. Choose what photos to send to your friends. Plan events and alert invitees. Sure, all your data has to be on the device to begin with to collate, but that data can now be sourced from your questions and actions.

And then there’s the data from Google’s Gemini.

Despite all the complaints about AI search results, the bottom line is most people don’t go beyond them. Remember all those search optimization efforts? Doesn’t seem to matter where you appear in the results, because no one looks, they just trust the AI result, despite the present hallucination rate.

Siri AI will eliminate steps. It will get the information for you sans typing, sans going from app to app and exploring. And you will save time.

Assuming it works.

1

Klaus Meine is intelligent and articulate.

So if you listen to the “Wind of Change” podcast, and I recommend that you do, they eventually confront Klaus Meine regarding the CIA’s theoretical participation in the creation of the Scorpions song.

Now living through the eighties, the only “metal” band that really got respect was Guns N’ Roses, whose credibility has been eviscerated by Axl Rose’s facelift and the squandering of the band’s recording impact through delay and…

As for the rest of the acts…

It ended up being a formula.

Now some, like Van Halen, had success before MTV. But do we consider Van Halen metal anyway?

I wouldn’t.

But if you look at the acts that played the Moscow Music Peace Festival…

Skid Row may still be on the road, but sans Sebastian Bach, they’ve lost what made them rise above to begin with. Then again, despite having model good looks, Bach was a hothead and the whole enterprise looked like adolescence on steroids. (However, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I love “I Remember You.”)

Mötley Crüe? The band may have had commercial success, but it never got respect. One could actually say their travails were equivalent to a “Real Housewives” franchise. As for a standout track… You don’t hear their music played by anybody but fans these days.

Ozzy? Somewhere along the line, Ozzy became a legend. Let’s leave it at that.

And Bon Jovi made that one phenomenal album with Bruce Fairbairn, “Slippery When Wet,” who died before they could reunite in the studio, and the band never quite reached that height again, but it sustained, and now “Wanted Dead or Alive” is a veritable standard (helped along by “The Deadliest Catch,” although the song was already embedded in the public consciousness). Never underestimate Jon Bon Jovi’s good looks, and in addition, the band represented a younger generation, taking over the airwaves from the rockers who’d triumphed in the sixties and seventies.

And the Scorpions? They were GERMAN!

All I am saying is when you look back at eighties hard rock, you don’t think credibility, you think excess and entertainment, good times.

However, these acts had light years more impact upon society than any of today’s musical stars. That’s what I realized listening to this podcast.

2

There are ultimately two issues in the “Wind of Change” podcast, and neither of them involve the question of the CIA’s involvement in the Scorpions song.

a. How America has turned into Russia

b. The techniques and credibility of the CIA.

Let me try to nail this… The Russian government trades in conspiracy theories, its goal is to keep its public from knowing, never mind investigating, the truth. It is constantly spreading falsehoods…starting by allowing Putin to escape accountability for the Second Chechen War at the advent of his tenure.

When confronted with the concept of the CIA being involved in the creation of the Scorpions’ “Wind of Change,” a Russian woman who was associated with the band’s gigs in the U.S.S.R. doesn’t believe it’s true for even a second, but does think that the CIA could have spread the rumor.

And when this woman continues and the story is played out…

Let me get your knickers in a twist. Conventional wisdom is that Covid started from a Chinese lab leak. But this is untrue. No one knows for sure, but the experts still believe it came from a wet market. Yet as soon as Trump got back into office, he had an edict issued declaring the lab leak theory true. And you’ve got the right wing propaganda machine reinforcing this falsehood.

Hell, we saw the president spewing untruths on NBC yesterday, with seeming impunity.

America is now the land of conspiracy theories.

It is said in this podcast that the Russians hoped that their country would turn into the U.S., they couldn’t foresee the U.S. turning into Russia. Which is what has happened.

As for the CIA… Untrustworthy and double-dealing, it’s a fount of misdirection and misinformation.

And you learn all this in the “Wind of Change” podcast, which is not only very informative, but easy to listen to.

3

So, like I stated above, the MTV acts who appeared at the Moscow Music Peace Festival would mainly be considered entertainment. However, listening to this podcast, you can see they had influence.

People in Russia trading illegal Scorpions tapes…

I ask you, is anybody in an oppressed nation trading Dua Lipa tapes? BTS? Taylor Swift?

There’s nothing there. Entertainment for acolytes that exists in a walled garden. Those who don’t care don’t want to care and there’s no reason for them to care. Because there’s no underlying meaning. It’s mostly entertainment for the brain dead. Mindless.

Now of course it was different in the sixties. Music moved the culture. But listening to this podcast I was stunned to realize how powerful MTV was. We think of its ability to make musical acts international successes, we tend not to look at its cultural power. It was a youth marketing platform. And even though the acts wanted to get rich, they were all anti-establishment, at least to a degree. They didn’t, they wouldn’t, comport with cultural norms. Selling out to corporations? Who’d want to be involved with these people?

These acts didn’t have brand extensions, it was them and their music and that was it. Sure, they sold t-shirts, but they were emblematic of fans’ belief in them. It wasn’t a rip-off enterprise. And if it wasn’t related to music, they didn’t do it, they didn’t even think of doing it, because they wanted to live the rock and roll lifestyle, before the smartphone camera, when sex and drugs and alcohol…that’s why you did it!

These were renegades. As soft as they appeared back then, compared to today’s acts the gulf is laughable.

As for the Scorpions… Klaus Meine speaks English with more thought and analysis than seemingly all in today’s Spotify Top 50, AND IT’S HIS SECOND LANGUAGE!

We used to hang on the words of our musical heroes. Now we pay attention to their antics, but why would we listen to these commercial nincompoops?

4

So the monoculture is history. MTV took the power of rock and roll and supercharged it. And then mostly abandoned music when it was discovered that half hour programs got much better ratings than endless music videos. You might switch the channel if you saw a video that didn’t appeal to you, but that was far less likely if you were watching “Remote Control” or “Cribs” or the rest of the lifestyle product featured. One could actually argue that MTV was a harbinger of today’s fame for nothing culture. Then again, MTV did change cultural mores… MTV did more for racial integration/harmony than any book or movie or… It was nearly as positive as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Black people were featured right along whites, and they were stars and… There were gay people too, like Pedro Zamora, the “Real World” cast member who died of AIDS.

And then it all devolved into the internet era. A Balkanization of power and ideas. All those angry that they could not triumph previously decried intelligence and expertise and planted their own flags and ultimately made the landscape incomprehensible. You can’t break an act. Then again, are the acts worth breaking, is the issue that more people are not listening to certain songs or that they don’t want to?

I’d posit the latter.

Which begs the question of whether we’re at the tipping point of a renaissance, because the mercenary music business is so far from the ideals and power of songs, it has followed commerce into if not irrelevance, meaninglessness.

5

As for the CIA’s involvement in the Scorpions’ “Wind of Change,” I leave you with this:

Bob,

I’m asking that my name be withheld because I don’t need the “hate mail” that will inevitable follow.

I was in the room when Klaus came up with the idea for “Wind of Change”. In fact, I was a fly-on-the wall, from its inception to its completion, and I was one of the first two or three people to hear the song.

Furthermore, I played keyboards on the demo … and also on the final album version, recorded at Keith Olsen’s Sound City Studios in California.

This “CIA” thing is preposterous!  Ridiculous!  Anyone who claims otherwise wasn’t there!

There’s a great story about a fan once approaching George Harrison, and saying:  “I have a rare bootleg recording of The Beatles rehearsing.  Would you like me to make you a copy?”.  And George replied (try to imagine his laconic Liverpool accent), “I don’t need to hear it … I was THERE!”.

Well … I was there when “Wind of Change” was written and demo’d … in my home studio!

I can say, with certainty — I do not recall any CIA agents being present!

Tune in June 6th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz