I’m pissed off.  Someone I agreed to go to lunch with, and I won’t go to lunch with anybody, just worked me on a track.  One with synthetic drums akin to those manufactured by a TR-808 back in 1982.  That’s what’s wrong with mainstream music, it’s all lowest common denominator, that’s what people want to see live, someone singing to tape.  But worse is everybody working me.

I know this famous guy.  If your idea of famous is someone in business.  His name is Johanan Vigoda.  He was everybody’s lawyer, most famously Stevie Wonder’s.  He grew up in New York, but ultimately he resided in L.A.  Where he went on exotic diets and played the part of a homeless guy, walking around Venice Beach in a faded blue sweatshirt, his wild hair a ‘blowin.

Maybe Johanan didn’t find it that easy to make friends, maybe I was introduced by the right people, but we became buddies.  I’d run into him on the Third Street Promenade, down on the Venice boardwalk.  I’d occasionally call, and if I was ever in the vicinity of his apartment, I’d ring his doorbell.

He’d discuss his battle with the IRS, stocks…it was more about being a friend than business.  Until that day at Pioneer Bread.

Pioneer Bread, which was never that good, had an outlet in Santa Monica, where you could buy a crappy lunch and sit in the garden and drink wine.  It was a great place, a great environment, only the comestibles sucked.  And I’m there with Vigoda and I’m thinking…we’re buddies, I’m a lawyer, he’s a lawyer, he trusts me…so I whip out some kind of business idea, requiring his participation, and Vigoda tells me:

I AM NOT A RAILROAD TRAIN!  I DON’T PICK PEOPLE UP AT ONE STATION AND DEPOSIT THEM AT ANOTHER!

Whew!  I got the message loud and clear.  Our relationship survived my transgression.  But that’s what I’ve got to say.  I’M NOT A TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM!  You don’t send me your unsolicited MP3, you don’t hype me on your act and then I blow them up.  As a matter of fact, this is the kiss of death.  Because then I know you’re not a true friend…a true friend cares first and foremost about the relationship, about me, not about how I can be used to improve your career.

As a matter of fact, I’m gonna tell you, one day your career is gonna be over.  You’ll lose that job, or be too frail to sit behind a desk.  And who are you gonna talk to then?

And I’ll make it quite simple.  What’s in it for me?  If I take you on the ride you desire?  No, not everything has to have a quid pro quo. But that’s if I decide to mention something.  I love to spread the word.

But I hate being worked.

P.S. Read Vigoda’s Stevie Wonder story by scrolling down on this page: Power in the Darkness

P.P.S. You already know who Vigoda is.  He’s the judge in the long version of "Living For The City", you know, during the break, who sentences the young man to ten years in prison.