Don’t expect a plethora of protest songs to show up.

I was just reading about the Kennedy Center honoring of Conan O’Brien, who got the Mark Twain Prize over the weekend. You’ll end up seeing it on Netflix, because that’s where comedy now lives, HBO squandered its lead, had its eye off the ball, the same way WB/Discovery lost the NBA. If you focus on ratings, if you focus on sales as opposed to soul, you may lose what you’ve got.

Assuming you’re selling culture at all.

We’ve got some culture left in the music business. Mostly metal and hip-hop, which are to a great degree cartoons. Get your tattoos, fire up your anger, it’s hard to take seriously, you know this is true when even Questlove questions the future of hip-hop. As for metal… Once upon a time, metal was mainstream. Been humming a new metal track to yourself recently? You haven’t been shaken all night long in eons. Then again, by today’s standards, AC/DC is not metal. It’s not fast enough, the singer is too palatable.

But the above is not the culture I’m speaking of.

So the comedians took the stage at the Kennedy Center and lit into Trump. They poked the bear, in this case the masturbating bear. As for the consequences? THEY DIDN’T GIVE A SH*T!

Then again, honesty and speaking truth to power are the essence of a successful comedian. If you haven’t got an attitude…

Forget clips of new musical acts on social media, the highlight of this past week has been Bill Burr, testifying in support/promotion of his new special on…HULU?

There’s a lot to poke fun at these days.

Then again, the audience is fractured. I realized this watching Bill Maher’s “Real Time” this week. I didn’t agree with a lot of what smug Bill had to say, as well as Ezra Klein. I felt like I was on the left wing island alone, everybody else had taken the last boat off.

What I’m saying here is we are not all on the same page. I know that’s not news, but when I was growing up, in high school and college, ALL the youth were Democrats. You could literally point out the Republicans on campus.

But not anymore.

The ethos today is not speaking truth to power, but hating your brethren and asking WHERE’S MY MONEY!

That’s what everybody is wondering…WHERE’S MY MONEY!

It’s the essence of the social media influencers. Maybe if you’re a woman you want the clothes and cosmetics they’re hawking, but talk about empty…

It’s head-scratching if you’re a boomer. You lived through JFK, proffering what you could do for your country and…

Now it’s WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR ME?

That’s the underlying ethos in the culture, and it permeates music too.

The number one topic of discussion in music, something that crosses all genres is…SPOTIFY IS RIPPING ME OFF, STREAMING SUCKS!

Were musicians saying this in the sixties and seventies? If they were it didn’t filter down to the press. And most musicians were ignorant of the workings of the business anyway. Today the first thing you do is buy Don Passman’s book. And then you complain.

Now if you were alive back then you knew that if you had success, you renegotiated with the label, got more of the money. And the irony is today it’s identical, but instead of getting the money from the label you get it from the promoter. And one thing is for sure, there are still a limited number of huge acts, but everybody bubbling under can’t stop complaining.

Hell, I’ll throw a bomb into the square. I saw this guy Ted Gioia bitching that Daniel Ek has made more money than any musician. Let’s just assume it’s true. I hate when someone testifies outside their area of expertise. So you know music, do you know business? How about all the people in Hollywood who invested in tech during the aughts and the teens? Talk to Troy Carter or Guy Oseary. THAT’S WHERE THE MONEY WAS! As for Ek… He came up with an idea and worked extremely diligently and hard, against long odds, to establish a company that saved the recorded music industry. And now his goal is saving Spotify itself, diversifying it since streaming music doesn’t scale. Ek is more innovative, and may have worked harder, than any musician this century. But somehow he’s not entitled to success and cash? They don’t say the same thing about the Silicon Valley titans…

Oh, that’s right, IT’S MUSIC!

Now if you go back to the past, the mantra was MUSIC SHOULD BE FREE! I’m not talking about Napster, I’m talking about the SIXTIES!

Anyway, with income inequality the best and the brightest don’t go into music, the odds of success are too long.

And the goal of those on the bottom who enter the business is to GET RICH!

Where in this narrative is taking a stand, speaking truth to power? NOWHERE!

Now of course I’ll get e-mail from twats with their protest songs. You’ve got no traction, never mind a crappy song. It’s your job to become famous, it’s your job to promote yourself, JUST LIKE DANIEL EK!

Now I’ll get e-mail saying I’m hating on musicians.

Oh, that’s right, music is a team sport, you’re either pro-Spotify or anti-Spotify, you either hate Ticketmaster or you’re the devil too. Never has ignorance reigned to this degree.

Then again, Ezra Klein did a podcast with pollster David Shor…

“Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won”: https://shorturl.at/N2XDs

Here’s the nougat:

“The story of this election is that people who follow the news closely, get their information from traditional media and see politics as an important part of their identity became more Democratic in absolute terms. Meanwhile, those who don’t follow politics closely became much more Republican.”

Klein amplified this on Maher’s show… Most people don’t follow the news.

And they’re getting their info from questionable sources online.

And you expect these people to rise up and revolt?

No, they’re on the potential money train.

How about the fact that the Kardashians have made more money than almost all musicians? They figured out an empty paradigm that the musicians want to emulate. They don’t want to live in a hippie house in San Francisco, they want to parade in Prada on Necker Island. Or St. Bart’s. Or some place the average person has never even heard of!

They want to be in the gossip pages. They want to have FUN!

It’s not like these people are intellectuals, discussing the details of the day. It’s not like they’re Bob Geldof, standing up for the oppressed. Oh, if Bob Geldof puts on a show they’re going to be the first in line to ask for a slot, for all those views, the worldwide promotion…

You can attack me, but you’re missing the point. The point is music has become what it once was, before the Beatles…ENTERTAINMENT! And there’s a business in that, but it does not drive the culture.

If you want to know what is truly going on watch a comedy special.

And those pale in comparison to the news…but just like Daniel Ek and Spotify the mainstream press has been denigrated to the point that people excoriate it and won’t read it.

Meanwhile, it appears that the only outfit that will stand up to Trump is the “New York Times.”

That’s right, Columbia caved, Paul Weiss caved. Everybody is surrendering to Trump. And in each and every case it’s about THE MONEY! Yes, the head of Paul Weiss said if he didn’t agree to give $40 million worth of free legal services to the government, the firm would go out of business. All lawyers believed that Paul Weiss would beat the charge, but it was all about the business.

Everybody is compromised, no one has a backbone.

Sure, there are exceptions.

But if I hear one more person complain about taxes… It’s not your money. Sans your taxes there are no roads… Oh, you want those gone like the Department of Education?

Everybody’s so self-centered, everybody’s so ignorant.

Yet oldsters are just waiting for one of these musical stars to dig down deep and stand up to Trump.

Forget whether they hate Trump or not, if they’re even aware of what’s going down, they’re not doing anything unless it PAYS!

And there you have America’s culture in a nutshell.

Read it and weep.