He’s got a right to perform…

But it’s one thing to do two shows at SoFi and quite another to headline the Wireless Festival in the U.K.

Yes, yes, Kanye admitted he was bipolar, he gave that as an explanation of his antisemitic behavior, I gave him credit for that, but that does not mean Kanye gets away with his past behavior scot-free…no, he’s on PROB ATION!

Now some might say Mr. West has not atoned enough. It’s one thing to give an explanation for bad behavior, quite another to donate time and money to the UJA and Jewish causes, which he has not done to my knowledge.

And if he’s starting anew, he’s establishing a track record, you don’t regain our trust overnight, you earn it over time.

And speaking of earning… Supposedly his two SoFi gigs grossed $33 million. Now obviously net is less, but there’s no way Kanye took home less than double digit millions, unless somehow he blew it on production.

So, he’s not experiencing that much pain from his faux pas.

Oh yes, he lost his deal with Adidas… But he hasn’t completely lost his earning power, like some #MeToo offenders in Hollywood.

You could say this is a testament to Kanye and his music, or in the alternative you could say his audience is brain dead and doesn’t care about not only his antisemitic remarks, but his other bad behavior.

Then again, with so many denizens of Hollywood expressing pro-Palestinian sentiments, with not a peep about the plight of the Iranians, I’d say antisemitism is at an all time high. Actually, in terms of incidents, that’s what the statistics say. And if for some reason you support Israel you’ve got to STFU, even if you’re a comedian, like Jerry Seinfeld.

So the worst offender here, after Kanye himself, is the promoter, Live Nation and Melvin Benn, the managing director of Festival Republic.

I don’t want to even address Mr. Benn, who didn’t read the room and just defended Kanye, as if he’d been whitewashed clean and deserved a total pass.

But Live Nation?? No one could see this coming?

Let’s be very clear, this was a business decision. It’s not about Kanye, but getting a headliner. How do we know this? Once Kanye was excised from the bill, they shut the whole festival down. No one was concerned with how this looked, never mind location in an area of antisemitic behavior. Is that how f*cking dumb these people are? And does money trump everything? Then again, there’s no heart and soul in the music, why should the promoter have any.

No one at Live Nation said “This is a bad look.”? That’s antisemitic unto itself. God, if they wanted to book Kanye, which they shouldn’t have, they’d have gotten in front of the story, made Mr. West available for interviews, had a publicity campaign saying he’d changed. But there was none of that.

Furthermore, not only was Kanye going to appear, he was going to perform all three nights (did they really think he’d take the stage on time?) And be paid $15 million for his effort.

Yup, Kanye’s paying the price for his bad behavior… Seems to me like he’s being rewarded for it. As if Steve Perry got back with Journey or Led Zeppelin returned to the road. He’s been gone for a long time folks, but now he’s back, better than ever!

Then again, behavior like this is why Live Nation is on trial in New York.

Whatever Michael Rapino believes, let’s be clear, if you’re working for the company you want to put up numbers, and you’ll bend the rules to do so.

Now we’ve got to give Rapino credit. He’s responsible for building a colossus. But so was John D. Rockefeller, and they broke up Standard Oil. Sometimes you can do your job too well. Rapino says yes instead of no, he expands his operation on a regular basis, he keeps the stock going up, and if Live Nation was a steel or food company, there would not be a huge backlash, but being directly involved with the consumer… It’s not like there was work to make Ticketmaster appear warm and fuzzy, all that was said was it was the acts’ fault, which it is…that’s why ticket prices are so high. Ticketmaster was paid to take the heat, but the heat is now burning the company.

As for Standard Oil… They had 90% of the market. Live Nation is nowhere close.

But there will be a verdict in the trial and we’ll go from there, but the culture…

They say the music business is run by Jews? Well, unless they’re self-hating, no Jew would buy Kanye for Wireless, or sit by while it is done and say nothing.

Maybe Live Nation needs some training here… Not only as to bending the rules in pursuit of the dollar, but ethics.

Then again, how ethical is our President?

But Europe and the EU are different.

My head is truly spinning. J.D. Vance is over in Hungary singing the praises of Orban, trying to get him elected? What next, a wholesale endorsement of Vladimir Putin?

Well, Trump’s gotten close to that.

But whichever side of the political fence you are on, one thing is for sure, Trump has ushered in a more coarse America where it’s everybody for themselves and if you’re a victim it’s your fault. And there’s this constant emphasis on the stock market…and Live Nation is a public company.

So it’s not only Live Nation, it’s the entire country.

But thank god, not the entire world. Those “backward” English and the EU…they’re more concerned with what’s fair than we are. And without rules of play, there can be no game.

I’m of the belief that Kanye’s got a right to work. But let him headline his own gigs. As for the promoter…maybe it should be someone new, an independent. If Live Nation/Ticketmaster is not a monopoly, there should be plenty of people who’ll step up to take Kanye on.

But other than the more haimish AEG?

And why the f*ck is it that Pepsi has more balls, can read the landscape better than Live Nation? They’re selling sugared water, Live Nation is selling culture. But somehow Live Nation is blind and Pepsi is not?

As for antisemitism… It’s a bad time to be a Jew. This is why Israel exists in the first place, as the last, safe haven. Does this mean Netanyahu is right, that the war is right? No. But one school of thought is Netanyahu is acting now because he knows support for Israel is waning in America, and it won’t be long before the country has to go it alone.

Meanwhile, we’re glorifying Kanye West. WTF?