“Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu”: https://bit.ly/488Y0yH

 

Literally.

This book made me feel inadequate, like I hadn’t lived life to the fullest. Thank god I still have some time left, but I could never catch up.

Now I know Tom Freston. I even know the outline of most of these stories, a bit of depth, but my mind was blown reading all the detail in this book, never have I known such a nice guy to be so successful and get around so much and…

The thing is Tom is down to earth. Possesses no airs. Speaks to you as an equal, and actually speaks to you. He ran the cash machine known as MTV Networks, but when you talked to him it was like connecting with the guy who grew up next door.

Tom is the best corporate manager I’ve ever encountered. He’s not dictatorial, he delegates responsibility, and although he can be serious, he focuses on fun, adventure…

And this book is all about that.

I know the backstory, although I didn’t know his father suffered from PTSD, before we knew what that was, never mind give it a label. Some called it shellshock, but there were a ton of men who on the surface seemed to be living full lives, having families and bringing home the bacon, who were tortured inside as a result of the war.

And going to St. Michael’s, I knew that too…

But I didn’t know about the summer adventures in Lake George. Not only was it a blast, Tom met and became friends with a ton of people. That’s what it takes, getting along, without sacrificing your identity, knowing people…because you’re always going to run into them down the road, when you least expect it, and Tom does.

So to avoid the draft, Tom goes to business school at NYU. What I did not know was he was the valedictorian. Funny how Tom never told me that, since he makes a point of saying that Phillipe Dauman kept on bragging about getting perfect SATs. I hate those people. It’s one of the reasons I live on the west coast. No one asks you what you got on the college boards, where you went to college, you’re just here, you just exist. And attorney Dauman gains power and terminates Tom and ruins Viacom/Paramount, but that’s towards the end of the arc.

So Tom goes into advertising, but gives up when he’s got the chance to work on the Charmin account and a girl he knows calls him from Paris and implores him to quit and come travel with her across the Sahara. Which Tom does. There are people who can’t finish anything. But it’s also a special skill to know when to leave a job, to have faith in yourself.

There begins a year traveling through Europe, Africa and Asia…with a ton of time spent in Afghanistan and India. And you can’t do that anymore, the world is more sophisticated, but Tom did, when it was still wide open and safe.

And then he started a clothing import business.

One of those friends from Lake George inherited some bucks and Tom convinced him to invest and they built a company that ran very profitably, for a number of years. It was much bigger than Tom has ever let on to me, they sold clothing to major department stores like Bloomingdale’s as well as boutiques.

But laws change and it’s no longer profitable and Tom is out of a job and he answers an ad for what ends up being MTV. He’s selling himself. And I knew he had this import business, but I did not know he graduated #1 from NYU… People can smell it. Tom got a gig.

And there begins the MTV ride.

This book is not what I expected. I thought it’d be the in-depth story of MTV, and the bones are there, but the facts, the details have been told multiple times elsewhere. What you’ve got here is the business end of the story, dealing with Viacom, Sumner Redstone acquiring it, taking Sumner and his girlfriend to sex clubs in Thailand at the mogul’s insistence.

There’s a lot of inside dope like that. One of the best being the story of meeting Fidel Castro. Then again, Tom went with Brian Grazer and Les Moonves and Graydon Carter and… I knew Jimmy Buffett, who Tom almost got kidnapped in Africa with, but I don’t hang out with any of these people, yet when you’re with Tom you don’t think that he does either.

There’s more detail about Tom’s tenure at Viacom/Paramount than has been previously made public, and more about dealing with Oprah, Shane Smith/Vice and Bono/Red thereafter. Tom did not take another corporate job when he got blown out. Others would need it for their ego, Tom created a much more fruitful and fulfilling life. Building television stations in Afghanistan?

Now if you know Tom, you should absolutely read this book.

And if you don’t…

As stated above, this is not the story of MTV, but the story of Tom’s life, from soup to nuts, from then until now.

Most execs who write these books are boasting, all the while telling you how you can do it, even though you’re a completely different person.

That’s not what “Unplugged” is. It’s the story of a middle class guy who got bitten by the travel bug and morphed into a corporate executive whilst living in a rock and roll culture (as for MTV, Tom loved music, then again, we all did back then, in a way subsequent generations just cannot understand, music drove the culture) who then got promoted to the point where the status was real, but the pond was poisonous.

It’s the tale of an individual.

Like I said, I felt inadequate reading this book and you may too. Because Tom has been everywhere with seemingly everybody. And it doesn’t happen because he’s busy working the connections, kissing up to get ahead, but because he’s a good executive and a GOOD HANG!

But he’s also a leader. He was the one who got everybody to go to Kabul for New Year’s back in the seventies. Someone’s got to come up with the ideas, someone’s got to be the ringleader, someone’s got to push the needle forward, into the unknown, and Tom did that over and over again.

And, he hired Jill Lumpkin for his clothing company and she’s still in Asia to this day.

And the thing about Lumpkin… She was Tom Rush’s girlfriend, she’s on the cover of “The Circle Game,” he wrote “No Regrets” for her, and Tom discusses with James Taylor…did anything ever happen between the two of them? And it’s just amazing, in a nation of 200 million how one person, who is not famous, can be known by multiple people from different backgrounds, but…

I couldn’t put “Unplugged” down. It’s not the kind of book you can read in an afternoon, it’s deeper and longer than that. It’s a real book, not a typical rock memoir, not an afterthought, a cash-in.

How will you feel about Tom after reading it?

Well, it’s all there…

And if you know Tom, like I do, all you can say is WOW!

They said it wouldn’t make any difference.

So I’m grooving up the 405 and the check engine light comes on.

Now in the old days, there was not such a thing. But as cars started to feature them, it turned out that many times it was just a matter of a loose gas cap. But I knew that was not the case, because I’m anal about these things, I screw the cap down tight… As a matter of fact, it takes all of my willpower not to overtighten things. Like the crown on my watch… Turns out that as long as it’s screwed down at all, it’s waterproof, but I only learned that after I stripped the threads and had to send it in for repair, thank god it was under warranty. And then there was that ski rack back in the sixties, the first one my father bought. He was the least handy man on the planet, so I installed it, very easy, but I kept tightening the nuts and…it still continued to work, but turns out the soft metal was no match for my arm strength.

But I just had the car serviced! I’d only driven a couple of hundred miles, not even that!

Now at this late date the consequences of a check engine light are up in the air. Some people say you can drive for eons with no harm, others say you’re going to burn up the engine, so I decided to drive down to the Subaru dealer where I bring my Saab which is really a Subaru to have them take a look. After all, it was their fault, right?

Back when I owned BMWs… You always had to go back. By time you got the car home from service you noticed a problem. And now I’m always anxious when I pick my car up from service, will it really be fixed? Even worse, will they break something that was fine when I drove in?

And I pull up, expecting instant attention, and they say I’ve got to leave the car… But it gets worse… This was Thursday afternoon, they couldn’t look at it until MONDAY!

Huh?

That’s how successful Subaru now is. #1 in reliability in the latest ratings. However, for me, that’s hard to believe, in my heart Toyota is still the best. But Subarus are selling like hotcakes and although they don’t break the service volume is going up and…

I’m thinking this is ridiculous. But then I contemplate my schedule, if I don’t drop it off now…

And they actually get back to me on Tuesday. Thank god I could drive Felice’s car in the interim. And they tell me I need an oxygen sensor and an air filter.

Actually, the report says “Mass Air Flow Sensor,” that’s the technical term. And they send me pictures and everything. It’s all done by text these days, very efficient. And the Mass Air Flow Sensor/oxygen sensor can be fixed for $383.75. The only problem is my car is so damn old they have to order the part. They’ve got the air filter, but that’s only $39.95.

Of course I say yes. I’m not going to cheap out. I mean if the light came on…

And the car is now supposed to be ready on Friday, which it is, but they do a once-over and now they say two axle boots are cracked and leaking and they can be fixed for $671.82. Do I want to do it?

That’s one thing about owning a Subaru instead of a German car. Subarus are cheap, so the people who own them are usually not rich, so oftentimes they turn down recommendations, either they can’t afford it or they’ll take the risk. And my instinct is to do the repair, and after doing a bit of Googling I find out I’ve got to do it, so I say yes. And they tell me the car will definitely be ready on Monday, ten days after I dropped it off.

Seems reasonable, then again…

So I’m about to do a podcast yesterday and I get a text, the car is ready. I should text them when I’m going to come down.

Which I do, when I’m done with the podcast.

And then Felice takes me down to the dealership… And at this point, I know the service writer, I can tell you about his  marriage, their decision not to have kids, I don’t feel like I’m being ripped-off, and he starts giving me an explanation of the repairs.

Now I don’t doubt their necessity, but I am interested in what went on. I’m an expert on everything that’s broken in a car, primarily because so much broke in my BMW 2002, even the steering wheel.

And although the money is already in the rearview mirror, the question is…should I cashier this car, get a new one?

My Saab 9-2x is 20 years old, last June. It’s only got 125,000 miles on it, but nothing lasts forever. I don’t want to buy a new car, because I drive mine so little and it sits on the street, out in the elements, but I will if I have to. I don’t want to throw away good money, which I did with my BMW 325e, spending $2500 just before I realized I needed a new car. Maybe this is part of the process, maybe you have to spend before you bite the bullet, give up and buy a new car.

And at this point, with recent services, the total bill is close to 3k. Now I’ve lost track of what money is worth. In the old days, 3k…if that was the repair estimate you’d buy a new car! But today, car prices have gone through the roof. And I always rationalize it by the amount of a lease payment. I’m not going to lease, but if I did, how many months would it take to get my money back. And at this point even a reasonable lease is $750, so if I can drive the car for five months, I’m even. Never mind the money I save on registration and insurance. And the last time I did this, I needed to drive the car for a year to break even, and I was anxious, but the car didn’t need anything but oil changes for five years, so I ended up way ahead of the game.

But now the car is twenty years old.

So what’s up with the axle boots?

Turns out this car has eight.

WHAT?

I’m adding the figures up in my mind. Rubber doesn’t last forever. You see very few decades-old cars on the road, this is why.

But then the advisor tells me not to worry, because these two axle boots  failed because of the heat. They’re on either side of the differential, right by the engine. And if I didn’t fix them, then the differential would go next.

But since it’s a four wheel drive car, there’s another differential in the back, what about that?

Well, there’s no heat back there, so I should be good.

So what else is wrong with the car? And he swears nothing, absolutely nothing, but you never know about tomorrow.

And there are people who drive cars 200 or 300,000 miles. My car is a baby by those standards. But age…just like people, cars don’t last forever.

And then he tells me about the oxygen sensor. It meters the ratio of air to fuel. Makes sense, but funny that the check engine light went off now, just after the car was serviced. I’m not complaining, but… Seems odd I’d be cruising at 65 on the  freeway and the light would come on.

And he explains what the oxygen sensor does, adjusts the ratio of air to fuel, and that’s when I ask him whether it will affect performance.

And he chuckles and says no. But that I might get better gas mileage.

BETTER GAS MILEAGE?

This car gets HORRIFIC gas mileage. It’s not a Ferrari, but in town…about 17. On the highway only you might get in the low twenties… But the bottom line is the car is paid for, to trade it in for a new one to save money on gas…that doesn’t make any sense.

And after pulling off the lot, I drive away anxious. Just waiting for a light to come on, for something to be wrong.

And I’m checking the time… They give you a free car wash down the street, and I’ve got to get gas after that, but if there’s a problem will they still be open when I return?

I’d brought the car in dirty and about as empty as it gets. I’ll be honest, I don’t wash my car that often. It’s black and it sits outside and it’s a futile effort. As for gas… I was going to fill up on the way there, but time was a-wasting and…

I believe if the car is clean and full they respect it, give better service, but that’s probably OCD.

And getting behind the wheel of this twenty year old car, I immediately notice how tight the steering is, how the car is planted.

Now I’d been driving Felice’s Mercedes. Her Lexus got totaled, she wanted to buy another one, but they don’t make her model anymore, just SUVs, and she doesn’t want one of those.

So we call my nephew Andrew, car salesman extraordinaire, then at MBZ, and ask him what’s up. He knows the landscape. And the bottom line is that almost everybody leases a Mercedes and they come back after three years and only the best are certified and resold. The rest they auction off. If it’s been in an accident, it’s auctioned.

So the inventory keeps on rolling. And when Felice decides to take action, there’s a 350 with literally every option, from the moving seats (the bolsters tighten up on the curves), to the heads-up display, to the self-parking and… Every MBZ is different. Somebody ordered one maxed-out. But you don’t really pay extra for these features when buying off lease. And sure, it’s a Mercedes, and they’re not trouble-free and service is expensive (Felice just got an oil change for five hundred bucks), but…

Get behind the wheel of this car and you’re living. It’s like a bank vault. Quiet! A BMW might handle a bit better, but an MBZ is more planted, more solid. I’m behind the wheel of that car and I feel like a king. I love it.

So now I’m behind the wheel of my sh*tbox, and one thing is for sure, it’s NOISY! Even after I installed Acousti-Mat in the floor so the stereo would sound better.

Now that’s one difference between my car and Felice’s. She’s got the upgraded Burmester stereo, pretty damn good, but I’ve got top of the line stuff in my piece of crap. The best Focals all around, a subwoofer, a JL amplifier and a replacement Alpine head unit. That’s one thing I’d miss if I purchased a new car, the stereo. No manufacturer makes one as good as I have. Furthermore, installing an aftermarket unit in a new car… They’re so computerized that you can replace the speakers, maybe get an amplifier to interface, but you can’t replace the head unit and it’s all very expensive.

But as good as my car stereo is, my car is still noisy.

And I’m on pins and needles driving home, just waiting for something to f*ck up. It doesn’t, but…

And then last night I go out to the Palisades, the trail is now open after the fire. And as you drive further and further west on Sunset there’s less and less traffic and I’m doing my best not to exceed the speed limit, but as I’m going around the curves…

That’s why I own this car, which is really a gussied-up Subaru WRX, with a few STI features. Four wheel drive not for the traction, but for the performance, which is amazing. But that’s all that’s amazing… There’s no computer, none of the features you take for granted on a new car.

And today I’ve got to drive to Santa Monica. And I get on the 405 and the traffic is tight and I mash the accelerator and…THE CAR TAKES OFF!

Wow, it really moves!

The turbo doesn’t kick in until about 3,500 RPM, but when it does, you get a jolt. But with the new oxygen sensor, there’s truly a jolt, the car BLASTS OFF!

And now I’m starting to smile. Should I merge into a slower lane?

NO, because I know I can speed up instantly to get into that space down the road.

And then on my return trip, I’m on Wilshire, heading for the freeway, and you know how drivers are today, hesitant and on their phones, so…

I decide to get in the right lane, the slow lane, and I punch it and not only do I pass a bunch of cars on the left, I make the light when no one else does.

And I’m accelerating through the curves, and then I get to the circular on-ramp, and with a suspension like this you can just push it and push it and when I merge onto the freeway…I don’t have to wait for all the turkeys to figure out what they’re doing, I just hit the accelerator, twist the wheel and move over a lane.

And now I’m truly happy. Wondering how long this car is really going to last.

Really, I should leave it in Vail, four wheel drive Subarus are the Colorado state automobile.

But I need a ride at home, and you can’t really get away with a used car for much less than forty, not one you’d want to drive that won’t immediately break.

But it’s twenty years old!

But I’m living in the moment. The car is driving like it’s absolutely brand new. You know, Japanese cars are not like American ones, they don’t loosen up as they age. I forgot how much of a kick the turbo gave in this car. I mean with the new oxygen sensor I’m only talking about five, maybe a ten percent top end boost of the turbo, but I can feel it.

And at this point I’m glad it’s a stick. I went to Craig’s one night and I came out and there was my car, parked right up front… I almost felt embarrassed, the paint job sucks. I asked what was up. Turns out the guy who can drive a stick already went home!

You’ve got to take pleasure in the little things these days.

I love it when my gear runs right. I want my skis and boots to be PERFECT! Because you can tell the difference. My boots…last year they updated the model for the first time in decades. Stunningly, they perform even better. When I go into a turn I can feel it. Bootfitters.com always says they’re the gold standard, the best you can buy…but not everybody buys them… People buy a lot of crap. But oftentimes the best is no more expensive than the crap, you’ve just got to do a little research.

And I bought this car because of the performance. I couldn’t drive a Camry, even a Lexus after owning a BMW. And it delivered, if only on that note. And now, after getting a new oxygen sensor…IT STILL DOES!

1

“I’m gonna add some bottom

So that the dancers just won’t hide”

Awards shows never run on schedule. Even when they’re taped for TV. There are stops and starts. After all, it’s all about what the home viewer sees on their flat screen.

But that was not the case last night. The show started on time because it was simulcast on Disney+. And there were no breaks, no retakes, because not only was the show live, there were no commercials.

So we were jolted alive when the lights came up and Stevie Wonder and the assembled multitude launched into “Dance to the Music.”

The power of the original cannot be denied. And the funny thing was last night IT WAS JUST AS POWERFUL! I’ve seen tribute covers, too often it’s about going through the motions, doing your bit and getting out, another notch in the belt of celebration that is ultimately meaningless.

But not last night.

“You might like to hear my organ

I said ride, Sally ride”

How many times have you heard this on the radio? You know the flourishes by heart, the beat, the sound…and they were all replicated last night. A better performance than I’ve EVER seen on the Grammys. Not that they’re competing. But when the Grammys created those “moments,” the mashup of stars, one and one often yielded less than two.

But not last night.

So Stevie, yes, Stevie Wonder, who was eclipsed by Sly Stone at this point in time, Stevie didn’t really come into his own until the seventies, when he burst into a supernova, is sitting at the keyboard like he’s in a bar earning his keep for the night. There was a horn section… It was positively MESMERIZING!

And it was clear that it was Flea in the back, playing his bass, noodling around as he does with the Chili Peppers. And you know it’s coming, you wonder how it’s going to go down, but then Michael Balzary runs up to the microphone and utters the words atop this screed and then plays those fat, distorted notes on his bass and it was positively transcendent.

We live in an era where the script has flipped. When it’s all about live as opposed to recordings. It’s about the experience, feeling it. And I’m a jaded f*ck sitting right down front marveling that Lenny Waronker is at my table and I’m positively jolted, my legs spring me up to attention, the power was unbelievable. And from “Dance to the Music” it went into “Everyday People” and then “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin”,” finishing with Stevie and Jennifer Hudson imploring us to take it HIGHER!

The sixties flashed through my brain. Not only the energy, the music, but the spirit, the optimism, the hope. Music was lighting the fuse that blasted the younger generation into the stratosphere. Sly Stone melded rock and soul and who knows what to create this amalgam of sound you couldn’t get anywhere else. He and the Family Stone were totally original. For a few minutes last night time stopped, nothing else mattered other than being there in the moment, AND WHAT MORE CAN YOU ASK FOR?

2

I know, I know, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame gets a ton of sh*t. And I don’t want to defend it, I’ve got my own complaints. Then again, the fact that Bad Company was finally inducted…an honor way overdue to the point where even though alive, Paul Rodgerrs is too compromised to come out and sing and teach the audience a lesson, show them what true pipes, what true singing ability and nuance are all about. But, but, BUT…Simon Kirke was pounding the drums, Joe Perry, in all his splendor, was throwing off those Mick Ralphs riffs, and Chris Robinson was proving he’s a better rock frontman than seemingly anybody plying the boards today.

“Feel like makin’ LOVE”

I can’t write the sound of the machine gun fire that echoes that line, but you could feel it in the building last night. A power…the power of rock and roll.

And then Bryan Adams came out and sang the breakthrough hit, “Can’t Get Enough,” bringing us back to the summer of ’74.

And… You knew that everybody on stage had lived through it, had driven in their car with these Bad Company songs pounding out of the dashboard. This was like making your bones in the garage, turning it up and letting it wail, believing you’re on the road to stardom.

Not that every performance was as good, but there was only one bad one, and it was Chris Cornell’s daughter. There, I said it.

But what I’m really saying here is the show was amazing in that no one was phoning it in, everybody was delivering and there were no down moments when you got up and spoke with your neighbor…I didn’t even want to get up and go to the bathroom, I didn’t want to miss anything. That’s for home, when you pause the show and take a break, but live you’re in the moment, and it’s only the moment that counts.

The big surprise, two of the other great performances of the night, were by acts you might question being in the Hall.

Salt-N-Pepa… Nineties MTV flashed in front of my eyes. And that’s what that era was about, hip-hop… Sure, it started with grunge, but then rap dominated. And these women had something to prove, three decades ago and last night. They spit out the lyrics, it was beyond a victory lap, it was a demand for attention, and they got it.

And then came OutKast…

Who doesn’t like OutKast?

They’ll come out and do their hit numbers and…

They did eventually, but…

Big Boi strode up to the stage in a big fur coat and shorts…talk about the rock and roll ethos. And then he and André 3000 started to take over the entire building. Shouting out to their friends and family in the audience, then demanding they come up on stage! There are about a dozen people up there, even a kid in a tux who couldn’t have even been six. And André 3000 is talking about the village that allowed them to create this music, how they were a product of their environment, how everybody helped… And we white guys are now sitting there as outsiders, it’s no longer our Hall, our ceremony, it’s been totally hijacked. It was palpable. It was both jarring and impressive. How did they do this? How did they make the show their own? And they did it without being overly dramatic or rehearsed and then…

The assembled multitude started to play the hits and…

If you’ve ever doubted that hip-hop could work live, if you were there you were proved wrong.

I’m standing there wondering how this looks on TV. The screen flattens. Removes the energy. You’re removed, but in the presence of the performance… This was rock and roll, this was the only place you could get it, not on YouTube, nowhere else, you had to BE THERE!

And funny it was in the Peacock Theater, a barn with an echo, made me yearn for the Universal Amphitheatre of old, but when music is played outside…it’s a different experience, you don’t feel it. But when the notes bounce off the walls…you’re all in the pressure cooker, caught up in the sound, you cannot remove yourself, you’re involved, and you love it!

3

Jack White gave a heartfelt speech… It seemed like he was fighting back tears. He exuded a normalness, the guy next door who made it big, he had the outfit but none of the airs, it was endearing.

But he, never mind Meg, a no-show, didn’t play. And as good as the tributes to him were, his act is unique, only he can really do it.

Ditto with Warren Zevon. The Killers and Waddy gave it their all, but the real star of Warren’s segment was David Letterman. This guy just couldn’t help being funny. It made you miss him. He’s in another league from today’s late night hosts. He’s quick and self-deprecating and above it all at the same time. And you could tell he loved Warren. And they played the famous clip where Zevon said to enjoy every sandwich.

Listen, the performances, other than the aforementioned clunker, were all good. It was a treat to see Derek Trucks sting the leads on the Joe Cocker songs. But there were two other highlights, HIGHLIGHTS!

4

The first one was Cyndi Lauper…

Now Cyndi has just come off a long tour, so she decided to perform herself. And she held the audience in her hands.

She starts with “True Colours” and then two-thirds of the way through, she gets to the line…

SO DON’T BE AFRAID!

And she stopped, cold, and thrust her arm in the air. This was a moment of protest, of meaning, that is absent from not only the new generation, but the public in general. This is the power of music. Wow. Goosebumps.

And the band…

Everybody was so well-rehearsed, every act, there were no clunkers. I’ve never seen performances this seamless at an awards show… But they were all firing at 10, they weren’t just going through the motions, they felt it.

Even that rhythmic drum coda at the end of “True Colours,” that was there…

And Cyndi’s speech was good too, but the other highlight of the night for me…

5

Brian Wilson… You just can’t say enough. If you lived through it… It’s why I live in California. I just had to get CLOSER!

And I was not the only one.

So the lights come up to Elton in front of his keyboard and Reg is telling a story. And Reg has been everywhere and done everything. So he saw no need to amp it up. He spoke about going up the hill to meet Brian when he first came to L.A.

And then he started playing “God Only Knows.”

Only this wasn’t the version we all know. It was slowed down. So that the words had added meaning.

And Elton is singing…

No one can sing like Carl Wilson. And even Elton doesn’t sound like he used to. But he gave the performance I’d say of a lifetime, but he’s given so many of them. But let’s just say this one…Elton was as good, if not better than he’s been all century. He’s making the song his own. And ultimately the key line resonated:

“God only knows what I’d be without you”

Not only Elton, but me and so many more. It was a different era. The youth started to take over the narrative when the establishment was unaware. What the hell was going on on the west coast? The girls and the beach and the fun, yet Brian could sing about being in his room with the gravitas of the most dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker on a rainy day.

Now the funny thing is so much time has passed that…

A lot of the people, or members of bands they’re honoring, are dead. You only wish they were alive to see it, to experience it.

But they’re not the only ones.

And the acts up on stage are thanking record executives those in the audience have never heard of, but were players around town back in the day. Soundgarden thanked Jim Guerinot, as they should have, Jim turned me on to the band, but Jim was not in attendance. The business has shifted, evolved, there were some record execs there, some other heavyweights, but this was not the clusterf*ck of yore. I’d say the only ones who’d survived intact, who still meant anything, were the musicians, the acts themselves. But really, it comes down to the music. The music survives.

Will today’s music survive?

We can debate that all day long, but one thing is for sure…

They created the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to honor an era, an unforeseen era. No one knew rock and roll was going to take over the world, become the dominant sound. And it was more than that, it was a cultural movement. This wasn’t the music business of yore. The acts now wrote their own songs, straight from the heart, and ultimately played their own instruments, and they were all about pushing the envelope…you dropped the needle on a new record wondering where you’d be taken, the musicians were leaders.

And they were musicians. Sure, a lot were stars, but they were not brands. They sold t-shirts, but the music came first.

And the funny thing is despite the image…you’d be surprised, a lot of these people who cut these legendary tracks are broke, or close to it. They’ve got to work for a living. Or did before they died. You need to put food on the table. The execs end up comfortable, the musicians not necessarily so.

But the sound, the power.

It remains.

Last night Bill Maher said the average price of a Taylor Swift ticket was over $4000. Really.

My favorite story on this came from Tony Wilson. His first job out of Oxbridge was in a television news department. On a Saturday night he collected the European football scores and the newsreader got them wrong. Tony swore to me that he delivered them correctly, but that’s not really the point. On Monday he was confronted by the big boss. Who said he usually fired people for this offense. But he was going to give Tony a break this time and this time only. And then the boss said that no one cared about the late night European football scores, it’s just that viewers felt if the station couldn’t get it right about something so simple, what were they getting wrong about the big stuff?

Now I have sympathy for Maher. As in a talk show host cannot read everybody’s book and know everybody’s backstory. He interviewed Kenny Chesney at the top of the hour and it was as if Bill had read Kenny’s Wikipedia page and had been briefed briefly by his staff. But that was a relatively softball discussion, whereas when you sit down with Bill O’Reilly and Representative Jared Moskowitz…

Bill O’Reilly reminds me of Gene Simmons. Most celebrities who build their image on pointed anger, sharp retorts, are as normal as you and me off camera. Usually even nicer. You can connect in the green room, have a fruitful discussion. But not these two! O’Reilly couldn’t take Maher’s banter as playful, he had to dig and then self-aggrandize, talking about numbers for his town hall, all the while speaking as if he was the only authority extant. As for Jared Moskowitz…this guy is a star. The more he talked the more I nodded my head.

So what do you want Live Nation to do? What do you want Ticketmaster to do? What do you want the acts to do?

Got to give kudos to O’Reilly on this, he said it was all about supply and demand, and it is. People want to go to the show. Furthermore, the acts have to keep prices relatively low or otherwise the public will scream, and then the secondary market hoovers up a bunch of tickets and resells them, sometimes for thousands…but most people don’t pay anywhere near that price.

Sure, some of the wealthy pay these inflated prices to sit up close and personal, so they can tell their buddies. Or so their children can see their favorites. We can discuss all day long the issue of income inequality, how some can afford the best and the rest of us are left with scraps, and that’s true for some tickets to the show, but not ALL!

Most people are paying face price. Which could be $200, give or take. And you might think that’s a lot, but how much did you just spend for dinner?

We could make the tickets $75 by tying them to the purchaser, but the public doesn’t like this, then they can’t scalp their own tickets. There’s no solution to this problem…even when the promoter says they’ll give you your money back if you can’t use them, if you’ve got a conflict on that date. No, people say MY MONEY, MY TICKET! I can do whatever I want with it!

So the acts try to charge as much as they can without pissing off the public. But in almost all cases with household names, they’re still cheaper than their true worth. Ergo the secondary market. Raise the ticket price and the bots and the rest of the secondary market disappears, or close to it. And that’s what should happen. BMW doesn’t price its cars artificially low so the less fortunate can afford them. People want them, they pay for them.

And sure, BMW is a luxury item… Then again, there are many luxury items that the hoi polloi pay for. And the truth is the average Joe will pay a high price to see his favorite. That’s how much they want to go.

So… You’ve got the public, you’ve got government, everybody is beating up on ticketing companies and promoters. Not the acts, because the dirty little secret is the ticketing companies are paid to take the heat. You don’t see Ticketmaster or Live Nation complaining that the problem is the acts, which it is. We can argue all day long about fees, but without them there is no show, almost all of the profit in big shows is in the fees. Because the acts take all of the face price. Which is fine, but then the acts turn around and complain about the ticketing company, say they’re on the side of the fans, they wish there were no fees…talk about duplicity. And when promoters try to go with an all-in price, it’s the acts that scream, they want the perception that the price is lower, that it’s not their fault that prices are high, the added fees are the problem.

And then you’ve got Bill Maher saying the average price for a Taylor Swift ticket is in excess of $4000. That would mean the average gross in a fifty thousand seat stadium, and the Eras Tour played in stadiums, was $200 million! Business is good, but not that good. There’s all this press that Swift is a billionaire, if those were the grosses she’d be a MULTI-BILLIONAIRE!

But she’s not, because the average ticket price is nowhere near that. Not even $1000.

But it makes a better headline if it’s north of $4000.

And while we’re at it, why don’t those kids get off the damn phone!

Bill Maher has been anti-tech for decades. Isn’t it funny that he’s now got a podcast, Club Random? So he wants people to spend over an hour listening to him and a guest, shouldn’t they put the damn phone down and go out and play?

Talk about being late to the party. The oldsters adopt last, if at all.

It’d be hysterical if they didn’t take their position so seriously, if the government wasn’t run by oldsters…

Where does it stop? No e-mail? No texting? No research on the web?

And anointed entertainment? You can watch it if it’s on a streaming service like Netflix but not if it’s on TikTok? This is utterly ridiculous. Talk about supply and demand. Make something off the phone better than what’s on it and people will clamor for it. But right now, a personalized feed on your phone, a fountain of information, is mesmerizing.

But that does not mean a lot of that information is not incorrect.

Once again, if we can’t get it right about concert tickets, good luck convincing people of the truth on political issues…ranging from taxes to government spending, the list is endless.

And if you’re playing in this sphere…

This is what oldsters don’t understand, what old time/mainstream media doesn’t understand. They used to go uncorrected, they used to be able to get away with this. They’d weigh in on a topic they’re unfamiliar with and it would go unchallenged. But the truth is there’s an expert online in every vertical, you can go to them for answers, for the truth, and when the mainstream gets it wrong, it undercuts its credibility. If you’ve got a White House reporter and you’re telling me what goes on in the room with Karoline Leavitt, I believe you. But you don’t have full time reporters in a plethora of areas and when you stumble into them you often get it wrong and those truly involved in this world shrug their shoulders and laugh.

It’s a worthless effort to try and correct somebody. Maher went for dinner with Trump in the White House and got a lot of blowback. He didn’t analyze that blowback, didn’t consider whether he was fully-informed, whether he’d thought it through before he went, no he just got indignant, defending his action.

That’s America, and it’s not only Bill Maher.

Is Ticketmaster perfect?

OF COURSE NOT!

But it’s only the most hated entity in America because everybody is dying to go to the show, and since they’re a big fan of the act they believe the price should be cheap. I can say I watch every Yankee game on TV, does that mean I’m entitled to go to the stadium for $1.50? Even $10?

This is an America run on emotion, not facts. And there can be no progress if we don’t start from agreed upon facts. And when bloviators like Maher self-satisfiedly get it completely wrong…that just adds fuel to the fire.

So, if you’re interacting with the public, try and get it right, or stay out of the way. Furthermore, if you do get it right, be prepared for blowback…that’s the world we now live in. Even if you’re right, people don’t like it. They won’t only criticize your take, but your identity.

Sometimes the truth is unpopular, but that does not mean you should not utter it.

Then again, we’ve got a president who lies on a regular basis.

And now I’ll get e-mail from Trumpers saying he doesn’t.

That’s the world we live in. One in which even politicians, especially politicians, are afraid of speaking the truth because the uneducated masses, or those with an agenda, will contradict them.

What you end up with is a Tower of Babel society.

And here we are.