What a game!

It had everything, a rain delay, a comeback and extra innings.

And it ended at 12:45 AM on the east coast and the younger generation that no longer plays would have been hooked if it had only seen it.

Baseball was everything growing up. I played Little League where you either made the team or you didn’t, you played or you were cut, and trophies only went to the winners. In an era when blacks were disadvantaged, women were denigrated and little light was shone upon the foibles of the famous people.

But we believed.

It was a simpler time. We wanted to be Mickey Mantle. Somehow, we believed Moose Skowron could be our best friend. We wanted to see Rocky Colavito come to bat, never mind Al Kaline. Baseball was the National Pastime. Until football came along and stole everybody’s heart with a violent game played against a clock.

Remember the George Carlin routine? Baseball was pastoral, we had no idea when it might end, it might go on FOREVER!

And now the season does.

There were 162 games because there were ten teams instead of eight.

But these extra layers of playoffs, they were about TV cash and raising the hopes of the wannabes. Whereas way back when, you rode it out for the pennant and then the World Series was played the first week of October. We shouldn’t be playing baseball in November, but that’s what the money demands.

But despite all that, tonight’s game was an epic finish that not only rekindled your belief in the game, but America too.

The most valuable player was a Jewish egghead who never took the field. Theo Epstein reversed the curse in Boston and then brought a championship to Chicago. Most sports are jockocracies wherein if you didn’t play, you don’t get a voice. To the point where the commentators are all has-been oldsters who won’t talk trash unless they’ve got a personal beef. It’s a closed system. You’re either inside or outside, and that just sucks.

And the teams are a rainbow coalition of ethnicities. It’s a white supremacist’s nightmare, not only are there various colors, but immigrants too! And somehow they all get along, they come together as a team, they’ve got a common goal, victory!

What is the common goal in America today? The telecast was riddled with political ads that made one wince. Duplicitous candidates utilizing subterfuge to try and win. Whereas the baseball players had shaggy haircuts, some tattoos, and had to play by their wits, there was little time for thinking, you had to make decisions.

And we can second-guess Joe Maddon’s until springtime. Why did he pull the starting pitcher? But this is not the digital world, where we expect it to work right out of the box, this is humanity, where you make mistakes and they have consequences.

The bad throws!

I’ll argue that way back when the players were better prepared. I don’t remember this many errors at the end of the season. But it kept one paying attention, you had no idea what would transpire.

Like the comeback.

That’s why baseball is the best, it’s never over until it’s over. I was debating getting off the couch, calling it a night, it looked like a blowout, but then the aforementioned pitcher was replaced, the Indians scored and when it looked like they couldn’t come back, THEY DID!

And for a minute there, it looked like they’d come back in the 10th.

Bob Costas says sports are a metaphor for life, and that’s tonight’s lesson… Not only that you shouldn’t give up, but you should continue to play the game because anything can happen. Sometimes you’ve just got to show up, the other person will screw up. Sometimes you have to step up to the plate and create your own destiny.

As much as they’re doing their best to screw up baseball they can’t screw up the game. That’s what’s so fascinating and heartwarming. This is not football, where every year they’re tweaking the rules and it’s hard to catch up. This is not football wherein a subjective judgment, i.e. pass interference, can determine championships. This is just a bunch of guys on a field contesting each other, via their skills and their intellect. Sure, baseball players now pump iron, but the Cubs’ 10th inning pitcher looked like he’d get beaten up in high school, he was a veritable stringbean!

And after throwing a bunch of strikes he could no longer find the plate. The pressure! That’s what success is all about, handling the pressure!

So right now you’ve got a cadre of thrilled baby boomers with their minds blown that this series went to seven, the Cubs came back from a 3-1 deficit, and Chicago earned its first ring in 108 years.

And you’ve got a younger generation that’s shrugging its shoulders if it’s paying attention at all.

Sure, back in the sixties the games were during the day, we were in school, we’d implore our teacher to turn them on. But now they start at 8 PM and are almost guaranteed to go until midnight on the east coast… How did we lose our way?

That’s right, we as a nation have lost our way. Because we put money first and foremost. It erodes all our institutions, it undermines our culture, it makes heroes of zeros. Come on, would anybody be listening to Donald Trump if he wasn’t rich?

But maybe you’re a Trump supporter… You’re gonna vote for him, and when he hopefully loses, you’re gonna say the election was rigged.

But nobody is saying the World Series was rigged. Everybody believes it was fought fair and square. Sure, there were some injustices, but that’s life, perfection is nonexistent.

We can learn from baseball. Not only do you have to run onto the field and play, if you lose, you have to get ready for another day.

If this were politics they’d be screaming about the rain delay, saying it caused the pitchers to go cold and the playing field to get wet.

But nobody did.

One team ultimately ran onto the field in pure joy, disbelieving their long nightmare was over. That after almost a year of effort, never mind seasons previous, they’d triumphed.

The other team was glum, disillusioned.

But the Indians are not going to quit. They’re going to lick their wounds and show up next spring to contest again.

Show up and contest, it’s all we can do.

Just when I think I’ve seen it all, that I’m too jaded, a baseball game reminds me that despite preparation, we’ve got no idea what the future holds. And despite mistakes, we too can still triumph.

Puts a smile on my face and joy in my heart.

I hope you saw it.

Hasn’t he got enough money?

Then again, maybe he’s not only exclusive to Apple, maybe you can hear his new album “Cosmic Hallelujah” via Amazon, but I doubt it and researching it is too hard, these acts don’t realize Apple and Amazon’s streaming services are narrow silos whose contents are invisible to those who do not pay, it’s like putting on a show where most people can’t go and there are no reviews, what’s the point of that?

Kenny’s been working it. There’s press everywhere, he did a town hall on No Shoes Radio, his SiriusXM station, but you can’t stream the album on Spotify… Talk about noise Kenny, by time your LP arrives on the green service there’ll be something new, you’ve got to strike when the iron is hot, while the looky-loos still care, and Kenny you need them to fill your stadium gigs.

Furthermore, you know when the LP goes wide Spotify’s gonna bury it, no matter what they say. Steve Jobs was the king of retaliation, it’s in the DNA of his company, you expect Spotify to play nice? I don’t think so.

And Troy Carter said at the “Wall Street Journal”‘s D Conference last week that Spotify would never get rid of its free tier, because some people will never pay. There you have it. Spotify’s the new radio, and people listened to the radio and bought concert tickets and merch from time immemorial.

But the dirty little secret is right now streaming is anemic for country acts. Just like with CDs, sales plummeted in country last. So even if you’re on Spotify it’s not really hurting you. And does it hurt you anyway?

What game is Kenny Chesney playing here? We’re already off Lady Gaga, she’s in the rearview mirror. Imagine if her new album weren’t on Spotify, when she came to the service no one would listen!

But Kenny thinks country will never change, that it will still be radio driven, that he’ll whip out his tracks one by one, they’ll run them to number one and there will be partying in the streets.

No.

That game is on its way to extinction. Just look at pop. Where the tracks break on streaming services first and radio picks up the crumbs. Actually, we saw this movie once before, thirty years ago, with MTV. Suddenly, the tail was wagging the dog, radio had to play what MTV did, and when it did not, the station’s ratings took a nosedive.

Funny how Kenny will take a stand on this but not anything else. His vaunted single “Noise”… Come on Kenny, who are you for, Hillary or the Donald, you can tell us, but you won’t, you’re too much of a wimp. Imagine the classic rock acts refusing to say. They had backbones, they cared, you don’t.

What does Kenny Chesney stand for?

Relaxing on the beach. That’s where we are these days folks. Escapism is everything. And you wonder why music no longer drives the culture.

I just can’t understand how acts can be so fan unfriendly. They pay fealty to those footing the bill again and again and then screw them. Not only with exclusives on streaming, but ticketing too.

It’s a rip-off culture. Ready to be disrupted. Just like food. McDonald’s cruised along for years, then fast casual came along and it turned out people would rather pay a few bucks extra for something really good.

When the revolution comes, and it will, acts like Kenny Chesney will be buried by those speaking the truth.

Someone’s gonna come along and lay their heart bare and turn country music upside down. Do you really think this bro thing is forever?

What kind of bizarre world do we live in where the distributor is hipper than the artist? That’s right, Spotify is more forward thinking than Kenny Chesney and more beloved. Records come and go, Spotify remains. Remember that, no act is bigger than the streaming service, it lived for years without the Beatles and grew quite nicely. Distribution is bigger than your act, how come Kenny Chesney doesn’t know that?

In movies and TV they want you to buy multiple streaming services. Think of a movie and you can’t see it, not unless you pay someone you’re not already subscribing to, and chances are they don’t have it either.

But in music we fought that war. Everything’s in one place for one low price, sorta.

As for those rearguard people still hating on Spotify… I guess you hate Uber too. You’re still using a typewriter instead of a computer. When I look at the “Billboard” chart I laugh, how inaccurate can you be? Sales are a de minimis part of the picture and the fact that streaming one damn song enough counts as an album is insane, kinda like saying if I masturbated a hundred times it’s equivalent to sexual intercourse. Because that’s what the “Billboard” chart is, masturbation. A scoreboard for an industry so out of touch it can’t handle the truth.

The truth is streaming already won. And you’re competing with the history of recorded music. It’s tough out there, to gain attention, to be streamed. You don’t want to fight with one hand tied behind  your back.

Total streams is the only metric that matters. When “Billboard” wakes up and says this god knows.

So, Kenny gets more press when his record goes number one.

But that’s only for a week. Then what? What’s gonna drive people to stream after the publicity dies down?

Kenny Chesney thinks he’s setting the world on fire, but the truth is he’s in his basement with a can of Sterno, roasting weenies that no one can eat.

That’s the road to success?

Shame on you, you’re furthering country’s stance as the most ignorant format.

Be a leader. Use your pulpit for good. Shame other country acts to embrace streaming.

But no, you’d rather get an award on a TV show and be all shucks about it.

Makes me vomit.

Sometimes you’ve got to sell.

You may not think this applies to you, two fading news enterprises fighting for survival, but there are self-satisfied owners across all avenues of business, those so caught up in their vision and their love of the company that they can’t see the forest for the trees, they can’t see it’s better to sell.

Sometimes it’s better to make the deal.

In the case of music contracts, it gets you in the game. Despite all the hoopla about old acts going indie and new acts having a low barrier to entry the truth is there’s a small cadre of experienced players who control the music industry, and if you’re not aligned with them, it’s almost certain you will not have success. They’ve spent years establishing relationships. You don’t get on CBS “Sunday Morning” by accident, you need help, and if you’re not willing to give up a few shekels to get there, the joke is on you. Your goal is to make everybody win, not just yourself.

And when everybody wants you you can charge top buck.

But when your asset value is declining, you make a deal. You agree to be on a triple bill of eighties acts. Your hits are in the rearview mirror, how do you maximize money today?

I don’t know what happens to newspapers. Once upon a time they were the only outlet, now there’s news everywhere, not all of it generated by independent, trustworthy sources, but you don’t need to go to the paper’s site, or buy the physical item, to know which way the wind blows.

Television news is history. They cut it to the bone and left none of the essence, there’s no reporting extant. It became all about profits, asset value was irrelevant, hell, Comcast owns NBC, it’s just part of a giant conglomerate. All you’ve got on television is beautiful people reading headlines and old farts bloviating their opinions, even though they’re constantly proven to be wrong. Want to get news analysis? You’re better off going online. As for talk radio, that’s for people so inured to their vision they cannot get out of their own way.

Tronc could not get out of its own way.

The “Los Angeles Times” is a pamphlet, that’s what Mark McGrath told me once and he’s right. I wouldn’t be able to convince anybody to buy it, there’s so little inside. It’d be like charging someone ten bucks for an album of four songs, with three of them karaoke versions of others’ hits. You’ve got to play to win, or you lose.

Now the previous owner of the “Times,” the Chandler family, sold the paper to the “Tribune,” which was run into the ground by Sam Zell. And you might think this was a mistake, that they sold too low and ended up in a quagmire, but the truth is you can’t eke out every last dollar, sometimes you’ve got to let go. Not everybody can be the Bancroft family, which sold the “Wall Street Journal” at top buck to Rupert Murdoch just before the newspaper crash. People like to boast, tell you they made the biggest score, they don’t tell you about their losses, and the internet sphere is littered with companies that refused to sell out to Facebook or Google that ended up being worth zero, because there was really nothing there, other than maybe a public offering that overvalued the company once. Would Tinder be so valuable if it wasn’t part of Barry Diller’s IAC empire? And I’m still not convinced Snap is worth all that much, seems flavor of the moment to me, another platform to exhibit content, albeit with a twist. Maybe there’s room for one more internet victor, but maybe not.

And there certainly isn’t room for all these newspapers.

The newspaper was the filter. It told you what you needed to know. But it was supported by advertising. That model doesn’t work anymore, the ads have fallen through the floor and in many cases, like with the L.A. “Times,” there’s just not enough news left. We need reporting. A couple of news outlets will survive. But it may not be the usual suspects, because they’re so busy cutting costs, trying to maintain their margins. Talk to Amazon about maintaining its margins, it was loss after loss, investment after investment, until it all turned around. And the Seattle behemoth got lucky with its Web Services, but that’s what happens when you stay in the game and have tons of infrastructure, you’re ripe for success, but if you keep cutting…

So we’ve got this outsider who buys a chunk of “Tribune” and thinks he’s got the answers. I’m not saying news won’t be disrupted, but I am saying that the usual suspects have expertise. No outsider has triumphed in music for eons. The hated insiders know something, they learned something during all those years of work. They might be less than brilliant, they might be risk averse, but they’ve got experience!

So this cracker is gonna focus on digital, as if nobody ever thought of that.

And Gannett comes up with a buyout offer and he thinks the company is worth more.

This is not Jeff Bewkes and HBO, which is banking coin, this is a fading asset, it’s only worth much more if you can pivot and rebuild it, and the odds of that are very long…

Try selling your CDs today, I just unloaded a bunch, for ten cents apiece. Value is seventy percent less than it was a decade ago, maybe a bit worse. Oh, of course, I could wait until it all turns around, when the discs become a fetish, like vinyl, but maybe that never happens and is my money best tied up in this asset?

This is not real estate, of which they are making no more. Live long enough and you’ll probably make money in real property, as long as you didn’t overpay, and it never goes to zero, but… All that MTV footage, all that stuff we thought was evergreen, it’s not, you want to sell it when you’ve got a willing bidder.

Or maybe you’re one of those doofuses who’s all show and no substance. Who invests in declining assets like automobiles…

Well, the true professionals know better. And the true professionals are bankers. Gannett still wanted to make the deal but the lenders said no.

Now what?

I can’t imagine the L.A. “Times” resuscitating, I’d rather invest in
Vice, which at least has a hold on what the younger generation wants to know.

And Gannett’s engulf and devour strategy has hit a wall.

And we’ve got oldsters decrying the death of papers and reporters who are playing musical chairs, just waiting for the buyout or to be fired, who don’t realize that today you wear many hats, you don’t only write, but you market, and he not looking to the future will be squeezed out.

Talk about the destruction of shareholder value…

These CEOs fill their boards with cronies and then they drive their companies off a cliff.

I’m not saying to play it safe, but if the ship is sinking, sometimes it’s best to jump off.

And if you can’t see a future for your asset, maybe it’s time to liquidate.

I’d never been that way before.

Today was the day of my annual checkup at the House Ear Clinic. It’s the best in the world, they invented the operations, and they’re open to all, they take insurance, if you’re wondering about a loss, if you need hearing aids, House is the place.

But it’s a bear getting an appointment.

I go once a year, but this time, because of my shoulder surgery, I delayed it. But, as stated above, today was the day.

But Felice was doubled-over in pain.

It started on Sunday. She had to lie down. She complained of a pain in her back, on the lower right side.

Kidney stone, I was sure of it, I’d had too many.

But then the pain passed.

This is how it usually goes. The pain waxes and wanes. And then, holy bejesus, you’re freaking out!

My mother believed it was illegal to be sick. So I didn’t go to the emergency room the first time, the second time I drove there on a Sunday night and turned around a block shy, convinced that I was okay, and then there was the time I was all the way in and they wouldn’t see me right away and I puked all over the bathroom and I ended up having surgery to remove the stone…

I’m an expert.

But if you’ve never had one before…it’s scary.

So for me to wake up before nine a.m. is anathema. Castigate me all you want, but the truth is I love the hours after 9, into the next day, nobody is looking for me, I can relax, that’s when all the good ideas come, then again, it screws up my schedule royally and Dr. Brackmann only sees patients in the a.m., he operates in the p.m., so I went to bed earlier than usual and told Felice to wake me up at 8:45 but when the curtains parted and the light streamed in…it was before that.

She wasn’t saying much, but she obviously wanted to talk.

And ultimately, she complained of the pain, it was severe.

I told her to call the internist. The internist said to go to the emergency room, but was I gonna punt my appointment at the House Clinic?

Last night I listened to a Radiolab podcast wherein the protagonist was allergic to meat. Yes, it can happen, that’s what the podcast was all about, you react to the alpha-gal in the tissue. And when this woman was having her attack she implored her mother to drive her to the hospital but her mom said she had to take a shower first. She ended up going by ambulance. And I thought of how stupid this was, that you’re supposed to go NOW, and suddenly, the very next morning, I was confronted with the exact same question. I knew it was a kidney stone, but maybe not. For all Felice knew she was dying. But if I ran out without shaving and showering…how would the doctor treat me at House, assuming I even got there? And I felt I should go. After all, after dropping Felice at the ER she’d be in good hands, what else was I supposed to do?

Oh, be a good boyfriend and stay you’d say.

But then I wouldn’t be able to see Brackmann until the new year, when I hadn’t satisfied my deductible, and I needed to hear what he had to say.

But Felice had no idea where to go. She’d been living in her abode in Sherman Oaks for a decade but had never been to the ER. I know St. John’s in Santa Monica, that’s where I go, where to go in the Valley?

I started Googling. And I knew I needed more than urgent care. I came up with Sherman Oaks Hospital, but I wasn’t quite sure, I needed to call, no one picked up, I dialed again, eventually got to someone who could answer, could they see someone for kidney stones?

They said yes, far from emphatically, and my decision was made.

Felice was by the throne, puking… I told her to give me five minutes, I’d shower and insert my contacts just that fast, and I did.

But she didn’t think she was gonna make it. I’m spewing nonsense on the way over, trying to distract her, telling her about my various kidney stones, and reassuring her that no one ever died of a kidney stone, but she didn’t want to hear it.

And then she wanted to puke again. So I pull over on Van Nuys Boulevard, do I have to put money in the meter or do I have a good excuse, and Felice is hanging on to the door, half in and half out, and I implore her to get back inside, we’re only blocks away.

And then we were there.

It was strangely calm. There was not another soul in the waiting room. Not even a nurse. Which scared me a bit, was this place together?

But ultimately someone showed up and I filled out the form and then I was confronted with the “Harry Met Sally” question… How long do I have to sit here before I can leave?

I’m checking Google Maps. I seem to have time to make it downtown to House. But if I go my usual way, it’s gonna be tight. Google is telling me to take the 5 instead of the 101, which is like taking the elbow instead of the hypotenuse, I’ve got to be on my way.

So I fire up the map app, and I can hear it, because I’m not playing the radio, because I don’t want anything to affect my hearing, and traffic is horrendous but then I segue onto the 134 and I’m breezing along, way out of my way, and then I get on the 5 and the woman inside the phone tells me to get off at the 2.

But I know the 2 only goes a mile or so. But the map app is never wrong, so I obey.

And I ultimately merge onto a drag by the reservoir and I’m stunned that I got here from there. That’s the amazing thing about Los Angeles, it’s so spread out. When I first moved here I investigated every neighborhood, now traffic is so bad I go almost nowhere. But suddenly, the city all made sense.

And then she told me to bear right on Alvarado.

It never occurred to me this was the street the House Clinic was on, I always came the other way, my reference street was Third.

And as I’m cruising down Alvarado it looks nothing like West L.A. It’s closer to Caracas than Los Angeles. I’m thinking about all the people who live here. Is it families, transients? How can you live in L.A., and be so far from the beach? Like Silver Lake and Echo Park, the hipster neighborhoods, if I came from thousands of miles away, I’d want to be closer to the Pacific, but that’s just me.

But I made it to the House Clinic on time. But I was uptight I was failing the hearing test, the part where they ask you to repeat words. As for the sounds before that, the beeps, I’m constantly raising my arm, I’m the king of false positives, but I’ve got to get the comprehension right. And at first the volume isn’t loud enough and there’s no white noise in the other ear and then I can’t repeat the words and I believe I’m failing, I ask for a retest, which shocked the technician who admitted there was a screw-up at first, but this is oh-so-important to me.

And then Dr. Brackmann saw me almost on time, which is a miracle at House. 45 minutes late is on time, sometimes you can wait an extra two hours. And my hearing hadn’t changed and I got an education on loud music, which I’ll save for another day, and when I got through so was Felice. I’d felt guilty telling her to Uber home, but what’s Uber for?

They gave her morphine. She had two stones.

So I drove back to Sherman Oaks and this time the waiting room at the hospital ER was full. And they wouldn’t let me in so I said I’d been there before and I got a pass and a doctor told me where to go, which I never would have found myself, and there was Felice.

Now the problem is if you’ve never had a kidney stone you think you’re down for the count, gonna be under for weeks. But I know if you drink a ton of fluid, chances are you’ll pass it in a day or two. Not always, you can hold the e-mail telling me I’m wrong, but I bet I’ve had more stones than you have.

So we go to CVS for four medications and Felice cancels her board meeting and now…

I’m a bit too discombobulated to get back in the groove.

But the funny thing is I so enjoyed being out of my groove. Yes, I wish Felice didn’t have two stones, one at the top of her ureter, the other not quite there, but by screwing up my day I had all kinds of new experiences, dealt with different people, evaluated what life was about.

And I’d hate being one of those technicians stuck behind the counter all day at CVS.

And I wonder what kind of degree you need to give a hearing test at House.

And Brackmann is over 70, not that you’d know, but how much longer will he practice, when you’ve got the right guy you don’t want to switch.

And I know that anything can happen. You can wake up thinking your day is going one way, but then your plan changes.

But as I was cruising down Alvarado, seeing another entrance to the 101 that would be a better way home, noting the El Pollo Loco I ate at before that show at the Echoplex, I felt a resident of the city, part of a giant continuum, I belonged, and it felt so good.