There’s something wrong with him. We keep thinking Larry David is the odd one, but it’s Jerry.

Used to be Howard had no friends. Now he hangs with the rich and famous. And to be honest, you want to too. Not to brag, but to hear the stories. When Stern laments being unable to go to dinner at McCartney’s house you can hear the pain in his voice, the same pain you’d have if you had the opportunity. But you don’t. That’s what fame will deliver….opportunity. And that’s what psychoanalysis will deliver…friends.

But Jerry refuses to go to the shrink. Believes it’s a sham.

But he’s happy all the time, thinks everything is great, and it pisses his kids off.

Now it’s hard to explain 80s TV. Especially late night. When only Letterman was doing a comedy show, whereas Johnny was truly interviewing people. But you’d watch for the comedians, knowing that if they were good, Johnny would motion for them to take a seat, where they normalized. And this was before the goal was to have a sitcom, everybody was just doing their act.

And that’s where I noticed Jerry Seinfeld. It was his routines and his delivery.

And it turns out those took a lot of work.

No one’s willing to do the work. Sure, you’ve got to have talent, but you’ve got to WANT IT! And few do that badly, because of the sacrifices.

Jerry had no friends and stayed home watching television. Believing there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, if only he could get there. This is contrary to the ethos of the modern day parent, the one with means, it’s all about enrichment and applying yourself so you can get into a good school and then go to a good graduate school. And I hate to say it, but it’s true…they end up beating the creativity right out of you. That’s one of the reasons so many of the greats are dropouts, not so much that they couldn’t wait to go down the path of their career, but they knew school was holding them back. I went to an institution of grinders. I’d like to tell you my cohorts at Middlebury are household names, but that is not true, except for Eve Ensler, who wrote “The Vagina Monologues,” they’re all just stand-up members of society, and we need those, but life would not be worth living it were not for the comedic standups, and the rest of the entertainers.

That’s what Jerry tells Howard. Instead of castigating himself over and over for his flaws, he should remember he’s a ray of light in his audience’s otherwise empty day, people live for entertainment, forget the haters, it’s about their deficiencies. (Well, that was mine, Jerry seems oblivious to the haters. And that’s how he’s gone through his whole life, oblivious, according to him, but he is sensitive to the audience…)

So Jerry had a joke that didn’t work. But then he twisted it around it got howls.

The essence is you’re nobody, meaningless, irrelevant, why would someone be calling YOU? And that’s the truth, none of what we do matters. You think it does, but it doesn’t. And when we’re reminded of this, we laugh.

And Jerry talks about the craft of a joke. How mixing up the words, getting it right, makes all the difference. And you can write a joke, but can you DELIVER IT? On stage? While waiting to see if it works? Jerry abhors comics who don’t leave that silence, who go right into the next joke, you’ve got to find out if what you said is…FUNNY!

And Jerry never expresses remorse and is unafraid of making pronouncements. He seems unable to feel guilt, and is always thinking about punch lines. The goal is to be sharp, witty, he doesn’t want to lay back and watch, he wants to PARTICIPATE!

And now he goes over to Howard’s for lunch, and vice versa. And they talk for hours. And while you’re listening, you realize that’s what you want too. Listening to their conversation was the highlight of my day. Sure, they’re both famous, but the way they played off of each other, explored, that’s what friendship is all about. You don’t want to talk about work, but feelings. You want to marvel at the absurdity of life. And every day Jerry calls his friend Barry and they do this for an hour or two. I used to have a buddy like this, but then his new wife and I didn’t get along and that trashed that.

So you end up envious of Jerry, even though you don’t want to be him and certainly are not him. Nothing fazes him. He lives in a tank of observation. And life is worth observing, because it’s so bizarre. You want to tell someone about the quirks and experiences of your day. Which Jerry does to Barry, with all the profanity absent from his act, with the opinions that would ruin his career and marriage if known. But you remember privacy, don’t you? And trust? Barry’s not gonna reveal what they say, it’s between them, and only them.

And when Jerry says it’s a miracle that people get along at all, at first you doubt that. Then he asks if you’ve ever driven cross-country with someone for ten days, and says at the end of the trip YOU HATE EACH OTHER! Why is it we overload on people? Why is it we can never find someone like us we like 24/7? Why are we ultimately so alone? What is wrong with our lives that we’re looking for insight from entertainers?

I don’t know.

But I do know if you’re servicing the public, don’t think about what they want, but what you want. Sure, judge their reactions, but when you play to the norm people know, they don’t have that heightened response, wherein their heart pitter-patters.

Larry David was the genius of “Seinfeld.”

But Jerry Seinfeld is the genius of standup.

You realize while you’re listening to this conversation. Larry thinks about situations, arcs, whereas Jerry thinks about insights. Which is why they were such a good team.

But the joke is they’re as good separately as they were together.

But Larry can relax and have friends, be somewhat normal. Whereas Jerry is always one step away, pretending to be normal, because he’s not.

And that’s why we can’t stop paying attention.

JERRY SEINFELD SPILLS WHO’LL BE RIDING AROUND WITH HIM ON ‘COMEDIANS IN CARS GETTING COFFEE’ SEASON 10

Does this mean he can play now?

Now that the athletes and the owners of the NFL have stood up to Trump, which team will break the logjam and sign Kaepernick?

That’s how it happens folks. Someone decides to cross the line. Someone does the right thing.

I’m sick and tired of the right defining the debate and the left being pussies. If I have to hear one more nitwit say the NFL ratings are declining because Kapernick took a knee I’m gonna spread the canard that the Beatles ruined music. Yup, that’s what they said back then. If you think the diehard blowhards who are spreading this fiction can give up their football, you probably don’t believe in addiction. Come on, a league wherein the players get maimed for life and the games are rotten is failing because one man made a protest? If that was true, NFL ratings would have bounced back now that Kaepernicks’s been excommunicated, but they haven’t, they’re declining further.

It’s sad that it took the bloviations of the head of state to get the rest of the players to take a stand, but now they have, and the owners too, they’ve cooked their own goose, if that’s possible, but the truth is the longer it takes you to do the right thing the longer it takes you to get back on the right path.

We keep sitting by. Thinking it will be okay. That someone else will do the work. That we have too much at risk to protest, to take a stand.

But that time has passed.

I lived through the sixties, which began with blacks in the back of the bus and ended with integration. And today African-Americans rule the culture. But the endangered whites want to put blacks in the back once again, want segregated schools, this time called “charters,” while they want the government to pay for parochial schooling in a country founded upon religious freedom, and the truth is rust never sleeps.

Unless it’s in the music business.

I don’t want to work on Maggie’s Farm no more, and neither do you.

First they came for our unions. That’s why the NBA players are so strong, because of their union. Because the fat cat owners have all the money. That’s right, you bitch about some athlete who makes millions without looking at the faceless owner who’s got billions and is doing his best to keep players down.

But you can’t criticize a corporate winner these days, not an entrepreneur, because they EARNED IT!

Oh yeah, right. Where would they be without us buying their products? Facebook is worthless without our participation. But we get bread and circuses at best.

I don’t know where the breaking point is. We’ve been watching this Trump movie for half a year and the dam hasn’t burst yet. And all we keep hearing is to forget Russia and let him rule. As if we can believe in the government after Russia invaded the voting booth and the right did its best to prevent people from voting. You can only push it so far before there’s a reaction.

I’m frightened of what’s happening with North Korea, but is the country we’re now living in worth saving? Where science is ignored and we’ve seceded from the international landscape?

This is the event of your life, never forget it. It’s not about Trump, but what he represents. A combination of the haves and the have-nots, fighting progress.

You remember progress, don’t you? Where we’re all in it together to put a man on the moon?

Now these same people want to hobble electric cars, want to preserve a way of life that’s already in the rearview mirror.

Change happens one step at a time.

And what we’ve now learned is Colin Kaepernick was standing up for us all. Pointing out the injustice. You focused on him, he focused on the problem. Martin Luther King was imperfect. Curt Flood sacrificed his career to break baseball’s treatment of players as serfs. Imagine if Wal-Mart workers had a union. Imagine if prices went up and you had the wherewithal to pay them. Imagine if the downtrodden and depressed were lifted up by you, the person with more. It’s incumbent on the rich and powerful to make change. It’s time to stop denigrating the youth and start putting yourself in their shoes, with a lot of debt and little future.

Today the NFL banded together and took a stand.

It’s your turn tomorrow.

P.S. Ignore the haters. We had them in the sixties too. If we just rally the silent people on our side we’ll overwhelm the vocal minority.

No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
Well, he hands you a nickel
He hands you a dime
He asks you with a grin
If you’re having a good time
Then he fines you every time you slam the door
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more

Because the players run the league.

Sometimes change has to come from the top. History repeats, but with a twist. In the sixties we were a homogeneous society, a middle class which could pay our bills and if you fell behind you were supported by a safety net. Today, it’s every person for themselves and fear reigns, people are afraid of the corporation, but not basketball players.

Who live on Twitter.

That’s right, basketball is the bleeding edge of sports. And the fastest growing. It’s gonna eclipse football in your lifetime. You don’t get CTE and the game moves fast and if you don’t think the NBA rules, you’re probably watching baseball, while your kids are talking about whether LeBron will leave Cleveland.

That’s right, LeBron is squeaky clean. He’s got tattoos, but no rap sheet. His childhood friends run his business, not Hollywood agents, he doesn’t need the system, HE IS A SYSTEM!

Ditto on Steph Curry. He does his job best. He lets his work speak for him. But when you cross him…

They’re unafraid of the consequences, they do what’s right. Hell, LeBron handpicked his coach, this is not the NFL, where owners are in charge and the players are fungible as they work themselves to death, literally. Sans players, the NBA is worthless. They wouldn’t even bother with replacements. The game would suffer too much.

And the NBA was on Twitter long before Trump put his finger to his phone. When you attack someone on their medium, you get attacked right back.

And we need heroes and people to learn from, now that politicians are sold out and CEOs are venerated who else are we to turn to other than sports stars and entertainers? I won’t say you’ve got a responsibility so much as an OPPORTUNITY!

So Trump picked the wrong target. But ignorant people always do this. Unaware of the consequences of their actions.

It’s great that football players are protesting. But the Warriors organization got behind Curry long before the NFL owners woke up. But waking up is good, even if it takes you a beat. We were for the Vietnam War before we were against it, we just needed to be educated.

Our country is divided in a way it hasn’t been since the sixties. And you can denigrate poor African-Americans in Ferguson, but don’t pick a fight with NBA stars who make double digit millions a year, who net more cash than musicians. Who march to the beat of their own drummer and go their own way.

Hell, Steph Curry went with Under Armour when the man at the machine missed the memo, one of the reasons Nike is now struggling.

Lonzo Ball’s dad might be a blowhard, but these companies depend upon athletes, just because they don’t upset the apple cart in the NFL doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

I don’t know what happens next.

But I do know when you’re trying to please everybody you please nobody.

You’ve got to take a stand.

He’s the last rock star.

And he’s finally comfortable in his own skin.

He used to have attitude, a chip on his shoulder. He kept his distance. He needed to express his anger.

Now he knows what he’s achieved and he can accept our love and the end result is satisfaction and transcendence.

I’m not like my fellow baby boomers. I cannot go see the aged acts again and again. I saw them when they were new, when they were in their prime, on the comeback tour, the one after that…

And now I’m done.

Oh, there are exceptions. But when I see the usual suspects at the shed I wince. This is commerce, not art.

But Petty’s different.

What is a rock star?

Someone who doesn’t fit in, who has to do it his way, who labors in the trenches until he finally breaks through.

And refuses to sell out.

That’s one of the reasons rock died. Everybody’s taking money from the corporation, doing privates, hoovering up cash. And that might make you rich, but it leaves you empty inside, and the audience can tell, because those on stage are our hopes and dreams, our best selves, we need not only something to believe in, but something to direct us. We’ve gone off the rails but want to get back on. They kept chugging down the line.

But now the only one left is Tom Petty. The rest have dyed their hair and gotten plastic surgery and are selling nostalgia. It’s no wonder one of the best tracks last night was the new one. Because you’ve got to grow or die. You’ve got to hone your chops or lose them. If you see the tour as an endless grind to make your nut you’re really no different from a factory worker, and there aren’t that many of them left. You can do the same thing night after night, tour after tour, or you can change it up.

Petty’s catalog is so deep he doesn’t have to play “The Waiting.” “Listen To Her Heart.” “Don’t Do Me Like That.” He can dig deep and surprise us.

But this is the first time he looked outward, to the audience, included them, as if he finally accepted it was good to be king.

And a benevolent one at that. Who never gave up his mischief, but wanted to keep his subjects happy.

But L.A. audiences are notoriously subdued. And outside it can be hard to feel the noise, it escapes into the atmosphere. And boomer acts have boomer audiences, with frail knees, who would rather sit than stand.

But Petty was having none of that.

He came out and marveled at the assembled multitude. Insisted the house lights go up so he could see us. Told us we were gonna have a night. Where did this loquacious man come from?

Then he and the Heartbreakers lit into “Rockin’ Around (With You).”

Leon Russell had already peaked. Shelter Records was on the decline. And even the most casual observer knew it would be difficult for an act on that label to break through.

And Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers didn’t. They were seen as a derivative Byrds-influenced act with a touch of punk, maybe since Tom wore a leather jacket on the cover of the debut album, so they went to the U.K. where they gained traction, since they got none here.

But then there was a live version of “Breakdown,” with that inimitable descending riff, with a slow talking mid-section, and KROQ, when it was still a free format station, started to play it and a buzz was begotten.

They were up and coming in a world where the scene was in Los Angeles. More new wave, before that became something different in the U.K., more power pop than the punk of CBGB’s. Petty’s outfit was one of many.

Not the last remaining enterprise it is today.

So I went to see them at the Whisky. And it was not about shenanigans, only the music, and it was good, and the second album delivered but we did not expect the band to become superstars, as they did with “Damn The Torpedoes.”

And then after a walk in the wilderness, they returned with the MTV smash “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” a left field hit if there ever was one.

Then there were the triumphant solo albums, and the two tracks added to the end of the “Greatest Hits” package and that was song number two, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” This was when riff rock was in the toilet, but from “I Want To Tell You” to “Smoke On The Water” to “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” it’s what reaches and motivates us most, that line played loudly that eliminates all other thoughts in one’s brain, that makes one feel powerful, that makes one believe one can win.

Yup, our music was optimistic, even when it was pessimistic. It fueled our hopes and dreams.

And much earlier than I anticipated, believing it would be saved for the encore victory lap, Petty lit into “I Won’t Back Down,” which seems to have become the anthem of America. Ain’t it always the truth. Songs by outsiders are misinterpreted and appropriated and misused by the mainstream, like the Boss’s “Born In The U.S.A.,” but the dirty little secret is the less demonstrative, less talkative Petty has even more impact than Springsteen. Springsteen’s got a couple of anthems, Petty’s got a slew, Springsteen’s for a devoted cult, but Petty is for everyone.

And then came…

The Los Angeles anthem.

That’s right, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were formed in Santa Monica, when it was still downtrodden, the burg upon the shore.

But it’s the rest of the city that comes alive in “Free Fallin’.”

It’s a long day, living in Reseda

The Valley is not as downtrodden as it once was, especially now that you’ve got to be rich to live on the Westside, but the truth is Reseda is little different from Gainesville, Petty’s hometown. It’s flat and suburban and youth have nothing better to do than to get in trouble.

All the vampires, walkin’ through the Valley
Move west down Ventura Boulevard

Sunset may be more famous. But these days, more happens on Ventura, the business street of the San Fernando Valley, that’s endless, with restaurants, shops, car dealers, we keep hearing from right wingers how their tiny hamlets are the real America, but if you want to see the U.S. tried and true, drive down Ventura, not that I’m giving it a thumps up, but it’s us, with its mini-malls and nail salons and supermarkets, it grew organically, just like the U.S., it’s a mumbled jumbled mixed up world that needs to be wiped clean and rebuilt.

But this will never happen.

I wanna glide down over Mulholland

There’s no cheap real estate on the road that bifurcates the city, atop the hills, separating West L.A. and Hollywood from the Valley. If you’ve never been here, drive up here first. Wind your machine through the curves. You’ll see why it’s a car culture, as well as seeing the landscape, the mountains, the valleys and the ocean.

And this is everyday life in SoCal. You can read about it elsewhere, listen to the record, but when Petty’s playing it here, you can only stand up, thrust your arm in the air and sing at the top of your lungs…

And I’m free, free fallin’
Yeah I’m free, free fallin’

You know what that’s like, why you go to the show, not so you can shoot selfies and tweet, but so you can bond with the act and its music. The assembled multitude was standing, singing, praying to the god of song and its creator, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

And a slow song from “Wildflower” turned into a rave-up.

And the title track from that album was prefaced by Petty’s comment that he hoped he didn’t screw it up.

He did not. He picked it on his acoustic guitar perfectly.

And here’s where we stop and credit Mike Campbell and lifer Benmont Tench. And newbie Ferrone. And prodigal son Blair. And quasi Heartbreaker Thurston. And the backup singers known as the Webb Sisters. This is strange, not only are the original members alive and kicking, playing their hearts out (except for Stan, of course, all families have one outcast, one member they can’t get along with), Benmont and Tom were kids together. Campbell was playing a Japanese electric in a bad neighborhood when Petty said he was gonna be in his band FOREVER! Most people come to L.A. and forget their roots, shed their friends, become someone different, phony, untrustworthy, but Tom and the Heartbreakers are friends, a gang, and despite Jeff Lynne sitting right by me and getting up with a few numbers left he did not grace the stage, because that would be sacrilegious, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers don’t need no cherry on top, because they are the entire sundae, ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, nuts, they bring their own maraschino, and it’s enough. MORE THAN ENOUGH!

So Tom told stories. Conducted the impossibly tight band. The big screen flashed images from their career, not only their lives, but our own.

And then they turned up the amps and we heard “Refugee” and “Runnin’ Down A Dream” and the legendary closer, “American Girl.”

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is an American band.

Some act from Detroit claimed that title forty odd years ago, but they splintered and could not follow it up.

But Tom and his pickers and players and singers have grabbed that mantle and keep rollin’ down the track, and it’s forty years later, and although they claim they might stop, don’t believe it, they’re stoking the engine and…

Last night we were in the passenger car as engineer Petty turned up the throttle and took us on the ride of our life.

But the stunning thing is he does this night after night, gig after gig.

That’s why he’s the last of the rock stars.