I went to public school. When taxes were high, there was enough paper for the mimeo machine and Mr. McCann taught music in the basement.

We pledged allegiance, learned that anybody could be President, but it don’t really happen that way at all anymore.

Ever get the feeling the game is rigged? Those who voted for Trump famously say this, but I feel this way too. I grew up and never saw a Ferrari. An exotic vacation was a family trip on Eastern Airlines to Florida, a journey I never took, and we all agreed that Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor were speaking the truth.

Of course there was that blip on the radar screen called the Vietnam War, and as one got older it scared the living daylights out of you, because you realized you might get your ass shot off in an unjustified meaningless conflict, but LBJ countered his aggression with his Great Society plan and even Richard Nixon opened China and now I’m looking for the silver lining in Trump’s victory and I can’t find one.

I know, he won, we lost. I got it. Fair and square. I won’t even complain about the Comey letter or Russian hacking. Hell, I won’t even bring up the lopsided popular vote. But I will bring up gerrymandering. Where Democrats win the House but lose it. Where Republicans lose their seats to right wing zealots. Where our country is pulled in a direction where it’s every man for himself, women and minorities are second-class citizens, and the rich run herd over the rest of us.

Amway is a pyramid scheme. And its heir, with no experience in public education, seemingly no experience in education at all, is now in charge of the learning of the nation’s students. Expect the gap to get bigger. Expect the disadvantaged to fall further behind. Meanwhile, all the blame is heaped upon the backs of unions.

Did I have lousy teachers in school? Of course! Did people get tenure who I wish had not? Of course! But please explain to me what society you want, one in which no one can ever lose their job or a pure meritocracy with no safety net.

The truth is there are inefficiencies in all businesses. Money falls through the cracks. But there’s a fiction that when it comes to government, all dollars must be accounted for, spent wisely, or else the beast needs to be starved.

Well, education is being starved right now.

I went to one of America’s finest colleges. My father paid full freight. And the truth is that although I learned tons outside of the classroom, the teachers I had in my public high school were more influential. Mrs. Hurley taught me to challenge authority. Mr. Harrity taught me how to write. Mrs. Spitalny took a student with a progress report in Algebra, who was doing it by trial and error, and made him the smartest guy in the class, with an A+ in both Geometry and Alegbra II. And none of these educators got rich, they were doing it for the love of inspiring students.

And there was no religious instruction. And we thought that the world was our oyster.

And today most students cannot contain two opposing thoughts in their brain at the same time. They don’t know how to analyze a situation. The focus is on creating automatons who can perform on the test when the truth is education should be about developing the person, making not only good workers, but good contributors, people who make our society whole.

But a segment of the population wants to leave the rest behind. Take their God and their privilege to create private enclaves where the rest of us are left out and told either to follow in lockstep or be forgotten.

How did we get here? Where everybody believes they’re entitled to every dollar they make and the general good is irrelevant, where those who triumphed financially believe they can run herd over those of us who have not?

So the same Republicans who fought Trump now support him.

And the President is a one man disinformation campaign.

And there’s no accountability because the proletariat can’t understand the issues and isn’t paying attention anyway.

We are in this together folks. And the best candidate for a job may be a woman. But not this woman.

P.S. We may be winning the immigration battle, but not only have we lost the education battle, but we’re going down for the count on financial issues and truth just went out the window. And if you wonder how the President can lie and get away with it I’ll point to an entertainment industry that lies for a living, which the news media does not call them on, busy boosting their false heroes. All those shows the newspaper says sell out? Oftentimes they do not. But if the media can’t get it right on the small stuff, what are the odds it can get it right on the big stuff? What are the odds that an abused public is gonna be outraged when a President spews falsehoods when everybody is lying and cheating to get ahead? Bill Gates is a national hero, yet Microsoft succeeded by charging for Windows whether it was installed or not.

P.P.S. It can’t happen here, but it has. Ever since election day I’ve been in a black mood. And I understand those who voted for Trump out of frustration with the status quo, but this guy has thrown the baby out with the bathwater, he’s a bull in a china shop. And if you think he’s making you more safe, getting you a better job with a higher wage, keeping the immigrant from taking your gig, then you should have lobbied your congressperson to vote against DeVos, because you got a bad education, you can’t see that they want your support, but they don’t want you, you’re just a pawn in their game.

P.P.P.S. The only way we can reach the vast swath of voters and change this country’s direction is via entertainment, because it’s the only thing people are paying attention to. It’s incumbent upon movies, television and musicians and other artists to stand up and speak truth. But they’re all silent, because they’re afraid of jeopardizing their income. Tech companies lobby against immigration nonsense, musicians sign sponsorship deals. One can argue strongly that the plight of the native American didn’t reach national consciousness until Marlon Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather on stage to accept his Oscar. He was derided at the time, made fun of, but he brought the issue to a head. And his performance in the “Godfather” lives on while I challenge you to name the head of the Academy at that time, never mind the channel the show was broadcast on. You’ve got to start somewhere. There are more of us than them. Our only hope is to mobilize. This is a long hard slog that so far is going in the wrong direction and until you and me start standing up and organizing, we’re doomed.

The dirty little secret is most “Shark Tank” deals don’t close anyway. Because the devil is in the details and most sellers obfuscate and when the sharks dig down deep and do their due diligence they often walk away.

But why do the pitchers walk away?

I have “Shark Tank” on permanent record on my DVR. And I’ll be honest, I’m a bit o.d.’ed on the concept, which is that everybody can come up with a good idea and get rich and that those who are already rich need to be respected for their acumen. In a world where most managers never find a hit band, just because you’re successful in one enterprise, why do I believe you should succeed in another?

But one thing rich people have is relationships. And relationships are everything. Poor people believe the idea is king. That if people only knew what they were selling, they’d triumph. But in today’s world it’s almost impossible to get your message across. And what the rich people with relationships do is get your message in front of others, to see if it sinks or swims.

And the truth is that is even getting harder.

Used to be if you had a TV show, you’d made it. Now there are in excess of 400 scripted shows a year and the odds of syndication are almost nonexistent so getting a deal is just getting started. A record company, if you’re lucky, can get you on Top Forty radio. Other than that, it can’t do much. And I know this is overwhelming but if you get an opportunity…

Don’t turn it down.

So I’m watching last Friday’s “Shark Tank” and a guy who makes earplugs turns down Mr. Wonderful’s offer. What is he thinking? That he can go it alone? That being on television is enough to put his company over the top? How can he be so dumb?

You need help. You need a team. You cannot do it alone.

Of course there are exceptions. And if you’re the kind of person who looks to the exceptions to justify your efforts, good luck, chances are you’re gonna hit a brick wall. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. You’ve got to give up to get.

The problem today is everybody’s too sophisticated, everybody’s wary of being ripped-off. They don’t know their partners…are not interested unless they can make money. Want to excite a potential partner? Show them how much money they can make, don’t try to keep them at arm’s length.

You need friends. You cannot make it without them. You’re counting on their effort to push you through. A network of many far exceeds the power of you, unless you’re a superstar.

That’s the conundrum. One person can change the world. But they rarely do it alone. When help is offered, TAKE IT!

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) – Spotify

I had to hear “It’s Alright, Ma.”

“Highway 61 Revisited” is the legend, but I prefer the previous LP, “Bringing It All Back Home.” “Bringing It All Back Home” is a bit darker, a bit less trebly, but it does not contain “Like A Rolling Stone,” so people defer to “Highway 61 Revisited.” And one of the memorable moments of my life is driving in my sister’s Sienna outside of Minneapolis and seeing that highway sign, you pinch yourself, you don’t think these landmarks really exist. And “Highway 61 Revisited” also has the put-down song “Ballad Of A Thin Man,” with its annihilation of Mr. Jones, and “Desolation Row” and “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry,” which Al Kooper made famous on side two of “Super Session” with Stephen Stills, but “Bringing It All Back Home” has “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”

Back in ’65, almost nobody had seen the D. A. Pennebaker film, with Dylan nonchalantly discarding the cards with the lyrics upon them. But that was the reality of Bob’s early career, the audience was always late to the party, there were early adopters who got the memo and then with hits the hoi polloi went back and realized his brilliance.

And “Bringing It All Back Home” also has “Maggie’s Farm,” which became part of the revolutionary lexicon back in the sixties, we weren’t gonna work on her farm no more.

And there’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which the Byrds ultimately made so famous.

And “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” which the Byrds performed too, along with Joan Baez and so many more.

And then there’s the almost creepy “Gates Of Eden,” wherein Dylan spits truth and we can just try and digest this manna from heaven.

But the piece de resistance is “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).”

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Trying. This was ’65, with Lyndon Johnson in office, when rather than agitating for change you dropped out, went on your own hejira. It wasn’t quite defeat, but more akin to liberation.

And in the next verse, Bob utters words so famous that most people don’t even know he wrote them, they’ve become part of the fabric of our nation…

He not busy being born is busy dying

Dylan’s dropping wisdom left and right in this seven and a half minute song, I listen to it every week, it’s as fresh as yesterday, but when I searched in Spotify that’s not the version that came up, not the studio take, but a live iteration from a double CD package entitled “The Bootleg Series Volume 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 – Concert At Philharmonic Hall.” I owned it, but I don’t think I ever really heard it. But listening over the Christmas holiday it became my favorite album.

Because of the immediacy.

What did Woody Guthrie’s guitar say, “This Machine Kills Fascists”? Well, this double live album wakes you up and inspires you all at once. We live in an era where it’s all about the trappings. You don’t even take the stage without a huge investment in hair and makeup, certainly not in New York City.

And the album starts with “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” which comes across as a warning, not a detailed accounting of what’s going on, but what is to come. Imagine if you bought a record, broke the shrinkwrap and when you dropped the needle you found out what was gonna happen TOMORROW!

But the revelation is “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met),” which I wouldn’t be surprised to find John Lennon spun incessantly before composing “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).”

And the truth is “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)” graces the “Last Waltz” package, but it never impressed me much there. It was just another album track on “Another Side Of Bob Dylan,” but in this live version…whew!

She invited him into her arms, then kicked him to the curb.

This never happens in today’s musical world. Egos rule. No one is bruised. If you’re famous you must be rich, you must always win. But this woman tied Dylan’s emotions in a knot and sure, the song’s got the character of a kiss-off, but you can tell he’s wounded. He’s vulnerable in a way we’re unprepared for. And even though this track was cut fifty years ago, it sounds like he’s telling you what happened last night, literally.

And be sure to listen to “Who Killed Davey Moore,” a questioning of responsibility for the death of a boxer akin to today’s most prominent artist singing about CTE instead of groveling to perform at the Super Bowl.

But the song that brought me to the album was “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).”

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

Ain’t that the truth, it’s the bloviating religious zealots who live in glass houses. This was written back when religion was dying, before every Grammy Award winner thanked the Lord, before anybody playing popular music worth listening to attended the Grammys.

And the song is littered with famous phrases. Dylan reunited with the Band in ’74 and when he sang “But even the President of the United States, Sometimes must have to stand naked” the audience cheered. Nixon resigned months later, if only today’s music could comment so honestly about and have such an impact upon our present Presidential predicament.

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

America is about selling you false hope. You can be thin, you can be rich, you can triumph, when the truth is unless you dismiss the tsunami of b.s. and accept who you are you’ve truly got no chance. Back then hipsters abandoned football, today the lemmings drink at the trough of Super Bowl commercials, believing that corporations will be their savior, having lost faith in artists, and why not, since the artists are sucking at the tit of the corporations harder than anybody.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destiny
Speak jealously of them that are free
Raise what they grow up to be
Nothing more than something they invest in

This was back when there was a false belief that institutions cared about their inhabitants, the students, the workers, before colleges became a way for bloated administrations to become rich and corporations wanted no employees at all, everybody became a contract worker, lifetime employment was a pipe dream. Dylan’s poking fun at the puffed-up mindless who are placing their faith in fake institutions, now the people who used to question these enterprises prop them up and the proletariat is even more desperate.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape by society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

Used to be it was the middle class that was bent out of shape by society, now it’s the unthinking lower class, which wants to give everybody above them the middle finger not knowing the joke is upon them, but they lost all hope long ago and if they’re gonna sink further the rest of us have to go with them. Furthermore, these words are the essence of internet hate. They want to drag you down into their lair of failure. Try to evade it, but it’s hard.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security

Let me see, there’s a little man in the sky, who sees everything you do, and he’s gonna save you when you die and if you don’t believe it beware on your way to the abortion clinic.

For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

We’re all gonna die. And whether it be Ted Bundy or Lee Atwater regretting their behavior on their death bed don’t let this be you, don’t spend your life standing up for something that will become irrelevant when you pass, which you most certainly will.

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

He’s willing to lay down his truth, he doesn’t care about the consequences, because duplicity is a loser’s game and you only get one go-round. But no one with a profile is following in Dylan’s footsteps, they’re all afraid of blowback and loss, sponsorships will evaporate into thin air, television invitations will dry up, you’ll be ostracized in a world where there’s nothing so important as being a member of the team, but an artist sits outside the game and speaks his truth.

And when you listen to this live concert from 1964 you’ll be overwhelmed, stunned that someone cares that much, has thought about it and is standing naked on stage with just his guitar and his words knowing they’re so powerful that if you just listen to them your life will be changed, you’ll see the world differently, you’ll be empowered.

That’s the power of a song.

You’re sitting on the couch thinking how much you hate the New England Patriots. How the whole event seems long in the tooth. The commercials are not funny and Gaga is boring and you’re just letting it play out, because with Brady and Belichick you just never know.

And then they started to come back.

I remember when the team was a joke, when they were still called the “Boston” Patriots and their stadium was a suburban dump.

I remember when our nation was shocked when Joe Namath not only predicted a victory, but pulled it off.

I remember when MTV counterprogrammed the halftime show. When all of America was addicted to television and football reigned.

Before the players were revealed to beat up their spouses and an overpaid commissioner in bed with the owners didn’t know how to respond.

Before it was clear that a life in the game meant a hobbled one thereafter, certainly physically, and oftentimes mentally.

Before our whole nation decided they just did not need the NFL anymore and ratings tanked.

I’ve seen the X Games peak and fade. That’s right, the boomers believed in football, baseball was their parents’ sport, and then Gen X’ers cottoned to extreme sports and now snowboarding is dying and video games are everything. We live in a virtual world where busting up your body for entertainment just doesn’t play anymore.

And then Tom Brady and his band of merrymen turn over the table and you just don’t know what to think.

It was good to see the Falcons winning. An unheralded faceless team made the Patriots look like amateurs. But like the Pinkertons chasing Butch and Sundance, with Brady and Edelman on the field you just could not relax.

And then they were back in it and then they were gonna win, you just knew it.

Bob Costas famously says sports are a metaphor for life. So what lessons did we learn tonight?

Never give up. And the truth is most people do. Because of peer pressure.

Experience counts. The Patriots were never defeated in their brains. They knew they still had a chance to win. Even as the minutes kept ticking and victory looked more and more impossible.

As for the Falcons, they were playing not to lose, and that’s rarely a winning strategy.

So you’re sitting in front of the television, a passe pastime if there ever was one. You’re enduring the commercials. You’ve taken hours out of your Sunday. And you feel smugly justified believing this ritual is over the hill.

And then the Patriots start to move the ball and you tune out the penumbra, the commercials and the commentators cease to exist, you know Brady, et al, are going to win, because that’s what they do.

Excellence. We trumpet those with little of it. Sam Smith is a good act, but an arena tour on the first album?

How about Lady Gaga, whose most famous song is a Madonna rip-off. She doesn’t have a manager who knows the rule, which is you never let someone upstage you, the chances of dominating the game are insignificant. Prince did it, he got the trophy and now it’s been retired, conquer new worlds. But in today’s environment no one can give up the exposure, everybody wants to be seen by millions, no one has any self-respect.

The big winner tonight? Alfa-Romeo. Which went from unknown to known in an evening. They got their money’s worth with their sponsorship. As for the commercials… They broke the number one rule, which is you’re supposed to remember the product, which was rare. Then again, after Apple established this paradigm in 1984, no one could equal it. But they keep dyin’ tryin’.

Which brings us back to the game.

What you want from entertainment is surprise. You want to be caught off guard, you’re ready for the unexpected.

And Gaga didn’t deliver on this whatsoever. She flew down like Pink into a sea of sycophants we’ve seen at every recent Super Bowl and then she sang songs that most of don’t care about. Why? Because she could, there was no art there. Remember when it was a badge of honor not to dance? To let the music speak for itself? Then you’re over fifty, music has become about the trappings, sold with less than memorable tunes, which is why the whole scene is second-rate. Do you really think that anybody cares about Gaga who didn’t before? I think you’re wrong.

And the crass commercialism of the NFL makes one barf. They’d sell signage at a funeral. It’s amazing they even give time to the game anymore.

And there are so many rules that not only is the game hard to comprehend, it turns on whims. The penalties. The resulting first downs, the moving of the ball into touchdown territory. It seems that the infractions are more important than most of the plays.

But it is a sport of human beings. And when you saw the Patriots move the ball down the field, it was a thing of beauty. It made you a believer. Had you thinking you could win in your own life, which is a message that needs to be heard.

So that’s it ’til fall folks. Since the Patriots came back we’ll remember they won, whereas if the Falcons had emerged victorious we would have instantly forgotten it.

But the institution of the Super Bowl needs a rethink. It’s long in the tooth. It’s waiting to be superseded.

But when played right the game still works.

It worked right tonight.