Celebrities lie and the media repeat these falsehoods ad infinitum without examination.

Donald Trump is a celebrity.

Madonna sells out every show!

No.

Springsteen can play forever in New Jersey!

Maybe in terms of time, but the truth is Groupon filled a bunch of those seats.

Never mind the pronouncements about sales figures… It’s all boasting, all image, all the time. And you wonder why Donald Trump can get away with the same thing?

Politicians gave way to celebrities long ago, when elected officials sold their souls to lobbyists and corporations, there was no there there. Celebrities know their identity is everything. And a few pitfalls can be explained away by drugs and hardship… Celebrities know success is about an arc, going from somewhere to everywhere, beating the odds in the process. Politicians wait their turn in order to be nominated by the machine. Last I checked, it was the singers on Sony who were known by everybody, not Doug Morris.

Everybody knows Donald Trump. And he’s employing the number one axiom of celebrity…MAKE NOISE, STAY IN THE PICTURE, ALL PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY, PUBLICITY IS EVERYTHING!

Leave the public eye and you’re forgotten these days. Which is why celebrities are all over social media, why their publicists plant stories repeated all over the web. It’s to keep them top of mind in the audience’s brain.

Hillary is losing the news war. She’s playing not to lose. If you don’t go for it, you usually don’t succeed. Utilizing old saws like the ground game as if it wasn’t 2016 and the entire nation is driven by what’s online. The oldsters are already registered, want to reach the youngsters, play online. Just ask Buzzfeed and the linkbait legends, that which goes viral, that which generates clicks, wins today. Substance is secondary to train-wreck quality. Everything’s run by algorithm. Respect the game.

But everyone inside the Beltway believes it’s the same as it ever was. Like the record companies and Napster. They believe the public will do the right thing, that they can shame people into behaving. But it didn’t quell file-trading and Hillary’s poll numbers are sinking because… To write again and again what a nitwit Trump is in the press is missing the point. People believe in celebrities blindly, they get caught up in the mania, just try tweeting something negative about Taylor Swift or Beyonce, you’ll be subjected to enough hatred to delete your account.

That’s the game Donald Trump is playing.

It doesn’t matter that he lies because everybody does. And the news cycle is short. And the key is to promote a new idea every day. Kinda like Drake releasing mixtapes. The old fart baby boomer acts take years to polish their turd albums whereas the young acts are constantly releasing new material, putting up covers on YouTube, they realize we live in an attention economy and attention is everything.

And if you don’t like it…

You’ve got to give people good jobs so their only alternative is not reality TV. They may not ever be able to be rich, but they can be famous for a week or two on the tube.

You’ve got to admit you’re flawed, but still stay on message.

The celebrities own this paradigm. When caught acting badly they cry, apologize, go to rehab and emerge refreshed. Whereas politicians believe they’ve got to stay the course, they can’t show weakness, they must be wary of gotcha moments. But in a world where your complete life is online your only choice is to own the gotchas.

So if you want to be famous, and seemingly everybody in America wants to, that’s the national game, you play on all platforms all the time and try to gain traction. And once you get a leg up, you don’t rest on your laurels, you keep taking chances, the well is never dry.

Of course Trump lies. Of course he’s uninformed on how to run the country. But if you want to beat him, you must play his game, not yours. After all, he beat all challengers in the primaries. Because the Donald is tapped into the American zeitgeist, where it’s every man for himself and we laud those at the top of the totem pole, irrelevant of how they got there.

Taylor Swift had a rich dad.

So what. Only the haters care. Her fans couldn’t care less.

So you can sit on the sidelines pointing to Trump’s faux pas or you can learn from his efforts. You don’t have to lie, but you don’t have to be afraid of making mistakes. Trump criticizes Gold Star parents and doubles down, Hillary labels Trump followers “deplorables” and then goes silent, allowing the enemy to spin her statement. Today you’ve got to own who you are, you’ve got to show strength, while, ironically, letting weakness emerge. As for hiding anything, like pneumonia, everything ultimately outs. You create your own narrative. Trump got out in front of the tax issue, said he was never gonna release his returns, said he was being audited even though his son recently denied this. It’s about being aggressive.

Sure, it would be great if we could appeal to voters by promising our best efforts to lift them up.

But if that was a TV show it’d get canceled.

No, you’ve got to have drama. You’ve got to have story. You have to constantly release new episodes.

Nobody believes anything anymore. The press has been complicit in spreading falsehoods and too many outlets have agendas. You create your own image. And it must appear authentic to enough people for you to reach your goal. When Hillary Clinton’s credibility is questioned by her own followers, you know she’s in trouble.

He played “Urge For Going.”

I awoke today and found the frost perched on the town

Geoff Muldaur said frost didn’t perch, his wife disagreed, he said they’d be debating it all the way home.

I thought Geoff Muldaur was dead. Guess I was confusing him with Mel Lyman. Did you read that story about the Lyman Family in “Rolling Stone” back in the day? Tom knew him. Talk about a cult!

“The Lyman Family’s Holy Siege of America”

And just like the college students phoned up the delta bluesmen and got them to perform at Club 47, there’s a whole generation of original folkies that is hiding in plain sight, plowed under by not only today’s pop, but the production of the oldsters touring arenas.

Tom did the original cover of “Urge For Going.” Joni ultimately released a version too, but it couldn’t equal the haunting quality of Tom’s, which sounds like a New England day too cold to go outside but not cold enough to snow. When you sit and wonder… Should you stay or should you go, if you stay will the winter depress you…

I was sitting in the audience with tears in my eyes, I reconnected with who I once was, that’s the power of music.

Tom had an accompanist. This thirty year old Matt Nakoa, a Berklee graduate finding his own way. His fills added a texture, color to the songs.

But it was the songs that shined.

Not only “Urge For Going,” but “Rockport Sunday” into “No Regrets.”

I know your leavin’s too long overdue
For far too long I’ve had nothin’ new to show to you

It’s the nature of life. You break up. Things end. How do you feel? Empowered, yet depressed.

And it felt so strange to walk away alone

Loneliness, it’s the scourge of life. But it’s music that eases the pain.

I didn’t expect to get so caught up in the show. But it was a window into what once was. When we weren’t networked, when something could develop off the grid, when playing music was a calling, and not necessarily a road to riches.

Tom met Joni in Detroit. She played him a couple of numbers and he was blown away. Told her to send him a tape, he was past due on delivering an album to Elektra. The six songs included a new one, which she apologized for, it was “The Circle Game.”

Tom tried to get Joni a deal, he couldn’t. Because the powers-that-be can’t see what’s in plain sight, they’re so busy looking for what they’ve already got that they can’t embrace something new. Eventually Joni was signed and broke through. Tom burned out and retreated to New Hampshire.

He was making a lot and spending a lot. Every night in a different city, supporting five men on the road. Oftentimes they worked to lose, making ninety cents on the dollar of costs. But he soldiered on.

Until he couldn’t.

He could have moved to L.A. Would that have vaulted him into further stardom?

We’ll never know, he might have ended up dead.

And after a break, Tom resumed playing, because he missed it. The audience. And the money too! That’s right, music is a job.

And he never had another hit, unless you include his 2007 live version of “Remember Song,” which has 7 million plays on YouTube:

“Remember Song”

Life is about soldiering on. I fished for insight, probed for wisdom. But that’s all Tom had to say.

And that’s all he’s doing.

And there are the stories… Competing with Jackson Browne for a girl neither got and Jackson bringing her up years later. The tale of blind bluesmen threatening each other at Harvard. All the tidbits that make up a life. Tom’s been doing it for decades and it shows.

But it’s the music that shines.

Stunningly, one of the highlights was “Come See About Me,” a new song, the muse has been visiting him, he’s gonna make a new record, not for the fame, but because he has to.

And light fare, like a cover of John Prine’s “Let’s Talk Dirty In Hawaiian.”

But it was the old standbys, from the days of yore, that truly resonated.

Like Tom’s cover of David Wiffen’s “Lost My Drivin’ Wheel.”

I feel like some old engine that’s lost my drivin’ wheel

A song you know by heart if you lived when hits weren’t everything and a great song resonated in the culture. Tom debuted it, it’s even been covered by Cowboy Junkies.

Then there was Jackson Browne’s “These Days.” Tom’s take pre-dated Jackson’s version by half a decade, never mind Gregg Allman’s iconic iteration.

But the piece-de-resistance was “The Panama Limited,” a tale about a train, an amalgamation of Bukka White songs. It gathered steam, rolled on down the track, you could hear the whistle whine as the rails got hot and transmitted the chug of the arriving engine.

If you were there…

You were brought back to an era when you couldn’t fake it, when you were bit by the blues and dedicated your life to chasing the sound. When audiences discarded the ditties for something more fulfilling, the work of those channeling real life into song.

There are still some practitioners today. But the hype is institutionalized and their acolytes have chips on their shoulders, angry their favorites aren’t known by everyone.

But back then we didn’t care. We just went down the road less travelled and…

Despite there being no iPods or Walkmen, music was everywhere, it was in the air. Seemingly everyone owned a guitar and could pick out a handful of chords, when you got together you sat in a circle and sang, there are few things that feel as good as singing a song.

From back when the songs were singable. When they had melodies and changes, when meaning was everything and corporations played it safe and sponsorship was unheard of.

That’s what it was like last night. The lights went down, Tom strode to the mic and lifted the shade so we could look through the picture window at America. The images came through our ears, not our eyes, but they were seeable nonetheless.

And despite us all being together, we were all alone, it was a personal experience, my life flashed before my eyes. Because the music sets you free. It opens your mind and allows it to drift, so you can see that which has been invisible for so long.

This is why I used to go to the show. Not so I could tell everyone I was there, not to hear the songs from the radio, but…

The songs from my bedroom. The ones I played over and over again that meant so much to me.

I didn’t want it to stop. I didn’t want to leave. I stayed for the second show. Which not only featured different material, but was looser. Warmed up with nothing to prove Tom entered a zone and took us on a journey, he was the pied piper of Pico. And when it was all over…

I felt different.

Music can change us. If those who make it have a passion for it, that is transmitted to the rest of us.

It’s about songs. Not only Joni and Jackson’s, but Lyle Lovett and Murray McLauchlan’s too.

That’s right, Tom brought “Child’s Song” to our attention. Tom was the vehicle, the waystation, the bridge from there to here, from hootenanny to singer-songwriter.

The seasons do go ’round and ’round.

We are captive on the carousel of time.

But the truth is despite tech innovation, life doesn’t change. We’re all still the same. And we do best when we look not only forward, but back.

I went out walking last night and what I found was the road remains unchanged, the signs are different, the people are too, but I’m still the same individual, only a bit wiser and more experienced.

In this fast-paced world we so rarely reflect.

And then Tom Rush takes the stage in Santa Monica and brings us all back home.

To where we once belonged.

The best thing that ever happened to Spotify was Apple Music. Competition lifts all boats. Which is why malls have two anchor tenants, two department stores.

But that was back before malls cratered and turned into festive dining areas that feature shopping as a sport, if the mall hasn’t closed completely.

We live in the streaming era. Who’s going to win?

The uninformed and uninitiated would bet on Apple and Google. But it appears the former has hit a ceiling and the latter is moribund. Spotify is adding twice as many subscribers than Apple per month. Spotify is adding 1.7 million, Apple, 875,000. Spotify has 40 million paid subscribers and Apple 17. So the two-thirds rule still applies, or close to it.

That’s right, online, one outlet ends up with two-thirds of the market. There are always people who won’t shop at the big kahuna. Google has about two-thirds of search and Spotify’s got nearly two-thirds of streaming music subscriptions. As for competitors…Napster and Deezer, they’re sideshow also-rans with acolytes who will eventually migrate to the big two just like Beta users went to VHS.

The final chapter has not been written. Amazon has a play here. We heard that Apple had everybody’s credit card number, that can’t compete with Amazon’s 63 million Prime subscribers. There’s an offering here that might work, but maybe not. Maybe Spotify was just too early and kept on improving.

Yes, Spotify had first mover advantage. There were streaming services before, but none with a free tier. Not only did the free tier cause conversion, it begat buzz, people started talking about Spotify.

But then, when Apple illustrated to everybody that streaming was here to stay…

Spotify innovated.

This is what is hurting Apple in general. This is the story of the iPhone 7, which never should have come out. Remember when the iPhone migrated to Verizon mid-cycle? Apple extended the cycle, kept selling the 4… Because you don’t want to screw your customers, you couldn’t eclipse the purchase of Verizon users six months later. Sure, the bottom line would have taken a hit, but if we got the iPhone 8, with an OLED screen and other innovations in January or March, all would be forgiven. Never forget, Apple was late to CD burners, music software and music players. But then it won with its Rip/Mix/Burn campaign and the iPod. Better to get it right than to alienate your fan base.

And Apple Music was a disaster in functionality. When every other service was better, even the now defunct Rdio, which was purchased by Pandora. In today’s marketplace you don’t get a second bite at the apple, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

Discover Weekly put the stake in the heart of Apple Music. Music discovery was supposed to be Jimmy Iovine’s domain. He testified he was gonna fix it, using real people, but then the algorithm came along and beat him and…

Then Spotify came up with Release Radar, a way to discover brand new music. Apple not only did not have a similar product, whatever products it is coming up with are locked behind a paywall, so those who checked the service out once are now completely unaware, and don’t care.

So, competition heated up adoption, but there was a war between Yahoo, HotBot, AltaVista and Google once upon a time. And Buy.com was competing with Amazon. Turns out one player pulls out from the pack, and competing after the fact is impossible. Bing is a disaster, a great percentage of its market share was purchased, but it’s still got a de minimis percentage of search and the losses are legendary.

Apple took its eye off the ball. Stayed with files for far too long. It’s a chapter written right out of Clayton Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma.” He not busy being born is busy dying. If you’re doubling-down on your edifice instead of knocking it down with the wrecking ball, your business is time-stamped.

Which is why Apple so badly needs a new product in a sphere within which it can dominate. MSN could never topple AOL and Apple will never beat Spotify, never.

So, what have we learned?

Never bet on yesterday’s giants.

Functionality is everything.

Innovation is key.

And products grow when there’s a light shined upon them. All this anti-streaming nonsense is just keeping you broke. Never forget the cell phone business, it burgeoned when prices fell through the floor and everybody played. When everybody’s talking about streaming music…

Spotify will be even bigger.

Politics is the new tech.
And for those scoring at home, tech usurped the throne from music.

It’s hard for those not there to understand. Music was everything from 1964-1976. Everybody knew the bands, not only did you know who was in town, you went. And musicians were kings whose pronouncements mattered, you hung on every word.

Now they can only talk about their sponsorships, they’re as soulless as the brands they emulate. Bland entities afraid of alienating any potential customer, they’re uneducated automatons who are vehicles for profit, rarely anything more.

And then the techies came along and tipped over the table. Not only did we not anticipate it, we wanted some of it. Remember the summer of ’95, when seemingly everybody bought a computer and signed up for AOL? It was a national mania, with new hits constantly on the horizon. The music may have stayed the same, but overnight there were new websites and apps and it was all very exciting and then we get the iPhone 7. An incremental improvement we don’t even need. As for apps… Uber’s cool, but that’s been around for years. Marc Andreessen keeps telling us the future is so bright we’ve got to wear shades, but Silicon Valley is now an overpriced club of self-impressed wankers who get too much publicity you don’t care about.

But politics…

You could say it’s Donald Trump. But really, it’s Bernie Sanders. How did a septuagenarian socialist from Vermont get such traction with young people? By speaking the truth, dreaming of a better tomorrow where those without hope could get ahead, where the nation could get back on track and all could flourish.

Maybe you don’t agree. Doesn’t matter. It’s just like music and tech. Many stayed on the sidelines. Then they got in the game.

The United States is the best country in the world, but it’s pretty messed up. There’s income inequality, racism, and everybody’s complaining that someone stole their cheese. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. is gridlocked, with a Republican Congress that won’t even hear out a new Supreme Court nominee. It’d be like losing Eddie Van Halen and still booking Van Halen shows. With the band getting paid even though they didn’t play. Bitching that today’s staging is inadequate and until Live Nation heeds their wishes they’re on strike.

Wouldn’t be good for the music business.

And the government we have in so many instances is not good for the public.

Last night I drove to Pacific Palisades for a fundraiser for Proposition 64. The legalization of pot in California. If you’d have told me pot would be legal back in the seventies, I would have told you a black man could not be President. Both seemed impossibilities. But both came to pass.

And it’s not a dope issue, it’s a human rights issue. About keeping the disadvantaged and oppressed out of jail. About eliminating crime. Gavin’s wife doesn’t want marijuana legitimized, she doesn’t want everybody smoking dope, but that’s not what Prop. 64 is about. And it looks like it’s going to pass.

And it was spearheaded by this guy Ethan Nadelmann, head of the Drug Policy Alliance. In the rest of the world the good-looking and glamorous with empty insides don’t triumph. It’s those hard-working who believe in their cause who move mountains. And Ethan has. The proposition is sixty odd pages. It accounts for economic disparities. They’re trying to get it right, having learned from experiences in Colorado and Washington. It’d be like getting Yes after the Beatles, music used to evolve, what happened?

The featured speaker was Gavin Newsom. Lieutenant Governor of California. I see him all the time on Bill Maher.

That’s what I told him. I wouldn’t have started up a conversation except he was standing next to Jason Flom. So I moseyed on over and told him just that, that I was used to seeing him on “Real Time.”

Gavin chuckled.

And then Jason said he and Gavin were working on fixing bail. Jason’s all about fixing the inequities in the legal system, you may know him as the provider of hits, but his legacy will be getting people out of jail, changing crazy drug laws.

But since the door was now open, I talked to Gavin. I didn’t want to monopolize the conversation, but this was my chance.

I’ve met plenty of rock stars. They’re rarely verbal, oftentimes uneducated. You can bask in their glory but it’s rare to have a stimulating conversation, especially with the nitwits of today who believe their social media feeds are the epitome of ground-breaking opinion.

But Gavin looked like a rock star. Without an ounce of body fat and white teeth and a flashy smile, he oozed charisma.

But he had substance.

He talked about the football team’s low graduation rate at Berkeley. He spearheaded change, now the coach is compensated by the academic achievements of his players, not their accomplishments on the field. Berkeley is a university first and foremost, correct?

But in America everything’s topsy-turvy. We keep hearing about the economic miracle in Texas but that’s run out of gas, it’s California that’s burgeoning. They raised the taxes, jobs skyrocketed, it may not be a Garden of Eden, but here in the Golden State things are moving forward.

And it’s all because of politicians.

First and foremost Jerry Brown, who Gavin called the “adult in the room.” Brown has experience, and that counts, sorry to inform you of that Donald.

And we got into football at Berkeley because of the NCAA pulling out of North Carolina. Gavin knew the guy who ran the organization, it was a good thing. We need people to take stands as opposed to constantly checking which way the wind blows so they can say that which will move their game piece down the board.

And I asked Gavin why he got into politics.

He chuckled and said it was all about his mother, needing to prove…

I told him that’s the Southern California ethos, maybe he belonged in Hollywood.

And I’m noticing… Gavin’s not two-dimensional. Sure, he’s smiling a lot, but it’s more like hanging with a bro back in the dorm as opposed to meeting someone famous who’s shaking your hand as he looks over your shoulder for an exit. This guy was normal!

And he wasn’t boasting like Kanye, nor bitching that he didn’t get his chance, rather he was rationally laying out his achievements and desires in response to the topics being brought up. It was a conversation, not a stump speech.

And speaking of speech…

Gavin was the most dynamic speaker of the night. Passionate, rational, believable and not so brief that you thought he was punching the clock. And he didn’t leave after his part was done, he stayed, as opposed to someone too busy for the rest of us, who needs to jet away to some smoky boardroom where our lives will be influenced but we get no say.

Gavin Newsom is gonna be Governor of California. This is not opinion, everyone believes this is fact. Of course he could be derailed. But we live in a Democratic state where Arnold Schwarzenegger put the Republicans six feet under and Latinos and other immigrants are ensuring the state leans left.

And from there, maybe the White House. That was the ticket being bandied about, Gavin Newsom and Cory Booker. Although it was said Cory’s no longer good at returning phone calls, but you hear from Gavin right away.

Of course you can go on Wikipedia and find fault. That’s what our races have become, one of gotcha. As if no one ever smoked dope and we all married the first girl we slept with. We’re flesh and blood people, we need to give the keys to someone, someone’s got to drive.

But no one’s been driving in Washington, D.C. for far too long.

Kansas is letting the the rich run away with the state. Taxes have been lowered to the point where the government is dysfunctional, the court keeps saying more money has to be spent on education, but that’s not as important as taxes being low, after all, the rich are the job creators.

Huh?

We all need someone to believe in. We all need hope.

And last night I found it where I least expected it.

Used to be I believed in entertainers.

But now it’s politicians who are getting things done. Who are employing new ideas. Who want to lead. Who are truly accessible.

And I know I was up close and personal, and not everybody gets the chance, but really, it was no different from going to see Elvis Costello at the Whisky back in the seventies. You too can be first, if you get in on the ground floor, if you care.

The musicians were all about expanding horizons. The techies were about testing limits. And now it’s the politicians who’ve taken over the reins. They’re the new leaders. Not those gumming up the works, but those who are willing to get their hands dirty to effect solutions.

Disaffection isn’t everything. Life is not about pointing fingers at the enemy, saying they’ve stolen your opportunity.

No, life is about hard work in search of a better world where we all can thrive.

I’d about given up hope.

And then I met Gavin Newsom.