“Ringling Bros. circus to close after 146 years”

I went at the old Madison Square Garden. Twice, maybe three times, the last time when I finally put my foot down and told my mother I didn’t actually like ballet and wasn’t going to go anymore.

Then my father took me to Madison Square Garden.

They used to have a sideshow. Well, not really, as in freaks and geeks, but in the low-ceilinged basement you could walk by the chained elephants and gawk at the giant and I’d never been so scared in my life. Because this was 60 years ago, when safety laws were not as strict, when the only thing separating me from the animals was a couple of feet of air.

And I took a ring off the finger of the giant, I think the fee was fifty cents, I kept that gold plastic circle forever, at least until my mother turned my bedroom into her office and threw out not only that ring, but my World’s Fair hat and my baseball glove and…

I just heard it was the fiftieth anniversary of the first Super Bowl. That it happened today. I remember it vividly, it was a curio not a must-see, I was at my friend Marc’s house, with him and his father and a buddy, that father and the buddy are gone, but it seems like it was yesterday, no one expected the AFL to win, but then only a couple of years later Broadway Joe showed us who’s boss and football eclipsed baseball and the Yankees sucked and it seemed like everything I knew was changing.

Then free agency came and Steinbrenner with his deep pockets and suddenly everybody was a Yankees fan, because America loves a winner. But most of us are losers. Then again, my contemporaries solved that by giving everybody a trophy. And their kids played soccer, football was for the underclass. Unless you lived in the south, but northeasterners could never get over the accent, never mind the beliefs. Friday Night Lights? Who’d pay for them? Money was for academics, back when public schools ruled and you felt you could stay in the middle or move up a notch, before we found out the joke was on us, when an even younger generation got rich and then those people we decried elected Trump and now even the circus has bitten the dust.

Many will say good riddance. That the animals were mistreated.

They probably were. But these same proprietors you’re putting out of business, the circus, the Sea Worlds, they’re just a harbinger for the rest of America, whose future was stolen when the elites decided they were in control of what’s right and wrong and…

I didn’t mean for this to become a political screed. It’s just that Bridgeport, Connecticut, the metropolis next to where I grew up, was the home of P.T. Barnum, there was a museum, I remember going there and seeing the mummy, I don’t think they let you see mummies anymore.

And they don’t let you do so much stuff, because you might get hurt, whether it be physically or emotionally. And I’d be lying if I told you I had any desire to go to the circus today, not having been in eons, but it used to be a rite of passage for young ‘uns, to not only be wowed, but to be ripped-off, to learn the ways of the world. I remember bugging my dad to buy me one of those flashlights everybody was twirling during the show and finally he did and it burned out before we got home.

That’s a lesson in America. Everything’s a con. It’s a giant magic show. And those in control are laughing all the while.

But we’re pushing back a bit, we’re refusing to pay for billionaires’ stadiums.

But, I have to admit I’m no longer in control. I could be like the rest of my brethren, embracing vinyl records and physical books and trying to keep my head in the past, but the truth is the future is inevitable, as is change, and the circus outlived not only its utility, but its audience, because you know for sure, if they were still making money they’d find a way to continue.

But they aren’t. People have stopped going.

They stopped watching football. They’ve stopped doing so much we used to.

But man, when the circus goes, I know it’s just a matter of time before I do too, that I’m in the rearview mirror, that my memories are only that, it won’t be long before people will marvel that we had circuses at all.

Of course, the young disruptors will find a substitute. Kinda like Cirque du Soleil, which is now hurting too, which I never liked, because the truth is some things just can’t go upscale. The circus was blue collar entertainment in a world where working with your hands earned you not only an honest living, but respect.

But now you’re a chump.

Like I said, I have no desire to go to the show, but I wish it was still there. I remember reading about the Flying Wallendas in “Reader’s Digest,” then again, that’s gone too, at least I think it is, the magazine went in and out of bankruptcy and the pastime of sitting at home reading in silence, that’s passe too.

The Big Top, with three rings, as American as apple pie.

Before everybody went gluten-free, sugar became anathema and people were proud to be vegan.

I no longer recognize the country I grew up in. And maybe that’s the way it’s always been. You grow older and…

I didn’t expect it to happen to me.

Brian Chesky went to RISD.

Maybe you don’t live in the northeast, maybe you think the state school is good enough, but if you grew up in New England, where where you went to college is a badge of honor, you know about all the elite institutions. And the one for the artists, the left of center people you know but don’t associate with, like David Byrne, is RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design.

Hmm… We live in a fucked up country. A land of disinformation. Forget fake news, even forget the facts, we can’t even agree on the STORY! We’ve got leaders denigrating arts majors, telling everyone to go into the sciences, engineering, and then the guy who started Airbnb went to RISD?

I’m reading this new book, “The Upstarts,” you can’t buy it. It’s not coming out until the end of the month. But it was written by Brad Stone and he wrote my favorite business book of the past few years, “The Everything Store,” about Amazon, and when I saw his tweet that he had a new book, I told him to send it to me. And he did.

Funny thing about Twitter, it’s a parallel universe. All we hear is about haters, but there’s real communication going on there, a real exchange of ideas, in plain sight. That’s right, while you’re on Facebook, glorifying your lifestyle, exchanging messages with people you’d rather not spend any time with in real life, there’s a marketplace of ideas on Twitter. This is no different from the Homebrew Computer Club, where the Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, got their start. You too could join in, but you’re too cool or oblivious. Kinda like Hollywood. Did you see that Michael Lynton exited Sony to go to Snap? Maybe he was pushed, but the studios are moribund, promoting their pictures no one wants to see in the “New York Times” so they can win Oscars at a show the youth have tuned out. There’s a generation gap, make no mistake, but now the baby boomers have the short end of the stick.

So, “The Upstarts” is the story of Airbnb and Uber. And to tell you the truth, I think we’ve hit a wall in the tech world, despite what Marc Andreessen may say as his fund sinks, today’s is about politics and income inequality and the loss of jobs but did you see this week’s story about Elon Musk and his “dark factory”? Yup, his goal is to soon make Teslas purely by robots, they won’t even have to turn on the lights, the robots can work in the dark! And McKinsey is saying that robotization is coming later than sooner, but if you think those consultants have a clue about the future you probably believe the music business was prepared for Napster. Disruption comes from the outside. And grinds who got good grades so they could get overpaid gigs at McKinsey are not disruptors, they played it safe.

But these entrepreneurs did not, the creators of Airbnb and Uber.

Now not everybody can be an entrepreneur, not everybody can make it. Some just like to enjoy the fruits of the creators’ labor. But for those looking to put a dent in the universe…

Used to be they went into music. They certainly don’t now. That’s the land of the uneducated doofus looking to sell out to the corporation. These new entrepreneurs want to TOPPLE the organization! How high are you setting your sights? Maybe not high enough.

So the guy with the idea for Uber… He makes millions selling a company and moves to San Francisco and…

“A few months after eBay’s acquisition of StumbleUpon, he sent a message over Facebook to a smart, beautiful television producer named Melody McCloskey, and – after noting that they had a vague connection because they shared the blogger Om Malik as a friend on the social network – asked her out on a date.”

I’m friends with Om Malik!

Shak introduced me, the investor/consigliere at Spotify. You should read Om’s ten year anniversary analysis of the iPhone in “The New Yorker,” it’s brilliant:

“The iPhone Turns Ten”

And that message was sent nearly ten years ago, before you were probably on Facebook, unless you were a college student.

And because we live in the modern world I pulled out my iPhone and looked up Ms. McCloskey, AND SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL!

I’m used to lies, subterfuge, inaccuracies, but now with the internet and our mobiles we can check everything.

“Like many high-tech entrepreneurs, Camp was peculiar. McCloskey noticed that he did not particularly care about superficialities that absorbed other people. for example, he got his hair cut only sporadically, letting it grow down to his shoulders before having it cut short. He also like to design his own T-shirts featuring symbols such as a Necker cube, a line drawing that can be perceived in different ways. Then he would wear them out to dinner at nice restaurants. ‘I have no idea where he got those things,’ McCloskey says. ‘I was not thrilled by them.'”

But she became his girlfriend. Sure, Garrett Camp was rich, but he was also smart and a fountain of ideas and what truly attracts women to men…

As for his car, it was a Mercedes-Benz, but he kept it in the garage, he worried about parking and scratches and…

The point I’m making is my eyes are bugging out. Because this is me. Why do I need to get my hair cut? I am who I am irrelevant of the clothes I wear, why blow thousands on outfits that will soon be out of style?

I hate those people. Like the wanker pissing in the urinal on Friday. I had to wee, I had an appointment to make, but he was checking his iPhone as he was doing his business.

Then I had to wait for him to check his look in the mirror, adjust his designer jeans, a brand I had never heard of, while I waited to wash my hands. And then he walked into the finance office. God, if I hate these people no wonder the heartland does too, and voted for Trump.

But despite all the fealty paid to Trump by Silicon Valley, he and his cabinet, the complete Congress, are clueless as to what is happening in California, the techies run rings around them, because the politicians, the straight people, have no vision, just like two young men completely disrupted the music business with Napster, and…

Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick have dinner with McCloskey in Paris and spend the whole time hashing out the business plan for Uber. I’m too uptight to do this, happens to me all the time, I’m at a meal and everyone is looking around saying…WHO IS THIS GUY WHO IS POSSESSED?

So I shut the fuck up. Because if you don’t fit in, you’ve got no future.

But then I start asking myself, am I hanging with the right people?

Hell, the music business is all about lifestyle. Expensive wines, private flights, they don’t want to break the world, they just want to live in it!

Didn’t used to be that way, but things change.

But I don’t think I have the mentality of an entrepreneur, I grew up in the sixties, I’m more of an artist, as in conception is key and you can speak the truth and make people uncomfortable and…

I just get so excited when people speak my language.

Musicians used to do this. Before they all became complaining whiners, wanting to jet back to an evaporated past wherein they were kings of the universe.

Musicians could be kings of the universe once again. But they’d have to speak the truth in a different way, capturing the hearts of the people.

What these entrepreneurs do best is create products that everybody wants.

We used to do this in the music business, but now we’re positively niche, and happy about it. Taylor Swift and Beyonce and the Weeknd are stars who are easily ignored.

But you can’t ignore your iPhone, the enabler of these breakthroughs.

And you can’t ignore Airbnb and Uber.

Furthermore, you love them and can’t stop testifying about them!

Interesting world we live in.

“The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World”

P.S. Read “The Everything Store” first, then you’ll be ready for “The Upstarts” on January 31st. Learn how Bezos conquered all…

P.P.S. Now McCloskey too is an entrepreneur, she’s CEO of StyleSeat, disruption is gender neutral.

He’s the drummer you always see on TV, with the bald head and the sunglasses, hitting ’em hard and having the time of his life, smiling all the while.

Why did I read his book?

Because he reached out and was so personable. That’s the essence of making it. Making the effort and continuing to make the effort and being nice about it in the process. And the fact that he studied at Tanglewood, that was the story that sealed our bond.

And he was the Jewish drummer in John Mellencamp’s band.

Usually Jews change their name, figuring they’ll pull one over on the heartland. Hell, George Costanza was supposed to be Jewish but they gave him that last name to combat the rest of the Members of the Tribe on the show. You think of Jews as loudmouthed and pushy, but the truth is most are scared of the attention, they don’t want to be singled out, because they’ve experienced anti-Semitism from a very young age and their parents keep telling them they’re lucky to survive, truly.

So to have a guy in a heartland band with the name of “Aronoff”?

Oh, that’s another thing about Jews, we’re proud of every member of our religion who makes it. And if a Member of the Tribe does something heinous, we feel the shame, worried about the stain upon our heritage. And never forget, it’s not about believing, you’re born this way and you can’t deny it, whether you go to shul or not.

So Kenny grows up in Western Mass. and sees the Beatles on TV.

Without the Beatles on Ed Sullivan there’s no American music business, nada, all those bands you loved listening to in the seventies and eighties, never mind the late sixties, they don’t exist. It was kind of like the iPhone. A cool gateway into a new land. That same mania that had people lining up at Apple Stores to buy the product? That was us back in ’64, with the Beatles. Talk about a revolution, it’s like the curtain was pulled back and overnight the generations cleaved, right there, in February, when 72 million Americans saw the power of a band which did not look like everybody else and did not sound like everybody else but got everybody to pay attention.

So he starts banging… Hell, the start of any career is convincing your parents, which Kenny did, you need their support, and taking lessons, that’s something else we did back then, we didn’t figure it out on our own, this was back before teachers got a bad name, and then Kenny decided to go to music school at UMass.

And this is where his history separated from mine. When I was in college classes were just the reason I was there, they were time-wasters I had to experience before I could get down to my real business, listening to records and getting high, truly. And I don’t regret it. Because they didn’t teach anything I was interested in. Academics, schmacademics. But when you’re truly interested in something, you’ll devote umpteen hours. Kenny spent even Friday nights rehearsing at UMass. Believe me, I don’t remember once studying on a Friday night in college.

And then, enamored of a girl going to Aspen for the music school there, he applies, gets in, and falls on his face, makes a mistake… Everybody gives the illusion they emerged fully-formed. But if you don’t blow it, if you don’t wince, if you aren’t the object of derision, you haven’t played. The key is to accept your faults and the abuse and soldier on.

Which Kenny did, with four years at Indiana University, which has a renowned music program, how do I know this, from talking to the players in Steely Dan!

Anyway, he gets an offer upon graduation to play with the symphony, but he has a dream, and if you’re not pursuing your dream your life is gonna be empty.

So he’s playing in a prog rock band, his hero is Billy Cobham, it’s the era of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, but it’s not working, so he auditions to play in John Cougar Mellencamp’s band, shows up with a car full of drums and the midwest rocker winces, but Kenny gets the gig.

And there starts an adventure.

John Mellencamp has got the reputation of being a prick. And if you read this book, you’ll see it’s true. But you’ll also see you’ve got to be a prick to make it. Nice guys do finish last. Unless they’ve got a bastard behind the scenes working on their behalf, but it was only John in charge of his career, he battled managers and label people, his success was gonna be on his back, so he had better get it right!

All the time in rehearsal, in studios, writing, rewriting, trying to get it right. Opening for other bands and trying to close an audience that didn’t care. This was long before one hit album put you on an arena tour. You could have multiple hits and be lucky to sell out theatres at best, you had to prove yourself. And Mellencamp did, but then he burned out, said he was taking three years off, and…

Kenny scarfed up studio gigs. Make no mistake, he pursued them. The drummer is always the businessman, you learn this. And Kenny’s schedule is nuts. On a day off he’ll fly across international borders just for a session, and this ultimately becomes a problem, because he’s got to leave the Polygram convention in Hong Kong, backing up Mellencamp, and end up in Detroit drumming for Seger with only a couple of hours to spare. Polygram won’t let the band go on early, because the suits don’t care. But the customs people recognize him in the Motor City airport and he’s whisked through and makes it in time for soundcheck, but not before paying $3400 to Lloyds of London for insurance in case he didn’t. It’s taken out of his pay. But Kenny ponders the fact…he never saw the bill!

That’s rock and roll for you, a rip-off world.

But it comes to an end with Mellencamp. Who has the band on salary, he said he was gonna take three years off but really it was a matter of weeks, artists get inspired and have to create, but the band members didn’t share in the recording royalties or the songwriting royalties, they did not get rich.

But Kenny did. As Mellencamp says in the book, he’s the only one whoever worked for him who went on his own and survived.

A lot of it is personality, Billy Corgan marvels that D’arcy felt comfortable around Kenny, but not him. You’ve got to get along.

And a lot of it is education. Formally trained, Kenny writes charts for every song for every gig, he can read music, never pooh-pooh the building blocks.

But most of it is drive. The drive to succeed.

And the fear. That’s what made Mellencamp break through, the fear of the factory, like the British musicians before him, the fear of a stiff, you think it’s hard to make it, it’s even harder to stay on top!

So Kenny backs up Melissa Etheridge and John Fogerty, plays with Celine Dion and seemingly every famous act you’ve ever heard of and then…

It all dries up.

That’s the story of our rock and roll music business. How it evaporated into thin air. Was it the internet, with Napster, or hip-hop…but suddenly Kenny is detailing sessions with people you’ve never heard of. And he’s dong victory lap gigs, sure, it’s with the remaining Beatles and the Kennedy Center Honors, but getting paid all that money to make hit records that dominate the chart…those days are THROUGH!

That’s what we all can’t get over. How it was here, and now it’s gone. And sure, you can go see the has-beens, and I enjoy it sometimes, but it’s creepy. Because they were riding the crest of the zeitgeist once and now it’s pure nostalgia.

Not that I wouldn’t pinch myself if I was playing with them, or even talking to them, but things have changed.

But Kenny was there when it was all still working. When there was money and cocaine and women and…

That’s not the heart of the book, it’s not a tell-all about backstage shenanigans, although there are some of those, but this was a guy who was there, and we all wanted to be there, once. But some of us buckle down and get the work done, and some of us do not.

And the highlight of the book for me is when Kenny gets scammed, ripped-off for so much money. He spends nearly an equal amount of cash trying to get it back, ultimately a complete waste. Because, as someone told him at the outset of his legal adventure, it’s not worth it, you’ve got to swallow your losses and move on.

That’s right. You can’t be vindictive. There’s only a limited amount of time. There’s an opportunity cost in trying to fix the past, forget about it.

And you can probably forget about this book, unless…

You know who Kenny Aronoff is and you want to know his story.

Or you want some insider tales of famous musicians.

Or you want to know what it was like to be a working musician, not the star, not someone surviving on royalties, but someone who had to fight for every gig, perform, and then fight for more gigs. Because despite all the emphasis on stardom, it’s all built upon the backs of talented people who do the grunt work, usually faceless, but skilled and experienced nonetheless.

Like Kenny Aronoff. He played the rock and roll sweepstakes and won.

But that game doesn’t exist anymore. Musicianship is not treasured. There are better ways to make big money. And with cellphone cameras and social media your backstage antics, your hotel room trysts, might as well be broadcast on television, privacy has been eroded and so much of what you used to live for, to desire in this game, has evaporated, pfftt!

It was a golden era. Floated upon inspiration and musicianship. Never underestimate Mellencamp’s ability to come up with this stuff, never mind Aronoff and the band’s ability to play it.

And there’s not too much about drumming in this book.

And occasionally you roll your eyes with the repetition of famous names who Kenny has played with.

But he did. And he’s thrilled.

And you can credit him.

But he credits Mellencamp for giving him a chance and Don Was for giving him work. Because if you’ve got nobody to rely on, you’ve got nothing happening.

You can make the record in your living room, but…

Not only do you need a team to promote it…

You need a team to play it live.

And that’s what gets Kenny off most. Playing to the throngs.

After all, he’s a musician.

“Sex, Drums, Rock ‘n’ Roll!: The Hardest Hitting Man in Show Business”

“Robbie Williams tickets put directly on resale sites”

He put choice seats directly on Get Me In and Seatwave.

I say GOOD!

Now there is one caveat, he came out against touts previously, his management signing a petition against it, but the truth is…

The tickets have to be sold at the value they’re worth or the tickets must be sold at a fair price and tied to the purchaser.

And the public prefers the former.

Yes, the truth is the public loves StubHub. Because they don’t have to buy a ticket months in advance, giving the promoter its float. Ticket buying is a science. In a world riddled with fake news no one knows how to buy a ticket anyway. Do they need to get a credit card? Which one? Many? Do they need to become a member of the fan club? Do they have to make friends with those who have senate seats (i.e. season tickets to all shows at a venue) so they can buy their unwanted ducats? If you think about the cost involved figuring out how to buy a ticket at sticker price, oftentimes a bad seat, your time is better spent elsewhere, making the extra money so you can afford to overpay on StubHub.

Believe me people bitch they can’t get a good seat at the listed price. But the truth is, it’s a small minority that is complaining. Interface with the public and you find this out. Professional cranks. The true fans? They overpay in order to sit close and they’re happy to do it.

That’s right, platinum has been institutionalized in America. Used to come with perks, now the perks are a joke, because the acts don’t want to provide them and the fans don’t care about them. They don’t want a faux laminate, they don’t want a catered meal, they don’t want to take home the seat they’re sitting in, just being up close and personal at the show is enough.

The only difference here was Robbie Williams decided to sell platinum tickets on Get Me In and Seatwave instead of a more traditional outlet like Ticketmaster, which now includes the secondary market along with the primary in its listings!

The music business created this monster. I can forgive the punters and the legislators bitching, they don’t understand the shenanigans, but in the U.K. it’s the promoters and managers themselves who are complaining. What is the fair system they’re looking for? One in which everybody pays face value and sits in the front row? That’s impossible!

And it works nowhere else. The person who flies once a year does not get upgraded to the front of the plane. The hot new automobile is not sold at sticker, but far above.

What is the principle we’re trying to save?

The truth is acts just hate that they’re not getting all that uplift, the difference between sticker and sale price on secondary sites. Ergo Robbie Williams’s behavior here. And the truth is acts have been scalping their own tickets from time immemorial, for the extra cash. And promoters have made deals with brokers and resale sites too, because they not only want to make that extra money, they want to hedge their bets, get guaranteed income in their coffers.

But the little guy has to be protected.

Who is this little guy?

We live in a world of income inequality. It’s not only at concerts that the disadvantaged are closed out. If you want to help those with less, raise taxes, at least in America, have acts stand up to corporations, but in the U.S. “tax” is a dirty word and the acts all have corporate deals to profit from. Talk about hypocrisy.

And people know the score. They know if they want to get something very desirable, they need to pay for it.

So the only problem we have in the concert business is ticket prices ARE TOO LOW! Assuming people want to go at all, some shows you can’t give away. But for the stars?? It’s income inequality in music too, the winners are rolling in dough, the rest are eking out a living.

Or, you can settle for the listed gross, the price of the tickets as originally scaled. But you’ve got to sell them closer to the date the show plays, so people know what their schedule is, and you’ve got to give people the option to transfer the tickets at the price they bought them for if they can’t go to the show…

But people don’t like this. Everybody’s playing the market. If they managed to get their hands on good seats they believe it’s their God-given right to sell them at what the traffic will bear. Think about that, the same people bitching they can’t get a good seat at face value are the same ones who want to take the uplift, they too are hypocritical!

But money is the great equalizer. Charge what the tickets are truly worth and there’s no subterfuge.

But there will be blowback, at first.

The acts will be called greedy, these same acts parading their island vacations on Instagram, these same acts evidencing their highfalutin’ lifestyle all over the web.

And you’ll get the same complainers wanking they can’t get in, the same people who believe you should come to their house and play for free.

So, it’s about time we faced reality and like any other business grew up and sold our wares at their full value. Like Robbie Williams.

But everybody in the business thinks he’s a pariah.

But I want you to find one person who buys one of these tickets on Get Me In or Seatwave who complains.

No, they love getting a good seat at the show. It’s a bargain at that price. Hell, think of the ancillary costs, the transportation, the parking, the food, the ticket price is a deal!

Hmm…