This is like buying a Mac in 1984. The capabilities are endless, but the software is limited.

In this case, it’s skills.

Apple is so far behind. They just introduced their unavailable smart speaker and Amazon comes out with a readily available smart speaker with video!

I’d like to say it’s an incomplete product. That it’s typical of a half-baked Amazon offering, fresh off the drawing board with kinks not worked out. But that is not true. What’s amazing is the unboxing experience, it rivals Apple’s, it EQUALS Apple’s.

There’s no extraneous information. Almost none at all. You strip the cellophane and plug the Show in and it walks you through set-up, which had no glitches whatsoever. You find your wi-fi network. You enter your password. You download the Alexa app, if you’ve got no previous Echo, and then confirm your name and password and then the Show updates itself, which takes about ten minutes, but it keeps you posted all along the way, and then you’re inside.

Where you gonna go?

We live in a software world. The hardware era is behind us. Seemingly, anyway. When was the last time you updated your computer? Even your phone? And I’ll tell you, the age of cosmetics is history. If you’re purchasing a new device to advertise yourself as young and hip and forward-thinking, you’re missing out. Sure, you can wait for an iPhone 8. But what is astounding about the 7, the Plus anyway, and if you don’t have a big phone you’re missing out, is the chip and the camera. The pictures are ASTOUNDING! Only hobbyists need a standalone device. And when you run iOS 10 on an older device, you can see the difference, it’s slow. But what’s under the hood is never sexy to the hoi polloi, but it should be!

So the fit and finish on the Show is perfect.

And it understands AND HEARS, what you say. It is ready for prime time. Which Siri is still not, as for Google Home…it’s got good answers when it hears me, but it never seems to, and I’ve about given up.

And I was worried that by talking to the Show I’d awaken my Echo in the next room.

But there was no confusion.

But the device could not do much. Couldn’t show videos from YouTube. You see the wall between companies is growing, and right now the leader is Amazon. You might think it’s Apple and Google, but you’d be wrong. Amazon has got your wallet, you employ the company/service for so many things. At this point, Prime is changing the culture more than the iPhone. Listen to me. We live in the physical world. The ability to get almost anything anywhere in two days means that…you don’t have to worry about going on vacation and leaving things behind, you don’t have to worry about being off the grid, this is what I needed when I lived in Vermont and Salt Lake back in the seventies. There is no more flyover country. The people who still say there is are the ones still flummoxed by Trump’s victory. Everybody’s got cable TV, everybody’s got internet, everybody’s got a mobile phone, everybody’s got a SMARTPHONE! You think the gossip doesn’t reach Iowa? And I’m gonna let you in on a dirty little secret, most people in Los Angeles don’t leave home. They’re no different from those in the middle of the country. Because the traffic is so bad! Of course I’m overstating the truth, but not by much.

We’re all equal here in America.

So now you’ve got a clock and the weather and all kinds of things that are nice but you can live without.

As for the vaunted calling feature…

We do have FaceTime and Skype, but there is a convenience factor in not having to have to whip out your phone or sit in front of the computer.

And the video is not fuzzy and the world is split into two types of people… Those on the voice control revolution train and those who are not.

And it’s not about sound quality, although the Show sounds astounding for its size, but the aforementioned convenience. This is the future. This is why Spotify is eclipsing YouTube. And when I told the Show to play the Spotify Hot Country playlist it started right in, with a picture of the album cover on screen. Is this the return of liner notes?

That’s right, it’s about possibilities. Stop lamenting what you’ve lost and look to what you’ve gained, which may be similar to what was, but with a twist.

Do you need a Show today?

Absolutely not.

But if you want to know what’s gonna happen tomorrow?

IT’S ESSENTIAL!

P.S. I just did some research and found out you could watch YouTube on the Show: http://amzn.to/2h7bovW But still, the wall between tech titans remains.

P.P.S. There’s a learning curve. We live in the era of no help. Which is the result of not paying for services. Then again, no one wants to pay for help anyway and corporations want to cut costs so you’re on your own, pumping your own gas and troubleshooting your own devices. That’s another way the world is split. If you’re overwhelmed when your device/software hits a wall and want someone to save you, can’t figure it out yourself, you’re in the left behind economy. Most times, if you sit there long enough, do enough online research, you can find the solution to your problem. And you feel so satisfied! But the truth is, this is the modern learning experience, being mentally nimble. They don’t teach that in books, but you can teach yourself.

The New Mick Jagger Tracks – Spotify

What kind of crazy fucked-up world do we live in where a septuagenarian rock star is hipper than musicians decades, even half a century younger?

One in which the single is everything and you drop it unannounced and then you do it all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat. That’s right, you want to be in the marketplace, satiating the core, who come to your show, hoping you gain traction so newcomers will come on board, but if not, you go back to the drawing board over and over again.

The album is a failed construct. It doesn’t satiate the audience. Which buys it, devours it and wants more or ignores it completely in a world where you lead with the hit and then people decide to go deeper.

Or not.

No one has any time. Rock stars aren’t gods, they’re barely even stars, don’t get caught up in your own myth, you’ve got to participate, the internet has turned the concept of artistry on its head, where is it written that a musician should record ten or twelve tracks and release them all at once and go on tour in between? And many of those in the hip-hop world know it’s not about the road anyway, but recordings. There’s little creativity on the road, just the same tracks over and over again, satiating the audience and making money, but it doesn’t move your enterprise FORWARD!

So Mick Jagger puts out two tracks without any advance notice. The press buildup does not work in an on demand world. People want it all and they want it now. So, if you’re a fan, and I am, even though those two Jagger solo albums suffered from the lack of the Stones, the songs were okay but the sound was generic, I’m gonna give his new stuff a chance.

And the cuts are very good but they’re not hits. They’re album tracks. You listen once, or twice, and then you discard.

But then…

We’re at the beginning of the news cycle.

I was listening on Spotify, doing online research, going to the videos on Vevo.

The videos… This is where Jagger missed the mark. Videos are worthless unless they go viral. And the “England Lost” clip is worth one view. Well-produced, exquisite in black and white, retro yet present, it’s boring but you eventually get to the punch line and once you’ve heard it you never want to watch it again. The one for “Gotta Get A Grip” is just a mess. You can barely make it through. It’s like Jagger’s still living in the eighties, when people were forced to watch to listen on MTV, they couldn’t fast-forward. If you can’t create something people want to watch again and again, just put out a lyric video so people still getting their music on YouTube can play, but in the U.K. YouTube for music is declining in favor of Spotify.

But I’m watching the clips, on the inane Vevo site, with one of the worst search functions online, how come I can’t see all the clips? And then the video segues into a remix…AND IT’S BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL TRACK!

And then I frantically start to search Spotify to see if this remix is included. And it turns out there are FOUR! And the one with the most famous, Seeb, is the most disappointing, but then you listen to the Alok and you’re stunned, THIS IS A HIT! You want to hear it again, it’s modern without selling out, with the emphasized groove and bass. It is as if you’ve ventured in a time machine from the seventies to today.

And the “England Lost” iteration with Skepta isn’t quite as satisfying, it seems too de rigueur, just another guest rapper to try to put the track over the top, but it is interesting.

And suddenly Mick Jagger, who’s been out of the new music discussion for years, has gotten an hour of my time. And is gonna get more. Because of the remixes. Maybe Kanye was right when he kept changing that album after release. The charts couldn’t handle it, the industry couldn’t handle it, but the audience certainly could. Music is a living, breathing thing, And the oldsters have not been able to cope with this since the advent of sampling.

Then again, technology has always mutated the music.

And the publicity cycle.

And…

It’s still evolving. I won’t say Mick Jagger is at the bleeding edge, but he is running with the pack, showing you can teach an old dog new tricks. Now I’m waiting for the rest of the ancient to get off their butts and wake up. Sure, you want a hit, and don’t tell me radio won’t play it, terrestrial is losing power every single day and Beats One is moribund, but if you are an artist, if you are a creator, you want to get in the sandbox and play, and your legacy is such that your fans, keeping you alive on the road, a paradigm the Stones employed even better than the Dead, the dirty little secret is their beloved LPs barely sold, want to get dirty with you!

England Lost – Vevo

The road kills.

Used to be you went on the road to promote the record.

Now you go on the road to make bucks.

Now let’s not make this about Napster, or Spotify either. The truth is if you’re winning on the road, you’re making more dough in adjusted dollars than you were in the heyday of CDs. Sure, you’ve got expenses, but have you looked at ticket prices? And sponsorship?

But the road is a slog. It’s like entering a tunnel. Ask me to go on the road and do the same thing 150 times in a row and there’s no way. What’s worse, even if you’re flying private, staying at the best hotels, it’s a grueling lifestyle. You get off stage and you can’t calm down. Oftentimes you’re with the same people you’ve hung with for years, and you’re not a star in their eyes, it’s all locker room all the time, and most musicians got into music to get out of the locker room. Then again, most people plying the boards today are not musicians.

This is not the Allman Brothers changing it up every night.

There are lighting cues and backups on hard drives, it’s more akin to a Broadway show, but at least on the Great White Way you get to stay in one place and the people come to you.

Which is why Vegas is burgeoning. With tons of infrastructure, it’s a good place for the people to come to you. Instead of moving on to a new city every day.

The road killed Kurt Cobain.

And it killed Chris Cornell too.

Cobain was in pain, his team should have said no go. But never mess with the power of money.

And do you really think that Cornell wanted to go on the road and play theatres? After playing arenas? No, he was doing it for the bucks.

I’m not saying there isn’t a high, just that the other 22 hours of the day are long and tiring and you never get enough sleep and…

My most creative time is around midnight. Do you think I can fall asleep after writing? Absolutely not, I’m trashed today. But I run on inspiration and you’ve got to follow it. Which is why music is not a 9 to 5 job, why the musicians work late at night and wake up at noon. They live in an alternative universe, different from the hoi polloi, I love when it gets dark and the e-mail stops, when the traffic is gone and the world is my own. You’ve got to throw off convention to upset the apple cart. What I mean is art, when done right, not only reflects society, it questions and changes it. Which is why people want to go to the show anyway. To experience that high, to get close to the other, to get away from their mundane, humdrum lives.

A working stiff gives it their all and comes home at 6 or maybe even 7 or 8. And sure, in this connected world they might get disturbed thereafter via electronic communications. But an artist? They’re firing all the time, from peak to peak, weekends are no different from weekdays, and when they show up to perform, they’ve got to be in top form. There are no off days when you’re a performer, string them together and your career is trashed.

So, artists cope with dope.

There’s all this talk about substances and inspiration. More it’s a way to cope, to fall asleep, to calm down after the adrenaline rush. Performing a show is like skydiving. You’re never completely calm, you’re always gonna get that rush.

So Bieber goes around the world satisfying fans and feeding the machine, making money. But it’s work. It’s not some investor sitting at home watching the market, counting their money. You’ve got to get up and do it again. And you can’t be a pretender. You’ve got to give it your all.

And it becomes too much.

A friend of mine toured with U2 and it took a year to recover. Truly.

It’s great that these people can make so much money, but if you don’t think there’s a cost…

How much money do you need?

Well, in a world where titans fly private and own islands, everyone is envious, especially those on the fringe of that number, like entertainers. They’re exposed to it, they want it. As do the percentage players, the managers and the agents.

Sometimes you’ve got to say no, to save yourself.

History is littered with acts that gave it all and then ended it all, whether directly or through misadventure.

Now if you want to go on the road, improvise, get drunk, get laid, see it as an experience, go ahead. Used to be by going to every town you reached people and spread the word, built your career. Most acts today build their careers online, the road is just a cleanup effort.

So kudos to Scooter and Justin for calling it quits.

The public be damned.

There’s never enough to satisfy the public. They want all of you, until there’s nothing left.

Is there a connection?

In case you’re unaware of today’s JAMA report, 110 of 111 NFL players were found to have CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Now this is a select group, deceased players whose brains have been donated to Boston University, but if even every other dead player since the study began was found to be clear, that would still mean 9% of NFL players have dementia.

The stories are horrifying. Even Tyler Sash, who played safety for the Super Bowl winning Giants in 2011, had it.

How long before people stop watching football?

They’ve already stopped playing.

People think everything’s forever. Like the answering machine, like rock and roll, like baseball. I remember when football was a second-class citizen to baseball, when the latter was truly the “National Pastime.” Now I’m not saying baseball will disappear, the internet has taught us that everything marginal survives to a point, but I will say that the NBA and soccer and e-sports dominate the minds of millennials and younger, and the boomers refuse to accept this.

But the boomers gave up smoking. It’s rare to find a boomer who didn’t used to puff. But they stopped. When they saw it killed.

And these same boomers are racing to electric cars. Which conservative voices keep saying are propped up by subsidies and will never triumph.

Tell that to BMW and Mercedes, German companies who are doubling-down. And to Volvo, which is going all electric, albeit hybrid, soon. They got the message. Along with self-driving cars. When are the owners and the public going to get the message about football?

If you believe the values of football franchises are going to continue to rise into the stratosphere, you probably believed that real estate would never collapse in 2008. But at least people need places to live, real estate can come back, whereas football?

The same educated class switching to electric cars has already said they don’t want their kids to play football.

That’s what wrong about today’s society, the belief that the uneducated rule. They don’t, they might push back, they might need a hand, a leg up, but to appeal to their base interests is to be stuck in a backwater. Turns out the smart and highly educated triumph. Which is the main cause of income inequality. Sure, a Tesla is a badge of honor, but it also doesn’t pollute. And if you still say the power has to come from somewhere, you’re right, but the truth is electric motors are much more efficient than gas, and therefore there’s ultimately less pollution.

But I don’t have to convince you. You’re just a couple of years and a couple of changes behind me. You’ll wake up.

So when the news of this story spreads, will people feel comfortable sitting in front of the screen every Sunday? I’ll admit I enjoyed the Super Bowl, but it was the only game I watched last year. Because the NFL is going in the wrong direction in so many ways. Denying the truth as people lose their sensibilities. I loved Jim McMahon, now he’s a shell of his former self. It makes you wince and you want no part of it.

So, if I were an NFL owner, I’d wait a few months and then sell. You never want to appear desperate. And you don’t want to wait for the high, you’ve got to be willing to leave some money on the table, which is what great investors know.

And I’d invest in sports that appeal to younger generations.

And I’d acknowledge one effect of Trump’s election is the press has doubled down. Not the online headlines, but the traditional newspapers, mostly the “New York Times” and the “Washington Post.” And right wingers can decry these institutions as much as they want, that’s their prerogative. But the truth is the world runs on information. And these outlets with reporters unearth and disseminate that information. Which is why I still read the “Wall Street Journal,” which is a shell of its former self, despite hating the inane editorial page (did you see Jerry Brown’s letter in response, whew!) they still cover industries and stories that the “Times” does not.

Want to win in this world?

Read. TV news is a pale facsimile of print. Hell, how often does Rachel Maddow quote the WaPo?

And isn’t it interesting that Bezos saved the WaPo.

The bright and educated are still running the world. Don’t think otherwise. And if you believe the NFL is on the way up, you’re probably smoking a Marlboro right now.

“110 N.F.L. Brains. All But One Had Brain Damage.”

Jerry Brown and a Republican re cap-and-trade (unfortunately behind a paywall, but not everything in life is free, to succeed you’ve got to pay)