Anything Is Possible

This is an incredible book.

Not the easiest book to read. Not one you can’t put down. Not a better one than “Olive Kitteridge” or “Amy & Isabelle,” but one that will get under your skin, creep you out and give you the feeling that you are not only not special, but that Elizabeth Strout knows it.

Novelists, the pop stars of the pre-Beatles era. Does anybody even talk about writing the Great American Novel anymore? There are more graduate programs than ever, modeled on the Iowa Workshop, but they all result in me-too fiction that is over-rewritten, where substance is secondary to style, and the choice of words is more important than what they say.

But that’s the world we live in. The hoi polloi is living on the surface and the artsy-fartsys believe they’re superior, even though they’re wearing no clothes.

And then Elizabeth Strout writes a book and illuminates the entire landscape, illustrates all our foibles and misgivings, removes the faux optimism and tells us we can be good people, but don’t expect goodness in return.

When we last we visited, Strout had written a novella about Lucy Barton. The story of a woman who escaped from poverty.

This book is about where she escaped from.

Do you want to escape? I believe we all do. Even those so deep into their own situations that they cannot see the opportunities. We’re burdened by our families of origin, our looks, our financial situation, and we keep faking it for others while we feel absolutely horrible inside, other than when we don’t. It’s these moments of happiness, these stolen glances, these crushes, that carry us through.

Don’t tell me your secrets, I’m not gonna tell you mine. Because some stuff you can’t say out loud. Even though it’s burning a hole in your heart.

Twenty years ago, back in the days of AOL by the minute, when I had a free subscription, I checked out every nook and cranny, I found out there was a chat room for every sexual predilection known to man, even yours, certainly mine, and I know you’ve got one. And if you think chat rooms were inane that just shows your puffed-up superiority, you never used one, you didn’t know how to scour the profiles and IM and the point is not for me to educate you technologically, teach you how to get all the power out of your devices, but to say that Strout has gone into taboo territory, third rail topics. She’s ventured into sex and hatred and homosexuality and the truth is we cannot deal with these topics other than in cartoons, we live in a puritanical society, but we can’t stop our thoughts, and we think about these things.

“Anything Is Possible” is not an HBO movie. Oprah won’t be making it for Netflix, unless she’s leaving a whole hell of a lot out. When one of America’s most revered artists takes a leap over the line, stops worrying about acceptance and does what’s in her heart, then you know she’s on to something.

“Anything Is Possible” is about people. You and me. You may be wearing a three piece suit, believe you’re better than so many, but the truth is you’re not. And we all come from somewhere. And people can see the trick, they can see through you, but even though we hold these truths to be self-evident they’re nowhere to be seen, not on sitcoms, procedurals, in records…

Remember when being an artist was going on a quest for truth?

Now it’s a quest for cash, or respect.

I’m not sure Strout is gonna get respect for “Anything Is Possible.”

Some people are just bad people. Some people get away with their crap. Some people think they’re getting away with their crap but aren’t. Some are takers and some are givers. And it all doesn’t balance out, no way. You can complain all day, but it makes no difference, you have to decide who you want to be, you have to grow up, make your own choices.

So turn off the TV. Shut down Spotify. If you experience one artistic work this month, let it be “Anything Is Possible.”

You’ve got an electronic device. Buy it for your Kindle app right now. Buy it for your Kindle itself. Even get the hardcover. But don’t wait. Because the longer you wait the longer you’re fooling yourself. You need to be confronted with the cold hard irony that we’re all in it together in this world and you can fake it but you usually can’t make it.

Read this book and when you finish reeling start creating. Use it as a jumping off point, a matter of inspiration. School will give you the tools, marketing comes last, but that spark that starts the journey…

You’ll be ready to say something when you’re done with “Anything Is Possible.”

We all need to say something.

We’re only just passing through.

Or, as Paul Simon once sang, “every generation throws a hero up the pop charts.”

Not that Mr. Simon was in attendance. I remember when the R&RHOF began, before the building was erected in Cleveland, when all those original acts were crowding for inclusion, the dinners alternated from NYC to L.A., and all those execs arranging their evenings…

Are either dead or out of a job, they just don’t go anymore.

So you see an empty cavern of a building, the Barclays Center, not the low-ceilinged juke joint where the music got started, but an emporium made for money, to jack up the grosses, and the women down front rattle their jewelry and the people up in the rafters are unseeable and you wonder what you’re doing watching this show.

But it’s HBO.

HBO was the Asylum Records of television. Everything on it was good, or at least for a while anyway. Just like David Geffen’s new label back in the seventies. But now Geffen’s in the South Seas with Oprah and the Boss, Tom Hanks too, wasn’t Obama on board? And instead of us all being in it together we’re stratified and separate and the only thing linking us together is this music.

Which sounds surprisingly ersatz.

That’s right, ELO, or what is known as Jeff Lynne and a bunch of underpaid nobodies, were positively creepy.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE “Eldorado,” to this day. But seeing this aged talent with his dyed hair singing “Mr. Blue Sky” made me feel like that had been a hit half an eon ago and deserved to be forgotten, that it wasn’t that good to begin with, better not to unearth old gems.

And come on, who doesn’t wince when Jann Wenner takes the stage? The man who just sold half of his crown jewel, the pamphlet known as “Rolling Stone,” to stay afloat?

But then Joan Baez gets inducted and they show footage of her singing with Bobby Z and you start to tingle and wonder what the hell is going on here.

That’s right, music sucks on television. It was cool, way back when, in the era of Ed Sullivan, even “In Concert,” because it was so rare, just the chance to see these personages was a thrill. But now with the internet and everybody available seeing your heroes on TV just disappoints. Whatever it is they’re selling just doesn’t come across.

And then it does.

The coolest cat of the evening was Snoop Dogg, who came across as eloquent and sincere. Illustrating that progress happens and if you’re married to the past you’re soon to be left behind. Then again, the era Snoop was talking about, the mid-nineties, was twenty-odd years ago and something’s gonna come along and replace rap too. Yup, it’s gonna happen. Rock and roll is not forever and neither is hip-hop, but music is.

Highlight of the evening?

YES!

Not because they were so good or so together, even enjoyable, but because they sounded so DIFFERENT! A Martian could land on earth and not believe he’d already seen it, he’d stick around trying to digest it. “Owner Of A Lonely Heart” sucked but when they were playing “Roundabout” you remembered what a breakthrough the song was, what pushing the envelope was all about.

That’s what our rock stars did before, that’s what we’re waiting for them to do now.

And come on, if you saw these people on stage, they couldn’t do anything else. It’s just that in their era, musicians were kings, now they’re dopes, fodder for idiots, as opposed to the tech and finance titans, the ones with the real money. The joke is on those dying to get rich where there is no cash. Believe me, it’s not in music. But when you saw Geddy Lee playing bass with his heroes on the aforementioned opening cut to “Fragile” you saw a joy that one cannot get from mazuma, that’s the power of music, to light you up from the inside.

And can we exorcise Lenny Kravitz from performing anything until he has another hit?

And I burst out laughing when Alicia Keys said she’d never met Tupac. Then why is this second-rate talent on stage, taking up our time?

But Steve Perry was gracious and the new/old Journey sang “Don’t Stop Believin'” and suddenly you didn’t, stop, that is.

We’ve moved beyond AM & FM. Moved beyond network television. Moved beyond HBO. Moved beyond wankers like Wenner telling us what to like.

But that does not mean we are not human, we do not have desires, that we don’t want to partake.

This overlong show just illustrated there was something in the past, the question became what is coming in the future?

I don’t know, but I do know it won’t look like anything on stage. The same way “We Are Family” sounds nothing like “Sweet Little Sixteen.” It will be birthed by people like Nile Rodgers, following their muse as opposed to the money. It will be art for art’s sake, oh well, the gangsta executives will make sure they get paid, and a bit will trickle down to the performers.

We’ve got YouTube stars and Snapchat and Instagram heroes. Yet we expect musicians to occupy the same place in the firmament. But to think that is wrong. We’ve got all the time in the world for a great ditty, that’s the power of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” but just because music ruled the baby boomers’ world, triumphed on MTV during the heyday of Generation X, that does not mean it’s still the same, not at all.

So what I’m saying is I refuse to be nostalgic and say it was all great, give everybody a break and a pass and a leg up, saying they deserve attention.

No, watching this show I know there are some geniuses, like David Letterman, but not Eddie Vedder. It’s not that Vedder’s a hack, he’s just unaware of the limits, never mind being too far inside the box to see its walls. When Letterman showed a pic of his kid smoking you laughed, basked in the irreverence of someone who knows institutions are not to be trusted.

HBO has become an institution.

The R&RHOF has become an institution.

Rock and roll has become an institution.

And institutions are all about self-preservation, they abhor change.

But it’s your job to tear them down.

You’re part of a vast army pushing the culture forward. Like I said, it doesn’t have to be music, but it can be.

And music, when done right, is only secondary to sex.

But just because Robbie Robertson wrote “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” that does not mean he gets to be in the room. Hell, I don’t get to be in the room. We’ve all got to give up and make way for what’s new, we’ve got to stop celebrating what once was and open our eyes and ears to those pushing limits we can’t even see.

Like Tupac.

Like Dylan.

Like our heroes of yore.

There will be heroes tomorrow. I’m not even sure of their values. How important cash will be, conception is always key, but I do know when I experience their wares I’ll be wowed, titillated and testifying.

I’m waiting…

Everybody likes to pile on.

Rather than focus on the big issues, like Trump giving back to the rich, the great unwashed would rather concentrate on the foibles of a long in the tooth rapper and a greedy tech entrepreneur.

Then again, that’s the world we now live in, one where everybody believes they can do everything. A failed real estate entrepreneur with multiple bankruptcies under his belt can become President and people with money and fame can become concert promoters.

It’s a professional business, a skill, requiring boatloads of money and relationships. To believe you can become a successful concert promoter overnight is to believe you can shoot hoops in your backyard and instantly start for the Warriors.

Come on, we’ve seen this movie before. Nearly fifty years ago. Acts were ignorant, promoters were greedy and the experience was bad. INDOORS! Every outdoor festival was a financial disaster, sure, socially it showed that zillions of people could get together and celebrate their culture without killing each other, except at Altamont, but it took eons to figure out American festival promotion. Hell, the Woodstock reprises just about put a stake in the paradigm.

But you’ve got celebrities and athletes testifying as to its worth so it’s worthy, right?

WRONG!

That’s the seamy underbelly of today’s world. Everybody’s being paid, no one’s being trustworthy. Near-unknowns feature products in YouTube clips and if you’ve got an audience there are corporations itching to give you money to promote their products and no one does any due diligence, other than to see that they’re gonna get paid.

And you’ve got an ignorant populace that believes you can cut taxes on everybody and have the economy boom and that each and every fan is entitled to a front row seat at sticker price.

And you wonder why disasters like this happen.

Focus first on the attendees. Why in the hell did they pay to go? Looking themselves in the mirror like Stuart Smalley and saying they’re hip enough, cool enough and rich enough that they deserve to go on a private island getaway where they can revel in their status. Wrong! You can’t buy your way inside, backstage is off limits, you’ve got to earn that. So when someone says if you just pay enough you’re a member of the club, know that the club is not worth joining or you’re not getting inside. Yup, buy that platinum McCartney ticket and expect to have a long dinner with Sir Paul. Ask him about his marriages, discuss your children’s schooling. He really cares, he really does. Just like Adele and all of the other acts you want to see.

You’re just one of a zillion fans, admit it. Either get on the bandwagon early and see them in a club or overpay on StubHub to be thrilled to be inside the building.

So I’ve got no sympathy for the wankers who bought in to this festival, this is the same Instagram crowd spending all their time illustrating they’re better than you and me, forget it.

And then there’s the greed of the promoters.

That’s right, festivals are one of the few places where promoters can actually make beaucoup bucks. Otherwise all the revenue just goes to the acts. Create an event and you can get rich. But history tells us most events lose money for years. So, only those with deep pockets in the business continue, make the investment. Believe me, without Staples and the 02, AEG would not be launching new festivals, something’s got to make up for the loss.

But everybody’s greedy, everybody’s looking for the easy buck. We keep reading how everybody’s getting paid, why can’t I? The techies, the influencers, all the empty suits.

So you end up feeling powerful that you can post, but this isn’t the media of yore, where only a few outlets could afford ink, it’s essentially free to everyone, all you need is an internet connection to complain.

And complain you do. About Fyre Festival, United Airlines, the service at the local emporium. Makes you feel good, that you’ve got a voice, right?

No, the truth is the techies and the corporations and the politicians are running circles around you, most negative publicity is just a blip on the radar screen, United broke that musician’s guitar and then its stock went UP!

So what we’ve got here is bread and circuses for the masses, while the rich and powerful rape and pillage. And, as per usual, the sea of nobodies would rather take down a celebrity with a name, whom they know, like Ja Rule, than educate themselves and take down someone really powerful, like Robert Mercer, or the whole damn Federalist Society.

Don’t know what that is?

Then you don’t know why Dubya became President and Gorsuch is on the Supreme Court and if you don’t think those things matter, you’re not a relative of one of those guys who the state killed after our new Justice tilted the table and said it was o.k.

Actions have consequences. Which is why this Fyre Festival is such a disaster.

But the inability to educate oneself, to wrestle with the big issues, to take a stand, is a much bigger problem.

Just read the front page of the newspaper.

Oh, you don’t have to, you get all the news you need on Facebook!

David Itzkoff: “You tell a story in one of the episodes about seeing a prime performance from Sam Kinison, whose world did not exactly intersect with yours. Did you get something out of that experience?”

Steve Martin: “Oh yeah. You know when someone’s killing it. But not always immediately. Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks to think about it. You have to go, What did I just see? I say the goal is not to be good – it’s to be great. The idea is to have the audience leave, and say, ‘You’ve got to see this.’ You have to work backwards from the result.”

“Steve Martin on Teaching You (and Himself) How to Be a Comedian”

My favorite story on this subject is told by one Richard Griffiths, manager majordomo, but before that a record exec, a publisher…and an agent.

Richard booked a gig in a basement club for Paul Kossoff’s Back Street Crawler, with the opening act being AC/DC.

Only one problem, on the way to the gig, Kossoff perished on the plane. But AC/DC performed anyway. To six people. Who just stood there silently as the band went through its entire act, parading Angus on shoulders throughout the venue, the whole deal. And when the music stopped, the attendees bolted. Richard was crestfallen, but an hour later, the club was overflowing… You see each and every one of those attendees had run out to a pay phone to tell their buds…YOU’VE GOT TO SEE THIS!

And history was made.

And then there’s the tale told by Al Kooper, music’s own Zelig, who famously produced Lynyrd Skynyrd. The first LP had just come out, “Free Bird” was far from being an FM staple, and Al got a call in Atlanta, where he was living, where the studio was, from Ronnie Van Zant in Jacksonville, saying the band had just written a new song and they wanted to come in and record it right away.

Al said yes, and within the week they did. But the track sat in the vaults for a year.

I asked Al did he know, that the song was gonna be such a giant hit.

And Al told me…IT WAS SWEET HOME ALABAMA!

Greatness is undeniable.

But hard to achieve.

In the era of scarcity little got made and less got promoted. And the barrier to entry was so high, wannabes were excluded. Every town has got a band that didn’t quite make it, that sold out every dance, got an indie deal, even made a record. And when you listen to those LPs you’re not wowed, thinking the country missed out on genius, but that they weren’t quite good enough.

This is hard to tell people, they don’t want to hear it.

This is like so much in life. If you’re downtrodden and unkempt, chances are the supermodel does not want to date you. If you’re broke with no track record, you cannot get five minutes of Lloyd Blankfein’s time, never mind Mark Zuckerberg’s.

But today people believe they’re entitled to it.

Greatness is elusive, hard to achieve, but when you do, you know it.

I had this conversation recently, where a drummer told me nobody knows what’s great, nobody knows what’s a hit. That’s untrue, ask any creator. When you hit it far over the fence, YOU KNOW!

And people want to hear it and own it and spread the word about it.

Hell, I even had this experience myself two days ago. I’m reading all this hogwash about the Twitter numbers, how they’re going to disappoint, how the company is on the downswing, and my blood starts to boil. Less because I love Twitter than I hate conventional wisdom, groupthink, no one wants to analyze, say the unspoken, they just want to get along.

And then a synapse fired and I had to run to the computer, I had to weigh in on this.

And I did.

And then all hell broke loose.

I immediately heard from Richard Greenfield, the number one Wall Street analyst:

Subject: I’m only guy with twtr buy rating
Based on everything u basically said

Then, minutes later, far under an hour after I’d hit send, I heard from Jack Dorsey:

Re: Twitter Results

Bob, this is amazing. I’m biased but: you’re spot on. Thank you for your work and support. This note is an immensely helpful reminder of what’s important for our team.

Thank you.
Jack

Then Ben Thompson, of Stratechery fame, @benthompson, tweeted:

Good @Lefsetz on Twitter pic.twitter.com/qshJVcMIpp

And them my Twitter feed blew up. Four figures worth of retweets, you could watch the window scroll.

And when I woke up Wednesday morning, eager to see Twitter’s ultimate financial results, I’m reading the “New York Times” article and as I get to the end, the only analyst quoted, closing the article, is ME!

“Twitter’s Business Shrinks, but Investors See a Glimmer of Hope”

Now let’s be clear, I don’t have a PR person, I didn’t say a word on any social network, didn’t implore my friends to spread the word, I did nothing other than HIT SEND!

Of course I have an audience, probably larger than most bands plying the boards, but I’ve been building that audience for three decades, through multiple formats, I’ve never given up, and without the internet it would be so hard to reach these people.

But who the hell am I? Just a wanker with no office, no receptionist, no Armani suit, none of the trappings you’re supposed to need to play.

All I had was my brain and my experience.

Let’s be clear, if I’d been busy promoting myself I never would have had time to do the research to be up on this story. But I don’t call it research, I call it FUN! I love to follow the news, figure out what’s happening. And people can tell whether you’re interested or not, whether you’re informed or not.

And I don’t think what I wrote about Twitter was the best piece I’ve ever composed. But it had a truth and a validity and an insight that was unavailable in this whole wide world. That’s right, while you’re busy making me-too music with the usual suspects what people are really looking for is something different.

And I’d be lying if I told you all of the above didn’t make me feel good, really good. But so far not a dime has dropped in my pocket and although my Twitter feed is still rolling, @jack tweeted:

“‘It’s all happening on Twitter.’ Thank you @Lefsetz! lefsetz.com/wordpress/2017…”,

the velocity has decreased, I’m already in the rearview mirror, we live in a what have you done for me lately culture.

Which is why I will keep writing. Not because I want to get ahead, not because I’ve got a marketing plan, but because I love to wrestle with the issues and nail it.

Do I always get it right, do I always write stuff that cuts like butter?

No, although I never issue crap, I’ve been doing it too long, have too much experience to fail that way.

And this is not meant as a victory lap but an illustration. If you pay your dues, if you get it right, if you do great work, you don’t have to lift another finger, the world will blow you up, because there are very few great things out there and we all want to share them.