Scary Old Sex

I read with my phone.

Not on my phone, although I do a ton of poking and scrolling during the day.

But when I read a newspaper or a magazine or a book I’m constantly looking things up, I want a richer experience, I want to know who these people are.

Like the folk who write the Sunday “New York Times” Modern Love column. Are you addicted to that? I surely am. Truth is always stranger than fiction and life is about relationships and to view the world through another’s eyes, is both thrilling and informative.

The L.A “Times” is now imitating it. Truly, you can get along with the “New York Times” alone, I’m thinking about canceling the “Wall Street Journal,” forget the right wing politics, it used to be the definitive business paper, but since Murdoch bought it and turned it into a mainstream outlet it’s neither fish nor fowl, you can’t rely on the WSJ alone for hard news and it’s just not definitive and in-depth enough in business.

And the L.A. “Times,” which has come back from the brink a bit, it’s a bit longer than a pamphlet now, still struggles with second city disease. The paper is parochial, it called back the international and Washington, D.C. correspondents, and when you read Saturday’s L.A. Affairs column it sounds like people who didn’t go to college telling stories with no ending.

Oh, you didn’t go to college?

You don’t have to, there are numerous alternative ways to learn, especially in modern society, but most people don’t, they just park their ass in front of the television and soothe their brain cells, because life is complicated and overwhelming and we’re all looking for a little relaxation.

But who do we tell our hopes and dreams to, who do we ask about the meaning of life?

The baby boomers’ parents were especially tight-lipped. I got no sex education. Then again, studies show that most kids learn about sex via the internet today, at least in America, we’re a puritanical country, focused on the young, and when it comes to sagging skin and lumpy bodies everybody says “ewww” and moves right along.

Which means every baby boomer is on their own.

And, if you’re lucky, one day you too will be as old as the baby boomers, and it will probably be no different, you’ll be in the rearview mirror, noticing not only that your cheese has been stolen but you just don’t care that much about it.
So I’m reading the “New York Times” and I see a review of “Scary Old Sex.”

Here, you can play the home game, you can read what I read:

Review: In ‘Scary Old Sex,’ Arlene Heyman Mines the Details

Maybe the title intrigued me. But the review kept the flame alive, I wanted to check this book out, so I downloaded the sample chapter to my Kindle.

Oh, you’re still reading physical books, maybe listening to vinyl records too, I pity you. You really don’t want the history of literature at your fingertips? You’d really rather lug around a slew of heavy books on vacation? I know, it roots you to the past, it makes you feel better. Why is everybody in America so worried about their image? And why does everybody believe if they march forward they’re going to leave an irretrievable piece of their past behind.

The future is happening, they’re making new minutes every day.

And eventually time runs out.

And today no one’s got any time.

So, it’s easy to check out a book at home. I certainly wasn’t going to pay for “Scary Old Sex” sight unseen. That paradigm is history. People are afraid of disappointment, bait and switch, they want to be able to touch and experience before they lay their money down.

And the truth is I did not want to read the sample chapter of “Scary Old Sex” at that time, I wanted to watch “House of Cards.” But Felice was taking a nap and I’d just finished Ethan Canin’s “A Doubter’s Almanac“…

I don’t recommend it. Canin is so busy including words you don’t know, that aren’t even in the dictionary, there are multiple instances on every page, that it gets in the way of the plot, which is about an award-winning mathematician and his mathematician son. I loved that part, but there was so much math it’s a nonstarter for most people. But reading it I felt… Separate. You know how you surf the web and come to believe we’re all swimming in the same pool, circling the same drain, that everybody knows everything about everybody else?

Well, in truth it’s not like that. We’re all private people doing things most people don’t care about, unless we break the law. It was refreshing to read “A Doubter’s Almanac,” about an academic, living a life far different from my own, having life experiences equivalent to mine, that no one is interested in.

That’s life, a continuum of small moments.

But back to “Scary Old Sex.”

That’s what the first chapter, in fact a story, it’s a book of short stories, was all about. Not scary as in unwanted or untoward, but as in how do you meld your youthful desires with your aged body and persona? What happens when you’ve had enough life experiences that you don’t dream it gets better than this, but that this is all you’ve got.

And the truth is old people still want oral sex. And they’re still concerned with who’s on top and who comes first. And I’ll admit I got a bit squeamish reading, but I also couldn’t stop, I felt the writer was tapping into a reality I knew but could find nowhere in art.

And that’s when I went to my phone. I was intrigued by the author, Arlene Heyman. She’d trained as a writer, went to Bennington and gotten her MFA at Syracuse, but she’d chucked it and gone to medical school, she became a psychiatrist.

What kind of person does this?

A Jewish one.

I know, because I’m a member of the tribe. Our parents want us to achieve, our parents want us to be able to not only pay our own bills but provide for others. They don’t want us to wander into the wilderness on a whim, following our muse.

So I was intrigued, I wanted to know more about Ms. Feynman. Now in her sixties, she’d deprived us of her insightful work, had forgone an artistic career, in search of safety and comfort. Not that the world doesn’t need psychiatrists, I’m sure her patients benefited, but you can’t get this kind of insight and identification elsewhere. She’s one of a kind in the art world.

So I’m telling you to buy this book. Especially if you’re over sixty. Because you’ve got the wisdom and experience to understand it. The first spouse is never like the second, Feynman nails this. It’s not that you dislike the second, or are settling, it’s just DIFFERENT! You’re more understanding, more accepting and forgiving, and you don’t have the fantasy that your life will work out, that you’re entitled to be with Mr. or Ms. Right, you know it’s not a perfect match.

But you soldier on.

The people in “Scary Old Sex” soldier on. Even when their spouses die, even when they hit career roadblocks, even when they just can’t make it right. That’s what life’s about, perseverance, hanging in there long enough for not only good times, but wisdom.

So download a sample chapter to the device of your choice. I actually know people who read books on their phones, especially the new giant ones. It’s FREE! You’ll know soon enough whether “Scary Old Sex” is your cup of tea or not.

And if it is…

You can go to Barnes & Noble or the indie store of your choice and hope it’s in stock, how antiquated. Or you can even order a physical copy from Amazon, and if you’re a Prime member get it in two days.

Or you can have the book downloaded to your reading device of choice instantly.

That’s one of the benefits of the new economy.

So on one hand I’m telling you to get with it.

On the other I’m burdened by everything that happened to me in the past, the broken relationships, my upbringing, my losses and victories. I thought it would all make sense, I now know that it won’t. Everything so important to me will become meaningless soon, I told a twentysomething that our mutual friend Peter Benedek’s wife Barbara had written the “Big Chill”…

He’d never heard of the movie.

An iconic boomer flick if there ever was one, who can forget the intro with the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Nobody who saw it.

And that’s the essence of life, you don’t forget.

Then again, one of the characters in “Scary Old Sex” can’t get over the fact her husband cannot remember sex with his second wife, which he said was so good. As for his first… That was a disaster, which lasted twenty years, why did he match up with someone so inappropriate, was it because he was afraid of women?

I’m afraid of women.

I’ll leave it there.

That’s right, starting July 14th Lucian Grainge will be working at Amazon.

Screw the French, Lucian’s sick of carrying the company, growing Universal’s market share yet still having little to show for it. He wants to make the big bucks, he wants some real power, so he’s moving to Seattle.

Well, not really, he’ll still be based in L.A., relationships are king, and Jeff Bezos is counting on Lucian to make Amazon Music a powerhouse.

That’s right, you’ll get everything Spotify offers for free. Well, not really, it’s just that it will FEEL free, which has been the goal since Napster. It’ll be baked into Amazon Prime, which gives you short shipping and video and so many perks. Furthermore, Amazon is on the cutting edge with its Echo, you can call up a song right now, they just need someone with music business expertise to show them the path forward.

Lucian never bought the canard that there would be competitors on the retail side, Lucian knows that online one player ends up with 70% market share. And during this run-up to subscription, now that Spotify’s got 30 million paying, and Apple 11, it’s time to double-down and go for the big money.

There will be a sunset on free. Even YouTube is going that way, did you notice that Peter Chernin’s Fullscreen is gonna charge $5 a month for ad-free content? That’s the future, you’re gonna pay, you just don’t know it yet. It’s just a matter of when. And rather than be hampered by the shortsighted artists and the small margins and low cash reserves of Universal, Lucian believes he can have a larger impact and get it right with Amazon.

Amazon is not buying Tidal. And certainly not Pandora. Tidal was bought to be sold, but just like Pandora, no one wants it. That’s why Tim Westergren is back in power, they couldn’t sell the damn company, which operates in few territories providing a product that the industry hates to passive consumers. A recipe for death. Just like Rdio, the company they bought. Lucian’s a pro, unlike Tim, he’s got experience and gravitas, he’s who the artists will rally around.

Unlike Jimmy Iovine, who’s got a reputation for winning for himself. Sure, Jimmy can be fun, but you’ve got to sleep with one eye open, and if you can find a studio employing Beats headphones you probably have never heard of Sennheiser, Sony or AKG. Jimmy’s lost credibility, Lucian still has his.

The rumor that Amazon will buy Spotify is untrue. It’s not Bezos’s style, he likes to grow products in-house, and after the failure of the Fire phone not only has quality control improved, but Jeff is now hands-on, sure, he cares about rockets and the “Washington Post,” but not as much as his baby. Amazon Web Services drives the bottom line, but on the consumer side, it’s free shipping and entertainment that bring people in. Bezos, unlike so many techies, understands the power of music. After all, he single-handedly tried to bring Layne Staley back from the brink.

You didn’t know that, but that’s how Bezos operates. One day you’re clueless, the next day you’re addicted to whatever Jeff is selling you.

So Lucian went for the power and the stock. He who has cash is king, he has leverage. And although Apple has deep pockets, Tim Cook is so busy with financial shenanigans Steve Jobs abhorred, selling bonds and granting dividends, that insiders joke that Apple is toast, there’s no cutting edge there, just endless variations on previous products.

And the abomination known as Apple Music. Which is so counterintuitive as to be nearly unusable. Amazon’s got 1-Click, Steve Jobs licensed it for the Apple Store, Bezos knows that usability is king, he won’t make Apple’s mistake. Furthermore, it appears that voice control will drive listening in the future and Echo is on the bleeding edge, it’s the market leader, it made Sonos blink, Lucian got a demo two years back and has been secretly meeting with Bezos ever since. Stunning what you can do when your boss is in France.

So, there’s the usual package, salary and not only bonuses, but stock options, which make Hollywood pay look laughable. And don’t forget, Lucian started Universal’s tech incubator, he may have worked in the trenches, started out on the streets finding bands, but unlike so many of the old acts on his labels he’s not married to the past, he knows that change happens.

Launch date of the service was planned for Labor Day, to beat the new iPhones to market, but it looks like it’ll be more like Thanksgiving. Although Universal licenses are a no-brainer and Warner is already on board, Doug Morris still has a hard-on for Lucian, for being squeezed out of Universal, Doug’s dragging his feet. But there’s nothing that money can’t buy, and the advance will be so big that Sony corporate’s bottom line will be affected. There’s no truth to the rumor that Amazon will provide security for Sony, eliminating the possibility of hacking, but there is truth that Sony offered to sell its entire music unit to the Seattle behemoth. But Bezos only wants it if he can have the movie studio too and leave the electronics out and it all became too complicated so expect a straight licensing deal.

My sources say the introduction will feature Amy Winehouse. Don’t laugh, holograms are the next big thing, they’re going on tour, you read the internet, don’t you? Just like Jeff went on “60 Minutes” and stole the holiday season with talk of drones, the Winehouse hologram will be the talk of the holiday season.

As for the drones… They will be named after musical acts. Just like Richard Branson had cheeky names for his Virgin planes. Imagine getting your soap delivered by the Jefferson Airplane drone! You know Paul Kantner was always into spaceships and the future, he came up with the idea, but he’ll never get the credit, since he passed away prematurely.

So it comes down to Amazon, Apple and Spotify. Spotify’s the most nimble player, but it has no deep pockets, read Brad Stone’s “Everything Store” book, what Bezos does is enter your sphere, underprice you and then force you to sell. So, Spotify might end up with Amazon yet. And this could be attractive to Bezos, since it’s well-known that Daniel Ek and his company are on the cutting edge of algorithms, providing what people want to hear via machine learning. This is what Amazon specializes in, that’s how it got rid of human beings and sold more books, via algorithms. But Bezos doesn’t want to pay today’s price, he wants a more realistic valuation.

But watch out. Not only did Bezos squeeze Diapers.com, he squeezed Zappos too. And he neutered Best Buy. And don’t forget that Wal-Mart has been hurt by the Amazon revolution, it’s Jeff’s world and we just live in it.

And it’s gonna get bigger.

You don’t think that Lucian would jump for a music service only, do you?

Don’t forget, Amazon is building its own delivery system. Lucian plans to sell this to the touring industry, it’ll be Amazon that trucks your equipment and stage to its next location, the deal with Tait Towers is just waiting for ink.

And no one can do sponsorship and marketing like Amazon. Just imagine, your next box from the retailer will feature a picture of Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber. But not Taylor Swift, the country doyenne turned pop princess has gone deep with Apple. The truth is she’s about reached her limit with Max Martin, she’s convinced Jimmy to come out of retirement for her next LP, she wants to go for more of a rock feel, it’s being called her “Bella Donna” moment, she wants to assuage her guilt for messing up her duet with Stevie Nicks on the Grammys. But you know Taytay never uses only one producer, so Dre himself is gonna give her that inner city vibe she so desires, you know she loves hip-hop.

It’s all internet all the time baby. And if you’ve got status, power and relationships, even at this late date you can jump ship, you can play with the techies, if you’ve got the gift of gab and the success to back it up, which Lucian does.

But the deal is not exclusive! Lucian can work in the event space, which Amazon does not inhabit and has no plans to. Turns out Lucian will be the third leg in Irving Azoff and Tim Leiweke’s Oak View Group. You could never understand what that company did? That’s because they were waiting for Lucian to come on board! They’re gonna give Phil Anschutz a run for his money, the goal is to drive down the price of AEG and then steal it.

We’ll see.

We’ll also see who ends up running Universal. I hear there’s been talk of taking Craig Kallman from Atlantic, since they poached John Janick for Interscope, to replace Jimmy, but everyone believes Monte will get the gig.

But the power is no longer with the labels. Music is just a pawn in the techies’ game. Where transparency reigns and fairness has a toehold. Since Amazon has such deep pockets, 80% of streaming revenue will go back to rights holders, and Lucian’s squeezing the labels to pay the acts 50% of net. See, wait long enough and it all works out.

For Lucian anyway.

But for you and me too! We have to pay $120 a year to stream via Spotify, for that same dough with Amazon we not only get music, but movies/TV and fast shipping! It’s a no-brainer, Amazon wins. Don’t they always?

Yes, I still subscribe, I have since 1969. And I still haven’t gotten over the lack of a fold, never mind moving to New York and ultimately going slick.

But this binding issue is the last straw.

What killed “Rolling Stone”?

The refusal to regenerate, it got old with its audience, as opposed to MTV, which jettisoned the VJs and continued to play to the same 12-24 demo. You could still pay attention after aging out, but MTV was no longer targeting you.

Jann Wenner was the techie of his day, a Jeff Bezos-like figure who instead of starting an online bookstore started a magazine, figuring he could do it better than the established outlets which featured a few reviews if they had space for the music revolution at all. And in “Rolling Stone” you found all the news you were interested in, not only about musicians, but politics, about the culture, it was the bible of the younger generation. And with its peaks of Hunter Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and his and Timothy Crouse’s coverage of the 1972 election the magazine earned respect and with the breaking of the Patty Hearst story “Rolling Stone” toppled the establishment, it was where you went to find out what was going on.

And then Jann Wenner took his eye off the ball. The magazine had always gone through financial ups and downs, but now Jann was more interested in being a man about town than an outsider poking those set in their ways. Happens all the time, once you gain approval you go for the victory lap, but the truth is there’s no there there, the rich and famous club is a deep dark canyon where everybody’s looking over your shoulder to see if there’s someone more worthy and looking back over their shoulder to see if they’re gonna be replaced. And they are, the fame never lasts, oftentimes the riches don’t either. And the truth is the parties and people are frequently just as boring as those in your own neighborhood, the only difference being you can’t get in.

This is a dirty little secret of society, which you think Jann would want to reveal. But then he purchased “Us” and that took care of his financial problems and then he turned his publication over to people without names who carried on the tradition.

The game was always the same. A little gossip, some music news, some reviews and some features. It’s just that it became formulaic, like a band recording the same ten tracks over and over again, only with different titles.

And certain artists were canonized and nothing bad could be said about them. And the fans of these bands had long stopped reading and the younger generation couldn’t care less. And then “Blender” lied about its circulation and “Rolling Stone” cut the length of its reviews in response and all the gravitas was thrown out the window. “Rolling Stone” was the Howard Stern of its day, there was enough room to stretch out as long as you wanted to.

And you read the stories.

Sure, the music changed, it became a lot less interesting, players no longer drive the culture. Where were the musicians when North Carolina cracked down on the LGBT Community? Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg raised a ruckus, but the artists were silent, because not only are they uninformed doofuses, they’re afraid of alienating a potential audience member… The stars of yore were alienating entire communities willy-nilly, that’s what being a rock star was all about!

Then came the UVA controversy. Credit the WaPo for poking holes/breaking the story, it just didn’t sound right. From here on in when it sounds too good to be true, when it just doesn’t add up, I’m gonna question it, that’s what Snopes is for! Not that this is a badge of honor for RS, but what’s worse is no heads rolled, certainly not at first. Jann supported the writer and it wasn’t until months later that the editor was ousted.

And now there’s shrinkage. “Rolling Stone” is only one downsizing away from becoming a pamphlet. Must be an advertising crisis. Then again, magazines go into death spirals all the time, they hemorrhage readers, cut costs, lose advertisers and go down the drain.

As will happen to the “Stone.” It ceased being a must-read years ago. It missed the internet completely. Seems that every established brand in the music industry did, the labels and MTV included. Revolution comes from outside. I don’t think anybody in the younger generation relies on “Rolling Stone,” if they read it at all.

It’s probably unsavable.

But first they came for the record stores.

Now they’ve come for “Rolling Stone.”

As for the vinyl revival… There’s an over-trumpeted phenomenon if there ever was one. It’s like saying there’s a furniture revival because of “Antiques Roadshow.” What next, the return of Stanley Steamers? Vent windows? Why is it media always lauds revivals of the past when the truth is no one’s got a deck to play a cassette, never mind an 8-track, and what’s in the rearview mirror is there for a reason.

“Rolling Stone” lost the plot.

But to see it fade away in front of my very eyes is sad and creepy.

It won’t be long before it’s a website like “Paste,” a vestige of what once was, when music drove the culture and it was us versus them, before everybody wanted to be them, just like Jann Wenner. Let that be a lesson for you, once you sell out it’s only a matter of time before you become irrelevant and die.

So, so long to long afternoons spent mesmerized by the words of musicians.

So long to the belief that music ran the world.

And so long to the canard that “Rolling Stone” matters.

It doesn’t.

If only it took their vaunted Zimmerman’s advice.

He not busy being born is busy dying.

“Difference between a Saddle Stitch and Perfect Bind”

“Major Companies Press North Carolina on Law Curbing Protections From Bias”

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free

Did I tell you I went to Jim Morrison’s gravesite?

Weird scenes inside the gold mine indeed.

I have no idea if Pere Lachaise cemetery was west of our hotel or not. I just plotted it out on the Metro map and went. I insist on using public transportation, I like to experience a city from the viewpoint of its inhabitants, I like to figure out the game of the grid, I feel triumphant when I get to my destination. Although I was flummoxed the day before on my way from the Pompidou to the Louis Vuitton, I was deep in the bowels of the city and I couldn’t figure out which direction to take and I didn’t want to be late, but I made my best guess and eventually made it not only to my destination but the jitney that took me to the museum on time.

But this was a day later. I was surprised Felice wanted to go. She ultimately said the cemetery was the highlight of last year’s Paris trip. I recommend it.

So the Metro is underground and then it’s aboveground, in a neighborhood you’d prefer not to live in, tourists usually only see the spiffed-up parts of a city, ones peppered with cafes and attractions, whereas this looked like a place people actually lived.

But we were in search of the dead.

Not that cemeteries usually creep me out. There was one down the street when I grew up, I used to ride my bike there all the time, it was peaceful. But as I get closer to the end of the line I can see myself in residence, I don’t often go, my mother has never been to my father’s gravesite since his burial, I went, it was really creepy, his name was on the stone but to think he was buried below in a deteriorated state…it was him but not him and it’s almost like he was standing next to me reflecting how bizarre it was, my father would have booked, he was not one for nostalgia, to wallow in not only the past but down times, he always put a smile on his face and marched forward, which is probably why I’m just the opposite.

So there’s a conflict as to which stop to get off at. But the great thing about the Metro is no stop is that far from another. We took the wrong one, and walked down the avenue, following the bars, looking for the entrance. Google Maps help so much. Do you know the blue dot moves even when you don’t have internet access? You’re always worried about that overseas, the data charges, especially with an iPhone, which eats up bandwidth when you think it’s asleep.

And one thing my research had told me was to buy a map, which seemed superfluous, what with the phone and so much online help, but it was the wisest decision I made, without it I wouldn’t have found a single grave, it’s an endless maze of paths, some paved, some not, a hillside of stones, big and small, with no delineation as to who is legendary and who is not.

Jim Morrison is off the beaten path. Halfway up the hill, not on a main drag, he’s in a cluster of headstones, you wonder how they fit all the bodies in. You expect something special, but if there weren’t the flowers and token gifts left by admirers you’d have no idea someone important was buried there.

And then we stumbled into so many people we knew. Claude Chabrol was perched overlooking the city. I used to see his flicks when reading subtitles separated intellectuals from the hoi polloi, before everybody stopped going to the movies and the only people in the theatre were teenagers and those who did not get the memo.

And Oscar Wilde reminded me of that hot night in the seventies, when I went with Fredda to see someone do his act at USC.

And then you get into it, you want to hit as many of the highlights as possible. The adventure is in finding them, but there’s satisfaction when you see their name engraved in stone. Whether it be Edith Piaf or Alice B. Toklas, Marcel Proust or Honore de Balzac. Pam is criticized for interring Jim’s body in this foreign graveyard, but you spend some time there and you think you want to be buried there too, that it’s a special place.

But before we were done, after we’d climbed to the top, seen the memorials to the war dead, viewed a funeral, I insisted on seeing Morrison’s grave once again.

And I’d be lying if I told you it was a thrilling moment, a supernatural escapade wherein I channeled the rock god. Rather I felt almost nothing, other than his death was a waste, having died at 27, having failed to have years of experiences, never mind grace us with more music, it’s too young to have such a misadventure, live long enough and you’re stunned how young that is. It made me truly grateful that I was still alive, that I’d endured the trials and tribulations, had a life, because it ends for everyone and then you’re truly done.

It’s the end.