No one is bigger than the system.

You may think you rise above, that you’re better than the rest of us, know more, are entitled to more, but that’s not true. Furthermore, the nature of human beings is they want to tear you down to their level if they think you’ve gotten too big for your britches.

Bill O’Reilly lost contact with the working man, the same person he said he was speaking to in his show. And what a show that was, one in which he said he slung it straight, but if you disagreed with him you couldn’t get a word in edgewise and were labeled a nitwit. Do we blame O’Reilly for our present national condition, one in which facts don’t matter and rational discourse in search of truth is out the window? Yes, along with the rest of the right wing blowhards who should realize if you live in a glass house, you shouldn’t throw stones.

Like Rush Limbaugh, who lost his hearing from overusing opiates after denigrating drug addicts. Turns out right wingers O.D. just like Democrats, but for a long time the Republicans did not agree, not until their kids started dying and they became compassionate. And expect them to come around re global warming and gay rights and so much more. That’s right, Democratic/left wing principles win in the end, because they’re people-oriented as opposed to money-oriented, they’re more about love than hate. Did you see the WaPo story saying Trump voters pulled the lever because of racism? I believe that, hell it even exists in the institutions of higher learning, wherein Asians are excluded. You work hard to get ahead and then those in power don’t like it, they want to keep you down. And Bill O’Reilly, despite constantly saying he was defending the little man, was doing anything but.

What do these people want?

To exorcise the government from their lives, to eliminate taxes so the corporations can rape and pillage with no restrictions, not worrying about safety whatsoever, so you can sit on your porch self-satisfiedly believing you’re free, come on.

Yup, that’s the truth. Send me all the hate mail you want.

Of course the issues are complicated. The left wingers agitating for bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. are delusional, no one wants to pay 3k for a flat screen and the truth is most of the jobs go to robots anyway. And isn’t it funny how Trump has picked up this call, all this America First garbage, not knowing there’s no such thing as an American car company, that we live in a global economy no matter what you think.

But all over the world the downtrodden, the losers, are up in arms. The uneducated want to return to what once was. And I ask you how good that era was, when African-Americans were second-class citizens and automobiles had no safety features and the government was not making sure drugs were safe. Yup, that’s where I want to go back to, the fifties, when whites ruled, smokers died and tobacco companies denied the harm of their product with impunity. Who turned things around? The denigrated tort lawyers and the government.

So we do have a problem, with automation putting people out of work, that needs to be addressed, but not by giving paeans to coal while retail workers are losing their jobs in droves.

Fox News was the anti. A home for all those left out along with the corporatists trying to shore up their fortunes. For years the left wing was decrying bias, despite the head-turning slogan that the outlet was fair and balanced.

Blame Rupert Murdoch. Who has done so much to ruin this world. He bought the “Wall Street Journal,” the business newspaper of record, and turned it into the editorial page 24/7, eliminating the business coverage and injecting biased news coverage, albeit brief. He created the right wing alternative, but since he’s rich he’s untouchable. Actually, one of the reasons they fired O’Reilly was because Murdoch wants to own all of Sky and he’s worried the British won’t let him.

Sky? You don’t know what that is?

I’m not gonna tell you. Other than to inform you it’s your duty as a citizen to be informed, all the information is at your fingertips. And you’ve got to read left and right. And the “New York Times” prints the best of both every day, just go to their app, but the “Times” has been neutralized by the right wing naysayers and you’re not gonna hear a contrary voice on Fox News, ain’t gonna happen, unless it’s some apologist wimp like the recently departed Alan Colmes.

Society is shifting. Used to be you had two drinks at lunch, when was the last time there was alcohol at a business meal, I haven’t seen it before six o’clock. And gays can get married. And sexual harassment is a no-no. Not only amongst left wing women, but all women.

And what’s worse, like Cosby, O’Reilly was a serial offender, in a workplace where if you spoke up you got fired or your path to the top evaporated. But then Gretchen Carlson spoke up, it’s the rugged individuals we depend upon to right the ship, and after being labeled a no-goodnik gold digger opportunist other women came out of the woodwork, it turned out what she was saying was true.

And then Fox lost Megyn Kelly, who was afraid her future would be affected by the boys club atmosphere and that’s what we’ve been fighting since the sixties, the boys club. One wherein where you went to school who your parents are what teams you played on and who you know trumps every other attribute. No wonder women couldn’t triumph, they weren’t born with a penis, they couldn’t snap towels with the guys in the locker room.

And this atmosphere still exists, we’ve got oh-so-far to go. To the point where men need to learn to self-check, to say no, to escape the groupthink and do the right thing. Al Campanis was sacrificed at the altar of racial equality and now Bill O’Reilly is being sacrificed at the altar of sexual equality. Sorry, it doesn’t matter that everybody else is doing it, NOBODY SHOULD BE DOING IT!

Credit the younger Murdoch generation, who are going to inherit the monolith, they saw that O’Reilly was tainting the brand, and today the brand is everything.

The brand supersedes truth, you believe in the corporation because the individuals have become shills for it. Whether it be musicians selling out to the highest bidder or workers afraid to unionize for fear they’ll lose their jobs.

Everybody in America is afraid, except for blowhards like O’Reilly, who believe if they just yell loud enough they can win.

Just because you raise your voice that does not mean you are right.

Just because Mercer and the Kochs fund right wing causes that does not mean Soros is just as bad. No, that’s false equivalency. Is the left wing flawed? OF COURSE! But it’s absent the sex and financial scandals, at least to the degree of the right, because if you act this way on the left you’re excommunicated, if you act this way on the right you’re embraced.

But maybe no longer.

O’Reilly is a footnote. He’s already in the rearview mirror. No one’s gonna give him a platform. Because it’s one thing to spew hate, it’s another to live the hate, to be a sexual harasser, speech is cheap, actions have costs.

So, so long Bill O’Reilly. You outlived your era, the internet and the media revealed your heinous behavior, you can’t hide the facts in today’s world.

You’re the poster boy for everything that’s wrong with this country. And now you’ve been sidelined.

Will you admit your fault? America loves a repenter, embraces him or her with open arms.

But that would require you to take a long hard look in the mirror, see that you’re part of the problem as opposed to the solution.

We’re all in it together folks. The sooner we can all agree on the same facts and come to conclusions that truly benefit us all, or at least the majority, the better.

But no, we live in a world of chaos, where those who do the work every day are eliminated from the equation and having brains and being fair are faults, not attributes.

The “New York Times” has the most boots on the ground. It bends over backward to be fair, even if it occasionally fails, hell, it even has a public editor looking out for the reader, but in a world where ignorance is king, where those with power want to keep it, the uninformed are kept that way, through subterfuge and bread and circuses.

But not today. Today the “Times” brought O’Reilly down.

Chalk one up for the good guys.

You’ve got to buy it to hear it.

The buzz started last night, I was getting e-mail, how Joe Grushecky and Bruce Springsteen had collaborated on a new protest song, entitled “That’s What Makes Us Great.” There were even lyrics!

So I woke up this morning ready to click to hear…

And I found news stories all over the web, directing you to Grushecky’s site, in order to purchase a download.

A download? What, is Grushecky living in 2003? The iTunes Store is dying, streaming is rescuing the music business, just check the RIAA statistics all you on demand haters out there, and Grushecky is keeping his music behind a paywall?

For the uninitiated, Joe Grushecky is a Pittsburgh lifer who put out a highly-hyped album with his band the Iron City Houserockers entitled “Have A Good Time but Get Out Alive!” back in 1980. I bought it. Joe’s voice could have been better, as could have the songs, but there was an undeniable energy contained, I’ve paid attention to Joe ever since, who continued to play music while teaching school, collaborating with blue collar rocker Springsteen now and again.

And now this…

Publicity only lasts a moment in today’s world. What happened this morning is old news by tonight. If the light shines upon you, you must be ready to deliver, your product must be available.

And the enemy is not piracy, but obscurity. It’s hard for household names to get traction, to get heard. No one’s got any time. So you hope that the stars align and people will check out your tune.

Yes, one tune, that’s all we can handle. If we like that, we’ll dig deeper, for more. Which is why you must have a plethora of material on streaming services, on YouTube, so those interested can learn more, but don’t squander your opportunity in the marketplace by putting out an album, which comes out once with publicity in a short window which then evaporates unless your sole goal is to get it up on streaming services so people can check it out sometime in the future.

As for YouTube, you must put all new songs there immediately. You want to cover all bases. Forget those talking about the “value gap.” First and foremost, listens on music-only streaming services are now eclipsing those on YouTube, if you’re fighting YouTube you’re probably still fighting Napster and KaZaA. Furthermore, some people will never pay, at least not at first, give them a chance to sample your wares.

And monitor your social media feeds. I tweeted Grushecky all of the above and what did I hear…

NOTHING!

When you’re in sell/promotion mode, you, or someone on your team if you’re a big shot, should be reading and responding to all comers. People expect this today, everybody’s important, we’re all on the same level, ENGAGE!

I’ve got no idea whether “That’s What Makes Us Great” is bad or good. But one thing’s for sure, today I wanted to hear it. Tomorrow?

Almost definitely not, unless the buzz is deafening, which is doubtful, since most people will not pay and the media will be on to something else.

Feel lucky if someone wants to check out your art. There are many avenues of exploitation/income if people listen and care. Don’t be stuck in the last century, expecting people to pay before they listen, worried about piracy, yelling at the new distribution models like Grandpa Simpson. Harness the tools, don’t decry them!

Disney cut ties with PewDiePie. Fox News is about to dismiss Bill O’Reilly. Weren’t they supposed to be able to harness the power of the internet to supersede their corporate overlords?

Wrong.

The internet is controlled by a small cabal of companies. You can utilize their tools to get ahead, but only if you play by their rules, which they might change at any time. But without the corporate behemoths on your side, you’re positively moribund.

Of course there are exceptions, like Chance the Rapper, then again, he got 500k for a two week exclusive at Apple.

So let’s drill down. We’ve been hearing for six months that fake news is rampant and the press is impotent. Yet the “Wall Street Journal” took down PewDiePie and the “New York Times” tackled Bill 0’Reilly. Just because Hillary lost that does not mean the mainstream media always gets it wrong. Furthermore, the recently published book “Shattered” delineates how Hillary herself decimated her campaign, maybe it wasn’t just that the takedowns in the media were ignored.

So Bill O’Reilly is making beaucoup bucks for Fox. Only problem is he’s a serial harasser. Sexual harassment, anti-Semitism, these are third rail behaviors that cannot be outrun in corporate America. Advertisers flee. No Fortune 500 company wants to be the new United Airlines. Customers start agitating and companies pull sponsorship and the purveyor pulls the plug. Money only goes so far when you’re a public company. They love their profits, but they can be shamed into doing the right thing. Kinda like that company that raised the price of EpiPens…

You see if the light is shined upon bad behavior, if you’re in the media crosshairs, you’re doomed, just ask Theranos. And Theranos was brought down by the WSJ, it’s not only the NYT that can decimate your career. And sure, a news item can get started on a blog, most of which are now monetized, the boy in his basement pontificating and having impact is passe, but it’s only when the big boys glom on that there are consequences.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The internet was supposed to level the playing field, give us all a chance.

But you can’t get on Top Forty radio if you’re not signed to a major label, or aligned with one, that’s right, gain any traction and the major will come up with an offer. You can’t go it alone. Everybody online keeps telling you you can, but that’s an empty echo chamber.

So the internet is run by four companies, Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook. Go into competition with them and they’ll imitate you, are you seeing what Instagram is doing with Snapchat? And Instagram is an interesting story, it was sold to Facebook. Now the goal is to sell out to one of the big four, and they’ll threaten you if you won’t. Amazon went to war with Diapers.com, which they bought and recently shut down, and Amazon gave an ultimatum to Zappos, saying it would go into competition with the shoe company, and Zappos made a deal with the retail behemoth too.

So Glenn Beck gets canned and goes independent and has almost no impact, he’s no longer part of the national discussion.

Bill O’Reilly loses his perch and…

No one else will hire him. Hell, even Dan Rather couldn’t get another big gig with a much less heinous faux pas. Will Bill’s books continue to top the best seller list? Will he lecture to his minions and be heard?

On a fraction of the level he is now, because he’s losing his microphone.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are irrelevant and there is no middle class. Meanwhile, you keep thinking you have a chance when you don’t, the game is rigged.

You’re sitting at home making music on Pro Tools. Putting it out on Spotify via CD Baby, spamming everyone you know via social media and ending up nowhere. You just can’t get heard, you need to be aligned with one of the big boys to do that.

And if you’re building your own business via YouTube advertising you might get killed when the video giant changes its algorithm. David Pakman used to survive on YouTube ad payments, now he’s on Patreon begging for donorship. As for Patreon, it’s where niche players go to survive. Not bad if you can make a living, but you’ve got no social impact, no footprint, you’re a footnote.

For the past fifteen years we’ve seen internet phenomena which give the sole proprietor/artist hope. There was Radiohead with “In Rainbows,” Amanda Palmer on Kickstarter, PSY on YouTube, but none of them were replicable, they ended up stunts, footnotes in internet history.

So what we’ve learned here is you live and die by the sword of the big boys. And you can even vote for the renegade, but he’ll turn his back on you when he gets in office.

And nobody is bigger than the institution.

And the institution can fathom no hits to its reputation. Roger Ailes had to go. When star Megyn Kelly leaves because of sexual harassment, Fox wakes up and realizes it must protect itself, comes to the conclusion that Bloviating Bill is expendable.

And without the imprimatur of the major, O’Reilly is toast. Just like Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, which left oppressor Interscope to ultimately sign with Sony after testing the independent waters.

Everything we were told was wrong. That the internet would topple the old, slow, ignorant players.

No, they just became more powerful.

Broken Halos – Spotify

Broken Halos – YouTube

I could listen to this guy sing the phone book.

Assuming they still delivered those tomes to my doorstep.

We live in a distraction economy. If Jesus came back, there’s no doubt most in attendance would be glued to their mobile phones, checking up on what was happening in their personal lives. No matter how riveting what’s happening on stage might be, the audience can’t peel its eyes away from their screens. But then there are acts so riveting you don’t want to look down, you don’t want to miss a moment, not because there’s dancing or projection but because you feel you’re in the presence of genius, a musician channeling truth from the heavens. You don’t want to miss a note, because before long the act will leave the stage and you’ll be left all alone, empty.

This is the way it used to be. When music drove the culture and the best and the brightest picked up an instrument, or became A&R people, promoters or agents, just to get closer to the sound, the magic. How come Chris Stapleton can tread this path when seemingly no one else can? How can this aged overweight bearded denizen be our savior in a nation of false prophets?

It’s not like he’s been hidden. He wrote songs, he had bands, and then he hooked up with Dave Cobb and the zeitgeist was captured. Suddenly, we were all clued in. Never underestimate the power of a producer. Not someone who writes the songs, but someone who can get the act’s best self down on wax.

I’m not sure what kind of music this is. Because it sounds like nothing else, on the radio or off. What they call rock today is noisy and aggressive, it’s not so much in the pocket as an assault on your being, its purveyors caught up in the trappings, the tattoos and the leather, as opposed to the music. And the country hit parade is peopled with those stuck in the seventies, with a sound that’s a retread of that era’s AOR. And hip-hop is the sound of the street, but it’s sans melody, it’s less soulful than intellectual, sure, you feel the beat, but it appeals more to your head than the heart.
And then we’ve got Chris Stapleton.

“Broken Halos” is like Skynyrd, if that band slowed down and was more Nashville than Florida.

“Broken Halos” has got the outsider vibe of Steve Earle, but it’s closer to rock than country, it’s less something you play in a bar drinking beer than play as you’re rolling down the highway, with the windows down, nodding your head as the song provides the soundtrack to what you see through the windshield.

“Broken Halos” sounds like nothing on the hit parade, in any format, but it’s somehow more immediate and soulful and touching than any of those cuts.

What is music? Is it passive? That’s what drove Pandora, people listening in the background. Me, I want my tunes more foreground, I want them to be my life, I’m looking for life rings to grab onto as they pull me to a better land where I’m understood and happy, an alternative universe where all the b.s. of everyday life, the duplicity, the getting ahead, is nonexistent. A land where the front rows are not peopled by hedge funders because they’re out of the loop. That’s right, when music moved from AM to FM, most were out of the loop. And then MTV united us in song and now the commentators say we should love the pop, but unlike the music of yore it’s a sideshow that requires little attention.

And then you hear something like “Broken Halos.”

It’s slight. Absent the twists and turns and explosions that Max Martin employs. The song is simple. But the delivery is over the top, without trying to be so. Chris Stapleton opens his mouth and truth comes out, he’s not trying to impress us, he’s just doing what he’s supposed to. It’s the antidote to the manipulated music of today, with its multiple writers and remixes. It feels like there’s a band in the studio and they just rolled tape.

I’ve seen my share of broken halos, bands that I used to live for that sold out to the man, signed up for the sponsorships, live for the privates.

Angels came down and delivered me and then they disappeared, not only Jimi and Janis, but so many more.

And Chris Stapleton is resonating. It’s not like he’s a sideshow, he’s become the main show, he’s the most revered man in Music City, and you don’t have to live in Nashville to like him.

Is this a harbinger of what’s to come or a one-off?

I’m not sure.

But in an era where no one can follow up the hit, Stapleton is not scared by his success, he’s continuing to plow the path, going where his instincts tell us as opposed to the social media/mainstream grinder, which demands you give it what it wants, even though no one really wants that.

I can’t turn “Broken Halos” off. Not because it’s such a good song, but because it makes me feel good, alive, reminds me of what once and hopefully can be once more.