Maybe that’s why J. Cole is so successful.

Newspapers are functioning on an old paradigm. Wherein PR people pitch stories and what ends up appearing in the arts section is hype. There’s no news there. It’s all in the other sections, National, Business and Sports. If I want the facts, I can go to the internet. I’m looking for the spin, someone to ferret through the detritus and come up with the jewels.

But racing through today’s NYT Arts section quickly so Felice could do the puzzle, her weekend addiction, I got hooked on a story about J. Cole. Which is hype for his HBO special.

I read it because I know Cole’s success more than his music, I thought there might be some nuggets there.

And there were. How he retreated from fame to North Carolina, tried to become the opposite of the character so many desire, with wine, women, song and automobiles.

And they talk about him playing hoops uninterrupted.

But the cops raided his abode. Cole posits looking for drugs. He believes a neighbor tipped them. Even though essentially nothing was found.

That’s when Cole wrote the six songs.

All of Cole’s albums have gone platinum, maybe this is why.

Art is best when based upon inspiration. Talk to anybody who creates. It’s when the heavens open, the lightning bolt comes down and you’re zapped, you’ve got something to say.

But that’s not the way it’s been for oh-so-long. All the music today is massaged. That’s what made music a hotter medium that movies or TV, it’s why Warner Records built HBO, never mind the Warner cable system. Because when done right music captures the zeitgeist.

Keith Richards conjured the riff to “Satisfaction” in a dream.

Some of the greatest songs in history were written in fifteen minutes.

And the people can tell, listeners know, there’s some indescribable nugget encased that they just can’t resist, that they must get closer to.

Which the digital/internet age should foster. Not only are the means of production cheap, they’re at your fingertips 24/7, as is distribution. There are no hurdles, it’s only our minds that our restricting us.

So get out and live, raise your antenna. When you least expect it, when you think you’re just going about your business, you will be inspired.

And it’s a solo event. Kinda like the Beatles, most of their songs were not joint affairs, McCartney or Lennon just tweaked what their partner came up with.

And there’s nothing wrong with tweaks, just don’t smooth the rough edges, don’t eliminate what hooks people to begin with.

And we are just people. We’re in search of humanity. When you channel truth we resonate and feel connected in a lonely world. That’s why we love our musical stars, their ability to do this.

Do it.

“That lack of representation, Mr. Cole said, can lead to potentially catastrophic misunderstandings. In March of last year, police raided the Sheltuh; Mr. Cole believes a neighbor was fearful it was a drug den. Security footage that captures the raid is used in the HBO special, showing dozens of heavily armed men forcibly entering the building only to find, well, nothing. (A ticket was issued for a small amount of marijuana found on the premises, he said.)

‘I wrote six songs that weekend,’ Mr. Cole noted wryly – they included the powerful “Neighbors,” from the new album.’

“J. Cole, the Platinum Rap Dissident, Steps Back From the Spotlight”

P.S. This article is hype, but it’s so much more. Proving that I’m still looking, wading through the junk looking for the essence. People are still looking to be touched by greatness, inspiration, we never give up hope, we never stop turning the corner, we’re waiting for you to deliver for us.

Am I the only one freaked out about this?

I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was only nine years old, but I was plenty scared. I remember visiting my grandparents in Peabody, Mass., lying on the sloping porch of their three story abode, asking my mother what was gonna happen.

She said if they dropped the bomb we’d all die, and not to worry about it.

Is that the genesis of all my problems right there? Because this only made me more afraid.

And I haven’t been so afraid this century. Haven’t been afraid for decades. Yes, 9/11 happened, but that was in New York, first stop for Europeans, a bit more of a hop, skip and a jump from the Middle East, but the centralized city, Manhattan, makes a perfect target.

But if they’re lobbing bombs from North Korea, L.A.’s the place.

Don’t tell me to be unafraid. It doesn’t work. Just like in the instance of my mom above.

I laugh when I hear people in the heartland give up their rights in the name of protection from terrorism, the assailants are gonna go there last. They’re gonna start in the big cities, where they have the most impact.

So I’m driving on the freeway this morning and they’re going on about the Mother Of All Bombs. ISIS is comprised of bad guys, I get it. But aren’t we pissing them off by doing this, the ones who survive? Aren’t we imploring them to commit acts of terrorism, poison our water, kill our children? That’s the first thing that went through my mind, revenge. Some of these people have been pissed for centuries, they can hold a grudge. And the truth is no one can keep America safe, it just can’t be done.

And now comes this brinksmanship with North Korea. Just six months ago they were debating whether Trump should be trusted with the button and it seemed a distant question, we’ve had Glasnost, ABM treaties, no one’s gonna drop a bomb. But then Putin acted with impunity, annexing Crimea after an Olympics only one step away from Hitler’s 1936 edition, and then Trump fires Tomahawk missiles into Syria and all I can think of is Naomi Klein and “The Shock Doctrine.” When there’s war, the character of the country changes, the administration enacts restrictions, rams through an agenda they would not be able to do in peacetime. This is what the U.S. does around the world, Democrats and Republicans, it’s just that most Americans are so busy celebrating their belief they live in the greatest country in the world that they’ve got no idea what is happening outside our borders, what heinous acts are being committed.

And then there’s the involvement of Russia in our elections, and irrelevant of whether Trump’s election is valid or not, it makes you wonder who is in control.

As for Trump’s supporters, the Republican voters, I’m coming to believe the rank and file’s defense of him has little to do with policy and everything to do with hatred of Hillary. Give the right wing credit, they’ve spent decades denigrating Clinton and the “New York Times” and the end result is both have been neutralized, they’re holding the losing end of the stick. And I don’t care whether you’re a lefty or a righty, but the issue isn’t fake news, but the fact that we can’t agree on the facts, whatever they might be. We’ve all got different news sources, that’s the story of the election, which also taught us not to trust the techies, who got it all wrong, their statistical modeling told us Hillary would win and she didn’t. So it’s every man for himself in America these days, and that’s positively scary.

For years I avoided television news. For years I skimmed through the international section of the newspaper. Now it’s like a wreck on the highway, I can’t peel my eyes away. And I wonder if the attention is warranted. And I wonder what impact I can have. Are we in a national crisis and it’s all hands on deck, fighting the administration’s takeover? Or is it worse than that, and we’re skewing towards military rule? After all, Trump defers to his Generals.

And don’t get your knickers in a twist, don’t make this us versus them, right versus left, we’re all people and we’ve got more in common than that which separates us. We all want opportunity and community, we all want the pursuit of happiness. But we’ve been so busy looking for points of difference that we are divided and no longer communicating while a Washington, D.C. that was out of touch to begin with is now circling the wagons and taking over.

Or is it?

My grandfather came from Russia. He escaped the czar. Some of his brothers and sisters went to Palestine, one left behind ended up in the Russian army.

He got a job in a tannery. He joined the Workmen’s Circle, because he believed in the power of the laborer, the power of the people, he believed the average working Joe should be heard and understood.

And with the money he saved he purchased two three story apartment buildings that his son ultimately labeled slums. But he and his wife continued to live there. They put a son and a daughter through college. Another son O.D.’ed after getting hurt in the factory and never recovering from back pain, he overmedicated himself.

And my father’s father lost a hand in a railroad accident. And one of my dad’s brothers got run over in the driveway, a sister committed suicide. And the truth is we’ve all got potholes in our stories, twists and turns that we’d rather forget but bond us. We’re imperfect people with checkered histories. All we want is to be able to survive and live in peace.

But suddenly that’s challenged. Suddenly the Chinese say they find Kim Jong-un uncontrollable. We pushed Saddam Hussein, who refused to back down even though he had no nukes. These are not rational people, they’re power-hungry overlords, who are more worried about their image than safety. That’s what we’re up against.

We’re privileged, we’ve grown up in the relative safety of the United States.

But now opportunity has faded here too. Desperation is rampant. You may not experience it, but if you open your eyes you can see it. We thought we were above the fray, that we were a better people with answers, living behind an invisible curtain of impenetrability. But the last few months have shown we’re no better and no different from everybody else. The pedestal has been torn down. Our leader is just as unpredictable as theirs. We too are driven by religion.

But even more we’re driven by ignorance and power.

And that’s just positively scary.

I know, I know, I should relax. Just dial up Netflix. Zone out.

But I can’t.

S-Town

Have you listened to this?

I’m worried about the national consciousness. We listen to different music, watch different TV shows, many people don’t even go to the movies and we all get our news from different sources…how are we supposed to have a discussion?

It’s like we’re all speaking a different language. And even on topics we have in common, we quote different “facts.” There’s no cohesiveness, no glue. As a result, there’s no unifying factor.

The top five tracks on Spotify are by Kendrick Lamar, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Drake and Ed Sheeran. Forget having heard them, have you even HEARD OF THEM?

We used to be unified by our art. Now we’re all siloed. And told we’re incompetent and out of it by acolytes of that which we are uninformed about. But we just shrug off our ignorance, we’re too busy in our own niches. You can criticize someone all you want for their choices, but no one cares. Used to be you were either an AM or FM person. Imagine, just two choices! You either were hip or you were not. Now you’re uninformed or you’re not. But it’s a full time job trying to keep up, and still there’s so much you don’t know.

And in case you don’t know, “S-Town” is the new podcast from the producers of “Serial” and “This American Life.” Traditional media has been hyping its success, but no one has mentioned it to me and whenever I bring it up I get blank stares. This is unlike the original iteration of “Serial,” wherein we were all addicted. But is that just the new paradigm, we care when it’s new, when you repeat the formula we tune out and move on? That’s what purveyors don’t understand, that it’s nearly impossible to keep our attention. And every time you fail the greater the chance people won’t even bother the next time. Which is why you should strive for greatness, especially if you put out product infrequently. Kinda like the new Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie track. It starts so slowly, the verse is blah, but then the chorus is a home run. Couldn’t anybody sit down with Lindsey and tell him the new rules? That you’ve got to grab us immediately, changes are key, we don’t have time to listen ten times, our lives are fast-paced, didn’t he read the Max Martin interview? I mean old farts can rarely recapture the magic, but listening to “In My World” you discover there’s still something there, if you haven’t clicked on to something new before you get to the sauce.

Kinda like the second season of “Serial,” the one about Bowe Bergdahl. How many episodes did you listen to before you moved on? Me, only two. But the reviews of “S-Town” were so good.

It’s not that good. And while you’re listening, you start to realize, like in a French film, there’s going to be no payoff, there’s going to be no a-ha moment, there’s going to be no resolution.

There, I ruined it for you. But you probably weren’t going to listen anyway. Or you’re not quite through the entire seven episodes, which were released all at once, which I give kudos to the producers for, we live in an on demand culture and there it all is.

And it’s not like it starts off strong and hooks you. It’s not boring, but your eyes don’t bug out, like with the first “Serial.”

But you want to know what happens.

We all want to know what happens.

America is hooked on story.

Meanwhile, we keep being fed ever-smaller bite-sized content, with a media falsely telling us we have a short attention span and this is what we desire.

No, we desire humanity. That’s what’s missing from the movies and so much music, there are no PEOPLE there. Especially in flicks, where it’s literally superheroes and zombies. And in music, it’s all about boasting or platitudes, nothing that soothes the soul. But in TV… There are long arcs where images are secondary to plot. We live for plot. Hell, too many film directors are into image, we live for story.

Then again, Instagram is king, can you explain that to me? Looking at pictures of people essentially bragging, what is the hook here?

I’ll tell you what it is, a desire to belong, to feel part of the club, to feel connected in a world where disconnection is king.

And when you stop listening for the smoking gun, when you stop waiting to find out what happened to the gold and focus on the characters in “S-Town” you do get rewarded. But it’s not what they’re selling in the hype.

John B. McLemore is a self-educated genius who cannot get along. Living in a backward town he wants to leave but just cannot. His is a life of failed relationships, even though he has so many admirers. But he’s his own worst enemy, he alienates those closest to him. And he gets jealous if he’s not your number one.

People are complicated.

But not online. You’re either a Democrat or a Republican. The lines are clearly drawn. But there are people who believe in abortion and not a welfare state and vice versa. Where do the chiaroscuro citizens play?

So, if you’re interested in character study, “S-Town” is genius.

And now they’re debating Mr. McLemore online.

But only if you look for it. Otherwise, you’re clueless.

So do we have an overhyped mediocrity or evidence that our national soul is hurting and we cling to anything with a shred of humanity?

I’ll tell you this, I couldn’t turn “S-Town” off, I got hooked, because in a world of obligations, where you’re made to feel inadequate every damn day, it was great to retreat to a world where people were not trying to get ahead so much as living. Where personality and upbringing had consequences. Listen to “S-Town” and see if you don’t find yourself in there somewhere.

We’re all looking to find ourselves reflected to us. We’re all lonely. We put on a brave face and try to belong but the truth is we’re looking for soul sustenance and it’s rarely evident. Don’t show any weakness, fight to get ahead in our coarse society, he who is not your friend is your enemy.

The purveyors have blinked. No one tries to make art for everyone. No one tries to unite the public consciousness. I’m not sure any one artist with any one song could grab everybody’s ears. But I do think if all the artists aligned they could. That’s what it would take, a “We Are The World” with better music and better lyrics. Because today we all are not members of the club, but we’re yearning to be. But you get no eyeballs unless you achieve greatness.

And “S-Town” is not great.

But podcasts are winning because they’re everything terrestrial radio is not. They’re not fake, playing to a theoretical audience that does not exist. They’re not brief. They’re not disconnected. When done right, podcasts are the heart and soul of America. Just talk to anybody who listens, they’ll testify! No one is wishy-washy about podcasts. There’s something happening here. A tapping into the desire of America to dig down deep and belong.

“I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news.”

Huh?

I thought the hygienist cleaned and the dentist evaluated.

But not at this joint.

My old dentist had a love affair with Alaska. For three months every summer he took his boat up north and regaled me with incredible tales thereafter. The only problem was if you had a crisis during those three months.

I did.

So I went to see his old associate, the one who bailed when the seaman wouldn’t cough up his practice as promised. This young man said the tooth in question was unsavable and would have to be extracted and replaced with an implant.

But then I called Irving. Medical consigliere to the stars.

Irving had been imploring me to see his guy for years. And Irving’s track record is impeccable. He always hooks me up with the top guys, with an appointment right away, oftentimes outside scheduled business hours, with no wait. And if you don’t think that’s important, if you don’t think that’s an asset…

You just haven’t been broke down and busted on the side of the road, with no direction home, wondering how you’re going to escape this pain.

So I got an appointment.

But just before I went, Irving said he’d forgotten to tell me this was the most expensive dentist in the world.

And he is. He’s 50% more expensive than any dentist I’ve ever seen. Assuming you need serious work. Cleanings? Routine stuff? That’s all reasonable. But if you need a crown…

You’re gonna pay $1500 more than anywhere else, but this dentist has his own lab and there’s no waiting, from drilling to replacement it’s two, maybe three days.

And he saved the tooth.

So, ultimately I saved money. Instead of paying for an implant, for half the price I continued to use my own tooth, which is always preferable.

The next time the crack was below the gum line. I had to go for an emergency root canal, on my birthday no less. The endodontist, another Beverly Hills bigwig, told me there was no way the dentist could save the tooth, that an implant would be necessary. But this guy, my guy, Irving’s guy, said “I’m gonna work my magic.” And he did, he put on a crown.

And it’s been an endless series of crowns. Is it my age? My affinity for trail mix stirred up in Dannon coffee yogurt? I don’t know, but I’ve given up the trail mix, it’s just too expensive and aggravating in the long run.

And last spring the dentist replaced a crown. But in October, I started to get pain. December too. And then January. There’d be pressure when I bit down, and I’d barely be able to eat for a couple of days, and then it would fade away. And at the beginning of February the dentist adjusted the crown, you know, with the carbon paper, even though his work is always perfect, I’ve never had to go back for a tweak. And then, the pain went away.

Voila! Victory!

Now I’m a pessimist. Mix that up with some OCD and anxiety and I can anticipate disaster at every turn. But I’m trying to change, I asked myself why I was so concerned with Wednesday morning’s cleaning, after all, it was routine, I’d been pain free for months.

But then the hygienist uttered the above words.

There was a pocket. An infection. The dentist would render an opinion.

And he came in and did. Asked me if I had a periodontist.

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT A PERIODONTIST IS!

My old girlfriend got substandard care from one back in the seventies, in a location far distant from the big city, she had some kind of gum graft, that’s all I knew, it had something to do with gums.

And I’m flummoxed and speechless and this dentist says he’ll call down the hall and get the periodontist to come over and grant an opinion.

Now the service is unbelievable, and I believe I’m undeserving of the attention. Hell, when I complained at an earlier visit, he said he’d have the endodontist stop by for an evaluation, which I declined, silly me. I mean what kind of operation is it where the service people come to YOU? I haven’t had a house call since the fifties!

But the word comes in that the periodontist is unavailable. Which aggravates me, because I’m out of town next week and I’ve got no time but then word came that he was going to appear.

And he did. In scrubs. With his nurse. It was like “M.A.S.H.,” I was getting undivided attention in the encampment.

And the first thing this periodontist asked was if I’d ever had a bad experience with dentists.

Huh?

Don’t they usually drill with impunity?

But when you pay through the nose, they give you their time. This dentist, in the penthouse, in the Golden Triangle, has all the time in the world for me, he never punches the clock. And this periodontist, who I did not know and wasn’t paying, was the same way.

There was a problem…

He wanted a full set of x-rays, and I should come in tomorrow, i.e. today, they’d squeeze me in no matter what.

So I show up today, and this periodontist engages me in conversation. Time is money, but we’re talking about his home country, his education, his father, we’re becoming old buddies.

But then he says we’re best off meeting for coffee and he calls in the nurse and we get down to business.

The nurse who attended when he did the first hip to jaw transplant. Thirty five years ago. When he was head of surgery at USC.

So he thinks it’s a failed root canal. I’d gone where everybody does, to that place in downtown Santa Monica, not thinking twice, not calling Irving for advice, two decades back. And now my decision is coming back to haunt me. The root could be broken. If so, I need an extraction and an implant, which had me horrified when I contemplated it last night, but in the hands of this genius I was oh-so-calm.

Whereupon they marshaled the troops for an immediate 3-D scan, which is definitive.

So I got in my car, and drove down south, to an office where the proprietor told me she jumped through hoops for this guy, he needed it right away. I felt like royalty.

Although I knew I was gonna pay for this experience.

That’s another thing. I was wearing ratty jeans and a Polo shirt. Not Beverly Hills appropriate. Kinda like the visit with the dermatologist the day before, who treats plenty of stars but is more impressed by education. I had to tell him I turned down Columbia, that sure, I’d gone to law school, but only practiced a couple of years. I was trying to impress him, to show him I was worthy, which felt creepy, but the truth is they judge you on your image, and your ability to pay.

Actually, the dermatologist is not charging me at all, one of the perks of my mini-fame. Yup, the higher up the food chain you go, the less you pay. But if you do have to open your wallet, it’s significant. And know that they’re judging you on the tip.

So I end up getting into it with the proprietor, who also shoots the pictures. She was an “Alpha Female,” self-described. She’d been married four times, but she didn’t need the men to raise her children.

And this is what I love about life. You can connect online, but when you’re up close and personal people will tell you anything and everything, assuming you ask and you’re interested, and I do and I am, because the only thing that counts is people and their stories.

And since we had bonded… She said she thought it was a fair exchange, suggested I refrain from paying, since I’d given her my time and my advice, but like a schmo I said no. But when I got the bill, I was wondering if I should have said yes.

And while I was waiting for my card to be run, she told me she could see what the periodontist was worried about, that the root had caved and there was bone loss and if I told anybody she’d told me she’d deny it, that was for the radiologist to say, but I was glad she did, so I wasn’t on pins and needles for twenty four hours.

Yup, you hope for the best but when the professionals are concerned expect the worst.

And this is gonna be an ordeal, and it’s gonna be expensive, but when you put yourself in the hands of geniuses, your odds of success are so much greater. I believe in the big doctor, who oftentimes is no more expensive than the nobody.

So you too can go to Beverly Hills.

Or you can say no to the expense. Or choose to spend your money elsewhere.

Or maybe you’re a rube like the looky-loos in the van taking pictures blocking my way on Rodeo Drive. I wouldn’t think of doing that, the same way you don’t interrupt a star at dinner, these are things you learn in Los Angeles, you respect the famous people’s space.

And the truth is, they respect yours, because in the City of Angels, with Beverly Hills at its heart, you never really know who someone might be. They might be dressed like a homeless person and be a zillionaire. So you get deference, not always, but oftentimes.

But I still don’t think I deserve it.