YOU’RE NEVER BORED

There’s always stimulation at your fingertips, whether it be Netflix streaming on demand or books delivered wirelessly to your tablet. We always wondered what it was like living in the pre-TV era, never mind the 1800s, when there were vast stretches of emptiness in your day. Now we marvel at the last half of the twentieth century, when we thought we were so up to date and so busy, not knowing what the internet would bring.

SCARCITY IS HISTORY

Music was the leader. Now it’s information. Used to be if you were into a subject you just couldn’t get enough, whether it was a mainstream topic or something purely niche. Now you can go deep into your niche for hours every day. Instead of wanting more, you’re not sure when to stop, when you’re sacrificing your life for your passion. Do you need to know everything? Can you know everything? And then you go to a party and realize you know nothing.

WE HEAR FROM MORE PEOPLE AND WE HEAR FROM THEM CONSTANTLY

Remember when the internet was going to eradicate personal contact? When we were all going to be lonely automatons sitting in front of a screen? Well, we hear from seemingly everybody we ever knew in our lives on a regular basis. Whether it be text/iMessage or e-mail or FaceTime/Skype or Facebook… We were lonely too long, and now we’re not.

EVERYBODY IS A STAR, AT LEAST IN THEIR OWN MIND

Used to be you needed to be anointed by a gatekeeper, a record label, radio station or TV outlet. Now you just need to decide you’re someone worth knowing about and begin posting all over the internet. The messages keep getting shorter. We went from blogs to Instagram, but people have a desire to be known, accepted and admired. The ceiling is incredibly low, the odds of breaking through your friend circle are tiny, but people keep trying.

A ZILLION CHANNELS AND THERE’S TOO MUCH ON

Remember when Bruce Springsteen claimed there were 57 channels and nothing on? Now there are unlimited channels, I keep hearing about cable outlets I didn’t even know existed, like ION, and we’ve got whole networks that live online, like Crackle. If you can’t find something to watch, you don’t have eyes.

FAMOUS AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE

With minimal communication avenues, very few people made it through the sieve, and when they did everybody knew their name, and usually their work. Now even youngsters don’t know who the people are in “People.”

FAME IS A GAME

Played best by the Kardashians. Who realize it’s not about content, but persistence. If you need to be famous, ply your trade each and every day. He who deigns to participate occasionally is destined for obscurity. Make music constantly. Communicate constantly. If you only do one thing, however great or important or outrageous, it will be forgotten by the next day, or soon thereafter.

THE GREAT MIGRATION

We’re loyal to each other, not the platform. We go where everybody goes. So we can leave not only AOL behind, but MySpace. Twitter’s already in the rearview mirror. Gaining an audience and keeping it is nearly impossible for a platform, unless it keeps evolving. Facebook bought Instagram and WhatsApp. Yahoo floundered and just added content to the same old paradigm and failed. This is not the old days, when you got a radio or TV license and you could just print money, seemingly eternally. Now, despite so many internet plays losing money in the advent, the key is to make money quickly, because odds are your time will soon be done, it’s the way of the web/world.

ARTISTIC CHANCES ARE OUT THE WINDOW

With so much online, with the difficulty of breaking through the clutter, those in charge of the purse strings don’t want to take risks, they want it safe. Which is why movies are high concept drivel made to play to young people around the world and why music is the same too. But what we know is all art is a fad, to be replaced with something new. But distribution is forever. So, unless there is a new distribution platform, the goal of the outsider is to get the ear of he or she who controls distribution to get them to take a chance when the tables turn.

ACCESS, NOT OWNERSHIP

Read yesterday’s “Wall Street Journal” about the future of automobiles:

Could Self-Driving Cars Spell the End of Ownership?

You’re gonna rent ’em, on demand. A pickup for a move and a Mercedes for a date. And they’re gonna show up without drivers, today’s Uber is just a way station. There is a need for keepsakes, people want to own souvenirs, but that’s what assets have become. This will cause a great leavening of society, when the rich realize their possessions are meaningless, everybody else can get the same experience on a whim. Assuming you can afford it. Income inequality is the issue of our day. And the more the rich keep flaunting their lifestyles, the more people see them online, the sharper the dividing line becomes. Either we fix this problem or America fades. Don’t take my word for it, look at history, the greater the inequality the worse the economy, because it’s the average person who buys the products and keeps the company alive. If you don’t feel inadequate and frustrated seeing how others live online, you’re not surfing. If the rich were smart they’d hide their lifestyles, but they’re looking for adulation and acceptance, its the human condition.

MORE INFORMATION, GREATER IGNORANCE

Most people don’t know late round investors get protected against losses when the company goes public and they don’t know you have a better chance of upward mobility in Europe. The irony is the more information we have, the more ignorant people become. And they’re susceptible to scams and misinformation, because they don’t want to believe things are as bad as they seem…they want to believe there’s an out.

THE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR GET POORER

With everything available, we gravitate to very few. And you may disagree with the picks, but you’re swimming against the tide. The twenty first century is about dominance. You own your sphere online, a superstar ballplayer makes eight figures a year. If you’re not reaching for the brass ring, you’re being left behind. We only have room for a few good men and women. Scratch that, a few GREAT men and women.

Music is turning into baseball. There’s no sense of history.

For all the fealty paid to classic rock, the truth is the past gets very little ink, even though it can dominate listening. And if you’re not the Beatles or Pink Floyd you may get neither, no attention and no streams.

And that’s just plain sad.

Last week Cynthia Robinson died and the only place it got notice was in the newspaper. You’d think the music press would be singing hosannas, paying tribute to a female rock star who paved the way, not a singer but an instrumentalist, even though she can be heard yelling ALL THE SQUARES GO HOME in the midst of “Dance To The Music,” a call to action in three minutes featuring this exclamation by Ms. Robinson that contained the essence of the us versus them sixties. You were either hip or you weren’t. You were either clued in or you weren’t. You either grew your hair long or you didn’t.

And for all the deserved attention paid to Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, Paul McCartney and John Lennon, they’d be the first to point to their roots, the bluesmen of the Mississippi Delta. And African-Americans did not disappear from the music scene, and one of their greatest exponents was one Sylvester Stewart, better known as Sly Stone, who married rock and blues and soul into a delectable concoction under the moniker Sly & the Family Stone that was undeniable.

It started with “Dance To The Music.”

And then Sly had a run of hit singles far outpacing that of Bieber and the wannabes, everybody knew the group’s tracks, black and white, we were all in it together, led by this guy who started off as a deejay and then produced the whitest of groups, the haunting Beau Brummels.

It might have started with “Dance To The Music,” but the apotheosis was “Stand!,” the spring ’69 LP that is never mentioned as one of the best albums ever but contains four classics that make up for the thirteen minute “Sex Machine,” assuming you need justification of Sly working it out at length. Hell, I’ll wager more sex was had to that funky number than the music of all the British Invasion bands combined. Well, maybe not. But unlike so much of the sixties stuff from the Limeys, “Sex Machine” still sounds fresh today.

And I’d be lying if I said I got it, even though it was hiding in plain sight.

Oh, I got the singles. Come on, how many times do you have to hear “Dance To The Music,” once? Tell that to all the wankers with bad voices and no changes who tell you to play their hour plus LPs over and over to get it. Sly grabbed you by the throat and didn’t let go, “Dance To The Music” exploded out of the car speaker.

And then came “Everyday People,” which was all about bringing us together as opposed to pushing us apart. It was the opposite of the blowhard lyrics about partying, rims and ho’s in today’s tracks.

I am no better and neither are you
We are the same, whatever we do

Ain’t that the truth. And “My own beliefs are in my song.” Maybe because Sly wrote it, and it was an era where what you said/sang was much more important than who you dated or how much money you made.

And on the flip side of “Everyday People” was the positively explosive “Sing A Simple Song,” with exhortations by Cynthia.

And then, in the middle of the summer of ’69, came the delectable treat known as “Hot Fun In The Summertime,” a song that put a smile on your face every time you heard it. Song of the summer? Make me puke, today’s construct is a joke, it’s purely about popularity. But Sly and his troupe encapsulated June to September in two and a half minutes, to the point where it still rings true today. Will we say the same about “Call Me Maybe” forty years from now? Two?

And speaking of funky, the next big hit was “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” Which went all the way to number one, even though it sounded nothing like the poppy stuff dominating the airwaves at that time. From back when musicians were revolutionaries, making an individual statement as opposed to just following trends.

And when it looked like Sly was done, when he was becoming known for drugs more than music, he dropped a track so soulful it cut you to the bone. “Family Affair” is chilling, despite in some ways being so warm.

And then there was the last hurrah, 1973’s “If You Want Me To Stay.” And the drums might have been played by Andy Newmark and the bass by Rustee Allen but Cynthia Robinson persevered on trumpet, along with Jerry Martini and newbie Pat Rizzo on saxophones. Cynthia was a lifer, she counted, she was an integral part of the group.

But right smack dab in the middle of the band’s career was the aforementioned “Stand!”

I knew the title track, it got airplay, it was the kind of thing you leaned in closer to hear, back when every track of all time was not at your fingertips, when you waited for your favorites to emanate from the radio. We all need support and inspiration, and that’s what “Stand!” provides.

But I did not know the rest of the album.

But I did know this girl, who was alive with a twinkle in her eye, we talked in the library, occasionally on the phone, and in one of our conversations she revealed her favorite group was Sly & the Family Stone. Take that Jimmy Iovine, who thinks women need to be led to music, hell, they can lead us boys to it just fine.

And being the religious reader of the Sunday “New York Times” Arts & Leisure section that I was I noticed the band was coming to Madison Square Garden, I called her, did she want to go?

I think she wanted to see the band more than she wanted to see me, but in any event she said yes, and we ended up with tickets on the floor, back before all the ducats disappeared in pre-sales, when Regular Joes still had a fighting chance.

And this was back before Sly fell off the deep end, before he appeared late, if he deigned to appear at all. This was February 1970, before he got married on stage at the same venue. This was before the “Woodstock” movie…

The festival is still mentioned, but the impact of the flick is rarely talked about. Despite being the biggest rock festival of all time, few were actually there. But the movie played everywhere. And one of the highlights was when Sly and his band of merry-makers played I WANT TO TAKE YOU HIGHER!

You’ve got no idea what it was like. Back when production was absent, with no backdrop nor lasers, when the music was enough and it wasn’t on hard drive, but played by the assembled multitude.

Boom laka-laka-laka, boom laka-laka-laka

We were standing on the seats, back when they still had those, and we were thrusting our arms in the air, being taken higher, it was one of the most memorable nights of my life.

But despite all the hits, few knew, I was suddenly a member of a secret society, I was instantly converted, inducted into the church, the religion had been waiting for my conversion, but I was unaware.

But soon everybody knew. That’s the power of the moving image, when it captures lightning in a bottle. Coolness and talent and…

Black women always worked. They had to put food on the table. They were not like white women staying at home playing mom while their hubbies went out to bring home the bacon. But when you’ve got nothing you’ve got nothing to lose. Which is why the biggest breakthroughs always come from the underclass, the underappreciated, who take chances and show us. Where are all the sisters testifying to the trailblazing of Cynthia Robinson? I don’t hear any. They’re myopically focused on white women from New York City, they’re really more about themselves than others, they just want to be stars, they want all the spoils, they don’t know how to be a cog in the machine, a brick in the edifice, an integral element of the production without which the whole thing collapses.

Sly Stone may be dazed and confused, burned out, but his legacy lives on. You only have to hear any of the foregoing tracks once and you get them.

That’s the power of music.

That’s the power of talent.

And Cynthia Robinson was THERE!

Cynthia Robinson – Spotify link

Nate Silver told me Donald Trump can’t win.

You remember Brother Nate, who called the last election which Mitt Romney thought he was gonna win and Karl Rove couldn’t believe he lost. Silver got it exactly right in the “New York Times,” which unlike a winning sports team didn’t give him what he wanted, so Silver decamped to ESPN, where he’s been marginalized.

But he’s still right.

It’s weird to see the old guard bumping up against the new, the baby boomers and aged Gen-X’ers being flummoxed by the digitally-savvy youngsters. MP3s were not embraced by oldsters until the iTunes Store. Hell, Adele just sold a boatload of CDs to the aged, and you’ve got an oldster-controlled media which believes what they say matters, when the truth is the data doesn’t lie,

Oh yes it does, you say! Numbers can be manipulated to say whatever you want them too, you can’t trust polls!

Which is why Silver aggregates them, and we can argue with interpretation, but raw data counts. And what the data says is Donald Trump has high unfavorables. He might have 20+% of the Republican electorate today, but when the losers drop out are their followers going to decamp to Trump? Not according to the data. Which also tells us this far out the polls are nearly meaningless.

So you can ignore the Trump show. It’s gonna get canceled.

But you’ve got the aged media reporting on what he says like it counts, which it doesn’t. Why does the sideshow always become the main show in America?

Not that Mr. Silver always comes down on the side of the Democrats, data is neutral, Silver said the Republicans were gonna clean up in 2014 and they did.

If anything, Silver’s predictive abilities are scary. The deflate us. They illustrate what we thought was exciting is not, that what we thought was up for grabs is not. And people like Silver can actually eviscerate hope and make it so people don’t vote.

But you shouldn’t argue with the data.

That’s the war in the music business right now. The youngsters cannot understand why they cannot get an honest accounting. Since everything’s sold and streamed online, shouldn’t the numbers be easily discernible, quickly, shouldn’t royalty splits be locked in stone? Of course not, because the record company model is based on theft, from the artist. There you have it.

But this won’t be forever. Because systems are getting too good. And young people won’t stand for it!

Remember when records were number one for eons?

That was back before SoundScan, when the charts were manipulated, when Tommy Noonan was the most powerful person in the record business. You’ve never heard of him, but no one seems to know the people who truly count.

Like Nate Silver.

His predictions should be on the front page of every newspaper.

But then what would the bloviators on 24 hour news channels have to say?

But the truth is that’s a dying paradigm. TV news ratings are already anemic. News is an on demand item. The only question is where are you going to get it?

Right now we’ve got chaos, with too many sources, but what we’re gonna see is consolidation. Just like there were six major labels and now there are three. Lucian Grainge is way more powerful than Walter Yetnikoff or Mo Ostin ever were, never mind Clive Davis. Clive Davis did a good job of creating his myth, but the data said he wasn’t making much money, which is why he was blown out at Arista.

It always comes down to the numbers.

But now there are more of them. And we’ve got better interpreters.

You see these are teachable skills. Statistics is known as one of the hardest subjects in college, to be avoided at all costs, but those who take it and build upon it end up ruling the universe. That’s what Facebook is based upon, data. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg cares where you went on vacation, what you ate for dinner? No, he just wants to be able to slice and dice this data ever so finely so he can sell it to advertisers. Zuckerberg is selling efficiency. Targeting consumers directly. And the more outlets he owns, the more Facebook and Instagram, et al, can’t be ignored.

Meanwhile, the hoi polloi are fixated on nitwit entertainers, whether they be Justin Bieber or Donald Trump. Bieber’s got power but he’s not exercising it for good, because he’s a know-nothing, and Trump is smarter but is pretty powerless himself. It’s artists who touch hearts and change minds. He or she who wrote that song that saved you from committing suicide…they’re the ones you’re gonna listen to. But today they’re not saying anything.

Which is why the techies are the new heroes. Because when emotion is fake, you fall back upon facts. And if you don’t believe in facts, if you can’t recognize the power of data, you’re doomed to be whipsawed by a culture wherein self-evident truths are more important than spin.

Nate Silver made a bad career move. He gave up his pulpit and sold his entire enterprise to ESPN. He thought he was gaining freedom, but really he was building his own prison. In a world where it’s nearly impossible to reach everybody, where most people can’t sing two Taylor Swift songs, why would you abdicate your perch overseeing the land? Why would you marginalize yourself?

And why would the “New York Times” let him go? It was the established players who wouldn’t let him write about sports, his passion, they pushed him out the door, to the detriment of both Silver and the paper. Nobody won.

And personalities count. The “Times” has new data reporters but they’re faceless and untrustworthy. It takes years to win people over.

And Silver has faceless writers on 538 who’ve earned no trust either.

But he’s free to do what he wants in obscurity.

But you’re free to inform yourself, you’re free to look at the world dispassionately and navigate it to your advantage.

Pay attention to the numbers. Interpreted by people who know the game and can make sense of them.

I used to be very afraid of Donald Trump.

Then I read Nate Silver.

Who hasn’t been wrong yet.

Are you gonna bet against Pixar?

Then don’t discount Nate Silver.

The world is run by a small coterie of people who truly know and understand the game.

Be one of them.

“Donald Trump Is The Nickelback Of GOP Candidates”

“Dear Media, Stop Freaking Out About Donald Trump’s Polls”

Now everything is entertainment, everything is just grist for the mill.

That gig the paper says was sold out?

Probably wasn’t.

Those sales figures that indie act is touting?

You’d be best to cut them by 90%.

The entertainment business has always been built upon smoke and mirrors. The truth hurts and the populace did not want to know movie stars were gay and rock stars were loners who’d rather rest in hotel rooms, never mind throw TVs out the window.

Every day people e-mail me inaccurate information. About vinyl making more money than streaming, about Spotify taking all the money. And you wonder why you can’t get ahead.

Used to be we believed in the press. That reporters would get ’em. Before those in play attacked the correspondents and Dan Rather lost his job and Bill O’Reilly kept his. Because CBS thought they reported to a higher power but Roger Ailes knows he is the higher power, and it makes no difference what the rabble-rousers say.

My favorite story on this involves one Jerry Heller, you know, the guy who’s suing the “Straight Outta Compton” movie. He told me when a writer asked him how many albums Ruthless sold, he uttered SEVENTY MILLION! And then he turned to me and said…”My company, my number.”

Apple won’t even tell you how many Watches it’s sold. And Twitter profiles are fake and Facebook likes are bought.

But they’re all touted as fact, and most people believe them. Because they’re either too dumb or they need to believe.

Because believing in yourself is just too much.

Do you really believe a blowhard businessman who was born on third base can run the country?

Do you really believe the populace wants said blowhard to run the country?

Well, Jesse Ventura did get elected governor. Look how that turned out. And he hasn’t stopped spouting conspiracy theories since.

Jesse’s an entertainer. Which people want because they just can’t handle the cold hard truth. That your job is not safe and there’s little upward mobility and it’s got to be somebody’s fault other than your own.

But it’s not the immigrants’ or the rest of the bogeymen, it’s the system. One wherein the rich run things and they want to keep it that way. And anybody who could blow the whistle is enthralled by the players and wants to become one too. Can you say “Judith Miller”?

Want to pull someone to your side?

Give ’em a ride in a private jet. Buy ’em a four hundred dollar bottle of wine. Woo-hoo, look at me live! Not realizing that those are business expenses that pay dividends, that you’re just a pawn in their game.

Politics is a profession. And sure, we want fresh faces, but we don’t want inexperienced people. It’d be like anointing the losers on “Idol” as stars. What would that look like, people who couldn’t carry a tune who believed they were entitled, would you listen to their music?

Of course not. Then why are you accepting what Donald Trump says as truth?

Sure, some of you are not, you’re Democrats. But you believe manufacturing can come back to America. Why don’t you pay $2500 for a flat screen while you’re at it.

And Black Friday is fading…

Wait, the press got that one right. Maybe because there weren’t personalities involved. Reporters have a hard time standing up to people. In journalism school they teach you to be fair and balanced, to give credence to both sides. But what if one side is pure idiocy, not truth, but a way to move the ball forward in the game?

And although everything is entertainment now, the true metaphor is football. Everybody’s just trying to carry their product downfield. And if Bill Belichick and his Patriots cheat, why shouldn’t I? But you say they didn’t, because you live in Boston and you need something to believe in.

We all need something to believe in. But it’s best to start with yourself. You’re the arbiter of truth. If it feels bad, it must be. But who the enemy is…

If the political reporters can’t ferret out the truth, what are the odds the entertainment reporters can? When most of what the media prints is not news, and frequently is just a press release. With media budgets slashed so owners can make their margins there’s no time for questioning, and you can’t piss off the advertisers. Maybe the “Times” has a Chinese wall, but Buzzfeed and the rest of the advertorial giants?

Give me a break.

Blame it on the internet, blame it on the lack of a fairness rule, but really know it’s a reflection of society at large. You can’t get a job without a college degree, and college doesn’t teach you how to think, but just gives you business skills, so you’re no match for the truly educated. The elite institutions teach you how to hold two opposing thoughts in your brain at one time. Like we can have low temperatures and severe storms even if there’s global warming. But you think climate change is a hoax, not knowing the energy companies spread that story and how come you’re so worried about the national debt impacting your children but not rising temperatures?

Used to be we were told what to believe by a few outlets, whose feet were held to the fire. Sure, fallacies got through, like people thought FDR could walk, but news was a higher calling and with few places to get it truth was the goal.

Not everywhere, but in many places.

But now that everybody has a voice, it’s a free-for-all.

But not for long. We’re going to see consolidation. The rich will get richer. Just like in music. Which is what will happen in podcasting. Everybody doesn’t have a blog and everybody won’t have a podcast, and you’ll have to retreat to your lonely little life where you’ll realize…

The people don’t have the power, the corporations do. And those with the most power are the news outlets. You think it’s about money, but power is much more satisfying. You control public opinion. You mold people’s minds. That’s Fox News’s brilliance. That’s Rupert Murdoch’s brilliance. His fortunes may fade, but he’s a titan, he controls what you think.

Because you’ve refused to think for yourself. You believe a licensor, someone who’s full of vitriol and bombast, can run a country.

Well, if that’s true, why don’t you elect Gene Simmons.

Hey, wait a minute… Gene, why don’t you run?