“Ready To Get Lost At Forneris Farms”?

We did!

I’ve been sitting in the house for too long, staring at all four walls recovering from my shoulder surgery. I’m back and at ’em now, veering from here to there, booking all comers, and when I found myself inside this morning…I STARTED TO FREAK OUT! I needed to go somewhere, but where?

Used to be I went to the movies. But that no longer makes sense. With untold hours of unwatched television on demand in the house, far superior to anything playing in the theatre. And I’m no longer twenty five, with my buds tracking me down to play on the weekend, as a matter of fact, I use the weekend as respite, I recover from the week. And everybody’s kids are out of the house and you get to a certain point where you’ve got no idea what to do with yourself.

And that’s when it hit me, I wanted to go to a corn maze!

I’d only been to one before, outside of Minneapolis. Where there was a tower in the middle in case you got lost, you could survey the landscape and find your way out, there was even an escape gate.

But not today.

Mr. Smartypants felt there would be no problem. If anything, I was worried I would go too fast, and that my fifteen bucks would be a gross overspend.

Boy, was I wrong.

So we drove to the edge of the San Fernando Valley. Where Forneris Farms had a cornucopia of Halloween attractions. Made me feel like I’d missed out. It was all about kids… Playing musical chairs with pumpkins, going on pony rides, getting their faces painted… But we were here for the corn maze.

So we paid our money and got our wristbands and the concierge gave us a map…

I don’t need no stinkin’ map!

And on the back side were clues. You see there were fifteen puzzles, and if you solved them you might win a hundred bucks, there would be a raffle. I didn’t want the money, but I did want the completion.

And the first couple of clues were easy.

But then I noticed there was a numbering system and we’d missed a few so I implored Felice to retrace our steps.

That was the big mistake.

I didn’t feel that bad at first, the woman with purple hair was confused too.

But then the sun came out and Felice started to wilt and I gave up on completing the entire puzzle but for the life of me I couldn’t find the way out. Having abandoned the map from the get-go, I had no idea where we truly were. Having not wanted to cheat, I was completely lost.

And the sorority sisters are marching by. As are the families with kids in tow. They weren’t stuck, what was gonna happen to us?

And while I stood there, contemplating the map, all wrong, it turned out, I asked this young Latino man if he had a clue. He did! He said we were in the “1”!

That’s right, at the top of the maze “2016” was spelled out. I thought we were far below that. So I asked, could we follow him?

Each of us has his own special gift. And this guy was a tracker nonpareil. He knew exactly where we were at all times. Well, he got stumped once, but he finally brought us to the exit.

I was relieved, but they’d missed a couple of puzzles and were going back in. This twentysomething and his tattooed wife and two young children. Isaiah took a liking to Felice, held on to her shirt. Funny how you bond when you’re in danger.

And as we sipped our lemonade I Yelped for lunch. I’m up for adventure. And the number one hit was Tortas Ahogadas, a Guadalajaran place only five minutes away.

The app took us there, but I was flummoxed by the menu, it was completely in Spanish! Never occurred to me this could happen mere miles away from my abode.

Then I looked around and discovered I was the outsider. All the faces were brown.

I also discovered I ordered the wrong thing. That you were supposed to get the grilled barbecue style taco. They grilled the whole thing, the tortilla too. It was kind of orange, and there were tacos on every table.

But my tostada was excellent.

But I had no idea when it would come. Felice jumped up to retrieve our food and it wasn’t there.

And that’s when the Latino man with stars tattooed up and down his arm leaned over and told me there was a number system, and to let him know ours, he’d notify me when our food was ready.

And I’m sitting there contemplating how the rich have contempt for each other, they’re busy pushing each other out of the way to get ahead, and every Latino I encountered was going out of his way to help me out, to be nice, to include me.

You live in the city and pay fealty to the media and you come to believe everybody’s a winner or a loser, that it’s a rat race with no normality. And then you venture out of your comfort zone and find out this is not the case. Made me wonder, had I played my hand wrong? Maybe it’s just about having a job, getting married and raising some kids, revisiting the world you once inhabited through their eyes.

Like the sandbox. I lived for it way back when. I had my special tools, back when they were made out of metal and not plastic. I can’t say I wanted to jump into the pit with the munchkins at Forneris Farms, but I was envious of their happiness. If only life were that simple. Maybe it is that simple and I’m just overcomplicating it.

One thing I know for sure is my life got way too narrow. That there are experiences for the taking right around the corner, if you can slow down and stop worrying if you’re on the guest list and be willing to be part of the throng, just like everybody else.

Maybe I’m a child at heart. Maybe you never have to go to a corn maze.

Maybe I’ve had better Mexican food.

But I had fun. And I realized you don’t have to be rich to be happy. And that we’re all in this together, and you’ll never expect who will lend a helping hand.

Forneris Farms – The Corn Maze

The pic is the actual maze we did today. You can see the “1” in “2016”!

Tortas Ahogadas Las Originales

You can see the barbecue style tacos in the pic at the top of the page!

Friday New Release Playlist

Friday was my record shopping day.

Monday was my record returning day.

That’s what people seem to forget about the vinyl revival, the imperfections. Most companies did not use 100% virgin vinyl, they employed regrind. As in when you returned records, they steamed off the labels, maybe, ground up the what remained and then made new discs out of it. Such that the new stuff was laden with pops and clicks. The worst offender was Atlantic, although they were all pretty bad. And never mind the warps. Your needle would skip, you’d get wow and flutter, and then you’d have to return the LP. Casual buyers would just keep ’em. But dedicated fans were in search of purity. If it didn’t play, if it skipped, you absolutely returned it. But how much surface noise could you tolerate? And if you were a dedicated customer, addicted to the sound, you’d be returning records en masse and you’d get to the point where the store would say “no mas” and you had to find another outlet to shop at.

That’s what was so great about CDs, the lack of imperfections.

But still, you could not hear it unless you bought it. You purchased the next albums by your favorites, unless the buzz was deafeningly bad. You bought the new releases with the most buzz, the ones with songs you heard on the radio, and then there was stuff that got good reviews, you’d take a chance. And if some week there was nothing to buy, you’d fill out the catalog. As years went by, stores stocked less and less of it. You had to find an indie which knew what to bring in. So you might go back and buy Neil Young’s debut, an exquisite production, one of his best, or you might finger it for years, waiting to have enough money and nothing else at the top of your list.

But today, today, everything is at your fingertips.

But you don’t even know it’s out. Did you know there’s a new Eric Clapton live album? And a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band one too? Used to be you went to the new release bin and saw what came out. But now, there’s a plethora of product and the hype never reaches you and albums go unheard. But I’ve become addicted to Spotify’s “Your Release Radar” playlist and I saw these recommendations under the Discover tab, under “New Releases For You.”

So I’m gonna tell you what grabbed me this week.

“Somebody Else” – alt edit
The 1975

There was tons of buzz, but it never closed me, but this track did immediately. How did I miss it? I knew I missed it, because there’s been no recent buzz, and with the hip acts I hear the hype.

Turns out this came out back in February, of 2016. And it’s got 49 million plus plays on Spotify already. But that’s the original studio take, which is not quite as magical.

And “magical” is the operative word. Stay until just past the half minute mark, when the song changes, when it starts to march. Funny, in the original it happens fifteen seconds later.

I could analyze deeper, but despite the band’s moniker this is more akin to eighties English music. A sound that washed over you, took you away, made you feel good.

“Journeyman”
Jamestown Revival

And this sounds positively seventies, and if you were alive back then you’ll hear the similarity to the Sutherland Brothers & Quiver’s masterpiece “(I Don’t Want to Love You But) You Got Me Anyway.” It’s not on any streaming service, but you can hear it on YouTube:

Sutherland Brothers And Quiver – (I Don’t Want To Love You But) You Got Me Anyway – 45 RPM

This is a crazy video wherein the maker shows you the actual 45 and then puts it on the record player and drops the needle, but when he does…YOU’LL GET IT! And I did immediately when I heard it driving my ’63 Chevy convertible from Amherst to Middlebury in the fall of ’73, this is what music used to sound like, I immediately had to buy the album, I had to have this song at my fingertips.

Anyway, this Jamestown Revival song has got the groove of “(I Don’t Want to Love You But) You Got Me Anyway” but the sound bleeds into the darkness of the sixties, as if you were walking down a rainy street in the U.K., even though this is an American band. This is subtle, but it’ll get under your skin.

“Tennessee Stud” (feat. Vince Gill)
“Circlin’ Back – Celebrating 50 Years (Live)”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

This album flies so far under the radar it’s not even referenced on Wikipedia yet, which is where we go to do our research. I’ve got questions, exactly when was this recorded?

I didn’t buy the three LP set “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” until the late seventies, half a decade after it came out. I was aware of it, but never heard it until I was at a party in Salt Lake City and a guy who made money fishing to pay for his skiing dropped the needle on “Tennessee Stud.” The original version, via the Dirt Band, featured Doc Watson, who had a different vocal style from Vince Gill, but Vince’s smooth as scotch pipes add their own special quality. If you think music is for listening as opposed to selling, that it’s about the sound as opposed to the commerce, check this out.

“You Ain’t Going Nowhere”
“Circlin’ Back – Celebrating 50 Years (Live)”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

The definitive version is by the Byrds, it appeared on “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo,” I’m gonna include it, you should hear it. Despite becoming a legend, “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo” was a stiff upon release, rockers weren’t quite ready for country and there was no hit, Gram Parsons transmogrified the Byrds but then moved on. I didn’t hear this until years later when I went to visit my high school buddy at Hampshire College where it was all the rage. “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” was written by Bob Dylan in the “Basement Tapes” era. It leaked out. It was a classic passed on from player to player, over time everybody knew it, even though I’ve never ever heard it on the radio. Unfortunately, this Dirt Band version is not definitive, but I had to check it out, I need to each and every version of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.”

“These Days” (feat. Jackson Browne)
“Circlin’ Back – Celebrating 50 Years (Live)”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Well I’ve been out walking
I don’t do too much talking these days

This’ll make you cry, make you remember what once was, when music was everything, when it touched your soul.

The arrangement is very similar to the one on Jackson’s double live LP, but this is just as good, with the original words to boot, which you have probably never heard.

Jackson was in the Dirt Band, however briefly.

But boomers recognized his genius when Gregg Allman covered this song on 1973’s “Laid Back,” which came out just about the same time as Jackson’s second LP, with his version, it was good timing. But Tom Rush debuted the number.

This is heartbreakingly good.

“Fishin’ In The Dark” (feat. Jimmy Ibbotson)
“Circlin’ Back – Celebrating 50 Years (Live)”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

My old fave Wendy Waldman dropped out, left SoCal for NashVegas, and ended up writing this with Jim Photoglo, the Dirt Band covered it and it went all the way to number one and I never heard it because back in ’87 no rocker tuned into country, I didn’t experience it until much later when I heard Wendy perform it live. The original has a bit more energy and spunk in the chorus, but the groove in the verse of this iteration sustains, it’ll get you.

“An American Dream” (feat. Rodney Crowell with Alison Krauss)
“Circlin’ Back – Celebrating 50 Years (Live)”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

I bought this album on one of those Friday afternoon excursions, I found it in the promo bin and took a risk. This is what made me a Dirt Band fan, I had no idea the track went all the way up to number 13 on the Hot 100 until I just checked it out on Wikipedia!

“Mr. Bojangles” (feat. Jerry Jeff Walker)
“Circlin’ Back – Celebrating 50 Years (Live)”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

This will make you tingle.

The Dirt Band had the hit with this, but Jerry Jeff Walker wrote it, and he sings it here. Who even knew Jerry Jeff Walker was still alive? Our folkies have become like old bluesmen, hiding in plain sight, maybe some college kids will reach out and resuscitate their careers.

“Anyday”
“Live in San Diego (with Special Guest JJ Cale)”
Eric Clapton

This is the cut that closed me on “Layla.” I vividly remember hearing it in Dave McCormick’s dorm room during winter term of ’71, freshman year. You see during January at Middlebury you only took one course, intensively, and then you skied and got high, which is what we were doing when I first heard this.

I was a huge fan of Eric’s solo debut, can you say “Easy Now” and “Let It Rain”? But I’d skipped “Layla,” there was little noise, it took time to build, ultimately it became deafening.

This take has the same powerful riff, a wave at Waimea that’s gonna plow you under. And then there are the dynamics, how it gets quiet and subtle.

“Tell The Truth”
“Live in San Diego (with Special Guest JJ Cale)”
Eric Clapton

Oh, that pickin’, and then they lay down in the groove.

“Little Wing”
“Live in San Diego (with Special Guest JJ Cale)”
Eric Clapton

Jimi Hendrix wrote it, Clapton popularized it and Sting brought it home.

I never bought “Axis: Bold As Love,” I was not rich in the sixties, I stopped at “Are You Experienced,” I didn’t even buy “Electric Ladyland,” even though at this point the Hendrix song I want to hear most is “Burning of the Midnight Lamp.” Do you know it? I know I’m going off point, but I’m gonna include it…oh that riff! We used to live for the riff, we used to sing them in our heads, they kept us going!

“Just Your Fool”
The Rolling Stones”

You’re gonna have to slow down for this one. Throw out your preconceptions, forget about the rat race and remember being in the basement spinning 45s, which the English lads did, they were American blues numbers, which the Yanks were no longer interested in.

The Stones haven’t been able to get arrested on wax for years. But this time they decided to chuck it all and go back to their roots, to where it all began, and it’s strangely affecting. By not trying to prove something, they’ve proved everything.

This is the sound that launched the British Invasion, it was this music filtered through the U.K. that revolutionized music. Maybe some young ‘uns will hear this and be inspired to go back to what once was. When first and foremost music was about emotion, when records were hermetically sealed, cut in a faraway land that we were privileged to listen to but could never penetrate. In the grooves was a whole world we wanted to enter, we peeled back the curtain and jumped inside, you can too.

There’s a wealth of music on streaming services. They’re making it easier for you to discover it. Could make you a fan once again. Could make Fridays my music discovery day once again.

The Internet is about fads. Whether it be MySpace, Turntable.fm or Vine, they’re hot for a while and then people move on, they’re the movies of the twenty first century.

Remember when we went to the flicks to be part of the culture? So when we went to parties we’d have something to talk about? And then everyone agreed the movies sucked and stopped going and we started spending our time on Facebook. And if you still go to see the comic book flicks or the foreign cinema…kudos to you, you’re keeping a dying industry on life support while the rest of us are cherry-picking streaming TV and spending time on the web.

Everything runs its course.

It’s just that it’s much faster online. We can all get the word, utilize it and then be done with it. The game is to sustain, which is nearly impossible. Which is why Facebook bought Instagram and WhatsApp. Because after you’ve reconnected with all your old school buddies and built a monument to yourself, why go back to the social network? As a matter of fact, youngsters never do, they populate chat apps. Which is why Apple beefed up iMessage, opened it up to apps itself. Because there’s a coming war, and they want to win. And the way you win today is to build up enough capital and mindshare that you can purchase the latest and the greatest, can you say Oculus Rift? Facebook bought that too. As for Snap, er, chat… An overvalued turkey that does not have the cojones and mindshare to justify its valuation. It’s GoPro without the hardware.

That’s right, after all the active athletes buy a GoPro who’s left? The company is trying to pivot but will probably fail. It’s just not a mainstream product.

Nor is Snapchat. Evanescent messaging…that’s a feature, not a standalone item. Just ask Twitter… Real time news is a feature, not a standalone item, which is why they’re trying to sell the enterprise. As for Snapchat’s vaunted entertainment options…you can view content on any platform, it doesn’t have to be on Snapchat. But the media loves the story and the investors have to cash out and it keeps the dough rolling in Silicon Valley but do we really have room for one more horseman? After all, there were only four at the apocalypse.

Apps, which kids rarely download today, are the one hit wonders of now. You use ’em and discard them. They’re Pokemon Go. They don’t have a run as long as the Backstreet Boys. Why do we think virtual is forever when it can so easily be eclipsed? Want to last? Build hardware, but that takes forever, with a huge investment. Which is why we revere Elon Musk, who added the Mars dream on top of that…but can he beat the usual suspects with deep pockets? Can anybody beat the usual suspects with deep pockets?

That’s the story of today. The consolidation of power in so very few. Not only in the public, but in our corporations. The rich get richer and don’t want the poor to rise up. If you’ve got something worth buying the empowered will purchase it, otherwise it’s just a matter of when it dies on the vine…

Short media clips. A brief mania. Kinda like the Flip mini camcorder. A huge breakthrough from the bulky video cameras of the past, but just a feature once the smartphone appeared.

The game is to last.

But it’s harder than ever today. Hell, it’s hard to even get noticed. Remember when there used to be a viral sensation every couple of months? Remember “Gangnam Style”? Now we don’t even have that, because people have seen the trick and the pros got in with their marketing and the whole thing became phony and what sells, what delivers mania, what shoots up like a unicorn, is inventive authenticity. You’ve got to be different, and you’ve got to be honest. And we’ve got a duplicitous me-too culture. Everybody with a brain is playing it safe. The proletariat wants to buy, but enterprises are risk averse. Imagine if Facebook came up with evanescent messaging. Imagine if Universal signed an act with no radio potential that blew minds. But bean counters won’t allow it. Which is why disruption comes from outside. But now the powers-that-be are so powerful it’s hard to get traction, which leads to public frustration.

We’re just on an accelerated path. We’re chewing up and spitting out ever faster. That’s what digitization has allowed. The newspapers are on life support, they still need a rethink. And if you believe you’re gonna own a car in the future, you’re still watching television in real time, you’re unaware of the on demand culture.

Meanwhile, the public is on overload. Which is why experiences have become so big. They’re one of a kind and they’re flesh and blood. They make you feel alive. Whereas sites like Vine are bits and bytes, cold assemblages we can easily discard. It’s the people who remain, not their tools.

But we like the tools to make our lives better.

That’s what Steve Jobs had right, he was building tools. Now those developing online take their cues from the entertainment industry, where it’s all about flash and personal glory, whereas online it’s the public that’s the star.

Expect fewer unicorns. I’m not sure whether Silicon Valley has run out of ideas or we’re just burned out on the trick but the era of internet excitement has run its course. The internet is a distribution platform, a place to host endeavors. Your goal is to put your imprimatur upon it. To create something that people want to interact with. We’re living in the era of the content creator. The stars are those who touch souls. But too many are bunting. Utilize the tools to deliver something that blows minds. There will will always be a platform to exhibit it.

I don’t buy it. The story that the Presidential election is hurting NFL ratings. After all, the “Walking Dead” won Sunday night. Turns out zombies trump overdeveloped men when they go head to head.

This has been a long time coming.

That’s the story of the twenty first century, the decimation of old paradigms. What once was, no longer will be. In an era of experiences, where everyone wants to participate, be up close and personal, football is a bad fit. You can’t get a good seat and even if you do the game is better at home. A game that those who play it say the public can’t truly understand. One with very little action where so many men get hurt that nobody wants their kids to play anymore. This is a recipe for success?

But we kept hearing that live television was everything, sports ruled and football was king.

Until cord-cutting began… I don’t remember the last time I tuned in ESPN, and I’m paying five plus bucks a month for it. Talk about a rip-off!

And then there’s the dilution of the product. In this case, I don’t mean bad games without stars, but the proliferation of game days. Used to be NFL Sunday. Now it’s NFL Thursday, Sunday and Monday. It’s no longer special.

And the brass is out of touch.

How do you think it looks when your players keep beating up their spouses?

It reinforces the notion that the game is played by thugs. This is not college rah-rah character building, this is about money pure and simple. Otherwise, why would these men put themselves in the line of fire?

And we’ve been complicit. As our best stars get hurt. As our most famous stars can barely walk and literally lose their minds. Try having a rave in Southern California, can’t be done, too many people have died, the public won’t stand for it. And the public won’t stand for a sport that is literally killing its players’ futures.

But you can’t say this. Because football is religion. It’s the national glue.

But nothing bonds us all together other than politics and tech. Movies are niche, TV too. As for music…the biggest stars are known by few.

We live in a Tower of Babel society. No entertainment is immune. What does this mean?

Well, you either hunker down in your niche and be happy or you re-evaluate.

The music business sells niche and expects it to go mainstream, which is utterly hysterical. A great swath of the public will never listen to hip-hop. And a good chunk tunes out today’s pop. But they keep tuning into the vapid “Voice” despite the show never minting a star. Because there are songs. We’re enamored of songs. Where have all the good songs gone?

It’s hard to like Roger Goodell. He’s another robber baron, a corporate titan overpaid to care for the interests of billionaire owners out of touch with the proletariat. If you don’t think people have contempt for these so-called winners, you followed neither the Sanders nor the Trump campaigns. That’s the story of this decade, how income inequality has bit back, how the disenfranchised are angry and are exacting payment whenever they can.

We don’t need your stinking football games.

Not when we’ve got Pokemon Go! Not when we can be the star of our own world on Facebook and Snapchat!

Maybe there will be a bump in the ratings when the election is over and the championship races tighten up. But rest assured, football is in trouble. And it’s going to continue to falter. Like boxing, it can’t be fixed. And how do you expect a younger generation to pay attention when they’re all playing soccer?

That’s the sports story here, how European football, the world’s game, has gained strength. Because kids played it in school, because it’s based on finesse more than violence and…

Nothing lasts forever.

Kinda like the network hegemony.

A bunch of outlets are gonna fall by the wayside. Propped up by a cable bundle that is going extinct, the truth is few people are watching them.

But plenty of people are tuning in, watching higher quality television than ever before. Which outlets gladly pay for. Funny how quality has become the mantra. The executive is not the king in television, it’s the talent.

But do we revere football players anymore?

I don’t think so. They’ve all got such checkered pasts. And most are two-dimensional. Put them in front of a mic and all they can say is “I love my teammates, we won!”

Not very endearing.

It’s not the football players who dominate social media, but…

Enough already with the jockocracy. Rich athletes pumped up by fat television contracts. We’ve passed peak football. You lived through it.

They stopped killing people at the Roman Colosseum. And if you’re floating a bond to pay for a football stadium, stop. You’re better off investing in e-sports.

We used to believe cocaine wasn’t addictive, OxyContin too.

We used to believe football players had long productive lives.

But they don’t.

Wake up and smell the coffee.

It’s morning in America and football is toast.

GOOD RIDDANCE!