In light of the end of daylight savings time.

Tune in Saturday November 8th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

The circle is complete. As the baby boomers fade into the sunset, everything they experienced, from the sixties even into the eighties, has been scraped from history. Music is no longer about meaning, but pure entertainment. In the pre-Beatle era we had Fabian, Bobby Rydell… Now we anoint pop stars whose songs are written by committee with fake gravitas, believing that if the industry and its media compatriots pump up the volume enough the public will care.

But it doesn’t.

Oh, don’t get me wrong… People are fans of music. Especially youngsters. But what said music represents is very different from what it represented to the boomers. It’s background, or else it’s a culture to invest yourself in in a vapid economy. You can love BTS, but don’t try and convince me they’re a landmark group making music for the ages. It’s for you, fine, but it’s not for everybody.

And that’s the case with so much of what is purveyed these days.

Actually, we’d be better off having an awards show trumpeting touring. Because that’s where the rubber meets the road, can you sell tickets?

Then again, seemingly the worst of the acts have brain dead fans.

Everybody has thrown their hands up in the air. Saying they’re powerless. The labels admit they can’t break an act, so they don’t sign any, unless they’ve broken themselves. As far as searching the nation for viable talent that can grow, ultimately creating meaningful, lasting work…they’ve completely abdicated this responsibility. It’s too heavy a lift. The odds are too long. It’s too expensive. All we hear from labels is how they’re diversifying. Their core competency, signing and breaking music, has been abdicated.

Now in the old days, music fans would know all the nominees. No longer. But it’s even worse, if you’re driven to check out the nominated work…you’re not impressed, you don’t want to hear it again.

As for the endless categories… It’s akin to the scene at large, endless cottage industry, when this is a business that has always been built on stars. But today a star is a brand. An enterprise. The music is just a starting point, it’s not enough by its lonesome. And mistakes are anathema. A show has tons of production and a lot of the music is on hard drive.

And the joke is on the industry itself. Because it has relinquished all of its power. Music is not supposed to run alongside society, it’s supposed to poke it, make it nervous, make people question preconceptions, engender change.

And that does not mean dressing up in costume and speaking to the frustrations of the audience. That’s a part of it, but even if you do that…those who did so in the past lived outside the system, these acts just want to profit in the usual ways.

Never mind the complaints about streaming compensation and ticket fees…

Have you seen the grosses for less than superstar acts recently? This is not an industry that likes to air its dirty laundry, but when you look at the blue Ticketmaster dots for a lot of these shows…people just don’t want to go.

As for anthems, perennials, music that will stand the test of time… That ship sailed long ago. Everything is about today, and today only. And if it makes bank it can’t be criticized.

The biggest new act is made up of cartoon characters. Think about that. But the Academy refuses to recognize this. It’s the year of “KPop Demon Hunters” and Morgan Wallen, period. No one else had purchase on a huge swath of the American public. To give the nominated acts awards is to participate in a circle jerk. There’s no there there with most of these acts. Other than their grosses.

It could change.

But one thing is for sure, we need change for the business to be healthy once again.

And it all comes from the acts themselves, who have the tools at their fingertips. But their beliefs are out of whack. Not only do they aspire to be pop stars, many make music with substandard vocals and complain they don’t break through. God, when you formed a band in the garage back in the day, finding a lead singer was key to success. The person had to be able to SING! And the songs had to have melodies, changes…the basics were paramount, but not anymore.

You can tell how cynical these nominations are by the number of acts in the categories. We want winners to command the lion’s share of the votes. But with eight or nine nominees you can win with less than 20% of the vote, there’s no consensus there. But if someone is excluded someone bitches…the label and you’ve got to be fearful some minority or afflicted group will complain you’re being biased.

Now awards shows have been tanking for years. The Oscars are nearly irrelevant, at most a fashion show, but fashion influencers online have more power than these two-dimensional actresses.

The Grammy organization can point to its new CBS deal and suddenly better ratings and say it is winning. But money isn’t everything and the ratings are anemic when you consider the number of potential viewers.

It’s a sideshow. When music used to be the main show.

We can debate all day long how we got here. Did MTV make image paramount? Did the promotion of Mariah Carey and other popsters, along with TV singing shows, create a paradigm youngsters imitated, despite it having the nutritious value of cotton candy?

Now if you’re in the business today, you’re a believer, that’s how you get paid. But if you’re outside it…

Bernie Sanders is a bigger star than any nominated act. Maybe you hate him, but that’s just the point. He’s got beliefs different from his compatriots and he’s sticking to them, and money is not his personal goal. He stands for something. And even in his eighties people believe in him.

Really, you’re going to believe in these two-dimensional often frauds nominated for these awards?

Things change. Television used to be a wasteland, now it’s the primary artistic force.

Movies used to engender public discussion, they were part of the national debate. Despite all the press hoopla for “One Battle After Another,” the public isn’t talking about it, not even as much as it did “Kramer vs. Kramer,” never mind “Apocalypse Now.”

But you can’t say this. You’re labeled lowbrow as the powers of yesteryear keep telling us we’ve got to go to the theatre, that’s the only way to experience movies…talk about disconnected.

And if you criticize the recording industry and its music the pushback is intense, after all, this is how people are making their living.

Nothing can change. Even though it already has, and we’re all paying the price.

Music triumphs when it’s artistry. And being able to sing and write music goes part of the way, but for that je ne sais quoi…we need outsiders changing it up. We need more than a pretty ditty. We need culture.

And there’s more culture in “KPop Demon Hunters” than there is in almost all of the big time nominees.

Then again, it was created by outsiders given money by a renegade outfit, i.e. Netflix. Our hit music was driven by outsiders. Not anymore.

How can we inspire youngsters to greatness?

By stopping promoting this tripe and helping them along the way with education like you get in the BRIT School. By investing in that which has merit but is not obviously commercial.

But really it all comes down to spontaneous generation.

But there must be influences.

With influences like these, expect a long, dark tunnel ahead.

I was told I could be President. I learned that in first grade. I could see the opportunity, the trajectory, we were all starting from the same line. Now, who would want to be President? Certainly not me.

I was told if I worked hard I could be wealthy. They called it the American Dream. There were hoops to jump through. Mostly dealing with education. And if you reached the brass ring…you were comfortable, you didn’t have to worry about money, you could do things other couldn’t.

They never told us you would do things that were completely separate, that the rest didn’t have access to. You could fly in the front of the plane, you could fly as much as you wanted, but the idea of having your own jet? That was an incomprehensible fantasy. Owning your own island? None of these were possibilities, even on the radar screen until the eighties, when those who’d professed love for everybody in the sixties got greedy.

But then came private equity. And Bill Simon’s leveraged buyout of Gibson Greetings for $80 million. In only eighteen months the company was taken public with a value of $290 million, Simon’s $330,000 investment yielded $66 million. Wow!

And you might not have been paying attention, then again if your goal was to make it, to be rich, to win, the line of scrimmage had been moved way down the field.

So when the dotcom era happened at the turn of the century, the hoi polloi wanted in, and they lost their savings in the financial whiplash. And then their houses in the 2008 recession. It was worse than not succeeding, you were losing, going backwards.

And you were told the banks must be saved, Wall Street was made whole and beyond and no one was thinking of you.

To keep you distracted you were sold entertainers. Who had been as rich as anybody back in the twentieth century, but no more. You just couldn’t make a billion dollars playing music. Sure, today you can argue McCartney is a billionaire, but it took him a very long time to get there. As for Taylor Swift, kudos…but as much money as she’s got, she’s got nowhere near the assets of the techies, who used borrowed money to play in the casino. Not everybody won, but a bunch did.

However, we got computers, iPods, smartphones, MySpace, Facebook, and then we started to realize all this money was being made on our backs. That without our participation, these internet companies were worthless. But we were told their CEOs were He-Men of the Universe, and entitled to every buck. Sans a customer you’re broke, doesn’t anybody realize this?

And then we got Citizens United and those with money had political power beyond what we’d ever seen previously.

But we were told not to complain, after all, we had cable TV on a hi-def set. Things were better than they used to be. Wake up!

As for the rich… We were told they were the innovators…then again, why did CEOs of public companies end up with so much money? It’s one thing if you started the enterprise, if you still owned it, but if you got the public to invest, was anybody worth that amount of compensation? We were told they were.

So Elon Musk takes Tesla public. He makes bank. But now he wants a trillion dollars. Cathie Wood and the rest of the myopic financial world says if he’s successful it lifts all boats, investors win. But last I checked we were all part of a society, and once again, the company is worth nothing without customers, and we’re the customers.

Start a new company with your own money Elon and bank the winnings. Kudos. But now you’re playing with the public’s money, you’ve got a responsibility to us.

But no, that’s not how the game works anymore.

Never mind taxes…

We keep hearing that the rich pay the lion’s share of income taxes. But the bottom line is the hoi polloi are paying taxes all day long…on food, gasoline and so much more. They may not be paying income taxes, but those are not the only monies the country runs on.

But the myth continues. Our country needs this cadre of men to succeed, to be profitable, we must let them run unfettered. Marc Andreessen has actually said this!

Now wait just a minute, if you’re rich the rules no longer apply? That was not the American Dream I signed up for and believed in. Once again, we were all in it together, responsible to each other, but no more!

Scratch the surface and it gets even worse. The private equity majordomos whose vast incomes are taxed at capital gains rates. The fact that through financial planning a lot of these billionaires will never pay any estate tax.

And when things were good, people just buried their heads in the sand.

But in truth, things haven’t been good for the general public since the nineties.

The entire country is run like a movie deal. You’ve got a profit percentage, but the film is always in a negative position, even if it’s grossed hundreds of millions of dollars. You can’t beat the system.

The system has lost touch with the general public.

And whenever the general public rises up and says so, people are accused of being socialists! People don’t want the end of capitalism, they just want a level playing field.

But the game is rigged right down to education. The poor get poorer and the rich get richer, unless you’ve got parents with money and experience good luck lifting yourself above your station. And, it’s not only about education but relationships…that’s what you make at an elite institution, who you know becomes more important than even what you know.

But now they keep sticking it in our face. They don’t even bother to hide it. They figure we’ve been somnambulant so long that it’s de rigueur, that we accept it. That this is the new normal. And anybody who wants to upset the apple cart, who wants change, is un-American.

Meanwhile, you’re  having trouble making ends meet, getting ahead, and all you’re told is it’s your fault, that if you just worked harder…

But you’re working a service job at minimum wage, in a nation where forty hours a week at this rate doesn’t come close to paying your bills. But those who own the businesses have convinced politicians, i.e. paid politicians, to not raise the minimum wage, forecasting disaster, when the truth is at worst they’ll make a little less money.

There can be no change.

For a minute there you could file your federal tax returns for free, via the IRS Direct File program…but that’s gone, got to keep the tax preparers in business, after all they pay the politicians, what have you got?

And there are people who don’t feel this way. Mostly those who are already wealthy. Used to be that many broke Americans didn’t want rich people taxed because they planned on becoming rich too, and when they did they didn’t want to be taxed either.

But now even if you’re on television, on a reality show, everybody might know your name but you’ll still end up broke, living back in Poughkeepsie.

You could become a professional athlete… But even the college stars don’t make it to the pros.

So the doors have closed. But it’s even worse, those who’ve passed through the gates are now pissing on the rest of us, with impunity.

And it doesn’t feel good.

I started reading the new Pynchon book. It got good reviews and I love him in principle, he’s disconnected, he’s a writer, he doesn’t need the penumbra, the media profile. Then again, I bought “Gravity’s Rainbow” and never made much headway, never mind “The Crying of Lot 49.”

So I’d just finished this book “The Wilderness,” by Angela Flournoy. I started to love it, but then it became a bit tedious, hard to stick with, although I did. It’s the story of young Black women and their friendship and it’s a great insight into Black culture, even hip-hop and the clubs, and I loved the choices and personal relationships, but then reading it turned into work, so I didn’t tell you about it.

I am telling you about Joan Silber’s “Mercy.”

After I finish one book, it’s hard to get into another. Even when I try. I guess if I read a book all the way through I’m connected to it, I’m invested, and it’s a rare book that hooks you immediately, so I try a new one and am disappointed and end up surfing the web on my iPad or catching up with print periodicals and I feel guilty that I’m wasting time, especially as the Grim Reaper comes into focus on the horizon, but even if I force myself, I just can’t stick with a new book.

I tried with Pynchon’s “Shadow Ticket” but it was so dense, it was hard to figure out what was going on.

And then I read a few pages of “Mercy,” and the main character was talking about his relationship with his daughter and I thought it was another family drama, and I like these, but it only had three and a half stars on Amazon, and shouldn’t I be reading the Pynchon anyway?

If it’s got less than four stars, be wary. But with days passing when I couldn’t get into a new book I decided to give “Mercy” another try, because unlike “Shadow Ticket” it cut like butter, it was easy to read.

And it wasn’t what I expected whatsoever. Yes, there is a reference to Ivan and his daughter on the very first page, but not long thereafter it goes into Ivan’s life, his history.

Not everybody is going to set the world on fire. And not everybody is a member of the underclass. Some go to college, fumble and find their way, maybe get married and have a couple of kids and before they realize it, they’re at the end of the road.

Ivan starts talking about going to Europe with his buddy Eddie, and being in search of dope.

O.K. They’re in Amsterdam.

But they come back to America and…

This is where the book becomes riveting. Ivan is driving a cab but he lives for extracurricular activities. Eddie is tending bar. But he’s got this girlfriend Ginger, is she into him or not? And they all get together one night and…

It all becomes vivid and real and I’m not going to tell you what happens but it certainly isn’t a domestic story in the suburbs.

And I like to read a story totally blind. I want to be surprised 100%. Just like I see no need to view a movie more than once. The surprise is what gets me, the new, it’s part of the essence of the experience.

So… I thought the book would be all about Ivan, but then it switched characters. Yes, I’m telling you this. Because it’s so hard to get someone to read a book, and I’m really recommending this one.

What we’ve got here is multiple lives, which intersect a bit, but everybody lives out a story and it is delineated. These are not the stories of the so-called “Greatest Generation,” these are the stories of boomers, which include divorce, multiple partners, job-hopping.

As for your friends…you maintain contact with some, but others can be incredibly close for a while and then you lose touch. But how do you feel about them?

One of the amazing things about the celebrities is how they jump from one person to another, multiple marriages and… I don’t get over people that fast. I wonder if you ever get over people. Or maybe I don’t and others do. Or maybe those celebrities don’t have deep relationships. But this concept is addressed in this book:

“I’d been so interested in all of them—now they were residents of another segment of time, though I was still attached. They belonged to me. I didn’t forget.”

Can you?

I could see myself in this book, my inner feelings. I don’t need that to enjoy a book, but when done right it both spooks me and makes me feel warm inside.

And part of my identity is my wariness, my judgment of those who are insecure and need to burnish their image based on who they know:

“They narrated their lives by citing any known figures they’d had any ties to or even just met, as if familiar names were needed to anchor stories and give them meaning. As if someone else’s glory was a credential.”

You can be in a tent in the Alaskan wilderness, or off the grid in North Dakota, and still someone will reference a famous person they know…

As for telling your story at all:

“He reacted very badly to a lack of enthusiasm for things he felt strongly about…”

Actually, in the book, this is about someone who always needs listeners to agree with them, to hang on every word and not challenge them. But for me…if you don’t show even a modicum of enthusiasm, I find I can’t tell the story at all! I just fade out, I stop.

As for that friend you had contact with that you no longer do…

“He never did have a friend like Ivan again. He was very glad for the years he hung out with Nathan—they had great talks and could happily chew over any world question. But the two of them didn’t persuade and tempt and corral each other into further adventures, pushing the proverbial envelope.”

You’re surprised to find that you connected best with a friend from long ago. You thought you’d have that connection with someone in the future, but you never did. And that resonance, that identification, when you click and can talk forever…that’s very hard to find.

And…

“A woman who went to award dinners in a long, spangled gown with a train. Of course she was still Ginger underneath that.”

People don’t really change. Or should I say underneath the trappings they’re still the same old no one from nowheresville. Some try to cover it up, with airs, emanating fabulousness, but in truth…even life at the top ain’t so fabulous, and you always want someone to understand you.

I still don’t think I’ve made clear what “Mercy” is about, but…

If you’re interested in the stories of people, not only their inner lives, but their choices, the unfolding of life…wow, I couldn’t put this book down. It was easy to read, but unfortunately it was short, I could have read a couple hundred more pages!