He was everywhere and then he was nowhere. He’s the only classic rock act that hasn’t burned it out on an endless dash for cash, making me squirm.

I bought “Tea For The Tillerman” and “Mona Bone Jakon” simultaneously in April 1971, I’d never heard either on the radio but the positive reviews were deafening. I knew he’d broken through when my old, long gone friend Ronnie and I stopped for a bite in Burlington after a day banging the bumps at Stowe later that month and I heard “Tea For The Tillerman” pouring through the open doors of a van. That was the ultimate vehicle back then, you could take all your stuff with you. Funny how today these same people need SUVs, afraid a van will give them a bad image, but the image back then was…I’m free and easy, the road is wide open, I’m gonna suck the marrow from life.

And then Reagan legitimized greed, acquisition became everything, musical acts couldn’t stop telling us how much better than us they were, who they were hanging with, how they were extracting cash from corporations, and the gulf between them and us was wide and palpable.

But not Thursday night.

Kinda weird, I know. These are songs we know by heart, but it’s like they don’t exist outside of our brains. And then Cat Stevens steps up to the mic and starts singing “Where Do The Children Play?” and you’re jetted right back to what once was. There was a collective gasp in the audience, was this really happening? And then applause and a standing ovation, in this case not obligatory, but well-deserved.

Being gone for three decades will do that for you.

And it will also leave your voice intact. He sounded no different than he did in the seventies, it was as if no time had passed, and he was exuding such warmth.

This was billed as an acoustic enterprise. And although ultimately there were two accompanists, on guitar and bass, sometimes electric, that’s what it was, quiet and intimate, as if the man himself had stopped by in your living room and told his tale with a smile.

He was glad to be there.

No one’s glad to be on stage anymore. They’re all pissed they don’t make as much from recordings. It’s just one of an endless number of dates. Whereas every live show used to be an opportunity for the performer and audience to bond, to get high together.

We got high Thursday night.

This was not Bob Dylan refusing to speak to the audience. And no video screens were necessary, we were all up close and personal. And…

Cat/Steven/Yusuf told us his story. From living atop his parents’ cafe in London to hearing the Beatles to picking up a guitar to having a hit.

When music was the juice of the world, not only a way to get rich and travel, but to get your point across.

And when it’s an “Evening With,” with no opening act, no time constraints, you get to hear not only the whole story, but the songs you thought you’d never hear again. Not only “Father and Son,’ but “I Love My Dog.”

But the first transcendent moment was “Trouble.”

Trouble
Oh trouble set me free
I have seen your face
And it’s too much for me

This track stuck out of “Mona Bona Jakon.” And when I heard it in “Harold and Maude” I swooned. Some cuts are hiding in plain sight, they’re monsters that never got any airplay, but are well-known and mean so much to those familiar with them, kinda like Brian Wilson’s “‘Til I Die.”

I’m pinching myself. Telling myself to concentrate. Because soon the song would be gone, into the ether, it was a moment in time not to be repeated, that’s the essence of a live show.

And Cat sang a bit of “From Me To You,” before dropping the needle on an actual record player on stage so we could hear the rest of it. That’s what we did back then, dropped the needle. Vinyl wasn’t fetishized, it was mostly abhorred, Cat had a hard time extracting the record from the sleeve, and we heard the pops and clicks, CDs with their digital tracks were a revelation. Progress is amazing. But have we progressed in music?

He also played “The First Cut Is The Deepest.” The original iteration, before Rod Stewart added soul and took it from a ditty to an anthem, before it became a popular standard, Cat wrote it. That used to be the ultimate goal, not to sing the song, but to write it, hopefully to do both.

And after an hour, there was an intermission.

I went backstage with Michael McDonald, one of three managers, the others being Kelly Curtis and Rich Schaefer, and I figured it’d be the usual hang and then…

Cat appeared, in between sets, with a smile on his face, he gripped each of our hands and stared into our eyes for what seemed like an eternity. We’re supposed to be paying fealty to him, but he was paying fealty to us!

I don’t need to meet the act. If you’ve got a wall full of pics with you and famous icons I’m laughing. Is that how you get your jollies? They’ve got no idea who you are and they don’t care, but Cat wasn’t leaving so I asked him about his t-shirt, with a logo I didn’t know. He didn’t either, he said his son had given it to him, and he laughed. Remember when you wore on stage what you wore off? When the clothes didn’t matter? This was the t-shirt Cat was wearing on stage.

And the highlight of the evening was “Father and Son.”

Cat said it was supposed to be part of a musical, a Russian father telling his son not to go off to war.

I was once like you are now, and I know that it’s not easy
To be calm when you’ve found something going on
But take your time, think a lot

Nobody thinks anymore. Either they run on instinct, or just go head first into the future. With age comes wisdom, but when the aged are imitating the young, getting plastic surgery, slithering into skinny jeans, who’s going to listen to them?

We used to listen to our rock stars.

And there were further covers. A singalong to “All You Need Is Love,” “People Get Ready,” when you’re comfortable in your own skin you can shine the light on others, on the experience we all had back then.

We all sang “Moonshadow.” Removed from the radio, played in a venue where it was just him and us, it was a religious experience. You couldn’t help but vocalize.

It was like it was back then, everybody sat.

But it was today. As if a relative or friend returned from the dead and although he was aged and gray, he was the same as he ever was. HOW CAN THIS BE?

Chris Cornell came out and duetted on “Wild World,” but I just wanted to hear Cat, I needed no stunting, no trappings, the man was enough, the glass was already full, overflowing, in fact.

If you want to be free, be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are

You didn’t have to work for the bank, nobody wanted to. Life was about personal fulfillment, not avoiding the pitfalls. A potter, a teacher, a singer, they were all reasonable professions.

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out

I’m still digesting Thursday’s concert, I still haven’t wrapped my head around it. I own these records, and it turns out so many others do too. We remember what once was, it’s only a smidge beneath the surface. We remember when music ruled the world, when we knew not everybody could make it, and we hoisted the talented to the top of the world, their deserved perch.

And then this guy who’s been absent from the scene re-emerges and it’s like not a single day has passed. And he’s so similar to the rest of us, he got hooked by the music, he was searching for meaning.

His conversion to Islam was completely comprehensible when put in context. Over and over again Cat was searching for answers, reading, because money and fame are not everything, that’s just a canard the media sells us.

But the Beatles went to India and Cat studied Buddhism and I…

Studied them. They were my mentors, my beacons, all the truth, all the guidance I needed was contained in the grooves.

And the grooves came alive Thursday night.

If movies were this good, I’d go every day.

We were planning to go to the Reagan Library. I took my mom to lunch at an Indian restaurant in the West Valley. She’s here for the Jewish holidays. My sister recommended a place with a patio, but I can’t sit in the sun, the pill I take makes me super-sensitive. You know how the pharmacist always warns you? Well, with Gleevec it’s real, I’ve got the sunburn to show for it. My beach days are through. So, I Googled, and L.A. Eater said to go Anarbagh, it was listed first. Now there’s nothing like Indian from a dive in London, and I can’t say today’s dishes were as good, but like Joey Ramone, I like a good vindaloo, and it hit the spot.

So, with the rest of the afternoon to kill I suggested we visit the Reagan Library, in Simi Valley, a mere half hour away, my mother was not a fan of the man but she loves a good museum and I called and they were open and had wheelchairs and after a preparatory pee I realized…

We couldn’t do it. I couldn’t push the wheelchair. Because of my shoulder surgery.

So we decided to go to the movies. My mother goes every Friday night. Recently, she’s seen dogs. But she grew up going to the flicks and she can’t break the habit. I told her about “Narcos,” other stuff you can stream, but she’s got to see it on the big screen.

I figured we’d go see “The Girl On The Train.” But she already knew it had gotten bad reviews. I checked it on the Tomatometer, she was right, it was under 50%. And I suggested “Birth Of A Nation” but time was tight and then I saw…

“A Man Called Ove.” Which had an 88% rating, and few things break 90 on Rottentomatoes.com.

Amy recommended the book. She’s a social worker at UCLA Hospital. She’s the most compassionate person I know. But the story didn’t quite resonate, maybe it was the translation, it seemed a bit too one note, a sour man gets redeemed.

But the film was better than the book. This is only the second time I’ve ever experienced this, the first was with “Wonder Boys.”

So we drove to the Laemmle Town Center.

It’s where the old Jews go. The stooped, the infirm, they’re keeping the foreign movies alive. It was an endless parade of the less than functional, interspersed with Valleyites walking by while we waited for the film to begin. We had an hour to kill. My mother caught me up with her circle. That’s what Jews do, tell the stories of people. This one who made the bad choice, that one who’s in the bad marriage, it’s an endless movie not projected on screen, but based in reality. And when you get older and no one works it’s the petty that gets in your way. Is someone inviting you expecting payback? By taking up that invitation did my mother get herself into a quagmire, will she have to include this woman forevermore?

And it’s a game of musical chairs. Everybody keeps dying. There are only a few left. My mom is gonna be ninety in December. A hard number to fathom, but it will be crushing when she’s gone. For us. She’s ready to go, she keeps saying that people live too long.

So we rode the handicapped elevator down to the main floor. Shuffled into the theatre and were confronted with trailers that were actually interesting. An Israeli movie about finding an old love, I wanted to see it.

And I didn’t really want to see “Ove.” I had a bad experience with “Indignation,” I read the book right before, my expectations were too high, they left the climactic snow scene out.

I go for plot, for story, and if I know it already…

But “A Man Called Ove” was different.

First and foremost, it was a film.

I live in Los Angeles. It’s sunny nearly every day. And I’m not complaining, but I miss the mist and the fog and the snow, they breed character.

And Ove is like me. This I remember from the book. WHY CAN’T PEOPLE OBEY THE RULES! Ove is bothered when bikes are left out, when cars go down pedestrian avenues. I’m bothered when you try to sneak into line, when you toss your garbage from your automobile. I don’t know why I’m this way. Bending rules is so difficult for me. Which is probably why I’d make a bad entrepreneur, because sometimes they don’t even know where the line is!

And in the book, they paint a better picture of Ove’s upbringing, where he’s coming from.

But in the film there’s a better depiction of his marriage.

Bottom line, Ove gets laid off and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. His wife has died and he decides to join her. But he keeps getting interrupted.

Everybody’s so busy getting rich and famous. Sure, social media is communication, but there’s a level of boasting underneath. It’s a giant pecking order and you’re valued by your followers and your likes and everybody can see. Life is no longer for the living, it’s about quantification.

But if you’re an oldster in Sweden…

America has devolved into the land of comic book movies.

But overseas, they’re still telling stories about life.

“A Man Called Ove” is sad, but it’s funny, just like life. If you’re not laughing at a funeral… Or, as Joni Mitchell sang, “Laughing and crying, you know it’s the same release.”

What makes life worth living?

To what degree are we our neighbors’ keepers?

Is what we base our judgment and friendship upon valid? If you drive a Volvo instead of a Saab, Ove is going to have a hard time being your friend. If you drive a BMW, forget about it.

Sure, it’s easier to watch at home. But going to the theatre… You’ve got to make the effort, the room is dark, and when done right film takes you away and informs you about real life.

“A Man Called Ove” did this.

It’s not perfect, but it’ll get you thinking… What is life about? Are  you just a rat in cage? Are you so set in your ways you can’t get out of your own way?

And some of us are burdened with tragedies through no fault of our own.

But we must soldier on.

Ove learns it’s worth soldiering on.

He not busy being born is busy dying.

Bob Dylan wrote that. It’s a line from “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding,” a track on the 1965 album “Bringing It All Back Home.” That’s right, while you were listening to Herman’s Hermits Bob Dylan was revolutionizing songwriting. By the end of the year he triumphed with “Like A Rolling Stone,” which not only contained its sneering lyrics and Al Kooper’s organ, but lasted over six minutes when AM radio ditties rarely broke three.

Bob Dylan was a revolutionary, breaking convention. One of the best and the brightest, he’d been inspired by folk music and twisted the past into something brand new. He had something to say, and refused to be embalmed, living in the past. Pete Seeger’s heyday was already behind him. Dylan went electric and went worldwide.

Twitter became moribund. It captured the zeitgeist and refused to innovate. Kind of like all those bands the Beatles and Dylan pushed off the pop chart. There was something there, but the old acts did not know how to reconstitute the elements to move forward. Tech is all about pushing forward, it’s what have you done for me lately. How did music become just the opposite?

Marc Benioff wants Twitter for the data, and the customer service opportunities. Kind of like a wizard A&R guy he wants to strip what doesn’t work and emphasize that which does. Meanwhile, the underpinnings are the essence. The treasure trove of information generated each and every day.

Music services generate said info. And insiders use it more and more. But still not enough. Meanwhile, users are basking in the glory of Spotify’s “Discover Weekly,” “Release Radar” and “Daily Mix,” all data-generated, all filling needs we did not know we had. You’ve got to hit ’em with the Hein, fast and furious, when they least expect it. That was Steve Jobs’s magic, he got you to buy that which you could not previously conceive, and kept upping the ante with new software products, most of which were free, from iTunes to iPhoto to…

We’ve had two great upheavals in the music business. One was classic rock and the other was MTV. Both drew out not only fans, but creators. But somehow the business has become calcified, protecting what once was as opposed to what could be.

Artists can’t stop bitching their cheese has been moved. If they were Oracle, they’d get Salesforce shut down. Yes, Marc Benioff runs Salesforce. His revelation was to put software online, in the cloud, as opposed to the old model of having servers inside the building. This is no different from the move from physical to streaming. Someone comes up with a new, more efficient way of distribution and…the smart money goes along with it, the dumb money stays behind.

But the dumb money rules the music business. Which believes change is anathema. The great crunch came and the record labels cut back. Instead of releasing more material, experimenting, because costs were so low, they got safe, they put out very little and it sounds just like what came before. Just try selling a non-friendly radio act to a record label, can’t be done, unless it comes with an already established fanbase.

Jack Dorsey was married to the past, no one could mess with his baby. Which is why old acts are superseded by new ones. You need a clean sheet of paper, you must see things differently. Like any act without hits the buzz on Twitter faded, and now it’s for sale.

Now there’s a roll-up factor here. That which seemed independent is oftentimes better as part of a conglomerate, where synergy can transpire. Spotify should not be an indie company. Not because it can’t make money, but because it can’t monetize its data as well as a bigger entity could.

And Pandora has hit a wall.

And iHeart is just catching up.

And Apple Music keeps having its lunch eaten. While it’s fixing its interface, Spotify is running circles around it with its utilization of data. Apple believes the big kahuna never fails, because of scale, but that’s not the story of Silicon Valley.

So what’s a poor boy to do?

No one at a label will take a risk, because no one has any ownership, they’re all employees who are afraid of losing their jobs. This is not Herb and Jerry allowing the fields to go fallow so they can reap huge rewards in the future.

And the best and the brightest see little opportunity. Who wants a job with no upward mobility where you can’t make that much money? And the acts provide no counsel. They’re all brands looking to sell out to corporations. That only appeals to the have-nots.

But there is a revolution happening in music. It’s the top list.

Radio is dying. Please embrace this truth, it’s the only way forward. Forget the disinformation campaign of the usual players. Stations want to make money and labels like the control. But online, on the Spotify chart, anything can happen.

And “Billboard” can’t even codify it. Because it’s still counting sales and saying one track streamed a number of times is an album, huh? Tech is about wiping the slate clean, and music is tech, never forget it, move into the future.

Radio hits are built more slowly than ever before. Unless you’re a superstar, it could take a year or more to break through.

But not on Spotify.

And it’s only about Spotify, because Spotify has by far the most market share and so much of its data is public. You can see what people are playing and how much a hit is streamed, EVERYBODY CAN SEE THIS! What I want from Apple Music is not exclusives, but data, what is happening behind the curtain? But the company has always been secretive and Jimmy Iovine likes to work behind the scenes and it’s a bad fit for the present and future.

It was not uncommon for a fan to own Yes, Ry Cooder, Little Feat and Doobie Brothers albums back in the early seventies. Along with Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor. These acts sounded nothing alike, what drew people to them was their refusal to play it safe, they were all testing limits all the time. It was new and exciting, everybody was a music fan.

Those days need to come back.

It starts with the music.

Sure, fresh-faced kids propped up by old pros have a spot in the marketplace. This has always been the case. Can you say “New Kids On The Block”?

But now even the Weeknd, our most vaunted act, collaborates with Max Martin. And that’s just sad.

You’ve got to pay your dues. And not complain. And your way out is through art. And now, more than ever, the competition is fierce. You’re not only competing against more product, you’re competing against the history of recorded music, at everyone’s fingertips, for free!

If you’ve got a bad voice you must be an incredible lyricist.

Or get out of the way. We don’t need you. You can make your music, but don’t expect to become rich and famous, you’re cluttering the channel, you’re a Zune in the era of iPods.

And we’re looking for breakthroughs. A few brave souls who are willing to take the untrodden path, inspired by what once was into making something brand new.

And we need the labels to market it, to take risk, it’s their only way forward. They’ve utilized their catalogs to prevail in the present, but that won’t carry them into the future.

And it starts with recordings. Promoters can tap demand, but they don’t build it, unless you’re a phenomenal performer, and that’s rare at the outset.

We need to pull the entire populace along with us. And we’ll do this by throwing the old rulebook out and taking risks, which has become anathema to the entire industry.

We used to have a new sound every three years, wiping out the old. Grunge eviscerated hair bands. But for the last fifteen years it’s essentially been the same thing. Wouldn’t you get bored eating the same lunch for a decade and a half?

But the insiders can’t see it. They live for music, they believe they’re entitled.

Which is why disruption always comes from outside.

I want further disruption. Spotify is a good thing, it creates new opportunities. And if you don’t believe this…

You’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.

My father taught me to be skeptical.

Middlebury taught me how to interact with the rich.

And seemingly every day since I’ve gone to school, even if it hasn’t taken place in a classroom.

I just listened to Tom Brokaw on David Axelrod’s podcast. He was telling the story of questioning President Nixon about executive privilege. Dick’s handlers accosted him after the press conference and asked him how dare he, treat the President that way. Tom said he’d done the scholarship, had they?

Intimidation… It doesn’t only happen on the schoolyard. Bullies are everywhere. And you don’t want your mommy to complain to the principal, you have to learn how to stand up to them, they’re often paper tigers.

But I get scared.

But now I won’t be as much.

Irving Azoff taught me not to be insulted by the offer, it’s just a starting point.

Marty Albertson taught me when the economy is tanking, you go for market share. Which is why when the Dow Jones crashes the pros buy, because they know it will go back up.

They also have cash to burn. You’ve got to have cash to burn. If you’re looking after every last dollar you’re not gonna get ahead.

And although you have a responsibility to aid those less fortunate, America is a jungle where it’s every person for themselves and if you don’t learn the hard lessons you’re gonna end up on the sidelines. Those who complain they just weren’t born with the talent or the skills or the right parents are left out of the game to their detriment. Each of us has own special gifts, you too can triumph, if you continue to educate yourself.

My shrink taught me how to get along. That no one gets to be themselves 24/7, that I’m in control of my own life, I get to interact however I want to, what choices can I make that will behoove me?

And my dad taught me…

Being a member of the group is overrated.

But being a member of the group is everything.

And if that sounds contradictory, the point is you need friends to survive, but don’t jump off a bridge just because they did.

My father taught me to search for the truth. This is a skill especially helpful in Hollywood, where everybody’s full of crap, putting up a good image. If the person has no visible means of support yet drives a Mercedes… They have a rich father or are up to their neck in debt. And the media prints the legend, because oftentimes the truth is too disillusioning.

And as I get older I keep peeling back the layers of the onion. I’m constantly learning new tricks, gaining new insights.

But time is running out.

My education lags my career. If only I knew then what I know now.

Like commitment is everything in relationships. Sure, sex and attraction are important. And never rule out money, it’s the number one relationship killer. But having someone who’ll stick by you through thick and thin, that’s key.

We get dazzled by looks, we can’t see through the skin, so we oftentimes make bad choices.

And sometimes we’re so worried we’re gonna make mistakes that we make no choices at all.

Book learning is cool. You’ve got to know how to read and write, er, type. Even more important is the power of analysis. The mark of an educated man is one who can hold two competing thoughts in his brain at the same time. You’d be surprised how few can do this, it’s what separates the men from the boys, it’s what you learn at elite institutions. If you’re going to college to make money…there are easier ways.

So it’s thrilling to uncover the truth on seemingly a daily basis. To tear down icons in my mind and realize I’ve got the chops, I can play.

And then I learn something new and feel so stupid. Now I get how it works. If only I knew then…

Too many people will tell you they have the answers. You can put your faith in a guru, you can read endless self-help books. But nothing equates with personal experience. We’re all individuals and we all have lessons to impart.

You’re on your own.

But that’s the game of life.

We can all play, if we realize the adventure is about lessons. Wisdom is gained through experience. Signposts are everywhere. You’ve just got to open your mind.

And apply yourself.

My father always told me to apply myself.