MOONAGE DAYDREAM

I’m an alligator
I’m a mama-papa coming for you

The first Bowie song that hooked me.

It was the sound of Mick Ronson’s guitar. Bowie plucked him from obscurity and made him an icon. Ronson ultimately co-produced Lou Reed’s “Transformer,” cut his own album, “Slaughter On 10th Avenue,” worked with Ian Hunter and then died. But first and foremost, Ronson was cool. Which was quite a feat, standing next to Bowie himself.

It was the summer of ’72, I was in London, cruising the record shops, reading “Melody Maker” and the NME, going to the Chelsea Drugstore, and the two biggest acts were T. Rex and David Bowie, the former with little traction in the U.S., the latter completely unknown. So, when I got back across the pond I bought the album with all the hoopla, “Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.” The vinyl was flexible, as was the wont of RCA, a label which featured very few stars, never mind true rockers, all this to say the LP was brand new to me, I was listening in my bedroom, having an adventure. And back then you’d play albums over and over and over again, and as they wore on you’d get hooked and favorites would change. But to this day, my heart remains pledged to “Moonage Daydream.”

Keep your ‘lectric eye on me babe
Put your ray gun to my head
Press your space face close to mine, love
Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah

IT AIN’T EASY

I knew it. It was on the sampler LP “Friends” from the fall of 1970. There was an ad in “Rolling Stone.” Unlike the Warner “Loss Leaders,” you didn’t even have to send A&M money. And it included Cat Stevens’ “Trouble.” And Free’s “I’ll Be Creepin’.” Along with “It Ain’t Easy” by Ron Davies, who never broke through. If you fast-forward to the one minute mark, you can hear Davies’s original here:

Ron Davies – It Ain’t Easy (1970)

ZIGGY STARDUST

Because of the riff, instantly memorable. With the backstory of this concept album contained in its lyrics.

ROUND AND ROUND

And then the man went on tour, he played the Music Hall in Boston, it wasn’t sold out, Bowie was still unknown, I mail-ordered the tickets and we drove down from Vermont and when the strobe lights came on and the band in their spacesuits started to play it was a transcendent moment.

But not as high a peak as the encore, when the house lights went up and the band came out and played “Round And Round.”

The original is by Chuck Berry. The Stones had the famous British Invasion cover. It was the kind of song you knew by heart but never heard on the radio. Playing it Bowie illustrated his roots and his chops all at the same time. He was twitching on stage, the music was in him, all we could do was marvel.

CHANGES

From “Hunky Dory,” arguably Bowie’s best album. Hell, I’ll go on record, it IS!

Once upon a time, “Changes” was completely unknown. I never heard it on the radio before “Ziggy Stardust” was released. Hell, I never heard any of “Ziggy Stardust” on the radio!

But Bowie had a whole career, a whole catalog, before I got hooked. But with limited cash and not knowing where to start, I did not immediately go out and buy “Hunky Dory.” But my college buddy John Hughes did, and I followed him shortly thereafter.

“Changes” is the famous song, hooky and meaningful, but almost too obvious, especially compared with the deep, insightful stuff that fleshed out the rest of the album, like…

LIFE ON MARS?

It’s a god-awful small affair

A story song, that pulled you in and made you want to get closer to the artist. Funny how album cuts do that, make you a fan. You think it’s about the hits, but it’s when you throw off convention and follow your muse that we become bonded to you.

KOOKS

“Ziggy” rocked, “Hunky Dory” had more of an acoustic feel.

This is the essence of the scene, if not life, we’re all just kooks, hung up on romancing.

ANDY WARHOL

As in ‘holes’

From before Bowie became an art rock icon, when he wasn’t famous in New York, when he was looking to the art icon from across the sea.

He sings like he means it. So you do too. Haunting.

OH! YOU PRETTY THINGS

It’s hard not to include every song from “Hunky Dory.” I feel bad about leaving “The Bewlay Brothers” off. But “Oh! You Pretty Things” not only has indelible changes that have your brain twisting, the message encapsulates the era:

Oh! you pretty things
Don’t you know you’re driving your
Mamas and papas insane

PANIC IN DETROIT

I went back and bought “The Man Who Sold The World” too, but eagerly anticipated and purchased upon the day of release “Aladdin Sane.”

I’d like to tell you it superseded what came before, built upon the base and broke through, but it didn’t. I played it again and again, figuring I’d missed it, that it would reveal itself to me, but…

I did like a number of tracks, this one jumped out first. Especially the break, wherein Bowie sings about making his way to school and finding his teacher crouching in his overalls.

THE JEAN GENIE

The one you hear most from “Aladdin Sane” today. The vocal is a detached sneer wherein Bowie is cooler than you, he always was.

LADY GRINNING SOUL

Is this already forgotten?

The final track on “Aladdin Sane” became the one I played most. Credit Mike Garson’s piano playing. For all the space age sound, the commentary on modern life, Bowie would display unexpected range, with stuff like this, which was one step away from a James Bond theme song, at least the ones they cut back then.

ALL THE YOUNG DUDES

So, the cognoscenti know Bowie, as referenced above, Lou Reed hired him and Mick Ronson to produce his breakthrough “Transformer” album, which contained “Walk On The Wild Side.” Bowie made Reed palatable for the masses, without his work it’s doubtful the bard of Long Island would be the legend he is.

And then comes Mott The Hoople.

Four albums and no success. I saw them open for Traffic at the Fillmore East, they played their instrumental cover of “You Really Got Me” from their debut LP with the Escher cover but…they never got bigger. And then they switched labels, from Atlantic to Columbia, were produced by Bowie and…

Let’s be clear, Bowie WROTE THIS! Suddenly Mott The Hoople had a bigger hit than Bowie ever did! Who gives up his best number? Eventually a Bowie recording slipped out, but that was long after the fact.

SEE EMILY PLAY

A fan buys everything, without hearing it first.

By this time, the hip rock press was filled with Bowie stories, especially “Creem.” We knew this album of covers was coming. But the problem was I already knew most of these songs already, and Bowie did not improve upon them. “PinUps” was not special. Was now the time for Bowie to indulge himself, or should he have gone in for the kill? Then again, he was a superstar in the U.K., even though he meant little in the States.

But this is one track I didn’t know. Everybody lionizes Syd Barrett these days, but at this point in time people were just catching up with the latter-day Pink Floyd, “Dark Side Of The Moon” was beginning its ascendance. “See Emily Play” might have meant something over there, but here it was deeper than a deep cut.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD TIMES GONE

One of these days Ray Davies is gonna die, and you’re gonna lament you never saw him live, you’re gonna look back at his work and marvel how someone could chronicle life so accurately, to the point so many covered his songs…hell, Herman’s Hermits had a hit with “Dandy.”

This is my favorite cover on “PinUps.”

REBEL REBEL

And suddenly David Bowie is all over the radio, the FM dial, the only one that counts, Top Forty did not experience a renaissance until 1982, after MTV winnowed down the number of tracks and turned those chosen into hits and new radio stations copied their playlist and ate up market share and killed AOR.

The press hated “Diamond Dogs,” said it shot low, was a disappointment.

So much for critics. Who mean even less in the internet era.

Bowie’s now playing arenas, with multiple backup singers dressed as dogs, the story is all over the rock press, “Diamond Dogs” is a triumph, illustrating the power of a hit single to truly establish your career.

1984

My favorite track on “Diamond Dogs,” from back when Orwellian nightmares were a constant reference, before that year came and went.

SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME

Someone up there must need David Bowie, to trash the oldies and establish a new path. I liked the “Blackstar” song/video, and have to give the guy credit for doing the unexpected, for following his own muse, he’s confounded our expectations, it’s the album “The Next Day” should have been. And “Young Americans” was confounding, a complete one-eighty, a jump from moist London to gritty Philadelphia, David Bowie reimagined himself as an R&B star.

But I didn’t buy the album, I didn’t buy any albums, I was living on a wing and a prayer in Sandy, Utah. I had five pairs of skis on my roof, but not a dime in my pocket. Which is how I found myself sleeping in my car behind the Hart warehouse in Reno, Nevada, waiting for them to open the next morning so I could get a new pair of Freestyles. Before the security guard woke me up in the middle of the night, while I was huddled under my sleeping bag in the front seat listening to the radio, I heard this. It’s still my favorite track on the album, it locks you into the groove the way a roller coaster locks onto the chain and it doesn’t let go. Furthermore, it makes you feel GOOD!

FASCINATION

The other one that gets me on “Young Americans.” Which was co-written by soul legend Luther Vandross and features the rock solid rhythm section of Andy Newmark and Willie Weeks, never mind New York legend David Sanborn on sax and Bowie teammates Carlos Alomar and Mike Garson on guitar and piano respectively.

I know, I know, “Young Americans” featured the multi-format smash “Fame,” but I never cottoned to it, it’s almost too obvious and was played to death, but I loved that Bowie had become a huge star in the U.S.

TVC 15

Cut in L.A. at Cherokee (just to get inside a recording studio was a treat back then, I remember the first time I was there in the eighties), “Station To Station” was an extension of the “Young Americans” sound, and this is my favorite cut from it, I love the way it ultimately transitions and accelerates at the four minute mark.

GOLDEN YEARS

How cool is this?

A hit I was enamored of, unlike “Fame,” great changes, great sound, great production.

SPEED OF LIFE

I loved this, the opening track on “Low,” I was living in one room with no light on Carmelina in West L.A. but every time I dropped the needle on this my mood brightened.

Bowie would completely change sounds and genres, daring us to come along. And he seemingly didn’t care if what he did was a hit or not. Sure, Neil Young felt the same way, but Bowie was bigger and had further to fall and the jumps were much longer.

I know, I know, Madonna is famous for changing genres, but does anybody really give her credit as a musician? Don’t we credit her cowriters? And even though she slings a guitar across her shoulder do we really think she can play? (And don’t make this a sexist thing, Jennifer Batten and Tal Wilkenfeld, who both famously accompanied the best rock guitarist of all time, Jeff Beck, can SHRED!) Sure, electronic music was starting to burgeon, Eno had put out a bunch of LPs, but his breakthrough, “Before And After Science,” came almost a year after “Low” so…it’s hard to say Bowie jumped on the bandwagon, rather he helped establish it!

BREAKING GLASS

At the bleeding edge of the punk era, there was a ton of attitude in this, possibly “Low”‘s most accessible track, which is saying something.

BE MY WIFE

An offbeat track by one of the biggest artists in the world, talk about taking a risk!

WARSZAWA

I can’t believe I’m including four tracks from “Low”! But when you’re a fan, you play this stuff over and over again, and if it’s good, it reveals itself to you.

HEROES

And yes, Bowie worked with Eno on both “Low” and “Heroes,” but this was much more accessible. And although a number one hit in Ireland, Scotland and the U.K., it was nowhere near as big in the U.S. But it had a place. And over time it’s gained more and more traction in the public consciousness, it’s one of the most referenced tracks since Bowie’s death.

ASHES TO ASHES

From “Scary Monsters,” instantly accessible.

UNDER PRESSURE

Let’s see.

I moved from that ground floor apartment to Barry Avenue with my girlfriend. And when that ended I ended up where I am now, nearly friendless, because we each completed each other, and that’s not a good thing. So I set out to make new friends, and I remember Andy Mazur being enraptured by this number, maybe even buying the single, when that was nearly taboo, we’d sit in his place overlooking the city and when I heard the music I felt my life would work out. And now not only are two Beatles deceased, but Freddie Mercury and David Bowie are gone too.

LET’S DANCE

And by all rights, Bowie should have been done, a creature of the seventies who’d been through so many twists and turns that he’d expended all his capital, and wasn’t there a new wave of U.K. groups dominating the chart and ultimately the newfangled MTV?

Right.

But MTV gave David Bowie a victory lap, made him bigger than ever before, starting with this.

I’d love to tell you I love it, but I don’t. I like it more than “Fame,” love the groove, but it was simplistic lyrically and overplayed in a newly mindless era. But at a distance, I can tell why it went to number one. Bowie was built for MTV, even if he predated it, Bowie had a presence, he knew visuals.

MODERN LOVE

I liked this one better, it rocked more.

CAT PEOPLE (PUTTING OUT FIRE)

There’s an iteration on “Let’s Dance,” but you really want the 1982 single. The title song from the movie, back when Nastassja Kinski was the new “It Girl,” this track snuck up on you, was subtle and ultimately hooked you. Credit Giorgio Moroder, who was on an incredible hot streak, everything he touched went gold, he’d already succeeded in films with “Midnight Express.” I can’t imagine anything like this being chosen as a title track today, they want an instant hit, it’s not about art, but commerce. Then again, the movies themselves are in the dumper.

LOVING THE ALIEN

Bowie was now on EMI America. One wonders what his career would have looked like if he was on Warner or Columbia in the States, he never had the benefit of a reasonable label in his heyday.

This is darker than the stuff on the “Let’s Dance” album, but in many ways even more satiating.

Okay, okay, there was more.

“Blue Jean” was a hit after this.

And I never mentioned “Little Drummer Boy” with Bing Crosby. And it was stunning that Bowie rescued the Sales brothers from Todd Rundgren and obscurity with Tin Machine. But as time wore on, Bowie kept experimenting and had less impact, at least commercially.

Who do we blame? Bowie himself or a culture that became all about obvious pop hits, ultimately written by others with two-dimensional characters as fronts?

But I did see Bowie one more time, from mere feet away, at the Wiltern, an underplay back in 2004. It was neither sad nor creepy, Bowie smiled and gave it his all and then he was done, disappeared.

To tell you the truth, I thought the cocaine got him, that it compromised his heart and that’s why he couldn’t go back on the road. I did not expect him to die of cancer.

And now he’s gone.

This has hit me hard. Because it wasn’t Bowie’s time. But the Grim Reaper doesn’t seem to care, he takes people willy-nilly, no matter their impact, no matter how much they are loved.

So we end up with more questions than answers. Which is where art comes in. It makes sense of the world, it gives us something to hold on to and believe in.

And we believed in David Bowie. We didn’t think he was a fraud, propped up by the machine, rather the genuine article.

And, of course, there was the acting and the outfits and the production, the theatre, but really it comes down to the music.

Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s all rolled up in this thing we know as a career.

You remember careers, right? That’s what lifers did before money came first and they began whoring themselves out to corporations and it was about being a brand and getting a clothing line and having your own vodka and… Artists used to stand apart, they were beacons, now they’re just hustlers looking to use and abuse us in their climb up the ladder. No one can say no, no one can take the road less traveled.

But Bowie did.

His most famous track didn’t break through until years after he recorded it.

Yes Major Tom, your circuit’s dead there’s something wrong…

We never counted you out, we always hoped you’d surprise us, we always thought you’d be there to take one last swing, to define the game and play it your way.

But now you’re floating in your tin can, far above the moon.

And you have no idea how blue planet Earth truly is. You have no idea of the pain and suffering, the outcry over the loss of your presence.

You played guitar.

You jammed good with Weird and Gilly, never mind Lou and Ian and Freddie.

You were the special man.

We could never be in your band.

But we wanted to be.

We wanted to get closer, we wanted to know you, see the world through your eyes.

Now we’re all alone.

David Bowie Playlist – Spotify

Won’t you come out to play.

I didn’t know it was a real person, a real story, about Mia Farrow’s sister who wanted to reach enlightenment faster than anybody else so she stayed inside meditating for three weeks straight. John and George were enlisted to help her see the light, the one outdoors.

We knew “Revolution,” the fast version, it had been a hit.

Everything else on the White Album was brand new.

And I know the double LP by heart, but in honor of the Beatles streaming I pulled it up.

And was stunned how it was sui generis, and jetted me back to what once was.

The song I remember hearing first was “Rocky Raccoon.” Driving around in my friend Mike’s brand new Plymouth, well, his parents’ brand new Plymouth, three in front and three in back, we heard it on the radio in Hartford, Connecticut. I think “Rocky” is still my favorite song on the LP.

But that kept changing.

For a long time there it was “Mother Nature’s Son.” Have you heard John Denver’s cover, from the album with “Rocky Mountain High”? It’s pretty good.

And then there’s the double punch killer at the end of side two, “I Will” and “Julia,” both quiet and heartfelt, amazing how those are the songs that penetrate you most.

And speaking of side-enders, there was Harrison’s “Long, Long, Long” on side three. It presaged what was to come a couple of years hence, on “All Things Must Pass.”

But when I finally got the album for Hanukkah, my favorite song was the opener, “Back In The U.S.S.R.” It winked at the Beach Boys and I was the biggest Beach Boys fan, it’s why I live in Southern California, I wanted a piece of the free and easy lifestyle, where you’re outdoors more than in and where you were educated and who your parents are just isn’t relevant. I’d come home from school every day and drop the needle on “Back In The U.S.S.R.” and would feel fulfilled. Funny how music inspires you, makes you feel it’ll all work out. It’s a link to a better world, where you’re understood and accepted.

And I’d lift the needle over and over again, but not always fast enough, so I’d start to hear “Dear Prudence,” which segued so subtly from that tear of an opening track.

And no one talked about it even though everybody knew it, most discussion was about “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” and “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” And it wasn’t long before we had to hear “Birthday” incessantly. But when I bought the CDs, back at the tail end of the eighties, it was “Dear Prudence” that stuck out.

Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play?

I knew a Patience, she was married to Ken Scott, a blur of a person who got the assembled multitude in motion back when I used to work for Rod Smallwood, but I never knew a Prudence, that was a name for books.

The sun is up, the sky is blue

It wasn’t today in L.A. It was raining cats and dogs. That’s how it goes here, it’s either the end of the world or misting. And I liked it, I was allowed to be introspective. But usually in SoCal the sun is up and the sky is blue and when you walk out the front door you’re inspired.

It’s beautiful and so are you

The meaning changes so much when you know it’s a real person. Lennon’s complimenting her, he wants her to believe it.

The wind is low, the birds will sing
That you are part of everything

And you are. Individuals rule this world. Your power is unlimited. If you just believe in yourself and stop worrying where you are in the pecking order, something I find it so hard to do.

Life is for living. And I’ve got to do more of that. I love being connected, I love the access to information, but it’s when I disconnect and have an adventure that I feel fully alive.

And it’s these adventures that are inspirational, that mold a life and form the foundation of art. That’s why we loved the Beatles, they were so human. Sure, they used electric guitars, but it’s like they set off on a journey and were sending back aural postcards that fascinated and intrigued us, that we couldn’t stop studying, we wanted to go on the journey too.

Life catches you off guard. You can stay on the path, do what you’re supposed to, dot all the i’s and t’s, but when you least expect it life will sneak up and reveal itself to you, like when you hear “Dear Prudence.”

I played this for my mother.

I didn’t buy “Fresh,” not at first, my initial Cream purchase was “Disraeli Gears,” way before “Sunshine Of Your Love” got airplay, I experienced it as an album, it revealed itself to me with each play, and the song that hooked me was the second side opener, “Tales Of Brave Ulysses.”

Not that I knew anything about Greek tragedy, it’s just that the record had a sound that spoke to me, that took me out of my bedroom into a vast world that I thought would understand me.

I finally had a stereo, I’d cashiered my record player, that all-in-one unit with platter and speaker and tonearm sporting a coin to make sure the record didn’t skip. And I detached one speaker from my new listening apparatus, it was a Columbia unit, that’s right, the record company also made hardware, and dragged it to my mother’s bedroom so she could hear and share what I did.

She did not get it.

But I still do.

Contemplating Robert Stigwood‘s death I pulled up “Disraeli Gears” on my Sonos system. And “Strange Brew” sounded better than I’d imagined, it was never my favorite track on the LP, but decades later it fit the pocket, it was so satisfying.

Unlike “Sunshine Of Your Love,” which I’ve heard enough not to need to hear it again.

But then I thought of all the album tracks, that were secondary back then but I know by heart. Like “Dance The Night Away” and “SWLABR.” “Dance The Night Away” is the antithesis of today, it’s not playing to the back row of an arena, it sounds like it barely escaped the studio, at best is playing in a pub. The music is unselfconscious and personal. And that guitar riff in “SWLABR” was a revelation, I liked it more than I did back in ’68.

And then I heard “Tales Of Brave Ulysses”…

You thought the Latin winter would bring you down forever…

But really it’s all about the instrumental intro, bombastic and then ethereal, as if me and the band were on a ship in the Aegean, just us, experiencing this intense tale. It all came back, 1968, Farist Road, Andrew Warde High School, going to bed early to go skiing in Vermont, my entire life was laid out in front of me.

I purchased the LP at Barkers, on the Post Road in Westport, another discount outlet like Topps and Korvette’s with a record department amidst the chozzerai, this was long before the standalone record shop, these were our record stores.

And it wasn’t the flimsy, intensely-colored U.K. cover, that didn’t reach U.S. shores until later. Rather it was orange cardboard, and although I bought “Wheels Of Fire” early enough to get the shiny silver gatefold cover, what was inside was what truly mattered, the record.

And there was no social media, there was no sharing, it was just you and the sound, one you’d never heard before, it was all news to you.

And sure, you might talk about records at school, but really it was just you and the band, creating a bond, which is why you went to see them live, which I did twice that year, before most people knew who Eric Clapton was, when people were just starting to say Ginger Baker was a speed freak.

And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids

It was psychedelic, when people were doing LSD and Day-Glo was permeating the universe but it was all brand new, today we’ve got tech exploration but back then it was all about testing cultural limits, there was a new trend every week, it was hard to keep up, you were either on the bus or you weren’t, you were either hip or you weren’t, there was a schism in society and the dividing line was the music.

Tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers

I knew all the words, not that I had them down accurately. I’d sing them to myself in the halls of high school. You couldn’t take your music with you, you had to wait until you got home to drop the needle, which you did immediately and continued to do as you did your homework, as you fell asleep, I had a timer to turn my stereo off, music was the most important thing.

These are the tales of Brave Bobby. When I found these records and they carved deep, indelible ripples into the tissues of my mind.

I love that Jerry wore his Nikes, dirty ones at that.

That’s the essence of a baby boomer, irreverence, speaking truth to power. You don’t see no stinkin’ millennials doing that, never mind the lost generation known as Gen-X. Kids today are all about sucking up, being two-faced, doing what it takes to get ahead. Whereas their elders thought if you can’t disrespect someone, if you can’t catch them off guard, they’re not worth talking to, never mind knowing.

That’s right, classic rock was built upon irreverence. Making jokes about Paraquat, Danny Schechter creating his own version of the news. We were our parents’ children and then suddenly we were father to the man. We grew up adulating Kennedy and then we had no time for Johnson and Nixon and by time Jimmy Carter took power we were disillusioned and tuned out. And then Reagan, the enemy, never forget how he took on the the University of California, won and legitimized greed and nothing’s been the same since. It may be morning in America, but it’s every man for himself. And you’d better start running and cunning or you’re gonna be left behind, with no safety net and your right to health care only a motion from being taken away.

So I’d like to say I watch every episode of “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee,” but it’s not that funny. Turns out Larry David was the genius. He’s even referenced herein, with the Prez talking about playing golf with Mr. Enthusiasm, who wears enough sunscreen to have it dripping from his ears. How can it be that an irreverent schmuck can play golf with the most powerful man in the world? That’s what happens when you hang it out completely, when you’re unworried about judgment, people cling to you. That was the essence of John Lennon. Could Larry David be the next Lennon? Think about it.

So the show starts with a ’63 Corvette. It don’t get any better than that. And Jerry recalls the early sixties when America was the CAN DO country. Before it became the CANNOT, before a vocal part of the population wanted to jet us back to the past, as if we wanted to live on plantations with guns by our side in case some varmints attacked us. And to think that a varmint is in the White House! One of my favorite rock stories is told by Al Kooper, whose song “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know” was covered by Donny Hathaway. But when Al heard the new version he flipped out, the lyric had been changed, the Blood, Sweat & Tears original was “I can be President of General Motors, baby” and now Mr. Hathaway sang “I could be king of everything.” Irascible Al called Jerry Wexler to complain. And Jerry barked back…AL, A BLACK MAN COULD NEVER BE PRESIDENT OF GENERAL MOTORS!

But a black man is President of the United States.

And a woman is chairman of General Motors. Did you see the company just invested $500 million in Lyft? Cars are gonna drive themselves, you’re probably not gonna even own one, you’re gonna use an app to call one up and…

You don’t want to believe that. You think cars are representative of your massive genitalia. But today’s generation knows it’s all about experiences, especially since you stole their future and they can’t even afford an apartment in the city.

So seeing the Vette is like viewing a Dead Sea Scroll.

But they can’t leave the premises.

Remember when Presidents were shot? Happened in the sixties. Squeaky Fromme even tried to take a potshot in the seventies. Security is tight for the leader of the free world, for you and me?? Not so much.

And on campus Obama is stiff. Intelligent, but measured.

But then he loosens up. Like he did on Maron. Wherein he said change happened slowly, and if you wanted to see single payer health care you should look back from decades out.

But this show wasn’t really about substance, but personality. Life. Obama laments the loss of his anonymity and then Jerry says how being famous is so much better. He’s right. Too many wankers revere the good old days which weren’t so good. Like vinyl. Remember warps and skips and returns? I miss those not a whit.

And Obama says little kids like him, because of his big ears and his name, they like how it rolls off their tongues.

And Jerry keeps talking to him like he’s a regular person, showing no respect. Hell, it’s great when he slouches on the couch and eats an apple and leaves the core on the coffee table. Decorum is for wimps. You gotta go where you wanna go, do what you wanna do, with whoever, you wanna do it with.

And Obama insults Jerry by not knowing he still works, labeling him “retired.”

And Jerry makes news by getting the Prez to admit that so many world leaders are just plain loony, but the right wing press hasn’t picked up on this because they haven’t watched the show, they hate Jerry and Barack and want to make like they don’t exist. You know, the rich blowhards wearing expensive suits who say they’re saving the common man from oppression, the one with no future who pays no taxes and benefits disproportionately from government programs in his red state. It’s all about disinformation, moving the ball forward. Actually, Obama analogized politics to football.

But when Obama throws his arm over the steering wheel of the car at the end, when he refuses to use the ten and two position, that’s when he evidences his personality. He relaxes and he’s…

Just like you and me.

Another guy who wants to look cool but usually looks dorky.

And there you have it, the modern era in a nutshell. Wherein the press corps is following nitwit Donald Trump who has no chance of becoming President while a comedian gets the man in power to admit he wears only one brand of underwear and can’t stop eating guacamole.

There’s more truth in what you eat than what you say to get elected.

And Guantanamo is still open and income inequality reigns but the truth is we’ve got a black President, someone who knows hoops and hip-hop and may be stiff but is positively part of the fabric of our nation. He’s not disconnected and better, just confident and one of us.

And I know this not because some investigative reporter dug down deep for an expose, but because a guy just like you and me, but funnier, known as Jerry Seinfeld, had a conversation with him and treated him no different than he would you or me. Because we all put our pants on the same way, we’re all in this together.

And anybody could become President, but who’d want to be?

I’d rather be a comedian. Someone who can point out the inanity of modern life. Someone who can speak the truth. Someone who can be themselves 24/7.

You know, like rock stars used to be.

Spotify link (Both versions of “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know.”)