Ariel gets boosted all day.

I’m an anxious guy. I’m always worried I’ll fire up Uber and there will be no cars, or it will take too long for them to pick me up. It’s an on demand service, but it’s hard for me to believe I can count on it. So hard for me to believe I can count on so much of the modern gadgetry. I come from the sixties and seventies, when everything didn’t work right right out of the box. Although we did have manuals. And we were able to get stuff fixed. Now you just throw it away.

So I was shocked to find out I was gonna have to pay a surge fee. You see I keep cutting it closer, learning to depend upon the service, and now I find out I’ve got to pay x1.5. What’s a poor boy to do? Other than play in a rock and roll band? Just bite the bullet and pay up.

But my driver, Allen, told me to just wait a few minutes. That usually in three or four the surge disappears. Although at that very moment, 1 PM, it was x2 in Northridge. What’s happening in Northridge?

Possibly lunch. Lunch is a very busy Uber time.

And what Allen also told me is drivers don’t know the destination. Otherwise they’d pick and choose rides, wanting to go as far as possible as opposed to a few short hops.

Allen used to work at Dolby, as a troubleshooter. But there just wasn’t enough upward mobility. He’s now driving Uber full time.

As was Ariel. He gave up a job at Samy’s Camera for the same reason. Used to be you could pay your bills working for the man, now you just can’t get ahead.

Allen doesn’t leave the house unless it’s surge pricing.

Ariel made $1300 driving 42 hours last week.

But without the boost, he’d lose more than half of that.

You see the driver gets 80%. Of everything but the booking fee, a buck sixty five today. But to make sure there are drivers on the road… Uber boosts their pay all day. Ariel showed me the schedule. All day long he was making more than x1, even if I wasn’t being charged a surge fee. Good deal for me.

Ariel drives a Prius. Allen drove a Camry Hybrid. They want to use as little gas as possible. Ariel figures he spent eighty bucks last week. And he’s got to change the oil every 10,000 miles, that’s about $70, but his tires lasted 80,000 miles and he got some Hankooks, on the car, for $250 at a place south of downtown. So he’s netting good money. Although he’s learning to drive a big rig. A friend of his made a hundred grand doing that last year.

Allen’s looking for another gig. Meanwhile, sometimes he’ll drive after midnight, when surge can go to x4. Used to be customers complained and Uber reduced the fee, but now everybody’s aware. At that hour you’ll pay anything to get home.

And there are other tricks of the trade. If you get taken far off the beaten path, to Long Beach or some other godforsaken place, you’re better off driving back to town without a passenger, to ensure you can continue to make bank.

Last week’s driver played the Warped Tour.

I was wondering when I saw the tattoos creeping up his arm. How could he make it in regular life? But now he cuts hair and drives Uber on the side. And was gonna pay to go to the Warped Tour this year, because he can’t miss out on Good Charlotte and Sum 41, he grew up with those bands.

I sit and stare at the four walls, depressed about my on schedule but slow recovery. And then I call up an Uber and I have a window into the world. I find out twenty three year olds are voting for Donald Trump, despite being half-Mexican. I find out the younger generation is addicted to Jason Ellis on Sirius, their skateboard roots shining through. And despite the Carpenters being from Downey, the Uber generation is more impressed that James Hetfield graduated from high school there.

Everybody’s got a story.

Everybody wants to be their own boss.

Everybody wants to not only pay their bills, but get ahead.

Everybody is open and friendly if you give them respect.

And it’s great to live in a world where you can get a ride on demand. I keep thinking about all the times I needed one in the past.

I’m not about to give up my car, but I know people who have.

Neil, Brandon, Suzy…

But what about the grocery store?

Suzy just pulls up UberEATS!

I have a dream.

One in which no color or ethnicity is demonized, but all are given respect and considered equal.

One in which our elected officials are not beholden to special interest groups, but work with their brethren to move this country forward.

One in which facts reign and opinion is just that.

One in which every boy and girl is given opportunity and every man and woman goes to bed knowing they can find a job and if not they still have a roof over their head and can put bread on the table.

One in which the poor are not told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps but are lifted up by those who have more.

One in which sports and entertainment are not seen as the only way out of poverty.

One in which those doing the hard work of our society, the teachers and the police, who are on the front lines every day, are lionized, not demonized.

One in which a white man is not afraid when a black man steps into an elevator.

One in which white workers don’t think their jobs are stolen by brown workers.

One in which elites don’t think they’re better than the rest because they’re educated and rich.

One in which government is not demonized and taxes are used to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

One in which guns are used for hunting animals but not shooting people.

But right now this dream is shaky.

I’d hate to be a police officer right now. With a target on my back. As of this writing we still do not know exactly what happened, but we do know multiple officers are dead.

But I’d hate to be poor and black even more. Seen as second class before I’m even known. Branded by my skin. Shut out unless I’m the court jester, putting a ball into a hoop or rapping.

How did our society become so coarse? How did we go from togetherness to division? And who is responsible for this?

Let’s look at right wing talk radio and Fox News, which have been telling their constituents again and again that the government and the poor people have undermined the American way of life. It’s a disinformation campaign folks. Just because there are two sides that does not make them equal. Sure, Democrats get it wrong sometimes, but not as frequently as the right and certainly not with the same intentions.

But the Democrats in power have disconnected from the rank and file. They’ve blinked in the eye of right wing propaganda, stood by as unions and safety nets have been eviscerated. Afraid of offending the vocal right, they’ve been silent.

And both sides are beholden to the money. It’s fine to cut school programs and underfund the TSA when your kids are educated in private institutions and you fly NetJet, especially when that flight is paid for by a billionaire whose bill you support.

This is not about policemen.

This is about opportunity.

This is about the soul of America. A country built on freedom and upward mobility. The right keeps screaming about freedom being taken away yet they vote for surveillance, they’re the ones voting for guns which make our entire nation afraid. And the left pays lip service to the underclass but does little to lift it up.

And everybody’s afraid of having their chance stolen, they don’t want others to take their seat at the table and be left out.

The fact is upward mobility is worse in the United States than the European Union. And the safety net over there is much better than it is here. But ever since the Iranian conflict way back when it’s been USA!, USA!, all the damn time.

All I know is I’m sick and tired of people saying something and doing nothing.

I’m sick and tired of protections instituted for the rich while absent for the poor.

I’m sick and tired of white people demonizing blacks while their kids embrace African-American culture.

I’m sick and tired of drugs being criminalized when they’re a social issue which needs to be addressed via treatment.

I’m sick and tired of black men’s lives being sidetracked in prison, with their families forever fractured.

And I’m sick and tired of a political system where lies run rampant. They tell us to be honest while they’re not.

Ain’t that America, a two-tiered system.

Want to end violence?

Give people jobs. Give them upward mobility. Educate their young. Don’t spread hate, saying that one group or another is responsible for your fate.

And realize your well-being is dependent upon society. Your company is worthless without customers. That the rank and file prop up this great nation of ours and they need to be embraced, paid more than lip service, which they rarely get anyway.

I have a dream all this can come true. Or at least we can move forward.

But it would require you to weep for a deceased black man as much as a dead white.

It would require you to accept that the President was born in America and is still the head of the government, even if you didn’t vote for him.

It would require you to admit America’s a great country, but it still has problems, it still needs work.

And it would require you to acknowledge the future is here and we can’t go back to the past, that we can’t abandon the losers in the new economy but we must support them and find them a slot.

But these are just words.

The oppressed are waiting for action.

There’s no buzz.

How long until HBO cancels Bill Simmons? It’s gonna happen, hell, the new regime scrapped the second season of “Vinyl” after the show had already been picked up. You see the ratings sucked. And TV lives by statistics, they trump friends every time. Sure, it’s great to be in business with Mick Jagger and Marty Scorsese, but not when you’re losing money, or could put something much more profitable in their place. HBO is all about premium content, a cut above, that you can’t get anywhere else, and as soon as something substandard airs, they cancel it.

Bill Simmons spoke truth to power, he angered his ESPN bosses. But leaving was like graduating from high school, once he was gone no one cared, there was nothing to rebel against, just another overaged teenager wondering what to do next.

HBO rescued him.

But is there a need for a sports talk show on the outlet? One based on the personality of someone most find edgy and offensive? Once again, it’s like taking someone from nowheresville and putting them in the big leagues, a high school thespian in Hollywood, does anybody really care?

Only if you’re great out of the box.

And Simmons was mediocre, a deer in the headlights. If they give him enough rope he’ll get better, he might find himself, but this is not Bryant Gumbel transferring from the “Today” show. Or Bill Maher moving “Politically Incorrect” from ABC. Simmons had essentially no television experience, and like David Lee Roth trying to replace Howard Stern, he failed. Broadcasting is a skill, and so far Simmons doesn’t have it.

And then there was the endless repetition of the arrogant promos, wherein Simmons looked like nothing so much as what he is, an overeducated boy/man bitching from the sidelines about a game he was unable to participate in. Why couldn’t they make more than one clip? Why couldn’t they have had a teaser campaign online? Released video on YouTube in advance?

We either need the show or the personality must be transcendent. Or, the story can be so good that it hooks us. Simmons laid goose eggs on every level. Proving that the institution is bigger than the individual, that’s the story of the past few years. Ezra Klein left the “Washington Post” claiming he was gonna reinvent news for the millennial generation. No, the millennials all go to social media sites, Vox has no traction whatsoever.

Don’t step out on your own, in a cluttered world of endless messages he who already has traction is king. Media stars can jump from one platform to another, but starting a new one from scratch… That’d be like Kevin Durant forgoing the Warriors to play in Dubuque on a team without a television contract. He’d claim you could see the games online, but could you tear yourself away from cat videos and porn and the rest of the cornucopia of short form material that overloads us online?

Which brings us to the Ringer. Simmons’ replacement for Grantland. What if they launched a site and no one went there? I have never ever been sent a link from the Ringer. I’ve never ever seen it mentioned in anything I’ve read. Sure, it’s new, but today you’ve got to start with a splash. And do we really need one more Bro site with snarky comment mixed in with overlong analyses of that which we don’t care that much about to begin with?

Simmons will walk away with his money and his identity. He does an informative podcast, he shines there. And there’s room for his antics on other sports platforms.

But he cannot build it himself.

It’s kind of like Trent Reznor leaving Interscope to reinvent the wheel. No, he went back to the major label, the majors have relationships, they do stuff better than you, they can cover all the bases.

ESPN is challenged by cord-cutting. But it built its rep in a pre-internet era and not only do its bona fides survive, it has assets and traction. You harness those to get ahead, as opposed to trailblazing from zero. It’d be one thing if Simmons’ HBO show was innovative, but you can get the same crap elsewhere easily. As for the internet, it’s a haven of opinions. We want news, facts, and stars. Simmons is a star in print, as for the rest of the people on his site? Kind of like fivethirtyeight.com, there’s Nate Silver and twenty no-names I don’t want to read the work of.

This is not about Bill Simmons.

This is about television. HBO is competing with the revamped Starz, run by its old majordomo, Chris Albrecht, that service now eclipses Showtime in subscribers. And Netflix and Amazon and Hulu. Being artist-friendly is not enough, you’ve got to deliver great consistently. Used to be HBO was the only playground, now it’s not. They haven’t got time to let you develop, like a deejay in Des Moines honing his chops before he gets to L.A.

This is about the internet. It’s much less rogue and up for grabs than you think it is. It’s about established players fighting for market share. Facebook is going into video, what was that site that was gonna compete with YouTube by paying the creators more? It’s already history. Only established players can compete with YouTube.

And only established players can compete in news. Bezos injects cash into the WaPo which is run by Marty Baron of “Spotlight” fame and Bill Simmons thinks he can compete with that?

And that’s what the Ringer is competing with. It’s an attention economy. And if I peruse the Ringer I’ve got less time for the authorities.

So, you want a name at an established place.

Otherwise you’re just pissing in the wind.

This is the world we’re living in.

P.S. The name of that video site was Vessel. It was run by Jason Kilar, the former CEO of Hulu. Hulu is still standing, it’s triumphing. Kilar and Vessel are in the rearview mirror. Don’t get caught up in the cult of personality. NBC just needs someone to host the “Tonight Show,” not Jimmy Fallon. And if ratings suck, they blow you out, despite you having a contract, just ask Conan O’Brien. Does anybody watch his show anymore?

“Bonnaroo ticket sales drop by 28,000, hitting an all-time low”

The name wasn’t bigger than the lineup.

Ever since Coachella went on sale without a slate, we’ve come to believe it’s all about the experience. Isn’t that what we’re told millennials want?

But the drastic decline in Bonnaroo attendance tells us this isn’t so. Coachella might be a rite of passage for SoCal teenagers, despite the press fawning over its musical bona fides, but every other festival in America other than EDC lives and dies on who is performing.

And the acts performing at Bonnaroo were aged, appealing to the wrong demo.

Millennials don’t care about the Dead, certainly not Pearl Jam. And LCD Soundsystem peaked years ago. And only millennials want to camp out in the heat and endure the crowds to see acts in the summer in Tennessee.

Conversely, baby boomers are flocking to Oldchella because of the lineup, as stellar as has ever been put together, eclipsing even Woodstock, which didn’t have either the Beatles or the Stones, but they’re part of the Desert Trip. That’s the buzz in L.A., who plays next year? And believe me, Goldenvoice wants to do this next year, create an institution. Do the oldsters flock for a reunion of the Kinks or to hear David Gilmour or can this only be a one time event because the assets have been strip-mined and the landscape is now empty? Furthermore, there might be a backlash, these are people who are used to being up close and personal and inherently they won’t be, not with hard seats and this many in attendance, so, buzz… No, let’s not kid ourselves, baby boomers will testify as to how great it is no matter how bad it is, unless it’s an utter disaster. It’s all about their image. We think youngsters worry about how they’re perceived? Oldsters care even more, after spending thousands they won’t complain. But they may not return.

But they keep coming back to EDC, the Electric Daisy Carnival, because that’s a culture, that’s a scene, the headliners aren’t everything. But the truth is the headliners are everything to the rest of these music-focused festivals.

So it is about who you book.

And these festivals have to start booking youngsters. The acts millennials really want to see.

Like Bieber. He’s now credible, after working with Skrillex and Diplo. He should headline Coachella next year, usher that festival into the new paradigm, illustrate the changing of the guard. Millennials don’t care about reunions, they weren’t there the first time around!

So it’s all about headliners. And it’s all about scarcity. Country business has faltered because these acts go out every year. Why go to the festival to see them when they’re in your hometown on a regular basis? Whereas there’s far more demand for Drake than can be fulfilled, Beyonce too.

And we’ve got to stop hearing how good the festival site is, all the smoke the promoters blow out their ass, patting themselves on the back, trying to believe it’s about them.

It’s never about them. As long as people don’t get trampled to death, as long as there’s enough water and bathrooms, people will flock to a field in the middle of nowhere to see the right talent.

But what is that talent?