“Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley”

Maybe we should all read this together.

I’m serious. You’ve got a smartphone, probably a tablet too. The Kindle app is free, you go to Amazon (Amazon won’t let you buy the book through the iPhone or iPad app, it doesn’t want to cough up 30%), purchase the Kindle version of the book, which is presently $12.99, launch the app on your device and then download the book from your library in the cloud. It’s just that easy.

Aaron Ross Sorkin broke the book. You know, the boyish financial columnist in the “New York Times,” the one you see on Bill Maher’s show on HBO. You should be reading Sorkin, along with Eduardo Porter, the “Times'” other financial reporter, I used to depend on the “Wall Street Journal,” but in its dash to cover everything and become the right wing paper of record it’s faltered in the financial sphere.

And when Sorkin speaks, people pay attention.

And now there’s a buzz on this book.

I’d like to tell you it’s highly readable, that it cuts like butter. But Antonio Garcia Martinez is no Michael Lewis. And speaking of Lewis, when you’ve finished reading this column immediately pull up the “Big Short” movie, it’s on Netflix. I’m talking now. Obey me, I’m not getting paid here, it’s for your own benefit. The film is the best illustration of herd mentality I’ve ever seen. Not only do so many have faith in a failed system, even those questioning it have no problem profiting from it. There’s fraud in America people, WAKE UP!

But as I was saying, just because you’re educated, wrote papers in college, that does not mean you’re a good writer. Writing is a developed skill, and Martinez is not quite there yet. Not that he’s completely off the mark, Martinez references Shakespeare and so many other things with which I’m unfamiliar. But what keeps me reading is his delineation of the Silicon Valley sphere, I’ve never read anything like this, ever. He names names, he tells the truth, you might hate his personality but he’s brimming with facts, he knows the territory, and you can’t believe all this is hiding in plain sight, but it’s not. That’s the dirty little secret of America, you only see the topsoil, what’s beneath is hidden, intentionally, it’s the code of silence.

So, unwilling to finish his PhD, Martinez goes to work at Goldman Sachs as a quant. If you don’t know what that is, Martinez explains it. he explains everything, yet you still don’t quite understand what Martinez is saying half the time, but you get the gist. And that’s just the point, they don’t want you to know.

His compatriots at Goldman?

They end up fired, in jail.

Michael Lewis started at Salomon Brothers. But he’s been removed from the trenches for decades.

Then Martinez answers an ad and goes to work for Adchemy, in Silicon Valley. After revealing the shenanigans at Goldman, the eating contests, the other frat boy behavior.

And there’s a lot of drinking at Adchemy. As a matter of fact, Martinez gets stopped for drunk driving right away. But he negotiates his way out. He teaches you how to negotiate from a position of weakness.

That’s right kiddies, this is a business book, filled with so much insight you’ll feel inadequate. And I’ll tell you not to obey the learned rules, just know that experience counts and if you don’t play you know nothing, everything you say is theoretical, and you don’t know what you don’t know, which is death.

Like if only one man at the enterprise is still standing that’s a bad sign. What did he do to survive? That’s gonna impact you.

And making money is also a bad sign. Because frequently you can do this without customers. Sounds counterintuitive, I know, read the book, you’ll get it.

And now I’m at the point of Y Combinator.

Read “Wired” or “Fast Company” and you’ll know the name, but you truly have no idea what goes on there. Yes, it’s an incubator, but… How do you qualify? Who’s in charge? What are they looking for?

And most of what they back bombs. Despite millions going in.

Martinez ends up at Facebook. That’s how the book starts. We’re so busy lionizing Sheryl Sandberg that we don’t see her as a real person. She’s just that high-ranking female exec who tells us all to lean in. But she does have a job, and so far it looks like it’s being Zuckerberg’s gatekeeper. And Zuck lives up to his rep, as being autocratic and idiosyncratic, but he just doesn’t have enough time to get down into the weeds.

It’s every man for himself in today’s world. If you’re working for the man and evidencing loyalty you’re just a mark waiting to get screwed. Drinking the kool-aid and investing good cash in stock options that will be worthless when the company crashes. Doing favors before those above you squeeze you out.

Let me tell you some of the things I’ve learned so far…

Your enterprise has to have a leader, you can’t be egalitarian. Someone has to plot strategy and make the hard decisions, even if they’re wrong. That’s the story of bands. If there’s no leader, failure or breakup or both is on the horizon.

Pick your partners wisely, you’ll spend more time and know them better than your spouse. As the chapter title says…”Like Marriage, but without the F___ing.”

Don’t start small, Mom & Pop are mercurial and you don’t have enough manpower to service them. You can help them and they’ll still fire you.

“Dogfooding” means to use your own product, to give the illusion of demand when one may not even exist. It derives from those old Alpo commercials, wherein Lorne Greene’s dog eats the product. You’ve got to know the terminology, otherwise you look like a rube.

As I referenced above…

“Never trust the survivor of a massacre until you know what he did to survive.”

That’s from Kurt Vonnegut, there are quotes throughout the book, but the point is when the CEO of the record label is the only one left standing is there opportunity in the offing or death?

“A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.”

There you have it folks, from Marcus Aurelius himself, not only is a couch potato not worth much, they’re going to hold you back. Hook your star to those with big desires.

Friends are soon enemies. They’ll hold your immigration status over your head, quit and they’ll report you to the government and have your ass deported.

And I’ll give you one of Martinez’s lists, full of wisdom:

“Investors are people with more money than time.

Employees are people with more time than money.

Entrepreneurs are simply the seductive go-betweens.

Startups are business experiments performed with other people’s money.

Marketing is like sex: only losers pay for it.

Company culture is what goes without saying.

There are no real rules, only laws.

Success forgives all sins.

People who leak to you, leak about you.

Meritocracy is the propaganda we use to bless the charade.

Greed and vanity are the twin engines of bourgeois society.

Most managers are incompetent and maintain their jobs via inertia and politics.

Lawsuits are merely expensive feints in a well-scripted conflict narrative between corporate entities.

Capitalism is an amoral farce in which every player – investor, employee, entrepreneur, consumer – is complicit.”

Antonio Garcia Martinez is the anti-millennial. One who pooh-poohs the trophy just for participating who is not busy fitting in and being a member of the group.

Forget the celebrity feuds. The truth is the hoi polloi, the weaklings, are so busy getting along that they cannot triumph. The winners have sharp edges. You’re not gonna like Martinez, but you are gonna marvel that he was able to play the game and move up the food chain, even if he ultimately got canned at Facebook.

And that’s the lion’s share of the book and I haven’t even gotten there yet, I’m only 18% of the way through.

Want an easy life? Read a thriller, a mystery, go for “The Girl On The Train.”

Want to learn something, want insight you can get nowhere else, want to see how the world really works? Then read “Chaos Monkeys.”

We live in an on demand culture with instant gratification. This book is only a click away.

But you won’t take the risk. You hate digital books. You’re worried about the $12.99. You’d rather watch Netflix.

Pussy.

It’s why Trump pulled even with Clinton

Poll Finds Emails Weighing on Hillary Clinton, Now Tied With Donald Trump

Why Facebook Live is making inroads on YouTube. And why Snapchat is a juggernaut.

The elites tell us it’s all about preparation. For the test. First in school, then in business. Mistakes are not tolerated, and if you commit a faux pas you must apologize.

But Donald Trump is doing none of this.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is like a military assault, with a zillion troops staying on message, believing in the old saw of the ground game and that all politics are local. Whereas Trump has no infrastructure and has thrown the rule book out. If this doesn’t remind you of how the Vietcong triumphed over the United States you weren’t alive back then. The U.S. was better organized with a bigger army it’s just that it could not adjust to guerilla warfare.

Yesterday’s big story was the Calvin Harris/Taylor Swift brouhaha. It was hard to peel your eyes away, because Calvin was shooting from the hip with his heart and emotions out front. Even Katy Perry weighed in.

Rappers release mixtapes. Knowing that raw and dangerous is appealing.

Image is no longer everything, identity is. You want to be three-dimensional, you want to stand for something. Which is why movie stars have faded. Groomed by the studios and publicists there’s no there there. There’s nothing to hold on to or react to.

Life is about choices. What to wear, what to eat, where to go… And if you pondered each one in advance, trying to get it exactly right, you’d be left far behind, you’d barely make it out of your house. You forget your keys, your wallet, you say the wrong thing to a friend or business colleague. But you also crack a joke and give a wink and evidence your humanity and that’s what makes people stick to you.

Think about it, the younger generation is addicted to online influencers. Whose videos are far from professional, that’s their appeal, they’re shot in bedrooms, you feel like you know those people. That if you ran into them you could gossip, and never forget, the world runs on gossip.

The Republicans are all about gotcha. And that’s why the elite lost control of their party.

The Clintons think it’s 1995 and most people have no internet access, never mind a smartphone. Trump is tweeting and the Clintons are sending mailers.

Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg… Ignore the blowback. Her statements about Trump burnished her image more than any Supreme Court opinion. She suddenly looked real. All the balderdash about the dignity of the Court was just that, irrelevant gobbledygook. She’s my hero. Less because of the content of her statements than the fact she showed emotion, she expressed an identity. And that’s everything in today’s world.

Display your rough edges. Don’t worry so much about getting it right. If you’re in the public eye you’ve got to appeal to us as a person.

This is a sea change, and the older generation doesn’t get it.

It’s no longer business as usual. Society moves much more quickly and is much more fluid and you’re better off jumping into the pool and flailing till you find your stroke as opposed to sitting on the sidelines practicing until you get it right.

Classic Beach Boys – Spotify playlist

Summer means fun. Or is it new love?

Could be both. All I know is the season is synonymous with the group from Hawthorne, California, which only featured one surfer, but epitomized the west coast beach culture that not only permeated our country, but made us all want to gravitate to California and become a part of. I heard their music and believed there was someplace better, where there were two girls for every boy, and even though that may not be true, the Golden State is the land of possibilities. It’s where you go when you want to get out of your rut, leave your past behind and reinvent yourself.

If Brian Wilson had died, his band would get as much respect as the Beatles. But when he finally spirals from this mortal coil, having outlived his two brothers and so many others, a veritable Keith Richards, the accolades will come pouring in. Sometimes the best is hiding in plain sight. Like the music of the Beach Boys.

SURFIN’

You’ve got to start somewhere.

This is a curio with historical value at best. If nothing followed it it would be forgotten. But within its production we can hear the building blocks to the band’s success. Everybody has to start somewhere, we never know who will burn out and who will grow. It usually comes down to passion, which Brian Wilson had in spades. He gathered his family, relatives and friends to achieve his dream, he could not do it alone, and he had no idea where he was going, his initial goals were small, world domination always come later.

SURFIN’ SAFARI

Let’s go surfin’ now
Everybody’s learnin’ how
Come on a safari with me

No, everybody was clueless, they weren’t learning whatsoever, it was a SoCal pastime, yet this track was so infectious it dragged the whole country along, as well as informing them of locales like Rincon and Malibu… That’s how we learned our geography, via music. Pico and Sepulveda anybody? El Monte Legion Stadium? Music was made in Hollywood and what was obvious and de rigueur to locals was exotic to outsiders who soon wanted to be insiders.

409

Also on the initial LP, “Surfin’ Safari.” I gave up on singles early, they were a bad value proposition, I bought “Surfin’ Safari” after “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” but I want to say in this pre-“Sgt. Pepper” era that “Surfin’ Safari” was completely listenable, especially this, the progenitor of car music, which took over when surf music started to fade. As for “409”… You do know that’s cubic inches, right? Which Teslas don’t have, car culture dominated the twentieth century, it’s evaporating in the twenty first.

SURFIN’ U.S.A.

If everybody had an ocean…

This reworking of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” was the victory lap, the knockout punch no one expected, a positive number that just made you feel good to be alive. It’s the lyrics, the changes and the guitar. Sounds dated, I know, but if you were there, and I was, it brings you right back.

FARMER’S DAUGHTER

An album track unknown by most that portended the sensitive Brian Wilson numbers to follow. This sets your mind free as the salt gets stuck in your hair… Some tracks just have that je nais se quois, they take you away, make you feel good, even though you may not be able to explain why.

LONELY SEA

Ditto on this number, also sung by Brian Wilson. For a guy from a place where it never rained, he did melancholy better than almost anyone else.

SHUT DOWN

Tach it up
Tach it up
Buddy gonna shut you down

As in TACHOMETER! Something your car only had if it was a foreign number or it had high performance. This story song pushed the “409” paradigm further down the road, it even had a magic bridge, along with that surfin’ pickin’.

MISIRLOU/LET’S GO TRIPPIN’

Two covers, two surf classics, the band had limited material and needed to fill out the “Surfin’ U.S.A.” LP, and it sounds just like that, these numbers are filler. But it’s hard to fulfill the corporate obligations, you’ve got to hit that release date, you’ve got to make that money.

SURFER GIRL

The title track from the third album, it did not break the top ten and was very much a throwback to the work of the male vocal groups which dominated in the previous years, still… It’s got that prom gravitas, except for when they sing about the woodie, then you’ve just got to laugh.

CATCH A WAVE

The second song on the “Surfer Girl” LP it’s my favorite on the record, maybe because I heard Jan & Dean’s reworking of it called “Sidewalk Surfin'” first. Listen for the harp, luxuriate in the organ, groove to the classic surf pickin’, but marvel at the vocals. Some music just makes you feel good, this is one of those numbers.

HAWAII

It was barely a state, there were few flights, no one went there, we found out about it from the Beach Boys and then the rep was cemented by a TV show, “Hawaii Five-O.”

IN MY ROOM

Not the hit you think it was, it went to number one in Boston and Seattle, number two in San Francisco and Top Ten in a few other markets, but this is a song whose rep has only grown as time has gone by.

It’s magic without the words, but it’s the words that make it a classic. It’d be like Kanye questioning himself, vulnerability is a quality that’s been excised from not only modern music, but modern society. Oh, you can screw up and apologize, utter mea culpas, but admitting you don’t have all the answers, revealing all your warts as anything but a publicity ploy, it just isn’t done.

LITTLE DEUCE COUPE

This LP was a holding event. Four numbers had already appeared on albums before. This was the band’s third compendium of ’63, no wonder the cupboards were empty.

The title cut was infectious because of its jauntiness, its upbeat spirit, the boasting about something so irrelevant, then again, in the sixties, especially in SoCal, your wheels were everything.

BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL

Marrying the drama of the east coast overproduced singles with the sunniness of SoCal with a tribute to high school layered on top… HUH? This was before the Beatles, before Kennedy was shot, if there were cracks in the firmament we didn’t acknowledge them, you may have hated school but publicly everybody was Eddie Haskell, they got along.

FUN, FUN, FUN

Two minutes of pure pop whose magic cannot be escaped. My father drove a T-Bird and my sister used the library as cover… This came out in February ’64, when the Beatles were burgeoning but before we realized that the slate would be wiped clean of all American acts except the Beach Boys and the Four Seasons and that a rivalry had begun.

DON’T WORRY BABY

The b-side of  “I Get Around,” this, like “In My Room,” is a number whose cachet has only grown over time. Despite Mike Love singing so many upbeat classics, it’s these more introspective songs sung by Brian Wilson that seem to penetrate and stick.

THE WARMTH OF THE SUN

Another Wilson-sung number that was an album track way back when, but is a classic today.

DENNY’S DRUMS

Times were changing and no one at Capitol seemed to get the message. Despite releasing the Beatles’ LPs, after passing on the work that came out on VeeJay, Capitol almost missed the entire sixties, while its crosstown neighbor Warner Brothers was surfing the zeitgeist the Tower was nearly moribund, it ultimately had the Band and little else, it coasted on its catalog, the acts already signed. “Shut Down Volume 2” was tone deaf, and if not a sales disaster, it was certainly a disappointment. The British had invaded and the second side of this record had covers of “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” and “Louie Louie” and this, the “Toad” of its day, ha!

ALL SUMMER LONG

The album came out in ’64, but I didn’t get it until 1970, when Ellen gifted it and “Surfer Girl” to me for my birthday, artifacts from an older sister, not in shrinkwrap, but well-played, this music was fading in the rearview mirror but it meant everything to me.

The title track was never a single and was not famous in its day, but it seared itself into the public consciousness in the seventies, during the Beach Boys renaissance, when George Lucas featured the song in the soundtrack of his paean to car culture, “American Graffiti.”

GIRLS ON THE BEACH

Featured in the 1965 movie of the same name, if I remember correctly Brian and the boys were sitting around the campfire singing it. I saw the flick at the Steel Pier, that’s right, in Atlantic City, years before gambling, when the trick was to get up early and ride your bicycle on the boardwalk. Sure, we saw the diving horse and went on the diving bell and later in the evening we saw Peter & Gordon on stage, but there were two movie theatres on the pier and we also ducked in to see this. The Beach Boys also performed “Lonely Sea” and “Little Honda” in the flick.

DON’T BACK DOWN

My college roommate played this the night before getting into his Saab for the long drive from Middlebury to the beach in Maine, to hit the waves. The Beach Boys were truly the soundtrack of surf culture.

I GET AROUND

A monster hit that grabbed you immediately, a ride better than most theme park attractions, talk about a hit single…

WENDY

My younger sister’s name! How amazing is it to have a song in your own name!

LITTLE SAINT NICK

A bigger hit today than it was back then. It has stood the test of time, whereas even Phil Spector’s vaunted Christmas album has faded away and not radiated.

DO YOU WANNA DANCE

On one hand a cheesy choice, couldn’t you write another hit? But Dennis’s vocal puts this over the top, it may not be equal to the Bobby Freeman original, but it stands on its own feet.

GOOD TO MY BABY

An antecedent to “Pet Sounds.” So many changes, so many hooks, it might not have been a hit but I know it by heart because it came right after “Do You Wanna Dance” on the album “The Beach Boys Today!”

WHEN I GROW UP (TO BE A MAN)

It’s the counting that puts it over the top.

I was too young to get it, I knew what they were singing about, but now I understand it. And I’m not yet sure if I’m a man, even if I am chronologically. Baby boomers never quite grew up, we’re all still teenagers in our minds.

DANCE, DANCE, DANCE

I wasn’t a big dancer, I still am not, unless the music inspires me, but I understood the freedom of being let out of school. Pure magic.

CALIFORNIA GIRLS

It was the summer of ’65, “Rubber Soul” was still months away, albums were an afterthought, most people bought singles, but upon buying “Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)” I was stunned to find all the tracks were infectious and could stand alone, even “I’m Bugged At My Old Man.”

HELP ME, RHONDA

The hit version, funny what a remake can do, it’s the same song as the one on “Today!” but it’s so much better, so much more. And at age 12 I couldn’t understand someone helping me get over a love, but I understand the concept today.

SALT LAKE CITY

At this point I hadn’t been there, I only knew where it was on the map. But now every time I land in SLC this song goes through my brain, that’s the power of music.

AMUSEMENT PARKS U.S.A.

Better than any theme park I’ve ever been too.

GIRL DON’T TELL ME

Sung by the band’s secret weapon, Carl Wilson, who kept the act together in the seventies but really came into his own with this. He’s got the most mellifluous voice in the band, I became a fan, I bought both of his solo albums, I went to see him at the Roxy…

We used to write letters back then, all my romances were in the summer, I RESONATED!

BARBARA ANN

From the “Party!” album, a holding maneuver, but you’ve got to give the band credit for staying on the chart, albeit with a cover of a classic track.

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE

Truly didn’t permeate the culture until ’75, when it was featured in the Warren Beatty movie “Shampoo,” what a great sync, it epitomized the Southern California ethos.

SLOOP JOHN B

The big hit on “Pet Sounds.”

GOD ONLY KNOWS

I spent August of ’66 at Boy Scout camp, the leader had a thing for this song, every time it came on the radio we’d run to his lean-to to listen.

Not a big hit single, but probably the most famous song on “Pet Sounds” today. It’s timeless.

CAROLINE, NO

It’s so Brian Wilson. So wistful, so meaningful. But it wasn’t made for these times. The album cut era was just beginning, hits meant everything, as they do today.

GOOD VIBRATIONS

Just another Beach Boys hit back then, an iconic classic today.

Not that we didn’t know it was special, it’s just that we were too busy singing along. The story was the theremin, that got all the press, but I was most happy the band was back, ruling the chart once again. Sometimes you don’t know what’s classic during its heyday. “Blurred Lines” has already faded whereas “Good Vibrations” is FOREVER!

WONDERFUL

And it truly is. The iteration on “Smiley Smile” is good, but the version from the “Smile Sessions,” released in 2011, will blow your mind. It’s so sweet, you want to eat it!

HEROES AND VILLAINS

Meant little back then, means everything today, it’s one of Brian’s signature songs since his comeback, but “Smiley Smile” was a stiff and the band was fading out and most people didn’t know it back then.

VEGETABLES

The greats surprise us, confound our expectations, are willing to take risks. Anybody can repeat themselves, imitate what is already successful, but to create pure magic in left field? Brian and the boys did here.

DARLIN’

It was a HIT!

Records moved faster, but the radio had moved on, you never heard the Beach Boys’ old tracks, they were a relic of the past, most people never thought of them, and now they were back! With this Carl vocal!

WILD HONEY

Not as successful as “Darlin’,” this is far superior. Once again sung by Carl, his emotive vocal penetrates and the energy is palpable, it’s timeless, listen, it sounds dated not at all.

I WAS MADE TO LOVE HER

My favorite track on the “Wild Honey” album. Sure, the Stevie Wonder original is indelible, but Carl is singing like his relationship depends upon it.

DO IT AGAIN

I gave up. It was becoming creepy. It was just too weird to see my favorites fade out. The Beatles were testing limits, but the Beach Boys were stultified. Little did we know that Brian had exited, mentally and oftentimes physically, the band was running on fumes, which is an explanation as to why I didn’t buy “Friends,” the 1968 album with no hits that insiders now say is so great, but I did buy “20/20” since it contained this, which was a big hit.

I CAN HEAR MUSIC

My favorite version of this track, far superior to the Ronettes’ original, because of Carl’s impassioned vocal and the updated production.

CABINESSENCE

The best song on “20/20,” this is a “Smile” leftover, they were literally scraping the barrel. Once again, I prefer the original, the iteration from the “Smile Sessions.”

IT’S ABOUT TIME

The band disappeared, they were gone for a year and a half, they missed Woodstock, Led Zeppelin had made inroads and then…

The Beach Boys switched labels, went to Warner Brothers with their own imprint, Brother Records, and put out “Sunflower,” which benefited from tons of press, but sank like a stone…

However, this is the best album of the post-sixties period. It’s incredible, play it twice and you won’t be able to stop playing it.

“It’s About Time” is the best song on “Sunflower,” almost a pocket symphony itself, written by Dennis Wilson and Al Jardine along with Bob Burchman but sung by Carl with Mike on the bridge. Every time I hear “It’s About Time” it puts me in a good mood, that’s the power of music

THIS WHOLE WORLD

Written by Brian, but sung by Carl, it’s a dreamy ride through your best life, how can one track have so many changes, so many goodies?

SLIP ON THROUGH

Written and sung by Dennis, “Sunflower” is where the middle brother made his bones, established his bona fides. It’s as good as Brian’s work but it’s not by him! Who knew the band had so many threats?

ADD SOME MUSIC TO YOUR DAY

The emphasis single, the one that was supposed to be a hit, kinda like the Doobie Brothers’ “Another Park, Another Sunday,” from “What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits.” Both faltered in the marketplace but come across as pure genius when you hear them now.

FOREVER

Ironically, the longest lasting track on “Sunflower.” Sung and written by Dennis (with co-writer Gregg Jakobson) this is the one John Stamos sang on “Full House,” it’s the one played at weddings, but it was less than a footnote back in ’71.

SURF’S UP

The press was taking hold, this album was not as good as “Sunflower,” but it was much more successful. Media focused on this song, the title track, retrieved from the past, made famous in the sixties when Brian played it on a Leonard Bernstein TV special… Imagine that, a classical artist with his own TV presence.

DISNEY GIRLS

Bruce Johnston’s number, it gained traction in covers years later, most famously by Art Garfunkel, but even Doris Day did a version.

FEEL FLOWS

The hidden gem on “Surf’s Up,” this is Carl’s work (cowritten with Jack Rieley). It just feels so RIGHT!

‘TIL I DIE

Quite possibly the most beautiful record ever made, at least by Brian Wilson.

I got it immediately, I didn’t think anybody heard it, but I was stunned when Don Was featured it in his “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” documentary, now it’s an acknowledged masterpiece.

MARCELLA

By the time of 1972’s “Carl & The Passions – ‘So Tough'” record, Brian was checked out, and it’s evident, the album is barely playable, except for this, the opening cut.

In an alternative universe, this is a number one record, as good as anything Brian ever did, it was completely ignored, but if you heard it you couldn’t stop dropping the needle and listening to it again.

SAIL ON, SAILOR

A complete return to form, a Brian number tacked on to the album “Holland” in search of a hit, which it was not. But Blondie Chaplin added energy, this too was a hit in an alternative universe, but unlike “Marcella” it sustains, people know it.

THE TRADER

You think it’s pedestrian until you hit the changes. Then your head turns, amazing how pure sound can make you feel so good.

FUNKY PRETTY

Another winner on “Holland.” Once again, Carl shines, hang in there until you hear his vocal get so soulful you can see into his identity.

IT’S O.K.

The band was giant on the road and meant little in recordings and the “15 Big Ones” album was so disappointing it’s astounding. But this track hearkens back to the days of yore.

SUSIE CINCINNATI

This is the other winner on “15 Big Ones,” sounds like Brian, but it’s Al.

JOHNNY CARSON

“Love You” is a disaster. Brian was back, but he wasn’t. This was the famous cut and it’s a one listen song. The LP was unfinished and sans hits and it resembled nothing so much as peering into the brain of someone mentally ill, which it was.

COME GO WITH ME

And now no one cared, the band had extinguished their good will, and although “M.I.U. Album” is listenable, what can you say when the best cut is a cover, this?

GOOD TIMIN’

From “L.A. (Light Album)” when the Beach Boys went disco and put their career in a coffin. There was another studio album, but it was meaningless, I purchased “Keepin’ The Summer Alive” but no one else did and it was a one listen project at most. But this cut, it’s classic!

FULL SAIL

Imperfect, but it benefits from Carl’s heartfelt vocal.

ANGEL COME HOME

Written by Carl with Geoffrey Cushing-Murray, this is the best cut on “L.A. (Light Album),” it’s put over the top by Dennis’s ragged vocal, saturated in emotion.

I’m waitin’ till my angel comes home

How many late nights did I stare into the darkness and sing this song to myself. Even if I did the leaving…they were here and now they’re gone, can’t they come back?

Angel, come home

But they couldn’t. Dennis died. And then Carl too. Brian was in the public eye but could never live up to expectations.

But now our angel has finally come home. Brian has stabilized, he’s creating once again, and performing regularly. And for those who were there back then, it’s truly heaven.

Feeling anxious about Dallas? How about Hillary’s e-mail scandal? Or are you still too busy bitching about Apple Maps.

Forget your faux pas. Don’t even bother apologizing, especially if you don’t think you’re guilty and you’re only doing it for the crowd. What we admire most these days are those with a backbone who keep soldiering on. Taylor Swift may be a two-dimensional phony creating content for a brain dead audience but she knows the game, you’ve got to keep on creating, stay in the public eye, or you’re forgotten.

This is so different from the old three year album cycle. If you’re staying at home creating an opus to drop on the public you don’t realize that classic acts’ albums last a day, not even a weekend, and if you’re not already famous, you’re putting out your work to crickets, it’s your audience and your audience only. You need an awareness campaign, but the truth is in moments you’re no longer new, and please, only have that campaign when you’re selling, advance press is for dummies, if I can’t click and buy it immediately you’ve lost, kind of like the book business, which issues all its reviews a week or more before retail availability, WHO CAN REMEMBER?

And then you’ve got the Republican Congress that just can’t believe they got beaten, that the FBI director did not favor indictment for Hillary Clinton. They want change, they want justice, they want someone to pay… THAT’S AN OLD STORY, FORGET ABOUT IT!

As for Dallas, et al, in the back of our minds we’re thinking it’s bad to be black in America, and no rational person wants cops dead, but we’ve already moved on to making our living, updating our Facebook page, watching Snapchat stories…

If you think today’s paradigm is all about world domination, you’re still living in the seventies. No one has a sustained hold on the public consciousness, NO ONE! At best you can own the dialogue for a week. Like Beyonce did with “Lemonade.” But was that really just a press story? I know about it, but I didn’t listen to it, and the real story is not that many did. Old wave media needs something to trumpet but we go more for the spontaneous, the new, that which we adopt as opposed to having shoved down our throat, like Pokemon Go.

And speaking of Go, you don’t collect $200, you’re now just in the game. Releasing a record is like walking into first grade. Okay, now you’re in school, but how are you gonna get traction, how are you gonna pass? And he not busy learning is dying. But the great thing is you can adjust on the fly, because no one is paying attention. And if they are, they’ve already forgotten your mistakes anyway.

So forget gotcha moments. They’re so last century, so Republican in a world where that party’s clock was cleaned by outsider Donald Trump, who speaks to their rank and file better than they do. We want what resonates now, we don’t care about playing a game of tag in the past.

And are you in the news business or the career business anyway?

If the latter, don’t worry about hitting a peak, don’t worry about starting off slow. Just know if you’re willing to do the work you can make it, assuming the indicators are there. If your listens and views aren’t climbing, you missed the target. Publicity won’t help. Subsequent to launch it’s all about word of mouth and you’ve got none. Better to go back to the drawing board.

And now creation is your full time job. You come to bat as much as a baseball player. Who hits .300 and is a superstar. Not everyone knows Drake’s deep tracks, but his hits are more ubiquitous than anybody’s and he puts out multiple projects a year, he gets it.

And the young do too.

It’s only the old farts still playing by the old rules, demanding the game change back as they put their head in the ground, who don’t. Tech eats itself. And so does entertainment. Don’t fight the last war, establish a new front. WME owns the UFC, it may not pay off, but sitting in Beverly Hills trying to package movies in an industry that’s moribund…that’s death.

And he not busy being born is dying.