And niche is nowhere.

Ever since that misguided book “The Long Tail” came out everyone with a keyboard believes they’re entitled to an audience and compensation online. This is patently untrue. Ironically, as more people got access, broadband prospered and mobile reigned the scene started to resemble our nation at large, one of haves and have-nots, of income inequality, of winners and losers, but the great unwashed refuse to believe this.

Like those starting podcasts.

Just because you can do it doesn’t mean anybody wants to listen to it. And Malcolm Gladwell enters the fray years late and goes directly to the top of the chart. That’s the power of name recognition, career accomplishment and talent. When few were podcasting you had a chance. Now, fuggetaboutit.

Why is it everybody gloms on when a medium becomes mature, when the experts know the game is all about the bleeding edge, being first, testing limits, planting your flag on an outpost. But that’s damn hard to do, you have to have confidence, talent and insight. And perseverance. That’s the dirty little secret, most people give up, sooner rather than later.

We see this great inequality, the gap between losers and winners, in the tech infrastructure. There’s only ONE Facebook. And there are a couple of other social networks with traction, Instagram and Snapchat. If you’re trying to compete odds are long, very long. Apple failed twice, with Ping and Connect.

And in mobile operating systems there’s Android and iOS. BlackBerry is moribund and despite the marketing power of Microsoft, Windows cannot compete.

So, if they can’t win, what are the odds you can?

Which is why you’re making so little despite your tunes being on Spotify, YouTube even. Sure, you have 10,000 views, which seems significant to you, but there are unknown acts with 50 million, truly, they just haven’t blown up yet, most of the world is an untapped market.

You see the public wants to belong, be a member of the group, have something to talk about, and those in the music sphere seem categorically unable to accept this, if they acknowledge it at all. People like hits. They want to listen to what everybody else does. They want to be members of a community. They want to go to the show en masse and celebrate.

Do not equate the modern era with the pre-internet one. In the twentieth century five thousand albums were released a year. Just getting a record deal was a near-impossibility. Most people could not play in the game at all. And those that did had a leg up. They got publicity and some airplay and word of mouth was available, there were few competing projects. So when you were niche in the seventies or eighties or even nineties, you really weren’t. You were already an exclusive club member. People knew who you were. You could play clubs, supported by your label. Fans championed you and supported you, but not as much as your record company, which footed the bill before either hitting the jackpot or giving up.

But today the scene is incomprehensible. There’s just too much out there. And labels are businesses, they want to make money. And they can only do this by reaching mass. And mirroring income inequality they’re only interested in that which can truly break through, rain down coin, the middle is anathema. Just ask the movie business, where you can’t get a comedy or adult drama funded. But, you tell them, you can make it for under ten mil, bunts instead of home runs. But home runs score and bunts do not. And with overhead, marketing expenses and opportunity cost, it doesn’t pay to do anything but swing for the fences.

That’s on the side of production.

On the side of consumption…

The public leans toward that which is anointed. Which is what the Grammy bounce is all about. Hell, “Hamilton” just shot up the chart after winning all those Tonys. The music on the album didn’t change, but people’s awareness of it did.

Which is why all these streaming music services will not survive. Because, like bands, mass is where it’s at. People want to be where everybody else is. How do you even share a song on Apple Music? If you’re on Tidal? Can you send it to someone who doesn’t subscribe?

There’s only one Amazon, one trustworthy retailer, which expanded into new territories, kind of like Spotify, which now has podcasts and video.

But Spotify’s model of endless playlists is b.s. The whole playlist canard is b.s. Because it doesn’t serve the customer. The customer wants trusted curation of that which everybody is paying attention to. We don’t only want great, we want great that everybody else is listening to. When all the acts on the playlist are unknown to you, you don’t even bother listening. You feel like you’re wasting your time. Even if you found something you liked you feel no one else would have ever heard of it. But if everybody’s listening to the same playlist, then you know you have a starting point.

I know, I know, this is everything you hate about the old system. But gatekeepers don’t only exact tolls, they keep order, they deliver comprehension, which the public greatly needs.

So don’t tell me about your personal playlist. Or the obscure one you listen to. Doesn’t float my boat, doesn’t satisfy my urges. I need community, something today’s music services do a piss-poor job of providing. Spotify would be better off resembling KROQ more than a record store. Build culture and belief, narrow it down for us.

But, like “The Long Tail,” streaming services have it all wrong, they’re too busy being everything to everybody and satisfying few in the process.

And hustlers muddy the water trying to gain attention for what they’re selling even though no one cares.

Mass adds definition. Look at the Kardashians. Everybody knows who they are. Some love ’em, some hate ’em, others are indifferent. But if you come to my house we can argue about them. We can’t argue about most bands.

But the Kardashians know you gain traction and hammer the message. And the family had the same damn members before they were on TV. And Kim was just a pale imitation of Paris Hilton.

But isn’t it funny we rarely hear about Paris anymore. We don’t need her if we have Kim.

We don’t need you if we’ve got Zeppelin and Bieber.

But at least Bieber and Drake, who releases a mixtape seemingly every time the seasons change, get the new paradigm. That it’s about being constantly in the public eye, with new product, that you don’t rest on your laurels, you keep creating.

Are you a winner or a loser?

First, check your field. If you can’t be at the top, you’re not gonna make it on the internet.

But if you’ve got a shot, utilize the tools. Don’t scream at streaming services, embrace them. Go where everybody else is.

That’s what the public wants.

Radio is killing the music business.

Alta kachers and record labels pay fealty to this antiquated medium to their detriment. In an on demand society where the playlist is king the business keeps focusing on getting airplay and there are not enough slots and not enough people listening. It’s like they’re coal miners fighting for market share in a world that’s become about natural gas, solar and wind.

The revolution has happened. It’s just that those with power refuse to acknowledge it. Sales are a dead metric, like counting the number of landlines in a mobile world, it’s all about streams. But how do you get people to stream if they don’t know what playlist to check out?

Paul Simon put out a new album. Reviews say it’s good, I haven’t listened to it. Where do I start?

Same deal with Tom Petty’s Mudcrutch.

The acts make LPs in a singles world, get traditional publicity in an online social world, and then they blame the system when their new projects gain no traction.

Used to be we tuned into the same radio stations.

Then we all tuned into MTV.

These outlets pruned the wares, they told us what to listen to, they gave us clarity in the face of chaos.

But now there’s even chaos in the playlist world!

We need fewer playlists.

But even more, we need a handful of targeted playlists, that would allow listeners to check out new music.

That’s right, the baby boomers, who are active consumers…where’s their one playlist with the best new work of the old and the work of the new they should be aware of? I’d listen to it, you would too. Instead, the whole scene has been hijacked by non-comm stations who believe they’re arbiters of quality, but are really gatekeepers of the graveyard. Yes, these stations have some active listeners, but they’re a zit on the ass of the total populace. And, at best, they feed us track by track over a period of years whereas an act might have a few good cuts worth listening to all at once.

So…

Spotify. This is your job. Apple Music is moribund, a vehicle for the industry to complain that someone moved their cheese. And YouTube is for youngsters and it’s about subscriptions, not playlists, so…

The Swedish outlet has to lead. Has to create one playlist for old people with the best new stuff. To give not only Paul Simon and Tom Petty a chance, but Neil Young too, who’s been bitching on Marc Maron’s WTF.

Right there on the homepage. A veritable radio playlist, only this time it’s on demand, on a streaming service, and you can scroll through and sample and discover.

Sure, Discover Weekly is good, but those playlists are too personalized. They can’t break an act. We crave community, and the streaming services have done a piss-poor job of giving it to us. But this could change, and benefit everyone, acts and listeners alike.

Then again, oldsters hate streaming. But that’s the only way to get paid for recordings! And the more acts promote it the more listeners will clamor for it.

So, create an Adult Playlist.

Sure, I could comb through Spotify and see which of the Simon and Mudcrutch tracks got the most spins, but that’s way too much work in an overwhelming world. Can’t you get a curator, like a programmer of yore, to cull the best and serve it up?

It’s the job of Spotify to break acts now. Radio’s the last hurrah, even in pop. It’s time for the streaming service to step up.

How rich is Donald Trump?

One of the first rules of Hollywood is to ditch modesty, whether true or false. In a land where no CV is necessary, where hustlers reign and people lie about their educations if they went to college at all, he or she who doesn’t say they’re the best ever is instantly ignored, we don’t have time for that, there aren’t enough hours in the day to weed through those who beat their chests claiming they’re the best.

“After one Cohn coup, Mr. Trump rewarded him with a pair of diamond-encrusted cuff links and buttons in a Bulgari box.”

“He did get to keep the cuff links Mr. Trump had given Mr. Cohn. Years later, Mr. Fraser had them appraised; they were knockoffs, he said.”

That’s from today’s front page “Times” story on Trump and Roy Cohn, the pugilistic barrister who viewed the world as his oyster.

What Donald Trump Learned From Joseph McCarthy’s Right-Hand Man

That’s what they don’t tell you, the rich and powerful believe the game is to be manipulated, that the rules are an amorphous amalgamation they can bend to their will. Which is why despite Ivy League graduates being pillars of society they rarely effect change, they so often don’t rule, because this is anathema to their being.

You see on the east coast where you went to college is important. And sure, you try to pull strings, if you’re wealthy enough you donate a building, but mostly you do what’s expected of you, you play by the rules, you get good grades, study up for the SATs, do a ton of extracurricular activities, and when you’re accepted at the august institution you think you’ve made it.

Only you haven’t. Sure, you can get into medical school, or law school, maybe even get a gig at the bank, but that’s not where the action is today. Finance might make you rich, but it rarely gives you power, and power is everything.

Which is why those seeking it can be found outside the traditional system, in Los Angeles, in San Francisco, not in Miami, a haven of hedonism. Hunger is palpable on the west coast and it’s pooh-poohed by the east. Whether it be the slimy entertainment types or the Silicon Valleyites wreaking havoc on what once was and never more will be. The revolution is effected by the can-dos, and most of those playing by the rules are the can-nots.

And they cannot fathom Donald Trump. The east coast intelligentsia has its knickers in a twist, how can this be? Very easily, if you get out and see how the world really works. Whether it be YouTube stars or anybody else who hustled their way from the bottom to the top.

Most of what you read about entertainment is wrong, pure fiction, lies, drummed up by publicists for effect. But the media repeats it and the public buys it and the perpetrators have the last laugh. You don’t become the biggest star in the world because you have the most talent, but because you’ve been anointed by the machine, that’s the dirty little secret. And you get into position by hustling, telling everybody how great you are, making loyal friends and working the angles. Of course luck counts, so many projects end up failing, but not all of them.

Donald Trump knows the value of publicity. That’s how he earned his name, by cutting through red tape and funding the reconstruction of a skating rink. He branded himself as a can-do guy.

The same way a singer gets a duet or an appearance on an awards show…you’re in the public eye and then you capitalize on it.

And despite protesting that you’re warm and friendly, you’ve got sharp elbows, you keep others down, there are only a limited number of places at the top.

And then you leverage your success and suddenly where you came from and how you got there has been forgotten, or forgiven, we love winners. Isn’t that the American Way, picking yourself up by your bootstraps, even if you were born on third base?

Now that Donald Trump has won the nomination, true scrutiny has begun. You couldn’t depend upon the right wing to do this previously, there are no reporters at Fox News, only talking heads, and Rush Limbaugh is a gasbag who gets his talking points from the “Times.” And the “Times” detailed how Trump was a failure in Atlantic City.

But he told everybody he was a success.

And if you call him on it, he’ll blast you back to the stone age, possibly suing you in the process, or denying your press credentials along the way.

And the wimpy left wing establishment just doesn’t get it. They believe you build your resume honestly, that you play nicely with others…but that’s a route to the middle, and Trump needed to be on the top.

Trump kept leveraging his middling success, piling on publicity for more fame, getting his own television show, knowing that publicity is everything, that the news is subservient to those making it. And he hoodwinked the entire nation.

As performers have done before.

This is Entertainment Business 101 folks. Smoke and mirrors. Becoming a star because you say so. To the point where naysayers look like haters and you win in the end.

So much has changed in the past few decades. Most wealth is newly-earned, income inequality has burgeoned, there’s more media than ever. But what has not been acknowledged is the entertainmentification of our country. It started with Reagan, an actor who got Alzheimer’s who’s been recast as a god, with public places named after him ad infinitum. Do you think he earned it? Then you’ve got no idea how the game is played.

And then came MTV, which showed us stars could be bigger than we ever thought possible.

And despite techies owning all the systems and making all the billions, the content creators own the hearts and minds of our society, entertainment rules.

And Trump is an entertainer.

Are you?

P.S. “How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions”

I don’t expect you to read this article, no one ever does. We don’t want facts, but talking points, we skew the news in our favor, we model it after what we want to believe. And our beliefs are most malleable when it comes to soft news, as opposed to wonky subjects. And that’s how Trump has succeeded, by focusing on soft topics we can repeat and discuss. He may ultimately fail at the polls, but this is a sea change, we’re never going back to what once was. Expect Mark Cuban to run for President and win. No one cares how he made his money, few even know, but he made a basketball team a success, standing up to the NBA all the while, and is on television every week. Mindshare is everything. Clinton thought she could succeed with Saturday debates and no press conferences, and Trump’s such a bad candidate, whose faux pas are catching up with him, that she probably will, but she’s the last gasp of a dying paradigm.

P.P.S. Are you a leader or a follower? If you think self-help books and websites can turn you into the former from the latter, you’re dreaming. Either you believe the world can be bent in your favor or you don’t.

P.P.P.S. Fame eclipses money every day of the week. An actor tragically gets pinned by his automobile and it’s front page news, Tom Perkins dies and most people have no idea who that is.

P.P.P.P.S. Say something long enough and loud enough and most people believe it, even if it’s untrue. John Oliver specializes in revealing this, tune in. Either you’re gushing for dollars or speaking the truth, you can’t do both, sorry to say.

P.P.P.P.P.S. No one blows the whistle because the government is in bed with the rich and you only get ahead by being in bed with the rich. So if you think someone is looking out for you, the common man, you’re wrong.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Before income inequality, some of those east coast hoop-jumpers went into music, believing they could gain power and make some coin in the process. But now those people are in search of safety, and there’s less of it in entertainment than anywhere. The establishment doesn’t like long odds, and is always flabbergasted when those who apply themselves triumph. This is the story of Elon Musk and Tesla. Despite the “Wall Street Journal” carping the company is the beneficiary of government subsidies, people don’t care, they glom on to those who break barriers and test limits. But in music all we’ve got is the uneducated unwashed who believe money is everything. Isn’t it funny that Shawn Fanning, Tim Westergren and Daniel Ek are bigger heroes than most of the players. Because these techies leveraged their smarts to break barriers and satiate the public. The music business hates YouTube, the public does not. And if you think you can win without the public on your side, you’re probably Marco Rubio or Jeb or the rest of the Republican wannabes who just could not see the game had changed. Kanye may be hated, but he’s gained tons of power by being in the news every damn day and scaring away critics who he excoriates every time they question him. He’s the biggest star in the land because he says so. Same with Donald Trump.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Business follows the money, absolutely. Whether it be P&G or Pfizer. A record company doesn’t care what it sells, as long as it sells. Trump got a TV show because he had a brand name and was a tireless self-promoter. TV would give Hitler a show if they thought it would garner good ratings. And isn’t it interesting that record labels support acts that shoot each other, never mind do drugs and get arrested.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Trump’s not that rich. But since he said he was we believe him. Now THAT’S the American Way.

Jimmy Page is 72.

I don’t know whether he ripped off Spirit, whether he and Robert will be held accountable by the jury, but I do know there will come a time when both of them won’t be here anymore. Or they will be, but they’ll be too infirm to play.

Been a strange year out there, from David Bowie to Glenn Frey to Merle Haggard to Prince. With Dan Hicks and a bunch of lesser lights extinguished to boot. They defined a generation. And now they’re gone.

My mother just told me she’s the last one standing.

Do you have a deceased parent? It’s a club you don’t want to be a member of. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up an orphan, although I’m not looking forward to that day, when there’s no context, when I realize I’m next.

Last night I had dinner at Amy’s. Her son David is moving to Philadelphia to attend medical school. His UCSB girlfriend is gonna follow him. They’re at the beginning, I’m at the end.

Not that anybody my age acknowledges that. That’s the problem with baby boomers, they always think they’ll rule, that they’ll be here forever. But even Sumner Redstone is gonna pass. Ray Kurzweil too. And as much as Steve Jobs changed our culture, Apple no longer even introduces one more thing, his signature style is gone. Kinda like the bands of yore, either you saw them or you didn’t. But what’s even worse, so many of them have not survived into the second decade of the twenty first century. Does anybody under twenty know who 10cc was? Or even Gerardo? They’re bleeding edge, they’re on the oldies circuit, they become ill and then they die. Meanwhile life keeps moving forward.

Geri is in hospice. Lois’s cancer has returned. My mother has always said to pull the plug, but she positively lives in the present, that’s the key to longevity supposedly, along with good genes, but when she starts reflecting on her mortality…

It creeps me out.

I look in the mirror and see gray hair. I’m told I’m irrelevant every day. Even worse, I can now see the end, what do I want to do with my time, what do I want to accomplish?

Weird to pick up the Travel section and realize there are places you’re never gonna go. That you’re never gonna be rich. That more doors are closing than opening. You don’t see yourself going over the hump, but suddenly you realize you passed it. And nobody wants to acknowledge it.

We keep hearing about an afterlife, about medical breakthroughs, as if this story is not going to end.

But it is.

I saw Led Zeppelin, twice. Back when Jimmy Page was still dangerous, before his hair had turned white. The goal was to get inside the Riot House, to become part of it. Musicians even had groupies. But in today’s tabloid world nobody does anything untoward and we hear endlessly about nerd power and I don’t even recognize the landscape anymore. And when they talk about the money “Stairway”‘s made they never reference the cultural impact, how rock radio ruled and the tune was always number one, the most famous, the toppermost of the poppermost.

Doesn’t matter whether the intro was nicked or not, it’s part of my DNA. And yours. A cultural institution.

But I don’t think Justin Bieber has it on infinite repeat. I don’t see it on the Spotify charts. Everything meaningful fades. Whether it be Johnny Carson or Jay Leno. And when they try to keep the franchise alive it just makes you squirm. Cancel SNL. Once upon a time it was dangerous, John and Danny tested limits we didn’t even know existed. And Jimmy Fallon does David Letterman’s show, poorly, and the press gives him a pass. Makes me want to scream at the screen like Grandpa Simpson, but we laugh at him, I don’t want everybody laughing at me.

Everybody’s got something wrong with them. The body mutates and rebels and no one gets out of here alive. But when you’re twenty five, you think you’re immune, but you’re not.

I never thought my mother would live forever, but I never envisioned a day when she was not here. We don’t speak every day, but when we do I’m rooted, I know who I am. And I’ll be somebody when she’s gone, but I’ll be somebody different.

She jumped off the phone. The ending was abrupt. I heard about everybody’s illness and then she had to go before she started to cry.

I cry for Glenn Frey.

I lament my brethren going on a desert trip to see has-beens, however gigantic they once might have been. I don’t want my memories tarnished, I want to remember how it once was. Thank god for Robert Plant refusing to regroup. It’d be like Magic and Bird, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, playing basketball. Sometimes the era passes.

But the memories and feelings live on.

Once upon a time “Stairway To Heaven” was brand new. You dropped the needle and went on an aural adventure. You enjoyed hearing it on the radio, it made you feel warm and fuzzy, it set your mind free.

But now it’s just a signifier of what once was.

Who even cares if it survives, we won’t.

We think everything we do is important, we build a resume, acquire assets and try to climb the ladder when the truth is no ladder exists. We’re here and then we’re gone. And intellectually I knew this, but today I feel it.