1. Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook

Because that’s where the eyeballs are. Facebook far eclipses television and radio, it’s not only where you go to connect, it’s where you go to be informed. In an era of chaos, he who imparts order triumphs. Facebook killed MySpace because it was organized, there were rules. People say they prefer Android to iOS, Windows to MacOS, but those are the vocal minority. Give people too much choice and they become overwhelmed. As they are in the music business, with a plethora of playlists. You don’t want to go to a bunch of sites to get your news, it’s all there on Facebook, it won.

2. The New York Times

Someone has to report the news. But the Grey Lady adhered too long to that old saw that content is king. No, distribution is king. Trips to the “Times” site keep going down, because readers keep getting the “Times” stories elsewhere, never mind other outlets rewriting the paper’s content and posting it to their own advantage. The “Times” has boots on the ground. It’s just not sure which war it’s fighting.

3. Jeff Bezos

It’s not only Amazon, it’s the “Washington Post.” Not only is Jeff selling us all our stuff, he’s made a huge move into content. And he’s based his complete enterprise on the opposite of entertainment…it’s all about credibility, it’s all about trust, there’s no smoke and mirrors, no bait and switch, you can return items and oftentimes when you don’t want something Amazon just lets you keep it. You can find cheaper prices elsewhere, but you won’t go. As for the WaPo, Bezos took a declining asset and revitalized it, spent money and enhanced web traffic. Oftentimes dying enterprises just need new eyes. The news media has been cutting back for over a decade, thinking that balancing the books was the most important thing. Just like Philippe Dauman thought momentary stock price was everything. You protect the crown jewels, you don’t axe them. Selling a piece of Paramount is like denying your child a college education because you don’t want to go into hock paying for it, not looking at the long term. Funny how the techies look long term.

4. The Public

Never has the individual had this much power. No, I’m not talking about YouTube stars, I’m not talking about the self-promoting nitwits using new communication tools to try and establish a brand, I’m talking about you and me. Not only do we reach more people, oftentimes it’s the ONLY way to reach people, via word of mouth. Advertising is skipped or ignored. Media is seen as hype. You move mountains by infecting individuals and having them spread the word. Whether it be a new app or a new act. It’s a collective force that is gigantic.

5. Beyonce

Not Taylor Swift, because Twizzle Stick is just selling girl power, Beyonce’s spread her message far beyond that. And she’s got fans and media coverage… Sure, there are more poignant acts. But impact is based on attention, and right now no one has got as much as Beyonce. She’s got fans, who listen to what she has to say. She could go political, pro-Hillary, anti-Trump, and she could sway the election. But she grew up in a different era wherein if you alienate one customer you’re doing it wrong. Steve Jobs knew that alienation was power. When you stand for something and double-down on it people are drawn to you, especially in today’s crazy days.

6. Netflix

Because it’s totally today. It’s an on demand service for a very low price. Sure, you can subscribe to HBO Go or Showtime On Demand, but they each cost more than a month of Netflix! People hate commercials, they’ll pay for quality, and once they pay, they indulge. Not only does Netflix have a ton of content, it’s a paragon of creativity on new projects, it’s the opposite of network, there are no notes, only a blank check, because the company realizes creators do best when they’re allowed to follow their muse to excellence. Remember when people bitched that Netflix went from DVDs by mail to streaming..? True power players are always ahead of the game, they can see the future, and have the confidence to make big bets. He who is living in the present is lost in the future. Can you hear me radio?

LESS POWERFUL THAN YOU THINK

1. Apple

It’s about software, not hardware, it’s about eyeballs, not eking more from the same posse. The device is a commodity. And upgrade cycles have slowed. Apple could have been the new WeChat, but it refuses to open up iMessage in order to monetize it. Apple may be the world’s most valuable company, but it’s verging on becoming moribund. Facebook speaks to everybody, Apple can’t even get anybody to use Connect.

2. Google

Because we don’t search that way on our mobiles, and mobile is only going to become more powerful, it’s king. And, Facebook does better in online advertising.

3. Snapchat and Twitter

They’ve both got the same problem, tons of buzz but not enough users. People have checked out Twitter and have abandoned it and great swaths of the public consider Snapchat too difficult to use. Don’t confuse the noise with the footprint. Just because Snapchat gets all the ink…remember when Twitter got all the ink? Twitter is a feature, the company needs to be sold and baked into something bigger.

4. Samsung

See Apple above. It’s about software, not hardware.

5. ESPN

We’re overpaying for that which we do not use. A company built for an old model, the cable bundle, it can only go down. As for its crown jewel, the NFL…as long as people keep dying from CTE, the sport is time-stamped, just like human-piloted cars. Within two decades, probably more like ten or fifteen years, no one will drive their own car and then they won’t even own a car, not only will vehicles drive themselves, you’ll call them up on demand, just like you do a show on Netflix. Incomprehensible? Then you cannot foresee the death of the NFL.

UP FOR GRABS

1. Les Moonves

He could end up in control of Viacom, just you wait. Because not only does he know how to garner and keep eyeballs, he makes money doing it. Power is not about the enterprise but the individual. You may hate Les, but he’s made in the same mold as his boss Sumner. Look to he or she who created the company, or took it from zero to hero. And give them the reins and let them keep them.

2. Music

Something only grows when it’s ahead of the public, when it pushes the envelope. What are the music breakthroughs, festivals? Something that hearkens back to Woodstock, just with better food, more toilets and a higher ticket price? We need less choice, via anointing of a few hits acts, and more bleeding edge. Furthermore, internal distribution wars are only confusing the public. Which service should one subscribe to, what do I need? Damned if most people know. And Apple Music jumped the shark when Trent Reznor trashed YouTube. Sissies cry and complain about the rules. Winners MAKE THE RULES!

3. Finance

Dodd-Frank has already reined in Wall Street, and that’s a good thing. The public has turned against the financiers and once you’re the enemy of the people, you’re in trouble. If you’re picking a career, this is not it. Young people believe in the altruistic who build, today’s finance is anything but.

With A Little Help From My Friends Woodstock – Spotify

Woodstock Joe Cocker sings With A Little Help From My Friends 1969 – YouTube

He was in the Grease Band.

What would you do if I sang out of tune?

You’d know one of the most famous songs of all time, the second cut on “Sgt. Pepper.” An iconic number sung by Ringo, one would think it was uncoverable. But this proved to be untrue.

Underground FM radio was slowly becoming the norm. It was a dividing line more accurate than whether or not your hair was long, did you listen? Late at night? When Alison Steele, the Nightbird, took you on tours of aural fantasy? When Rosko and Zacherle escorted you on adventures? When you tuned in to hear not what was already a hit, but that which was brand new, that titillated you, that made you rush out and buy the LP?

Joe Cocker’s take on “With A Little Help From My Friends” was a revelation, a reworking of a classic number into something wholly different. But it never crossed over to the AM dial, most people never heard it, until the “Woodstock” movie blew a hole in the national consciousness, made rock both the soundtrack and the religion of a generation. This was not 2016, when cultural events come and go, that flick played all summer, and one of the highlights was the aforementioned Mr. Cocker, performing “With A Little Help From My Friends.”

It was the same arrangement, but in its live iteration more haunting and powerful, the Chris Stainton organ solo set the tone, but it was Henry McCullough’s soaring, searing guitar which put it over the top.

There’s not a baby boomer alive who doesn’t know that riff.

And now Henry McCullough is dead.

Music is not like movies. Where the public walks out during the credits. Rather, listeners comb the details, read about the studios, the managers and the personnel. I’ve never met Henry McCullough, but I certainly know who he is. Back when musicians were our heroes, before it became about tech and money and steel as opposed to soul. Cash will buy you a comfy bed, but it definitely won’t keep you warm at night, whereas a great tune will not only toast your tootsies, it will set your soul free and give you a reason to live.

McCullough did not play on the studio original, although he was a member of the cast.

And speaking of casts, he was the guitarist on “Jesus Christ Superstar,” back when it was only a recording, when we did not know that Andrew Lloyd Webber was more Broadway than Brill Building, when limits were being tested every damn day and it was a full time job keeping up.

But Henry did play on the second LP, the eponymous “Joe Cocker!,” which is even better than the debut.

And he also graced McCartney’s “Live And Let Die” and “Hi, Hi, Hi,” as well as playing the solo in “My Love.”

He was a soldier in the rock and roll wars. Although we didn’t know that it was a fight, that it was a competition, until decades in we found out some people lived and some people didn’t, some people had careers and some didn’t. Some were famous and some were just working musicians.

Like Henry McCullough.

They just wanted to play. Stardom was a byproduct. Until the Beatles no one expected it to rain down coin, no one expected it to last forever, no one believed half a century later those who were exposed to these tunes would remember every detail, not only the tracks, but who played on them.

We bought our tickets and went to the show, the only place you could experience the magic. There were no cell phones, no selfies, no Snapchat Stories, only memories.

And by time I got to see Joe he was playing with Leon Russell and his band of merrymen known as Mad Dogs & Englishmen.

But just a month before, on the very first night I got stoned, on my 17th birthday, I went with my dearly-departed friend Ronnie to see “Woodstock” in the heart of Boston. This was back when films were platformed, when they didn’t come to your own hometown for months, when you made a pilgrimage, when you recited how many times you saw the flick in the theatre, three in this instance, before everything was available at your fingertips.

And there was no advance word, no news, everything was a discovery. And when Joe Cocker took the stage the excitement was palpable, no one knew about his spastic movements, no one knew what the backup musicians looked like.

And then we did.

I’ll never forget it.

Or Henry McCullough.

The Water Let’s You In (Bloodline Main Title Theme) – Spotify

Book Of Fears – The Water Let’s You In (Bloodline Theme) – YouTube

Do you have family secrets? Stuff everybody knows but no one talks about, that you’re fearful would doom you if it saw the light of day? Blood is thicker than water and it’s amazing how far you can fall by protecting your relations.

TV now requires an investment, it is no longer hit and run, watch what’s on, now you ferret out series and devour them, and you don’t want to waste ten plus hours on that which is not worthy. But you love reveling in that which titillates, knowing satiation is only a click away.

After finishing “Narcos” last summer and looking for the next project to consume my sister Jill recommended “Bloodline.” She’s a therapist, she thrives on interpersonal relations. But I thought it was a bit hokey, we gave up for a while, ditching it to the dumper like “Orange Is The New Black.” But it got better as it progressed, and we finished it just before the new season began at the end of May.

And seasons on Netflix are radically different from regular TV. They throw the whole thing on your plate like meat in front of a mad dog and you get to decide how you want to consume it, fast or slow. It’s a personal adventure, there’s no water cooler talk, no media hosannas, but if the series clicks it becomes part of the national fabric, which is so strange in today’s here today gone tomorrow society. A Netflix series is akin to a book, it percolates, it gains momentum over time.

And people are just starting to talk about season two of “Bloodline”… Whew!

And you’ll drown before the water lets you in
Yeah, you drown before the water lets you in

Danny is dead. Will the culpable players be held accountable?

But it’s more complicated than that. Turns out the deceased had a son, and an untrustworthy baby mama, in cahoots with John Leguizamo who is so creepy you get hives.

It’s all set in the Keys. I only went once, to hook up with Jimmy Buffett. But it’s definitely different. Kind of like Vegas with a twist. Hot and far from the metropolis and there are different rules, the ones enforced by the power players, the landed gentry with money, as opposed to the police.

But John is a policeman.

Married to Jacinda Barrett, of “Real World” fame. Who’s now in her forties, where did the time go? I remember when she was an ingenue and we hung backstage at a Live show at the Greek when she was dating Chris Hardwick. Chris became king of the nerds, Jacinda became an actress, and Live faded into the darkness. All over MTV and then into the dustbin, their music is a distant memory, it’s astounding what is remembered and what is not.

And Sissy Spacek is the matriarch, in a performance worthy of an Emmy. Sans facelift she looks her age and acts it, has wisdom and heart and refuses to be pushed around, like any grandmother, she roots the family.

Which was run by the tyrant Sam Shepard. So many dads are bad-asses. And I don’t mean bad as in good. I mean as in upstanding public citizens who are hell to live with, you’re constantly under their thumb, they give you some rope and then you hang yourself.

And Linda Cardellini, Meg Rayburn, got out of town but it didn’t last, because her family pulled her back into its trap. I’ve experienced this with girlfriends, their fathers won’t let them loose, only in this case it’s the whole damn family.

And there’s another brother, Kevin, a hothead with bad judgment… Life is all about good judgment, not playing by the rules but to your advantage. Talk to a lawyer before you talk to law enforcement. If you think coming clean and telling the truth works you’re an amateur the pros laugh at.

And there are a zillion plot twists. Some expected, some not. But every character rings true. They’re all striving to get ahead. Not everybody can be a rapper or a YouTube star, most are just trying to make it work in their own hometown, where everybody knows their name and they’ve been pigeonholed.

And certain episodes of season two are almost too anxiety-provoking to watch. That’s what sun and rain and blackness will do for you.

And music.

That’s right, there’s a theme song, which plays only briefly, at the advent of each episode. I never fast-forward through it, it sets the tone.

The young man goes out looking for the diamond in the sea
The old man rows his boat to shore and falls with twisted knees

You’re either going up or down. And oftentimes you don’t even know in which direction you’re heading.

Once upon a time theme songs became number ones. Not only “Friends,” but Mike Post instrumentals. But today, without cultural coherence and with radio risk a thing of the past, only anointed cuts in pop formats have a chance. But in an alternative universe “The Water Lets You In” would run up the chart, because it’s haunting, it’s a rhythmic loop that entrances you immediately, and isn’t that the definition of a hit?

Sure, it’s reminiscent of Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive,” but different enough that a lawsuit is out of the question. And “Wanted Dead Or Alive” has persisted, decades later it still gets airplay, it’s the anthem of the “Deadliest Catch.”

But “The Water Lets You In” is brand new.

“Bloodline” is a twenty plus hour commitment. Most won’t take the plunge, most won’t follow through. But those who do…

When you see me mention it and my eyes will brighten, they’re fictional characters but I’ll want to go deep with you. The show is about life…

And it’s life only.

P.S. The subtle, minimalist, good guy who’s really bad performance of Beau Bridges is the best on screen, if he doesn’t get an Emmy there’s no justice. And Chloe Sevigny finally rings true, you believe she is Chelsea O’Bannon, and if you ran into Jamie McShane in real life you’d be stunned if he wasn’t the scumbag he portrays.

P.P.S. “I think the thing I wanted most was just never meant to be.” Ain’t that the truth, growing up is making peace with the fact you’re never going to grab the brass ring. It’s only the weak who check out early, not only do the strong survive, they see that ultimately no one wins, victories are hollow, and it’s all about the highs along the way.

They promised us one more thing, and all we got were emojis.

It was like listening to a new album from a faded rock star, all style and no substance.

This is about leadership.

And tech.

And the need for us to have something or someone to believe in.

Despite the glorification of the self, the promotion of one’s personality and penumbra for effect, the truth is we need those above us, they inspire us with their excellence, they give us something to live for.

And that is not Tim Cook and his band of nerds.

A plethora of people it was. Of both sexes and more than one color. It was a veritable rainbow coalition, akin to some Up With People, appeal to everybody, make me puke presentation.

We’re looking for bleeding edge, presented with charisma, and there was none of that here.

It’s now Tim Cook’s company. He takes the stage and you wince. Not this boring old fart again. The supply chain supplicant who inherited the operation…I’d rather hear from Janice in accounting. And if you don’t catch that John Oliver reference you’re missing out on something funny and dangerous, that makes you think, as opposed to what we got here today.

I returned my Watch, I couldn’t see it. And now they promote it as a health service. That’s the breakthrough app? Laudable, but most people are just not interested. It’s like promoting a band with fans that most of us just don’t care about. Can you write a hit single already?

As for Eddy Cue, he’s a salesman. A great antidote to Tim Cook, but you scratch the surface and find no genius. It’s like listening to a a Senior Vice President at some sales conference in Vegas, NEXT!

That’s where Craig Federighi started, he’s the last of the Jobs survivors. And he got the most airtime today, and he made the most of it. He cracked jokes, he evidenced a personality, but what he was selling were tweaks, nudges, there were no breakthroughs in evidence.

Tech has hit a wall. MySpace replaced Friendster but Facebook stole the eyeballs and it appears we’re at the end of the road. Nothing’s gonna break the monopoly. We’ve become accustomed in the past two decades to a wiping clean of the slate every couple of years, we believed revolution was just around the corner, it was thrilling to watch and be a part of, but now… It’s a few companies honing their offerings and consolidating power.

I could bore you with the offerings, but…

Let’s see, Siri has come to the Mac!

A service I never use because she constantly gets it wrong.

I can draw responses on my iPhone. No, get this, I can draw responses on my WATCH! And if you think that’s gonna work well you’ve got Lilliputian fingers and are a graduate of Art Center.

I was hoping for a new MacBook Pro, mine’s aged, I want to replace it, but there were no hardware offerings in sight. Then again, so many of the new features will only work with the latest iteration of devices. Pushing on your phone to bring up options. You do have a 6s, right?

Wrong.

And now that people actually have to pay for the devices, now that contracts are about service as opposed to hardware, most people believe their mobile is good enough, the upgrade cycle has stalled.

But you’re missing out on features!

But most of the features they demonstrated today I wasn’t interested in and will never use.

I can create invisible ink! I can have my emojis automatically suggested! Who gives a crap. No, let me take that back, the mobile and texting rule communication, these features will be utilized, but they will not push the envelope.

As for music, the vaunted relaunch… One of the worst demos of all time, coherence was left back in Cupertino. And you know the company’s screwed when they still insist on combining files and streams. When they say downloads, do they mean tracks I’ve purchased or what I’ve synched via the $10 a month service? Damned if I know. But at least it wasn’t Jimmy Iovine giving the demo, but a hip young lady who evidenced that music was cool, something different, and had no place at this geekfest.

The geeks don’t want no freaks.

And the freaks have been too busy trying to suck up and sell out to the geeks.

Time to go your separate way. Time to focus on creativity, making it about testing limits as opposed to money. One hit single can rain down more cash than most tech startups. But you’ve got to have the inspiration and the chops and…

The pendulum is swinging back. The artists are going to regain control. What are you gonna say?

P.S. The highlight was the Swift demo, proffered by a woman who lived for physics who had a bit of subtle attitude, a flash of the old Jobs crass. It was too long and covered too much but you got a window into what could be done, it made you want to enter the coding world.

P.P.S. Enough with the self-congratulatory videos. We get it, you’re Apple, why not give us one more thing that will not only thrill us, but raise your stock price?

P.P.P.S. I watched, but I didn’t feel involved, a member of the tribe. The attendees looked like zombies who’d drunk the kool-aid. And I love to drink the sugary soft stuff too, but you’ve got to get me with your head and heart, from the very start, and keep titillating me along the way, and today I felt no connection.