I had a car accident.

An unlicensed driver in an unregistered truck took a wide turn and slammed into me.

Oh, I’m okay, just in shock.

Well, maybe there’s some soft tissue damage. I can feel it a bit in my neck and shoulder, but nothing life-threatening. And you get as old as I am and you gain perspective. I mean it could be much worse.

But it was illegal to have a car accident in my family. Have a fender-bender and my dad would remind you every time you got behind the wheel. As for the one time he rear-ended someone, it was undiscussable.

And I’m thinking how I’m not in the greatest mood to begin with, and I’ve got to go downtown to do this TV show. How L.A. is that?

The perp wanted to make some phone calls. And then I asked myself how long I had to stay here before I could move on. Is having an accident something de rigueur? Normally I’d let it ruin my whole day. Go home and sulk. Feel inadequate. Worry about all the effort yet to come, getting an estimate, a rental car, a repair… But in this case I had an obligation.

And accidents today are so much different from before, at least when it comes to the exchange of information. Today you don’t write it down, you shoot a picture. It’s so much easier. But the hassle still remains.

But, as Elvis Costello so famously sang, accidents will happen. It’s the nature of life.

And the show must go on.

I’ve never been in this situation before.

That’s right, I hold myself to an impossible standard. I should never have a car wreck. And haven’t for nearly twenty five years. I see it as some kind of moral failing. I think there’s going to be some price to pay down the line. And although I’m very good at running the repair gauntlet, the truth is I’m too good, my OCD kicks into gear, I have anxiety about getting it exactly right.

But all of a sudden that was irrelevant. I couldn’t go home and call my insurance company. I’d made a commitment, AXS was depending on me.

And my car is fully drivable. It’s got a hole in the bumper, but I could still hit the freeway. And traffic was not bad until just shy of downtown. And all things considered, I was barely late.

So I flopped down into the makeup chair and was confronted by Mark McGrath.

What do I know about Mr. McGrath? That he’s the front man of Sugar Ray which got a little bit more than fifteen minutes? That he graduated from SC? That he’s got a side career hosting television shows? That he’s a “Jeopardy” rock trivia champion?

And stunningly, Mark in real life looks just like his photos. His teeth are perfect, his hair is coiffed, and he’s talking like he knows me.

I love when people know me.

That’s what drives me wild, when people don’t, even though they’ve met me.

Turns out Mark watched last year’s tape. And when I interrupted his spiel to tell him I’d just had an accident he was so concerned, giving insight and support, that I felt like he was on my team. And I feel this so rarely in life.

And the set-up is Mark’s gonna host, DJ Skee and me are gonna predict, and John Dick, a pollster with Civic Science, is gonna tell us what the people said.

And normally I’m champing at the bit. This is my opportunity to demonstrate my brilliance and my ability to wing it. I don’t need no stinking cue cards, I can make it up on the fly, I can make you laugh, I can entertain you.

But I’m wondering if that neck pain is significant. I’m thinking about calling my insurance company. And the truth is, I’m still in shock.

But I’m fascinated by Mark McGrath.

You see not only is he attractive and famous, he’s charismatic and quick and so much fun to be around.

That’s what they don’t tell you, A&R guys want to sign stars. Anybody can sing. Some can write. But can you dazzle the press, can you make people fall in love with you? Then Jason Flom is interested.

And after discussing my accident, I start asking Mark questions. I’m fascinated by people, who they are, what makes them tick, are they warm, are they engaging, are they open?

And the truth is we live in such a narcissistic society that if you express any interest in an individual, they usually open up, they’re thrilled someone cares.

So Mark lives in Studio City with his twins.

I can talk twins, I’m in love with one.

But his are fraternal, a boy and a girl, they arrived via IVF.

Wow! If Mark’s gonna tell me this…

Turns out he woke up in the Hollywood Hills at forty, looked at the empty pillow beside him, and realized he didn’t want to do this anymore. That’s right, you think a life of screwing and excess is fulfilling. But then you wake up and it’s not.

And the truth is he had a sixteen year relationship, with a girl he met on the Sunset Strip at the advent of his career. He asked her…do you want to do this for real?

He’d sowed his wild oats.

But so had she, she was a model.

And she said yes.

And then the show began.

I like John Dick. But the truth is data won’t tell you everything. Even if you’re relying on your best predictors. Because if you’re predicting Grammy winners you’ve got to take into account the makeup of the Academy, who votes.

Who does vote?

I certainly don’t, even though Mark thought I did.

And he doesn’t either, even though he’s had hit records.

Skee said it was people in the industry. I said if you can’t get nominated for a Grammy, you didn’t make a record, that’s how many categories there are. Mark said he didn’t even know anybody who was an Academy member.

And I say all this to indicate that it’s very hard to predict who’s gonna win, unless its obvious.

Everyone agreed that Sam Smith would win Best New Artist.

After that?

Do you pick the one you like, the one with the most traction/visibility/airplay, or the one you think the Grammy voters will like?

I don’t really care. Doesn’t really make a difference. Unless Sam Smith sweeps, and he just might do it, everything will be forgotten nearly immediately.

And I’d love to tell you I was killing it, but I was off-kilter. And still fascinated by Mark.

He does 100 gigs a year.

How many are privates?

About half. After all, Sugar Ray is a good time party band.

And Mark’s telling me about his summer shed tour, with acts from his era, and I’m thinking how he’s working for a living, but it’s all based on those hits, all that MTV exposure, it pays dividends, forever!

And its so much different today. No one has that kind of ubiquity. Taylor Swift may be a star, but Mark McGrath was in our face for years.

Not that he has a record deal, that was gone in 2006. But he doesn’t care. There’s no money in records and no action either. He’s going into the studio tomorrow to cut an EP. He figures he’ll sell 10,000. If a label was involved, he joked he might sell 12,000.

That’s right, Mark’s irreverent and fast on his feet and the banter is both thrilling and fun and you realize this is what made him successful. He may not have been the most talented, but he was sharp and engaging and had a megawatt personality.

You remember personality, don’t you? When it was subservient to the music, before stars could be famous for nothing?

As a matter of fact, Kim Kardashian doesn’t have much of a personality. It’s all skin deep.

And I’m not saying if I hung with Mark McGrath for a week, never mind a night, it might not be overbearing. But I got it, I realized why he was a star. I wanted to hang more.

Except I had to go home and call my insurance company.

“Mark McGrath Hosts AXS TV’s 2nd Annual ‘GRAMMY PREDICTION SPECIAL'”

What kind of crazy fucked-up world do we live in where Lindsey Vonn breaks the all time World Cup victory record and her boyfriend Tiger Woods not only fails to eclipse Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors, he fails to make the cut in a routine tournament?

These women are in AMAZING shape.

I know no one cares about ski racing, certainly not in America. The grandstand at Beaver Creek was full but there was no throng alongside the fence, it’s almost like the race was hermetically sealed.

Except in Europe. 10 AM in Colorado is prime time in Europe.

And in Europe they care.

And where there’s care, there’s money.

You do it for the love of the sport, you keep doing it for the money.

Which is why Lindsey Vonn wears a Red Bull helmet. They provide a training facility, personnel. But whereas most musical stars are constructs, pretty faces behind a wealth of old men, in skiing you’ve got to do it all yourself.

Lindsey lost.

She was a bit of a poor sport. She blamed the wind. And I was cutting her a break until silver medalist Tina Maze said the wind was part of doing business, you don’t want it, but those are the breaks.

And in her home country of Slovenia, Tina Maze and her movie star good looks make her even more famous than Lindsey is here.

But you should have seen Lindsey race. Got my heart beating and made me a fan in thirty seconds.

That’s right, the course was shortened. Because of the wind.

That’s one thing different in skiing from so many other sports. The weather conditions. Where everybody experiences a different pattern. Where there’s no level playing field. Actually, it’s quite steep.

And in America women’s athletics have come a long way, especially since Title IX. But team sports get all the press, all the accolades, that’s what America has turned into, a nation of how to get along in order to get ahead. Used to be we focused on individual personalities. Now, if you don’t conform, you’re a loser.

And even though there are ski teams, the truth is at the elite level these women are loners, with their own support network and coaches. And when you see them execute you have the utmost respect, because in their finely-toned bodies and skill level you can see all the hard work that preceded this moment.

These women did not have an ounce of body fat. They were nearly as skinny as the TV stars. But the TV stars don’t eat.

These women do.

They’re finely-tuned machines.

But still women. It was interesting to see winner Anna Fenninger discuss a facial blemish with a competitor who came up to congratulate her.

And the truth is I’ve got no interest in being inside professional sports. Because the truth is everyone’s a jock. And no one goes to college. You have to dedicate your body and your mind to victory, or else you can’t win. It’s sports talk all year long, and that’s boring to me.

But unlike most sports, I can still play, I can still participate, I can still ski.

I’ve been on those runs in Beaver Creek. They’re sheer ice. Even in March.

That’s right. They make snow which is like cement and then they inject it with water so it freezes solid. Felice had the most frightening run of her life on the Birds Of Prey.

So when I see these women hurtling themselves down the mountain at high speed on a slope that they fight to get an edge in I have respect, because they’re at the edge of control, fighting for the only thing that means something to them, victory. Which means money.

Amateurism, shamateurism. Not only do you have sponsors, they pay bonuses when you succeed. Like Budweiser giving you a 100k bump when you sell out a stadium. Each and every time.

But back to the race.

Lindsey started off slowly. You can see the split times. She’s way behind, by ski racing standards, multiple tenths of a second.

But then when the hard part is behind her, when the slope flattens out, she begins to gain speed. She rides her edge so quietly. She keeps her body motionless. She’s going faster when everybody else is going slower. It’s thrilling, to see a master at work, and to see her chomp on the time difference when you thought she was done.

And Lindsey was ahead for a minute, but ended up third.

Which ain’t bad, but no one in America has time for losers.

But the truth is Lindsey Vonn is a winner. Not because she’s beautiful, not because she has a famous boyfriend, but because she did all the work.

Some things never change. We live in a country where there’s a focus on chance. The lottery, reality TV, as if everybody deserves a turn atop the podium.

But the truth is those who succeed and sustain put in untold hours of hard work when no one is paying attention.

No one knew who Lindsey Kildow was when she was a teenage member of Ski Club Vail.

And she didn’t win the first time out on the World Cup.

But now she’s racked up 64 wins and owns the all time record, probably for a very long time, if not forever.

It’s like Elton or McCartney, people with so many hits that they’re superstars.

And I don’t want to equate sports with art. They’re so different.

But in both spheres, excellence is key.

And you triumph through hard work.

And there’s nothing I want to do so much as go skiing right now.

I can’t wait to hit the slopes.

Inspired by these women.

But doing it for the fun of it.

P.S. Tomorrow the men hit the slopes. Bode Miller gets back in action. And “back” is the operative word, look at this photo, this is what came out of his back in November:

You Won’t Believe What Surgeons Found in Bode Miller’s Back

P.P.S. Bode may be a pariah in the United States, but he’s a god overseas. Because he’s the quintessential American, the rogue who speaks his mind who can win on any given Sunday, one of the best of the best. That’s right, in the sixties Bode would be lauded for being unique and speaking his mind. But in today’s groupthink America, we excoriate anybody who doesn’t follow the script and live up to our expectations.

2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships

You don’t put the ball in the air and you don’t do your act on someone else’s turf.

Huh?

The mo changed after the Patriots shut down the Seahawks in the fourth quarter. Seattle did not get the benefit of a pass interference call but then they did get that lucky break with the bounce reception.

When things are going your way, you play it safe. It’s no time for risk. Not if you want to win. I’m not sure why the offensive coordinator called that play.

And I’m not sure why Katy Perry did the Super Bowl.

What did we learn?

There were some good commercials. If she hadn’t inflated her lips, taking away from her natural beauty, Lindsay Lohan would be ready for her comeback. We love those who can poke fun at themselves.

Another winner?

Jeff Bridges. Did you click on that site, dreamingwithjeff.com? From Squarespace? Which I know because they sponsor all the podcasts? You think radio is happening, but the left for dead podcast world is blazing, proving, like in sports, you should never give up.

And not giving up on his lame musical career, Jeff Bridges gets all this free publicity for his album by re-creating his role as the Dude and by leaving money on the table, that’s right, he’s donating all the revenue from his LP to charity, knowing it’s about your image, your career, as opposed to the short term cash. Hell, you can even stream his record on the aforementioned site. What kind of bizarre world do we live in where an actor is hipper than Taylor Swift, the biggest musical performer?

One in which Katy Perry goes for an undeserved victory lap and ends up with egg on her face.

I will say that Missy Elliott was surprisingly good, she fit the mood. The NFL runs on hip-hop and she delivered it.

As for Katy Perry, who was she playing to? Her audience is little girls, the audience for the Super Bowl is oldsters.

Well, maybe everybody. But a great musical act knows that no one appeals to everybody, and that by knowing your audience you maintain your career. Katy Perry up close and personal in HD demonstrated that she coasted to fame on hits written by others and there’s nothing there other than someone hungry to make it.

That’s what’s wrong with America, hunger with no CV. Isn’t anybody willing to do the work?

And the NFL players work hard. But their time is coming to an end.

That’s right, in my lifetime football will jump the shark. You love it because of the colors, it gives you someone to root for, something to believe in, along with real drama. But the story of this Super Bowl is not Deflategate, but Bryant Gumbel’s expose on the ’85 Chicago Bears on HBO’s “Real Sports.” When even Mike Ditka says he wouldn’t let his kid play football, you know it’s over.

But NBC runs these ridiculous NFL image-burnishing ads as if we all believe. But the truth is one of the highlights of the telecast was the Bud Light commercial with human Pac-Man. That’s right, it’s video games that have a stranglehold on young men, not football.

But what we had was endless car commercials, when the truth is the younger demo doesn’t care about cars.

And a Coke ad when the truth is the younger generation has abandoned soda pop.

And a McDonald’s ad wrapping its arms around an America that’s rejected it.

Watching the Super Bowl is like viewing a documentary on how it used to be.

And the commercialism is insane. The University of Phoenix Stadium?

The University of Phoenix should be put out of business. It preys on veterans, getting the government to pay for useless educations that don’t result in degrees but a ton of debt. But can Al Michaels speak to that?

OF COURSE NOT!

Because he’s paid.

And there you have it. Players and commentators, beholden to the man.

Whereas musicians became famous and got all their power by speaking the truth.

First of all, you couldn’t even hear Katy. You knew she was singing, but the mix was so off her voice was overwhelmed by the crowd noise.

And booking Lenny Kravitz is little better than booking Fabian. A has-been who’s never been able to come back, why did he get this chance? Because he wouldn’t upstage Katy and/or he would appeal to the dads who remember the nineties? Lenny’s being excoriated online, as he should be.

And Katy believes it’s all about production.

That’s how far we’ve come. Knowing how to sing, play and write are irrelevant.

And that works when you’re playing to your fans. But when you put on your empty calorie show to the world we sit there dumbfounded. This is what music is about? This is the best they can come up with?

No wonder music gets no respect, no wonder why most people don’t care. Pop may own the chart, but if you’re not twelve or in the business you don’t care.

I’d say to bring back classic rock, but you’re better off bringing back marching bands, because they embody the mindless rah-rah spirit football is based upon.

Then again, football is a star system. With Bill Belichick the biggest of them all. He’s Steve Jobs before the canonization. Someone most hate who delivers. With a little bit of cheating Bill Gates thrown in. You remember Microsoft, which charged manufacturers for Windows even if they didn’t install it?

And then we have the game. The game was so good no one is even talking about Katy Perry. She was the girl square dancing at the Bon Jovi concert. She was the woman wearing her pajamas on the red carpet. She was so out of place as to be rendered irrelevant.

They call it SHOW business.

And it’s very different from sports.

Show is about performance, about setting the stage and manipulating your audience and taking it for a ride. As for the ride Katy took around the stadium…it was low-rent Disneyland, but at least she didn’t get measles.

But the NFL doesn’t care about music. They just need something high profile to fill the time. But in today’s modern music business no one can say no. Everybody believes all publicity is good. That the road to success is batting everybody on the head to pay attention, even if they don’t care.

As opposed to the classic rockers.

Why did everybody pay attention to Pono? Because Neil Young never sold anything before, he’s got a history of caring about sound, he’s got credibility.

Even better are the Eagles. You may hate them, but they own the biggest selling album of all time, they sell out arenas but they don’t sell out themselves. They’ve never done endorsements, they’ve never played the Super Bowl and they’ve never gotten a Kennedy Center Honor.

Because great musicians play by their own rules.

I saw a lot of great football players on the field.

I didn’t see a single great musician.

And just like Leonard Cohen said, everybody knows.

And that’s why he can sell out arenas at eighty and Vanilla Ice does reality TV. People believe Leonard Cohen has something to say. What does Katy Perry have to say?

Nothing.

But she makes bank and if that’s true in America, no one can criticize her.

Hell, I can.

Everybody knows the Super Bowl is not about music.

Everybody knows Lenny Kravitz is a joke.

And everybody who cares knows that Missy Elliott is toast.

But no one speaks the truth anymore. Otherwise, there’d be no football.

But the networks make too much money. Your soulless, financially-challenged life is only filled by rooting for your local team.

I’m not saying it wasn’t a good game.

I’m not saying there weren’t a few good commercials.

I am saying it’s nowhere for music unless you can own the room, and the only one who’s been able to do this is Prince. And when a smart person witnesses such a triumph, they don’t compete.

We’ll forget the names of the players, everybody but Tom Brady.

But we’ll never forget that Katy Perry took an opportunity to show the world that music is made up of brain dead mercenaries who can’t say no.

Once upon a time, music was the antidote. The response to the status quo.

Now it is the status quo.

How very sad.

“Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel: ’85 Bears”

It’s all about the endgame.

That’s what amateurs don’t understand about business. Jay Z doesn’t want to own and operate a streaming service, he just wants to leverage his fame to raise awareness and then lay the whole thing off on someone else.

I’m sick and tired of entertainment people thinking they can compete in the tech game, as if it’s only a game, one can learn by observing, that there’s no skill involved and no experience necessary.

Universal tried this at the turn of the century. They had their own ridiculous streaming service Pressplay and Jimmy and Doug’s Farm Club. As if tech were about show, and they could pull the wool over the eyes of the public the same way they refuse to pay artists royalties.

But that is not the case.

Yes, Jimmy Iovine ultimately regrouped and got Apple to buy Beats, a fallacious concept if there ever was one, Apple’s clueless when it comes to entertainment, why else would they approve the U2 cram-it-down-our-throats fiasco. But have you noticed Jimmy has failed at the second most important thing to him, after getting paid, keeping himself in the public eye?

Jimmy’s disappeared.

Entertainment is about fame.

Tech is about changing the world. And becoming super-rich.

And how do you get super-rich? Via scale. Coming up with something that EVERYBODY uses!

That’s what the music business is lacking. The music business is now balkanized. Most people don’t listen to the same hits and this is a bad thing. It’d be like having dozens of operating systems in the smartphone sphere. When a company lends coherence to the scene, that’s when scale occurs and profits rain down. Instead, radio is running off into the ditch and everybody’s rallying around what once was, protecting their fiefdom, while Spotify scales and ultimately ends up with all the profits. Isn’t this why everybody now hates Tim Westergren? He lobbied users to contact the government to lower internet streaming radio royalty rates, then he took Pandora public and became a zillionaire and built a mansion.

That was Tim’s plan all along. People were just too stupid to see it.

And Jay Z is street smart. But to think he can compete with those who do this for a living is ridiculous. Sure, he made an impact in clothing, a wide open sphere, but what about champagne?

And what Jay Z doesn’t seem to realize is there’s only one winner in tech. One Apple, one Google and one Amazon. Hell, this last quarter Apple put a dent in Samsung. And now Jay Z thinks he can compete with Apple?

But Jay Z wants the money. Everybody in Hollywood wants the money. Disney, WME, CAA, DreamWorks, they used to be kings of the hill, now they’re also-rans in the money sweepstakes, which is what they really care about, art is a cover. So they’ve all got incubators and investments and it’s as laughable as sports stars becoming rocket scientists. Sure, it’s possible. But how many are going to do the work? And talk to Fred Wilson, investing is not something you learn in a week. But the press lauds the skills of Ashton Kutcher because he’s sexier than anybody who works at Kleiner Perkins, but they’re the ones who know, and are much richer.

Jay Z is paying a huge premium. Aspiro has a business, but it only pays to pay this much if you can scale it.

But Jay Z can’t.

I’m not saying that Spotify’s victory in the sphere is guaranteed, although it looks that way. But Deezer has traction, Apple is yet to put its toe in, and can leverage its handset business, and Rdio and Rhapsody want some of that juice.

And now Jay Z?

It’s a winner-take-all world. To think otherwise is to believe that Bing can compete with Google on search, but the truth is Microsoft has lost billions on Bing.

People only need one search engine. With everything just a click away online, people gravitate to the best. To displace someone atop the heap you’ve got to leapfrog them in technology, like Facebook did with MySpace, or deliver something heretofore unseen, as Google did with its search predecessors, with accurate results. What does Aspiro offer? CD quality streams. Which Deezer does too. And there’s absolutely no barrier to entry for Spotify and the other players, they can add high quality with the flick of a switch.

But Jay Z believes he can leverage talent, which I doubt, Spotify exists quite well without the Beatles, and they’ve locked up Led Zeppelin, and get the hip-hop wannabes to subscribe.

Doubtful.

But then he’ll try to get Michael Rapino to buy it.

But Live Nation just dismantled its Labs, which were the remnants of BigChampagne. Too many Live Nation acquisitions have failed.

And maybe Jay Z can find a customer in Rhapsody or Rdio, which will pay him to use his profile, since they have none.

But really, this is a sideshow.

A sad one at that.

One in which business trumps music. That’s all we’re getting from Jay Z recently. The Samsung/NBA/app album launch now this… How about one track that changes the culture?

But those in entertainment no longer care about cultural power. They’re just into it for the money. And they see what the Silicon Valley titans have and tell themselves they want some of that.

That’s right, once upon a time musicians were about changing hearts and minds, influencing millions.

Now they just want those millions to hand over cash, so they can get richer, fly private to Davos, be a big mover and shaker.

You become a big mover and shaker by writing a song that speaks truth that changes the world. Don’t try to be something you are not.

A business MAN?

How about being an ARTIST!

“Jay Z Bids for a Swedish Streaming Company to Expand His Empire”