Loners will save the world.

But our culture has shifted to one of belonging. The millennials are all about being a member of the group, they don’t want to stand out, don’t want to be ostracized, their goal is to be drones, to play the game so they can win.

True dat.

But I don’t want to give a pass to the baby boomers. Ever notice that on HBO the twentysomethings have their show, “Girls,” and the thirtysomethings have theirs, “Togetherness,” but there’s no boomer show? Because the boomers can no longer exhibit vulnerability. They finally took away Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz’s license to make television, not that “thirtysomething” was a ratings juggernaut, but the truth is boomers are past introspection, they’re in their glory years, or days, listening to Bruce Springsteen without a care in the world, all about lifestyle. But can that lifestyle be challenged?

The biggest story in the world today is that there is no story. And when something dramatic transpires, no one can do anything about it. Putin invades Ukraine and we’re mum. But even that did not penetrate our mobile culture, wherein it’s all about me all the time, I’m a star in my own world that no one is paying attention to, even though I hunger for the spotlight. Right and wrong are irrelevant. It’s all about money and fame. And Ed Snowden hates that.

He laments the change of our culture in to one based on personalities.

And ain’t that interesting, isn’t that what Brian Williams is? Bill O’Reilly too? The news is subservient to them, they make the big bucks and cozy up to those in power and we’re all the worse for it, because the truth is everybody’s climbing a greased totem pole and the only ones who know it are at the top keeping the rest of us down.

Towards the end of this highly-reviewed movie, which is nowhere near as riveting as the hype, one of the characters, only in this flick the characters are real people, makes an amazing statement. He says that “What we used to call liberty and freedom we now call privacy. And now people are saying privacy is dead.” That’s what we’re all fighting for, liberty, right?

When we’re not fighting the government itself.

I understand the right wing position but I don’t agree with it. We need a government, government does good things. Just like John Oliver said Sunday night, that we need highway taxes to fund infrastructure updates. Do you expect the private sector to take care of that?

But even more ludicrous is all the Second Amendment talk, how the government is gonna take our guns away so we must stockpile them, so we can shoot each other, because if you believe a gun can protect you from the government you didn’t watch “Citizenfour,” you’re an idiot, because just like karate is no match for a gun, a gun is no match for the internet and electronic surveillance. You can wait for the drone to get you, but the truth is they’ll kill your rep and wipe out your life with a few keystrokes long before that.

You’d expect people to be up in arms about “Citizenfour” but the truth is they’re afraid. That’s the government’s job, with the media fanning the flames. If we don’t let the agencies run wild, the terrorists are gonna bomb Oklahoma or Arkansas, so you’d better lay your rights down now. That’s right, under the head fake of fighting “terrorism” we’re all laying down to the government and the corporations and anybody who blows the whistle is a pariah.

You remember pariahs, don’t you?

They used to be people like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, before they revolutionized the world and titillated your fantasies. Were these popular people in high school, did they get along?

Of course not. But at least they were smart. Like Snowden.

That’s the revelation. Listening to Ed talk you’re blown away. He gets the concepts, he can articulate them. But instead the newspapers are subjecting us to the proclamations of nitwits and clickbait rules online. Because you can’t handle the truth.

And what is the truth anyway?

Turns out those climate change-denying scientists were paid for their positions.

But you probably didn’t see that, just like you didn’t see “Citizenfour,” because you don’t have HBO. And why would you need it? Susan Wojcicki and YouTube are gonna save the world! But the truth is there are very few good creators out there and HBO got there first.

So what is going on?

Do we live the lifestyle we fight for, or line up and protest?

And if you do protest, expect to be excoriated by the press. Because they’re the story, not you. How they hang with the rich and powerful, envious of their perks and frequently partaking of the crumbs that fall off the table.

There’s something hollow at the heart of America. Right and wrong used to matter. There was enough money for everybody, you could survive on a service job. But as the classes separated, the rich realized what was going on and desired to maintain their perch and keep the underclass down via subterfuge and fear.

And having gone to crummy schools, the underclass can’t grasp the facts, even when they’re staring them in the face.

So we’re dependent on lone wolves to shake it up. Snowden says he’s only the first, you can get him but others will follow in his wake.

Is this true?

Yes, for a small cadre of selfless people who put their morality before their pocketbook.

But everybody else is hustling to get ahead. In an ill-defined game where the cards are stacked against them and the odds keep getting longer every day.

Once upon a time, “Citizenfour” would incite a national debate. Now it’s just grist for the mill, Snowden’s character has already been assassinated, the flick will come and go as quickly as Beyonce’s overhyped album.

Then again, Kanye lobbies for her recognition over and over again. With no one shouting him down.

And that’s the way it is in America today, the sideshow is the main show.

And you know what happens when you’re not paying attention to the main event… Your pockets get picked and you end up broke and busted on the side of the road. But now it’s even worse, you’ll have nowhere to go, you’ll be powerless, because the government will limit your movement.

That’s right, all this hogwash about taxes and government employees are the sideshow. The main event is how they’ve got our number and we’re living in “1984” and if you believe it can’t happen here…

The truth is it already has.

Watch this movie.

It was released forty years ago this week and I didn’t even know it came out.

I was living in Sandy, Utah and there was only one rock station in Salt Lake and they didn’t play the new stuff and I was over Zeppelin anyway.

That’s right, I was burned out, couldn’t hear “D’yer Mak’er” one more time. They’re rewriting history and extolling the virtues of “Houses Of The Holy” but the truth is despite the hits it was a bit of a disappointment, certainly artistically, it was safe whereas everything before it was unexpected with rough edges that pushed the envelope. It was like the band was on a premature victory lap.

And then came “Physical Graffiti.”

I was into Zeppelin early. Had the first album way before the second. And you’ve got to know, when the second came out it penetrated the culture in a way that is unfathomable today. It’s all you heard for a month. Not only was “Whole Lotta Love” played incessantly on the radio, both the hip and wannabe hip bought the gatefold LP and you knew it by heart and to hear it again made you wince.

And “III” was a truly a disappointment. A left turn. Confounding expectations. I loved “Gallows Pole” and “Immigrant Song” and “Tangerine” but whereas the albums that came before were incredibly consistent, “III” was not. I didn’t even buy “IV” on the day of release. And “IV” is spectacular, for “The Battle Of Evermore” and “When The Levee Breaks,” never mind “Stairway,” but the debut was always my favorite until…

“Physical Graffiti.”

Well, maybe they’re tied.

But they’re so different.

I first heard “Physical Graffiti” on Jimmy Kay’s stereo in a frat house on the University of Utah campus at the end of April 1975 when we had a meeting and we all tossed in fifty bucks towards a ski house in Mammoth for May. I didn’t know these people and the music was so loud and Zeppelin seemed so adolescent that I made them give me a receipt, a hedge against them absconding with my money.

But they didn’t.

I heard “Physical Graffiti” one time more before I left the Beehive State. Actually, the night before. My next door neighbor blasted it while he toked up and I was torn between staying or leaving and I stayed way too late and as a result got a speeding ticket on the drive to Reno the very next day but…

I don’t want to get too far off course.

Bottom line, we rented that house in Mammoth and I had to endure “Physical Graffiti” incessantly from dawn to midnight, except when Jimmy played the Doobie Brothers, who I soon learned were not a joke.

And it was an 8-track made from LP. And the songs were not in order. But what first impressed me, got under my skin, was…

KASHMIR

A bludgeoning riff from an era when the riff was everything, majestic and orchestral with Robert Plant on top and once your brain clicks and you like “Kashmir” you can’t stop playing it. For a long time it was the third most popular song on FM radio, it came after “Stairway To Heaven” and “Free Bird” on all the surveys but they don’t do those anymore.

TEN YEARS GONE

This one hit me unexpectedly. It’s now my favorite Zeppelin track, my go-to cut, it speaks to me when nothing else does. Actually, that’s an important point about “Physical Graffiti,” it seems to be made without the audience in mind. That’s right, it’s hermetically sealed, it’s a peek into the life of musicians who are on their own journey and that’s what makes it so appealing, so different from today when everybody is pandering and trying to get you to like them. Zeppelin didn’t care if you liked them. Then again, maybe they knew they were so good that you couldn’t help but like them. “Ten Years Gone” contains Zeppelin’s magic trick, the transition from acoustic to electric and back again, from quiet to noisy and back. Just like the Beatles employed the bridge as part of their magic, Zeppelin utilized this shift in dynamics to hook young people all around the world. “Ten Years Gone” sounds like nothing else but it sounds so right.

BOOGIE WITH STU

Sounds like a throwaway, noodling in the studio, but it’s not. First of all, it’s Ian Stewart, the sadly-departed sixth Stone, tickling the ivories. And Robert Plant seems on such a lark. Talk about capturing lightning in a bottle…some of the best things in life are the simplest.

NIGHT FLIGHT

A tear. You don’t have time to ponder whether you like it or not, you’ve got to jump on or be left out. It amps up the beginning of side four after the contemplative quietude of “Ten Years Gone” at the end of side three. And as great as Page’s playing is, it’s Robert dancing all over the track that makes you love it, along with the stop and stutter halfway through and then the following acceleration. We were all ready to meet the band in the morning, the middle of the night, wherever they deigned to show up.

DOWN BY THE SEASIDE

A great set-up for “Ten Years Gone,” it’s almost like you can see Robert walking on an English stone beach. Side three is the most mystical, most out there. It opens with “In The Light,” which bugged me at first but I came to realize is quintessential, and then “Bron-Yr-Aur” which sounded like the first album, then “Down By The Seaside” and then the triumph of “Ten Years Gone.” What confidence, to do it their own way, daring us to throw away our preconceptions and just go on the journey.

CUSTARD PIE

The opening cut, but I never heard it that way until I purchased the vinyl when I finally had access to a record player months later. Not as good as other Zeppelin album openers, but that does not mean it’s not quality.

THE ROVER

Heavy! No wimps allowed. This was heavy metal before they sped it up and made it a niche. Headbanging music when that was not a pejorative.

IN MY TIME OF DYING

Ends side one. That was the amazing thing, the three unique, lengthy tracks that ended the first three sides, this, “Kashmir” on side two and “Ten Years Gone” on side three. “In My Time Of Dying” needed to be this long, Page was twisting and turning our head and Bonzo was pounding and the truth is Led Zeppelin was truly a band, and without every element it didn’t stand, never underestimate John Paul Jones.

HOUSES OF THE HOLY

Smacked of Little Feat, which was famous for leaving listed tracks off albums. Wasn’t this supposed to be on the prior LP?

TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT

It’s the aforementioned John Paul Jones on clavinet that puts this over the top. “Trampled Under Foot” takes no prisoners. Either you’re on the ride or you’re not. And if you are, it feels so good!

BLACK COUNTRY WOMAN

That’s right, acoustic blues were still part of the act.

I don’t know if an album like “Physical Graffiti” could be successful today. A double album, but in reality not much longer than your average CD, it had no hits as hooks, you just had to spin it until you got it, and people don’t have that time today.

But “Physical Graffiti” exists. An icon spiraling in the past. And either you know what I’m talking about or…you’re gonna have to lock yourself in your room for a week playing only it whereupon you’ll emerge bleary-eyed at the end exclaiming…EUREKA!

Rhinofy-Physical Graffiti

Records are not movies. Not made for one weekend only. Music, when done right, is forever. And now that streaming services rule, the drop date, the release date, is just a moment in time.

Everything will change.

All the front-loaded publicity, all the inane coverage of the horse race, it’s irrelevant. Now it’s all about whether people listen and continue to listen.

Who cares if you sold a minimal number of albums in your first week. And 100,000 is minimal, few people do more. That’s essentially nobody. And so many albums sell the first week and never more. Now we want to know that you’ve got a fanbase that continues to listen and hopefully grows. The spin era is over, the data era is here.

We don’t want to know that you chummed up to writers. We’re sick of hype. We don’t care about the launch, but only the flight.

As for physical retail… I don’t want to hear another word about it. The fact that people love vinyl and CDs are a significant revenue source don’t impress me. Neil Young was right, most vinyl is a joke, it’s a just the CD master on a big plastic disc, it doesn’t sound any better. And focusing the music business on CDs is like focusing the computer business on floppy disks. Ever notice that essentially all software is downloaded, even if you pay for it? And that new computers have no disk drive? And that Apple, the world’s most profitable company, makes a habit of throwing out the old to focus on the new? How come we can’t take a lesson from that? How come we can’t embrace streaming and get people to pay? Hell, everybody already is streaming, on YouTube, so blame yourself for eviscerating the record business, that’s right, all you musicians bitching about Spotify, you’re just scaring paying customers away. Then again, no one ever said musicians were smart.

Just like those saying they sell CDs at gigs. It’s a SOUVENIR! No one is gonna play it, it’s a trophy they’ve acquired with your signature. It doesn’t have to be a compact disc.

So it’s good we’ve got a worldwide release schedule. It’s a worldwide business. This helps eradicate piracy. Once again, the music industry leads. HBO and film studios force people to steal to get what they want. Now the music business is moving into the future, embracing the concept of giving people what they want. As for giving retailers what they want, those bitching about Friday as opposed to Tuesday, isn’t the goal to eliminate the middlemen? Isn’t that what the internet does?

So start your engines. The music business has changed forever. You may not be able to get a truthful royalty statement, you may not be able to get a fair share of streaming payments, but from now on we’ll know what is truly popular, what people truly want to hear. And we’ll know a hit is something that sustains, not something that is manipulated to number one for a week, never mind something that only lasts a week.

This is a good thing.

Never forget it.

“The record industry will make Friday the standard release day for all albums”

It’s all about the data.

That’s right, the Benjamins still count, but they don’t tell the complete story. Twitter sells advertising, Wall Street is happy, but users are abandoning the service. How do I know? The number of Oscar tweets fell 47% this year, from 11.2 million to 5.9 million.

The spinners will say the telecast decreased in viewership by 16%, that there was no Ellen DeGeneres selfie to go viral, but that’s what’s wrong with America, those with access to the media tell us one thing when the truth is quite another, and the truth is we’re over Twitter, not only is it hard to use, no one is listening.

That’s right. Everyone’s given up. Except for the delusional who believe they’re building a brand by tweeting twenty times a day. Have these people never heard of MySpace? Did those friends port over to Facebook or Instagram?

Of course not.

The truth is social media is the new fad. Yup, once upon a time it was hula-hoops, and then music. Now every year there’s a new social media platform that’s gonna change the world when the truth is it peaks and then people abandon it.

But even more important is the decline in tweets proves that we’re over the paradigm. You remember the paradigm, don’t you? That live events were gonna save television, because we all wanted to sit at home and snark. But we don’t if no one is paying attention.

That’s the story of the teens (and why don’t we call them the teens?), the separation between winners and losers. The truth is you can connect with the friends you already have but you can’t grow your fanbase via social media, not unless there’s an outside force driving it.

Of course there are exceptions, the occasional YouTube star, the Vine star (and ain’t that a fad), but for those at home playing the game believing they can win if they just post enough, can increase their followers and become rich and famous…it ain’t gonna happen. And people realize this and stop participating.

So people have stopped tweeting. But since Twitter makes money, this story does not dominate. But it’s the only one that counts. Twitter is a moribund service. One where, as Mark Cuban says, corporations go to make announcements. He said it’s the new PR Newswire. As for interacting with others, that’s moved on. Cuban himself has moved on to dark social. Will that be the last stop on the social media train…OF COURSE NOT!

Meanwhile, all these live events keep trumpeting their social media values, that people’s desire to participate, to hate, to deride, is going to prop up their viewership. But not only did the Oscar ratings decline, but so did those of the Grammys.

Maybe sports still triumph, because the game is enough. Whereas with these awards shows, there’s no there there. They only exist for ratings. They’re hollow at the core.

So where do we go from here?

Back to where we once belonged. Eventually the public is gonna figure out that not everybody can be famous, not even for fifteen seconds, never mind fifteen minutes. There’s just too much noise and you’re not interesting enough.

The desire to group and be social will persist. In an alienated world, we want to belong. But it turns out we don’t want our rallying points to be phony events created for the sole purpose of bringing us together so the usual suspects can get richer. Homey don’t play that game no more.

And we’ve got no allegiance to any platform. The public will gravitate from one to another, almost nothing lasts, like the acts on the pop chart.

So when you hear someone trumpeting their Twitter followers, when they start talking about the social media element of their campaign, roll your eyes. Yes, it’s important to get the word out. But it’s cheaper and harder all at the same time. The tools are free but you cannot get to everyone. Famous people can, but if you’re not one already…

And stop tweeting, no one is listening.

And if you really want people to pay attention, develop a skill. Hone it. Get it to the point where people find you as opposed to you dunning them to pay attention. It’s your only hope. It’s very slow. It won’t work in most cases. But everything that lasts takes a long time to develop.

P.S. Talent does not always take a traditional form. The Kardashians are excellent marketers. They picked out a target audience, impressionable young women, and titillated their aspirations. The fact that you deride them only adds fuel to the fire and has their adherents cling tighter. Same thing with Bill O’Reilly. As to whether they last… The Kardashians eclipsed Paris Hilton, their time will end too. As for Mr. O’Reilly, he paid a lot of dues before anybody knew who he was. He kept on doing the same act. He found a small audience that appreciated him and a protector, Roger Ailes, to run interference for him. That’s right, O’Reilly is a musical act. With a great label and manager. Once upon a time musical acts played this game, before everyone lost their backbone and desired instant success built on social media for kids without pubic hair who had no experience and nothing to say. That’s right, the music business killed the music business, the managers, labels, agents and acts, they bought all the new hysteria, that the internet could rewrite the rules and make everyone bigger and richer. But the truth is without something at the center, without a new take on the game, you’re just throwing crap against the wall. And it never sticks.