I can’t resist the carbs. And I’m insulin resistant. Which may account for my hangover this morning, even though my alcohol days are decades behind me.

Yup, that’s what my nutritionist says. I eat bread or pasta and my sugar spikes and I get high and then I crash. But the problem is I can’t say no. Put some bread on the table, even that awful spongy stuff, and I’ve got to have some. And dessert! On my own I can say no, but when we’re all there together it’s a party, and we all want to have fun.

And that’s what we did last night at Trinity Taverna, have a party.

But not a west coast party, but an east coast one, an intellectual one, I haven’t had such stimulating conversation in eons.

Our concierge was Jake Gold, T.O. man about town. He’s the one who picked this Greek restaurant by the beach. Didn’t know there was a beach in Toronto? Many don’t. Let’s just call it “the Lake.”

And Amanda Palmer. She’s writing a book. It was fascinating to hear how her TED talk led to so many opportunities. If you’re not afraid to go through one door, many more will open thereafter. Assuming you can get that first door to open, Amanda is a fifteen year overnight success.

And Hayley Rosenblum, the music diva at Kickstarter. She did college radio, she worked for Ms. P. She’s 26 and just living in her own apartment and if you want to get on the fast track, laden with money and perks, music is not your avenue, it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll, and that’s all you may get, the ability to stand with your brethren and rock out.

And Jian Gomeshi. Once upon a time in a band, but now Canada’s foremost interviewer, with his show Q, also featured on public radio throughout the United States.

And what did we discuss?

Rape culture. It came up on Jian’s show, there was controversy. Too many people in public shy away from controversy.

Turns out there was an issue on Kickstarter, with a book that told how to pull girls. And Amanda doesn’t believe there should be limits on art, and neither do I, but if you put a business entity in between… This was David Geffen’s point with Geto Boys. They’ve got a right to make it, I’ve got a right not to put it out.

And Jian was lamenting the fact that everything blows up quickly today and there’s a rush to judgment.

In other words, Donald Sterling made those statements but did he need to be excommunicated from the NBA just that fast or should we have thought about it, and what’s just as fascinating is the fact that in a matter of weeks nobody will be talking about Sterling, but he’ll still be feeling the consequences.

Not that there should be no consequences. But once again, where’s the line and what’s the penalty. We forgive Anthony Weiner once, but we refused to do so again. And Eliot Spitzer can’t even be New York City’s comptroller, no one’s forgiving him.

And we’re living in an era of cultural whiplash. Where Amanda Palmer can be famous for raising money, but not famous for her music. And this bothers her.

And me.

The same way she had no idea who Luke Bryan was.

You think someone’s a star. But the truth is, many people have no idea who that person is.

And I’m fascinated by the death of Twitter, yes, that’s what the “Atlantic” has to say:

A Eulogy for Twitter

And save your contrary opinions, but ain’t that America, where everybody says something is happening until it’s not. Kind of like BlackBerry. Its death was hiding in plain sight. Is Twitter’s?

Now I’m not saying we won’t get real time news. But I am saying we probably won’t get it from me and you, but from the truly famous, who are pulling away from the hoi polloi while the latter don’t realize it. You can post on the comment thread, you can hate tweet, but that doesn’t mean anybody reads it.

But underlying the discussion last night was the food.

And I want to tell you about the octopus, with an aged balsamic glaze. Hayley’s anti-seafood, but even she tried and liked it.

I loved it. It was barely rubbery and oh-so-tasty.

And when the bill came I felt like nothing so much as an adult.

That’s what’s wrong with too many in the music game, they never grow up. They age, but they cling to their youth, their leather jackets and tattoos, believing if they just look the part they will remain rebels.

But aging ain’t such a bad thing, it gives you perspective and wisdom. The ability to ask the hard questions and triumph.

And that’s what both Amanda and Jian have done. Played the game their own way and ended up with riches and power, ain’t that the American Way?

Trinity Taverna

“The Skip”

This is what you’re up against.

Used to be the hard part was getting your track on the radio.

Now the hard part is getting people to listen to the end.

We’ve gone from a captive, limited marketplace to one in which everything is available and you can get me to click, but good luck getting me to stay.

And don’t call it short attention span theatre, call it an incredible b.s. detector. People only want what appeals to them, instantly, that is great.

There are exceptions. Online word of mouth can get people to stay, but that word has to be deafening.

To quote from the article:

“The likelihood that a song will be skipped within the first five seconds is an astounding 24.14%.”

This is utilizing the Spotify data.

And this also illustrates why the hoi polloi enjoy free Pandora for now, but probably not for the future. Because you can’t skip enough!

We only want what we want 24/7.

Track skipped in first ten seconds: 28.97%
Track skipped in first thirty seconds: 35.05%
Track skipped before song finishes: 48.6%

I said the Lord’s Prayer.

One of the great disillusionments of my adulthood is the rejection of sixties values.

Oh, you remember the sixties, wherein the younger generation questioned everything “the establishment” stood for and we ended up with women’s rights, abortion and “Sgt. Pepper,” and some people are still pissed about it.

“Question authority.” That was one of the precepts of the age.

But today it’s all about authority, unless you’re in tech, wherein you create products the boomers in power can’t understand and when they finally do, you’re on to the next thing.

“Love your brother.” What would John Lennon say today? Would he follow music titans like Bono and Justin Timberlake into tech investing or would he refuse to get with the program and continue to rail about injustice?

Injustice is for pussies.

Scalping was a distant threat, something almost never encountered in the sixties. You lined up for tickets and you got what was left.

Now scalping is institutionalized, with StubHub and the appearance of secondary market tickets on Ticketmaster. What next, am I gonna have to pay a scalper for food and rent? Are we devolving into Russia, where payoffs rule the country and the top 1% rule everything?

Sure we should be worried about Putin’s incursion into Ukraine, but even more we should question ourselves, as we fight for truth, justice and the American Way as we throw our principles out the window, with incarcerated people left uncharged, never mind tried.

And now comes this prayer decision.

How did we get here?

The Federalist Society. Look it up. It was a concerted effort by the right wing to infiltrate the judiciary.

And Republican Presidents… Who nominated men to the Supreme Court whose whole ethos seems to be to undercut the sixties.

Prayer at public meetings in public places constitutionally protected?

It seems like comic books have taken over not only the movies, but real life, for we’re now living in Bizarroland.

Once upon a time I was a little boy. I was in the first grade. We pledged allegiance and we said a prayer. I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT WAS A CHRISTIAN ONE!

“Our daily bread?”

I had no idea what that meant, but I repeated it until the Supreme Court said school prayer was unconstitutional.

But now under the guise of “freedom,” of lawlessness in a land where crime is decreasing, the rights of the accused have been undercut and we kill our prisoners and black men overpopulate prisons and I wonder if our country is going in the right direction.

We do not live in a Christian nation. The founding fathers were Deists. We rail against religious-run Mideast nations and then we approve of religion in our own institutions…what makes us any better!

Where does it stop, what gets your blood boiling, where do you make a stand?

Once upon a time we had the draft, it was easy to protest an unjust war because you were afraid of getting killed, but now you can’t question United States military involvement because you’re not supporting the troops, you’re not supporting our country…USA, USA! But if your ass was on the line…

And now you can’t get abortion, even though the unwanted no longer have the safety net they once did, because everybody should be an individual who never makes a bad choice and is able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Even though religious leaders get caught with their private parts in the wrong place all the time and so many anti-abortion crusaders have had one.

And climate change can’t be addressed because the world’s gonna end anyway, that’s what it says in the Bible. And business must be protected at all costs, because the .1% are our deities, creating jobs and raining down cash and opportunity on the rest of us.

Wrong.

But that’s our nation, where money trumps everything, even though most people haven’t got any.

But do you expect the nation to embrace the concept of consumer spending, acknowledging it drives the country, when taxes are evil and if you lose a tire in a pothole it’s your fault?

I’m Jewish. And if you don’t think there’s anti-semitism in our nation, you’re not.

And there are atheists and Muslims and Baha’is and all kinds of practitioners. But now we’re all secondary to the Christians, because prayer is benign and we live in a religious country.

But that’s bulldoody.

So I’m making a stand here.

Because your rights are being taken away every day.

And no one’s standing up for you, no one with any power.

The politicians are owned by the corporations.

And the musicians are too.

All say their hands are tied, this is the way they do business.

And they’re afraid of alienating anybody with any power.

Wars have been fought over religion. Our nation was founded upon a different principle.

But those days are through.

Along with the questioning values I grew up with.

So just line up behind people who played the game better than you did, who are richer and better connected than you are, who have your best interests at heart.

Wrong.

I don’t know who the people in “People” are and I don’t care. I used to, I used to pride myself on being a pop culture expert, but there became so much of it that you couldn’t keep up and then I got so old I realized it wasn’t worth keeping up, that almost nobody cares, that this is how an industry makes itself feel good about itself, promoting faux stars.

I hate “Preview” issues. We know in a matter of hours whether a film is good or bad, why do we have to be hyped months in advance to pique our curiosity?

I realize I wasted a lot of time doing fruitless things. Like going to concerts thinking I could meet women. That’s not why I went, but I believed it was a byproduct and there was just something deficient with me. Now I realize life is about cliques, and it’s hard to jump from one to another. You build your network slowly, and you can only manage so many people, and even though you might have a replica clique in another city, state or country, you’ll never meet them and that’s okay, you can’t know everybody in the world, even though everybody can know you, but that doesn’t make you feel better about yourself.

I love the experience of going to a movie theatre to see a great movie. But I hate the time wasted getting there, parking and waiting for the film to begin. And I hate the audience members who talk and text. And as much as I love the experience, if the movie is not great, I’m frustrated with the time I’ve wasted. I used to be able to watch anything, but that was when films were America’s art form and everybody was shooting for greatness, now commerciality comes first, and the lowest common denominator elements don’t appeal to me. Another Spider-Man, really?

I realize you’re best off marrying/being involved with someone from your own caste. Because they have the same values. And values are everything.

If I throw it out and my memory fades did I even do it?

Traveling is hard, but I want to do it incessantly, it gets me high. Throw me in a new place, let me soak up the culture in a museum and it’s like a blood transfusion.

The pills have side effects. Do I stop taking them to avoid the effects? But then I risk dying. I wonder what goes through the mind of smokers when they hit sixty, when you finally become aware the end is both inevitable and near. Are they scared straight or do they continue to live in denial? I try not to live in denial, but I must admit I’m expecting a benefit therefor. By going to the doctor and doing what he says I expect to live a longer, healthier life. But the truth is DNA counts, and many who ignore their health will live longer than I do, but not many.

We talk about our health. The pills we take, the conditions we have, it comes up in every conversation, and it doesn’t bug us, it’s akin to discussing bands when we were younger.

We hold our tongue at first, but we can’t help from imparting wisdom to those younger than us, but even though they pay attention, they refuse to listen, refuse to take our advice, they’ve got to fail for themselves, unfortunately.

I’m stunned that those who I thought were going to break through career-wise don’t. When I was young I thought everybody wanted to be successful, and I mean the top of their field. Then I learned that many don’t care that much and so many that do care can’t get out of their own way. That’s what therapy’s for, but they can’t go, because then they’d have to admit there’s something wrong, and their egos are so fragile they can’t.

Everyone peaks, everyone’s forgotten. David Geffen’s nearly retired. Sylvester Stallone made “Rocky” thirty five years ago. Is this how it always was? The cultural heroes of today aren’t even footnotes tomorrow?

I vote in every election but I’m starting to believe it makes no difference. Oh, I catch myself, I see how we wouldn’t have been in Iraq if Gore beat Bush, but then I think of how Bush’s team outmaneuvered Gore’s and the Supreme Court handed the Presidency to Bush. And I’m going to get a lot of correction e-mail as a result of writing that, but it ceases to bother me, because who are these people anyway? I only listen to my friends and those with power. Ugly, isn’t it? Or those who deliver information or wisdom.

I no longer want to read bad writing. Information is not the same as writing. Just because you can type, that does not make the result readable. Then again, writing, good writing, is rarely profitable, so the whole Internet is laden with link-bait, which I occasionally click on, illustrating that the Internet terrorists have won.

I don’t want to move. These people who go from house to house, who redecorate and move out, don’t they know time is running out, that you’ve got to enjoy your life because soon it will be gone?

I’m intrigued by appearances but know they don’t count. Just because you’re beautiful, that does not make you nice and compassionate, and that’s all I care about.

Commitment is the key to relationships, but nobody seems to know this.

Kim and Kanye are the number one tabloid fodder, but it’s killed his career in the process. Is this karma?

I don’t know whether to get a lighter computer, a MacBook Air, or a more powerful computer, a Mac Pro. They keep changing the paradigm and I’m flummoxed. If I’m in front of the screen all day do I need the fastest, or just one that can do the job?

I don’t want to reconnect with everybody I ever knew, but I do want to stalk them online to see what they are up to.

I hate hype, but hype is more prevalent than ever before.

Once upon a time I knew every restaurant in Los Angeles, now I read “Los Angeles  Magazine” about the twenty five best and have been to few and when I start contemplating tackling the list I say…no. Then again, I’ll go to multiple Triple-D establishments. But I know what Guy Fieri is selling. But maybe that’s my personality. Rather than experience the best, I like something that’s great for a price. But I’ve got the other side of my personality too, in that when something is inexpensive, I want to pay extra for the best. Don’t give me supermarket cookies, I want to go to the boutique. And I’ll eat Ben & Jerry’s before anything labeled “ice milk,” no matter what the price.

I’m stunned that people are so much like me but yet so different. Last night the four of us spontaneously started talking about therapy and our relationship issues, but I’m not a bro, and it’s hard to accept who you are, who I am.

America is about making you feel inadequate. And this rarely works on me anymore. Because I know all those people propagating their superior image are lying. It costs nothing to lie, and the media likes it, because it’s outrageous, but the truth is sex and TV are the same for all of us, and there’s always someone who’s got more money than you.

The experts at the Apple Store no longer are. I want to soak up information, but this is hard when I know more than they do.

I’m a sucker for information, for your story. I want to hear everybody’s story, from the homeless person to the billionaire, because that’s what life’s about, the victories, the hurts, and within said stories is wisdom. And the older I get the smarter I become. But the older you get in America the more irrelevant you become. Because you don’t take the bait. Young people believe politicians are running for the good of the country, not themselves. That the book, movie, record being hyped is actually good. That their life will be better if they’re just skinnier and better-looking. But the truth is life is about acceptance. But that doesn’t necessarily make you happy. But older people are much happier than younger ones, it’s been proven. But no one wants proof anymore. They just want emotion, ranting and raving by those with an agenda. So as you start to age, you tune out, realizing the circus is all for naught. And you start to focus on what truly gets you off. But you’re haunted by the specter of death. By the feeling that not only may you be missing something, but that you played your life completely wrong. But you’re too old to do anything about it.