If it was on HBO, it’d be the biggest show on television.

Ambition and intrigue, the linchpins of modern life. Throw in a little gossip and you’ve got the local office as well as the White House. It’s universal. We’re all trying to get ahead and get along.

But there are early adopters and those who go with the flow. And reporters who want to be famous and those who just want a paycheck. And you only get famous if you tell a story everybody can relate to, and the paycheck comes from serving those with the biggest agenda. So people don’t want to report the story of Netflix’s series because so many people still can’t stream, they can’t fathom being delivered 13 episodes all at once, they need to be behind the curve, not in front of it.

I have two friends without smartphones. They think they don’t need them. The truth is we only need food and water, and a little shelter, but if you want to play in this game, you need the tools.

And a smartphone is only one of them.

The others are cogitation and the ability to get along and gain information.

Life is a game, enjoy it while you’re playing it.

If you think it’s about money, you’re too busy keeping score.

But no one remembers who wins the Oscar, but they do remember seeing the film.

Your life is a movie, you’d better enjoy it.

And the truth is many people never figure out how to play. The sour grapes patrol point to their upbringing and some bad breaks to explain why they’re not where they want to be. Whereas winners lose, pick themselves up, dust themselves off and get back into the arena.

Like Frank Underwood.

We like a linear story. We like “Rocky.” You start nowhere, you triumph, and then you live off your endorsements and good will.

But the truth is life is more complicated than that. You don’t get laid by every person you proposition. You invest with people you trust and you lose everything. If you haven’t been left holding the bag, you haven’t played.

Yes, it’s scary.

But thrilling.

And that’s what “House of Cards” is all about. Staying in motion, playing to your own agenda, seeing if you can move ahead on the board.

Pledging fealty to the corporation is so 1950s. Everybody knows the corporation is no longer to be trusted, your ass will get fired and your pension will be stolen. The story of America is it’s every person for himself.

But we don’t like to believe this, no one likes to say this. And those who know it want to keep the lid tamped down. That’s the main worry of the rich, not that you’ll expose their assets, but you’ll figure it all out, how they made it.

We all want to make it. Our goals might not be similar, but the nature of life is you start here and you want to go there. How do we achieve this?

You can experience tension in a spy film.

But most people are never going to be spies.

Fantasies are good for escape.

But what truly rivets us is that which we can relate to, which edifies us.

The people on “House of Cards” are imperfect. But they’re trying. They understand loyalty and manipulation and there hasn’t been anything this good on television since the “Sopranos.”

Just like newspapers cling to their old model of print and advertising, despite classifieds going to Craigslist and news being available instantly online, many people cling to the past, fearful of the unknown future.

We all come along eventually, but the early adopters pave the way and if you want to play, you’ve got to pick up and move. Used to be you could wait, but no one buys a car with crank windows anymore, electric ones don’t break, everything works from the first iteration.

So sign up for Netflix, just to see this series.

And when we get together for a drink not only will we discuss plot points, but our own personal choices, how we see the game we’re playing, how we’re gonna get ahead.

Admit it, that’s what you want.

The Mighty Storm

Al Kooper strikes again.

Peter Bradley Adams was one half of a duo entitled eastmountainsouth signed to DreamWorks whose album was so overmassaged and spent upon that it sunk under its own weight and the act broke up. Times were a’ changin’, we were hitting the indie era, it was more about constantly producing and being in the marketplace than perfection and now almost no one knows the act, never mind their exquisite calling card, “You Dance.”

But Peter Bradley Adams has soldiered on, in obscurity.

Yes, the wheel has turned again, indie is fading and it’s all about the promotion that only a rich, connected label of experienced players can provide.

So Peter Bradley Adams releases a new track that you should hear and you won’t.

Did you see that report wherein it was stated that country radio eclipses CHR? I’m not sure whether to believe it, because it was promulgated by the radio industry, which has enough ignorance and agendas to fuel a conspiracy team, but it rings true. Because despite all the hype about pop, it’s got the nutrition of a Twinkie and most people are looking for something with a little meat on its bones, which no one on Top Forty has got, come on, being skinny is one of the PREREQUISITES!

And there’s no way in hell Peter Bradley Adams’s “The Mighty Storm” is gonna get airplay on either format, could get some traction on Triple A, but the problem with that format is that its PDs can’t distinguish between good and new. In other words, just because it’s new that does not mean…IT’S GOOD!

Which is why so many of us are listening to the same old stuff. Literally. Because we’re lost in the wilderness with no direction home.

Algorithms will never triumph. If BeatsMusic succeeds, it will have nothing to do with curation and everything to do with marketing. Because the truth is we all want to be led by the hand, together, to the promised land of great tracks. And even though he’s an irascible old coot, Al Kooper is doing God’s work.

Oh, I’ve got a bone to pick. I wish he listed fewer than ten tracks a week. I wish even more were great. I wish he wouldn’t employ the copyright-infringing Grooveshark. But every playlist features a nugget.

Especially this week. I was wondering if it was my mood. Because the David Crosby track has got an incredible feel. And Kooper swooped down and made sense of Bastille. But having played all the cuts, I came back to Peter Bradley Adams’s “The Mighty Storm” and realized it was heads-above, because of the sound, because of the FEEL!

Take off your Clive Davis hat. Songs are everything, but not everybody can write a classic. “The Mighty Storm” is not A+ material, but that does not mean it won’t reach you, that it won’t set your mind free.

It’s the HBO of music. Not what you want, but what you need.

So Peter Bradley Adams puts out albums, keeping them off streaming services either through ineptitude or a delusional belief he’s standing up for artists and money, which 19 is doing via its suit against Sony, there’s plenty of money in streaming, it’s just that the labels are keeping most of it, so unless I wrote this you’d never hear “The Mighty Storm.”

And it’s not groundbreaking, but…

Imagine yourself driving alone through the delta. Cleaning the house. Needing company late at night. This music is PERFECT!

So I don’t know how we rescue this music business, how we connect the great mass of people with great music, how everybody can get their head out of their ass and stop thinking about money but soul and humanity.

The only way out is us. Not our machines. Music is the ANTI-MACHINE! Even when it’s made by Kraftwerk, that’s the joke, the machines are harnessed by us!

So once again we need a deejay to save our life.

Someone who knows great from not good enough.

Who sifts through the detritus and delivers the gems we want but cannot find.

Al Kooper’s looking for a needle in a haystack, I don’t have the time, the patience or the desire. But oh do I want to listen to what he comes up with!

Kooper’s playlist

“You Dance”

“Country overtakes CHR”

That’s right, the Backstreet Boys album.

I had to own it, I needed to hear “I Want It That Way.” After all, it was cowritten by the world’s number one hitmaker, MAX MARTIN!

Huh?

Just like Mutt Lange was the eighties’ secret sauce, Max Martin has filled that role for the past fifteen years, ever since the advent of…Britney Spears.

That’s right, I bought her debut too, I had to hear Max’s composition “…Baby One More Time.”

Oh, baby baby. Britney Spears owes her whole career to Max Martin and this one track. The one wherein girl becomes woman, wherein she radiates a sexuality she does not possess but a middle-aged Swedish man can supply.

My loneliness is killing me…hit me baby one more time!

That’s the power of a hit record. In this pre-Napster era, that’s why Tommy Mottola made $28 million in one year and Clive Calder had the biggest victory in the history of the music business. It’s about tracks that are so infectious, so necessary that you drove to the store on a mission to satiate your jones.

It’s easy to dismiss what’s popular, it’s easy to pooh-pooh that which appeals to the teens, especially to the prepubescent set. But one listen to “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)” convinced me that Backstreet Boys were no New Kids On The Block. This was memorable music. I lived to hear it on the radio. And then when I heard “I Want It That Way,” I took the plunge.

You are my fire
The one desire
Believe when I say
I want it that way

It’s like he’s serenading her on the beach. With just the flamenco guitar. But then the track builds and builds.

Tell me why
Ain’t nothin’ but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain’t nothin’ but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way

Perfection. A mood is captured.

But it was the opening cut that riveted me, that closed me.

Yes, the best rock record of the year could have been…

LARGER THAN LIFE!

It hearkens back to Swedish superstars Roxette. But there’s an underlying soul and power that evidences the millennium, when Generation Y came to power, eclipsing their parents, the baby boomers.

This is not the way it’s supposed to be. We’re supposed to be able to write off the mainstream.

But rock had lost its way.

Metal became so fast and unlistenable except to devotees.

There was a hole in the mainstream, and Max Martin filled it.

Backstreet Boys are lost without him. Anybody can sing, but not anybody can write and produce.

And Dr. Luke gets all the ink, but the secret weapon and still champion is his sometimes partner, the Swede known as Max Martin.

He’s a modern day Todd Rundgren, seemingly able to write hits at will. But unlike Todd, Max has not rejected the adulation and riches. Then again, to this day most people have no idea who Max is.

You wonder who they’re going to induct into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame sixty years on?

MAX MARTIN!

Rhinofy-Millennium

I almost got killed last night.

And that’s the truth and it was totally my fault and I’m still shaking. Because you feel so alive after the Grim Reaper’s scythe misses you but you don’t stop being haunted by what almost was.

So I was meeting a friend at the Moon House, the Chinese restaurant in the strip center at Santa Monica and Sepulveda that Jay Weston recommended, and there wasn’t a spot in the lot.

That’s the bane of SoCal…you can own a car, but finding a place to park it? Especially now that so many streets are restricted.

So I pull on to what was once called “Little Santa Monica,” but has now been restructured into cul-de-sacs and turn pockets… Let me be clear, it’s still a street, still parallel to “Big Santa Monica,” but it’s got a different characteristic, it’s…sleepy.

And on the right side of the street there are no spots.

But the left side is wide open. Which scares me. Because if no one else is parking there, can I? I’m an “i” dotter and “t” crosser, I rebel in this newsletter but out in the world I’m a law-abiding citizen, it was drilled into me growing up, play by the rules. And nothing hurts more than a parking ticket. I mean WHY? I pay them immediately, to forget them. Once upon a time you could get away without paying, especially if you had an out of state plate, but now the whole world’s been computerized, they’ve got your second grade transcript, everything’s on your permanent record.

So I pull into a space and start pondering whether I’m close enough to the curb. The rule is 12″, but I’ve got a small car. And I debate it. I could fire the engine back up and pull closer, but then I risk damaging my wheels…everybody in SoCal is worried about the look of their car, see one dented and crumpled on the highway and you steer away, fearful it’ll be contagious, they’ll hit you and now your car will be crippled.

And after deciding I was close enough, and this is an issue because there’s parking on both sides of this one way street, I walk back a few yards to study the sign, determining that it was truly legal to park here, even though I admit when I came back hours later I looked for the ticket, which was not there…

But there would have been no looking if…

Yes, I looked at the sign, decided I was cool, and then did what every modern day citizen does, I pulled out my phone, to read my e-mail, to catch up. And lulled into soporifity by the downsizing and deconstructing of Little Santa Monica I stepped off the sidewalk and started crossing this lazy street, like one in the middle of Kansas, on the prairie…

And that’s when it happened.

A green car. I think it was a Chrysler product. I didn’t see it coming at all. It didn’t slow down for me. It was going about 35 miles per hour, around the speed limit, and I’m looking down, scrolling through my e-mail and…suddenly I was aware of its presence, barely a foot away.

He didn’t beep the horn, he didn’t slow down, and he would have told the cop I was breaking the law and…

I would have had no input, I would have been dead.

I could see it in my mind’s eye, the automobile striking me, throwing me down on the pavement head first. I thought of the ambulance and the ride to UCLA but then I realized I never would have made it, that in a stolen moment, an instant, my life would be over.

There are certain episodes that stick in my brain. Like falling through the ice. Coming over the crest on the original Loges Peak lift. Passing that vehicle in Ludlow, Vermont and finding a truck barreling right down towards us with no room to pull back in, Jimmy’s only choice being to accelerate and find a spot with a nanosecond to spare. And now this. The moment via poor judgment when I was almost history. The end. All she wrote.

They say to get back on the horse.

They say to get back on the high wire.

They say to get back on the trapeze.

So that’s what I’m trying to do.

But I’m still processing, still digesting, still trying to make sense of how fate dealt me a good hand last night, scared me to death, but it almost wasn’t so.