It’d be like Justin Timberlake making a country record.

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where all the creativity comes in business, and the artists keep repeating themselves, hoping that they’ll get a different result?

One in which T-Mobile’s John Legere is shaking up the wireless industry and the automobile market leader, Ford, is revolutionizing its F-150 pickup.

This is what musicians used to do. Remember the Beatles? One thing we knew about that band is every album would be different, they didn’t repeat themselves, and unlike every other sixties group, they’re gonna last.

The F-150 has been the best selling automobile for thirty two years straight in the United States. It accounts for forty percent of Ford’s profits. You don’t mess with an icon, do you?

OF COURSE YOU DO!

Because Ford could see the handwriting on the wall. That stringent fuel economy laws are going to apply and the public is wary of high gas prices. So they switched the body to aluminum, downsized the engines and got five more miles per gallon than their competitors. Sound like a triumph?

IT DOES TO ME!

But the customers won’t like it! They’re used to their steel trucks! They want big, V8 engines! Never mess with a successful product!

But this is how Detroit got its lunch eaten by Japan in the first place.

This is all about the power of the individual, Alan Mulally. Who reengineered Ford’s finances, who did not take money from the government, who authorized this plan.

With all this hogwash about teams and getting along, the truth is triumphs are always the domain of individual visionaries. From Steve Jobs to Mr. Mulally. If you’re looking for consensus, you’re headed for mediocrity, or failure.

Kind of like today’s music.

How many people wrote the song? The label weighed in with its input?

No wonder it’s headed for the middle of the market and soon to be forgotten. No one’s betting the farm in music, they’re all just hoping the same crops grow until they retire.

Doug Morris, our lauded leader, looks back more than forward. I’d like to know what apps he uses on his iPhone.

Lucian Grainge is positively old school. Let me see… I’ll buy up market share and pay for the best artists. Not a bad strategy, but not a revolutionary strategy.

Hell, look at Jim Dolan in the concert space. He’s investing when everybody else is crying. Who else is gonna spend a hundred million to redo the Forum? Look what he did to the Beacon. People want to go to a first class venue and be treated right, but most concerts are held in places akin to prisons.

But it’s the music that gets them there…

And what we’ve got is classic rock acts and a bunch of spectacle. Yup, most new shows are like the circus, with dancing and acrobatics…can you hear me Pink? What’s that got to do with what goes in the ears?

But too many people have watched reality singing competitions. They think being beautiful is a prerequisite to making it. And if you can blow the door down like one of the three little pigs, you’re ready.

Look at country, where they’re replicating the rock sound of the seventies while leaving the outlaws out. Talk about a controlled environment.

As for rock, it’s already dead.

At least there’s a bit of innovation in EDM.

As for hip-hop… The goal is to sell out. If music isn’t enough for you, I don’t want to listen.

So what we’ve got is people salivating over the latest tech products. Companies thinking outside the box because they know competition is fierce. We’re wowed on a regular basis.

But in music, all we’ve got is complaints! They’re stealing my music, they won’t listen to the whole album…

Want me to listen to the whole album?

MAKE IT DIFFERENT! MAKE IT INTRIGUING! TAKE A RISK!

But the only people willing to take risks are the untalented who have not made it.

Every day I read about ridiculous albums I don’t need to hear. Kind of like Peter Gabriel’s cover album and its reverse. Huh? MAKE NEW MUSIC PETER! YOU USED TO TEST LIMITS, NOW YOU’RE ABOUT COMMERCE!

As for the new acts… Tell me what Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters have done that’s any different from what transpired forty years ago. So he’s a good imitation of what once was. SO WHAT!

You can’t buy a Chevy Vega and no one wants the Ford Pinto.

But we keep putting a new body on musical trash and expect the public to get excited about it.

The problem is us.

P.S. You want an aluminum auto body? Then get a Tesla Model S, Audi A8 or a Jaguar, no mainstream automobile features one. Because they’re expensive and hard to work on. So what we’ve got here is a mainstream company LEADING the public to a new world for the benefit of all. Do you see that in music? The land of the compliant? Where what’s featured on radio today ain’t much different from what Mariah Carey was doing two decades ago?

1. “The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves” by Stephen Grosz

I think everybody should read this book.

We live in a funny world, everybody’s a winner, everybody’s complete. But I must say I’ve got more questions than answers. And reading this book stimulated me more than anything that’s passed before my eyeballs in months.

I was turned on to it by Michiko Kakutani. Yes, the reviewer Carrie talks about in “Sex and the City.” Ms. Kakutani had it on her ten best list.

Michiko Kakutani’s 10 Favorite Books of 2013

And I was looking for something new to read, and I don’t want to be disappointed after “The Goldfinch” and Ms. Kakutani had the Tartt book listed as number one, so I decided to check out the sample chapter.

I got hooked.

What Mr. Grosz does is tell stories about patients, thinly fictionalized.

He’s not a psychopharmacologist, he’s not a feel good guru. Rather he sits with his patients five days a week trying to figure them out, learning about himself in the process.

There are few definitive answers, like life, there are only guideposts. But the insight is breathtaking. I especially liked the chapter wherein he stated closure was a fallacy. There are things I can’t get over that make me feel bad about myself. Mr. Grosz said to avoid just this syndrome. Society tells us to get over it, but maybe we just can’t, maybe we learn how to cope as it returns to our consciousness again and again.

If you think you have all the answers, this is not the book for you.

If you think you’re all right, you just need some business guidance, this is not the book for you.

If you sometimes feel isolated, or believe you’re working against yourself, or that you keep repeating the same patterns.

THIS IS YOUR BOOK!

2. “The Scent of Pine” by Lara Vapnyar

Reading “The Examined Life” made me want to meet Ms. Kakutani. Because I read about the book nowhere else and it made me wonder what made Michiko pick it. Makes me think she’s got more questions than answers.

And now I’m dying to meet Ms. Vapnyar.

I read a review of her book too. And went to download the sample chapter, but it wasn’t available yet. That’s what I hate about hype, it’s all buildup for something that’s got nothing to do with me. Kinda like the Golden Globes. If I can’t immediately watch the movies they promote, what’s the use?

So I downloaded some of Ms. Vapnyar’s previous work and couldn’t get into it.

But after finishing “The Examined Life” yesterday, I remembered that “The Scent of Pine went on sale the previous Tuesday and downloaded a sample.

The initial few pages didn’t hook me.

And now I can’t put it down.

What intrigued me about Ms. Vapnyar was that she moved to the United States from Russia and shortly thereafter became a novelist. Huh? I mean even if you studied English in Russia, were you ready, were you fluent enough in the language?

But I have never ever read such an accurate description of two people falling in love. The awkwardness, the desire, the exchange of stories. It’s so funny, we’re wandering in the wilderness and suddenly someone is listening to us, or vice versa, and we go down the rabbit hole and immediately want to know everything about them.

The book is set half in the U.S. and half in Russia. Half today, half yesterday. And I kept thinking that maybe the Russians had it right. In America everybody’s trying to be rich and famous. In Russia, it’s about living, the stories, what happens between me and you.

If you want to know what happens between two people, read this book.

3. “The Billionaire’s Playlist: How an oligarch got into the American music Business” by Connie Bruck

She called me. I didn’t have much to say, no one at Warner who knows anything will talk. And the article gives you essentially no insight into Len’s travails at the music company.

But it does give you a whole lot of history.

This is not the most readable article. But if you wade through it, and you’re gonna have to buy the “New Yorker,” the whole thing is not available for free online, you will recognize the divide between Len Blavatnik and yourself. We think we want to be rich and famous like the musicians. But the musicians want to be rich and famous like the bankers. And the bankers are beholden to the oligarchs. And you don’t want to know how the oligarchs made their money. Only here, it’s delineated.

Are you willing to put your life on the line? Literally.

Are you willing to go to jail?

Not me. Maybe that’s why I’m not an oligarch.

But Oxford took Mr. Blavatnik’s money. For a school of government. Huh? Money talks, as Ray Davies once sang. If you’re rich enough, you can buy anybody.

Also, the description of Lyor Cohen’s legal travails… Funny how time has a way of paving over history.

Furthermore, Ms. Bruck makes the point that Blavatnik wants to pay the acts less and the execs via incentives. Is this the future of the music business? I don’t think so. Is it the future of America and the world, quite definitely. If you think being an honest, forthright citizen who votes makes you win, you’ve got no idea what the game is.

4. “Meanwhile, she said, a team of reporters and editors has begun work on a major 2014 project: ‘a deep look at the global rich.'”

“She” is the editor of the “New York Times,” Jill Abramson. The above was from yesterday’s article by the public editor, Margaret Sullivan.

This is the story of the age. The gap between them and us, the rich and the poor. And it is not pretty. The rich are supposed to have earned their essentially tax free status by creating jobs for the rest of us. They’re supposed to be wiser, benevolent dictators. The truth is so far from this it’s scary, but people don’t want to believe it, because it eviscerates their hope. You don’t want to play if you cannot win.

This is why we need the “Times.” But whether you think we need it or not, enough people do to fund this kind of journalism.

Expect to be very angry in the coming months.

They came after Christie and they came after Ailes and in the U.K. they went after Murdoch. Despite screwing up Iraq, the press has gotten hold of something and with bullhorns but no facts possessed by the bloviating right wingers at Fox…expect turmoil. Money drives this country. And they’re going after the money. This is a better movie than ever plays in the theatre. This is real life, this is not reality TV.

5. “The motivation comes from a belief that almost anything can be mastered if you’re willing to put in the hours to master it. If you’re going to do something, do it as best as you can.”

Jeff Shiffrin talking about his daughter Mikaela

Mikaela Shiffrin’s Swift, if Unplanned, Ascent to World Champion

It’s that time of year again. When the Winter Olympics fill the screen during the doldrums of February. And our best hope for a skiing medal is the aforementioned Mikaela Shiffrin.

What I hate about hype is you don’t know how much is true.

But everyone agrees that Mikaela Shiffrin didn’t race, she practiced.

Now think about this… Imagine if instead of posting to YouTube and Instagram and tweeting and facebooking about your music you took ten years out and practiced your instrument, only occasionally playing live… Then you might be world class.

In other words, just showing up does not make you world class. You’ve got to have the hunger and the desire when no one is watching and listening.

And yes, it does help to have rich parents.

Mikaela Shiffrin is already the slalom world champion.

Not everybody can win.

But someone will. And it’ll be less about desire and promotion and attitude than plain hard work, mostly in the wilderness.

6. Shaun White

The Flying Tomato Would Rather You Not Call Him That Anymore

Nobody likes him.

The story of the year is the death of snowboarding.

Yes, despite all the Olympic run-up, sales are nosediving, as is participation. Sure, skis are mini-snowboards now, but the real reason is snowboarding is possessed by Gen-X, and like kids from every generation, from baby boomers to Alex Keaton, they want nothing to do with what their parents are up to.

But the “New York Times” doesn’t know this, they haven’t reported the story yet, but it’s been in the “Boston Globe”

Snowboarding appears to be in serious decline

and “Vail Daily”

Snowboarding declining in stats, coolness

So the “Times” runs a feature on Shaun White, it’s as bad as the talking head features on TV, conceptually anyway.

But the writer gets it right.

People don’t like Shaun White.

Oh, his sponsors and those who don’t know him do. But in the community? He’s a loner who’s out for himself.

And the story is interesting, but the point is most people have no idea what it takes to make it, the determination and self-sacrifice. Chances are if you’re a bro everybody adores, you’re never going to triumph.

Many successful musicians are pricks. They had to be, to make it.

7. “The Crash Reel”

I met Kevin Pearce.

Huh?

Mr. Pearce was the only person who could beat Shaun White. They emphasize how Mr. White is not a bro in this film.

But that’s not its point.

Kevin Pearce was the snowboarder who crashed in the halfpipe just before the last Olympics, in Vancouver, in 2010.

He had a traumatic brain injury.

This is the story, primarily of that injury.

I wish everybody could see this film, but with the cacophony that is media today, chances are slim. But you can pull it up on demand on HBO right now, and you should.

Yes, the initial part is all about snowboarding.

But then comes the injury.

What happens to the losers?

That’s what we never read about in America…those who don’t triumph, those who endure endless hardship. Like Kevin’s parents, who have another child with Down’s syndrome.

He knows he has it! The kid with Down’s is frustrated about it!

And wants Kevin not to compete anymore.

But Kevin won’t listen. To his family, his doctors… He wants to go back out on the hill.

Thank god he realizes he just doesn’t have it anymore, before he has another TBI, traumatic brain injury, like his compatriot at the end of the film, whose arm is paralyzed and whose speech is slurred and whose only desire is to get back on the hill.

You have to know when to give up. Just because you didn’t win at one thing doesn’t mean you can’t win at another. And what is winning anyway? That’s what the Russians have right, the lower class ones. They know life isn’t something you tote up on a scorecard.

Watch “The Crash Reel” and you’ll be embarrassed to watch football, because when you see those brain scans, they’re even worse!

And yes, Kevin comes from a rich family too. His Irish father has a great American story, he built an empire on glassblowing. He overcame his dyslexia to do it.

So, some people slip through, they overcome great hardship and difficulties to do so.

But don’t believe just because they did you can too.

And don’t be disillusioned if you don’t make it, just pick yourself up and…

EVALUATE YOUR DIRECTION BEFORE YOU PUT ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF ANOTHER!

You don’t want to be like that snowboarder after his third TBI who is barely functional. You don’t want to turn fifty and be lugging your equipment up stairs to play covers for those not interested still believing you’re one step away from making it. If you’re having fun, if you’re paying the bills, more power to you. But if you’ve sacrificed everything, have no house, no children, no car, no health insurance because you think there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…eek.

8. “In the end, I made my decision the way I make all decisions I’ve brutalized with analysis – by giving up and awaiting logistical intervention.”

I Crashed the Wrong Shiva

This is why we read. To find out we’re not alone, that there are others just like us.

I have a hard time making a decision. Taking risks too. I so much want to make the RIGHT decision that…

I end up waiting for enough information for the choice to be clear.

But oftentimes that’s too late.

Unsure of what day to fly, I wait, and then can’t fly any day, because it’s gotten too expensive.

It’s a thrill to see yourself elsewhere, to feel connected.

And that’s my job here.

How long until it’s free?

I haven’t tried the new Beats music service. I’d be stunned if it’s not well-designed and utilitarian, I applaud their focus on mobile, but isn’t this really just PressPlay ten years later?

I know we want people to pay for music. The only problem is they are not. And we can either eradicate music on YouTube or rethink where we’re going.

We tried stamping out trading, that didn’t work so well. We’re already getting advertising monies from YouTube… The appropriate cliche here is “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” which is what the music industry has done with YouTube, to its credit and benefit.

However, if Warner Music had only authorized Spotify in the U.S. earlier, we might not be in this pickle. Timing is everything online. The Palm phone employing WebOS was a technical marvel, it was just too late, is Beats Music too late?

Curation…

We do live in the information age, and the more the better, to a point. But what we’ve learned in the past few years is it’s all about social. It’s less important that a track be best than everybody be listening to it. Come on, you excoriate the Top Ten on a regular basis, but the point is that’s where the ears are, those are the acts that attract people to the show. Do you really want to go to the show alone? Think about that… Just you and your favorite act. Sounds like fun to begin with, but if you can’t share it with anyone, the good feeling dissipates.

And it’s not an issue of exclusivity, all these streaming services have essentially the same music.

As for people being interested in what you’re listening to… No one cares, otherwise everybody would have 100,000 Twitter followers and the ability to break an act. We want to know what stars are listening to, tastemakers are listening to, and we want to know that everybody else is listening too, at least a modicum of like-minded people.

As for serving up songs…

I personally find it one of the most frustrating experiences in my lifetime. Radio is real time, you don’t know what’s next. But from Slacker to Pandora to iTunes Radio to Songza…I’m more interested in what’s coming next than what’s playing now. I keep hitting the skip button. It’s like looking at porn, it’s hard to concentrate on one visage when there’s an endless supply just a click away.

And speaking of iTunes Radio… Wow, that’s a nonstarter. Turns out we did not need another Internet radio service, one was enough. That’s how it always is with tech. There will be only one streaming giant. Because that’s where everybody will be! If you’re investing in a me-too streaming service, why don’t you just save your money and go to Vegas and play roulette.

As for getting people to pay for Beats…

Let me see, I don’t pay for Facebook, I don’t pay for Instagram, I don’t pay for Snapchat, I don’t pay for Twitter. Each and every one of these services may be fads, their essence might be incorporated into a new bundled entity the way standalone spellcheckers were incorporated into word processors, but one thing we know is they’re free. Hell, the word processor and spreadsheet and presentation software are now free with all new Mac and iOS devices!

So to believe that Beats is going to rewrite the history of payment…I don’t think so.

But they do have an amazing publicity campaign. And never underestimate the power of stars. But hate to tell Jimmy, Trent and Dre are passe, their fans are not gonna pony up, you need younger stars, Miley and Pitbull and…Jimmy might employ them, but really, you want me to pay for what I already get for free?

As for AT&T’s family plan…

Tying up with AT&T is like buying a ticket for the Titanic. AT&T’s lunch is being eaten by T-Mobile, a more nimble service that’s rewriting the rules of wireless. That’s right, soon we’ll all buy our handsets outright, we’ll all pay less for international calls. John Legere is cutting edge. Hell, he’s more rock and roll than Iovine, he wears a t-shirt, shows up where he’s uninvited, gets ejected and keeps on kicking the powers that be. He understands you position yourself as anti, as the underdog, and that you make inroads by being cheap. Hell, Legere even admits his service sucks in the boonies, but do you live in the boonies? Are you willing to have lousy service in the hinterlands if you pay a whole hell of a lot less?

So what we’ve learned here is the music business was caught flat-footed, it didn’t see the power of YouTube rearing its huge head. Not the first time the industry’s been left out, and not the last.

But YouTube isn’t forever, nothing is, otherwise we’d all be listening to 78s.

It’s a battle between Spotify and YouTube. Spotify’s in multiple countries and now even has a free service on mobile handsets. Furthermore, most people still don’t know how Spotify works. Are they gonna understands Beats?

Maybe, Jimmy’s a master marketer.

But no one was asleep in the streaming sphere, this is not headphones, run by ancient, nearly moribund companies, no matter how good their products were.

Marketing only goes so far.

And in the modern era it doesn’t last.

So today’s story is Beats Music, will it be tomorrow’s?

P.S. Making a deal with AT&T only is so 2007, so imitation Jobs. In this era of cacophony if you’re not everywhere, you’ll never make it. Furthermore, who can change their mobile phone plan on a whim? Except to go to T-Mobile, where they’ll pay you to do so! Hell, Beats would have been better off making a deal with Legere!

P.P.S. We live in a streaming era. If you want higher quality, lobby your congressperson, it’s all about bandwidth. As for Pono…if musicians were such good business people they wouldn’t be ripped off by their labels and their accountants. Be proud you can do one thing well, most people can’t even do that. But don’t assume since you won once, you’ll win tomorrow. Jimmy Iovine’s got a lot of pluck, but unless he’s willing to knock on everybody’s door, text them personally, he doesn’t have the power to move the masses when it comes to streaming services.

P.P.P.S. Enough with this curation fantasy. I don’t want a playlist for every hour of the day, for sex and swimming and cycling. I want certified, no tune-out tracks that I can tell everybody else about. With the noise cycle prevalent, it’s about fewer tracks, not more. Do you really think I want to waste time discovering music via your endless playlist? Just give me the hits, now. And I’ll listen to them ad infinitum. Hell, I’ve got tracks in my iTunes library I’ve listened to hundreds of times, but most only once. I don’t need more one-spinners, but more hundred players.

“David Pogue Talks To Mischievous T-Mobile CEO John Legere: The Full Interview”

It’s all about the individual. One person is shaking up mobile. One TRACK could shake up the music business, we don’t want playlists with a plethora.

I haven’t been able to hear.

That’s a bit of an overstatement, but not by much, and it’s lasted almost a complete week.

You see a cold was going around the condo, and just when I thought I’d escaped, it bit me in the ass.

But you’ve got to know my personality, nothing’s gonna stop me from hitting the slopes. Not because I want to, but because it’s my job. There’s so much we don’t want to do, but if we just put one foot in front of the other we discover unforeseen rewards.

Like on this day, New Year’s Day…when it was snowing and blowing and you couldn’t see a thing and I ended up on the front side skiing untracked bump runs I hadn’t been down in eons, it reminded me of years ago, and that’s why we do it, for the memories, for the inspiration, for the contact…oftentimes with ourselves.

And I’m flying home on the airplane and when we descend into Los Angeles (without a couple of keys, it was Colorado after all), my ears started to feel like they had sharp spikes being inserted into them from the inside and it lasted fifteen minutes and if I’d been under ten I would have been wailing.

Instead I internalized the pain. That’s what I do. They teach us to do this, and then…we get old enough and we realize no one’s listening anyway.

That’s what I’ve discovered. I’m the repository of people’s hopes and dreams and anxieties. Maybe that’s why I love writing so much, it’s only me, but I’m still worried…are people listening?

Do you think I don’t know what you want? Make it short, make it pithy, make it a list of how to make it in the music business, what’s good, make it optimistic, include pointers, be a cheerleader for your inner spirit. But one thing I’ve learned is giving the people what they want may be profitable but it kills your insides dead. Just ask Neil Young and Bob Dylan, who’ve killed their careers multiple times, because they just couldn’t fulfill expectations, and now we love them for it…but it was hard for them at the time.

Or it is for me. Because I’m a people pleaser. And a rock thrower. And if you think that’s a tough dichotomy, try living inside MY body.

And the longer I don’t write the harder it is to do it.

I know my game. If I’m inspired, it could be about anything. If I’m not, I might be working against myself, like now…three things in a day, do you know how many sign-offs I’m gonna get, on principle alone? But I’m frustrated… Because I want to reach you. That’s the screwed up part of the equation, I need you.

So I’ve got to squeeze out a Rhinofy last night and I just can’t do it, I normally only write on inspiration, and I wasn’t…inspired, that is. Oh, the tracks started to sound better and better, it’s just that I had nothing to say about them, nothing I wanted to share, I was feeling vulnerable. That’s the problem with gaining an audience, you second guess yourself, I try not to, but…

And I was so frustrated, surfing the net as the music played, that I got in touch with what had been bothering me for twenty four hours, the Christie thing, the disability thing, so I decided to write about it.

And once I started, I had so much to say, all the frustration of the previous week was flowing through my fingers. But would anybody be interested?

I knew the right wing would excoriate me, kind of like Reagan in that debate…”there you go again.”

But you can’t kowtow to the right wing, that’s their game, to get you to blink, to get you not to react, not to play. That’s our entire nation. The self-conscious, even the acts. Everything’s filtered, massaged, as if we rehearse sex and conversations.

But we don’t.

And the most painful part of writing is not putting words on the screen, but going through the bends after I hit send. Will people love it or hate it, be indifferent, will I get a lot of reaction or…

And then I got truly inspired.

Every song I listened to begat a story.

But it was too late. I’d already blown my wad. To write again would mean I’d never get to bed, because that’s another downside of writing, it takes six or eight hours to come down.

So I didn’t.

And then, I woke up in a good mood.

I’d gone to bed angry.

Isn’t life incredible?

And when I started to read the voluminous e-mail that flowed into my inbox I got inspired again, I needed to hear a track, Lee Michaels’s “Day Of Change.”

Only, in reality, it’s not about politics, it’s about relationships, unlike “What Now America,” from the same album, “Barrel.”

So here’s the point…

I went to college, and I heard “What Now America,” and had to buy “Barrel” and I know every note and now…

I’ve written too much to tell that story.

So I’m gonna tell you this story…

Yesterday I saw her
Now she don’t see me

I know some people are in control. They love ’em and leave ’em. Not me. I’m not saying I’ve never left, but that was after she threatened to first!

But I kind of feel like that guy in the Paul Simon song…when something goes wrong, I’m the first to admit it, but the last one to know.”

Yesterday I knew her
Now she don’t know me

They never do, you share your secrets and then you’re strangers.

All you can do is listen to a record.

And there’s nothing more satisfying…other than personal interaction.

But we were addicted to the sound, I was addicted to the sound, because I felt left out.

And my original point, when I didn’t write this, nine hours ago, was that Lee Michaels could write good music that was about politics, that meant something.

But now…

It’s a cry to all hold hands.

Now it’s an explanation when nothing of the sort is necessary.

I’m as confused by this world we live in as you are, if not more. I’m constantly reevaluating, wondering if I’m on the right path, and I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if I am, and since turning sixty I’m aware the sand is running out of the hourglass.

Yes, I’m sixty. My dick might not work as well, but I’m oh so much wiser.

But still gun-shy.

I want to write truth.

I want to be together.

And separate.

I’m angry.

And sometimes exuberantly happy.

So I don’t know if it’s a day of change or not. Because I’m bad with change, I’m afraid of loss in the process.

What now America?

Spotify link

“Day Of Change” on YouTube

“What Now America” on YouTube

P.S. Ask Irving Azoff about accompanying Lee Michaels to a gig in his Ferrari (that’s Lee’s, Irving was just a management lackey).

P.P.S. I still have to write about discovering “Barrel” at Middlebury.

P.P.P.S. I still have to write about taking _______ to see Lee Michaels with me at the Fillmore, mere weeks before the venue closed. Taking the train into the city…

P.P.P.P.S. This still isn’t what I wanted it to be. I got caught up in the lead-in and ran out of gas with the main story, which is… I’m dazed and confused and scared to play but I’m trying to anyway.