It’s not news, it’s an awareness campaign!

I gave up reading the “Arts & Leisure” section. Because every article contained therein was linked to a product. There was no story, just a desire to make me know a new movie, play or record was coming out and I should buy it.

Kind of like the Mick Jagger/James Brown movie hype. It’s been in every publication known to man. What are the odds the flick will be good? About as high that I need to stop everything and check out Jenny Lewis’s new album, which was featured in the “Times” Magazine. I could say I’m too old, but the truth is the entertainment industry is operating with a pre-Internet paradigm and those of us living in the twenty first century, which seems to be everybody but them, are burned out on it. It’s as if they believe if they scream loud enough, they’ll accomplish their goal.

Did you notice all the Weird Al publicity came after the fact? And that there was no run-up to last year’s release of Beyonce’s video album? How can these artists get it so right and others get it so wrong?

Kind of like Tom Petty. There’s not a publication I peruse that has not had a Tom Petty story. His album is poised to enter the chart next week at number one, whoop-de-doo, and then it will be instantly forgotten. Yup, after everybody slaps each other on the back they’ll move on to selling something else. I dare you to list the films released two weeks ago. And that’s what the music world has become, the inane film business where products most people will never see are promoted for a shelf life of a week. But at least there’s DVD and streaming thereafter, but there’s no second life for an album, either it triumphs or is relegated to the dustbin. And music, when done right, lasts. But the hype is momentary and we’ve seen the trick and no one writing about music is interested after the fact, they’re so dazzled by the access at the advent that we’ve got antiquated marketers employing brain-dead writers to spread the word to a public that shrugs.

You want your effort to endure. There’s no counter on YouTube or Spotify telling how many streams your track had in its initial week, it’s about the cumulative effort, why is our whole industry focused on only the front end of the tail?

Is it the executives? Who are compensated on short term numbers and are fearful if they don’t make noise their artists will be upset and disappear?

Is it the managers, who like the wannabes believe better to do something, even if it’s a complete time and money-waster? Yup, every wannabe wants a tastemaker to take his CD, even though today’s computers don’t even have a disk drive, and every manager wants ink and late night television so they can tell their artists they’ve left no stone unturned, that the problem does not lie with them.

Everybody’s buying fake insurance to make sure they get no blame. It’s like the whole Internet revolution never happened. Every label is selling Palm, and you know what happened to that company. Yup, we all heard about it but it sank like a stone (the ultimate iteration, the tiny smartphone, not the Pilots of yore.)

Never has there been a disconnect so large between buyer and seller. Sellers in the music business believe in publicity and radio, when the buyers want to stream their heart’s desire for eons and just don’t care about everything else.

Having a new album is not a story. At this point, with a 24/7 news cycle online, what’s happened in your life is not a story. The hard core already knows what’s you’re up to and the rest don’t care. If you think a story in a magazine is going to energize the casual fan to buy your album/check it out online, you believe that Windows phones and BlackBerries are poised for a comeback, that they’re going to dethrone Android and iOS.

Your only hope is to feed those already paying attention so that they will spread the word, so that they’ll get their marginally interested friends to listen and discover you.

Weird Al’s album sold because of virality, because fans told other people to check out the videos, which lived online. Where’s the virality in the Tom Petty campaign, you’re just beating me over the head!

And really, Jenny Lewis in the “New York Times” Magazine? It makes me laugh at that publication the same way I now do at “60 Minutes,” manipulated by marketers like Amazon, you were really that hungry for a non-story, you really fell for the hype? I can’t name one Jenny Lewis song and neither can you, because she’s yet to cut one that exceeded the circle of her cult. And if this is the case, just let her publicity stay within her cult. And if she wants a larger audience she should put out a cut so good people tell me about it.

But I doubt she did this. Almost no one does this.

Isn’t it interesting that which triumphs usually comes from left field, usually bubbles up from nowhere and then we all hear about it and embrace it, whether it be “Gangnam Style,” “Wake Me Up” or even “Blurred Lines.” But those people understand the new game. They know it begins with the track, and the key is to get listeners talking about it, not intermediaries in the challenged media business.

But change comes slowly in the arts.

It used to be the other way around, musicians and painters were at the bleeding edge, challenging our preconceptions, the story was the work. Today they’re mostly complainers utilizing old paradigms to get us to check out their substandard efforts.

If it don’t last, it ain’t worth anything.

It’s like the whole music industry is a beauty pageant, where you get to see the candidates from afar for an hour, really only their exterior, and then you’re asked to marry them. Huh?

He made the onion rings from scratch!

I don’t know about you, but I’m confused by modern life. I grew up in the sixties, when the middle class ruled, when we’d never heard of private jets and the mantra of my generation was to be all you could be, yes, the army ripped us off.

You went to college to learn, not to get a profession. Our parents didn’t fret over our job prospects, then again, higher education was relatively inexpensive.

Life was about experiences and fulfillment.

And now we’ve lost our way.

The poor are struggling to survive, as the rich keep telling them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

And the rich are nearly invisible, except in the media. They don’t shop where we do, they don’t fly commercial, and they utilize their money and power to keep their way of life in place, brainwashing those beneath them that they’re job creators and if people just worked harder, put their nose to the grindstone, they could have everything they do.

You couldn’t work harder than Brian Little. And he employs almost ten people. But he’s not getting rich. Because Mr. Little realizes it’s all about passion, that life is long, and if you’re not having fun, it’s going to be dreary and depressing.

The Little Diner has the worst location in Vail.

It does no advertising.

But it’s the number one rated eating establishment on Yelp. Because we’re all searching for a bit of authenticity, as well as good food.

At McDonald’s you have it their way, every burger is exactly the same. But in a mechanized world where our computers never crash and automobile breakdowns are a thing of the past, we’re looking for some rough edges, some uniqueness. You see life is about individuals, and in truth they’re rare. You’ve got girls following nitwit Kim Kardashian, trying to look just like her. And guys believing if they wear hoodies, they can be Mark Zuckerberg. Everybody’s focusing on their “brand” and few are doing the work. Because the truth is the work is hard, and it rarely makes you famous.

Brian Little is not a movie star. His establishment is tiny. But we had to wait forty minutes today for a seat in the off-season, because people just want more of what he’s got.

Sure the food is good, as a matter of fact it’s phenomenal! But the show is even better. You can’t take your eyes off Brian Little not because he’s beautiful, not because he’s rich, but because he never leaves the zone, he seems to be hypnotized as he creates his dishes.

It’s kind of like how it used to be in music. You went to see Eric Clapton and Duane Allman extract mellifluous notes from their instruments. It wasn’t about clothing or backdrops, not theatrics or production. To see a master at work was enough.

So I discovered the Little Diner via Yelp. Every city I go to, I pull up the app. Sure, it’s imperfect, but in the twenty first century we crave data, we can never get enough.

And I was stunned to see the Little Diner atop the ratings. I’d been going to Vail for years and never heard of it! I didn’t see it advertised in the “Vail Daily,” there was no social media campaign, it had to be a fraud.

And then we went.

It was the last day of the season. When the snow was so sticky it was like skiing in molasses. We quit early, with our bodies still intact, and took the bus to Lionshead. So far, it was nearly beyond the commercial district.

Yes, the Little Diner is two shops from the end of the line.

And when we got there it was unimpressive. A U-shaped counter with a kitchen inside. Kind of like the Apple Pan, but smaller.

And I’m not much of a breakfast eater, and it was after noon, so I went for the Philly Cheese Steak.

The amount of TLC involved in the production was astounding. The squirting of oil, the chopping with utensils, the baking of the bread, the putting of the whole thing under a cap. It would be so much easier to do a half-assed job.

But then it wouldn’t taste quite as good.

And that’s what the Little Diner’s reputation is based upon, the taste of the food.

No one cares anymore, whether it be Comcast that refuses to let you disconnect or the low level workers stealing from the underpaying employer. America too often is about the shrug. The belief that since the game is rigged, you might as well bend the rules to your own satisfaction. So when someone does it right, it’s astounding.

The Little Diner opens every day at 7 and closes at 2. Brian used to work 7 days a week.

Because he loves it.

Don’t ask me about money, I still haven’t figured it out.

But I do know that most of the jobs that pay so well I don’t want to do. And so many of those doing them hate them. They’re only in it for the paycheck. Believing if they drive a nice enough car, live in a fancy enough house, they’ll win.

But this is untrue.

We’re just animals, here on the planet for a short while. We’re in search of pleasure and sustenance, we need fuel for our bodies and our brains. And the food revolution is taking care of our bodies, but what is going to take care of our souls?

That’s the challenge.

Brian Little has it all figured out.

Good luck to you!

The Little Diner

Yelp – restaurants Vail, CO

I fell on my butt.

I was coming down the stairs with a Coke in my hand when my feet started to slip. And it’s funny how these things happen in slow motion. One foot might gain purchase, maybe I can right myself, this could be near-miss, a close call discussed for an hour or two and then forgotten or…

I could fall.

And if I did, where would I land? On my fragile back? Or would I twist and turn and break some heretofore uncontemplated bone?

And this is not the way it’s supposed to be, I’m supposed to be doing something dangerous, skiing in the trees, testing limits, it’s not supposed to happen in regular life. Am I now a statistic? One of the old people who falls in the shower or spontaneously collapses with a broken hip, like my mother?

But I’m going to make it through. I treasure my agility, honed by years of slipping on ice in ski country.

Only I don’t.

I fall squarely on my ass, and then bounce a step or two.

Meanwhile, I’ve got Caffeine Free Diet Coke all over me.

And I exclaimed. Utilized profanity. But no one was in the condo to hear me, to run to my aid. If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one there to hear it does it make a sound?

ABSOLUTELY!

I’ve broken a few bones. And the worst thing is you know it’s happened. Even though each time the accident was not especially traumatic. Falling from ten feet in the air onto the ski slope when my binding pre-released during a jump and landing with one foot in the snow and twisting and turning and there was very little pain, but I knew my leg was broken. Or when that volleyball hit me square on the tip of my index finger, cracking it. Or when that hood in gym tripped me playing soccer and I went down and the bone in my hand popped right up. The orthopedist just snapped it back into place. Excruciating pain, but it only lasted a minute.

And the worst thing about getting older is you know the worst is yet to come. I was pretty convinced I’d broken no bones. But swelling isn’t instant, pain is delayed, and you wonder just how bad it’s going to get. Which may be why I now travel with a cornucopia of pills, I want to be ready for every occasion.

And the occasion is Ginny’s 90th birthday. This is not about me.

So the first thing I thought necessary was to clean up the mess. I wanted to make like it didn’t happen.

But after mopping up the liquid with a towel, the pain started to kick in and I went back upstairs to lay down, holding on to the railing all the while.

And I picked up my phone and started Googling.

Turned out it was my coccyx. It’s not an uncommon injury. But was it fractured or just bruised?

I decided to test it. That’s part of my OCD, my fear, my desire to head off the worst possible outcome.

I sat down and I felt movement, but was that bones moving or a soft seat?

Right now I’m sitting in a soft seat, on top of an inflatable donut.

But first came the most important query, should I go to see a doctor?

That’s illegal in my house. As illegal as it is to write all this. We’re supposed to have stiff upper lips, we’re supposed to suck it up. I’m the kind of guy who’ll die of a heart attack at home, debating if it’s real. But there’s another part of me that is paranoid and wants a physician attending to me 24/7.

But when my brain cleared just a bit, I was in shock, I remembered that ice is the first line of defense, the key is to keep the swelling down.

And most Googling told me not to go to the emergency room.

But most said to go to the doctor. But I’m out of town. And there’s the issue of insurance reimbursement, they always look not to pay, and paramount is the potential embarrassment, you came to the emergency room for THIS?

I texted my physical therapist and she said to ice and swallow NSAIDs. But I’ve reduced the amount of NSAIDs I imbibe, and I’m gonna run out of the prescription ones.

And then Felice returned and I guiltily told her my story.

That’s me, guilt personified. And full of shame too. For the number one response I’m going to get to this screed is WHO CARES!

I always wonder about these people, are they really that together or are their lives so painful that if they see anyone else suffering and complaining they clamp right down upon them.

Finally I decided to e-mail my doctor. Who said x-rays wouldn’t definitively declare a fracture, that you needed an MRI, and that the treatment for a fracture and a bruise is the same, ice, rest and NSAIDs, so…

I’m not really that bad right now.

Well, that’s not true. I am sitting on a donut. Getting myself up from the prone position is difficult.

But I’ll be fine eventually. In a couple of days? A couple of weeks? What will I have to sacrifice in the interim? I don’t want to sacrifice anything, I want to voraciously consume life.

But the older you get, the longer it takes to heal, to recover.

And the older you get…do we all just experience further pain and then succumb?

So I alternately want to live in denial and crawl up in a ball and ask for sympathy.

Although I rarely ask. I want you to read the signals. I’m speaking in code. For fear that someone will excoriate me.

The shame runs deep.

LAUGH, LAUGH

Some songs emanate from the speaker and stop you in your tracks, vacate all other thoughts and have you asking WHAT’S THAT?

Like “Laugh, Laugh.”

You’ve got to know, by time we reached the end of ’64 an entire generation was addicted to the radio. It’s kind of like today, but instead of a transistor now it’s a smartphone. And a transistor only did one thing, play radio, and we only listened to music.

Sure, “Laugh, Laugh” was reminiscent of the English sound, but it would have been a hit in any era, like “Walk Away Renee” it’s forever, because of the haunting sound…

From the initial notes you were enraptured, as if you were descending into a subterranean spot where all truth would be revealed.

I hate to say it but I told you so
Don’t mind my preaching to you

This was not our parents, but our contemporaries, downloading truth. Instead of bristling, we leaned in closer.

I said don’t trust him baby, now you know
You don’t learn everything there is to know in school

We were becoming adults. This was the beginning of the schism, the youthquake, the separation of children from their parents. Sure, the Beau Brummels were in their twenties, but kids were listening to them, getting their truth from musicians. Unlike today, parents were not their children’s best friends, and soon they would become the enemy.

Wouldn’t believe me when I gave advice
I said that he was a tease

Whew! I was eleven. I’d just had my first girlfriend. I was just learning not only the mechanics, but the nuances of dating, of the opposite sex. How people could seem to want something, but not really.

Laugh, laugh, I thought I’d die
It seemed so funny to me
Laugh, laugh, you met a guy
Who taught you how it feels to be
Lonely, oh so lonely

Creepy. He’s laughing at someone who misread the situation. But the end result is even worse. Loneliness. The scourge of humanity.

There’s a tonality in “Laugh, Laugh” that was absent from almost all records, except maybe some Beatles tracks, but here there was a sneer.

“Laugh, Laugh” fired on all cylinders. Not only was there the straight from the heart sincere vocal from seemingly the coolest guy on the planet, there was the sparse instrumentation, the guitar, drums and harmonica you could hear.

You just wanted to get closer. “Laugh, Laugh” was a three minute respite from hype, from radio normality. It was truth beaming right out of the speaker, straight into your heart and mind.

JUST A LITTLE

And shortly thereafter came this. Which wasn’t quite as good, but almost nothing could be.

“Just A Little” had a similar haunting sound, but this time the guy was involved. But now it was over. And he was crying. Just a little. But a little is a lot, when it comes to love.

And once again, there was a chorus so hooky, today’s music makers should be forced to listen for edification.

But really, what made “Just A Little” was the break. The acoustic guitar, with the electric response, every baby boomer knows it and can’t explain it, all they know is it brings them right back to the sixties, remembering victories and losses, when everything was still new, when they were discovering who they were, what they wanted, and were not yet formalized in what they’d become.

CONCLUSION

And then it was done. There was never another hit. It’s almost like the Beau Brummels didn’t exist, that they were a studio concoction like the Archies.

But that would be untrue. The Beau Brummels emerged from San Francisco in an era before the music press, before we knew almost anything about most of our heroes. We knew them more as cartoon characters, the Beau Brummelstones, on the “Flintstones,” than we did as their true personages.

Yes, we were still children, but we were becoming adults.

But the Beau Brummels were already grown up.

They were on legendary deejay Tom Donahue’s Autumn Records. And these cuts were produced by Sylvester Stewart, ultimately known as Sly Stone, before he had his hits. Yup, don’t decry the decline of Sly, he just had too much talent for one person to handle.

And when the group splintered Sal Valentino, the singer, formed Stoneground, which was hyped by Warner Brothers, was featured on its sampler albums, but ultimately had no impact.

And Ron Elliott, who wrote “Laugh, Laugh” and cowrote “Just A Little” with Bob Durand, had a behind the scenes career with Van Dyke Parks and others before releasing a solo record that almost instantly disappeared.

So all we’re left with is the records.

Sure, there were albums, but in 1964, they were almost irrelevant. It was about the singles. It wasn’t until the Beatles started testing limits with “Rubber Soul,” “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper” that the album was seen as a statement, more than a collection of singles and filler.

But these two singles were paramount. Youngsters might be unaware, but we oldsters know every note. We believed there would be more, we still want more.

The Beau Brummelstones – Laugh Laugh

Rhinofy-Beau Brummels Primer