They clean the bathrooms.

In America it’s once and done. By time you hit 10:30 AM, by time you’ve hit intermission, the loo is overflowing and you enter gingerly, only if you truly must do your business. But in Bogota, they’ve cleaned it multiple times already.

That’s just one of the differences.

There’s also no bloviating. That’s what you’ve got at the rest of the conferences, bloviating and wannabes. No issue of any importance has every been solved at a conference. Because the big people don’t go and when they do, they only speak in platitudes, big issues are worked out behind closed doors.

But in Bogota it’s different. There’s no bloviating (other than by me!) and the talent is—positively first class.

Yup, I travel to another town where a hundred (a thousand!) bands have flown in for a chance at stardom. They flier the crowd and end up performing their substandard music to few, bitching about the system all along. But at BOMM, the Bogota Music Market, the showcases are during the day, there are almost no panels, and all the talent has you stroking your chin saying—wait a minute, this is good!

Although I must admit, the material hasn’t always been A+. That’s what you need, especially to break out of your home market into a foreign land. Undeniable material. And if you want to succeed in your own country, you can deliver no less than an A. In other words, you’ve got to be in the top track in your high school and you’ve got to get into an Ivy League college and still that’s no guarantee.

In other words, if you’re one of those slackers not fully applying yourself, making fun of the strivers, the joke’s on you. Because in music, it’s the strivers who make it. Not those who talk about their music, but those who do it.

Furthermore, BOMM is FREE! Imagine that, a conference that’s not about lining the pockets of the producers. Oh, we’ve all got to eat, but BOMM is sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, trying to spread the word. Hell, everybody but the U.S. has governmental support. That’s how all these bands fly in from everywhere, they got government money! Not that I’m lobbying for more government support for the arts in the U.S., unfortunately it ends up going to the niche players as opposed to those truly on a rocket to stardom, those who know how to work the government game are usually best at that and not so good at popularity, and that’s the real game.

Did you read the “New York Times Magazine” article on popularity?

What It Means to Be Popular (When Everything Is Popular)

A bunch of sour grapes but they got one thing right, popularity ain’t what it used to be. You can be king of your world and the rest of the population can be clueless as to who you even are, never mind what your music sounds like.

But I did hear one band I liked. Diamente Electrico. I was standing in the hall and through the door I heard a sound—

Is your music that good? That I get it and want to hear more of it muffled through a wall? That’s how good you’ve got to be!

Diamente Electrico is a three piece that sounds like a cross between Green Day and Muse, with a bit of Zeppelin thrown in. They could make it in America. If they played on the festival circuit they’d get traction. That’s what you want to do now, play the festivals, where people haven’t paid to see you specifically, where they’re grazing and stumble upon you. The truly great and developed can go it alone. Everybody else needs the springboard of the festival.

Speaking of festivals, can you believe death and drugs are gonna kill electronic music festivals? Just when the big boys got in. Maybe they should have stayed out. But remember, after Woodstock every festival tanked. Because nobody wanted all those hippies in their backyard. It was only recently that communities could see the financial benefit. And I know people die at Bonnaroo too, but this is a serious problem and I’m not sure of the solution. Playing to the government is usually death. Remember the PMRC? But going independent is hard. Maybe EDM has to go small again before it can truly be big. The odds of death are fewer the smaller the crowd. Maybe the paradigm can’t be festivals until we’ve got more traction in the U.S. Meanwhile, EDM festivals are still flourishing in Europe.

And they asked me about EDM in Bogota.

Sure, everybody’s trying to get ahead here too. But everybody’s so nice. And I saw bands with nine or ten players, nobody would do that in the U.S., they’d ask where the money is! They don’t want to split it that many ways! But if you make it about the music first, then maybe you’ve got a chance.

And speaking of big bands, did you see Larry David’s movie on HBO? What a mistake! Proving that it’s not about the one big hit, but the continuous series. Your album can sink like a stone, keep putting out singles. Multiple episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is much better for keeping your name in the public eye than one movie I can’t remember the name of. You don’t want to make a big splash, you want to sustain. And if you do, you might get a “Palestinian Chicken,” there were no hooks in that Larry David movie other than the girlfriends blowing the members of Chicago.

So I’m hanging at the venue all day. Everybody wants a picture. Instagram is the new autograph. It’s about sharing your experience with your friends, not hoarding your possessions at home.

And I’m still loving Bogota. But you’re lucky if you live in the U.S. Because of the REGULATIONS!

That’s right. Don’t listen to the Republicans saying we’ve got to get rid of them to drive business, that’s complete hogwash. Because you know who gets screwed? YOU! Or your relative. I’m walking to dinner last night and there was a sudden longitudinal curb, created by a restaurant, and I fell off and I twisted my ankle and I’ll survive but I haven’t done it this bad in years. Wouldn’t ever happen in the U.S. Because of regulations. And if someone screwed up, you’d sue. Not for personal gain, but to make sure businesses do the right thing! That’s the essence of tort law. But the Republican blowhards keep trumpeting occasional big liability awards to get the public agitated to prevent them. Hell, corporations gutted whistleblower laws, and now we’ve got Snowden and the NSA. Come on, they put fingerprint recognition in the new iPhone and everyone’s complaining online about security, even though Apple says no data will be stored on their servers. Everyone’s paranoid, everyone’s worried about privacy. And that’s a good thing. Credit Snowden.

As for Apple, I just don’t get it. The iPhone 5C costs almost as much as a 5S! The difference is only a hundred dollars! They haven’t learned their own lesson, which in tech means you want to dominate. You don’t want a share of the market, but all of it. Sell a phone cheap for the advantages of owning the ecosystem, what you can sell in the future. Jobs could see this, the new players cannot.

And speaking of phones, I was speaking with a TV star here in Bogota. You know what kind of phone she uses? A SAMSUNG! Why? Because they gave it to her! They even tried to convert me. The only promise they wanted to extract was I give up my iPhone. Which I won’t do. Then again, Samsung never had an original idea in its life. Can you believe they introduced a phone just because Apple registered the term “iWatch”??

So I know I’m rambling.

But it’s because I’m stimulated. Just when you think you don’t care about music anymore, it sneaks back up on you. Because of its power, because of the community of people who make it.

Music is the most powerful medium on earth. And we’ve run it through the gutter ever since the advent of MTV. We’ve whored it out and abused it. Thank god it won’t die, but not until we respect it and realize we’re not on the same side as the Fortune 500 will it become the dominant art form once again.

Proof in point. They pick me up at the hotel and Wendy’s in the front seat humming a song.

I ask her what it is?

Amy Winehouse!

A dead musician. Who’ll never make another record. And she wasn’t humming “Rehab,” but an album track. Whatever Obama said last night will be forgotten, but great music lives on FOREVER!

I love it here!

I think it’s the weather. Live in Los Angeles long enough and you forget those New England fall days. When the sun isn’t so bright and there’s just a hint of crispness in the air and even though the world is dying, you feel so alive.

Funny to be reminded of seasons in a place where there are none. But when the sun starts to fade in the middle of the afternoon I get that feeling I do when I listen to my favorite records, when it’s just me, enveloped in the sound, looking at the liner notes or staring out the window. The cold weather makes everybody a better conversationalist. It’s as if talking keeps you warm.

And the Colombians know how to talk.

Everybody’s so friendly! The U.S. is about airs. About your place in the firmament. You wear your status on your sleeve. But everybody I’ve interacted with is…eager to do just that. Interact! Talk! Tell their story! Hear yours!

And I’ve heard some doozies.

But before I get started I do want to say that income inequality is rampant in Bogota, just like in the United States. But unlike in the U.S., the poor people live in the hills, not the rich. Oh, the rich are on some of the mountaintops encircling the city, but just below them are…well not exactly shanties, but just by looking at these habitats you know they’re not upscale. You see the poor people build on the fringe, on the hills, they squat, and eventually their domiciles are legalized.

Bogota is like L.A. Or Berlin. Essentially flat and endless. Getting from one end to the other is hell. There is no subway, I saw only one train. There are these mini-buses, seemingly always full, that dart around, but Wendy said she hadn’t ridden in one and never would.

Because she was afraid.

And Fernan’s Nissan is armored. Cost him 30k on top of the 60k for the Xterra to begin with. Everything’s cheap here but the cars. Well, if it’s imported, it’s probably expensive. If it’s homegrown, the prices can seem absurdly low to a gringo.

Like lunch. An exclusive place in the business district. Well, the old business district, about thirty years ago the whole city moved north, this is close to downtown. There was no sign on the door. You had to step over the transom. The door to the bathroom was…like the door to a stall. But the tablecloths were white and the fusion food was exquisite and in L.A. the meal for the three of us would have been about $240, eighty dollars apiece. But here it was $90.

And last night at Andres, for three once again, it was even cheaper!

Andres… On one hand you think it’s a tourist trap. Kind of like the Great American Food and Beverage Company, if you’ve lived in L.A. that long. Singing waiters. Well, kinda. But it turns out to be one of the best restaurants in Bogota! The original, outside of town, is the most famous, where people dance on the tables. But this one, not far from my hotel, has four levels. And there are roving musicians. And the food to a gringo is like Mexican, but not really. There were these tiny little pork ribs. And empanadas. And this pie-like concoction that seemed to be filled with potato latkes and meat, you dipped it in sour cream, and I could not stop eating it. And then they served steak on a plate so hot it continued to cook, and it was scrumptious! As for dessert, it was cheese in this maple syrup type sauce and to say it was delicious is an understatement. And, there’s a roving band, and of course they said it was my birthday, so they put a sash and a crown upon me and this woman in a cat suit sang to me and normally I’m too embarrassed to endure fake birthdays, but this was hilarious.

And all through dinner Fernan was regaling me with his stories. Of working with Julio Iglesias. Julio’s hilarious. Narcissistic as hell, he knows what it takes to be successful, what side to be photographed from, how to arrive late and leave early from a party (Julio has always got to be somewhere!), how to make sure people don’t see his deficiencies. It was a book, a sitcom, a movie, the stories were endless. And Fernan managed Julio’s son, Enrique. And then Juanes. He was turned off by the tattoos, but once Fernan’s wife wanted one, he was hipped to the new reality.

And Fernan’s promoting Beyonce in a stadium in Medellin, and he did Paul McCartney, who brought his buddy up on stage to protest bull fighting, which has now been banned, but Fernan took me to the bullring anyway, which was ancient and impressive. And having started out as a journalist, Fernan’s a man of ideas. He’s always thinking. Of angles. No one makes it without a good manager. And I could see he is one.

And we went downtown to see the President’s Palace and… There were a ton of police and areas were roped off because of last week’s protests, all the roads were closed then. Those in agriculture are angry. Because of fair trade with America, the bottom is falling out of prices. They’re beyond pissed. Americans are shipping the parts of chickens people won’t eat, everything but the breast, and chicken prices have crashed. It’s a quagmire.

And the mayor is an old guerilla. He just passed an ordinance wherein if you build a high rise, which was previously forbidden, you have to dedicate 30% of the floor space to the poor, or pay a 30% tax to fund housing for the poor. He went over the city council’s head. To employ a pun, it’s still up in the air.

But Colombia’s economy is humming, with oil and other natural resources. America loves it, since so many South American countries lean further left. And the Americans helped halt the drug war, but the drug trade won’t be stopped until there’s legalization, the farmers can’t say no to the amount of money they’re paid to grow cocaine.

And speaking of crime, Wendy’s father, Rafael Orozco, the famous vallenato singer, was gunned down by the Mafia two decades ago. He was stepping out on her mother with a girlfriend who was also dating a Mafia member and… They just made a TV movie about it, got the highest ratings of the year. Fernan’s client was the star. Oh, he’s got about fourteen actors and actresses and he represents the striker for the Colombian football/soccer team which is playing for a World Cup berth right now!

The city’s insane! There are big screens in the park! Everybody’s in yellow jerseys! It’s as if the Yankees were playing Manchester United… Everyone’s so excited, if they win there will be pandemonium!

We were just walking through the streets, it was palpable.

The vibe. That’s what Bogota’s about, the vibe. There’s a sense of life. And lifestyle. Everybody in the U.S. is so busy trying to get ahead that they don’t know how to relax.

Then again, Fernan never does. He’s worried about the price of potatoes, grown on his farm in the mountains outside of town!

But he only lives in Colombia one week out of every four. The rest of the time he’s in Miami, where seemingly every Colombian has a relative, it’s almost a suburb.

And I feel like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole into a world I was aware of but never fully understood.

And feeling emboldened I’m gonna stride out of the hotel in search of supper. Wish me luck!

My “birthday” at Andres pic.twitter.com/r9Ga1hX6iB

— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) September 11, 2013

 

Bogota from Monserrate pic.twitter.com/DSpAxxp0DZ
— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) September 11, 2013

 

The Presidential Palace pic.twitter.com/CjWMt1dY1R

— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) September 11, 2013

 

The bullring. pic.twitter.com/lpRhTMSpKA
— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) September 11, 2013

 

 Dinner

Lunch

 

Should I be afraid?

Here’s my deal. Pay my rate, fly me in the front of the plane, and I’ll pretty much go anywhere. Because life is short and I want to experience it all. Sure, you can sit at home and go anywhere and everywhere on the Net, but it’s not like being there. Travel makes you feel so alive, so invigorated.

It’s the little things.

So I’m in the airport in El Salvador. And they have twist knobs in the sinks. Those disappeared long ago in America, with the side vent windows in automobiles. Not that El Salvador is backward, anything but. But it’s different.

That’s where I stopped first. It was so green! That’s what everybody always says about New England. I shrugged my shoulders. But having lived in L.A. for so long when it’s lush you notice. And the volcano… We’ve got nothing like this in the U.S. Completely flat land and then a sno-cone of a peak jutting up thousands of feet in the air.

That was my connection. I originally planned to go through Miami. On American. That’s my airline of choice, that’s where I’ve got my points and my status.

But… The times were wrong. I had to leave at 5:55 AM. Which for me means I’ve got to stay up all night. And I was willing to leave at 8, but I’d only have fifty minutes to make my connection. Which you don’t want to miss, there aren’t that many flights.

Or I could leave at 9 and connect on Avianca an hour and a half later. But would that actually be worse? Changing airlines? And it cost $800 more.

Oh, what do you think it costs to fly business class to Bogota?

NINE HUNDRED AND SIXTY EIGHT DOLLARS!

I’m checking Orbitz again and again, there must be a mistake.

But then Camilo in Bogota suggests TACA, it leaves when I want it to.

Come on, I’m not flying on TACA airlines! Didn’t that Korean jet just crash in San Francisco? Isn’t El Salvador’s airport the one Gladwell mentioned in his book, where the foreign pilots kept crashing?

But by going through El Salvador, I saved 2-3 hours.

That I’m in for.

So I left yesterday and the plane was brand new and there were only three rows in business class and I can’t say there was a ton of legroom. And it was a tiny jet from El Salvador to Bogota. But I made it, on time! Except it appeared my bag hadn’t arrived. Turns out someone took it off the baggage carousel. But a woman in the airport helped me. Not the man with the dog sniffing for drugs.

Or was it explosives?

Saw that this afternoon. The cop with the dog in a jacket that said “explosivas,” or something like that.

And I had to scan my bags on the way OUT of the airport, that’s never happened to me before…

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, business class via TACA, the national airline of San Salvador, recently sold to Avianca, was $1385. Your money goes a long way down here. But will you come back?

I’m not a paranoid kind of guy. I spent time in New York in the sixties and seventies. There are places you don’t go, you watch your wallet and your p’s and q’s.

But if you research going to Bogota online you won’t. I’d already committed, I was just looking up hotels. And I was horrified.

Then people started to e-mail me. To be afraid, very afraid.

And then I got scared.

Oh, the hotel is wonderful, the Charleston. They say it’s located near the Melrose of Bogota.

But looking outside…

Funny thing, Bogota doesn’t look like Russia, but it doesn’t look wholly first class either. Oh, the old buildings are precious. And there are some high quality steel and glass ones. But in the middle, there’s this low level sketchiness and the sidewalks are rarely flat and you know you’re not in Los Angeles but you’re not quite sure where you are.

I was stunned that it got light at 6 AM.

But it turns out it gets dark at 6 PM.

Bogota is two degrees from the equator.

And it’s at 8,650 feet. Thank god I acclimated in Colorado two weeks before I came.

And I’d like to tell you exactly why it’s here, but we Americans know nothing about countries outside our borders. We’re just sold the notion that we’re the best and that’s it. And we may vacation in Mexico, at least before the drug war, but really we look first to Europe, not South America.

And there are huge mountains here. Not that I could see many today, the clouds obscured them. You know, the black ones, that portend rain.

So first thing I did an interview with “El Tiempo,” the big newspaper. And what’s funny is the issues are the same wherever you go, radio payola and getting noticed and paid. And I never realize how much I care about these topics until you get me talking about them. Because they’re a microcosm of life. What path do I take? How do I navigate the twists and turns?

Speaking of which, I spent all afternoon with Andrew Loog Oldham, of Rolling Stones fame. We went to a restaurant with a glass ceiling and ate soft cheese and this spinach souffle/tart that was absolutely scrumptious as he regaled me with tales of both yesteryear and today.

You see to make it in the music business back then, you needed pluck. It wasn’t about education, it was about keeping your eyes open and seizing opportunities. Yes, music business people are hustlers. As are the techies. That’s what Steve Jobs was, an incredible hustler…and hypester too. And what Apple made has sometimes been art, but true art is different, at least music is. It’s collaborative, it touches souls and money never comes first, because it gets in the way of making it.

So I’d like to tell you I’ve got a feel for Bogota. But I haven’t quite nailed it yet. Fernan Martinez, who flew me down here, to speak at a conference, who used to manage Juanes and worked with Julio Iglesias and is also a concert promoter, is gonna come by for a drink soon.

And I want to go to the police museum. You won’t find it on the first page of TripAdvisor. Andrew hadn’t even heard of it. But it was number one on the Lonely Planet. With all the drug war stuff, they said it was fantastic.

And I want to hit the tourist haunts, the museums and the government buildings, and normally I’d just walk or take a taxi…but that’s one thing they tell you to never do, hail a taxi from the street. Andrew says I want a car with me at all times, that it’s only fifty dollars a day.

Fifty isn’t much to save your life. But is that enough, to get a driver, if I’m out there alone?

Everybody in Bogota says it’s totally safe.

And then one block from the hotel a guy accosted us and wouldn’t let go. Andrew kept blowing him off, he turned to me and asked me if I was an American…

I’m wearing a baseball cap that says “Mammoth Mountain California.” My skin is pink in a land of brown. Am I a target?

College is lonely.

At least in the beginning. Especially if you go to a sanctuary far from home, having thrown away all your friends to start over.

Oh, I know it doesn’t work that way anymore. I once met a girl on a train. From New York to Boston. We exchanged a few letters thereafter, even spoke on the phone. And then she receded into the veritable darkness of my past. But what they don’t tell you is you never ever forget them. And just yesterday I found her on Facebook. Oh, I’m not gonna contact her. I’m sure I can cajole her memory, remind her of who I once was. But that’s not the point, the point is the global village is so small right now that you never lose touch with anybody you ever knew. Remember ten or fifteen years ago when you were thrilled to find a long lost friend online? Now, it doesn’t even merit a shrug. But seeing their picture all these years later can truly creep you out.

So really, going to college is very similar to what Benjamin felt in “The Graduate,” i.e. lost. You know how you got here, but once you’re there you’re not quite sure what to do. Some people reinvent themselves. Change their look or their name, trying to cast away all the denigration of high school. But really, it’s tough enough trying to integrate with a whole new group of people, having known everybody else for the better part of twenty years.

And the weirdest thing about going to college is your initial friends don’t last. You go to dinner, exchange histories, and then one day realize you don’t really have that much in common, you’ve got a different perspective on studying. It’s painful, but you drift away, after you’ve found your new buddies, by accident, when you weren’t so desperate to make friends that anybody with a warm smile who gave good conversation was part of your new crew.

But you bring your old sensibilities along. And in my case, it was my records.

And I can tell you that the first two albums I bought in college were Free’s “Fire and Water” and Neil Young’s “After The Gold Rush.” That I ran down to the Vermont Book Shop to purchase “Led Zeppelin III” only to be disappointed. My mother mailed me Joe Cocker’s second and the Band’s third, but the records I remember most are those I listened to during January term. When you take only one course, go skiing every day and get high every night.

Included in that January 1971 mass was “Gasoline Alley.” Which has been forgotten as Rod Stewart tries to maintain a recording career, singing standards for old fogeys. But it was an earthy masterpiece that sounded like nothing else. And then, of course, there were the first two Elton John albums. I could listen to “Take Me To The Pilot” and “Where To Now St. Peter?” 24/7, and mostly did, on headphones, as my roommate tried to sleep. But there was one other album I’d purchased during Christmas vacation that was completely different from the rest, my first by this artist ever, and that was Bob Dylan’s “New Morning.” You’ve got no idea how bright and chipper you feel dropping the needle on the title track in zero degree weather, it gets you going.

And I bought “New Morning” because the reviews were so good. And at this point, having gone back and bought all the rest before he played his triumphant return gigs at Madison Square Garden with the Band, I can state definitively that my favorite is “Bringing It All Back Home.” And I might even say the best is “Blood On The Tracks.” But the one that’s paramount in my brain, because it was the first, is “New Morning.”

And my favorite cut is “Sign On The Window,” because of the wisdom.

Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me ‘Pa’
That must be what it’s all about
That must be what it’s all about

Oh, how true that is. Took me decades to learn it. Didn’t believe it at first. But the greats are always one step ahead of us.

But with the album just before “New Morning,” collective wisdom was that Bob Dylan was one step behind us. That’s what usually happens, beacons fade out. Artists lose their way. With cover songs and other detritus, the excoriation of “Self Portrait” was so great that Dylan put out “New Morning” in a matter of months. And just the other week, Columbia put out a new iteration. Of outtakes and demos and…I’d like to tell you you need to own it. But you don’t.

But you do need to hear “Went To See The Gypsy.” The original demo.

In its previously released incarnation, sandwiched in the middle of side one of “New Morning, “Went To See The Gypsy” was intimate, it resonated. But it’s nothing like the demo. The demo is haunting.

What separates the greats from the poseurs is the delivery. The greats have an identity, they’re comfortable with themselves. Think about comedians, it’s rarely about the joke, it’s almost always how it’s told. They say that songs are everything. And that’s true. But they only become hits when recorded properly. And a great producer can whip anybody into a star by sprinkling his fairy dust upon them. But when the truth emanates from the artist himself it’s eerie and magical and we’re drawn right to it, because it represents life.

The track has almost nothing on it. Just Dylan, his guitar and a lead. But the way Dylan strums, at just a certain time, punctuates the song. He sings the lyrics, and then he plays some chords and he demonstrates it’s not about how fast you play, or how studied your technique, but what you do with the chops you’ve got.

We’re drawn to authenticity.

If you read about college, it’s all fun and games. Farts and frats. Nobody studies, everybody gets laid and the rest of us should feel envious. But if you think that’s how it is, you never went. There’s the stress of class. The stress of cash. Whether you borrowed the money or your parents paid. And the knowledge that as every day progresses doors are closing, time is passing, opportunities are evaporating. It’s in college that you learn you can’t do everything. And when you graduate, you suddenly find no one’s breathing down your neck anymore, no one even cares what you do, you’re on your own.

And I wish I had a bunch of advice for you. But the truth is you’ve got to find your own way. Anybody who says they’ve got answers doesn’t realize life is about experience.

And it’s the experience we hear in Dylan’s vocal. He’s been somewhere and done something.

You hope to do the same.

Went To See The Gypsy – Spotify