What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where a 66 year old ex-President trumps the younger generation in buzz?

One in which one person knows it’s about ideas, and the other thinks it’s about money.

I didn’t watch either. I’ve got the VMAs on my DVR just in case. As for the election, my vote doesn’t count. I live in California. Yup, the election only comes down to a handful of contested states. And the parties are fighting over money and truth and our country has gone in such a bad direction that I can’t pay attention. I’ve got no kids, I’m not that worried about the future, I’ve given up.

Kids. The millennials.

My brother Roy Trakin posts a blog on hitsdailydouble.com every week. It’s a bunch of ass-kissing until the very end, when he has his “Gripe Of The Week.” It’s one of the highlights of my Thursdays, when just before midnight my phone buzzes and I get to read what Trakin has to complain about. I identify. But for the past couple of weeks, he’s turned his Gripe over to his daughter, a recent college graduate. This week she complained that she failed a job interview because she wasn’t given the questions in advance. Huh? Is that the generation we’re raising?

Yes, it is.

A generation that calls its mommy and daddy twelve times a day, to ask how to drive from here to there, how to run the washing machine. And instead of imploring their kids to figure it out on their own, these parents tear a new tucas to anybody who gets in their way. I can’t imagine my parents calling the college administration to complain. But that’s what baby boomers do today.

And today’s kids have been brought up in a nation so commercial, so absent of values, that they believe money trumps ideas, that if you’re rich your life works, that if I’ve got mine, who cares about you.

I cared about the future. Until the reporters became fans of the politicians. Before CEOs believed they were beholden to shareholders instead of workers, and should profit at the latter’s expense. And I’m not saying everybody’s bad, I’m just wondering when we’re gonna have a correction factor, based on truth, based on values, based on all being in it together.

Whatever MTV was it no longer is. The “M” doesn’t stand for music and it’s run by bottom-feeding ignoramuses made in the mold of the corporate titans who run their business, Sumner Redstone and Philippe Dauman, who overcompensate themselves and add commercials to Nickelodeon when they can’t figure out a way to sustain ratings and make money.

Once upon a time, the train-wreck value at the VMAs was secondary to the music. But that’s back when music still counted, when it drove the culture, before Apple, a corporation, became more revered than anybody playing an instrument.

Music used to be about cutting edge ideas, about truth. Now, we get Taylor Swift crowdsurfing, as if that’s a brand new idea, we get Rihanna kissing Chris Brown, and if you know about either of these “highlights” of the VMAs, you’re either under twenty years old or in this business.

The ratings were halved. And I’m not saying the ratings for the Democratic National Convention were stratospheric, but that’s all anybody’s talking about, Bill Clinton’s speech.

I was getting e-mail during it. I got a phone call from my mother about it. Even right wing pundits gave him credit. Last night on Bill Maher everybody was in awe, of someone who slayed the Republicans using arithmetic.

I just watched Clinton’s speech. The buzz became too deafening, I had to see what everybody was talking about, I wanted to become a member of the club.

Remember this process? It’s how we used to break music, how we used to get people to listen to the radio, buy records and purchase concert tickets. Because they needed to belong!

Hell, you can’t even belong in the music business anymore, and no one wants to. The acts can’t stop saying they’re being ripped off and you can’t get a good ticket to the show because someone richer has gobbled up the best and furthermore, the best were never available to you at any price, maybe you can overpay a broker to get inside.

Musicians are all about greed. They don’t want to stop the war, rail against injustice, they just want the corporation to line their pocket. Do you think this is appealing to their theoretical fans, who truly support them?

Without fans you’re nothing.

And it appears that despite the impeachment, despite the bashing, Bill Clinton’s got tons.

It’s never too late to triumph. If you double down on what made you successful and deliver like only you can.

Bill Clinton was so good, he blew Obama and Romney away. You could listen to him, your mind didn’t wander, he made sense. In a nation that’s full of nonsense. Not only cut taxes and the budget will balance, but overpay CEOs and it will help corporations. It’s like the USA is in the depths of a fire sale, with the rich raping and pillaging and the poor afraid the security camera will put them in jail. Yup, bankers don’t go to prison, but dopers do.

Clinton had a great act. He knew it was about a show. Not about him, but the audience. He held people in his hand. He manipulated them. He made them laugh, he made them cry. You know who also does this? Prince! That’s why he can go on his endless victory lap tour, people saw him on the Super Bowl and were wowed.

And Clinton talked about working together, left and right. When do you ever hear about acts working with their fans, successful acts, acts that can make a difference? Oh, they pay lip service, but they fly private, stay in hotels under assumed names, do their best to put a huge gulf between them and those keeping them in business, all in the name of profits.

Hell, wanna know how politics is just like the music business? Acts refuse to deny the fiction that Ticketmaster is responsible for fees. So there can be no solution. Until acts are blamed for the fees, we can make no progress.

But you can’t say anything negative about an act. Because the public won’t allow it. The public’s too dumb to see the truth.

And it might be because no one can explain it to them. Everybody’s got an underlying agenda. If you think TV talking heads are about the truth, you’ve got no idea how they’re getting paid and how much.

Bill Clinton demonstrated it was important to be smart, it was important to be educated and that you run on your record. Sure, you might have had a couple of stiffs, some miscues, but if you can’t own your past, you’re nowhere.

I don’t care whether you’re left or right. But it can’t be denied that Bill Clinton owned the discussion this week. He dominated public discourse. And the music industry’s number one vehicle fell flat, faded away and didn’t radiate.

Everyone thinks it’s about exposure.

No, it’s what you do when you get the spotlight, where it happens, whether you can create virality.

The history of recorded music is sitting online. How do you get people to pay attention, check you out and spread the word? By being talented, by having something to say, by standing for something.

Don’t worry about the people you’re alienating, but the people you’re saving. If you’re putting the money first, you’re doing it wrong. Bill Clinton is a sexagenarian, he’s still in his prime. You want to peak before you’re twenty, everything you say is stupid and fades away. Kinda like Justin Bieber, who thinks Michelangelo painted the “Sixteenth Chapel.” Role model? Idiot!

Bill Clinton’s speech (video halfway down the page)

“President Obama killed the VMA’s”

“Trakin Care Of Business” (10. Tara’s Gripe Of The Week)

“David Letterman Rips Justin Bieber for Ignorant Remark”

From: Richard Tafoya
Re: Carrots, Peppers & Onions

Burrito King is still alive on the east side. The governor just made
the pilgrimage for the beloved machaca burrito.

Gov. Brown takes an Echo Park burrito break

______

Warren Zevon goes to Burrito King

“In Los Angeles, the Burrito Sometimes Bites Back”

“What does Echo Park’s Citibank building have to do with Warren Zevon and Burrito King?”

 

And while I’ve got your attention…

Re: Carrots, Peppers & Onions

While I was in LA during the recording of “End Of The Century” with the Ramones and Phil Spector in May and June of ’79, Los Tacos was a mandatory nightly stop.

It was Johnny’s favorite joint in LA…

We recored at the legendary Gold Star Studio… an amazing time !

cheers ….

Ed Stasium

 

Lucy’s El Adobe :

If only this was on Warner Brothers… Then Emitt Rhodes’s Dunhill debut would have been considered a masterpiece, he’d be part of the firmament instead of living in the South Bay broke and disillusioned.

But that’s the music business…the game is hard, even if you play to win, oftentimes you lose.

Sure, there were hits on Dunhill Records. Like Barry McGuire and the Mamas & the Papas… But the company could not make the transition to the album era, when singles were secondary and airplay on FM was all that mattered.

Furthermore, “Emitt Rhodes” was released before the age of irony, before people admitted they loved the Carpenters, before Axl Rose professed his love of Elton John. In 1971, Jethro Tull was taken seriously. Yes was breaking through. Music was heady and deep, whereas “Emitt Rhodes” was all sunny and bright, it skipped off the atmosphere, only a few people got it, but those who did…

“With My Face On The Floor”

A riff that’s instantly memorable, that’s only secondary to Emitt’s pure voice… “With My Face On The Floor” has everything Paul McCartney was selling, but at the time it wasn’t different enough to be given props, even though this album is better than most of Paul’s solo stuff. It’s got the changes of the Beatles’ music, the harmonies… What’s not to like? NOTHING!

“Somebody Made For Me”

Kind of like “Dear Prudence” follows “Back In The U.S.S.R.” on the White Album, “Somebody Made For Me” is a bit slower, a bit quieter than “With My Face On The Floor,” albeit without the haunting quality of “Dear Prudence”… Still, who doesn’t dream of someone made for them? And there’s even a bridge… Emitt studied, he knew what worked, you tell a kid about including a bridge today and they think it’s got something to do with that Led Zeppelin song…

“She’s Such A Beauty”

It’s the keyboard that entrances. This sounds like a McCartney romp from the aforementioned White Album… An almost meaningless trifle which feels like the best spring morning, makes your problems fade away. And if you’re keeping score, and you should, this is three winners in a row! Even in the album era, this was rare, despite all the backward-looking rewriting of history.

“Long Time No See”

This has got that haunting feel. And the sounds are exquisite, from the cymbal to the guitar, still it’s Emitt’s vocal that truly puts the song over the top. This was my favorite track on the album, because it was not made for the radio, but just for me, the at home listener, in front of the stereo, needing to have my life saved by music.

“Lullabye”

“Martha My Dear”? “Blackbird”? “Rocky Raccoon”?
This is the kind of song McCartney used to throw off effortlessly that now eludes him. Paul’s now trying too hard, like with the originals on last year’s “Kisses On The Bottom” album. Whereas he used to write not worried about being self-conscious, just like this.

“Fresh As A Daisy”

The piece de resistance! The track that made a bit of a dent, the one we played to try to enchant newcomers.

But either you were on the Emitt Rhodes train or you were not. Even back then, the masses were prisoners of the radio, and if it wasn’t blasted over the airwaves, people didn’t trust themselves to like something.

It’s got the changes, the feel, and an anthemic quality!

You could do nothing but pick up the needle and drop it on the opening cut once again, to hear this masterpiece of a first side over and over again.

The second side is not quite as good…

But be sure to listen to “You Take The Dark Out Of The Night,” with the guitar right off of “Beatles VI.”

And “You Should Be Ashamed” has that same personal quality as “Long Time No See.”

But the absolute winner on the second side is the opening cut, “Live Till You Die.”

I have to say the things I feel
I have to feel the things I say

That’s it. That’s what being an artist is all about. A need to express yourself, honestly. It’s why I decry the made by committee music of today. Because the artists don’t feel the things they say. The late sixties and seventies were the apotheosis because the artists wrote and performed their own material, unfettered by labels. Yup, the label gave you the money, and then you just went off and did it your way. And success was such a big tent, there was little pressure to sound like everybody else, just to be good.

You must live till you die
You must fight to survive

And that’s much harder than you think. To not check out, to not either commit suicide or become an automaton in a boring job just to get by. Life is a fight. No matter how rich or poor you might be. And it used to be that music helped us in that fight. Sure, the sound empowered us, but the words ran shotgun, kept us company.

I bought “Emitt Rhodes” because of the reviews. I don’t do that anymore. Reviewing is no longer an art, but a way to fill up space in a publication. Or else it’s so comprehensive, covering so many releases, that your eyes glaze over.

But in the heyday of “Rolling Stone,” “Fusion” and “Crawdaddy,” the reviewers were searching for truth, we followed them like beacons. And sometimes we discovered stuff like this.

You know what it’s like to drop the needle on an album you’ve heard not a note of and become immediately enamored?

That’s what it was like with “Emitt Rhodes.”

Sure, he was in a band before, the Merry-Go-Round. But they never made it to the east coast.

And the similarity to McCartney and the lame label tarnished Emitt unfairly. As he moved forward, Emitt separated himself from Paul, on the follow-up, “Mirror,” Emitt was definitely his own man.

But it was too late.

Singer-songwriters were making quiet music, akin to folk. Anybody who rocked a bit harder, like the Eagles, was looking to Nashville instead of London, country influences rather than the British Invasion.

I remember getting “Emitt Rhodes” in a box of albums from the Record Club of America. I remember spinning it incessantly that April. Singing the songs in my head as the fraternity tried to get me to join as I drank their Boone’s Farm and ogled their girls, with no intention of signing up.

And all these years later, the album doesn’t sound dated, kind of like the Beatles’ music, it’s forever.

Check it out. You’ll love it!

P.S. Just like McCartney, Emitt Rhodes played all the instruments, engineered this album himself, producing with Harvey Bruce and assisted by mixdown engineers Keith Olsen and Curt Boettcher… Etched in the inner groove was “Recorded At Home”!

P.P.S. He was cute!

Rhinofy-Emitt Rhodes

Previous Rhinofy playlists

I’m gonna be in trouble tonight…

I had no idea what a burrito was. Never mind a taco. It was right there on the cover of “Burrito Deluxe,” studded with rhinestones, but I was still clueless.

Until I got to L.A.

First you go to Tito’s. Down on Washington Place. In Culver City. Where they keep the chips in garbage cans and you line up for food so cheap, so filling and very good…

Until you start experimenting and get a frame of reference.

There was a place back in the seventies. It’s gone now, called Burrito King. They had this concoction called the “Machaca Burrito.” With stringy beef and oozing sauce, it was delectable. Hell, that’s when I learned what a burrito truly was, the difference between corn and flour tortillas.

And Burrito King was a stand. Painted orange. Never in a good neighborhood. And after eating there I realized…don’t judge a Mexican place by its looks.

And there were detours to the Gardens of Taxco, where the waiters insisted on prix fixe and you felt ripped off.

And the legendary El Tepeyac, with its Manuel’s Special, literally big enough to feed two. On Evergreen Avenue, in the barrio.

And it was a seventies outing, going in search of the best Mexican food. You never went to Taco Bell, you didn’t want anything that institutionalized, with hamburger meat in the pre-made shell….

But back in the eighties, someone decided to go upscale. A restaurant called La Salsa popped up in a strip center at Pico and Sepulveda and eventually morphed into a chain. It wasn’t dirty and the salsa was plentiful and free.

The salsa…

That’s one thing you devoured, with the chips. You rarely could finish your main course, having devoured bowls of chips, which when done right, were oily and sticky and hot and delicious…like at El Compadre on Sunset. You just couldn’t stop.

But at La Salsa, there was a variety of salsas. A smorgasbord of salsas, not just the green and the red.

But then La Salsa was trumped by Baja Fresh. Yes, when La Salsa took its eye off the ball, was busy raking in the profits, a competitor emerged that was cleaner and healthier and… Emblazoned over the counter it states there are no freezers, can openers or microwaves…the food is truly fresh.

And so is the salsa.

That’s where I just had lunch.

Now as one visits Los Angeles Mexican restaurants, one starts to encounter this bowl… Especially at stands. There may not be any salsa displayed, but there’s a bowl of yellow peppers, which look like they’ve been there since the fifties. And I love all peppers. But if I eat these things that have been sitting in the hot sun, am I going to survive?

And at even more authentic stands, there’s a bowl containing carrots and green peppers and white onions, and the whole stew is immersed in a liquid so milky, you think you need one of those purifying straws to consume. I usually avoid these bowls. It’s like refusing a drink, or a joint, you want to, but…

But today at Baja Fresh, they’d just made a fresh batch of this brew. And it was settled in ice. There was no visual attrition. And the ratio was right, there were tons of carrots.

That’s what you want, the carrots. When done right, they take on the spiciness of the peppers. They’ve got a bite. They’re delicious. Everything you’ve always hated about carrots, the firmness, the bland taste, these will close you. Hell, they’re oftentimes a bit soft, from having sat in the liquid.

So I’m waiting for them to serve up my fajitas, and I go over to the salsa bar and see this delectable carrot, pepper and onion concoction. I get one of the tiny cups, drop some in, spear a carrot with my fork, and I’m in heaven!

I can’t stop eating. I’m standing there at the salsa bar. Consuming.

And when my food was finally ready, I poured this stuff on my plate. This was the Cadillac of concoctions, the Mercedes-Benz, the ratio was right, the carrots were crunchy yet peppery and there were even baby yellow peppers thrown in, which were just mild enough to savor.

Either you’re clueless or you know exactly what I’m talking about.

P..S. I know, I know, I didn’t mention El Cholo, where I seemingly spent every weekend in the seventies. No one knows if the food there is any good, because they’re so messed up on margaritas.

P.P.S. Metamucil. Don’t be ashamed. This is the best way to avoid the back end burn. Suck it down before you go to bed, you’ll thank me.

P.P.P.S. If I spent the seventies at El Cholo, I spent the eighties at Los Tacos, around the corner from Freddy and Demi Moore’s apartment. They would crisp the flour tortillas just right!

“Burrito Deluxe”

Titos Tacos

Burrito King. Turns out there are a couple left. I’ve eaten at this one on Sunset, not as good as the one on Vermont used to be, still:

The Gardens of Taxco

Manuels el Tepeyac

El Compdare Restaurant (The one across the street from Guitar Center.)

La Salsa

Baja Fresh

El Cholo (You want to go to the original one, on Western Avenue.)

Los Tacos