Stay in school.

I know, I know, David Geffen dropped out, as did Irving Azoff. Some of the biggest legends of the entertainment business never finished college, some didn’t even complete high school. But that was then, and this is now.

The sixties were different. We lived in an homogeneous society. Social mobility was rampant. You could go from middle class to upper class quite easily. Rich was within your grasp.

But no longer.

Which is what the best and the brightest of today’s society knows. Which is why all the Ivy Leaguers go into finance and the great unwashed star in reality television programs. Where is Pauly D today? Snooki? Famous for a few years, they’ve already slid back into obscurity, the trade on their fame has lost most of its zeros. We know their names, but they’re footnotes, trivia questions, if you think they’re rich, you don’t know what rich is.

On Monday, the “New York Times” featured a story wherein female students at Andover were upset there was little place for them in the official student hierarchy, i.e. they could not be elected president.

Do you know what Phillips Academy in Andover is?

Do you know Exeter?

Lawrenceville?

Groton?

I didn’t until I went to college. Where in freshman English, a student pronounced “Celtic” like it began with a “K,” so it sounded like “kick” and not “sell.” What an ignoramus! Hadn’t he heard of the great Boston basketball team?

No, I was the ignoramus. I didn’t go to prep school like this bloke. For he was much better read, all the prep school students were, he knew more than me, I’d gone to public school in the melting pot suburbs, I was clueless.

But I learned.

I fell into this exposure. Via hard work in high school and good SAT scores. At Middlebury I came into contact with the scions of the truly rich and famous, Eileen Rockefeller, Dodd Cosgrove, whose dad ran Jolly Green Giant. I learned how to interact with these people. To never boast of my experiences, because there was always someone whose exploits trumped mine. My parents had been to Europe? They’d gone to Paris for the weekend! I learned that I’d been playing in the minor leagues and didn’t even know it.

I fell into this world by accident. I went to Middlebury College because it had great academics and its own ski area. If I had to do it all over again, if I couldn’t ski, I would go to an Ivy. Because that’s where the networking takes place.

Sure, you learn a lot at Harvard, Yale and Princeton. But even more, you’re inducted into the brotherhood/sisterhood. You’re a member of a club that looks out for each other, gives each other advantages, that pays dividends for your entire life. It’s the best way to get a leg up other than to be born rich to begin with.

The movies feature juvenile delinquents. Happy slackers. But living on the underside is worse than ever, you can’t make it here anymore. You need a leg up.

I’m telling you, because no one other than hopefully your parents is.

You’re gonna make it on your raw smarts. But why not help yourself out?

I abhorred the concept of prep school way back when, you wanted to live with your parents during high school. But if I had children today, I’d send them away. Not to get them out of my hair, but because I’d want them to get a good start.

Many people know this.

But not enough.

We’ve got a schism in society. The clued-in and the clueless. And you don’t want to be one of the latter. For all the hogwash about the entitled millennials, you’ll find there’s a huge subset who know the score, that it’s every man for himself, and you’ve got to get yourself every advantage in order to get ahead. If you’re skipping school and not bothering to apply yourself, the joke is on you.

Once upon a time, music was a viable career for the best and the brightest. But no longer. Because the best and the brightest don’t only realize the odds of success are low, but that all the money goes to the business people, and no matter how successful you are, you’re not in the league of the bankers, of the truly rich. Art has power, but in an era where everybody thinks it’s a badge of honor to sell out, money has power. Think about that. By looking to the Fortune 500, by making yourself subservient to the corporation, you’re sacrificing all your power. If you truly want to be an artist, you must go it alone, follow your own muse, put money in a secondary position, play for all the marbles. Instead, we’ve got a bunch of uneducated whiners wondering where to line up for the handouts. But the U.S. government doesn’t subsidize recording artists, that’s Canada, move there if you want free money.

I know, I know, I sound like my parents.

Then again, they had immigrant mothers and fathers, whose biggest challenge was speaking the language. All they knew was they wanted their children to have a better life than their own.

I’m not sure that’s happened. My dad worked ’round the clock. In an era where such effort could make you upper middle class without winning the lottery or playing the market, which my father refused to do.

But my dad put three kids through college and graduate school. Because he knew first and foremost it was about a good foundation.

If you think Bieber is forever, than you probably think, like he does, the Pope prays in the Sixteenth Chapel. I grew up wanting to be Jay North, Jerry Mathers, to be on TV was my goal. Thank god I never went that route. Most of those people are famous for a minute and then go on to do drugs and rob 7-11’s, they’re prepared for nothing.

And I’m not saying you can’t beat the system doing none of the above.

I’m just saying the odds are damn low.

Some people are Steve Jobs, some people are geniuses.

But Larry and Sergey went to Stanford.

And although Mark Zuckerberg dropped out, the institution he was attending was Harvard.

And most of the stories about people you see in the mainstream press were placed there by publicity agents. They have no underpinnings.

It’s your goal to gain underpinnings and worldliness. To both practice hard and leave your comfortable environment. You’d be stunned to find out how ignorant you truly are.

And one final tip. Reading is the key to success. If you don’t know how to read, you’re never going to make it in today’s world. Just like baby boomers who don’t know how to type are behind the curve.

It’s all about fundamentals I tell you.

And fundamentals, like the multiplication table, are rarely fun.

But there’s always time for fun.

Life is long. If you’re not prepared for delayed gratification, you’re going to have a very rough ride.

Help yourself out.

Stop being sour grapes, stop complaining and APPLY YOURSELF!

“David Letterman – Justin Bieber’s New Tattoo”

“School Vote Stirs Debate on Girls as Leaders”

Sennheiser Momentum

These are too good for MP3s.

Credit Jimmy Iovine. He’s gonna bring back hi-fi. By marketing the hell out of the mediocre Beats brand, he’s waking the rest of the headphone industry up to the opportunities.

Who knew kids would pay $350 for a pair of headphones?

It’s an aspirational culture. Everybody wants the status items with the logos, from Louis Vuitton to Burberry to Rolex to… Jimmy was smart enough to realize there was a cadre of imitators who wanted to be just like Dre just like they wanted to be like Mike the generation before, that just as they’d paid hundreds of dollars for sneakers, they’d now pay hundreds of dollars for headphones…

To find out the music they were listening to sounded like crap.

The future of hi-fi is not vinyl, it’s headphones. Oh, STFU, I’ve still got all my LPs, vinyl sounds great, but it’s the equivalent of Civil War reenactment, a tiny laughable scene for those locked in the past who hate on the future.

Digital is portable. Get the res high enough and it blows vinyl away. Hell, so many of the LPs you’re buying today weren’t cut analog, but via Pro Tools.

But back in the seventies, when the vinyl record was king, kids ran around washing cars and working minimum wage jobs so they could purchase stereo systems that could blow up the neighborhood, they wanted to get closer to the music, they wanted to get inside it.

And then we got the lo-fi boom box, the less than stellar CD, and ultimately with the MP3, we hit rock bottom.

But then, Jimmy came along with Beats.

Be sure to read the Monster/Beats story below, it’s utterly fascinating.

But irrelevant of the genesis of the product, Jimmy applied music marketing, Beats took off.

And now kids are running around with playback equipment superseding the quality of the music they’re listening to. Yes, we’re on the verge of a hi-res revolution. All you engineers and studio rats crying in your beer, lamenting the fact that your efforts are reduced to lo-res files, that no one will pay you for your efforts, your time is gonna come again. It won’t look like it once did, people will still do most of their recording at home, but people will once again be interested in hearing how a record SOUNDS!

Yes, they’re ready.

But the industry is not.

Blame the cable companies, blame the government, bless Google. Yup, Google is scaring the bejesus out of the providers, because after wiring KC, it’s now gonna wire Austin. Ultra-high speed Internet, something that would rival what exists in South Korea and so many developing nations, is gonna come to the good old USA, and just like broadband begat YouTube, this speedy pipe is gonna bring back high quality music. That’s all that’s missing, the pipe, the delivery system, playback is now sky high, with Beats and its imitators. I’m sitting on a whole host of high quality headphones sent to me, and I’m gonna go through them one by one, but today’s model is Sennheiser’s Momentum, a direct shot at Beats, even down to the red cable.

Actually, there are two cables. Both removable. One with audio controls and one without. Hell, you can even use these headphones to speak. Not that I can understand why you’d want to do that, then again, I didn’t expect people to wear the heavy Beats headphones around in public.

The Momentum is much lighter and more comfortable than Beats. At first, the around the ear cups will seem uncomfortable, but really they’re not. Still, I don’t understand why the playback controls are so high on the cable, as if we all had arms as short as that Kristen Wiig character on SNL, but oh, THE SOUND!

You’ll positively flip when you connect them to your iPhone. BECAUSE YOU’LL WANT MORE!

You see there’s just not enough power in that slim device to get much out of the Momentum. The tunes will sound better than they ever have before, but you’ll experience tinniness, you’ll start wondering if you’ve got the same music on CD.

But then you’ll plug the headphones into your Mac Pro and the music will come alive! You’ll hear all that stuff you discovered on vinyl back in the seventies, you’ll be stunned how close to the music you’ve become…

But you still won’t be close enough.

That’s the dirty little secret of audio equipment. You want to listen to everything in your collection all over again, to discover what you’ve missed. But if all you’ve got is MP3s and streaming services, you’re gonna be disappointed, you’re gonna be left out in the cold. You’re gonna have blue balls. The finest auditory equipment and the lamest source material.

Think about that. For once, the music is behind the curve. We’ve got a ready, demanding audience, and we’re not satiating it.

Now I’m not saying people are gonna buy CDs to satisfy their listening desires, but I will say the demand is gonna have to be filled. People want high quality sound reproduction, the fact that you can’t find it in the tech and money obsessed press doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Yes, the Momentum is so damn good, you’ll be disappointed.

And you’re probably not about to cough up $349.95 to buy them.

But the young ‘uns will.

Kids are impulsive. They want it now, and they don’t want to settle.

Then again, they’re buying Beats.

But now Beats is not the only alternative.

We’re at the dawn of a golden age, you just don’t know it yet.

P.S. I wish someone would send me a headphone amp. This is a burgeoning field, they’re starting to get press. But it’s hard to decipher what’s good and what’s bad, how much money you need to spend. But those of us of a certain age know it’s all about headroom, that you need all those watts to ensure you get no distortion, that all that power is what generates pure sound.

P.P.S. Yes, I know the controls are high on the cable because they contain the mic for phone calls, but really, these headphones are for music and the height renders the controls close to useless.

“Beat By Dre: The Exclusive Inside Story of How Monster Lost the World”

It’s about the experience.

Which is why the rockers and the rappers just can’t understand it. Never mind the labels and the traditional concert promoters, who seem to have finally woken up.

Think about this. If you grew up playing soccer, not baseball or football, despite those sports getting all the mainstream press, and you got a trophy just for participating, would you really be desirous of going to the mainstream show and sitting in the audience, separated from the act by barriers and security guards, never mind being unable to score a good seat without sacrificing a few months of your college loan payment, which your parents have been making since you moved back in after graduating?

Don’t think music, think culture.

That’s what rock got right, before it became about the dollar signs, which is where it’s still at.

And rap was always about money, but if you don’t think hip-hop grew a surrounding culture, you haven’t walked out the front door in decades.

But the problem is these two genres keep repeating the formula, expecting the same result. Which is kind of like hiring the ’56 Yankees and expecting them to win the World Series. Sure, today’s athletes take drugs, but unlike their predecessors, they work out incessantly, they’re incredible physical specimens, that’s what you’ve got to do to compete.

And there are rules in baseball.

But there are no rules in entertainment.

Other than you make an album, ensure there’s a radio hit on it, and then sell the result on a slab of plastic for almost twenty dollars list. And when the public soured on this, the only discussion was how to bring them back to the well! As if the labels were selling something necessary, like water, when all they were doing was overhyping the remnants of a dead culture.

And sure, electronic music seems to have burgeoned overnight, but really it’s been percolating for decades. Take that all you teen phenom wannabes. Turns out that to grow into a lasting master, you’ve got to practice your craft in obscurity, be thankful your tiny cult appreciates you, and be shocked, positively shocked I tell you, when your enterprise goes mainstream.

It’s kind of like the days of yore. When a band broke on the third or fifth album. There was a hard core who’d been there from the beginning, pissed that everybody was now sipping the elixir. But who could deny the greatness?

And you wonder why festivals are today’s live entertainment kingpins.

Because it’s not about the talent so much as being there.

Today’s kids know everybody. The era of going to the show and standing in the corner alone, knowing only the band, are done. Via social networks, every kid in your town knows every other one. And these festivals are giant networking parties, where they get to mingle and have a good time. And it’s all about the good time. Sure, the music is an element of the mix, but if you could go to the show with only ten of your best bros, you wouldn’t. Nobody wants a legendary DJ to play for ten people like the oldsters hire Elton and the classic rockers for privates, that’s a dead scene. They want to be party with thousands, they want to feel the energy, electronic music is not about being exclusive, but inclusive!

Think about that. It’s the opposite of the rock star ethos wherein I make it and I leave you behind, I fly private and I pay you lip service but I want nothing to do with you. The deejays are all regular people. It’s stunning how normal they are, other than the wear and tear of the travel. And they like the money, who wouldn’t, but spinning doesn’t seem to be a stepping stone. Everybody in straight music wants to be something else, a TV star, a clothing magnate. Deejays want the endorsements, but mostly they want to entertain, they want to motivate the crowd.

And this does not mean this electronic scene is forever. Oh, the music will last forever, like the blues, only bigger. But in a world where Carly Rae Jepsen can have the song of the summer and be an obscure footnote not even twelve months later, anyone predicting any fad will last is out of his mind.

Yes, electronic music is a fad. Then again, rap is a fad that lasted decades!

But what’s important is the scene. The inclusivity referenced above. Now performer and audience are in it together. That’s why you Facebook and tweet and Instagram, that’s where your people are. And if you don’t see yourself as one of them, you’re going to be in big trouble. If you think the old star system is the new one, you’ve never been to an extreme sports competition, where the losers are hugged and embraced as much as the winners.

So if you want to succeed in the new world of entertainment, you’d better let your audience inside. You’d better make it easy for them instead of difficult. You’d better not put on restraints, alienate them, accuse them of undermining you, like the RIAA did by suing file-traders. The RIAA is a lobbying organization, it’s about protecting corporate interests. Whereas entertainment is about going with the flow.

Forget record deals. Forget hits. Forget the time you put in playing your instrument. Today it’s like the old days. It’s about creativity. It’s about testing limits. It’s about the unexpected more than the status quo. It’s punk!

But the punks still think it’s about tattoos and piercings. About being anti.

Anti is history. You may not have gotten the memo, but we’re all in it together. Politics may be divisive, but entertainment culture is all in.

And yes, all these festivals have VIP experiences. There is a caste hierarchy.

But you don’t need to be rich and famous to have a good time.

Being in the back with your buds dancing is just as fine as being inside the velvet rope, oftentimes it’s better. That’s where your friends are, that’s where the opportunities are. You’re not looking for anything connected with money, rather you’re looking for raw connection. The music is just the grease.

I’m in shock.

Actually, I’m in Vail, Colorado. For the final week of the ski season. Didn’t know that? All I can tell you is with a laptop and a smartphone, I can work anywhere. And when it comes to skiing, I refer you to Bad Company’s “Simple Man,” which so eloquently states “Freedom is the only thing, means a damn to me.” Didn’t picture me as a right winger, did you? No, I’m talking about the true freedom, the one you get sliding down a mountain, where no one can tell you who to be and how you should act. That’s life. I recommend it.

And when I was in Aspen last December, I bit down on some steak and…

I felt something weird. Like half of my tooth was moving and half wasn’t. And it didn’t get better. And I went to the dentist when I returned to L.A. and he couldn’t quite diagnose it. He thought it might be an exterior crack, gave me some fluoride, I knew that wasn’t the case, but I played along. He said to wait for the tooth to “show itself.”

It did this morning.

I bit down on some trail mix, yes, eaten with Dannon coffee yogurt, the elixir of life, and a sharp pain echoed through my brain. And I put my finger in my mouth and realized…my back molar had cracked in two, like a rock you ping with an axe.

This is not good.

I’m a thousand miles from my regular dentist. The last time this happened he said I needed a root canal and an implant. I escaped because I’m so damn old the root had retreated, a fake tooth sufficed.

But now I can’t even drink water, the pain is excruciating, it’s Friday at 10 AM and…

We call the recommended dentist.

He’s got no time for an emergency.

And who he recommends won’t fit someone in.

And the next person is out of the office and will only take dental emergencies who are patients.

And after exhausting the recommendation tree, we called the concierge, who came up empty too.

And time is ticking by, what are we to do?

Pull up Yelp.

Turns out we contacted every dentist in Vail. So I tried Avon and Edwards and finally, we got someone who would see us.

If we could get there.

And you know how it is when you suffer an injury. Time stops. You freak out. But when you see a road to treatment, you calm down a bit. The hotel got the Yukon, we were on our way.

Turned out the very nice receptionist had only worked there for a month.

The hygienist was smacking her gum.

The regular dentist was in Mexico, this was a guy who wasn’t even listed on the website.

And I’m lying back in the chair, freaking out, wanting to bolt but knowing I have no option.

And this wet behind the ears dentist tells me… They’ll make a porcelain crown, I probably won’t need a root canal, I’ll be good to go.

For $1245.

Huh?

I don’t want to bargain, I’m afraid of getting bad service. I have no other option, so I say yes.

This is after turning down the obligatory x-ray, which I know is superfluous.

But the dentist has those specs, you know, with the magnifiers.

And he’s wearing rubber gloves and a face mask.

But he doesn’t put the bib around my neck.

But if I ask for one, am I undermining him?

So he shoots me up and then mumbles about putting something in my mouth…

It’s like a breathing tube. It’s gonna capture all the detritus from the tooth as he drills it clean.

This is new to me. My hometown dentist is a professor at USC and I’ve never experienced this.

But at first there’s not enough novocaine.

So we wait a bit longer.

And then he’s drilling for greatness. And I’m getting some wetness on my shirt and wondering if I’m getting third world treatment, the substitute dentist in a resort area.

And then they get out the laser, and there’s smoke, and suddenly he’s poking a wand all around my mouth, making a scan.

The hygienist says the machine might need to be reset. Which undermines my confidence, which wasn’t at an all time high after the receptionist had to show the dentist how to make the drill work…

But after taking a ton of pictures, this barely thirtysomething dentist sits behind a console that looks like a periscope in a submarine and he starts clicking on the screen, rotating the trackball, building my crown.

Yup, they’ve got a machine right there, in fifteen minutes, it’s gonna be ready.

And on one hand I’m living in the future. Could it be that this dentist is so young and advanced I’ve stumbled into exotic territory?

He’s driving the console like a kid playing a video game, I’m getting too uptight to watch.

And then this tubular machine in the lobby lights up and starts building the crown, I saw it when I went to the bathroom.

And then it was ready. There was a placement test. And then the obligatory blue articulating paper. And he’s drilling the molar below, to make sure the points don’t break the new crown.

And I’m getting more and more uptight, and then I tell myself I’m so damn old, how long am I gonna live anyway, does it really have to be right? I mean something has to be done, I can’t eat and I can’t drink.

And then he’s saying he’s getting it perfect. Which I love, because I’m all about perfection.

And then voila, he’s done!

Complete.

I can eat.

I can ski.

I can…

Barely speak because I’m so freaked out, I’m still freaked out.

But it does seem right.

But the novocaine hasn’t worn off yet.

And it’s not like I can go back to him for adjustments, even though they told me I could. And my regular dentist would probably charge me.

And then I think how this tooth has been bugging me for months, and maybe this guy who played football in college, graduated with honors from the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry and did a residency with the VA in Utah, was a gift, a professional from the future, one of those young savants who are all about detail, who only know how to get it right.

We’ll see!

Meanwhile, I’m gonna go ski!