What if I came to your door and harangued you for twenty minutes trying to convince you to buy something you don’t want, that you’ve got no interest in, whose purchase will benefit me, not you.

NOW YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE WHEN YOU E-MAIL ME UNSOLICITED MP3s!

It’s bad enough when you send me links. But people e-mail me 10 MB files without even thinking about it. Sometimes I’m on the road with an insanely slow connection and I’ve got to wait ten minutes for my e-mail to download, just so I can delete your terrible MP3.

And that’s what it is…terrible.

Makes me hate America, where no one can be honest.

How many people get to play in the NBA? Most of the kids in the Final Four never even make the pros. Why do you think you deserve a music career, why do you think you’re any good?

It’s just amazing the chutzpah people have.

But it’s worse, they’re delusional, they truly think they’ve got talent, as if with an endorsement by me they’ll be the new Gaga.

I can only listen to one song at one time. You want me to spend all this time listening to crap? What’s worse, despite reading for free, you want my advice for free too!

Well, unlike MP3s, my advice isn’t easily replicable at no cost. And it’s not worth that much anyway. If you’re great, you’ll make it without me. And almost none of you are great.

And I know, it’s only the ignorant wannabes that do this. I feel guilty tarring all the reasonable people who wouldn’t think of wasting my time, but it’s always the nitpickers who ruin it for all of us. Isn’t that the problem we’ve got in music? Too many wannabes cocking up the works, making it harder to find those with talent?

That’s what the Internet has wrought.

But it gets worse. Facebook is a license to spam. You invite me to listen to your music as if I give a damn. Ever been invited to a party you don’t want to go to? Ever get phone solicitations from the inept selling products you don’t want? Then you know what it feels like.

Meanwhile, gives me sympathy for Simon Cowell. I’d really like to embarrass these people. Post their lousy MP3s online and have them experience the abuse that would have them crawling back into their holes and never reappearing.

I am not in control of your life. I am not a freight train to riches, not even for myself. If you need to make it, you might. But you’re gonna have to sacrifice everything to get close, and your music will speak for itself and I’ll hear about it from someone else.

Meanwhile, for the umpteenth time, read Seth Godin on Permission Marketing:

Permission Marketing

"Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them."

"Permission is like dating. You don’t start by asking for the sale at first impression. You earn the right, over time, bit by bit."

"Just because you somehow get my email address doesn’t mean you have permission."

Jack Nicholson was right. You can’t handle the truth. I used to refrain, remembering the movie "Milk", wherein Harvey was told you’ve got to give the people hope.

It is not my job to give you hope. From now on if you send me an unsolicited MP3 I’m gonna tell you the truth.

That you suck.

That you’re just not good enough.

That you might have a glimmer of talent, I might be able to discern some quality.

But that ain’t enough.

Never was. Still ain’t.

And you wonder why you can never reach anybody with any power in the music business…

Speaking of magic…

This is positively majestic.

It’s the way it just doesn’t end, moves into a new groove just when you think it should be over around 4:40 and it’s positively post-coital, it’s like you’ve finally found the hidden door and you pass through and it exceeds your expectations.

I heard this yesterday on XM’s Loft. And it just kept getting better and better. I was worried about getting in an accident as I tried to send myself an e-mail with the title.

Turns out I had it wrong.

But it turns out, after research, "Travel As Equals" is not on Spotify anyway, haven’t found it on any of the services. But if you go to Mr. Arthur’s website, you can dial it up on the player there…

And you should.

Joseph Arthur HomePage

He’s not exactly rapping and he’s not exactly singing but there’s something undeniable about the vocal, you’re forced to pay attention.

And this isn’t even the best part.

Meanwhile, I love the concept of the lyrics… "We travel as equals or not at all." Ain’t that the truth. You think you’re better than me because you’re rich?

You might have a greater income
Or you might be dumb and dull
But either way I won’t leave you
Travel as equals or not at all

We’re all in it together. Isn’t that what Jesse Colin Young implored us to do a long long time ago, get together? Why have we become so separated.

But it’s not about the lyrics. It’s about the feel. Like you’re on a train rolling down the tracks with your head out the open window, hair blowing in the wind.

But be sure to hang in there until after three minutes in, when the spaciness begins, when the aural adventure gets truly real.

None of the elements is that special, but put them together and there’s this amazing feel, a vibe you can only get with music.

It’s "Gimmie Shelter". It’s "Secret World".

It’s lightning in a bottle, it’s pure genius.

P.S. When you go Arthur’s homepage, wait a second for the player to load, it’ll be at the top of the page, "Travel As Equals" is all cued up, just click the triangle to play.

It’s kind of like stereo.

Does a $50,000 stereo sound ten times better than a $5,000 stereo? No, it doesn’t even sound ten times better than the buds on your iPhone. You see the last 10% is elusive. It’s easy to get to 90%. Approach 100%? Almost impossible.

In the wake of writing about Shannon Labrie, I’ve been inundated with unsolicited music, some even on major labels. And all of it’s good. But none of it’s great. None of it contains that je ne sais quoi that makes us play a track over and over again, tell all of our friends about it.

You’ve got to stay at it long enough until the doors open. What’s worse, you can’t even see the doors until you’re that good. You think you’re in a closed room, and then suddenly, there’s a door and in the next room there’s four more. You get great, you practice, you write to get ready for the possibilities. You learn how to act on inspiration. You learn how to leave in mistakes. You learn how to act without delay, you learn how to eliminate filters, all the voices in your head. You take chances. And since you’ve put in so many hours, you never suck, your stuff is never terrible, but it’s only when you hang it out there that it’s great.

But, like I just said, newbies don’t know this. They think they can see the entire field. They believe music is like baseball, that there are rules, that it’s clearly defined. But even baseball’s more complicated than that. What happens when the ball hits a rock on the way to the shortstop? Your training will allow you to reflexively adjust to field it, but you may have never thrown off-balance in this particular way again, and that’s the magic. The same way Willie Mays caught Vic Wertz’s ball running backward, over his shoulder.

The Catch

People think good gets noticed.

But only by your friends and relatives.

Great has a chance. And even great has to wait for its moment. Not every classic track was an instant hit. Sometimes you’re ahead of the game, the system isn’t ready for you. Luck is involved, but you’ve got to make your own luck, you’ve got to be involved.

It’s all about magic.

And everybody knows magic when they see it. Life is about experiencing magic. That’s what keeps you doing it. The knowledge that we’re open to the incredible. But can you hang in there long enough to get that good?

"There was no way I was going to keep my pants on with a man who’d seen Michelle Shocked three times."

And that’s why I read the book, that quote right there, excerpted in a review in the "New York Times".

I’ll admit I was interested because of the adventure angle, young twentysomething decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, alone. But that’s not why I loved this book, why I could not put it down, why I spent all weekend reading it.

Cheryl Strayed, the author, is searching for a lesson.

I didn’t find one.

But I got a lot of insight into the female mind. And it was fascinating to see life from the perspective of another, whose upbringing was not the same. We’re all too often living in a cocoon. We read about people richer or poorer, victims of tragedy, but not those just like us but…different.

Well, not identical. Cheryl Strayed grew up the daughter of a teenage parent. Well, her mother was eighteen when she gave birth to Cheryl’s older sister. And a brother came soon after Cheryl. And not long after that their mother left their abusive father and eventually married a construction worker and the whole family became modern day homesteaders, in the wilds of Minnesota.

But Cheryl was the queen of her high school class. She went to college.

And then her mother died.

If my father had died when I was twenty one I don’t know how I’d have coped. I wonder how I’ll do when my mother dies, and I’m nearly sixty.

Cheryl’s mother’s death pushes her over the edge. She starts stepping out on her young husband, who is only good to her. She even tries heroin. She doesn’t get hooked, but I’d never make that choice. Then again, I wasn’t in my early twenties at wit’s end, with no family keeping me in line. Hell, Cheryl’s mother dies and everybody scatters to the wind.

And a couple of year later, having gotten a divorce, Cheryl decides on a whim to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, from Mojave through the Sierras up into Oregon.

But this is not "Into Thin Air". This is not a nail-biter, woman against elements, fighting for her very life. Rather Cheryl is ill-prepared, she overpacks, she wants to quit, she loses six toenails, her feet continue to hurt.

But she soldiers on.

Oh, she wavers. But just when she’s ready to give up, someone always spurs her on, inadvertently, without really knowing it. Ain’t that life. Human interaction makes all the difference.

But Cheryl wanted to be alone. She has a number of chances to hike with others, she usually passes.

And while she hikes, and she gets it right, there are few moments of bliss amongst the boredom and the pain, she fills us in on her life, how she got here.

And that’s what’s so interesting.

She tells us about the people she sleeps with, and why. Despite the ravings of self-styled sexperts like Tila Tequila, males are clueless as to what really goes through women’s minds.

I always wonder what makes women take off their clothes. Oh, you can be one of those aggressive bastards who force them to, but despite a plethora of documentation that women are demure delicate flowers, they like to do it. What inspires them?

I’ve got to tell you, if I went camping I wouldn’t pack a roll of condoms.

But Cheryl did.

And there is one moment of danger…personal danger, not elements danger, a wayward male.

But the sun shines on Cheryl. She makes it through.

And her documentation of the people she meets, and there aren’t that many, is also interesting. What kind of people undertake such an adventure, are they immune to issues of safety?

Now this all happened back in 1995, before the ubiquity of cell phones, never mind satellite phones and other devices that ensure that you’re never truly alone. Cheryl was inspired to write the book after visiting the ice cream joint she finished at in Oregon with her children fifteen years hence.

She’s looking back, but like I said, even though she’s searching for a lesson, for answers, I didn’t really see any. She recovers emotionally from her mother’s death and her divorce, but really, she would have recovered from those anyway.

But why do we do the things we do? Get old enough and you marvel at some of your choices.

Then again, too many people play it safe.

Cheryl Strayed did not play it safe.

Cheryl Strayed website

"Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail"

P.S. Reading is a commitment. You’ve got to disengage and pay attention. But when done right, you enter a whole ‘nother world. Kind of like a great record, at least those of yore which were not background but doors to an alternative universe. You can bat people over the head or you can entice them with quality and word of mouth. That’s how "Wild" made it, the buzz is deafening. Assuming you’re paying attention. Don’t let it turn you off. The great thing about this book is it’s personal. And personal, when done right, is universal.