If Sambora doesn’t matter, why not go out as a solo, as Jon Bon Jovi with unknown players and keep all the money?

I know, I know, the show must go on, but really?

It’s one thing if someone’s paying $3 a ticket.  You’re all in it together.  But at these prices, people expect the real thing.  This is like buying a Mercedes Benz and finding out it’s a Chevy under the hood.  You’re pissed!

This is different from Journey going out with a new lead singer.  That’s a celebration of the songs, people still believe in Bon Jovi, they want to reconnect with their youth, and without Richie "Wanted Dead Or Alive" is just not the same.  Captain Phil died on "The Deadliest Catch", we accept it and the show goes on, but rehab is not like death, it’s actually supposed to prevent death.

If one of your kids was in the hospital would you still go on the road Jon?

And don’t tell me about all the support people you’d be letting down.  Most of them have been sucking at the tit quite profitably for years, and if you’re such a fan of the little guys, do one solo benefit show for them in New Jersey and charge up the yin-yang, your fans will pay for that.

I like your pay what you want restaurant

Bon Jovi to open pay what you want restaurant in Red Bank

But going on the road without Richie is like Tyler going on the road without Joe Perry, D.O.A.

Have you got no sense of history, no sense of loyalty?

And I realize they call it "Bon Jovi", and that’s your name, and you’ve got a leg up.  But Don Henley can’t sell the tickets the Eagles do and do we really want to see an Eagles show without Frey?

Once upon a time bands were beholden to their fans.

Now they’re beholden to their bank accounts.

Performers are just as greedy and vapid as bankers.  That’s why the business is dying, not because of P2P theft and the Internet.

I wasn’t planning to go anyway, but I was offended upon reading the news and my inbox is filling up with naysayers.

And, I LOVE "Wanted Dead Or Alive".  All those TV shows with Richie and you doing the number acoustically?  Those are etched in my brain.  That’s why I give you a pass, that’s why I still listen.

You cannot do it without your family.

And you may not pay him what you make, but Richie is a blood brother.  

Cancel the dates, wait for him.

Bon Jovi to tour while guitarist in rehab

I’m watching it.

And I’m just as surprised as you.

I live in the U.S.  We recoil at the concept of royalty.  Wills is likable.  Kate is cute, albeit a cipher.  But I’m reminded of nothing so much as my own wedding, and the feeling of hope, of being completely in the moment, of the sense that something is beginning.

I got divorced.

Actually, I contemplated disengagement during the reception.  But in retrospect, I know that I never would have left her.  She left me.  And that was a long time ago, even though at times it feels like yesterday, and I don’t want to get back together, but I long for that feeling of optimism, that life is in front of me instead of behind me.

Maybe Kate Middleton is fully alive.  Ready with a wisecrack, livening up the party.  Or maybe she’s introverted and hard to please.  And Wills is in for a life of regret.

And how can you trust anyone who marries a royal anyway?  Is it true love or is it about the status, the money…you know you can never separate these elements from the man.

And I want to be there.  Not to stand by the road and gawk, but to hang with Richard and Harry and have a fully English experience.  It’s daytime there but nighttime here.  I feel like I’m just a step behind.  The way I feel in the U.K. and Europe that I’m just a step ahead.

The commentary is inane.  Non-experts revealing what’s already known or should remain unknown.  There’s no exploration of the inner feelings, that concept of both being in the moment and standing beside yourself watching as the clergy asks you if you do.

If Kate has cellulite, I can’t see it.  What do they say, youth is wasted on the young?  I’d say it’s all downhill from here, but you get smarter, yet as you age fewer and fewer care about you, you fade into history before your time is done.

I’m getting that feeling of hope inside as I watch.  It’s being rekindled when I didn’t believe it was dormant, but dead.  I’m looking back and not asking for a do-over, but feeling that I could be that age and walking down that aisle once again, with hope and opportunity in front of me.

And I come from the Joni Mitchell school of relationships.  We don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall keeping us tied and true.  Relationships are in your mind.  But when you stand up and testify in front of family and friends it’s different.  The legality causes you to cast aside your old kit bag and start anew, with someone you know so well but on some level not at all.

Is this the way it’s supposed to be?  Two people together forever?  And if not, why do we go through the motions, if divorce is such a ready alternative?

Something inside me died with my divorce.  An innocence.  A belief that I could conquer the world.

But somehow, watching the royal wedding, it’s being revived.

You don’t need a good voice, you need good material.

That doesn’t mean a manager isn’t important.  With anybody but Irving Azoff, Christina Aguilera would have already been forgotten.  But he keeps getting her on shows, and it’s working for her here.  It’s not her voice, which is pedestrian in that it’s nothing special, but her personality.  Who knew she was so bawdy, she appears to be fun!  The Super Bowl is in her taillights.

Adam Levine had almost no charisma to begin with, TV eviscerates what little he’s got.

Cee-Lo ain’t bad, but I’m thinking I’d rather see him as a cop or a criminal on "CSI" or in a movie, this is a bad use of his talents. We don’t want to see him be a coach, we want to see him be unique.  Furthermore, is he that big a star?  Wow!  That must mean Danger Mouse is a superstar, because as good as Cee-Lo’s voice is, Mr. Mouse is the creative talent.

As for Blake Shelton…  He’s the hee-haw factor.  For those living in the heartland who feel abandoned by the mainstream.  I like some of his records, but explain exactly why he’s got tattoos again?  Does he think they make him look dangerous?  Do you have to have a tattoo to sing?  Wouldn’t it be a bigger threat to go ink free?

As for Carson Daly, call him Brian Dunkleman.  Carson’s always walking the line between credibility and incredulity, but he’s survived by being in ridiculous situations.  TRL was all about little girls coming into puberty, no one watches late at night, to see Carson effusing in his hipster/sincere style here is positively creepy.  Fire him.  Say he fell down the stairs or something.  THIS is the role for Steven Tyler, not being a judge.

But that show is different.  Yet, they both focus on finding a voice.  Which is very different from having creative ability.

This is a race to the bottom.  Do you really think the public is going to support "American Idol" and "The Voice" and "X Factor" to the tune of 20 million viewers apiece?  Anybody can copy a formula, just like anybody can easily imitate the Top Forty… Rebecca Black proved that.  You may think "Friday" is shite, but it’s catchy and the obligatory rapper is as good as those on so many hit records.  In other words, tighten up the lyrics and put Fergie in the video and it’s a number one record.

Actually, "Friday" is a number one record, as voted where it counts, on YouTube.  Radio is irrelevant.  It’s part of an old disappearing game that record labels think is important but is going the way of Smith Corona.  If you truly want to make it in music, run away from these shows.  Do something so original that people are drawn to it.  Hell, that’s how everybody learned who Cee-Lo was, he was the voice on the song of the decade!  Long after we’ve forgotten the written by hacks crap of the likes of Diane Warren, we’re still listening to "Crazy".

But I don’t want to say this is bad television.  HD gives the whole affair a visceral effect that draws one in.  It’s kind of like watching "Jersey Shore", you ask yourself, WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING IT?

The stars are doing it for the exposure.  Their handlers have convinced them credibility is for pussies and if Steven Tyler can make it work, so can they.

But Steven Tyler is not making it work.  He’s no longer seen as dangerous and he hasn’t had a hit in ten years.  To think "American Idol" is helping Tyler is to think Ozzy’s TV show helped Osbourne’s musical career.  In case you haven’t noticed, Ozzy can barely sell a ticket.  He can reunite Black Sabbath one more time or retire.  TV killed his act.

So there you’ve got it.  Do you want to take the easy way out and get close, or do you want to go the hard way and play for all the marbles, everything, ownership!

Make no mistake, everything about this show is safe.

The network invested in a proven concept with a proven hitmaker, Mark Burnett.

As mentioned above, the stars want some of what Tyler and J. Lo got.

As for the performers…  You want to be famous and hopefully rich.  If someone said they wanted to play for the Yankees and could field but not hit, would they be signed?  Singing is only part of the equation.  In music, you’ve got to do it all.

And unlike in sports, in music there are no rules.  It’s a vast landscape.  You invent the game.

And you have to recognize the difference between marketing and art.  "The Voice" is all marketing.  A video clip is marketing. Josh Freeze’s solo work is all about marketing, he gets plenty of Internet ink with his promotions, but no one wants to listen to his records.

"The Voice" has got it part right.  Greatness should not require a visual, you should be able to hear it.

But that hasn’t happened in music for a very long time.

Don’t be confused by the ratings.  Don’t be confused by the hype.  The next big thing won’t start on television, it will come completely from left field.  And if the new superstar is on television, he or she will use it to their advantage as opposed to the other way around.

That’s what’s wrong with Steve Stoute’s screed.  It’s not like all the artists he defends had no choice.  Eminem could  have boycotted the Grammy ceremony, Justin Bieber too, but they just couldn’t turn down tens of millions of viewers.

Unless you’re willing to forgo the easy way out, you’re a pawn in their game.  And if you’re not bought by Mark Burnett, you’re bought by your label or your agent or your manager.  Hate to tell you, but they’re supposed to work for you, not the other way around.

Bob Dylan could never win a television singing competition.

But he’s the best songwriter of the modern era.

And Diane Warren, who I like personally, has never written anything lasting and meaningful because she’s writing for someone else as opposed to herself.  How about a song about a rich workaholic who forgot to get married?  I’d be more interested in that then the pabulum she writes for here today gone tomorrow stars.

Hell, she wrote one for Aerosmith…  Does anybody want to hear "I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing"?  Does anybody consider it an Aerosmith song?

In other words, take the easy way out at your peril.

It’s a new era.  The images alone make your jaw drop.  Hell, I remember five or six years ago when I could watch the test pattern on HDTV, it’s like these people are in your living room, like you know them, but you don’t.

We want to know your inner life.  Your attitudes.  Your hopes and wishes and losses the way you confide them to your best friend, not how you’d put them forth on television.

That’s what makes Howard Stern so great.  He gets people to speak the truth, to answer the questions we all want to ask.

We’re not learning anything watching "The Voice".

You wasted all that time making a record with Mutt Lange and it stiffed?  What does that feel like?  Maybe you’ll find out when Adam Levine goes on Stern, but not on "The Voice".

And Blake Shelton, what makes you different from the rest of those weenies with hats?  I can tell the difference between Waylon and Willie, but I’m not sure you and Jason Aldean and Dierks Bentley are not the same person, have you ever seen them in the same room?

Cee-Lo has to go a little more Tyler.  You were a forgotten member of the Goodie Mob and now you’re on network TV, I guess that’s why he’s always smiling but wasn’t he supposed to be dangerous and who exactly is this guy?

It’s only Christina Aguilera who wins here.  Someone who grew up on TV.  Who doesn’t know how to live off it.  She’s got a good voice, but she ain’t no Janis Joplin.  Janis’s voice had character, Christina’s trick is a big sound comes out of a little girl, singing inane material.  She’s at no risk of losing a little piece of her heart.

So the mainstream continues to tell us it’s important.  To be thrilled that music is on prime time, that they’re doing artist development.

Make me puke.

This is commerce.

Greatness is art.

There’s no art to be seen here.  Just money and desperation.

Move right along.

"All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared to learn to draw?"

Banksy

EUREKA!  THAT’S IT!

I want you to read this article:

A Star Is Made

It’s a further explanation of Gladwell’s 10,000 hours thing.  Actually, it came out before, but it took Gladwell to popularize the theory, because he’s a much better writer, could it be that all the time he put in at the newspaper made him so?

I’ll excerpt the relevant portions:

1. "Or, put another way, expert performers – whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming – are nearly always made, not born."

In other words, don’t say you don’t have the ability, say you don’t have the INCLINATION!

2. "When it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love – because if you don’t love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good. Most people naturally don’t like to do things they aren’t ‘good’ at. So they often give up, telling themselves they simply don’t possess the talent for math or skiing or the violin. But what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better."

The desire to be good.  Too many people have the desire to be rich, or famous, ergo the Banksy quote above.  They’re willing to come to Hollywood and scrape and starve, sleep on mattresses and eat McDonald’s, but they’re just not willing to practice.

3. "Deliberate practice entails more than simply repeating a task – playing a C-minor scale 100 times, for instance, or hitting tennis serves until your shoulder pops out of its socket. Rather, it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome."

In other words, it’s not about world domination, about becoming rich and famous, it’s about how well you play your guitar.

We’re taught not to believe this, that anyone can make it if you just work hard enough on your art, develop the background and skills necessary.  Used to be if the school called and said you screwed up, your parent would berate you.  Today, your parent goes to the academy and berates the administrator, says you’re perfect and couldn’t possibly have broken the code.  Huh?

We’ve taught our children that success is easy, only a motion away, which it isn’t.  Fame might be, but once the spotlight fades, exactly what is Snooki going to do?  No one’s going to be paying her the big bucks just to show up.  She’s going to have to get a job.  And she’s qualified to do..?

I’d recommend staying in school.  And not choosing a career for money, but for love.

And if you want to be exceptional, you’ve got to spend more time at home woodshedding than auditioning, more time practicing than waiting in line to try out for a TV vocal competition.

Do you think these Silicon Valley wizards just wake up one day, go to Sunnyvale, sleep on floors and then become big successes?  No, they code starting in their single digits, and they study math in college, and it’s hard, and all those rewards come way down the line.  Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates may have dropped out of Harvard, but they were computer nerds long before, and in the case of Gates, when almost no one else was!

The Allman Brothers didn’t have to tell everyone they were good, they just had to plug in their instruments.  That was enough to show everybody, when they started to play.

But that’s because Duane Allman was so dedicated to his axe that he even took it to the bathroom.

You’re texting, you’re networking.  Those may get you laid, but they won’t make you a good musician.

People are sacrificing and suffering all over the world.  That doesn’t mean they’re ready for the hit parade.

Just because you have a hard life, just because you’re willing to forgo the spoils of the middle class, that does not mean you’re good.

You’re only good if you work at your craft.  And that does not mean learning how to play "Stairway To Heaven"…that’s just the beginning.  How do you get to the point where you know all the notes, have practiced the scales and can come up with something innovative and new that will make our heads turn?

By spending a lot of time picking.

Your move.