I had an incident in the Caribbean twenty years ago and I really haven’t gone swimming since.

Oh, I’ve been in people’s backyard pools with three year olds. But as far as entering what we used to call an “Olympic-size” pool, with a depth over my head and a distance from one side to another of more than one or two strokes, I don’t think so.

You see back in the Islands I went snorkeling. They passed out these little inflatable bags that were supposed to serve as life preservers, and I didn’t think twice. But after looking at the fish I turned to go back and I realized I was in a current. Okay, okay. I swam slow and steady, but when I looked up the boat was still far away. Not light years away, but I was alone, in the water, outside of the confines of the United States and I won’t say I began to panic, but I did start to get scared. And I’m paddling and paddling and eventually I make it to someone else’s boat. Which I pull myself upon. And no one questioned me, and I thought that was weird, but after resting about five minutes it was time to swim back to my boat, which really was pretty close, but I was daunted, and after making it, I don’t remember going swimming again.

I grew up swimming. My mother took us to the beach…those are some of my earliest memories. We went to Cape Cod on vacation. I knew how to swim before I even attended Camp JCC at six years old. And I got all the badges and Junior Lifesaving and then Senior Lifesaving…

I even went snorkeling alone in Sharm El-Sheik, when it was briefly part of Israel, when the only abodes were tents, and I was much further from the shore than I was in the Caribbean, and I was diving down into coral reefs and…

There was that time in my late twenties when I would go to the West L.A. YMCA and swim 600 yards a day. I had the Speedo and the goggles.

But you eventually burn out on swimming. It’s one of the more boring sports.

And I didn’t realize I hadn’t been swimming since that time in the Islands until about seven years ago, after I had rotator cuff surgery.

And the more time that went by, the more uptight I became.

I mean how strong was my upper body anyway? I do these exercises with a band every day, but I don’t pump iron, I don’t like to do any exercise that has no component of fun. And I’m into aerobic, not anerobic. And I used to ride my bike, but there was an incident that was so heavy, that required surgery, that took me more than a decade to get over emotionally.

So I hiked.

And I was out walking today, and it was a beautiful day, and my leg strength is really pretty good, as is my breathing capacity. I’ve never smoked. I hike in the mountains three to five times a week. I do back exercises and I stretch every day. But swimming is more about the upper body than the lower body. When was I going to get back in the water?

And today I got a hankering. It was just that warm. And I dug deep into a drawer and I found…

The same damn bathing suit that I wore in the Caribbean. It was faded, stretched out, but I put it on and traipsed down to the pool in the Lodge and…

There were two ten year olds in the pool, acting just like I did when I was that age, without a care in the world, believing there was no way they could drown, never mind there being no supervision.

I’ll be honest. I was too anxious to dive into the deep end. I know, I know, it’s psychological, but still.

So I walked down to the shallow end and I was confronted with the fact that I always dove in, but here it was too shallow.

So holding on to the rail I tippy-toed down and…

The water was cold. Somehow I expected it to be warmer, but I’ve been through this routine a zillion times. You’ve got to go in all at once, to acclimatize yourself, soon thereafter it doesn’t feel cold at all.

And that’s what I did.

And I experienced an unanticipated euphoria. I was connected to who I once was, it felt so good.

But now I had to swim.

No one was watching, there was no test, so I started off with a baby step, I swam the width of the pool. And then again. And again.

And now I started evaluating my stroke. I realized when I was turning my head for air, I was turning too much of my back. So I adjusted.

And then I walked out to the deepest part of the pool I could still stand in and…

Swam to the shallow end.

That was not a problem. But I won’t say I was super-confident.

Now it was time to swim into the deep end. I chose a ladder on the side, just shy of the end, for my target. And the one great thing about a pool is you can open your eyes underwater and see where you’re going, and I could see the aluminum steps and it was no problem.

And from there, I swam to the ladder across the pool, all the way at the deep end.

These were not huge accomplishments.

But you reach a certain age when…

You wonder if you can still do it.

Most people stop doing it.

And I do certain things. If I die taking chances on the ski slope, I’m fine with that. But every once in a while I wonder… If I fall and get hurt, how fast will I recover? I’ve been injured, it does happen. But when you get older, it takes a longer time to recover, physically, never mind psychologically.

And now they have via ferratas in the mountains of America. I’d like to do that. But the newer ones are more serious, they require a certain amount of upper body strength, do I have that much?

In my thirties, even forties, I wouldn’t have thought twice. I’ll be honest, in my fifties too. We once thought of booking a trip to Canada where a heli-skiing operation has a via ferrata in the summer.

But now?

So I was at the deep end of the pool. Now I had to swim the entire length.

I knew I could make it, but I wanted to avoid freak-out, so I stayed within reach of the side.

And there was one moment when I swallowed a little water, but I stayed calm and focused on my technique and soon I was at the other wall.

Now what?

Well, especially when you get older, you have to build your strength up. You don’t jump into the pool and do twenty laps without having gone swimming for years.

And to be honest, I could feel muscles I normally don’t. Every exercise uses a different set of muscles.

So I didn’t see the point in more laps. But I thought if I had easy access to a pool, I could go in every day, build up my stamina. That’s who I am. I’m into nailing the routine.

But I don’t have regular access to a pool.

So I’m there in the water, alone, wondering what I’m supposed to do.

No more laps were necessary, I’d proven my point.

But was I supposed to just float, or get out, or..?

And then I realized if there was someone else there, I could have stayed in forever. You know, until my skin pruned.

Ultimately, after a few more minutes, I got out. Toweled off and came back to the room.

But I can’t wait to go back in tomorrow. This time, with a dive!

Challenge the cult at your peril.

Have you listened to Joe Rogan’s podcast? Can you name two songs from Taylor Swift’s latest album? Can you name one member of BTS? Are you even on Twitter/X, never mind eating up every word Elon Musk utters? Are you one of the 130,000 on the Kamala Harris Zoom call?

Odds are you can’t or you aren’t. Large odds. The above represent cults, and they get overblown coverage in traditional media, giving an inaccurate picture of what is truly going on. And if you question anything about the object of devotion, you will be excoriated, to the point where most people don’t even try, because they can’t endure the hate.

All this news about Joe Rogan having a number one podcast… Most of it is about how much money he’s making. And Bloomberg just ran a story about his impact in Austin. But we don’t have accurate statistics as to how many people actually listen to Rogan. Sure, you can download the podcast, follow him and certain platforms do this automatically, but have you spent the hours every day checking out what he has to say? Probably not. But if you point this out, if you question anything Rogan has to say, good luck, his fans are bonded to him. They live for Rogan. They believe he speaks their language. Someone is standing up for the uneducated bros who were not popular in high school. Rogan’s podcast is full of conspiracies, inaccuracies, and this is a big problem, but not as big as conspiracies and inaccuracies across America.

One of the big stories this weekend was about a Swift show in Europe where people sat on the grass outside the stadium. Kudos to her. Then again, people have been trying to get a free listen forever. It just hasn’t been an international story. I’m not saying Swift isn’t big, but exactly how big is she? There’s this canard that as soon as Swift comes out for Kamala it will change the election, ensuring Harris rides to victory. But in the seven or eight states that matter, how many Swift fans are there? Sure, register them, every vote counts, but what makes you believe her endorsement will swing the election? Springsteen and his music were known by more people than Swift’s, by a huge margin. He was all over MTV, the radio, but his endorsement didn’t move the needle. The Eagles and Linda Ronstadt couldn’t deliver the presidential nomination for Jerry Brown. These three acts still have more penetration than Swift, more mindshare in terms of songs known by the public, but the media and the Swifties have you convinced that she can move mountains, and she cannot.

Not only do you not know a member of BTS, you probably can’t name a single K-pop song, even though you’ve heard all about the overhyped scene. Let’s be clear, the music industry loves this hype. Anything to drive streams and ticket sales, but how big is the BTS Army in America? Or, as someone in the Phish camp once said to me, they don’t know how many Phish fans there really are, is it the same fifteen thousand people going to every arena show? Once again, Phish has a business, kudos. But they outpunch their weight in my inbox. Someone farts and a Phishhead will e-mail me a connection to the Vermont band.

As for Harris… There’s been euphoria since she replaced Biden on the ticket. But 130,000 women on a Zoom call, in a country of 340 million? Even raising 300 million dollars, not insignificant, but that does not mean she’ll win in November. Only seven or eight states matter. What can she do to win there, where Biden squeaked by, on 80,000 votes. Sure, Biden won the popular vote, but the Electoral College is something different.

As for the tech bros… One thing about the musicians, the entertainers endorsing and supporting political candidates, they’re not in it for the money. Whereas the tone-deaf Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen make no bones that a Trump victory in November will benefit them financially. Andreessen is so heavily invested in Crypto that he wants someone in office to support a world which has not shown a practical use other than for ransomware. And Musk? One thing about Musk is he owns Twitter/X, so he outpunches most of the other people I’ve written about above, but have you noticed Tesla sales not only faltered, they helped bring down the entire market last week? But tell this to a bro… The same bros who think they’re winning in meme stocks, the same bros who are buying crypto meme-coins that have no value other than speculation. The tech titans are so myopic, so out of touch, they don’t realize they’ve replaced the cable company as the second most hated entity in America (Ticketmaster is the perennial number one). This is the same blindness that had big time media missing the Trump surge of 2016.

So you’ve got these cults, not tiny by any stretch of the imagination. And there is real power within them, believe me, Taylor Swift is making bank, but people are afraid to question their power, because of the sh*t that will rain down upon them.

People believe in these cults because it’s human nature. It makes them feel good. Especially in a world where the individual has never felt more powerless. And it’s those on the fringe that garner the most belief. It’s no fun pledging fealty to the person or scene everybody else does. This is your identity. No one can cross the object of your belief/fandom.

But once again, these are CULTS! Large cults, but they don’t encompass the public at large, not by a long shot.

Cable news? It’s lucky if it reaches a million people. Walter Cronkite spoke, it moved mountains. We still have one newspaper that can change the course of political history, the “New York Times” brought down Biden. But no other newspaper has this power, none.

But I won’t say that the “Times” has a handle on popular culture, can tell which way the wind blows. Because the “Times” was built for a world where the big stories rose to the top and only the big stories mattered. So we get an endless whipsaw effect, blowing us left and right on entertainment stories that don’t matter. At least everybody knows who J.Lo is, but one of the acts with the most press recently is Gracie Abrams, some might have even heard her name, but her music? And that of Kate Hudson? You’re entitled to make a go of it, but that doesn’t mean we’ll accept it.

Hell, most rockers believe rock is not dead. They’ll point to aged acts and Active Rock acts…talk about a niche. When was the last time a rock act had a track that dominated the culture? Maybe Coldplay twenty years ago. Yes, rock used to be a big tent, including both AC/DC and the Little River Band, but not Olivia Newton-John. Raw belief is not enough, it does not make something true, but it feels good to the believers so they bully others into believing what they say is true, when it is not.

Yes, add up all the cults and it makes a difference. But we don’t have one cult with the power of network television or terrestrial radio in the last century. Things have changed, but the sensibility of the public and the news media has not.

I wrote about the flaws in a Kamala Harris campaign and it was unacceptable. Some people believed I’d gone MAGA, was going to vote for the Orange Man, when nothing could be further from the truth. Blind devotion crosses all age groups these days, all political persuasions, you cannot question the orthodoxy.

Even Biden being too old to run. You took it on faith that the Democrats were trustworthy, you could believe what they said. But that did not turn out to be true.

And it’s hard to be an individual with your own opinion, because that oftentimes leaves you alone, and no one likes the solitary life.

I hope Harris wins in November. But statistics tell us it will be a tight race. Furthermore, the constant attacks on Trump’s character are not working, even criminal conviction couldn’t sway people, the Trump cult is unswayable. But how are you going to bring the independents, the changeable voters to your side? By talking about the future, the issues. But the Democrats have been so busy saying the economy is great under Biden that they can’t acknowledge and sympathize with those who are struggling.

Or to quote Pauline Kael, who didn’t really say it, even though everyone believes she did… How could Nixon win, nobody she knew voted for him! Too many are living in bubbles. And the news media is not helping. The media loves rah-rah, it loves a story that it believes most people support, it sells subscriptions and advertising, But if you’re on “Entertainment Tonight” or in “People” not only will it probably not move the needle, most people will still be unaware of who you are and what you’re doing.

And the music business found out that TikTok stars don’t necessarily translate into mainstream music stars, so now everyone is sh*tting on the platform. But the industry has not found another way to find and break acts, and TikTok is as powerful as ever.

Just like the anti-social media crowd. How much time have you spent on TikTok? How can you be an expert if you’ve never been on the platform?

And the aforementioned “Times,” appealing to its educated older base, talks about the evils of smartphones and social media seemingly every day. Has this put a dent in usage? Do those on social media even hear it? It’s just a circle jerk amongst an elite who think they know better. Completely detached from reality.

And Nate Silver’s numbers can’t be accurate because he’s involved in a new business funded by Peter Thiel. You can’t separate one from the other. Polling is data, but now that Silver is associated with the enemy he’s been taken off the table by those on the left, he’s a pariah.

This is the country we live in. Where what is small as seen as big. Where you can’t challenge anybody’s belief. And you can’t trust the media to get it right even if it’s doing its best not to be biased.

Does that mean I have the answers? Absolutely not. I do my best to take the temperature of America, by reading and asking people questions everywhere I go. I don’t know. But I’m trying.

You should try too.

Trailer: https://rb.gy/dpkx73

They would never make this show in America.

And most viewers wouldn’t get through the first episode, never mind click to see it again.

“The Responder” is dark. There are no characters you can identify with, root for. If you want an uplifting show, “The Responder” is not for you. If you see TV series as entertainment, “The Responder” is not for you. But if you view television as an art form, if you want to be enmeshed in a world that may be foreign, but truthful, if you like to be engrossed in a show sans interruptions…

You might love “The Responder.”

I won’t say “The Responder” is populated by losers. But most of its characters are struggling.

Marco, with his substandard intelligence. He knows he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. He’s just trying to survive, making one bad judgment after another.

As for Casey…

She’s a drug addict. Not to be trusted. We like the “Intervention” model, middle class denizen goes down the wrong path and is brought back to reality by loved ones and does their best to fly straight. But what if you were brought up in a group home? What if you’ve never known your father, never mind who he is, and your mother has mental health problems and…

You end up doing what is right for you, even if it’s wrong. The immediate is more important than the long term. Your life is a constant whiplash from one bad scene to another.

Living on the bottom. It’s glorified if you’re an artist. Don’t believe it for a minute. I’ve done it. All you can think about is money, survival. And let me tell you, desperate people do desperate things. Don’t be surprised if a desperate person steals from you, double-crosses you, because when survival is everything…you are no longer a member of the middle class with traditional ethics.

The star of “The Responder” is Martin Freeman, as Chris Carson. A grizzled cop working the night shift, who is seen as a knobhead by the entire force and can never make it to daytime.

And being a cop means…you compromise. You don’t take every offender in to be booked. You make judgments. You’re not innocent, then again the legal system is not efficient, rendering the proper result in every instance.

But Chris has a good heart. He doesn’t want to see drug addicts assassinated. He wants a modicum of peace. But can you have a good heart if you’re policing the streets?

Chris is no longer sure what is right and what is wrong. And believes that by being bottled up he is protecting his family, whereas in truth his wife feels isolated and has a wandering eye and…

Petty jealousies. People out to get you. That’s in “The Responder.”

And seeing your betrothed with another person… Have you experienced this? It’s mind-bending. It’s done about as well in “The Responder” as I’ve ever seen.

And then there’s Rachel. A cop who can’t see the crime inside her own home. One of the best parts of the series is when her boyfriend Steve won’t come pick her up because he’s deeply involved in playing Xbox. You see people on TV being reasonable all day long, but that’s not the way it really is.

What you’ve got here is the people no one ever talks about. The underclass going nowhere. And those who have to interact with them.

Everybody’s got to live somewhere, you should see some of the sh*tholes these people reside in. While abodes get larger and larger in the U.S…we have a huge homeless problem. All these people, they’re making more and more of them, how are they going to eat, where are they going to live?

You probably don’t want to ask yourself these questions. You’re probably looking for escape.

“The Responder” is not an escape, it’s an assault. A world you become entangled in that creeps you out and makes your skin crawl. And this is not some high concept horror film, this is real life.

“The Responder” has a 100/78 rating on RottenTomatoes. I’m interested in anything that gets a 100 in the Critics rating, assuming enough critics have weighed in, in this case twenty two. As for the Audience rating…I can’t see 100% of people loving this show. Then again, isn’t it the shows most people dislike that ring your bell so loudly?

“The Responder” is set in Liverpool. Turn on subtitles to catch the dialogue. And the second season is not quite as good as the first, the concepts are a bit repetitive. But just when you think you have things figured out, believing the plot, the solution, the way forward, is obvious, it is not. And it’s not the unforeseen twist of a mystery novel, but the way life works out, not according to plan.

Now chances are almost nobody reading this is going to watch “The Responder,” because first and foremost you’ve got to pay for it, it’s on BritBox. But you can watch the first episode with your Amazon Prime subscription, and you can get a BritBox free trial, but of those who dip their toes into this series, most won’t even make it through the first episode.

This is gritty television. It has been nominated for and won awards in the U.K.

But this is not HBO. Which makes you feel good about being upper middle class, no matter how “edgy” the production is. “The Responder” is nearly a challenge. Are you willing to go into a world of people who don’t really matter with a story that doesn’t really matter and experience how many in this world live?

Then “The Responder” is for you.

Tune in Saturday July 26th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz