Yes, it’s been ten years.  And I’m not one for lists.  But in magazines and newspapers decade-ending rankings have started to appear.  Best movies, best TV shows and best songs.  So I thought I’d weigh in.

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof, won’t pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far 5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
Bet you can’t make it here anymore

I’ve had a rough year.  Financially.

After a disastrous nineties, I owe nothing.  I live on a cash basis.  I saved every damn cent I could, figuring it’s hard to make a living on a freelance basis, and then the bottom fell out.

I’m not complaining.  I’ve got my cash hoard.  But it’s depressing.  Because almost everybody I know is broke, or close to it.  I’ve even got a friend who put her stuff in storage and is bouncing from guest bedroom to guest bedroom, she just can’t find a job.

They don’t exist.  Even if you want to work, you can’t.

Your best bet is the network, those people you’ve known for decades.  You can call and lean on them, if they still even have their jobs.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is paying record bonuses and their Chairman Lloyd Blankfein says the firm is doing God’s work.  He must pray to a deity I’ve yet to encounter, one who wants to see the populace suffer. Used to be Wall Street helped build America, now traders just profit off exotic investment instruments. Meanwhile, if we didn’t prop up AIG, the banks would be bankrupt and their employees would be just like us, without a job and with no prospects.  Hell, did you see that story in the "New York Times" about ex Lehman Brothers employees?  They can’t work.

Not that I’ve got sympathy.

Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let ’em eat jellybeans, let ’em eat cake
Let ’em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can’t make it here anymore

By time you read this our President, Barack Obama, a man who ran on the mantra of hope, may be getting us deeper into Afghanistan.  Isn’t Al-Qaeda in Pakistan?  And, if the Soviets couldn’t win there, why should we?  A country owned by China with disastrous financials (that’s us, in case you didn’t recognize your homeland).

And if you join the armed forces to serve your country, to pay your bills, you’re entering the Hotel California.  It seems you can never leave.  You wish you were a rock star, high on dope, as you jumpily wait for people to attack you one more time.  Coming home to a country that pays you lip service, but doesn’t give a shit.  If you come home at all.  And if you do return, you’re probably so traumatized you figure suicide is the best solution.

In Dayton, Ohio
Or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That’s done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There’s rats in the alley
And trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can’t make it here anymore

Not only have they ditched music in schools, now they’re closing the libraries.  Guess everybody’s got to sit in front of the TV, paying media giants to have crap shoved down their throats.  Elvis Costello sang about vapid radio?  Well, they killed radio and now have us anesthetized in front of the flat screen, selling us products we don’t need, that we put on credit cards that charge 29%.  As for holding back…  Didn’t they say it was American to shop, that we were entitled?  If we sacrifice, maybe that means the future truly is bleak.  So, we consume until we go bust.

I try to have hope.  Can’t say that I achieve this state every day.

But one thing that helps me get through is James McMurtry’s "We Can’t Make It Here".  Not only my favorite song of the twenty first century, but my most played.  With over 200 plays in my iTunes library on the computer I superseded in 2006, and over 100 more since.

Sure, the lyrics are poignant, they’re poetry.  But there’s a hypnotic groove that hooks me, that makes me want to play the song again and again.

There’s an authorized electric version, but I prefer the acoustic take.  Which James used to give away for free on his site, but now you can hear as backing to a clip on YouTube:

We Can’t Make It Here

You don’t have to pay a scalper to see James McMurtry.  He’s gonna play in the bar in your hometown sometime next year.  But the paper won’t make a big deal, there won’t be a buzz.  But the paper is going extinct and we haven’t yet made a complete transition from Kara DioGuardi crap to real music.

Is it only about the money?  What happens when the money runs out?  Then what?  When no one listens to Top Forty, when no one wants to go to the show.  When the old criteria die, it comes down to the music.

James McMurtry got a break at the beginning.  He did a number of albums on Columbia, his first was produced by John Mellencamp.  But when his deal was done he didn’t give up and go to law school, he didn’t get an MBA, he didn’t don a suit and go straight, no he went indie, he kept writing, he kept playing.

And if that ain’t twenty first century, I don’t know what is.

In the next month, we’re going to be deluged with statistics.  Telling us who the winners were.  People who provided fodder for the system, that you consumed, shat out and forgot.

But great art is unforgettable.

"We Can’t Make It Here" is unforgettable.  Just as powerful as "Eve Of Destruction", but sans camp, it doesn’t slide off of you, it penetrates your core.

How did we get here?

To a country where there are winners and losers.  And the winners feel entitled.

It’s not only Wall Street, the music game is not much different.

The stars can’t sell recordings anymore so they’ve jacked up the price of concert tickets to the point where the average attendee only goes to a show once a year.  Isn’t that like only having sex once a year?  Aren’t you entitled to more?  Don’t you want more?

Those left at the label complain that the audience is a bunch of thieves.  Never mind the overpriced CDs they sold with only one good track for over a decade.

And the wannabes only want to know, which way to riches?

Every day they e-mail me…how can I make money?

If I had the answer to that, I’d be rich myself!

But I do it because I want to, it’s my passion.  That’s why I write.  And as long as people read, I’m going to proceed.  It’s fine with me that you’re partaking for free, because first and foremost it’s about communication, hell, it’s about attention, and I’ve got yours, and believe me, nothing thrills me, nothing satisfies me more.

I may be a lone voice in the wilderness, I may be the only person who says this, but I truly believe James McMurtry’s "We Can’t Make It Here" is the best song of this nascent century.  It doesn’t only sound good, it’s got something to say.

"We Can’t Make It Here" lyrics

Alternative acoustic take

Official video

That was FANTASTIC!

Metallica lacked the bottom, that visceral pounding on your chest that you get at a live gig.  They proved conventional wisdom, that rock and roll doesn’t work on TV.

I stumbled into last night’s 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Concert during Paul Simon.  When Crosby & Nash joined him to sing "Here Comes The Sun" I felt warm all over.  I remembered playing the track two months after "Abbey Road" was released, when it finally stopped snowing after two days and the glowing orb emerged.  George Harrison seems to have been forgotten, this was a fitting tribute.  And it reminded us of a time when rock and roll drove the world, when nothing more important was happening than the Beatles.

Everybody took up a guitar.  Everybody listened to the radio.  We needed to get closer.  This was no Facebook, this was something fully alive, that got inside and made you feel powerful, allowed you to transcend your problems, you just wanted to get closer.

And when Art Garfunkel came out and joined his old partner I marveled that "Sounds Of Silence" was a hit fully forty four years ago, at this exact time of year.  To listen to the two men sing was to feel young and old at the same time.

Then the rockers hit the stage.  Ray Davies was out of voice, the Lou Reed number didn’t quite come together and Ozzy was hilarious but he looked younger than anybody on stage, having had way too much work.  They all tried.  But this was what it appeared to be, a special event, pairing buddies both old and new and leaving us…sadly somnambulant.  We were watching TV, we weren’t feeling TV!

Then came U2.  "Vertigo" was botched so badly at first I wasn’t even sure what song it was.

But one thing was clear.  In this context, where you could see him, it was indisputable that Bono was a phenomenal front man.  The moves, the words, they were beyond charisma.  Charisma is what an actor has, something surface, something vapid.  Whereas we want to get inside our rock stars, we want to see what makes them tick.

And when the number ended, Bono started to rap.  About going to Yonkers, to Queens.  But then he and his band took us higher than that, lifted us up over Madison Square Garden to the point we were hovering over the entire isle of Manhattan.

This was the treated guitar intro introduced on "Achtung Baby".  The dark sound that dared us to come inside, to join the experience. And then the twiddling lead, like a blinking star in the sky inviting our attention.  Then the rat-a-tat-tat of Larry Mullen, Jr.’s  drums. Eventually I saw Vinnie Colaiuta pound the skins behind Jeff Beck, but I enjoyed Mr. Mullen more.  Because just like Ringo, he perfectly complemented his band’s sound.  This was an attack, Larry was pounding bullets, imploring us, driving us forward.

And then Bono starts to sing like he means it.  They’re his words, not the rhymes of some hack in a back room.  He was feeling it, and as a result we felt it too.

Everything I thought I knew was wrong.  Not only soft music could work on TV, U2 was killing it!  Unlike what had come before, this was not nostalgia, but alive and kicking.  This was rock and roll!

Bono wasn’t playing to the back row of a stadium, seeming miles away.

He wasn’t playing for the YouTube audience.

He was playing just for us.

But it was better than that.  He wasn’t trying to convince the audience, he was showing the audience.  That’s what the Who specialized in, a veritable assault.  You didn’t nod your head and smile, singing along, your hair was blown back, you couldn’t believe what you were seeing.

This number was brand new.  But it fit perfectly in U2’s canon, with "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Until The End Of The World".

Mick Jagger took the stage and one could see the lineage, of someone who took over and demanded your attention, Bono was in a long line…well, maybe a short line of commanding performers.  And Fergie was better than could be imagined, but "Gimmie Shelter" never gelled, because unlike "Magnificent", it was never haunting, it lacked the ethereal quality of the original.

And Bono’s duet with Mick fell flat too, the song just wasn’t good enough.

But "Magnificent" was.  I couldn’t speak.  My eyes were glued to the tube.  I remembered what made me a believer.

From there it was downhill.

Until Sam Moore took the stage behind Bruce Springsteen’s amalgamation and took a bizarre victory lap that rang so true, as he poured out "Hold On I’m Comin’" and "Soul Man".

But it’s "Magnificent" that stuck with me.  Because it encapsulated exactly Bono’s description of rock and roll.  Liberation!

I wanted to buy a Mountain Meal Card.

Last year, Vail Resorts decided to drive up volume.  They lowered ticket prices.  Not daily prices, those are still sky high.  But if you were willing to lay down $549 you could ski every day at A-Basin, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Heavenly, Keystone and Vail, all of the company’s ski resorts.

Sure, this was a deal for frequent users.  But what about the casual user?  Not only did he get a deal on a week of skiing, he came back to one of the company’s resorts later in the season because skiing was essentially free!

Vail Mountain had some of its busiest days in years.

Deciding to amp up the deals, this year Vail Resorts introduced the Mountain Meal Card.  Not only were they upping the quality of the food and giving a daily deal, if you were willing to lay down a hundred bucks, you got $110 worth of food.  Put down two hundred dollars, and you got $240 worth of food!

But you couldn’t buy the $200 card online.

I tried and tried.

Then I took to the phone.

Where I got one inane, uneducated operator after another.  Ski bums recently out of college who knew how to sell lift tickets and lodging packages, but none of them had even heard of the Mountain Meal Card, even though it was featured on the company’s site.

I ultimately spoke with four people over the course of forty five minutes.  I was wasting more time than the card was worth.  But I was now interested in the consumer experience.  How could they get it so wrong?

Still, I was frustrated, having invested this much effort.

So I took to Twitter.

I tweeted to Rob Katz, CEO of Vail Resorts, I said:

@RickysRidge I want to buy the $200 Mountain Meal card, can’t be done on site, on call with 3rd Vail employee, wasting time. Can’t get help.

@RickysRidge Been on hold for 45 minutes.

Moments later, Rob Katz responded:

@Lefsetz Thanks for the heads up- will get right on that and get it straightened out.

I’d like to tell you I was stunned, but I expected it.  That’s the power of Twitter.  You get ACCESS!

I felt like I mattered.  I felt like if I ran into Rob Katz on the hill, he’d remember me.

It was the exact opposite of the major label mentality, where the executives are gods, flying in private planes, hanging behind velvet ropes, screwing you left and right while making money hand over fist.

That’s what the hoi polloi believe.  How can Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Doug Morris, Lyor Cohen and Jimmy Iovine be SO OUT OF TOUCH?

In today’s "New York Times" there’s an article on the use of Twitter in retail.  Saying 47% of retailers planned to increase their use of social media this holiday season.

Employees tweet about stock.  You can tweet asking for help, hell, Best Buy’s got a complete team!

Isn’t it fucked up that Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre are trying to sell their crap in Best Buy and they don’t have Twitter accounts where potential buyers can ask questions and bond with them?

As Blind Faith once sang, it’s time to come down off your throne.

Not that you have to change your lifestyle and slum it.

Rob Katz is so damn rich that he retired to Boulder after 9/11.  Left New York with the money he’d made on Wall Street.  He was on Vail Resorts’ board, and they ultimately asked him to run the company.  When he tweets about his travels I just know some of those planes are private.  But I don’t care, because I feel I know him and he took care of my problem!

Vail Resorts’ bookings are up.

Mr. Katz’s efforts seem to be working.

Meanwhile, he’s taking a hit himself.  After laying off employees last year, he sacrificed his salary.  Do you see any label head, still with a job, sacrificing whatsoever?  No, fuck the laid off employees, let’s blame the customers and hide!

Meanwhile, Live Nation is the one taking chances, with No Service Fee Wednesdays.

As for Record Store Day…  Nothing wrong with it, but in today’s world you don’t hide behind your retailers, you get into the fray yourself.

After tweeting Rob Katz I e-mailed Vail’s Webmaster.

Stunningly, I got a response in minutes.  That used to be a black hole, contacting the Web help.  I got a link to a new page where I could buy the $200 card.

But, not long thereafter, I got the sweetest e-mail from someone at Vail, bending over backwards trying to help me.

And on the next day, THANKSGIVING, I got another e-mail from a higher-up.

And remember, they didn’t have my e-mail address!  They had to do some Web research to get it!

That’s customer service in the modern era.

And either you play by the new rules, or you die.

Buying, Selling and Twittering All the Way

Consider this a public service announcement.

I broke from this screen to watch the final "Curb Your Enthusiasm".  Talk about being nostalgic…

The nineties were a lost decade for me.  My ex moved out in ’89, just when "Seinfeld" began.  I was a comedy nut, I’d seen all the stand-ups on late night TV, even before that lame "Improv" show killed the format.  And Jerry was always second best, to George Carlin.

Carlin said the great thing about the supermarket was if you decided you didn’t want something, you could put it back ANYWHERE!

Jerry asked if we knew why they called it the "Check-Out Line".  I think of that every time I’m in the supermarket.

So, knowing Jerry and being suddenly addicted to television, having never owned a set until 1987, and seeming to be one of the few people who knew how to program a VCR, I recorded "The Seinfeld Chronicles".

And then watched every new episode in order.

The interplay between Jerry and Larry on "Curb" was utterly amazing.  When they were standing by Jason’s book, talking about "Having said that…"

When Jerry talked about the old days, how they shared all their secrets…  Doing filmed entertainment is like being in the army, a unique experience even more intense than college, you never forget those days, the experiences you had. But they don’t last.

And how Jason slipped right into character.  And Julia.

It was like it was the nineties all over again.

But it’s not.  Everybody looked a bit older.  Jerry’s lost a bit of hair, Jason is chunkier, Julia’s hair is longer, she looks more sophisticated.  Michael?  Like Cosmo Kramer, he doesn’t age.

But the absolute best part of the episode, of the whole damn series, was Larry getting back together with Cheryl.  We love happy endings.  Especially when they no longer exist in the real world.  When we can’t get out of Afghanistan and Wall Street is bringing whole cities to their knees

"Wall Street Vs. America"

Of course, Larry fucks it up.  Because that’s what George does.  And Larry is George.

And waking up my computer before I go on my theoretical hike, I found an e-mail stating that one could stream the entire Amchitka album on that site.

Who knew?

Certainly not me.  They sent me super-secret media links.

But it turns out anybody can stream the album.  Cherry-pick the tracks.

So do this: