thesessionmanfilm.com

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Does anybody under forty even know who Nicky Hopkins is/was?

But for those who do…

When was the last time you saw Shel Talmy on film?

And the man with the most gravitas is…Bill Wyman?

Oh, Mick and Keith are here too, and they wax rhapsodic, but they were all there…

Actually, it was at the Marquee Club where the Stones first encountered Nicky. Who dedicated followers of liner notes will be very familiar with (and Dave Davies is in this flick too!)

Nicky Hopkins was the ultimate session man. Billy Preston gets all the credit for being the fifth Beatle, and I don’t want to take anything away from the man whose career went ’round in circles, but the A#1 session man of the classic rock era was Nicky Hopkins.

Who is not in this film much, but when he is… He’s completely different from your image of the man. He’s soft-spoken, anything but dark and far from intimidating. He comes across as nothing so much as…A MUSICIAN!

And they recite the history, some known, some unknown, but the essence of the film is the legendary heads talking about the work Nicky did. And when the piano player reproduces Nicky’s licks…a smile comes to your face. And when there is talk of and ultimately the playing of the intro to “Monkey Man”…I got shivers, and a grin formed on my face. That iconic riff. That had nothing to do with the Glimmer Twins, that was pure Nicky.

And I bought “The Tin Man Was a Dreamer,” Nicky’s one and only solo album, which had a great version of “Edward,” which was listed as “Edward (The Mad Shirt Grinder)” in its original incarnation at the end of the Quicksilver album “Shady Grove.”

And I didn’t know that Nicky was so close to John Cippolina. And there’s a great delineation of the cross-pollinated San Francisco scene of the day, with Cippolina’s sister and Jorma and Jack, but I could never quite fathom how Nicky went from sideman to band member.

The money. The work. You don’t get royalties as a sideman.

Or as Steve Lukather has told me a number of times… An older studio cat told him that although he was the top gunslinger today, fashion always changes, he needed to find his own thing, and then Luke and his Valley buddies formed Toto.

Nicky moves back to England and is happy, but has to relocate back to L.A. to work. And I always wondered how he ended up in Nashville, but it turns out the ’94 Northridge earthquake was the last straw.

This is not a Hollywood biopic, like they made for Queen and Elton John. This is a documentary…documenting the story, an important story, so it won’t be forgotten.

I mean the licks live on…

But in these days of synthesizers and hard drives, never mind AI, people seem to forget that there are real people behind the music, and all this stuff cut back then was the beneficiary of some studio breakthroughs, but was ultimately handmade.

And I’d recommend you watch “The Session Man,” but so far there’s no distribution.

This ain’t music. Which can cost almost nothing to make and nothing to distribute. Sure, you can make a movie on your iPhone, but if you want talking heads, never mind music rights, you’re going to spend a few bucks. And it’s always hard to find those bucks.

And some of these films are so low budget as to be questionable uses of your time, but the Hopkins film is something better. Sure, it’s hagiography, but you know each and every one of the talking heads, from Chris Kimsey to Greg Phillinganes, another session man, and it’s a treat to see and hear the musings of P.P. Arnold, who had little presence in the U.S. market and who many people might think has passed.

“The Session Man” is a link in your education. It fills holes in your mental history of rock and roll. Which revolutionized society, impacted a an entire generation, music was the coolest medium, it drove the culture and Nicky was there, not on the periphery, but audible on some of your favorite records.

But Amazon and Netflix, et al, have cut back on buying this stuff. Amazon won’t even let you distribute it pay-per-view. Yes, Amazon used to take everything, not anymore. So you can make it, but…

As I always say, distribution is king. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t matter how good it is.

If your eyes light up when you hear the name “Nicky Hopkins” you’ll want to see this movie. It is not a revelation, but you’re taken inside the gold mine, you get a fuller understanding of who the man was.

But for now, “The Session Man” plays festivals… Used to be music docs were rare, you even paid to see them in a theatre, now there’s a plethora, seemingly every act of yore has one.

Many of those acts are forgettable.

But not Nicky Hopkins.

It makes me want to resign from the Democratic party.

Maybe I’m my father’s son, maybe I’m a child of the sixties, but I was taught that you stood up for what was right, consequences be damned.

Liz Cheney is a national hero despite having heinous political positions. History will be very kind to her, it will not be to the sheep who’ve fallen in line behind Donald Trump, who deny what we saw with our very own eyes on January 6th.

Call me a chump, but I believed in the political system. And thought that the Democrats were better than the Republicans. Now I know that is untrue. They’re all pussies afraid of speaking the truth, for fear they’ll lose their jobs. Isn’t job number one to represent their constituencies? This proves that it is not. The Democratic public, the hoi polloi, are overwhelming in favor of Biden stepping down and being replaced. But the elected officials are not doing their job and putting forth this take. They’re afraid.

Fear…

Don’t confuse today’s protests with those of the sixties. The culture was way ahead of D.C. The youth were pulling Washington into the present, since it had its head so far up its ass.

But today? In the era of internet and ubiquitous TV? No one is that far out of the loop. They know what is going on. But Democrats in D.C. want to be ostriches.

Let’s be clear. Biden is toast. It’s over. He’s done. But in the process of his expulsion, the denouement, he’s taking the entire Democratic party down with him, they’re doing irreparable harm to the country. If we don’t believe in the system, we’re done.

That’s what the Democrats were always told. To have faith, to believe, that the goal was to take care of everybody, build a more equitable society while we plowed into the future and got things done.

But not Saint Obama. He was so fearful of appearing the angry Black man that he never stood up to the Republicans. He kept waiting for them to come to the table, and they never did. John McCain had a bout of conscience and saved the Affordable Care Act from the cynical Republicans, but as far as leading, Obama didn’t do that good a job.

Old Joe? He did great. From the start he knew the Republicans were never going to get on board, so he just marched forward. Oh, he waited too long on this and that, but he led.

Until he didn’t. Until he became more concerned about keeping his job.

We keep hearing what a narcissist Donald Trump is, now we know Joe Biden is one too.

So, all those elected Democrats, the ones in the Senate and the House of Representatives, they could take a stand, say Joe has to go, but they won’t, because they’re wrapped up in the team.

The team will lead you right off the cliff. America is about the individual, breaking rules, dragging the rest of the nation into the future.

That’s right, our heroes used to be musicians, who spoke truth as opposed to being silent for fear of denting their brand extensions. Now it’s techies we worship. Move fast and break things? In D.C. it’s don’t move at all and don’t break a single thing, don’t upset the Apple cart. That’s right, Apple, as in Steve Jobs, who did more for the country, more for the world than anybody in Washington. Never mind the rest of the techies.

The people in D.C. are the ones you hated in high school. You know the people who wouldn’t say a single negative thing about anybody. Who boasted they got along with all groups. Meanwhile, the jocks and the cheerleaders either faded away or became drones at the corporation, that’s what sports teaches you, to be part of the team. But each and every one of you remembers the weird kid in your class, who may have gone unnoticed, who may have been an object of derision, who went on to set the world on fire. They could see the landscape, they were on a mission, they wanted to make a difference, they wanted to leave their mark and no amount of negativity and blowback was going to get in their way.

Let’s see… You’re in Congress, fearful of coming out publicly against Biden… What’s the price? You’re elected by people in your state, the majority of whom want Biden gone.

As for upsetting the President, the CEO…

If you follow business history, business litigation, it used to be that being on the board was a cushy job of me-tooism that paid handsomely. But then the courts started holding these board members responsible for not reining in the CEO went they went off the reservation. Today board members are much more active, and if they see something they don’t like, they resign. And if there’s a crisis, they take action promptly. Sure, they’re afraid of the CEO, but they’re also afraid of being held legally liable, so they come up with an equitable solution.

And if you break the code of the corporation, you’re instantly out, no matter how good a job you did. It could be as simple as dating someone who reports to you. As for a code of operation, isn’t age and competence the number one criterion? I.e. can you do the job? If not, they oust you. After all, the board is responsible to the shareholders.

We’re the shareholders in America, you and me, but our board, our elected officials, don’t care what we think, they’re only out for themselves.

So how am I supposed to say Democrats are better than Republicans anymore? Never mind that some of what the Republicans have said has turned out to be true. About intersectionality on campus, everything boiling down to oppressed and oppressor. Did you see those Deans texting antisemitic remarks at Columbia? They lost their jobs. But no one can lose their job in D.C. And when they’re on the spot, they fight tooth and nail, for every Santos there’s a Menendez and a Gaetz, never mind Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.

Remember when it was said of JFK’s cabinet that they were the “Best and the Brightest”? That type is not in politics anymore. You’ve had to be squeaky clean to even run, never mind win. Trump broke that paradigm, we’ve all smoked dope, crossed the line sometimes, we should not insist our elected officials be priests and nuns, the former who’ve turned out to not be so princely, the light was ultimately shone upon them.

We have hard evidence. The debate, the Stephanopoulos interview. Just yesterday, George was caught on camera saying Biden can’t serve another four years.

But George had to apologize. Why? He’s not elected. As for speaking his personal truth, isn’t that what the Fox anchors do 24/7? Why are those perceived to be on the left held to a different standard?

So it’s left to the media. Anybody who has doubted the power of the “New York Times” is going to have to eat their hat when Biden steps down, because the outlet has almost single-handedly beaten and continued to beat the drum of the need for Biden to step down. The “Times” is doing the work of Congress. And if you don’t think everybody in Congress reads the “Times,” you’re delusional. Even the right. How do you think they set their agenda?

And then today we’ve got George Clooney. What kind of bizarre world do we live in where an actor has more credibility than an elected official? Someone who plays roles more than a supposedly honest politician. And you wonder why the public has more faith in entertainers than elected officials. We keep being told entertainers need to shut up, they’re not entitled to an opinion, but they’re leaders, they seem to be the only ones the public is listening to. George has kept true to form. He does not have a reputation for putting himself first, to the detriment of everyone else. Furthermore, he reported how Biden was substandard at the fundraiser in L.A. a few weeks back. Did you see any of the footage? I’d be charitable if I said Biden walked as well as Lurch.

This is why music is a second class art form these days. Clooney will go on record, but no musician. They’re afraid they’re going to alienate some potential fan. Where is David Crosby when you need him? Oh, that’s right, six feet under. Even Graham Nash turned on Crosby, but Crosby maintained his image by speaking his truth. Why can’t anybody in D.C. speak their truth? It reminds me of high school where everybody’s whispering and passing notes.

The job of the president is to lead. And the other two branches of government are supposed to keep him in line. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court just upset this balance. But that doesn’t mean Congress can’t act, can’t rein in Biden, can’t tell him to go.

Who is a thinking person supposed to believe in?

We’ve got cartoons, superheroes, but when it comes to flesh and blood, it’s a vast wasteland.

Which is why streaming TV surges. Because a lot of these shows illustrate the human condition, try to get it right. Whereas everybody in real life is afraid of going against some team, even though we’re all hungering for some truth.

Makes me crazy when people say they’re independents. Pierce the veil and you find out almost everyone who hides behind this moniker always votes one way or the other, for Republicans or Democrats. They’re just afraid of being labeled. They want to stay above the fray, immune, appear better than the rest of us. Utter hogwash.

And I don’t want to join this group, but at this point I hate both political parties, I don’t want to be associated with EITHER!

You Congresspeople want the press and celebrities to do your job. That’s right, YOUR job! Why don’t you take a stand, publicly. Say what you believe in your heart. If you don’t do so soon, you’re going to bring down the entire political system. Because people like me, who’ve sided with you and endorsed you for decades…

Are going to abandon you.

He’s done.

And he’s the only one who doesn’t know it.

If you’re addicted to this story, I recommend not only that you subscribe to Apple News+. but that you click on the “Following” button in the lower right hand corner and when the menu/list comes up, select “Election 2024,” right there at the top, under the heading “Special Coverage.”

Of course you’ll see the headlines, but that’s not the nougat.

You’ll scroll past said headlines, and then the podcasts, and then you’ll get the “Latest Stories.” Scroll past the big blue box and you’ll find the “For You” section, which is the heart of the matter, to quote Don Henley.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about Henley for weeks now. He’s got that great line in “The End of the Innocence”:

“this tired old man that we elected king”

That was about Reagan, even though by time the song was released Ronald was gone, from the office and mentally. In case you’re too young to remember, Reagan had Alzheimer’s and they covered it up. And they wonder why no one trusts the government…

So when you get to the “Latest Stories” and “For You” sections, you will get up to the minute headlines/stories. It’s better than Google, because the detritus is filtered out. Just about every news source is there, other than the “New York Times,” because the Gray Lady don’t need no stinkin’ Apple. While the rest of print media is on its deathbed, the “Times” has burgeoned, triumphed, it’s America’s newspaper, no matter how much those on the right and the extreme left hate it.

And there was a trifecta of negativity posted on the “Times” site today.

You had the editorial board itself saying “The Democratic Party Must Speak the Plain Truth to the President.”

Even better was “James Carville: Biden Won’t Win. Democrats Need a Plan. Here’s One.”

And then the number one Biden defender, Paul Krugman, turned tail on the man whose economic achievements he can’t stop trumpeting: “Please, Mr. President, Do the Right Thing.”

Maureen Dowd even weighed in earlier in the day, breaking her once a week schedule with “Joe Biden, in the Goodest Bunker Ever.” Dowd skewered the Biden team for trying to correct the Stephanopoulos transcript. Did you watch? The man was clearer, but once again you could barely hear him, his voice was so soft. And there were faux pas, the media is pointing them out ad infinitum.

But it’s not only the media. On X/Twitter, Hillary Rosen, late of the RIAA, excoriated Biden for blaming it all on “elites.”

“This desire to wedge the ‘Dem elite’ against ‘regular folk’ is bad. The elite are actually late to concerns about Biden. A majority of voters have been concerned about this for the last two years. And he has a 36% approval rating. If he doesn’t step down to increase our chances of winning, then yeah, we’ll have to circle the wagons, and I am a soldier against Trump, but please stop pretending or casting blame. President Biden and his behavior alone is responsible for this problem – not the voters, not the media, not his opponents, not the party and not the elite. #MorningJoe”

The irony is that the party elite is the cause of this problem. It’s the rank and file who’ve been saying Biden is too old for eons. 

“A New York Times/Sienna College poll last week showed that 74 percent of voters said Mr. Biden was too old to be effective, including 59 percent of Democrats.”

And the piece-de-resistance came from Jon Stewart tonight, “‘Get on board or shut the f*ck up’ is not a particularly compelling pro-democracy bumper sticker.”

It’s positively laughable I tell you.

But it seems the press is the only one with balls. Except for Meathead, maybe:

“It’s time to stop f*cking around… It’s time for Joe Biden to step down.”

That’s what Rob Reiner said on X/Twitter on Sunday.

And you might think the media doesn’t matter.

And you may ask yourself where is your large automobile, where is your beautiful house, where is your beautiful wife.

And then you’ll realize David Byrne was prescient, for it’s the same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

Joe Biden is living in the White House, defended by Jill, and it’s starting to resemble high school politics. We duly elected officials will dictate!

And the students and the public will laugh.

Biden is out of touch. In some ways just like Hillary Clinton back in 2016. She couldn’t sense the change in the air, that people were fed up with the politics of the day. And no one saw her as honest and trustworthy. The woman who once proffered facetiously that she could stay home and bake cookies then said her favorite book was the Bible. Talk about pandering.

But it’s bigger than that. We live in a changed society. A pastrami sandwich is not only under a buck, it’s over twenty dollars today, up from just under that threshold before the recent inflation. And said inflation was not caused by Biden and he did a good job of handling it, but that does not mean people are not struggling.

But how would he know? Biden’s in a bubble. He’s not scrolling social media, he is not taking the temperature of the country, he’s just listening to what his handlers say, and they’re oftentimes saying exactly what he wants to hear, or canards they want him to hear.

Used to be lawyers, businessmen, had secretaries, who were ultimately labeled “assistants,” even though the job didn’t change. But today everybody does their own typing. If you can’t type, you’re screwed. But all the young ‘uns know how to type, they’ve been doing it on their devices since not long after birth.

And there’s the generation gap.

It’s a great big country and Biden is completely detached.

And what does he fall back on? THE RULES!

I’m chuckling as I write this. The law is irrelevant if you can’t enforce it. And a contract oftentimes doesn’t even matter. Forget the cost, both financially and to your career, of a lawsuit, many defendants are judgment proof. And even if they’ve got money winning and collecting are two different things. Can you say “Alex Jones?”

Anybody in business will tell you the legal system comes last. It’s the option of last resort. Because the legal system is imperfect, but even more important, oftentimes it doesn’t apply.

You can rely on the law, but if the court of public opinion is against you, if your team is against you, you’re toast.

Like Biden.

But after playing team politics for so long, too many elected Democratic officials are afraid of going public with their truth, that they want Biden to drop out of the race. They think they might be excommunicated, like Liz Cheney. But that’s the Republican party. Then again, are the Democrats now as bad?

I mean isn’t that what we all want, some truth? Mr. Smith in Washington? Someone who leads?

But it’s like that Snoop Dogg song, everybody’s dropping it while it’s hot. Hoping that someone else will do their dirty work. First and foremost, the press.

But ultimately it will probably be like Nixon. Who fought his expulsion tooth and nail, was defiant, until he wasn’t. You see his own party came to the White House and said he had to go, that he couldn’t beat the legal system.

And Biden can’t beat Trump. He’s a laughingstock for stating that if Trump wins he’ll be fine with it, “as long as I gave it my all and I did the good (the White House’s words, everybody else heard “goodest”) as job as I know I can do…”

How narcissistic.

And the truth is it’s not about Trump. This is where Biden and his team have been delusional from the start. They thought painting Trump negatively was enough to win, but this is not true, you’ve got to play offense, lay out a plan of action, deliver something people can believe in as opposed to trying to scare them into voting for you.

This has been hysterical, only this has been our life for almost the past two weeks.

This reminds me of Paul Tsongas, who was running for President, testifying he had beaten cancer, and then ultimately died of the disease just a few years later.

That’s a politician for you. They’ll say and do anything to get the job and keep it. They’re about as trustworthy as a used car salesman.

And while we’re talking used… Does anybody, and I mean anybody, want to put their faith in an eighty six year old to run the country? I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden dies before that age. But he’s going to will himself to live and be cogent, if not spry, long beyond that.

I’ve got cancer. And I’m going to tell you what the research says, that believing you’ll beat it has no effect on the disease. It runs its own course. Believe all you want, but if the genetics say you’re going to go, you’re going to be history.

But this is the same America where the short believe they can play in the NBA. The untalented believe they can be musical stars. Everybody feels entitled to success in their vertical of choice, but that’s not the way it works, never has and never will.

The doors are closing on Biden and he thinks they’re wide open. That by trying to defend a piss-poor performance that was beyond a bad night he can make people deny what they saw, never mind instituting his action plan more than a week after the incident.

And there were the questions for that radio interview… The host lost their job over that, why not Biden? Who is horrific off the cuff, but not too good even if there’s a script. Talk about making a hash of the language, to the point where people aren’t even sure of the point he was making.

Biden is going to wake up when he’s forced to. Oh, he’ll never admit he’s not worthy of running, not a feisty on the ball man, but they’re going to take the ball from him just like they do from the starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. Yes, when the pitcher shows signs of tiredness, weakness, they pull him and replace him. But we can’t do that with Biden, he earned his place in the race!

What a crock of crap.

Once again, the rules are guidelines, they are enforced at the will of the people, who don’t always abide by them.

So how does it end for Biden?

As Ernest Hemingway put it… “Gradually, then suddenly.”

NEXT!

https://t.ly/qKpqg

This is for all of you who complain too many books are bummers.

You know David Nicholls. Probably through “One Day.” It was a movie and now a series on Netflix. Not that I’ve seen either. I rarely watch a production of something I’ve read, it’s too compressed, it’s not the vision I have in my head, it’s always inferior to the reading experience, The only movie that I’ve ever seen that is better than the book is “Wonder Boys,” you know, the film with the last great Bob Dylan song, “Things Have Changed.”

And there’s a similarity here in that I read Michael Chabon’s “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” and then had to read its follow-up, the aforementioned “Wonder Boys.” But unlike with David Nicholls, I haven’t read all of Chabon’s work, despite the hosannas, I too often found it was a bit difficult and didn’t resonate, however I did enjoy “Telegraph Avenue.”

I started with “One Day,” Nicholls’s 2009 book. I read a review and then purchased it on Amazon just after I got my Kindle. Nicholls’s books are slight, but somewhat literary. You don’t feel like you’re slumming.

And the feeling of “Sweet Sorrow” really resonated with me, so I reserved the new one, “You Are Here.”

Which I completely missed the hype on. I stumbled on it in some reading I did. How could David Nicholls have a new book and I not be aware of it? That’s the modern era, blink and you miss it.

So on the surface, “You Are Here” seems simple. It’s about a hike across England and you know there’s going to be a romance. In other words, it’s pretty predictable. But not completely. And although I am now inspired to walk across England, what impressed me most was the nailing of the inner dialogue of romance, how the individual feels and acts, the nature of connection.

You’ve got your eyes on someone…

Maybe someone set you up, and you end up wondering if they even know you.

That’s the point. Marnie wants to exchange stories. She doesn’t want to be bored by a pharmacist talking about Formula One.

There might be women who want the external, who are entranced by the penumbra, how someone looks, what they own, how much money they have, but the majority want someone they can connect with, that they can talk to, who will listen to them, who they can exchange stories with.

What does it take to open someone up? Is it even possible to open them up?

And to what degree are you haunted by your baggage, do you own it, do you reveal it?

Get to a certain age and we all have romantic failures. And no matter what happened, we don’t feel completely good about them. I was listening to a podcast with Bill Maher and Penn Jillette and Maher said he is still haunted by the teenage girlfriend who dumped him. That’s how deep it cuts, not that you can get many men to admit it.

Marnie is too isolated. She works at home and is not rolling in dough. And as the years have passed…she notices the change.

Michael is a teacher who is stuck. Covid led to his wife moving out… (Yes, we now have books where Covid is a feature, not a bug.) And on some level he’s not living in the real world, he’s on his own planet, he believes the solitary life works for him, but does it really?

So the whole book is about Marnie and Michael coming together. You can see it from page one. But the description of who everybody is, their inner thoughts, makes the book worth reading.

I mean to what degree are we trapped by our choices, how do we get out of our own ruts? Have we lost touch with what we used to want? Are we burdened by our losses?

But there’s that spark.

And a lot of missed signals.

“You Are Here” is an easy read. Two days if you want. Maybe less. But even though I knew where it was going, a whole world was created, and not only did I end up knowing these people, I could see myself in some of these characters.