Did you read all the stories in the "New York Times" about the last game there?

Well, not the last game, but the experience celebrities had at the ballpark?  More specifically, Paul Simon?

Where have you gone Paul Simon, a nation turns its distracted eyes to you.  You made one of the great solo albums of all time, even worked with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm section, and now all you’re remembered for is a couple of tunes with Art Garfunkel and a record with African rhythms.

"Kodachrome"’s success overshadowed the greatness of "Something So Right", "Learn How To Fall", "St. Judy’s Comet" and my personal favorite, "One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor".  Barry Beckett’s fingers walk down the keyboard like a man meandering down an apartment building stairway…  Maybe running back up at the end for something forgotten.  Like this album.  Not hard enough for the classic rock stations, not hip enough to be played in wine bars, "There Goes Rhymin’ Simon" is Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak, everything in 1941, almost nothing today.

But this remembrance wasn’t about Paul’s music, but his experiences at Yankee Stadium.  Like singing "Mrs. Robinson" at the installation of DiMaggio’s monument.  Meeting people who were friends whom he’d never encountered.  Like Scooter Rizzuto.

Turns out Paul Simon was a helluva baseball player.  All Queens, well almost.  I lived to play baseball.  Every day.  I considered myself to be pretty good.  But that was before the Beatles.  Before the Beatles, we all wanted to be Mickey Mantle.

My father took me to Yankee Stadium for the very first time in 1961.  You couldn’t find a less athletic chap.  He bought us both gloves when I was four or five, but I don’t remember him ever being better than me.  But that glove and that ball were my start.  To my own journey, outside the house.  Playing in pickup games, making friends down the street.

The first game we went to was a doubleheader.  Yogi slapped a single in the 14th for the Yankees to win.  We left after the fifth inning of the second game, we had to meet my mother, who was going to a play in Manhattan.

The next time my mom came with us.  To Old Timer’s Day.

My father getting us tickets to Old Timer’s Day was like you taking your kids to see Zeppelin, or AC/DC.  I barely knew who all these players were, but my dad knew the day was special.  He focused on food, a patron spilled a Ballantine all over him, I watched what happened on the field.

But the most memorable visit to the ballpark came on October 1st.

This time he brought the whole family.

It was the last day of the season, of an epic year.  And even though the pennant was sewn up, the mighty Maris reached back and popped one into the right field stands.  For his 61st home run.

Roger Maris is a name for the history books.  With an asterisk.  A sixties relic deep in the memory banks of those who lived through the era, but unknown to the younger generation, like a second rate British Invasion act, like the Nashville Teens.

I’m not nostalgic for this stadium.  It’s a fake.  The seventies remake killed the charisma.

What about those poles?  What if you were sitting behind one?

I wouldn’t go up to the upper deck at first.  Weren’t those seats just bolted to the wall, with your feet dangling?

And the monuments in center.  What if someone ran into them?

I remember more than one inside the park home run where the ball got caught back there.  It was 451 feet to deep center.  Or was it 454?

They don’t make them like that anymore.

But at least they don’t make them all symmetrical, like the seventies remake.

I’m hoping the new Yankee Stadium has character, some of the uniqueness of the old.  Baseball parks don’t change, they’re not subject to fashion, you build them and they remain, frozen in time, a modern team playing in a bygone era.

You could feel the history in the old Yankee Stadium.  This was where the Babe played.  Born in 1896, growing up in an orphanage in Baltimore.  This was where Lou Gehrig played in 2,130 games in a row, not to be in the record books, but because it was his job.  This was where I spent some of my closest moments with my dad.  Who went for me.  Because he wasn’t a narcissistic he-man of the universe, but a father, who wanted better for his kids, who wanted them to have what he didn’t.

Songs Open Doors to the Inner Sanctum

But I’m telling you.

The "New York Times" did an article on the summer’s best movies.  Not the biggest, the ones hyped by the talking heads and magazines that live off their heroes and heroines’ exploits, but the best…the sleepers, the secret pleasures.

Serious Pleasures: Season’s Sweet Spots

I’ve given up on the movies.  But like Loudon Wainwright III says on his new album, movies are a mother to me.  They entice me, they soothe me, they open my horizons so I see the real world differently, with experienced eyes.

But that song was cut in the seventies.  When we were addicted to movies.  And rock and roll.

Both existed in the sixties.  Some believe music took a turn for the worse in the new decade, but films positively flourished.  I once saw four flicks in a day.  Two was not unusual, three frequently.  And I even went to see Marcel Ophuls’ epic documentary "The Memory Of Justice", which required me to bring lunch in order to endure its 278 minute length.

I did not bring lunch to the Landmark today.  I had a Hebrew National hot dog in the lobby before the film began.  But this film, which was not brief, did not allow hunger pangs, any outside stimuli to intrude.  I was riveted by "Tell No One" from its very first frame.

Which was of an outdoor dinner in the French countryside.  Akin to Woody Allen’s depiction of the Catskills in "A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy", but with a lot more wine, and even more soul.  Because the French are about living.

But not long into the movie someone dies.

The protagonist and his wife go for a late night swim.  In an unprotected pond where you fear people are going to drown.  But no one drowned.  And then it was eight years later.

Alex is now a doctor.  Is this a French comedy?

No, this is a thriller, with enough plot twists to be eager for the flick to end, so you can turn to your partner and ask…WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?

My mother told me she couldn’t figure half of it out, but I chalked that up to age…  Until.

That’s what got me to go.  The article in the "New York Times" caused me to bring the film up to my mother, who let out an exclamation when I mentioned the title that had me knowing it was a winner.  And at dinner, Daniel Glass’ eyes bugged out recounting his experience of seeing the movie earlier in the summer.  Can you imagine, he had to go to a gig right thereafter!

But we didn’t go to see "Tell No One" right away.  We sent to see "Frozen River" first.

On my birthday I went to see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "21".  The former wasn’t funny and the latter was a remake of too many pictures I’d already seen.  If this passes for Hollywood filmed entertainment, I’m out.  But I thought the indies still had soul.  Until I was disappointed by "Frozen River".  Sure, the performances were great, but there was the script of about half a movie.  Makes me crazy.  I don’t want my money back, but my time. Even more, I still want to believe there are artists, who are shooting for excellence.

That’s what’s lacking not only in film, but music, excellence.  If only the records everybody e-mailed me about were that good.  You know greatness. You’re drawn in immediately.  You want to play the record again and again, you don’t want the film to end.

I was fearful "Tell No One" would end with no resolution.  Actually, that’s one of the few problems, the complete explication in the final minutes.  You’re about to get angry, feeling this is another French art film with no resolution.  But you don’t get the right to make that complaint.  Still, it’s hard to put the flick in an American genre.

The characters are three dimensional.  The life depicted feels real.  There’s tedium and suspense.  Well, not much tedium, but it’s not constantly whiz bang, like in American flicks.

But there are American film elements.  Like the chase scene.  I didn’t see that coming.  In the middle of a French thriller that appeared to be more of a psychological drama?  The king is "Bullitt".  Runner-up is "To Live And Die In L.A.", wherein they drive against traffic on the freeway.  There’s a freeway element in "Tell No One", but it’s harrowing in a way no prior film chase is.  You’re not sure what the lead is thinking.  You expect one thing to happen, but it doesn’t, then it does…

We live in a dumbed-down society.  We’re supposed to lower our expectations.  Say something is good because it makes a lot of money, or the audience it appeals to has never been exposed to the classics.  At some point you feel you’re just too old, you’ve seen it all.  You won’t fall for the machinations of the Hollywood apparatus and you seem to be saying no more than yes.

But you’ll say yes to "Tell No One".

The paper said it was only playing for one more week.  So we schlepped to the Landmark, where we sat on a couch and experienced a pristine image better than the one on Felice’s Samsung, which is rare.  The sound system was loud enough without making you feel like you were reliving July 4th. And the musical choices…  Jeff Buckley’s "Lilac Wine" never sounded that good…

I lost myself on a cool damp night

Actually, it was a typically warm, sunny L.A. day.  But with the lights down in the theatre, you could feel the French air.

I gave myself in that misty light

The darkness was pregnant with possibilities.  Who was the murderer?  And why?

Was hypnotized by a strange delight

At some point in the future, they’re going to remake "Tell No One" with American stars.  People you’ve heard of, who you know intimately from the gossip pages.  Maybe George Clooney or Brad Pitt.  The chase scene will be so over the top as to be completely unrealistic.  The gangster will look like a runway model.  And the villain will be so one dimensional, so evil, so bad, that he’ll be more of a cartoon than a real person.  Grosses could be good, but probably won’t be, despite the hundred million dollar cost.  Because it takes an auteur, creating something for the very first time, unrestricted, bending and integrating genres, to come up with something truly new and riveting.  Go off by just a couple of degrees and you’ve got crap.  Get it right and the audience has a eureka moment, can’t stop talking about the film, needs to tell everybody about it.

Like me.  Please go see this movie.  If you don’t like it, then I don’t like you.

The only reason I know they’re happening is I’m on Chet Flippo’s e-mail list.  But I wasn’t planning to tune in, even though another punter e-mailed me they were being broadcast on XM.

But I’m driving home from Will Rogers Park, pushing the buttons on my radio, and after sampling the 60s, 70s and 80s, I ended up on Highway 16, where James McMurtry was just finishing up a number.

Then the host started rambling, killing time before the next act set up.  He was telling the audience to thank the accounting firm that had tabulated the ballots, the company that made the awards, the person that designed them.  Then he finally introduced the musical host for the evening, Buddy Miller.

I’ve come to love Buddy.  Check out his number with his wife Julie "You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast", or, in the alternative, "Dirty Water".  But I didn’t expect much.  Then the band started up and it was like flipping a switch, inflaming every bulb in your house.  They went from zero to 60 instantly.  I’m in the groove, carried away.

Then…

Buddy had said it was an honor to tour this summer with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.  That backstage during the tour they’d written a number, all I remember is it had "Leroy" in the title, and it was going to come out on his next album.

Why bother.

Then again, I guess if your audience is that small, you want something for them to remember you by.  If you just release a single, there’s nothing to hold on to.  So, even though word will never spread, you’re satisfying the core.

And I want the song to be good, but when Buddy starts to sing, I’m thinking it’s average.  And then, through my speakers comes the mellifluous voice of ROBERT PLANT!

Yes, mellifluous.  This isn’t the howler from Led Zeppelin, this is a crooner closer to Elvis than Screaming Lord Sutch.  But Robert’s not just adding some fills, he’s not just window dressing, he’s singing the whole verse!  To say I was mesmerized would be a disservice.  It was magic!  I melded with the sound coming out of the speakers.  I remembered all the great acts I saw in theatres before they hit the big time, before they hit arenas, if they ever did.  It was only about the music.  It was for the performers and the audience, that’s it.

And that’s where we are again today.  If you’re playing for the press, you’re missing the point.  The "New York Times" had a story wherein a seasoned strategist said that TV campaign advertising was a waste of money.

Candidates Strive to Break Through Media Fog

Few people watched.  Better to spend your money online.  What’s concocted with auto-tune is perfected for a medium that has little to do with music and a lot to do with money.  The soul has been surgically removed, if it was ever there at all.

And I love Led Zeppelin.  But this performance tonight was proof positive that Robert Plant would be wasting his time getting back together with that band, to run through the hits for aging hipsters.  Isn’t it more fulfilling to continue to test the boundaries, to do something new?  Even though Led Zeppelin veered into acoustic music, they never did something like this.

And I don’t know why Buddy’s going to make us wait.  I’d say to release tonight’s rendition instantly.  To capitalize on the Plant/Krauss commotion.

It’s about music.  You know the genuine article when you hear it.  It’s so rare that you do.

But tonight, in my car, I heard the real deal.  Musicians doing it not for the money, but for the love of playing, of performing.  Their passion was palpable.  My only desire was to get closer.  My only hope was that the music would never end.

Americana Music Awards

I’ve been trying to understand the financial crisis.

I finally sat down with the newspapers and decided to read every article.  Surprisingly, I found the answer not in the "Wall Street Journal" but the "New York Times".  The problem is denial.  The investment banks just wouldn’t admit their assets were worth less than they thought they were.

The writer analogized it to the housing market, to the individual.  You put your house on the market at too high a price.  You think it’s worth a mil, but really, it’s only worth $900,000.  Then, when you finally drop the price to $900,000, it doesn’t sell either, because now it’s worth $750,000.  Then you drop it to $750,000, but it’s too late, it’s now worth $600,000.  But this is a real problem.  Because you owe $650,000.  Maybe having taken out equity loans against it.  You just can’t get what you need.  You walk away.  Not only from the sale, but in many cases the house.  You’re upside down, it’s the bank’s problem.  If only you’d priced your house according to the real market value in the beginning, you would have sold it at a profit and been out!

But the people holding the debt are in the same situation.  They’re overvaluing the asset.  Instead of selling the securities for what they’re truly worth, they’re holding on to them, waiting to get their price, as the true price keeps falling and those mortgage defaults, from people abandoning their houses, continue to rise. Merrill Lynch was saved from bankruptcy by selling some assets at 22 cents on the dollar.  Only a new CEO, appointed in 2007, could do this.  The old guys, who’ve been around forever, like Fuld at Lehman, just couldn’t believe how bad things had gotten, they expected the situation to turn around through the sheer force of their own will.

Is this getting familiar yet?  Does this sound like the record business?

What we’re going through in America replicates what happened in Japan in the 1990s.  But rather than taking the bullet, eating the loss, the government continued to try to prop up the country’s financial system, to its detriment.  It took almost a decade for it to revive.  Every analyst says this was a mistake.  They should have taken the hit immediately and started over.

The major labels refuse to believe we’re living in the twenty first century, they refuse to bite the bullet and get with the program, they want to continue to live in the glory days of the 1990’s.  Isn’t that what Warner’s failed Estelle effort was about?  Getting people to buy an overpriced CD to get the one good track?  As they said in that old 1990’s TV show, homey don’t play that no more.

The labels have to confront reality, and bite the bullet now.

1. People want ownership.

No streaming, no rental.  P2P is about neither.  IM transfer is about neither.  CD burning is about neither.  In an era where you can e-mail a track, which label employees do every day, why would anybody want to rent?

2. Music is overpriced.

That’s the perception.  To try to change it is futile.  The only option is to lower the price and get more people to buy.  Historically, most of the product was purchased by a small percentage of the public.  We have to follow the cell phone example.  Everybody must pay for and consume music.  If big consumers get a bit of a break financially, it’s made up for by all the people who weren’t buying previously.  And these new customers also go to gigs, purchase merch…

3. File-trading cannot be stopped.

Give up the ghost.  Either license what exists or come up with a pay model that delivers the essence, legally, for a very inexpensive price.

4. Record companies screw artists.

Without honest accounting, without the artists getting the lion’s share of the money, indies will continue to siphon off both the cream and the newbies.  With the labels left with wannabes who don’t sell tonnage and superstars they’re overpaying.

5. 360 deals are a land grab.

Until the labels can prove they’re giving service for those rights, no one in his right mind would make this deal.  Just because the label’s in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to bail it out.  Just like the government refused to bail out Lehman Brothers.  Just like you refuse to buy a gas guzzler to help Detroit.

6. Diamond sales are history.

It’s almost impossible to get national attention.  The era of ubiquitous superstars selling a ton of product are gone.  It’s not about P2P, it’s about eyeballs.  You just can’t garner them.

The above are facts.  Which the labels continue to deny to this day.  Coming up with one lame, half-assed solution after another.  MySpace Music, Nokia’s "Comes With Music"…  But it’s worse, they won’t innovate, won’t license new thinkers for fear of giving away the store.  And adding insult to injury, Universal, like a Mafia family, requires a huge up front fee, irrelevant of whether you ever sell anything or make any money.  If all American business were run this way, the whole country would be bankrupt.  Furthermore, with files, people will always want to replace them.  Because their computers crash, because better quality ones infiltrate the system.  It’s like the original Napster…  Who cared if your computer crashed, you’d just log on and grab your files again.  You didn’t have to hoard, because you had access.  There is no giving away the store, people will always want to come back!

Truth is most people already own a lot of product and the labels pretend that the black market doesn’t exist. BitTorrent, Limewire…  If we don’t talk about them, if we sue some people, we can make like they’re a gnat on the ass of the business, when in truth, it’s the legal market that’s the gnat on the ass of the illegal market.

We need new blood, to take the hit now and realign the business.

It won’t be Guy Hands.  Because he broke rule number one.  He overpaid for EMI.  Doesn’t matter who he hires, what he says.  The bank would take the company back now, if it only knew what to do with it, if it could only sell it.

Warner has the best digital initiatives, but that’s like saying the Corleones are the friendliest Mafia family.

Sony is lost.  And Universal are bullies.  When Jean-Bernard Levy, CEO of Vivendi, stands up and says he thinks things are turning around, he reminds me of the nitwits on Wall Street, but it’s worse, at least they’re familiar with the business, whereas Jean-Bernard Levy just parrots what Doug Morris tells him.  Doug Morris is not living on the computer, he’s so out of touch that taking advice from him is like asking your grandfather about Facebook.

Maybe you have to leave new music development to new companies, just making money off your catalog. Or, maybe you must turn yourself into a financial services company, doing the deals and paying the royalties for everybody for a small fee, with an option, exercised by the artist, of upstreaming.  There is power in market share, the majors are headed for marginalization, only interested in what sells a lot, whereas what sells a little, in aggregate, is where the lion’s share of the money is going to be.

Things are not turning around.  Things are really dire.  Arguing about iTunes prices is like debating whether windshield wipers on SUVs are overpriced.  All the companies say the digital market isn’t making up for the CD downfall.  Doesn’t that say that a new digital model is necessary?

Of course, but these guys are living in denial.

On Wall Street as on Main Street, a Problem of Denial