That’s a real story you know.

You think these artists make this stuff up out of thin air, but you’d be surprised how many songs are inspired by real life. Kinda like “He blew his mind out in a car/He hadn’t noticed that the lights had changed”… This was Tara Browne, a Guiness heir. I didn’t know this until Bob Cavallo told me Browne’s favorite act was the Lovin’ Spoonful and they were hired to play Browne’s twenty first birthday, during which he was given a Lotus Elan as a present. Paul McCartney was there, Mick Jagger too, although they didn’t perform. And then Tara Browne lost his life in a car wreck…

And it turns out “People’s Parties” was about a very specific party, held by hairdresser Ara Gallant at his New York apartment. Appollonia van Ravenstein, a Dutch model, was the woman who put a lamp shade over her head as she cried… It all had to do with Jack Nicholson and sex, but Jack was not at Saturday night’s party…

This person celebrates her birthday with a party every year at this time, always in a different location. This time high in the hills above Los Angeles, so high that there was limited parking and you had to give your car to a valet halfway up the hill and take a van up to…

The kind of house that you see in movies, the kind you don’t think anybody really owns, certainly not anybody you know, but she did…it was an investment property.

Now when you’re in your twenties and thirties you live to go to parties. That’s where the action is. Back in my day the alternative was staying home and looking at the four walls. You had to go out to meet people, make connections, get ahead.

That’s what everybody is trying to do in L.A., get ahead. It can be tiresome. But one thing about being my age…you’re over the hump, you certainly wouldn’t turn down an interaction that would pay dividends, but you’re no longer on the hunt. You’re hanging out, observing.

And there’s a view from downtown to the beach. The only person I know who had a view this good was Q, but his house was in Bel-Air, and he’s no longer here.

“All the people at this party, they’ve got a lot of style”

You have to put on your look. Which is never elegant in L.A., it’s hip.

“They’ve got stamps of many countries, they’ve got passport smiles”

Most people there probably had a passport, they’d been places, done things, but the guest list was not that exclusive. Assuming you knew this person. But how many people outside L.A. know this person?

Not that there are not mass parties elsewhere in the country, but the clientele is different.

No one is old, even if their age is. Everybody’s got a young and hip attitude. And having gotten inside the velvet rope, no one has airs, no one is acting superior, then again, how many of these people do you actually know?

So, we went upstairs where the food was. And I saw Paul and Jerry over my shoulder, a very friendly couple I hadn’t seen since the beginning of summer. And I’m loading up my plate with fare and I’m walking out by the pool to talk to them and a woman comes rushing by and knocks over my plate. Why she was in such a hurry, I do not know. But she did stop and apologize, and stunningly my clothing escaped unscathed. But after assessing the mess Paul and Jerry were nowhere to be found.

Nor was Felice.

Now if a party is small enough and you lose your partner, your bearings, you feel out of place, like people are focusing on you, judging you. It wasn’t that bad, but I was feeling unmoored, and then upon reconnecting with Felice she proposed we sit down, which we did, at this tall table with high chairs.

And then people came to us.

At the beginning of a party you’ll talk to anybody you know. Just to feel like you deserve to be there. And the funny thing is a lot of these people you only see out, you don’t connect with them at home, may rarely hear from them in e-mail, but when you run into them it’s like old home week, and they update you on what they’ve been up to, both personally and professionally.

“Some are friendly, some are cutting, some are watching it from the wings”

The people watching was fantastic. Who exactly were these people and why were they there? Felice couldn’t get over the four fiftysomething women sitting on a bench at the top of the stairs staring straight forward, not speaking and not moving. What was their story? We postulated.

“Some are standing in the center, giving to get something”

Everybody’s selling. Hyping you on their new project. Introducing you to people, some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t.

And then Jeff Ross shows up. At the end of our podcast he insisted we were now friends.

And it’s like old home week. And then the birthday girl comes along and says Jeff roasted her and I’m talking to Jeff’s friend, who tells me about designing the logo for Woodstock ’94 and writing a new song with Paul Williams and when we’re done I do a little business, I tell him I’d like to do a podcast with Paul Williams.

And then Jeff and he disappear.

And I breathe a sigh of relief. These people I share intimate moments with, how do I continue when I see them? Especially women.

Like I was at Harold’s house years back and I got into this long conversation with Fawn Hall. We seemed to be connecting, I mean conversation with me is never light, I get right down to the real nitty-gritty, but what does Fawn Hall want to do with me?

So years later, more than five, we’re playing rock trivia at Branca’s house up in Beverly Park and Ms. Hall is there. I avoid her. What, I’m going to go up to her six or seven years later and say REMEMBER ME?

But we had shared that moment. And when the game is over, when we’re noshing on food, Fawn comes up to me and says…AREN’T YOU GOING TO SAY HELLO TO ME?

I was positively floored. Oh, she remembered.

I guess in a world where everybody professes to be a winner, I don’t feel like one. What’s so special about me, I’m certainly not an Adonis, I’m not rich, I am interested in your story, I do give good conversation, and only at this late date have I realized that makes me special, because everybody else is so narcissistic, selling, and no one wants to reveal their warts, their inadequacies.

So Jeff and I are buddies. But are we really? We didn’t go to summer camp together. What exactly are we going to talk about? It’s good he’s moved on, because I’m flummoxed, I don’t know what to say next to continue the conversation.

And at some point I have to find a bathroom. Now this is a big house, and the facilities are not obvious, and it seems that whenever I do find a WC there’s a queue.

So I end up downstairs in the theatre, whereupon I run into Howard Paar, who I haven’t seen in ages. He ran the O.N. Klub…where you danced to turn of the decade ska (from the seventies to the eighties), and he’s there with this woman who used to work at Epic and the last time I saw her was at this same yearly party, prior to lockdown, she was recovering from a divorce. She seemed to have crawled from the wreckage into a brand new car.

And we’re talking about whether we go out or not. She does, Howard doesn’t. Used to be you went out and saw bands.

And we’re philosophizing about the modern music business and then the bathroom is open and we call it a day and when I finally wend my way back upstairs Felice asks where I’ve been, that there’s got to be a story.

And then Jeff reappears. Asks me if I had a good summer. Says he officiated at his nephew’s wedding back east. And tells me he’s going out on the balcony for a smoke and to come with, he’s got a story to tell me.

And as he’s puffing away, he tells me he was at this John Mayer show in the Hamptons and he shared a joint with Paul McCartney. They were sitting right next to each other. He didn’t think Paul knew his name, but Paul had gone on record that the bald guy who insulted people was his favorite comedian.

And they got busted by the usher and Paul mentioned Tokyo and then I told a couple of my own Paul McCartney stories and then a guy came up and…

That’s the thing about being famous. People want to come up and talk to you. And Jeff was being nice, but now we were bonding, truly connecting, who was this interloper?

And these fans always want to impress you, right up front, to earn their connection. And this guy is going on and on and I’m standing there thinking that prior to decades of psychotherapy I would have told him to get lost, but in this case I didn’t.

And then another guy came up. Acted like he had portfolio, but after demanding our attention and taking our time it turned out he did not.

So finally I can go one on one with Jeff again, and we’re talking about the Beatles and Wings and we move on to his career and I find I’m giving him advice. And I start to wonder, does this have to do with my anxiety? Fearful of quietude, do I always make it about the other person, afraid of empty space?

But my advice is all positive. How the roast thing is great, but the Netflix special was transcendent.

And then Jeff’s looking over my shoulder…oh, I’ve bored him. But no, they’ve gathered to sing Happy Birthday.

And when they’re done, what do I do, continue to talk or move on?

But Jeff hands his phone to someone in the vicinity and tells them to take a picture of us.

So I guess he does enjoy my company.

And then I tell him to be unafraid of judgment. That when he reveals his true self, then we can connect, and that’s what it’s all about, what we’re all looking for, even Fawn Hall.

And Jeff looks me in the eye and says “You get it.,” and on that note I tell him I don’t want to take up any more of his time, and it was great seeing him… You don’t want to glom on to celebrities, you don’t want to be a hanger-on.

So I mosey on back to our tiny table and Herbie Hancock is standing next to Felice.

Now the funny thing is I’ve sat next to Herbie Hancock before, at a Jacob Collier show at the Fonda. He didn’t seem interested in talking to me and I wasn’t going to talk to him, figuring he had no idea who I was.

But now it was a convivial atmosphere…

Nah… I don’t need to know any more celebrities. I’d like to do a podcast with him too, but I don’t want to sell myself, convince him.

So he’s famous, never mind talented, but it’s not uncommon to be up close and personal with household names in Hollywood, actually, it’s nearly de rigueur.

But not if you live in the suburbs. Not if you live anywhere else in America other than New York.

But New York is different. The society there is much less fluid. And who your parents are and where you went to school count, whereas none of that matters in L.A., here you make it up as you go along, try to create something out of nothing, that’s what everybody there was doing. All independent contractors as far as I could tell. They were hustlers, going from project to project, doing their best to keep the balls in the air. The key is to sustain, and stay in the game, but that’s easier said then done.

And that’s when Felice looked me in the eye and said, “Are we done?”

And we went downstairs, exited the front door, took an E-ticket van ride back to the valet parking stand, waited for our car and when we got home…

“People’s Parties” was playing in my head. It had been so much fun going out. That’s the thing, you walk out your front door and you have no idea what will happen.

Like Saturday night.

I’d be lying if I told you I remembered much from the first season of this Guy Ritchie series. It didn’t quite gel. Or maybe it was just hard to suspend disbelief and get involved. But it wasn’t so bad that I wasn’t going to check out the new season, two and a half years later.

Now I was surprised to find it was only number four on Netflix’s chart, I thought there would be more hunger to see this.

Well, number one is “Death of the Pastor’s Wife.” I thought that was a series, but turns out it’s a documentary, albeit with three episodes. I’m burned out on these true crime docs. The best was “Capturing the Friedmans,” and now there are some good ones, but too many involve cheesy re-enactments and less than satisfying endings and I haven’t watched one in eons.

Turns out number two is a documentary too, although only twenty eight minutes long. I didn’t recognize the title, “Instadocs: The Decoy Plane,” about Trump’s secret escape from the Turkish airport… I guess there’s train-wreck value there, but not for me, I read about it, it’s enough. If I want to be pissed off by Trump’s behavior all I have to do is turn on my phone, but it is interesting that he took Natalie Harp along and left everybody else vulnerable on the Qatar-gifted plane. There’s a conspiracy theory that Karoline Leavitt leaked the Harp story as retaliation, but I can’t get my knickers in a twist over that, even if it is true.

Turns out number three is a docuseries too! “Earle Meets World”… Turns out that’s the story of the podcaster Alix Earle… Netflix is criticized for going down-market, but I guess that’s what most people want to watch…

Now all you’ve got to know about the plot of “The Gentlemen” is it involves highfalutin’ drug dealers.

But it’s done in that Guy Ritchie style…you know, with writing on the screen, but less occasional humor than in most of his projects. But Guy Ritchie directed the first two episodes of the new season, and you can feel it. The editing is sharper, the cuts hit you harder.

Thank god the main character Eddie Horniman’s brother Freddy gets less screen time this year. Cocaine addict Freddy just never rang true to me, and the performance was too broad, it chewed on the scenery.

But Eddie, played by Theo James, comes from a noble family. He’s relatively internalized, a veritable intellectual, always plotting, one or two steps ahead of everybody else.

As for his sidekick Susie Glass…

She’s the day to day majordomo of a drug syndicate.

And the two of them banter and interact… It’s almost out of a thirties movie. There’s really not a lot of sexual tension, but it’s more than a brother/sister relationship. And Susie has to remind Eddie that ultimately he works for them, the Glasses. Whose paterfamilias, Bobby Glass, is in jail.

Ray Winstone plays Bobby Glass.

Ray Winstone… He truly gained notoriety in “Sexy Beast,” even though he’s got an arm’s length of credits over half a century.

So there’s all this dope dealing action, involving farms in Italy as well as the U.K., but ultimately Susie and Eddie go to visit Bobby in jail.

It’s kind of a country club jail. But I wouldn’t quite call the trappings first class. Bobby has his own cabin, on the river, with a sauna and a grill, and Susie, Eddie and Bobby are in the sauna, shvitzing and…

You’ve got to realize, Ray Winstone is not vain, he’s not taking a GLP-1, he’s not stick thin like a Hollywood actor, rather he’s got a belly and appears closer to a bear than a human…well, not exactly, but you get the point.

And I’m watching Bobby and that’s when I’m reminded…IT’S RAY WINSTONE!

Ray dominates the scene without overpowering the production. He’s just so electric, so confident, that his performance oozes into the far corners of the screen. He demands attention.

But he can be warm. He can be friendly, familial.

But you can always see the fist in the velvet glove… Then again, sometimes he takes the glove off that fist and the intensity…

So, Bobby’s got ears everywhere. You can’t have an interaction without him knowing, it’s uncanny. And he’s got rules. Like not dealing cocaine. And he’s always going on about the big picture.

The issue is whether Bobby is caught in the past, or whether he still sees the landscape best and his advice, his guidance, should be adhered to.

Eddie thinks the former. That Bobby has been out of the game for too long. And he convinces Susie, Bobby’s daughter, of this.

Now Susie is played by Kaya Scodelario, not a household name in America, but she started as a teen in the U.K. show “Skins” and has a slew of credits.

And the thing about Kaya/Susie is she’s beautiful, but she doesn’t trade on her image. And she radiates intelligence, but this is not an American sitcom where the woman is brilliant and the man is a dunce. No, Susie and Eddie are a team…they’ve thrown in together in the marijuana business. Susie is willing to learn from Eddie, but she possesses her own wisdom, her own insight.

And this is a gangster show. In that there’s a code of honor and image is paramount…

Now the supporting cast is great too. Joely Richardson as Eddie’s mother Lady Sabrina.

And Giancarlo Esposito/Gus Fring as American billionaire Stanley Johnston.

And Benedetta Porcaroli as an Italian pilot/Mafia liaison. She’s vulnerable, but can take charge too. She’s not as beautiful as Susie, nor is she a bombshell men salivate over, but she’s integral to the story.

And most of the action takes place outside the prison. Bobby Glass is talked about, what he would think, what he would say, but they only check in with Bobby in person now and again.

Until…

I don’t want to give anything away, but I will say that ultimately Bobby Glass finds out that Susie and Eddie have not obeyed his instructions. How does he know? That’s another issue.

But he confronts them…

I’m still thinking about this performance a day later. I can still feel the intensity. Bobby starts somewhat calm and then ramps it up and…

God, it reminds me of my father, when he got pissed. All you could do was stand back and watch the show, you knew that something you’d done had made him angry and nothing you could say or do now would calm him down, you just had to let him blow off steam…

But Bobby Glass knows exactly where he wants to go, what he wants to say. And he’s going to tighten the noose. This ain’t no dignified lawyer type, Bobby is a street guy, and he knows the street, and he knows intimidation, and he knows how to earn respect and maintain power. He knows the game, he sees the game, and as long as you understand that, agree with him and follow his guidance, he can be an almost fun hang. But when crossed…

It goes on and on. Ray as Bobby is so intense, your hair is blown back like in that old Maxell ad. Your body is frozen in place. You’re just enduring it waiting for the ultimate conclusion, what Bobby is going to say, how he’s going to resolve the situation and his anger.

This scene would work even if you never saw the rest of the show, that’s how powerful and spot-on Ray Winstone’s performance is.

And it doesn’t seem like a performance, it seems like Ray truly is Bobby Glass, and he’s pissed and is going to let you know it and make damn sure you never cross him again.

There’s a self-confidence you don’t see in wannabe gangsters. The kind dealing dope on the street corner, or behind the scenes with a bunch of runners. Bobby Glass built the game, he has endured, he plots strategy, no one does it better, GOT THAT?

I CERTAINLY DID!!!

You can’t make it without a manager.

With hindsight you’d think that the Beatles were fully-formed, waiting to be picked up by a label and blasted into the stratosphere.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

Of course there’s the story, the facts, but even more interesting to me is the identity of these people, who they were, what motivated them, what sustained them?

Brian Epstein was a terrible student, who didn’t even serve a full term in the military and ultimately became ensconced in his family’s business, mostly furniture, but he opened a record department…

Funny to think about the importance of retail today, it was everything prior to the internet, it was where the sales transaction took place, where the rubber met the road.

And Brian was an active manager of the store, stocking all the hits and writing in the local music paper, having star-studded openings of new outlets, but there was nothing in his past that would have you believe he’d go into music management.

But then he saw the Beatles. And not only did it change their life, but his too.

Brian was a classical music fan. He was relatively upper-crust, he was out of place at the Cavern Club, but what he saw there…

Not only a performance, but the reaction, and the reaction is key.

So he proposes to the Beatles that he become their manager and they say SURE! They’ve been around the block, they don’t expect much, if this rich guy wants to give them some money and promote them, they’ll take that ride.

Not that overnight success is imminent. Brian can’t even get them better gigs. As for a record deal, he keeps striking out, until he ultimately gets connected with George Martin.

Epstein gets a bad rap, over the inadequate deals he made. But what people forget is HE WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO DO IT, HE WAS THE PROGENITOR!

Sure, there were pop acts before the Beatles, but always time-stamped, evanescent. You went for the quick buck as opposed to the long term, there was no belief there’d be a long term.

And there were underlying circumstances. Northern Songs? It went public as a tax dodge. And John and Paul selling shares shortly after it was floated on the exchange? That was a way of getting cash. No one could foresee these songs would be worth so much more than half a century later.

Ditto Apple. It too was a tax dodge. Conventional wisdom was that the Beatles had a hunger, wanted to spread their wings and have their own company. But Apple was just a way to avoid paying taxes, they had no idea what they were going to do with the company.

As for the bad merch deal… No one had sold this amount of merch previously, and Epstein changed the percentages mid-term in the boys’ favor. Was Epstein the first to call his charges “the boys”? I’m not sure, but that’s what acts are referred to in the U.K. to this day, no matter how old they might be.

If not quite ruffians, the Beatles’ image was more in the gutter, more punk than rattle your jewelry cleanliness. Epstein insisted on the suits, and the Beatles went along BECAUSE NOTHING ELSE HAD WORKED!

It was totally different from today. Where everybody is a student of the game and does their best to retain artistic control and get the lion’s share of the money from day one. What is a reasonable percentage from a movie deal?

“A Hard Day’s Night” was not the first pop act film. They were throwaways at best. No one foresaw the juggernaut the flick would become. Should Epstein have hired an attorney sophisticated in the business? Sure, but how many were there? Even better, how many savvy music business attorneys were there? No, Eppy was making it up as he went along. Always with the band’s best interests at heart.

This is stressed, how he wanted the deals to be fair, he didn’t want to rip them off.

Having said that, HE SPENT!

Now you’ve got to know, you’ve got to spend to make it, like Brian buying up copies of “Love Me Do” in the hope of it storming the chart.

Success requires money. And it was more about image and lifestyle than cash anyway. It was a ride, which was gonna end, enjoy it as you go.

It’s totally different today. Almost all managers are behind the scenes. Become a public figure and you risk getting fired, the act becoming jealous, wondering if you have its best interests at heart.

But Brian? He hosted TV programs… He was in the public eye far beyond any manager today. The only person even close is Sharon Osbourne, but her path was different, who knew “The Osbournes” TV show would be such a hit?

Then again, Sharon never signed the deal, such that when the show was a success, she could go in and renegotiate.

A modern tour?

They run the numbers before a deal is even made. Encompassing advances, ticket prices, costs… Whereas back then it was much more seat of the pants. We’re going to earn a pile of money, that will cover all our costs, right? Was anybody truly keeping track of the costs?

So the book stresses the price of Epstein being Jewish and gay.

But what was most interesting was that once he built it, once he’d been there and done that, Brian lost the passion, he got depressed. He’d broken the Beatles, now what? And he couldn’t sustain a love relationship.

So he was a unique guy who didn’t fit in anywhere else.

As are all the great managers. They’re all outsiders, rule-breakers, who are usually laughed at before they triumph. You see they believe before anybody else does, and then make their vision real.

This is a dry book. And not all of it is brand new. And there is no smoking gun, other than raising the issue whether Brian was murdered…

But who was this guy who found, molded and broke the Beatles?

I’d like to tell you every detail is here, but it’s not, yet there’s more than I’ve encountered previously.

Then again, managers always operate behind the scenes, with smoke and mirrors. The truth? That is fungible.

If you’re hungering for more Beatles info, here you go.

As for lessons…

Great managers are born, not made. You can’t learn the trade in school. And even at this late date there are few rules.

There’s no safety net. You’ve got to keep both sides of the transaction happy. You know people only want you when you and your charges are hot.

It’s a balancing act.

This was not Colonel Parker, behind the scenes, refusing to let Elvis tour Europe for fear of being arrested himself. And Epstein never wanted to compromise the vision, turn the band into movie stars and Vegas performers.

But no one could foresee what great writers the Beatles would become, who they’d become.

Except Brian.

Who ended up lonely and depressed and taking too many pills…

People think once you make it, all your problems are solved.

But that’s just when they begin.

And if you’re at wits’ end, who do you call, who do you talk to, who has had the same experiences?

I mean who does Madonna call to commiserate? Or Mick Jagger?

You’re out there alone.

As was Brian Epstein.

As are the greatest managers.

Today the landscape is clear, the path is well-trodden. But back then, Epstein was breaking trail for his boys.

It was a different era.

But the band and its music were more vital than any of today’s acts, Beatlemania has never bitten the dust.

This is where the ascent truly started, when they started working with Brian Epstein.

Now, for a palate cleanser…

The number one criterion for a book is readability. It’s got to be something that people want to read!

Which is why you can buy the vaunted award-winner, the book with all the hype, and find yourself falling asleep on the second or third page. Those people are not writing for readers, they’re writing to impress their brethren, usually overeducated people who believe descriptors are the essence of good literature.

Now I’ve been on a run of mediocre books. It’s late at night, I pick up what I’m reading and within a page or two I’m not in the mood and I find myself on my iPad, doomscrolling and watching ski videos. I’m not proud of this, I don’t like wasting time, but I haven’t found a book that has called out to me, that I wanted to read, that I had trouble putting down, until “The Shampoo Effect.”

My expectations were not high. I read Jenny Jackson’s previous novel, “Pineapple Street,” and it was middlebrow at best. Satisfying but not life-changing. And I’m trying to avoid books like this, which are about killing time more than emotional fulfillment.

But it was long after midnight and I started “The Shampoo Effect” and was immediately hooked.

What do we have here…

Thirtysomething millennials, dealing with children and everyday obligations, all the questions of life.

This isn’t about politics.

It’s partially about family. Why did your parents get married, did they get divorced? Never underestimate role models.

Who do you hook up with and why.

And that person of your dreams from long ago, are you destined to be with them or in truth have you outgrown them?

So the setting is the north shore, up the coast from Boston. It’s hard to leave a coastal town, don’t underestimate the pull of the beach. And despite so much lousy weather, which requires character to endure, the people in this area stay. As do the people in “The Shampoo Effect,” except for the interloper, Caroline, who is there to write a book.

But Caroline has her own issues… Her mother is a very successful novelist, far from stupid, but narcissistic. Ever call someone wanting to convey important emotional news and they’re so busy talking about themselves, doing chores at the same time, that you don’t even bother? That’s what Caroline is confronting.

So many issues of life…

Do you marry your partner…do you need to?

And it’s the modern world, with betting apps, and people living beyond their means, one bad bet away from losing everything.

Do you stand up for yourself or go with the flow?

If you make trouble will there be trouble?

Now one good thing about “The Shampoo Effect” is you don’t have to wait until the end for certain action to happen. You know, when you can foresee what will happen between two people and you’ve got to read the rest of the book to get there. Not in “The Shampoo Effect,” the action moves right along. The expected occurs, then what?

Now let me be very clear… This is not highbrow literature. I’m not recommending “The Shampoo Effect” to change your life, because it won’t. But you will resonate with some life dilemmas and choices.

This is made for a market. Avid female readers. But it’s a cut above most of the predictable dreck.

So if you’re a woman who goes from one novel to another, read “The Women” by Kristin Hannah… Hannah is a cut above Jenny Jackson. But having said that, what happens in “The Shampoo Effect” rings more true.

And you’ll get totally caught up in its world. The world of everyday life, not the one of people promoting themselves online.

As for men… There is a certain type of male that likes to read fiction and is very interested in relationships and family dynamics. They will enjoy “The Shampoo Effect.” If this doesn’t describe you, don’t even start.

On one hand “The Shampoo Effect” is a summer beach read.

But really, it’s a cut above that. Not a huge cut, but definitely on a somewhat higher plane.

Life is all about people. How they react. Their choices. And that’s what “The Shampoo Effect” is all about. It’s not going to win any awards, at least none of the major ones, but if you are a reader and you like to be engrossed in a book that calls out to you, I recommend it.