Like you’ve never heard him before… Richard has a new album, “After Hours.”

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/richard-marx/id1316200737?i=1000793843006

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/d2a9e496-d122-4f49-b5f2-1ffb3f687550/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-richard-marx?ref=dm_sh_IvLT5YOyOughBPuYc2uwej0Yn

Last night we watched “Learning to Fly,” a documentary on ultra-marathoners on Prime.

So what you’ve got here is mostly mountain people, the other, who have dedicated themselves to this insane sport which is far from lucrative. And as I’m watching I say to myself, I KNOW THESE PEOPLE! Because I used to live amongst them, I used to be one of them.

Not that there are ski bums anymore, they’ve been priced out of the resorts, rent is just too high. But back in the day, there was a subset of people, some college graduates like myself, many others dropouts, and even some who stopped their educations after high school, who moved to the mountains so they could ski every day. Living essentially off the grid.

Now in the mountains it was not about physical assets. No one had any money and no one owned anything other than a few pairs of skis and a season pass. No, it was how good you were at your sport, and that was all we talked about, day after day after day. How you looked, what you wore? Essentially irrelevant. But to be able to be out in the mountain air every day, testing limits, that was enough to make your life work.

Thank god I got out, many do not. Most who do not ultimately fall into day jobs, stop skiing and end up on the lower end of the economic scale.

But my heart is still there.

That’s why I went to college in Vermont, because of the landscape, because the college had its own ski area. Truly.

But the mountains are much bigger out west.

And at first they focus on a 100 mile run in California, up Squaw Valley, over the mountains to Auburn. Forget running, I don’t think I could WALK that far! And to be honest, I have a hard time running these days anyway.

And then they go to Chamonix.

Now the Alps are not as high as the Rockies. But the landscape is breathtaking, jaw-dropping. Reminded me of the last time I was there, back in 2011, just staring out the bus window, stunned at how steep these mountains were, the ones of your fantasies.

But none of them compare to the Himalayas.

Now “Learning to Fly” got good reviews, and it’s an interesting picture, but “The Last First: Winter K2”? I’d say it’s a must-watch, assuming you’re into the monta?as, are fascinated by Everest.

K2 is number two, the second highest peak on the globe. But K2 is no walk in the park, unlike Everest K2 demands technical climbing, it’s not a long hike, but truly a challenge.

And it had never been climbed in the winter.

So…

From the beginning you know that people are going to die. Unfortunately, they rarely make films about wholly successful attempts, people want to see the gore.

Not that the blood and guts is in this movie, however.

They’re on the valley floor, surrounded by these peaks… This is far from civilization. But not as far as it used to be. Now there are satellite phones and internet… Nowhere on earth are you truly disconnected, hell, even your iPhone can speak to the satellite.

I used to crave that isolation, it made me feel alive. But that’s something we’ve lost with the technological revolution. I’d rather have the advances than the loneliness, did you read about the guy who was trapped by a boulder and called for help using his AirPods and Siri?

“Oregon Man Pinned by Boulder Calls 911 Using Siri From His Earbuds – The man was trapped under a boulder that the police said likely weighed a ‘literal ton’ and could not reach his phone. He used Apple’s Siri to call 911, his mother said.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/us/oregon-man-pinned-boulder-siri-rescue.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GlE.QNMp.z1oAstUam88M&smid=url-share

In the old days he would have withered on the vine. In this case, drowned as the tide changed. So give me that connection all day long.

But still, the Himalayas are daunting.

Unlike in the Everest films, there is ice climbing involved. You’ve got to bang the toes of your crampons into the ice and haul yourself up with your axe and one false move…

That’s how critical your steps are. It’s usually black or white, you live or you die.

Now along with the raw issue of climbing the mountain, there is an underlying story about the people involved, the competition, love… I wouldn’t quite call these people daredevils, but there is no margin for error, people die all the time.

So it’s forbidding. The wind is blowing. Are the ropes intact?

And it always comes down to bad judgment. People ignore instructions. Even a casual reader of Everest stories know there’s a turn around time, ignore it at your peril, it’s there for a reason. You might make it up, but good luck making it down.

And this ain’t America, where corporations are so fearful of being sued that they dot every “i” and cross every “t”… Seven Summit Treks is a Nepalese company… That’s right, like sisters, the Nepalese are doing it for themselves, the westerners have been squeezed out.

Reminds me of being on a scary chairlift in Chile. In America when you’re scared you can easily tell yourself not to be, there are so many regulations involved, the odds of an accident are extremely low, but in a foreign country? You can take the American out of America, but he does not take America with him, he’s subject to the rules of the society he has traveled to.

Now I may lament the passage of isolation, aloneness, but with the concomitant rise in technology… The images in this film are spectacular, and on your hi-def set…

So if you’re a mountain man or woman, fascinated by the hills, which are not alive with music in this case, “The Last First: Winter K2” is required viewing. But everybody is fascinated by the human condition and the challenges of nature. The tension between the steadfast mountain and human beings is inherently interesting, and it’s depicted in this film, which is included in your Apple TV subscription.

Not really, but that’s what the thermometer read when I got into my car in Hollywood.

Car temperature gauges are notoriously inaccurate. For some reason they’re better in the winter, but once it starts to get warm…

First and foremost they’re too high when you get into the car. But once the automobile warms up, it cools down, and the temperature becomes semi-accurate. But then you get into traffic and it JUMPS!

On my way back from Tinseltown it said 107° on the freeway. I know it’s not that hot, then again, once back home Alexa said it was 103.

Ah, getting accurate weather. Used to be Dark Sky was the definitive statement, so good that Apple then bought it and ruined it. Apple will say it’s going to be clear all day, but then it rains, like Carrot says.

I find Carrot to be the best these days, although if you want any detail you have to pay for it, but since there’s almost no real weather in Los Angeles, I don’t. As for detail, I pay for OpenSnow, which is the definitive ski resort weather outlet/app. Every day you get a personalized analysis for every ski resort, and it’s pretty damn accurate. Although sometimes depressing, like last year, when it didn’t snow and got warmer and warmer…

That’s what I’m concerned about. The L.A. “Times” said it was going to be 76 in Aspen today, and that’s completely unreasonable. That’s what I’m worried about most, not the amount of precipitation, but whether it comes down as snow or RAIN!

Used to be it never ever rained in Vail during the season. Maybe once or twice there were some drops at the absolute base, but as soon as you got on the gondola, it was snow.

Unlike in Steamboat, where the altitude is 1,200 feet lower. In the spring, it has historically rained there.

Could this be the end of winter as we know it?

Certainly was in Europe during the summer. Year-round ski resorts like Zermatt and Saas-Fee had to close, they were rivers, veritable sluices of run-off water.

As for St. Mary’s Glacier in Colorado, where locals went to get summer turns, to keep their streak of skiing in every month intact, it just melted away.

A for what’s coming… All we’re hearing about is El Niño. Live long enough and you no longer trust predictions. As much as we know, there’s still even more that we don’t know.

Meanwhile, a hurricane from Mexico came up the coast and delivered rain on Labor Day weekend, something I’ve never experienced previously. And the story is about how the beach is eroding away.

“Nobody on the road
Nobody on the beach”

Even the boys of summer are staying home. Because it’s just too hot!

Angelenos are weenies. If it rains, people stay home, and if it’s hot they stay home too. Such that if you go to the grocery store, or shop elsewhere, it’s empty. Even the freeway back from Hollywood just now, I’m screaming along at the speed limit, normally an impossibility at this time.

So Alexa/Amazon says 103°. Generally speaking, don’t trust it. Because oftentimes the reading is not where you’re located, and that makes a ton of difference when at different altitudes.

Apple says 96°. Carrot and Mercury the same thing, and although the latter two oftentimes agree, it’s rare that all three do.

But really it’s not about the daytime, but the nighttime.

It’s not uncommon to have temperatures in the nineties at this time of the year, it’s as a result of the Santa Ana winds. But it cools down at night, to a veritable seasonal temperature. But not now! It’ll go into the seventies after midnight, but if you want to go out hiking…it’s going to be just as hot, if not hotter, down at the beach, and this never happens.

Now in the old days, if you lived west of the 405, you didn’t need air-conditioning, maybe a week a year. But today? Without it you risk heatstroke.

As for your car…

I got in mine in Hollywood and couldn’t hold on to the steering wheel it was so hot.

Which reminded me of my ’63 Chevy convertible, back in the days when not only the seats were plastic, but the steering wheels too. If the top was down you’d have to put a towel on the seat, as for touching the wheel… You’d grip it and let go, grip it and let go, do this ad infinitum until you cooled it down enough to drive.

As for a/c… In the old days, only American cars provided good units, Cadillacs, other land yachts, were the best. German iron? It’s like they’d never seen temperatures this hot over there, and weren’t prepared for it.

But today…

Yet if your car has been sitting in the heat… You have to drive it for quite a while until it cools off, until you get that soothing blow of frigid air that satiates, that is somewhere down in the sixties, a great contrast to what is outside.

But it’s a dry heat!

Not this summer. We actually had humidity in Los Angeles!

The locals will crack you up. They’ll talk about bugs, mosquitoes… If you grew up on the east coast, they don’t even exist out here. And humidity? On the east coast you never need a jacket at night during the summer. Out here, you always bring a wrap, even in the San Fernando Valley!

So what is happening?

What has happened down here is the wind has changed.

Yes, Randy Newman still loves L.A., but this is weather we haven’t seen before. But at least it’s good to know that climate change is not real. Good they lowered fuel economy standards.

Yeah, right.

Not only does the individual feel powerless, it appears no one is really addressing the issues. Then again, after Iran wipes out L.A. and San Diego, I guess it won’t matter.

It’s like we’re frogs in a tub of boiling water. And the temperature keeps going up.

Will it reach 7800° Fahrenheit?

Hopefully Bon Jovi will let us know.

No one has heard it, despite the song being number one for 23 weeks, how can this be?

Well, “Rolling Stone” posited that it’s hatred of country music:

“WHAT SOME FOLKS REALLY MEAN WHEN THEY CLAIM TO HAVE NEVER HEARD ‘CHOOSIN’ TEXAS’ Proclaiming you’re unfamiliar with Ella Langley’s record-setting song has a lot in common with saying ‘I listen to anything but country'”

https://apple.news/Anai0_RnRTYWO_VKMj7A8CA

“The Atlantic” dives deep into the data, claiming it’s an innocuous tune that fits many formats and therefore it was on many playlists, driving up streaming counts:

“ELLA LANGLEY CAN’T BELIEVE HER SUCCESS. MANY LISTENERS CAN’T EITHER. The criteria—and meaning—of a No. 1 hit are always changing.”

https://apple.news/AIullxF4IQeeL8D858O85sg

Never have so many spewed so many words overanalyzing a quite simple concept:

NOTHING IS UNIVERSAL!

This is anathema to conventional news outlets, who believe they’re aggregators for the masses. They find the universal and feed it back to the public.

Only most people don’t get their news from conventional outlets anymore. Forget newspapers, which have died on the vine, but TV news too. It’s laughable that Hollywood was up in arms that the Ellisons might control CNN along with CBS. Have you checked the ratings recently? They’re in the dumper and descending. Very few are watching. Appointment TV? That went out with the DVR, and is completely history today. Assuming you’re interested in SNL or other network tripe…you know if anything good happens, it’s instantly findable online thereafter, usually on YouTube, furthermore it appears in your TikTok feed! That’s where I find “Weekend Update,” usually the only worthwhile segment of SNL.

And maybe SNL is the point. Major outlets have stories about what happened the night before, like this is Ed Sullivan and we’re all watching. Just because SNL was a phenomenon in the seventies that does not mean it possesses the same place in the public consciousness today.

But this is heresy to oldsters! If SNL is not all-encompassing and important, WHAT IS?

I had lunch with Daniel Glass yesterday. He signed an act who built his career online. He’s excited about the prospects. But everywhere he goes people tell him they’re glad that analog is coming back. This is when Mr. Glass becomes increasingly intense. Decries these ignorant lunatics. It all happens on the handset today, and usage on TikTok is even going up!

But this is akin to the endless anti-technology stories in “The New York Times.”

“My Dumbphone Made My Life Better. It Made Everyone Else’s Worse”:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/opinion/dumbphone-smartphone-friendship.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GlE.vLZR.XP8QARO7oM6-&smid=url-share

This is oldster clickbait. And elder abuse. All you’ve got to do is scan the article and you’ll find out…

The writer couldn’t call an Uber, couldn’t use digital maps to find her destination. But she self-satisfiedly says she’s happier. What next, churning your own butter?

Kind of like the endless Waymos are dangerous stories. The future must be stopped, NOW! And while we’re at it, kill all those AI data centers. Okay, okay, but don’t expect to get an easy answer on Google, never mind talk to ChatGPT or Anthropic. This is like those who say manufacturing needs to come back to America. Sure, but are you ready to pay $4000 for a television set?

And the queen of popular music is Taylor Swift. She’s been anointed. She even dropped in on SNL during Dakota Johnson’s monologue Saturday night. Did you know that? Probably not. And it might have come across your news transom, but did you click and see it? Highly doubtful.

There is a very hard core addicted to certain verticals and the PR machine is amped up and news outlets take the bait and tell us things are universal when they are not.

Forget whether Swift’s music is good or bad, but I’d bet many more people have heard “Choosin’ Texas” than anything off her recent album. There’s just too much in the channel. And young women love Taylor, but other slices of the population want nothing to do with her.

Never mind acts without the footprint of Swift.

Let’s look at last week’s Senate hearing. Eric Schmitt called Jack Smith a “dirtbag” for lying about not being at a basketball game in Atlanta. Amy Klobuchar had him dead to rights, Smith was at an Iowa Hawkeyes game in Maryland, not an Atlanta Hawks game in Atlanta.

This was all over MS NOW and other left wing sites. The right wing? It’s like it didn’t even happen. Schmitt still hasn’t uttered a mea culpa.

In the old, pre-internet days, Schmitt would be tarred forever, he might have had to resign. But not today, everything is grist for the mill, the river of stories is endless, what happens in the morning is not atop the homepage in the evening.

And you’re surprised people have not heard “Choosin’ Texas”?

It’s kind of like equating today’s Hot 100 with that of the 60’s. Come on, is there anyone who grew up in that era who did not hear “Yesterday”? Today records constantly go top ten and only a student of the chart has heard all of them.

But if you admit all this…

Then you have to question your underlying beliefs.

Like sales are coming back. No they are not, streaming killed them long ago. There is a sales business, but I point you to this story:

“Luminate report: Taylor Swift fans drive millions in physical album sales”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2026/09/04/luminate-report-taylor-swifts-fans-power-record-album-sales/91601521007/

All you need to know is this:

“Luminate counted 65 different physical and digital product releases for Swift’s 2025 album, ‘The Life of a Showgirl.’ Her previous two original albums had similarly sprawling rollouts: ‘Midnights’ had 67 product releases and ‘The Tortured Poets Department” had 54.”

This isn’t about listening, this is about merch. Selling to rabid fans who must have everything. No one ignored Swift and then weeks, months later, decided to buy the latest iteration of one of these albums, no it’s FANS!

I could go on, but the facts here are self-evident.

But like Daniel Glass referenced, you’ll tell me about cassette sales. I’ve got to ask you, do you know anybody with a cassette player? Do YOU have a cassette player?

Now I’d like to say the three major label groups have their heads in the sand, ignoring reality, but in truth that ship sailed long ago. They put out few new releases, they find it almost impossible to break an act and their bottom lines are padded for paid-for catalog.

As for news outlets… They don’t want to admit they’re fighting for attention, they don’t want to question their platform, they’d just rather be holier-than-thou.

So what do you print in the newspaper, on the paper’s website? Well, you can’t cover everything. Hell, look at all the news articles in Apple News+, never mind elsewhere online. No, you put forth a limited number of stories and say these are the important ones, and by the way we employ JOURNALISTS, educated and experienced, and we must be TRUSTED!

Ain’t that laughable.

The emperor is wearing no clothes. And the news media is denying this. Telling us stuff is happening and important when it is not.

Meanwhile, fewer than ever are paying attention to these traditional outlets.

And oldsters decry social media. Forget entertainment, my TikTok stream is informative, that’s where I find out about so much, that never shows up on mainstream media, if for no other reason than it’s massive for me and miniature for others.

This is the world we live in, but if we all admit it…

We live in a Tower of Babel society. Everyone is in their own world, their own niche, there is no consensus. And we have the old guard saying there is consensus when there is not! Never mind too often they’re in their ivory tower and detached from the street, having no clue what is really going on.

The foregoing is daunting. But the solution is not to wear blinders or express a desire to jet back into the past. Funny, all the left wing intelligentsia/elite decry the right wing “Make America Great Again,” yet they feel the same way! The Boomers want to bring back the past, and the Gen-X’ers too. And it seems the more educated you are, the more you’re steadfast in the belief that technology is evil and if we could just go back to the old way of doing things…

That is never going to happen.

In eras of chaos… That’s when you end up with authoritarians, they make the trains run on time, they say they’re going to make society comprehensible. Which people are yearning for.

If that’s not scary…

But D.C. in total, all the elected officials, are so out of touch with America it’s mind-blowing.

The only way out of this is through this. And in order to accomplish this, you’ve got to own the present, lock stock and barrel.

There are no more universal number ones, no matter what the charts may tell you. That’s history. Done for. Theoretically it could happen again, but everybody is so deep into their own niche…including the 808 in country songs, as if this is what the public is really interested in!

“Choosin’ Texas” is the biggest song of the year. But like the biggest movie and biggest TV show there’s a good chance you’ve never heard it/experienced it. And that’s got nothing to do with the song itself, it’s got to do with society and how people spend their time today.

Case closed.