“Nobody on the road

Nobody on the beach

I feel it in the air…”

One thing you can be sure of is the boys of summer will return. Human beings are incredibly resilient.

As for Pacific Palisades?

That’s another matter.

So it’s akin to lockdown, but instead of arguments over vaccines, it’s over California. Was the dreaded left coast bastion of liberal excess asleep at the wheel, or was this an act of God, or maybe more accurately man, as in climate change.

That was my first reaction, that’s what my instincts tell me, but it doesn’t matter, America doesn’t have the political will to address the problem head-on. Either it doesn’t exist, or like a teenager the finger is pointed at other countries not doing their part. Ain’t that America, all people can do is complain and nothing gets done. Best to demonize someone rather than look at the root causes of the problem and try to fix it.

So we’re living in suspended animation. We don’t know where it’s going to light up next. As the reality of Tuesday night was being metabolized on Wednesday, just when so many felt lucky, it started to blaze in Runyon Canyon. And although all the press was about the fire crawling down from the hills and invading Hollywood, the true fear was the wind would blow the embers west, and burn everything from Hollywood to Beverly Hills to Bel Air and down the other side of Mulholland all the way to Ventura Boulevard, taking everything from Studio City to Sherman Oaks. And then would the embers cross the 405 and burn up Encino and then Tarzana and…

It’s hard to believe that fire wasn’t set. In the middle of nowhere, a park. Then again, I thought Richard Jewell was guilty and he turned out to be innocent.

But they think the Kenneth fire just over the border in Ventura County was arson…

As for those few houses that burned up in Studio City… Even the assistant fire chief on TV doubted whether the embers could fly all the way from Runyon. Then again, fires do happen everywhere on a regular basis, isn’t that why we’ve got the fire department to begin with?

And you wouldn’t catch me doing that job, putting myself in harm’s way. I’m not saying I wouldn’t volunteer, do my part if called upon, but it’s a special breed of people who join the fire department. And it’s not quite like crabbing in the waters off Alaska, but it’s pretty damn dangerous.

But humanity cannot always triumph over nature. What do they keep telling us, Silicon Valley will solve the climate change problem? What, when they can’t even put out fires?

So people have been contacting me from all over the world. How am I?

Well, I’d be lying if I told you Wednesday night I wasn’t shook up when it started to burn in Runyon.

And then last night there was that notice to evacuate, which made no sense and then turned out to be false.

And if the Runyon fire had spread as per above, it would have truly wiped out Los Angeles. A city decimated, period. Because most of the power in Los Angeles lives in these hills.

Then again, living in the flats is no longer an insurance policy protecting you from devastation. South of Sunset was wiped out. Taking the houses of…

Very close friends.

This is when relationships count, they already got a new apartment in Westwood. Is everybody else this networked?

And my shrink’s house was wiped out. I thought he’d want to cancel our virtual session on Thursday, but he said it was business as usual. He’s out in his house in the desert, he’s got his laptop and…it’s just stuff.

But what he really lamented was the loss of community. He and his wife had become best friends with their next door neighbors, that’s toast. I mean it’s one thing to be connected via the smartphone, quite another to be just twenty feet away in real life.

Some of these people have second homes.

A lot of them don’t.

Where are they going to go?

Where did all the evacuated go?

No one is untouched by this disaster, everybody knows someone who lost their home.

And not everybody was rich.

So now what… You’ve got NOTHING! You’re starting all over, from your toothbrush on up.

And then this morning Felice started to remark about the housekeepers and the gardeners and…their business has been wiped out.

And yes, a lot of those workers are undocumented. Because you can’t find citizens to do this work. Meaning the government safety net might elude them.

And it’s going to start blowing again.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk has been excoriating the state. This guy doesn’t realize people are turning against him. But he’s addicted to the attention, if not the power.

And it’s interesting to see the media’s response…

The “Los Angeles Times” has been stripped to the point that its coverage is no better than the “New York Times,” which today published a picture of exactly which houses have been lost:

“Mapping the Damage So Far From the Palisades Fire”

Free link: https://shorturl.at/0OxHZ

When it comes to natural disasters, it’s about boots on the ground. And if you’re running a lean operation… It’s like the public living paycheck to paycheck, you’re not prepared for a disaster.

And then I’m getting e-mails telling me I can’t go on with my regular life, I can’t write about anything but this disaster. Then again, maybe regular life is paused, I had a pneumonia vaccine canceled at the last minute by CVS this afternoon, that’s a first.

And my exercise of choice was hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains, exactly where Palisades fire was. But the air is too bad to exercise outside anyway.

Ergo, the feeling of lockdown.

And you can donate all the money you’ve got and it still won’t solve the problem. The losses are in the billions.

I can’t wrap my head around it, if you don’t live here…

You see the view from 30,000 feet.

But on the ground the whole city is in shock.

Mark Morton is lead guitarist of Lamb of God. Even if you have not heard of them or are not of a fan of their music, you’re going to love Mark!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-morton/id1316200737?i=1000683302491

 

 

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/e56a6b0b-eb4f-4e52-913e-437122adae47/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-mark-morton

Nine out of ten of last year’s biggest grossing movies were sequels. And the tenth was “Wicked.” But the mainstream press is caught up in Oscar fever. Why?

The vaunted Golden Globes didn’t even get 10 million viewers. But it dominated coverage in the same mainstream press. As for why I even bothered to write about Nikki Glaser… If you were reading the mainstream press there was a one month run-up, tons of stories orchestrated by publicists building up to this pebble falling into the lake.

There are 340 million people in America. And most don’t bother to go to the movies. Not that they’re not consumed by entertainment. It’s just that feature films are a construct of the past, of the last century. Kind of like writing the Great American Novel. That went out with the fifties, maybe the sixties… Thank god no one writes about that anymore. Although there are still novels, purveyed by an antique business run by English majors with some of the worst marketing of all time. Which is why James Patterson came along and dominated the business, he knows how to SELL!

Unless you’re living outside internet range, and with the advent of Starlink, that’s impossible, you know that the mainstream press has lost credibility. The general public pooh-poohs it and doesn’t trust it. You’d think the publishers would notice this and adjust, but they keep on keepin’ on like they’re the record companies in 1999.

Napster was all about disruption. Giving the people what they wanted, which the labels refused to do. Breaking apart the album into the desirable singles. Making available rare and live cuts.

And there are musicians still complaining about this. Songwriters bitching that only the single drives revenue anymore. Meanwhile, YouTube is a plethora of live, everybody is recording on their smartphone when the acts themselves are not putting up videos.

Things change.

And a lot has changed in the music business. Concerts have superseded recordings. The majors have less market share and less influence. The big acts have never been so small. The barrier to entry is essentially nonexistent.

Then again, all we get in the mainstream is a printing of the weekly Top Ten, which is woefully inaccurate, a complete manipulation. Taylor Swift’s last album was kept atop the heap by endless iterations, sold to brain dead lemmings.

So the pandemic put a stake in the heart of theatrical distribution. Movie theatres don’t work anymore, not as a ritual. The films don’t start when you want them to in an on demand world, the tickets are expensive and for the price of one movie you can get a month of Netflix, or another streamer. Why go?

Which is why people do not. But Hollywood doesn’t want to adjust. Which is one reason why its business has been stolen by Silicon Valley. The studio heads used to be icons, now not even people in Los Angeles know who they are.

As for what is streamed… It’s not the endless films that open in theatres to little box office, but old and new series.

But series are seen as second-rate in the mainstream press. Even though every A-list actor seems to have deigned to participate in them.

But if you read the “Times,” either New York or Los Angeles, you’d think that the entire nation has Oscar fever. That the general public cares about movies they have not seen and really have no interest in seeing.

I’m not saying you can’t make a movie, I’m not saying a movie can’t be good, but if you want to have an impact upon hearts and minds, which is what the mainstream media desires, you have to wake up and follow the people and admit things have changed.

There is some coverage of video games now, but it’s de minimis, despite video games eclipsing films in revenue.

As for series…

The “New York Times” reviews every film that is released in the city, but not every series that launches on Netflix or its competitors. Why?

Because series are déclassé. For the hoi polloi. The intellectuals…

Who? Those old fart boomers and Gen-X’ers who think they know better? Who keep on excoriating the smartphone and hate on technology?

The internet is the best thing that ever happened to me. I can reach and maintain contact with people around the world. You too. But in the “New York Times” you constantly read about people who use flip-phones, who digitally detox. This is like trying to get people to stop drinking, but even worse. Sure, there can be overuse/harm from smartphones, but the solution is not abstention, but going through, possibly changing the use.

You’re not going to get me to put down my smartphone, which tells me the news, the weather, allows me to research any point, make contact… Enough with the mind police.

The world changes. If you want to make a difference you must keep up with it.

The Democrats were so out of touch they lost control of D.C. They thought they could hide Biden’s decline like it was FDR in the forties. But there’s just too much media today, the truth always outs. And people were ultimately offended by this dishonesty. And then they told us Kamala Harris was the candidate as if we lived in a third world country. And if you were on the left and didn’t line up for Harris…you were a traitor, you were the enemy.

And the end result is the further marginalization of those living in the past who keep telling us they know better. The same people and press who told us the economy was great when prices were out of control and people were hurting.

This does not make me a Trumper, but it does say I want to live in reality. Face the facts.

Movies other than the few blockbusters are a marginal business. Nearly the novel of our day. If it’s not a sequel most people don’t see it and most people don’t care. But they keep telling us to care. Hell, the “New York Times” talked about last night’s fire putting the Dolby Theatre in danger. There’s nothing special about the Dolby, it was initially called the Kodak, there’s no gravitas there. Maybe the foot and handprints at the Chinese Theatre, but the era of the movie star is kaput. It’s been eclipsed by the dreaded influencers, who execute a completely different paradigm. Rather than withhold and massage, they’re posting incessantly, with much more raw footage.

The entire landscape has changed. The general public has never had more power. And it doesn’t like being talked down to. The paradigm of reading the press and watching the network news with no pushback, feeling powerless, in thrall to icons, is gone. I’m not saying to let the lunatics take over the asylum, but at least report on them and respect them, because they are what is truly happening in these United States.

People don’t care about awards shows. They can get endless fashion displays and tips online. And actors are two-dimensional vessels, if you want truth you’re better off listening to a musician, then again too many of them are compromised, brands with no core, like the Silicon Valley titans kowtowing to Donald Trump. These techies used to be heroes, now they’re zeros. We can see what you’re doing, you’re playing a game to curry favor, to avoid retribution, that’s not what an artist does, and you were the new artists, but no longer.

America is hungry for truth from uncompromised people in touch with the landscape. And if you think you get that in the mainstream press…

Hell, the “New York Times” is propped-up by gaming and cooking subscriptions.

The mainstream news has already been disrupted, but they don’t know it.

What a sorry state of affairs.

As for the Oscars… Who won last year?

And if you haven’t seen the movies why would you care?

PEOPLE DON’T!

I don’t know anything you don’t.

Having said that, if you’re living in L.A., I recommend KABC, channel 7, which overlays streets onto the landscape, making it a bit easier to see what has burned.

Actually, that’s pretty amazing, that we don’t have specifics re which houses are gone and which are not. That map does not exist.

But what we’ve got here is a war between technology and nature…and nature is winning. You can’t put out a fire with the internet.

Now I was in a meeting yesterday when the person on the other side of the screen got a text to evacuate. His house is south of Sunset, I figured he’d be fine.

Now it appears that everything in that neighborhood is gone.

Generally speaking, if you live in the flats in Los Angeles, you’re safe…from fire, from rains, from mudslides… So I was surprised these neighborhoods south of Sunset were torched. The fire had to come down the hills, cross the business district and then march all the way to the sea. Hasn’t happened previously, but it happened last night.

I first got an inkling that these houses were in trouble when they showed Theatre Palisades burning. That’s on Temescal, south of the Boulevard. Furthermore, there’s flat land, Temescal Canyon, on the other side of Sunset. No way I figured that would go, but it’s history now. I’ve been there numerous times, to see plays of the kids of my friends, other events.

And on the other side of the road is the high school. We kept hearing that was on fire, but there were no distinct images last night.

As for what you’re hearing about Pacific Palisades being a rich neighborhood…

What you’ve got to know is this didn’t used to be true. L.A. is unique in that it’s a giant suburb, spread out for miles. But they’re not making any more land, yet they are making more people. So property that was reasonably priced yesterday ends up being mega-expensive today. Used to be you could live on Monument in a starter home (that’s north of the Boulevard, where the landscape starts to slope up). Maybe you had to be a lawyer, upper middle class, but if you drove through you’d see small ranch houses, you wouldn’t be impressed.

South of the Boulevard… What we’ve seen more and more over the years is teardowns. McMansions on tiny slivers of property. Because south of the Boulevard means closer to the beach… And the closer to the beach you are the better the weather is in Los Angeles, and the clearer the air.

And it used to be the Palisades were too far away to commute. The drive to downtown was unfathomable. The Palisades was a suburb unto itself. A small town. And to some degree it still is. But about thirty years ago the traffic flipped. Now west of the 405 is horrendous, whereas it used to be empty. Santa Monica is gridlocked in the afternoon whereas it used to be sleepy. But Santa Monica is no longer a distant beach town, it’s got tons of offices and it too is riddled with teardowns and McMansions.

Even the dreaded San Fernando Valley… Benjamin’s mother told him relatives came all the way from Tarzana for his party in “The Graduate.” But the disdain has evaporated, now you have to be rich to live on the other side of the hill. From Malibu to the Palisades to Santa Monica to Brentwood to Bel Air to Beverly Hills…this is where the money is in Los Angeles.

As for the hills… They’re long and languid on the city side, steep and short on the Valley side. But if you live in the hills, you’re susceptible to disaster. You have to constantly cut back the vegetation, it’s a regular battle against the elements, and you may be vigilant but your neighbor may not be and therefore their land can slide on top of yours.

We live in the hills. Meaning we are susceptible. Hell, you should see it when it rains, the water coursing down the street.

And it used to be everybody laughed about L.A. disasters. The earthquakes. But now there are all these floods on the east coast and shoreline that is constantly in danger and…is it global warming? Some of it definitely is, and that’s one of the first things I thought of yesterday, but you may think differently. Doesn’t matter, no one is really doing anything about it anyway.

Other than canceling property insurance. It’s a regular discussion in Los Angeles, and coverage is hard to replace. I just watched a video on TikTok of someone whose house was in danger in the Palisades who had had their insurance canceled and if their house went up in flames, they were SOL.

Funny about the government, people can’t stop complaining about it, but when they experience a loss… And there’s this fiction that the government will make you whole, it will not. If you lose your house and have no insurance…you’re not only homeless now, you probably can’t afford to build on the same piece of property, maybe you have to move to an apartment. Then again, land is so valuable in Los Angeles.

As for personal effects…

I went to the doctor for a physical this morning and there’s no way his house survived, like I said above, presently there is no accounting. But he just recovered from prostate cancer, so he’s got perspective. And we were talking about aged parents, how they end up living in small spaces with few possessions in retirement homes/care facilities. Everything that’s so valuable to you is gonna get tossed. But I’ve told Felice over and over not to toss my vinyl records, they’re worth a FORTUNE!

And historically I’ve been very into my possessions. After cancer a little bit less so. But that feeling doesn’t last. Over the years you normalize. But the older you get so much becomes meaningless. It’s about you and your life and then you’re gone too.

You’ve got your memories. Sure, it’s great to have the photos, but how often do you look at them? And even if you’re someone who puts them on the wall…

But the funny thing is so much is virtual these days. Contemplating evacuating I figured I’d take my laptop and two medications, everything else can go. My world is on my computer, in the cloud. Don’t they say that life is about experiences today?

So I used to spend a ton of time in the Palisades. Friends moved there in the early eighties, and then Kate opened a bookstore, but in the last few years there’s been a diaspora. But I still know so many people there.

And Felice’s mother used to have a beach house, that appears to have been torched.

The scale is devastating.

As for the living… Man, I woke up yesterday and you could feel the wind blowing, not only see it. And in certain places the smoke is dense and dark, in others perfectly clear. Credit the wind. But when I woke up today there was that hazy yellow light, which is familiar from previous fires.

But usually not in the winter, and usually not of this scale.

So how do you make those who lost their properties whole? I’m not talking about monetarily, but emotionally. What can you say and do?

And just like with school shootings, there’s a plethora of compassion and then everybody moves on. They live their life, you’re still hobbled.

But eventually it happens to you. No one is immune.

And then there are those who have nothing… Unlike in the Bob Dylan song, unless they’re truly homeless they’ve got plenty to lose. If you’re scraping along paycheck to paycheck and a disaster happens, unless you have insurance…

But the thing about America is everybody gets to live their own life, make their own choices. I’m paying so much in premiums and never collecting, you’re going bare and triumphing. But we’re all just one disaster away from being beaten down.

When he was still alive, my father always used to start our phone calls asking about my health. Which didn’t resonate when I was in my twenties. But I totally get it now.

No one here gets out alive. Don’t skimp on medical attention. You may think you’re winning, but statistically the wealthy live longer than the poor because of the health care they receive. You’ve got to get your priorities straight.

I just hope you don’t have to experience a disaster to realize this.

But one thing is for sure, a disaster is coming down the pike, no one lives a completely charmed life, it’s just a matter of when.

Thank god it wasn’t you today.