“A New Publisher Promises Authors ‘the Lion’s Share of the Profit’ – Authors Equity is tiny but has big industry names behind it. Its founders hope their profit-sharing approach and experience will entice authors.”

Free link: https://shorturl.at/cfwHK

Musical artists don’t know how good they have it. After all, they could be AUTHORS!

Talk about an antiquated industry. One thing I love about the music business is it’s down and dirty, ultimately it’s all about the cash, either you can generate it or you can’t, where you went to school doesn’t matter.

But just having a job in the publishing industry is status enough. It’s a rinky-dink industry kept small because of the backward thinking of the big publishing companies, who believe book promotion is reviews and author tours, that’s how James Patterson established a juggernaut, he employed his background in advertising to promote his genre books, and it worked! But kind of like lawyers in the past, advertising is seen as dirty, commerce is seen as dirty in the publishing world.

But they’ve got it locked up, because they control distribution.

This is something that people refuse to understand, how distribution trumps content every day of the week. Because no matter how good it is, if you can’t buy it, if it’s not readily available, you’re screwed.

So, the book publishers went on a crusade to save the physical book, cheered on by the Luddites who believe screens are anathema. But it had nothing to do with the physical book, it had everything to do with distribution, they didn’t want to lose control, like the record labels.

Yes, physical distribution is a barrier that’s hard to climb if you’re an independent. You can’t even get your book in the store, unlike with Spotify there’s not an unlimited amount of space. And, if you do get your book in the store, and it does sell, good luck getting paid. Retailers pay big accounts first, because they need new product from them. Whereas an indie author with only one book… Why pay ’em? They’re not going to have another book for YEARS!

This is how it used to work in physical retail in music. The majors kept the indies down. Ditto with radio. You had to be aligned with a major label to play, to get your record in stores, to get paid.

But not anymore.

Anyone can get their music on streaming outlets for a de minimis cost. But rather than see the opportunity, ungrateful artists keep complaining. They want the major label advances of yore, when the truth is in the past, in the pre-internet era, they wouldn’t be able to get a deal.

Now in the book business, everybody can distribute digitally, it’s a level playing field. But physically? Get outta here.

So these experienced people have now established a new company that flips the switch. Instead of advances, you get paid on what you sell. What a concept! One that musical artists will not accept. Low Spotify payments? That just means that no one is listening! Furthermore, you have so many other avenues of revenue, did you read that article in yesterday’s “Wall Street Journal” about music in video games?

“Why Musicians Are Doubling Down on an Unlikely Venue to Reach New Listeners – Musicians are releasing new songs in videogames, in some cases before anywhere else. ‘We’re trying to meet fans where fans are at.’”

Free link: https://tinyurl.com/ysxcnnnh

It’s not the twentieth century music business anymore. As a matter of fact, it’s less about worldwide domination than cobbling together a number of revenue streams, many enabled by technology.

It’s not like the major labels don’t know the power of video games, it’s just that there are more opportunities for indies than ever before, and all people can do is complain, especially about streaming rates. Look at it this way, even if you had a record deal back when and your record was in stores, that didn’t mean anybody heard it, they had to buy it to listen to it (or hear it via tight radio playlists).

But unlike so many entrepreneurs in music, in it for the money, taking cash from the wannabes who will never make it, Authors Equity is starting at the top. If you’ve got a proven track record, why should you pay for the major publishers’ losses? They can’t pay you more, because your profits are covering all the stiff books!

But the internet allows you to go it alone. Well, not so much in books, because of that pesky physical retail. And Authors Equity is only going to put out a few books a year.

Writers who make deals with Authors Equity believe in themselves. They don’t need no stinking advance. Some musical acts have done this in the past, forgone advances for higher royalty rates, but record labels are legendary for creative accounting, so some sophisticated managers wanted all the money up front. (Also, this is a good time to note that so many of the legendary artists of yore never ever went into royalties. There’s this fiction that in the past everybody with a record deal was making a great deal of money. Wrong.)

So if writers and readers were smart, they’d embrace digital publishing, it would level the playing field. But the publishers have snookered the readers into thinking that they’re on their side in the anti-digital war when nothing could be further from the truth. They just don’t want to lose control of distribution!

Now music is an evanescent business. There’s no assurance of longevity. And you may want to bet on yourself, but the infrastructure, the managers and lawyers, don’t want you to. Because they don’t want to take the risk, of never getting paid, never mind eventually.

Will this continue?

Probably. Because despite all acts testifying how great they are, they don’t really believe it, which is why they want that major label cash and help.

This is flawed thinking, The major label is not your friend. Unless you’re temporarily making money for them. You can do it by yourself. But you have to give up the fake dreams, that everybody wants to listen to your music and you’re going to be a zillionaire.

You’re an entrepreneur. Every dollar you take now cuts into your back end. Which is why you should be lean and mean, and truly believe in yourself. Create your own audience. Hell, the major labels don’t even do that anymore, they used to start acts from scratch, now you have to prove to them you have an audience before they’ll sign you, and your music must be in very specific, narrow genres.

Now someone could come along and do what Authors Equity has done. Low overhead, big payments, but… The question is how many zeros are involved? The grosses in music far exceed those in book publishing, and no one starts a business unless there’s a huge profit opportunity.

Well, in music anyway, not in publishing.

And the truth is the major labels and major publishers’ real power is their catalogs and backlists. Reliable income with little cost that streaming outlets/retailers need to be in business.

But those services the major label theoretically provides?

You can hire them yourself these days. Radio promotion, publicity, playlisting. That’s what they’re doing at Authors Equity, to keep the overhead low.

But everybody in music is swinging for the fences, when in truth almost no one is in the stadium. It’s all sandlot ball these days. But ignorant artists have bought a passé dream to their disadvantage.

Let’s be clear. Almost no one can have a successful music career and almost no one can have a successful publishing career. Giving up your day job? Buying a house and car? That’s not most. And so many famous authors teach for steady income.

No, only a very few are rich. But just like with sports, everybody coming up believes they can fill the few slots available. And while they’re at it they keep complaining about the system.

How many people in the music business do I know who started off as musicians? They woke up and realized they weren’t good enough, they couldn’t earn a living, and they switched over to the business side. Today some of them would be struggling on, believing a mass of people care, when they don’t.

So the message to musicians is you can distribute your music online as equally as a major. You can promote it online for free. This is FANTASTIC!

But everybody’s a Debbie Downer. They need an explanation why they’re not rich. The system must be stacked against them, right?

It’s never been stacked less. If you’re great, and if you believe in yourself, you can build a business in music. You don’t even need a major label. That’s an antiquated paradigm.

But it’s nearly impossible to convince artists.

Just like it’s nearly impossible to convince writers that digital books are to their benefit. Costs are eliminated. Prices can be kept down. Your book can be available to all. You can even get paid!

But everybody’s too afraid to march into the future.

And therefore they’re ripe for disruption, by Daniel Ek or Jeff Bezos or…Authors Equity.

Furthermore, Spotify is now publishing audiobooks. Nature abhors a vacuum, and Daniel Ek is filling it. I mean when you listen it’s all digital, why would you need traditional brick and mortar? Why would you even need a major publisher?

That’s the question.

I now charge my iPhone and iPad with the same cable.

Don’t ask me what I’m supposed to do with all my old Lightning cables, but that’s exactly the point, the EU was concerned about waste and mandated the use of USB-C. It’s convenient. I only need to bring one charger on the road.

Which brings us back to today’s big news, of the EU fining Apple for its App Store rules. I don’t want to get into the merits of the case, but I will say for the past two decades it’s been the EU standing up to corporations, looking out for the little guy, which is you, in case you didn’t know. This is very unlike the U.S., where antitrust laws are bandied about but rarely enforced. Furthermore, the new antitrust majordomo, Lina Khan, is depicted as a laughable pariah for constantly trying to stop corporate behavior and mergers. Even though she’s the most experienced person to hold this job in eons. Doesn’t she know, in the U.S. you get to do what you want, you can’t stand in the way of “progress”?

Then again, we live in a country where many want the IRS hobbled, which is like cutting the police force if you want to reduce crime. You can’t complain about the national debt and tell the nation’s big revenue producer that it should do its job with ancient PCs and untrained workers while at the same time cutting the rich slack.

But ain’t that America. What is practical, what we see with our own eyes, is denied.

A story starts to build to the point where many accept it as truth, and then the nation falls behind further.

Like electric cars. After a cold winter with charging issues (and the devil is in the details, it was not as bad as depicted, most people were unfamiliar with charging techniques and non-Tesla charging infrastructure has been abysmal) there’s been an endless drumbeat in the media how people don’t want electric cars, how they’re a failure. GM and Ford are pulling back.

That’ll show the lefties who believe you can legislate desire. The people don’t want those damn electric cars, so there! If you buy one you’re a chump.

But that just means you’re not paying attention to China.

All this bloviation about America First is not only about defense. China is now an electric car juggernaut, even Tesla has trouble competing. As for price…electric cars are cheaper than gasoline ones! And new models are released in as little as a year. Because the Chinese manufacturers threw out the rulebook, they’re not doing it like the Americans or the Europeans. They’re modeling automobiles virtually. Furthermore, they’re installing more chips than cars need and filling them with over-the-air updates after the cars are produced, shipped and purchased. The Chinese know new cars are all about software, whereas in the U.S. it’s about how big your SUV is, to enhance your macho, come on, the truckmania in the U.S. has always been about the size of your penis. Look at all the men who have their wives driving monstrosities during the week so they can tool around in them on the weekends and parade as big swinging dicks.

Ain’t that America, it’s all about fashion, not the nuts and bolts, the building blocks. Hell, you’re gonna be a sports star, an entertainer… A fiction sold to the underclass that is always being screwed.

But in China they know it’s about what’s on the inside. Sure, the exterior is fashionable but cars have flipped, they’re becoming less like fashion statements and more utilitarian. What’s the difference between all those Model 3 and Y’s? They all look the same to the outside observer, it’s what inside that counts. Kind of like your smartphone… Most people can’t even tell if you’ve got the latest model or one five years old. They look the same, it’s just what’s inside that counts.

So in today’s “Wall Street Journal,” there’s an article about the Chinese electric car juggernaut:

“How China Is Churning Out EVs Faster Than Everyone Else – Once laggards, Chinese carmakers are stirring envy—and fear—in the global auto industry”: https://shorturl.at/fiCO1

That’s a free link and you should read the article, it’s much more informative than TikTok, never mind “Billboard.”

You see life is about where you’re going, or as Wayne Gretzky so famously put it, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

But in so many walks of American life, people are skating to where the puck has already been. Like this fiction that we can return to the not so great to begin with 1950’s. Time only marches forward, those who try to hold back progress are ultimately left behind. Hell, we no longer live in an overwhelmingly white country, own it, don’t protest against it.

Yes, America is great in so many ways. But in so many other ways it is falling behind. Just like our do-nothing Congress, that can’t agree to pay for money already spent, that can’t agree on almost anything and therefore achieves almost nothing, our systems are gummed-up. Except for some technology companies leapfrogging society unchecked because the government can’t understand what they’re doing.

But this doesn’t stop the EU, it gets its hands dirty, it just doesn’t hold grandstanding hearings that have no ultimate effect.

And speaking of where the puck has been… That’s the essence of today’s American music business. Formulaic. Still geared towards terrestrial radio. As if nothing has changed since 1995.

It’s an American mind-set I tell you, we’ve gone from an innovative, can-do culture to one stuck in the mud. Progress is abhorred because someone might lose their job. Hell, in law school they teach you how to think and analyze, because the laws themselves always change.

And I haven’t practiced law in decades. But my father was right, it was a good background, especially when Napster came along.

But today you go to a law school that fudges statistics to entice you to attend, saying there are more high-paying jobs than truly exist, so you end up with debt you can’t pay.

Things changed. If you’re thinking of going to law school today… Don’t, unless your parents are paying, only if you can graduate debt-free.

People think they have a job for life, that nothing can change.

Tell that to the supposed Big Three of yore, who were skating along in a dominant position until the Japanese came along and ate their lunch. First Japanese cars were a joke, now…if you want the best built, longest lasting automobiles, that’s what you buy. GM’s market share never recovered, and never will.

In America we’re invested in the past, so many are afraid of the future. We’re isolating ourselves based on emotions, demonization of the opposing party, arguing about the petty while avoiding the big issues, never mind politicians spewing falsehoods to confuse the public, to make them misunderstand the truth and vote against their own interests.

Thank god for the EU and the Chinese. They’re doing the work America used to do. I hope it still can, but it requires a rethink, a moon shot, a coming together to tackle big issues like we did in the sixties.

But don’t you know the sixties were an anomaly, a bad era of drugs and youth excess?

Well, no. JFK rallied the nation behind the space program, to catch up with the Russians. Biden tries to prepare for the future, mandating the manufacture of electric cars, and he’s excoriated. I mean you can’t even lead if you want to!

And the sixties were responsible for the Beatles and Woodstock and questioning authority. Today, many people want more authority, they want an authoritarian government!

It’s time for America to get it together.

But we ain’t got no leaders.

And private equity controls the parking meters.

I didn’t really want to go out. It was cold and snowy, with ten inches of fresh last night. It was too late for first tracks, and I skied a ton of crud the other day. But I view skiing as a job, I go absolutely every day, whether I want to or not, because at some point the switch flips, and I’m having a great time. Meanwhile, if I don’t go out, I’ll end up wasting time. Kind of like last night. I put aside three hours to read my book, I’d been into it before I went to bed the evening before, but as soon as I opened my Kindle my eyes started to droop, I was falling asleep.

So I suited up with my heavy jacket. It’s a Phenix, I bought it at Pepi’s ten years ago, half off, $500 instead of a grand. I’d have never spent a grand, but Fenix is top-notch stuff, and it turned out to be warmer than any other jacket I own.

And I picked up my down mittens. Overkill if they were new, but they’re just about worn-out, so good for weather in the teens.

And I rode up the gondola, then the Wildwood Express to the top of the mountain.

Visibility was close to zero. I couldn’t see Chair 2 in the distance, my destination. Usually when it’s this bad they put up posts with blinking electric lights, but not today. But I’ve been down this route a zillion times and I could do it blindfolded, which was what I essentially was doing.

I believe in a warm-up run. Only weekend warriors go to the difficult slopes first. But having said that, if a black diamond slope is groomed, sometimes you’ve got to hit it right away. Which I did about a week ago, on Ricky’s Tube, in the back. The top is very steep, but only for about fifty feet. But I buckled my boots tight in preparation.

And then my feet were killing me most of the day.

As for those people who buckle their boots in the morning and leave them so, I don’t know. I don’t buckle mine until I’m about to get off the gondola. And I’m forever tightening them throughout the day. Actually, my boots are tight enough that I could ski in them without buckling them at all, but I want that precision.

So today I had my buckles relatively loose, and I rode across the ridge to a green run and…

Man I was going way too fast. This was crud (cut-up/tracked out powder) and it was heavy and my skis were not riding over it and my boots were so loose I was barely in control and…

I realized I had the wrong skis. I needed my 117s. But they’re old, and I need a new pair that wide for conditions just like this. My old Rossi S7s have a turned up tip, they can ride over and through anything. Oh, despite the pictures you see, powder is rarely that soft. It might be in the Cottonwood Canyons in Utah, but in Colorado, snow lighter than air, that you can blow off your car…I haven’t experienced it yet.

But those old S7s were in the condo. There was no way I was going back there to retrieve them.

So I went to my secret stash, a beginner area where…

The beginners don’t ski on the fringes and you can get mini-pow, a few inches, it can be marvelous. But since it was a beginner area it was groomed after the storm and it was a nearly perfect carpet.

And I’m riding up Chair 2, Avanti, and my feet are killing me! I can’t loosen the buckles, because unlike my Nordicas, these Langes leak if I do.

So I get to the top and I go over to Pickeroon, which had been groomed the night before, but had the fresh ten plus inches on it. Normally I scream down Pickeroon, but there was all of this dense crud and even some bumps and although I’d tightened my boots they still weren’t tight enough.

Now I was feeling bad about myself. Am I that much of a wimp, that I need the absolute right skis for the condition or else I want to go in?

So I skied lower Berries. A black. And I was good, but I had to stop a few times, it was so much work.

And my feet were still killing me.

So I went back up and skied Berries from the top and Lodgepole at the bottom and I was skiing better, but to tell you the truth, I wanted to go in, to relieve my feet, if nothing else.

But no, I can’t do that, I won’t let myself. But maybe there’s a time to break the rules.

So I figured I’d go to Game Creek, to ski Dealer’s. A mild blue that had been groomed before the storm.

But that required me to ski down to the Wildwood Express and come back up and…

That’s when I remembered Ouzo had been groomed the night before. The steepest slope in Game Creek…but there was one problem, the visibility. I could see maybe five or seven feet in front of me. My skis were riding over bumps I was unaware of. And when visibility is bad you ski by the trees, then the slope becomes clear, don’t ask me the science, it’s just true. But although there are trees at the top of Ouzo, after that it is wide open.

And I’m skiing alone. And I’m big on good judgment. Was this a good idea?

But when I got to Ouzo… It was nearly flat, i.e. there was no crud. Until I veered to the left side and found myself in deep junk. I think they groomed the slope after the storm so people could get to the Game Creek Club for lunch. Don’t go to the Game Creek Club for dinner, when it’s open to the public, it’s lousy. But if a member takes you during the day…there’s a buffet with iced seafood and everything. But to be a member…let’s just say it doesn’t make financial sense.

And after the club the visibility was bad and I got down to the lift and my spirits were up a bit, but I was still asking myself how long I had to be out there until I could go back in.

So I took the Game Creek Express up to Dealer’s and… Usually the left-hand side of Dealer’s is full of crud after a storm. And it wasn’t.

And then it was.

This was the turning point. I could traverse over to the right, where the slope was packed, or keep skiing the crud. I buckled my boots and did.

And then on the bottom face, I went all the way to the left to ski the steeper crud. And I was going slower and turning on all the bumps and that’s when…

I had a revelation.

That’s right, I have to go slower, I have to have both hands in front of me at all time, I’ve got to turn on every bump…

And then I went up to Riva, Vail’s signature run. From the absolute top of the mountain to the bottom. It had been groomed the day before, so I figured it would be pretty good today.

Wrong. It contained massive bumps and people were littered all over the slope.

That’s when I committed, turn by turn, I was getting in the groove.

And then I dodged the people on Tourist Trap, one of the steepest faces on the mountain, and then zipped down lower Riva and…

Wait a second… Now I was having a good time, my mood had completely changed. It had to do with being out there, fighting the elements and winning. Man, I can do this.

So then I went up to Blue Ox, one of a trio of steep slopes on the left side of the mountain.

And there was no one there. Zippo. To the point that the top of the slope, which is flat, was all mini-pow.

And when I turned the corner to the steep…

That’s when I realized I was truly the only one on the slope. And like Riva, it was a minefield of bumps, and it was blowing and snowing and I kept pushing myself around every bump and…

I was glad I was out there. I was calculating when the lifts would close, I wanted more.

Actually, I got the very last run. Me and a few other people, at 3:31, on Avanti. They always say not to take the last run, but I wanted to go back to that beginner area, to ski the mini-pow, at this point a few inches of fresh had accumulated, I’d just come down it.

And I came down it again and…

I’m skiing to the bottom and thinking about all this. How many people won’t even go out in weather like this. Which is a shame, because then you’re burdened psychologically, you’ve got to go out there and develop the skills.

And many people would just make a few runs and go in.

I never go in. Once I’m out there I ski until the end. Screw the overpriced lunch. This is not relaxation, this is not a vacation, this is a job! And just like a good job, when you know how to do it and keep doing it you get better and feel better about yourself.

But why me? I don’t know a single person who is as into it as I am. I’m sure there are, but I don’t know one. Except for my buddy Andy who passed, the radiation that cured his cancer caused a secondary cancer years later.

Now on some level it’s just a raw inexplicable passion. But still, what was keeping me out there?

And then I realized, it was my mother.

My mother is dead, has been for a little over three years now. And to be honest, it’s freeing. She was judgmental in a unique way. You could tell her you’d been to the moon and she’d say “And what did you do after that?” Whatever you did it was never enough. And she didn’t give kudos either.

But man, put her in a group and she was the life of the party. Not that it was so easy being her kid. If she’d been born fifty years later I don’t think she’d even have had kids, she would have been a career woman, something in the arts, she used to write musicals for the Temple. But that’s what you did back in the forties and fifties, got married out of college and soon had kids.

But my mother would never ever let you quit.

I remember being on the Middlebury ski team… Let me just tell you, when you’re on a squad with Olympic athletes…the training gets intense. There was this exercise where you had to hop up the bleachers on two feet, walk down and do it on your left foot, and then walk down and do it with your right.

This bleacher exercise separated the men from the boys. That’s when I called my mother and told her I was quitting, that I was nowhere near good enough to compete anyway, to ski in the big races for the team.

She bad-vibed me. My mother was a pro at this.

So I went back.

You started off with four sets of bleachers (what the coach, Olympic athlete John Bower referred to them as). The trio above represented one rep. And they added a rep every week. To the point where they eventually got up to sixteen. I did it. I won’t say it was easy, but I did it. And I’d believed four reps was too much.

And we had to run up the Middlebury Snow Bowl before the snow fell. That wasn’t easy, but as the weeks went by not only did we have to run up, we had to run halfway back down and then to the top again.

But I couldn’t quit, I couldn’t make that call to my mother, she’d hold it against me for life. I can see the disappointment in her face.

So that’s why I was out there today. There was no award, no competition, but I did it long enough until it was satisfying, beyond satisfying.

And then I started thinking about other things in my life. That I’ve stuck with longer than seemingly anybody else would. Like this newsletter, which used to be in print, which came out every two weeks, come hell or high water. Man, the nineties were bleak. Try facing the world with less than twenty dollars in your pocket after having written a bad check for the rent.

But then along came the internet and Napster and things turned around.

Now in truth my mother wanted me to give up the newsletter. But I wouldn’t. She would say get a job, any job, literally at McDonald’s. That was her background, her parents were immigrants, her father worked at a tannery.

But I wouldn’t. Because somewhere deep inside… I was not a quitter. I stayed the course if I believed in it and myself. Which didn’t and doesn’t include all verticals, but when I’m passionate, which I am about a few things, man, I’m not giving up, never.

Oh, did I tell you my favorite Muggs story? (A nickname in college, it stuck, no one called her Muriel.) I got an e-mail from Quincy Jones. And I forwarded it to my mother. And she never e-mailed me back, she never mentioned it. So, a few weeks later I brought it up in conversation. “Ma, did you see the e-mail from Quincy Jones?” She said yes. Flatly. Which confounded me. I said “Aren’t you impressed?” No, she wasn’t. Then I had to drill down, make my case. “Mom, you’re not impressed that Quincy Jones e-mailed me?” And then she said…HOW WOULD YOU KNOW QUINCY JONES?

Bada-bing. She literally thought it was some other Quincy Jones.

So, I can never please my mother, so I stay the course, keep at it, trying to. And now she’s gone, but you can’t take the parent out of the child, no way. And as much as I’m screwed up as a result of my mother, I think about all those kids who lack parents, or direction. They’ve got it in them to make it, but no one pushes them, no one holds them to account.

I’ll be back out there tomorrow.

The two biggest stories in America today are AI and the Sphere, and neither were in the public consciousness a year ago.

Oh that’s not right Bob, what about Taylor Swift, and Gaza?

Well, the Israeli/Arab conflict is always simmering, it’s always in the news. As for Taylor Swift…

This is not a new story. Successful musical artist goes on the road to massive sell-out audiences playing their hits. In this case, a retrospective of their entire career.

Don’t get me wrong, Taylor Swift is an original. But her tour looked backward. Yes, the massive outpouring of love from female fans was noticeable, but it was not DISRUPTIVE! The media was just reporting a story it saw, there was no harbinger of where we’re going. Because the media never knows, but Washington, D.C. and most industries are just as bad.

If you’ve been following the news, and maybe you haven’t, in the last twenty four hours the “New York Times” has released polls saying that Biden is losing the popular vote and an incredible number of people believe he’s too old for the job.

It’s not like we didn’t know this a year ago. It was hiding in plain sight. But the usual suspects mired in the past believed it didn’t matter. They had power and they were not going to let it go.

Meanwhile, on the other side they’ve got the disrupter in chief, Donald Trump. The only thing is he disrupted the political landscape back in 2016, there’s been nothing new since, just a doubling-down of insanity.

Not that America doesn’t rally behind the insane. Hell, Kanye just released a chart-topping album.

But in all businesses, in politics, you need to look forward, to the horizon, to the hoi polloi, if for no other reason than everybody has the tools to disrupt you at their fingertips, oftentimes for free, they call it the internet.

Look at TV singing shows… They were a novelty twenty years ago. Kelly Clarkson became a star. But no one since. Because the public has seen the movie. As a matter of fact, the young, who usually start trends, have tuned out of singing competitions completely. It’s the old people who are watching on network TV. Meanwhile, youngsters don’t even own a television set, they’ve got their phone and their laptop, and sure they might have a subscription to a streaming service (oftentimes their parents’), but network, cable, are as foreign to them as Frank Zappa was to our parents back in the sixties. Want an example? Viacom/Paramount+ continued to put their money behind MTV, a youth juggernaut of the last century that is meaningless today. You don’t succeed unless you retool for the future.

So if you’re a young musical artist singing the hits of today on YouTube and TikTok thinking you’re going to make it, you’re plain wrong. Good voices are a dime a dozen. It’s always about the songwriting. Believe me, Bob Dylan never sounded like an opera singer, never mind Roy Orbison, Paul McCartney or even B.J. Thomas. No, Dylan was an outsider, with an outside perspective, he took roots and combined them in a new way that was perfect for the era. Dylan didn’t follow the youthquake, he caused it. And when everybody else caught on, he stopped writing political songs, he’d been there and done that. Furthermore, his 1970 album “New Morning” presaged the back to the land movement of the seventies, and “Blood on the Tracks” was evidence of the personal focus/Me Decade seventies.

So we’ve got major labels tightening the belt, not wanting to risk the new and disruptive. Their idea of disruptive is an act with a thirty second song on TikTok, and we know those acts are almost always fads. Hell, the music business has oftentimes focused on fads, but they’ve never been responsible for great leaps forward financially, never mind artistically, they’re moments in time.

Now the Democratic party knew Joe Biden was perceived as too old years ago. But the brass decided to do nothing. He’s President, on top of the world, he’s got the chair, let someone try to steal it, push him out of it.

Brilliant thinking by those who believe history is all that matters.

Meanwhile, the Republicans lost control of their party to Trump. Who continues to foster losers. Trump’s endorsement… Oftentimes means you’re going to lose. Someone could have stood up to Trump, corporate leaders, elected officials, but the wimps in the party decided to fall in line. And if you didn’t, they turned their backs and made you walk the plank, i.e. Liz Cheney. You stay on the team or you’re excised.

Now if you’ve got a losing sports team, they fire the manager, they get new players. Hell, the Patriots just got rid of Bill Belichick, something had to give. But not in the Republican party, they’ve got a losing hand and they keep on playing it. Sure, Trump could win the presidential election. And that might mean not only the end of Democracy, but the end of the Republican party. But no one is blowing the whistle, no one is complaining.

And on the Democratic side, all we’ve got is people like Lawrence O’Donnell explaining why we can’t have an open convention, with some hooey about the past, about the way the party works. But that would assume that disruption never happens.

Now remember, disruption always starts off to the side, off the map, and is usually pooh-poohed by those in control, if they’re aware of it at all. And at first, the disruptive force is imperfect, disorganized, but then the disruptive force gets it together and dominates.

This is the story of Donald Trump. The Democrats were too stupid to realize Hillary Clinton was a bad candidate, irrelevant of whether she’d make a good president.

And the Republicans have done a phenomenal job of labeling Biden old and senile. And just like Hillary before him, Joe has done a piss-poor job of countering these accusatory claims. Biden could start making public appearances, being available, but his handlers are afraid this will evidence stumbles and gaffes that will prove the point.

Meanwhile, this is all playing out in public.

The Republicans are putting all their faith and support behind a loser and the Democrats are rerunning “Weekend at Bernie’s.” And we can all see it but no one will acknowledge it. Talk about the Emperor’s New Clothes.

I don’t know what will happen. I lived through 1968 when Johnson surprised us by dropping out of the race at the end of March.

I also know that sh*t happens. Both Trump and Biden could have a health event before November. They’re both aged, the odds are not good.

But I do know if you want to play the game and win you always come from the outside, you do what is unexpected.

The reason no candidate could win against Trump in the primaries is because they were all mini-Trumps. There was no real alternative.

Got to give Gavin Newsom credit. He went after DeSantis, he tackled national issues. Does that mean America wants Newsom to be president? I’m unsure about that, because the Republicans have spent years demonizing California.

But back in 2008 the barely known Barack Obama won selling hope.

That’s not what Joe Biden is selling, he’s selling fear, that you’ve got to vote for him because you don’t want the other guy.

As a matter of fact, that’s what the Republicans are selling too, fear of the other party.

But someone going outside the usual lane, with a plan, for progress… They’re not the candidate.

We’re looking for revolutionary music. Something new and different that we not only want to listen to, but we want to tell everybody about.

Now there is a world of different sounds on the road. And their success can be quantified, by the number of tickets acts can sell.

As for recordings, online… Sure, there are statistics, but oftentimes they’re ginned-up, it’s unclear if there truly is a fan base. And there are so many competitors that it’s overwhelming.

Not live.

So if you want to make it…

Stop saying you can sing like Mariah Carey. Music is about conception, always has been. You don’t need to be the greatest singer or songwriter you just have to have a new idea and express it. Sure, it takes longer than ever to make it, but you’ve got to accept that.

America craves the new and different. The past with a twist. Something wholly new.

Which is why “Squid Game” was so popular. Whatever you think of “Tiger King” we’d never seen anything like that before. Or even “Love on the Spectrum”…autistic people as stars?

But in politics and music, it’s the same old same old.

Sure, there’s a music business. But despite those in it talking about fandom, reciting statistics, music doesn’t drive the culture. If you want to know which way the wind blows, you don’t listen to a record.

And that’s easy to change. And it doesn’t even cost much. You’ve just go to think different.

Steve Jobs came back to a company that he got fired from, threw out the old operating system, slimmed the product line, refined others’ products into new hit items, i.e. the iPod, and Apple became the most valuable company in the world.

And it was done in plain sight.

Sleeker packaging. Easier operation. To this day the complaint about the iPhone by the cognoscenti is it’s too easy to use, it can’t be customized enough. But Jobs was smart enough to know that the masses wanted usability first.

And the public does not want Biden or Trump.

And the public is hungering for sounds unlike those in the Spotify Top 50.

But those in control are resting on their laurels, doubling down on the aged past, just waiting to be disrupted.