I was having dinner with John Brodey at Ago and he told me his Australian film director buddy Fred Schepisi might be stopping by.

It used to be Bono’s. Sonny’s place. Before that I can’t remember. But it was always Italian. And right there at the intersection of Melrose and La Cienega. The last time I was there Jack Douglas invited me for dinner with Richard Lewis, Steven Bauer, Geoff Emerick and a few other buddies. Before we sat down Richard and I made up, after our encounter at McCabe’s, when we wall went to see Terry Reid. Knowing the booker, I got in early and saved the seats. But while I was waving to our group, showing them where I was, Richard slipped behind me and sat down in my seat, on the end of the row, on the aisle. I was not happy, but ultimately I moved deeper into the row, but Richard knew what he’d done, so he yelled over, “My back, I’ve got a bad back, I’ve got to sit on the end!” That was Richard Lewis. He was the same neurotic guy he was on stage and in “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” And funny, his wife was as down to earth as he was crazy. I always quote Richard… He said before he met Joyce he dated slaves. Women who would do whatever he wanted. Joyce stood up to him.

As for Geoff Emerick… The rule of famous people is you don’t talk to them about what they’re famous for. But the remix of “Sgt. Pepper” had just come out and ultimately I brought this up with Geoff and he went from zero to one hundred instantly, he was pissed! The stereo mixes weren’t afterthoughts, they’d put time into them, they were what everybody wanted.

As for Steven Bauer… What a character. He was just off his success in “Ray Donovan,” and he assumed I knew all about it, when in truth I’d never seen the series. But after recounting his success, recalling the high points, he started telling me the story of his family’s exit from Cuba. In detail. And not only was it fascinating, Bauer was treating me like a good friend, he was convivial, intimate, I could see why he was successful. Then again, was he really the guy in “Scarface”?

But that was years later. My dinner with Brodey was at the beginning of the twenty first century, in the main room, as opposed to the private back room I was in with Jack and his friends.

So we’re just about finished and Fred enters the restaurant. With an entourage. A couple of women, another guy, and…

Donald Sutherland.

I mean come on, DONALD SUTHERLAND? Was there ever anybody cooler? Well, there was James Dean… Let’s not argue about it, let’s just say that Donald Sutherland was always cool. He burst on to the scene in “M*A*S*H,” the breakthrough Robert Altman film, which was platformed as opposed to opened wide back in 1970, there was a small ad in the “Times” for weeks before it opened, building buzz about a movie almost no one was aware of.

In the movie Sutherland embodied the sixties, he was IRREVERENT! He didn’t take it too seriously, he could see the humor in the insanity of war. That was what the era was all about, questioning authority.

And then there was “Klute” and even “Day of the Locust.” As well as the cult movie “Don’t Look Now,” back when there used to be cult movies that you had to see at the revival house, that even if they played on television we didn’t see, because we didn’t own TVs, and they were edited anyway.

And “Steelyard Blues.” And “Ordinary People.” Donald Sutherland was part of the firmament, a true Hollywood star, someone who was not always playing himself, someone who emanated his interior thoughts, not only his exterior visage.

So we finished up and went over to Fred’s table. They were in a booth, Brodey and I pulled up chairs on the outside. They’d just come from filming. And Fred was so NICE!

A lot of Hollywood people can be standoffish, especially if they don’t know who you are.

But not Fred. He set the tone for the conversation. It was breezy. So, after the better part of ten minutes, I participated, I joined in.

And Donald Sutherland immediately gave me sh*t. Wow.

And when I spoke again, he criticized my word usage. And went on about it. So I STFU!

What an as*hole. I was not dominating the conversation. We were all having fun. But according to Sutherland, I was not entitled to speak. So I didn’t.

I sat there in silence for nearly half an hour. I know the rules, it’s not about me. But I can’t say I was happy. It wasn’t like they were discussing things I was unfamiliar with, it wasn’t inside baseball.

And then, when I was completely calm, but not quite detached, Sutherland pontificated, about this or that. From his high horse.

And that’s when I saw my opening.

I gave HIM sh*t!

And he was stunned. Speechless. He’d left an opening and I walked right in and slammed him right down. Employing the same holier-than-thou attitude he did.

And then I did it again.

And then Sutherland shut up for a while. Licked his wounds.

But then he said something and included me as part of his team. Like the two of us were speaking to the table at large. And then we started amping it up, playing with the language, making jokes, having a rollicking good time. The center of attention had shifted to us.

And when the evening came to a close, we all got up, for the long goodbye, and Donald embraced me in a bear hug, smiling, talking about the next time we got together.

That never happened, but…

Let that be a lesson to you. People will try to put you down, keep you in your place, and if you can’t speak truth to power, you will be stepped on.

Whereas if you rise up and play their game…

Tyler Grimm is Chief Counsel for Policy and Strategy for the House Judiciary Committee majority staff. We address intellectual property legislation and how the sausage is made. This is an insider’s view into what really goes on in Congress.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tyler-grimm/id1316200737?i=1000659622721

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1mCGmJhAieizEoyNDpDjq9?si=KDUJ1_XUQiuk1XEIdKu_ZA

Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/06d3285e-408d-48e8-afd1-2a6dd4459fbe/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-tyler-grimm

iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/tyler-grimm-187468237/?cmp=web_share&embed=true

It’s not going to make any difference. Except maybe to Justin himself. Refuse to take a biological sobriety test in California and you automatically lose your license. I’m not sure of the law in New York, and the issue is complicated by the fact that Timberlake was probably driving on a  California license. And in any event, Timberlake can afford a driver, or at least Uber, but not being able to drive yourself is a big pain in the ass.

There’s only one taboo in America anymore. Pedophilia. Oh, we can extend that into other sex crimes, but everything else gets a shrug, at least from those paying attention. One can argue that going to jail in the hip-hop world raises your cred. And I can say the same thing here with Timberlake. His squeaky-clean image could use a bit of roughing up. It took years, but there’s been blowback about his emerging sans penalty in the Super Bowl Nipplegate, and Britney Spears took a swing at him, but Timberlake is more akin to a star of old, sleek and bulletproof. But nobody is that way anymore, nobody, that’s what social media has wrought.

Now this all began with Bristol Palin. Her mother was nominated for Vice President and didn’t tell the higher ups that her teenage daughter was pregnant, out of wedlock, supposedly a big taboo in the Christian Republican world, if not the world at large. But it didn’t hurt Palin a bit, she went on to numerous financial opportunities, she made bank after stepping down as the governor of Alaska. As for Bristol… She had her own reality show.

You see many people have babies out of wedlock. Statistics tell us teen pregnancy is down, then again it was lauded by MTV. But this is not the sixties, where you send your daughter away to have the baby and then give it away doing your best to scrub the landscape clean, leaving their image and CV intact.

And then came Trump. You can’t say anything positive about Trump or the Biden-lovers will excoriate you, but the truth is we’ve got to credit Trump for bringing us into reality eight years ago. Trump used taboo words, talked about taboo subjects, and the “New York Times” may not use swear words, but you do, everybody does!

So we’ve seen a societal adjustment. We no longer live in a two-tiered world. Dignified and undignified. Washed and unwashed. We’re all in it together, and one must not only realize this, but accept it.

In the sixties, even the seventies, the rich hid their wealth. They clothed themselves in chinos and Topsiders, they traveled in old Country Squires, but when the baby boomers made bank in the eighties, that was out the window. Today you boast about your wealth. You flash it. You want to be seen as a “rock star,” even though that moniker doesn’t fit these people.

So Justin Timberlake got arrested for driving while drunk. You might have. Certainly someone in your circle has. Does that make them a bad person? Of course there are alcoholics who get arrested time and again and should be off the streets, but no one believes that’s Justin Timberlake. Furthermore, musicians have done drugs forever and Tom Petty died of a fentanyl overdose. Do we judge Tom for that? If anything, we give him props because he did his last tour in pain, he was self-medicating so everybody else could get paid.

No one is not going to buy a concert ticket because Justin Timberlake got arrested for a DUI. No one sits in judgment that way anymore. And if you’re a fan of somebody, it’s almost impossible to be convinced otherwise. That’s what’s confounding about the Trumpers, they cannot be convinced otherwise, that Donald is flawed, shouldn’t be elected, if anything they’ve doubled-down. That’s the nature of fandom today. You rally around your hero, you don’t abandon them.

As for casual fans…

That’s an interesting concept. The whole world used to run on casual fans. They filled the rest of the seats in the arena, they bought the album a year or two out, they went to see the popular movie…but that concept is dying, if not near dead.

You see people just don’t feel the pressure to be a member of the herd anymore. Everybody’s got their own interests and that’s enough. The press hasn’t realized this. And the gossip press lives for events like Timberlake’s DUI. Because it’s all about garnering eyeballs, which deliver money. They’ll publicize any faux pas.

But that does not mean the public will pay attention, that it will resonate with them. Which is why most music publicity, nearly all traditional publicity, is worthless these days.

We need to give money to Biden so he can advertise on TV. Screw that, advertise on TikTok and Instagram!

The funny thing about social media advertising is oftentimes it’s as good as the posts. Innovative, frequently about innovative products. Sometimes you’re not even sure if it’s an ad. Sure, it’s great to go viral spontaneously, but you can buy your way in, and should. But I don’t see Biden ads on these services.

But the people running Biden’s campaign are not on these services. They pooh-pooh them. Only deplorables spend time on them, wasted time, and the platforms need to be shut down. How well did that attitude work for Hillary Clinton? It didn’t. The game changes and nobody in D.C. seems to be aware of it. Maybe because the only way you can understand the new game is by participating in it. If you want to be plugged in spend at least fifteen minutes on either TikTok or Instagram Reels every day for a week. You’ll get a feel for America. That’s all it takes. But oldsters sit in judgment while youngsters move on, there’s a giant generation gap, the same one that has the youth saying both Biden and Trump are too old.

And for all the haters, of course I’m going to vote for Biden if he’s the ultimate nominee, and you never know, that’s the strange thing about life, unexpected stuff happens. Of course I’m afraid of Trump getting elected, I’m fearful of the death of democracy. But Biden could lose. As a matter of fact, he’s losing right now. And I don’t see him and his team doing anything to change this. All his acolytes just say to hold tight and pray that he wins in November. That’s not a good strategy. But by pointing this out…

Elon Musk owns a platform, and he spews his insanity each and every day. He understands that he or she who owns the media wins the game. Can you say “Rupert Murdoch”?

And one of the big stories today is how Tucker Carlson is touring Australia and has trouble selling tickets. Proving that the platform is more powerful than the individual. The hardest thing to do is to gain an audience. Turns out there were a limited number of Tucker fans, most were Fox fans. In addition, casual fans don’t even know where to find Carlson today.

There’s just too much in the pipeline, it’s overwhelming.

So we’re supposed to care about an aged pop star getting arrested for drunk driving?

That’s one of the great stories of this arrest. The cop didn’t even know who Timberlake was! Justin was too old and the police officer was too young. But Timberlake triumphed when we lived in a monoculture, and that’s all mainstream media understands. The true stars of today, social media influencers, from Mr. Beast to gamers to cosmetic queens, are ignored, they don’t fit the paradigm of yore, and the old media titans don’t know who they are, what they mean, and are refusing to believe we live in a changed landscape.

Did you read in their last results that the “New York Times” had more people subscribing to cooking and puzzles than the basic news app?

But this is all freeing. You can make a mistake and recover. Then again, not if you’re a politician, where gotcha still exists. But that’s got more to do with those in office and their seconds than the public at large. How high a standard can you hold someone to these days? We’re all flawed. And the sooner we accept this.

The sooner we win.

“UNEVEN CASH FLOW  – Fans of huge rock band left fuming as tickets for stadium show are slashed by 50% after poor sales”: https://t.ly/hCCx2

But it’s not only Pearl Jam, a thirty year old band, but newbie star Noah Kahan too:

“Noah Kahan pit tickets tonight in San Diego down $120 from yesterday. Lower Pavilion down $60. Why are you still buying tickets early? #PaysToWait”: https://t.ly/-FLNe

The music business has historically been opaque. They say one thing when the truth is another. They’ll tell you they’re adding shows because the previous ones are sold out, so you buy extra tickets to scalp, but you end up finding out they lied, the previous show was not sold out, and you can’t lay off your tickets at anywhere near face value, if at all.

But the landscape is changing. Because of information.

Let’s start with the blue dots. The Ticketmaster site is a plethora of information. You can see what tickets are still available, which ones are for resale, and when J.Lo canceled her tour no one believed it, because there were seas of blue dots all over Ticketmaster.

But that’s not all. Now we have Twitter sites that give you this information and more. I recommend you follow @underfacevalue and Ticket_Help2022 The insiders do, X provides this information.

So all we’ve been hearing about is ticket prices are artificially high because of Ticketmaster, no one in government speaks of supply and demand, but when it comes to restaurants…

You might not be following the kerfuffle. People are scalping restaurant reservations in New York. So they passed a law to try and eliminate this:

“Why NYC’s Hottest Dining Reservations Will Stay Impossible to Score – A proposed law aimed at bots and scalpers who cater to rich and desperate restaurant fans isn’t guaranteed to make getting a hot table easier.”

Free link: https://t.ly/dCZaA

I love this Bloomberg headline, because it’s exactly what insiders know about concert tickets and everyone in the government seems not to. The problem isn’t Ticketmaster, the problem is SUPPLY AND DEMAND!

If you read this article you’ll find that the average spend for dinner at these restaurants is $100 to $150. But when musical artists charge the same thing people go NUTS! The same boomers complaining about Springsteen ticket prices have no problem dropping these amounts for dinner. What gives? Each is an evanescent experience, and a concert might be once in a lifetime, the band might never come back to your town, you might never ever be able to see them again!

But no one is cracking down on concert ticket scalping, because the scalpers have too strong a lobby, they’re organized, whereas the restaurant reservation business is a nascent one.

Rising Brown junior Alex Eisler made 100k selling restaurant reservations putting in only half an hour to two hours a day. Nature abhors a vacuum. Which is why we have restaurant reservation scalpers, and concert ticket scalpers. You’d think acts would charge what the ticket is worth, but no, they’re afraid of being judged, WHY?

As for Pearl Jam… The band broke in the nineties. Their hard core fans are Gen-X’ers, now in their fifties. They have the money, but ironically they’re the ones who think twice about paying it.

But we can argue that Pearl Jam is more of an American act.

But we can say the promoter misjudged the market. That’s what happened with the Black Keys and J.Lo. What happened yesterday does not apply to today.

Yesterday, every show sold out. Demand was through the roof. Why not charge more, otherwise the scalpers will reap the benefit of the spread.

But it turns out the customer is saying no. This is the same customer who despite hearing ad infinitum how the economy is going great, finds food and other costs much more expensive.

They’re holding on to their dollars.

So what we are seeing is a price correction, in front of our very eyes. And the public is aware of this. And no one, NO ONE, likes finding out the person right next to them paid less for what they bought. We’ve learned to accept this with airlines, but the end result is everybody hates the airlines, who’ve rigged the system by consolidation and lack of competition on routes. This is Napster waiting to happen. And in reality, airline prices are coming down too. That post-Covid mania has expired.

So what sells?

Well, Noah Kahan is a breakthrough artist. But how many people has he actually broken through to? This is not an MTV act from the eighties. Most people don’t even know his name. And in reality, despite being in the marketplace for a number of years, he’s seen as a new act, and people are wondering if it’s worth it to lay down all this dough.

And if you’re running on fumes, out playing your greatest hits…

Well, hopefully you’re doing it at the shed, where the promoter has other streams of revenue besides tickets, where there is oftentimes a cheap lawn, because if you put up your show at the arena, GOOD LUCK!

But Taylor Swift shows sold out and parents couldn’t buy their kids tickets so someone must be at fault.

The truth is Swift was a genius. She put up all her U.S. tickets at once to create mania to guarantee she went clean. Yes, the dirty little secret of the previous tour was she didn’t sell every ticket. But when you get caught up in the maelstrom…you don’t want to be left out. And never underestimate the power of parents. They’re vicious when it comes to delivering what their kids want.

So what happens now?

Interesting question.

As for the universal boomer bands… They’re close to the end, so everybody is truly wondering whether it’s the last time. However, people have been speculating on the last time for years now. But, these bands have been going out at astronomical prices for a long time, so the public is used to it, and they are genuine superstars.

How many acts of the last fifteen years have reached this status, where everybody in America knows their tunes? Absolutely no one. Period. However, there are more people in America than ever before, and music is a unique visceral experience in a world where we all own the same devices. So it’s a large cult audience and… No one goes to one of these shows on a whim, they’re just too expensive.

And why do they keep canceling festivals? Are they too expensive or is the lineup not attractive enough or both?

And sometimes you can lower the prices and people still don’t want to come.

So if you’re planning a tour now… The data is just coming in. You could put up shows and do lousy business or put up shows and sell out and wish you played bigger buildings at higher prices.

And where is the government on this? Nowhere to be seen.

We are seeing a correction. The good old days are behind us. Are there new good days to come?

Well, we thought when the classic acts passed that everybody would be playing smaller buildings, but there are more stadium shows than ever before. Audiences are narrower, but they are very deep.

So here you find the essence of concert promotion. Nothing is guaranteed, it’s a bet. AI ain’t gonna tell you, data only means so much, it’s a gut decision, and great music hits you in the same way, the gut.

But the bottom line is people don’t want to pay as much as they’ve been paying for the past two years to see most acts. How much of this is the act, how much of this is the economy, how much of this is music’s place in the landscape?

Let’s ask the government. Ha!