Trailer: https://t.ly/2cKBr

You’re going to want to watch this show.

Unfortunately there are only two episodes of the second season available, but boy did they entrance me.

It’s kind of like pornography, you know it when you see it, you know it when you experience it, your focus starts to narrow, the rest of the world is excluded, you’re all in, invested, it’s not so much that the story is real as you want to believe it is real, this is what you’re looking for, top flight entertainment.

Now there was a previous season… All about the end of mining in Nottinghamshire. What do people do when all the jobs go away?

But even more it’s about the people themselves, their relationships.

Now in the second season…

Lesley Manville stars. One of the best British actors. She’s living alone now, deciding whether to sell her house and move on. And on one hand she seems like a sensitive flower, but… The ex-cop who comes by, he kinda wants to ask her for a date but can’t quite screw up the courage, even though he’s a big handsome guy. And she calls him out on it, gets into the details, lays it all out on the table, ultimately deciding to go on the date anyway, but making it all clear what is going down.

Then there’s the sheriff. Who is not only a woman, but gay. Are people really that modern, do they accept this? Not really. How does she navigate the hurdles.

Does she want to approve a reintroduction of mining? The area has been through so much. The loss of jobs. The illnesses and death from black lung. Sure, there will be jobs for youths, but at what cost? And how long is this new mine going to last anyway.

And then there are those behind the new mine. Big thinkers. They exist in every burg. And no matter what they say, they’re not altruistic, they’re in it for themselves.

And underneath all this is…

The youth. With no future. Dealing drugs and…

There’s a murder and this is when it gets interesting. Because it brings out the warring families from the woodwork. How are they going to handle this. Are they going to battle each other?

And it’s the spouses of the two men who run the families who are so powerful, so riveting, so amazing. Monica Dolan as Ann Branson… They don’t have actresses like this in American shows. Let’s just say her body is not perfect, she’s built somewhat like a barrel. Yet with a pretty face and a good blonde hairdo…which bucket do you put her in? Is she like the girl next door, is she the lower class girl you were always afraid of in high school, she can be warm and yet strong as steel and then…

There’s her counterpart, Daphne Sparrow, played by Lorraine Ashbourne, she’s…a bit worse for wear, her face is dried-up, lined…just like you’d picture someone from deep in the heart of England, who may not have eaten enough vegetables, who was exposed to too much pollution. She’s thinking. She has a good streak, but really is she just bad?

And the police… Do they even know what is going on, are they trustworthy?

I’m telling you about “Sherwood” because what it delivers is what English TV does best but does not always achieve, a direct gritty truth. It’s something that American TV just cannot capture. America just can’t get gritty right. Even if the landscape is gritty, the actors are not, it’s not believable. But you believe the people are who they are in “Sherwood.” A mix of those living in the present and those lost in the past.

And I’m always on the outlook for great stuff. And when I see it I want to tell people about it, so they can share the experience.

There’s a hierarchy. “Sherwood” approaches the top. I write about other series, “Rivals” is not in the league of “Sherwood.” “Murder Mindfully” is ultimately a comedy, whereas “Sherwood” is dead serious.

I’m not telling you so you will tell anybody else, I just want you to have the same experience I did, sitting in front of the screen, in the dark, wholly engrossed, edgy, involved, knowing that TV when done right is oftentimes better than hanging with your friends, going out to dinner, it can be more real than real.

Like “Sherwood.”

We’re not as civilized as we think we are.

Work with me here.

We were watching a TV series last night… Well, it’s “Gangs of London” on Netflix, we’re only two episodes in, so don’t tell me what happens, but the interaction of the gangs, who are not teenagers but closer to Mafiosi, got me thinking…

You see when you’re in high school you get beat up, you’re the object of derision.

Actually, it starts earlier than that, usually junior high. There are always some people so odd, so off the radar, that they’re ignored, but if you think you might want to be a member of the group, you either are or you’re not. And if you’re not…

What you’ve got to know about guys is they’ve got a tribal mentality. They love a group. You see it in sports. And within this group…you don’t want to speak up, you don’t want to contradict, you want to go with the flow. This is the original bro mentality. There are advantages: camaraderie, friendship, an entire life, but you must conform.

Unless you’re the leader.

There’s always one or two leaders. Who steer the group. Sometimes they’re evil, sometimes they’re reasonable and over time, as they age, they extricate themselves from the group and are well-adjusted adults. But usually, those in power like their power, and this is how they live the rest of their lives, by lording it over others.

And underneath them are the good soldiers. Who will do whatever the leaders tell them to do. Who will not cross the leaders, who pledge fealty. Talk to one of these soldiers about the leader and they’ll wax rhapsodic, no matter how negative someone from the outside may perceive this leader. It’s a cult, akin to a religion.

So…

What do they say, the nerds inherit the earth?

You’ve got Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg. Even Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.

Remember, Peter Thiel killed Gawker for outing him as gay. This is how the rich nerds do it, the ones who did well in school, jumped through all the hoops, got all the money. They play within the system, it’s built for them, they bend the rules, they get what they want.

And those of us reading the news, those of us who were educated at fine universities, see their power and believe they rule.

And they do.

But not to the extent we believe they do.

Now if you’re on the wrong side of the divide in high school, you may get beaten up. Happens all the time, physical violence. But there’s an understanding that once you become an adult, the law applies, this is no longer possible, you will pay the consequences, so everybody colors within the lines.

But this is patently untrue.

The educated, the rule-abiders, think that society is defined, that they’re safe, but they’re not.

Or maybe you could say when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose.

So we’ve seen the feminization of society. I’m not saying that #MeToo was wrong, I’m not saying that it’s a level playing field, that women are not disadvantaged, I’m just saying if you’re a member of polite society, educated, you’ve been taught that you must be sensitive, that girls are intimidated in class, over and over you’ve been told what a brute you are. And most of the people in polite society have bought this.

But not everybody else.

Not everybody in America went to college. Not everybody’s on a career path. Not everybody has an IRA, not only thinking about retirement, but planning vacations years in advance. A whole hell of a lot of people are just living in the moment. And to tell you the truth, it ain’t much different from high school.

You work at the factory. You even work at Walmart… You’re going nowhere fast, but there is a hierarchy, there is a gang. And you go out drinking, and you hang on weekends and…

There might be a bar fight. Other physical violence. Maybe the police are even called. But spending a night in jail… Is anybody caring about their résumé?

This is the divide in America today.

So men without portfolio are acting just like the guys in “Gangs of London.” They’re looking for status, they’re looking for power. And it doesn’t come from a degree, or ownership of certain items, it comes from your personality, your power, your bullying, your intimidation.

Even worse, so many of these qualities even permeate polite society, amongst the educated, within Fortune 500 companies. You’ve got to belong to get ahead. And if you don’t play by the rules you’re blackballed.

This even happens in the music business. I could tell you names, of people who can prevent you from getting a job… But either you know them or you do not.

But this is not the perception of the college educated, some of whom are the elites, some of whom are not.

And never forget, those with less always have contempt for those with more.

So yes, all this is going through my brain because of the election. Because of the misperception of Harris and those who supported her. They had no idea of the mentality of most men. And the backlash that was brewing.

Oh, don’t talk to me about abortion, don’t get into the issues, just listen for a change.

Most Harris supporters did not. I’ve got an inbox of e-mail proving this.

Somewhere along the line the impression was given to educated women that the landscape had changed, but in reality it had not. Well, women get more college degrees than men, women have gained advantages, but men have not fundamentally changed. As a matter of fact, with less opportunity, it’s gotten worse.

And you can see evidence of this all over the place. Hell, look at Active Rock… Those bands are not for everybody, but a subset, of alienated men. Sure, there are female fans, but… Hell, so many of these Active Rock performers have gone on record as being Republicans. What have the educated classes ever done for them but look down on them?

So we live in the land of disorder. Chaos. In a world they keep telling us is quantified, stratified, laid out, easy to grasp.

And this is not the case.

But it’s all subtext. You can’t write this. You can’t own this. Even though post-election some have. Because it’s taboo. Societal taboo. There’s a certain way men must act, and it’s not only in the news, but all over social media, pull up TikTok and you’ll see endless women complaining about the behavior of men.

So how do we foment change?

Well, first and foremost by owning it, the truth, what is happening, not what we want to happen. We must not drown out the voices of those who disagree. Sure, we may be able to educate them, but without listening we just push them further away.

And we have to own the fact that on certain biological levels, men are men. We need to stop insisting everybody become a metrosexual. Nice, soft. Decrying anybody who is not cleaned up with a good job.

I’m not defending these men. I’ve been victimized by them my entire life. To this day. I can tell you about going against the group, even in seemingly non-threatening social situations. You follow the leader, it’s an unsaid rule. You show up on their schedule, or else…

You’re ostracized, you’re done. Your inbox goes cold. They talk sh*t about you behind your back. You are not one of them, you are the other, you are to be wary of.

Forget that all breakthroughs come from the lone individual. That’s something completely different, that person doesn’t need a tribe.

And a tribe is not about innovation or change, but keeping order.

The only way we can make progress is by bringing these men in these tribes closer…stop ostracizing them, making fun of them, putting them down. We need to bring them in as opposed to putting them out.

But we must never ever insist they be just like us. That’s how we got here, by dictating, by believing we had the answers, that we we’re better than them.

Now the bottom line is deep down inside every man believes they’ve got something, a spark, a power. This is the essence of being a gang leader. To become a doctor you need a degree, so much more. So many of the modern professions…you need to jump through hoops, you just can’t get it instantly.

But hanging with a group of men… All you need is your personality and drive. Comes out everywhere, on the golf course…everybody’s jockeying for position, making fun of others.

The media industrial complex makes like this doesn’t exist.

But it does.

Spotify: https://t.ly/d5xxT

YouTube: https://t.ly/hXF-F

1

I’ve given up on politics. Sure, I read the headlines, but now I’m detached, I’m going to see how it plays out, I’m going to live my life, take a respite from the eight year long movie that had me riveted.

Which means I’m not ping-ponging between the news channels on the satellite dial. It’s back to music. Oh, what a long, strange, trip it’s been.

However, how do you find new stuff?

JOHN MAYER!

John Mayer’s got a channel on SiriusXM that pays for the monthly subscription all by itself. What it is is his favorites, interspersed with his own tracks. And the favorites of a musician are different from the favorites of a deejay. A deejay needs to feel good about themselves, needs to know they’re building a flow, is worried about their taste, for others will judge it. A musician? Music is a calling, they’re just exploring, Mayer is turning you on to stuff HE’S listening to. And in most cases it’s not in the Spotify Top 50.

But it’s all over the map. No specific genre. Could be old, could be new. But it doesn’t stop with classic rock. As a matter of fact, when I tuned in today whilst on Sunset Boulevard, John was giving an introduction to Madonna’s “Cherish.”

I LOVE THAT SONG!

He talked about playing it via Bluetooth when he was down on the playa in Mexico with Dead and Co. Being in the shower. These private listening experiences are the best, when you’re in a trance, that no one can break, just you and the music, it energizes you.

There’s a point in “Cherish” where… It zings back and forth… Hell, I’m not a musicologist, if you were here right now, I’d point it out. These are emphasis points, and they get me every time. So often it’s the little things that put something over the top, make it great. Then again, there’s also the cheery melody…something too often absent from today’s hit parade.

So then I turn onto Beverly Glen, knowing I’ll hit traffic at the top, below Mulholland. And now it’s one of Mayer’s numbers emanating from the speakers. And it’s not fully clicking, but at the end there’s this guitar part, with this delicious tone, it was exquisite.

And now I’m in bumper to bumper traffic. Up a hill. Red on the map. And my car… Does not have good low end torque. I know how to drive a stick, I’ve been doing so since I graduated from college. I could power my BMWS up La Cienega, you know, the steep part, up to Sunset, no problem. But this car… You pump it and it doesn’t engage, it slips backward, it stalls… They knew they had a problem, they improved it the following year, they added that low end torque, and ultimately they put in a hill-holder, but my car ain’t got those. And people pull right up to my bumper on these hills and it makes me uptight and…

John’s playing a song I don’t know that starts ringing my bell.

Now you’ve got to know that they played soul music on AM radio back in the sixties, a lot of it. But albums… Let’s just say soul was a singles world. Albums were a rock thing at the time. We can argue when that changed, maybe with Stevie Wonder’s “Music of My Mind” back in ’72?

Now there were all Black stations, in the inner city. But this song “Fool for You” by the Impressions…I’d never heard it. Turns out it was released on the album “This Is My Country,” the act’s first for Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Records, back in ’68.

Now you’ve got to know we knew who Mayfield was, but the soundtrack to “Superfly” truly made him a household name. Blaxploitation was its own genre. “Shaft” and its instrumental had preceded “Superfly,” they were both huge hits, but “Superfly” doubled-down, did “Shaft” one better 

The song “Superfly” was as cool as Ron O’Neal’s performance in the movie. “Superfly” was the “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” of ’72. People who had no interest, who were not paying attention, heard the song once and got infected, they couldn’t let go…they had to buy the album, you had to hear it ad infinitum, you couldn’t take it off the turntable…this was a hit record. And in its own way, “Freddie’s Dead” was just as good, what a groove. And “Pusherman”…  This is music that you lock on to instantly, that becomes one with you, that may be foreign on the surface, but you throw off all your preconceptions and join the tribe.

But how good was “Fool for You” really. Did it merit an essay, or would I just be trying to play to my audience, writing about music… Mayfield’s vocals were indelible, so sweet, but not a ton happened in the record…worked great on Mayer’s show, but…

I was happy I was being turned on to a song I hadn’t known previously, this is what my detachment from politics is yielding.

And then…

2

The road flattens out, I no longer have to ride the clutch and the accelerator pedal simultaneously. And in a shorter time than I thought, I made the turn onto Mulholland, which was flowing speedily, I was in a good groove, and then the song switched to…

There was so much information in the readout…

“Raphael Saadiq/Rob ‘Fonksta’ Bacon – ‘Something Keeps Calling'”

This is WAY out of my wheelhouse.

And at first it’s just like “Fool For You,” a hook, repeated, but there’s also a sweet vocal, which is resonating, it’s penetrating, and the sun is setting as I’m driving west and I’m starting to self-check…wait a minute, is this a great song?

And then all of a sudden the track switches, to a guitar solo. Maybe this is why Mayer knows it. This guy is WAILING, TASTEFULLY!

The guitar… We got to a point where it was about how fast you played, how many notes, everybody was showing off, but this guy, he’s in tune with the track…it’s part of the canon, could be out of yacht rock, it’s got a lot of touchpoints, then again at one point he’s sustaining, that’s like a regular rock record, and then the lyric starts again…

“Something keeps calling”

And now I’m nodding my head. I’m past the point of no return. When I ultimately park my car, turn my engine off, I’m still singing the lyric in my head.

Raphael Saadiq… Wasn’t he in Tony! Toni! Toné?

Not really my bag. But he’s moved on from that group. But I didn’t think he was making music like this. That doesn’t play to the strictures, it’s like he’s just doing what he wants to do, the way it used to be done, commerciality be damned.

But this Rob “Fonksta” Bacon… Is he the singer or the guitarist? You can never really know with these featured players. I mean I know Saadiq sings, and I assume it’s him, but I ultimately get to my computer and Rob “Fonksta” Bacon…

Doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. Doesn’t even have a website.

He’s on Instagram. He’s a guitarist.

I’ve never heard of him before. But he’s been around long enough to have a nickname.

Now it turns out that John Mayer is not the only person who knows “Something Keeps Calling”… It’s got 15 million streams on Spotify. But to tell you the truth, don’t be too impressed, you’d be stunned how many cuts have this number of streams that you’ve never heard of. But obviously some people know this record. As far as the other twelve songs on the album, only two even break a million streams, one at 2.4 and another at 1.7.

And the album, entitled “Jimmy Lee,” came out in 2019. How does Mayer know it? I certainly don’t. But he turned me on to it.

And Raphael Saadiq hasn’t put out any solo work since. And that’s five years. Does Columbia even want to make another record?

But this track… Play it once and you might as well play it twenty. It’s not “Superfly,” but it’s on the continuum.

So maybe we’re hitting a new era, or maybe I’m hitting a new era, maybe this is when music triumphs once again.

And I’m thinking about John Mayer… His cred, his image, has only grown since he’s stopped having hit singles, it never used to be that way.

But it’s a brand new world.

And today Mayer was entry point.

“Something keeps calling”

That’s what we’re looking for, something that calls out to us. And it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t call out to you, as long as it calls out to somebody. The world has changed. Not everything worth hearing is a hit, and the business is truly driven by those not making hits, just doing it their own way. How many of the Spotify Top 50 could sell out the Sphere?

“Something keeps calling”

“The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon”: https://t.ly/qacea

1

ANOTHER BOOK?!

I wasn’t planning on writing about it, I wasn’t even sure I was going to read it, but late Saturday night Kevin Fedarko described the experience of running the river… Being at one with the water, checking the flow, charting a path, that reminded me exactly of skiing.

Not that you would know it if you haven’t experienced it.

But if you have…

People throw away their entire lives to go skiing, to go river rafting. And if you asked my father, that’s exactly what he would say, throwing away your life, wasting your time, but the experience, the adrenaline, the hit…

They’re at the top of a rapid, the oarsman is steeling himself, getting focused, ready to dive in at 100%, with this run the only thing that matters. That’s the same experience I have skiing. Not every run. But you’re standing atop a couloir, a field of bumps, and you know the only way you’ll make it is by nailing it, there’s no room for error. That if you pussyfoot, you’re f*cked. Either do it right or not at all.

But you could get hurt, you could die. And in truth, many people do.

And it’s one thing to base jump, to do something where the odds are not good. But quite another to develop your skill to the point where you know you can execute.

And to do that you have to do it every day. You can’t be a weekend warrior.

I used to say it took thirty days straight. Now I’m thinking I can get in the groove a little bit sooner. But I go out every day until I get that fine edge. It’s not about how I look, it’s about the feeling of control, the ability to recover, to stay the course.

And what dividend does that pay?

Only food for the soul, that’s it.

Sure, there are professional ski racers, even professional freestyle skiers, but that’s something different. Forget that it’s a competition, a lot of the time you’re not even skiing. You’re traveling, waiting, getting ready to throw down your run and put down a time.

But I can still remember this run on Wilbere Ridge back in ’76, where I hit every bump perfectly, when the lift was already closed, when there was nobody else on the slope. I’m constantly in search of that feeling.

2

So I stumbled on to Kevin Fedarko’s work. I read about his new book and reserved it at the library. It came out last spring, it’s entitled:

“A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon”: https://t.ly/CW5LM

In it Fedarko does just that, have a misadventure walking the length of the Grand Canyon, which is rare feat. Despite being in the continental United States, the Grand Canyon is to a great degree unexplored. Sure, people run the river, but the gullies, the tributaries, the sun, the heat, the shale, the scree…that’s too much for almost anybody.

And the funny thing about Fedarko is he’s Ivy League educated. And despite only writing two books, he’s got a lot of skill, and to make it simple, I will say he uses big words. Some you’ll definitely have to look up. Was this necessary? I don’t know. All I do know is it’s worth plowing through. Although I thought I was going to stop a time or two reading “A Walk in the Park.”

But writing about that book I got e-mail saying I had to read Fedarko’s previous book, “The Emerald Mile.” I reserved it, but did I really want to slog through another tome?

And when I ultimately cracked it… I was just not prepared for the adventure. It’s a commitment. But then…

3

You see Fedarko writes like I talk, with digression. He knows where he’s going, but there are side trips, that at first will have you scratching your head, wondering why they’re relevant.

You get the history of John Wesley Powell traveling down the river from Wyoming all the way through the canyon in 1869. You wonder why this is necessary. But then you start to marvel, this guy with one arm went on this expedition, and it’s nowhere near as well known as the Lewis & Clark trek, but should it be?

Not that a lot of people follow in Powell’s footsteps.

But then comes the U.S. government. They’re damming up rivers left and right, in order to generate power. And there’s this writer in L.A. who gets a bug up his ass, believing this is a bridge too far, it’s the beginning of the conservation movement, the early sixties, when most people hadn’t even heard of the Sierra Club.

But this guy Litton hooks up with the Sierra Club and gets it, reluctantly, on board, and they stop the construction of a dam in Dinosaur National Monument. It’s a compromise, the government won’t build that one if the Sierra Club lets them build another dam further down in Glen Canyon.

But after agreeing to this, the Sierra Club majordomo realizes this is a big mistake, what will be lost as the reservoir fills up is unique. And from that day forward the strategy is changed. No compromise, ever.

And thank god they felt this way, because the U.S. government was going to build multiple dams within the Grand Canyon. That’s right, they were going to flood the Grand Canyon! Kaput! You can’t stop progress, you know.

But the Sierra Club did. And reading this book will make you a conservationist.

4

So Litton ultimately goes into the business of running dory trips down the Canyon. While everybody is running these massive rubber pontoons. And these wooden dories… They bang into rocks, they get broken up, you’ve got to repair them as you go… But you just can’t barrel through the rapids, you’ve got to navigate, there’s finesse involved, and a dory trip takes three weeks, whereas a motorized pontoon trip can be done in a third of the time.

And this guy Kenton Grua gets the bug, he gets hooked.

If you’ve lived in the wilderness you know these people. They oftentimes come from the suburbs. But they experienced something in the woods, in the wilderness, and their whole life takes a left turn, this is all they care about.

So Kenton Grua dedicates his entire life to running the Grand Canyon in a wooden dory.

Let’s be clear. The canyon doesn’t change. Well, there are the equivalent of avalanches, there is movement of the rapids, but it’s still one river, it’s still in one place, but for Grua, that’s enough. He doesn’t have to run every river in the world. He’s dedicated just to the Grand Canyon. I love going to new ski areas, but I can tell you where every bump, every nook and cranny is at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, Bromley Mountain and Vail. Because I’ve gone down these runs hundreds of times. Like on Pickeroon… Sometimes I go left, sometimes I go right. If I go left, I drop in where the chair used to be, a narrow passageway. And then there are these giant rollers, you speed along and make a turn on top of each one, you’re flying. And if I go on the right, there’s a roll near the top and another at the bottom but the key is going around the trees in the middle, that exist just a few meters from the woods. One false move and… But it’s the tightness and the turn that give me that feeling. I could almost run it blind.

5

So now we go back to the dams. One dam in particular, Glen Canyon Dam.

Well, first we go into a description of an El Niño. Live in California, live in the Rockies long enough, and you’ll become familiar with El Niño and its counterpart La Niña. Bottom line, in an El Niño year, in this one in particular, 1983, it rains and rains and rains and rains. And in the mountains it snows and snows and snows and snows. And come spring this snow starts to melt and…

The rivers start to flow, the reservoirs starts to fill up and…

Glen Canyon dam can’t cope.

The passageways… Are literally falling apart. There’s a chance the water will breach the dam. Some people even think the dam itself is in jeopardy.

And for all those who hate the government… You’ll learn why we need it, you’ll appreciate the people who work for it, after you read this book.

But, as they’re trying to forestall catastrophe, they’re allowing water to run through and it’s moving fast at a higher level than ever before and Grua…

Decides to set a speed record. Yup, he’s gonna do it faster than anybody before, which in this case was him. He isn’t filming a movie, there’s no trophy, no book, no story, it was a personal quest.

The water is high, they take off surreptitiously, and…

6

Now Kevin Grua died riding his mountain bike. “…he suffered an aortic dissection, a tear in the inner layer of the large blood vessel branching off his heart.”

He was 52.

It’s unclear if this was related to trauma. But when you’re a dirtbag river rat you probably don’t have health insurance.

Grua was a child of the seventies. When you could survive as a dirtbag. You can’t anymore.

Used to be there were ski bums. Now all the help at ski areas comes from South America or Down Under, it’s just too expensive to live in ski town. Furthermore, the longer you stay in the mountains, the further you fall behind in the rat race, sans a career you’re going to be behind the financial 8-ball, and you’d be surprised how savvy today’s youngsters are. People like me used to graduate from college and head for the mountains. Almost no one does that anymore.

Not that Grua was getting rich running the river, but he could survive, he could make ends meet, and he could get that amazing feeling.

7

Now I’m going to quote a few passages, because they stuck out to me.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

Ain’t that the truth. Few take the risk today. At least physically. Out in the wilderness. Although it will never again be the way it used to be, no one is off the grid anymore, even your iPhone has satellite capability.

But if you’re not testing limits, pushing the envelope, you’re missing out.

“‘Thou shalt not’ is soon forgotten, but ‘Once upon a time’ lasts forever.”

This is kind of like Nike’s “Just Do It,” but softer. Or Warren Miller’s…if you don’t do it this year, you’ll just be one year older when you do. Step out your front door, put yourself in an unfamiliar position, you’ll encounter the unexpected, and that’s when you’ll feel really alive.

“Among many other things, those dirtbag river runners uphold the virtue of disobedience: the principle that in a free society, defiance for its own sake sometimes carries value and meaning, if only because power in all its forms—commercial, governmental, and moral—should not always and without question be handed what it demands.”

This is the essence of the other, the essence of rock and roll, the essence of the sixties, whose philosophy bled into the seventies, and then Reagan came along and legitimized greed and everybody bought in.

Everybody wants to buy in today. You want those privates, those brand extensions. The music is not enough, there must be perfume, and clothing. And if something makes a ton of bread, what is driving it, what is at the core, is irrelevant.

In many ways society is empty, we’re lacking leaders.

I’m not talking about the free speech movement online. That’s not the same. What you’ve got to know about defiance is it’s always been based on the lone individual. Who points the way but doesn’t insist you follow, who just continues to go on their own hejira. Politicians lead parties, musicians…those who change the world…they’re just following their instincts, and if they don’t align with society’s rules, too bad.

For a while there the techies embodied this. But then they came to believe that they were the establishment, that they were entitled to set the rules…meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

But to do that which is not approved, to risk everybody’s wrath, to not care about the money…that’s rare in today’s society.

But that’s what the dirtbags are all about, all they live for, they put their finger to the wind and…