Now our generation is starting to die.

The first to go were born in the forties. Now, just like in that Police song, those born in the fifties are dropping dead.

That was the first thought that occurred to me when I heard that Eric Carmen had died. Sure, he was a few years older than me, but he was my contemporary.

The Beatles were not my contemporaries. Nor the Dave Cark Five.

We can argue whether rock and roll started with Ike Turner or Bill Haley. We can talk about the impact of Elvis Presley. But the true dividing line, the moment when rock truly blew up, when it became not only America’s, but the world’s sound, was the advent of the Beatles… First in the U.K. in ’62, and then in the U.S. in ’64. Hell, let’s stick with ’64, that’s when “A Hard Day’s Night” hit the theatres.

Sure, the Beatles were only in their early twenties, but that seemed ages from most of their fans. The Beatles were older, wiser and more experienced. Believe me, we knew exactly how old each Beatle was. All were born in the early forties.

And the San Francisco groups had a different upbringing and inspiration, folk and blues, and they were parallel to the Beatles, and also born in the forties.

And by time we hit the seventies, our generation took over, those born in the fifties. Not exclusively, we had Keith Emerson and James Taylor born in the forties, but the base age ticked up, our brethren were making the hit music.

And there was a victory lap in the eighties with MTV. Boomers were flush.

Then the internet came along and took the focus off of music, and it has never fully returned. Elon Musk is more of a rock star than anybody making music today, and this didn’t used to be the case. If you wanted to know which way the wind blew, you listened to a record, not anymore.

This bothers me, how the MTV paradigm of a worldwide hit single now dominates. That there’s no parallel alternative music and culture, of any significance, but they call it the music “business,” and everybody follows the money. Starving artists don’t pay fealty to the work, they just complain that they don’t get paid.

The Raspberries were on a terrible label. Capitol might have had the Beach Boys and the Beatles and eventually the Band, but it was the last choice. You could tell by the album covers if nothing else. They were cheap in an era where the acts on Warner Brothers’ were extensive gatefold manifestations.

And the Raspberries were an anomaly. Breaking on AM radio when all the action was on FM. Capitol didn’t bother positioning the act as credible. The album covers made the band look like sixties boy band relics.

But the single hits were undeniable.

And then came “Overnight Sensation”…

“Well I know it sounds funny

But I’m not in it for the money”

I read about it in “Rolling Stone.” Other music magazines. I couldn’t hear it, because it was a complete stiff. To this day I’ve never heard “Overnight Sensation” on the radio.

But I took a risk, I dove in and bought it, at Sam Goody in Westport.

And I was positively stunned.

That would happen in the old days. You’d buy a record you’d read about, that had no hits, and you’d drop the needle and be positively overwhelmed. Like with Stories’ “About Us.” Sure, they ultimately tacked on the cover of “Brother Louie,” but that was an anomaly, the rest of the album was Left Banke modernized for the seventies and I still sing the songs to myself regularly. “What comes after, the laughter…”

So I bought every Eric Carmen album thereafter.

My favorite is “Boats Against the Current.” The final track, which Eric just wrote me should have been the opener, “Run Away,” is majestic in a way today’s records are not. Back then it was all about the record, the penumbra was secondary. Forget endorsements, personal hype, the music was a statement of your identity, it revealed your interior, not your exterior.

And then Eric faded from the scene but he returned with “Hungry Eyes” from the “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack.

Talk about a phenomenon. “Dirty Dancing” was seen as a B-movie. Not to be taken seriously. And over time it built and built to the point it became a cultural icon. Everybody saw it, more than once. And sure, it was about Baby and Johnny, but also about having the time of your life… It just made you feel good. Fully alive.

Two days ago I was riding the lift with this bearded guy who started a conversation because the four who were supposed to make six couldn’t sidle up in time to make it, or chose not to.

This guy told me he was from Michigan. But he used to live in Vail in the winter. And I asked him about what he did for a living and he said he was retired. That he’d planned to spend the winter in Vail but he’d had a heart incident over the summer, he needed a valve replacement.

He was only 71.

If you can find a boomer sans health problems… I don’t believe it. Everybody’s got something. It’s like we’re automobiles, and not Toyotas or Hondas. We’re Chevrolets, Fords, GM machines. All shiny and new but not made to last. Eventually we fall apart. We don’t stop running completely, but pieces start to fail. And unlike with cars you can’t cashier them and get a new one, your body is the only one you get.

And in fact, I never spoke with Eric Carmen, but we e-mailed plenty. I went to see the Raspberries reunion twenty years ago at the House of Blues. It was fantastic.

And now the House of Blues is gone too. 

And he e-mailed me… I’m checking, the last e-mail I got from Eric was on January 7th. Two months ago. Fully alive, and now he’s dead.

As for the Raspberries reunion…

Most people don’t understand how the road works. You get offers, or you don’t. And if you get offered enough cash you go on the road, assuming you want to, and if you don’t, you don’t. In other words, many of your old time favorites would love to tour, but no promoter will put up the money.

And if they didn’t have that name, and if they were properly marketed by Capitol, the Raspberries would have been able to tour every year, like Styx and the rest, they had hits and they were that good, but the band ended up living in no-man’s land.

But once they went all the way.

Very few records are perfect, but Eric Carmen made a few of them.

And I can’t feel nostalgic about them, because they’re in my head constantly. Really, the “Boats Against the Current” LP… It plays more in my brain than it does in Spotify, and I listen in Spotify on a regular basis.

Do I think others have the same experience?

No. Because I’m more passionate than most.

But I’m not the only one. Music was the most important thing to us. Which is why we knew the Beatles’ ages. Quick, how old is Ariana Grande? Or the Weeknd? Or Drake?

That’s not what they’re selling. It’s not about their true identities, it’s about the exterior, the flash. Whereas on “Boats Against the Current”…

I relate to it because it speaks to my insides. I don’t need anybody else to agree with me. It’s just one on one with the record.

Will Eric Carmen’s music have legs, past the death of the baby boomers?

I don’t think so. Almost none of our music, other than the Beatles, will sustain, will travel. The Beatles, yes. The Stones, no. Never mind Seatrain and a bunch of albums I played incessantly in the seventies.

Hell, most of it is already gone.

And Glenn Frey too.

And David Bowie.

But now it’s our contemporaries. Hell, Karl Wallinger was only 66. Even younger than me. Come on, you remember hearing “Ship of Fools” on KROQ, right?

That kind of music has been excised from today’s hit parade. We don’t want people who think, we don’t want you to make a statement, we want you to be shiny and new…it’s all about image, and your personal life lives online, not in your music.

In other words, the landscape has changed. And after all these decades, I don’t expect it to change back. Today it’s all about the hit. We live in a narrow Top 40 world, although we now call it the Spotify Top 50.

And sure, those records evidence success. And I know people love them. But they just don’t represent what used to be. And if you dig beneath the surface, go deep into the catalogs of these acts, oftentimes you find nothing at all, only dreck.

So what I’m saying is it’s your time. Time to focus on yourself. To be the hero of your own movie. You’re not going to be here for long, but if you still see these aged musicians, alive or dead, as heroes, you’re missing the point. Enjoy their music, but focus on yourself, because odds are you’re not going to be here for that long.

I know you don’t believe it. But soon it won’t only be Eric Carmen and Karl Wallinger, but your high school and college buddies. You’ll chalk it up to luck, they got the Big C and you didn’t. But then something will happen to you.

Maybe you’ll just fall. Happens all the time. Your balance fades as you age. You may think you’re twenty one, but you’re not.

And it’s hard to ignore politics, but it’s even harder not to become somnambulant, to say yes instead of no.

It’s never too late to try new things. If you’re afraid of being injured, you’re afraid of living.

New friends are around the corner. But you have to make an effort. And at our age, everybody has the same status. If you’re a boomer and you’re bragging about your house or your car you haven’t grown up and are missing the point. You’re just a person. Part of society. In an overwhelming world that will move on without you.

So it is about experiences and people and…

No one is keeping a record. He with the most toys when they die does not win.

And I’ve met a lot of these hitmakers, my heroes of yore. And I’m not saying their work is not worthy of adulation, but in truth they are people, just like you and me.

You are not going to live forever, no one ever has. Biohack all you want but you’d be better off just living in the now.

This is it, this is your life.

Eric Carmen and Karl Wallinger may have enriched it, but they had their lives and you need to have yours.

Because the Grim Reaper is just around the corner. Believe me.

You don’t make fun of someone’s height, name or physical disability.

I went to high school. You probably did too. There were bullies. Who seemed to pick on you for no reason. And they had a coterie of cronies who if they didn’t cheer them on, stayed silent in mute acknowledgement of their behavior. But as the years passed and students aged the bullies receded into the background, they were ostracized, seen as brutes.

And this was back in the sixties, never mind today, with all the heightened consciousness over the issue.

I didn’t watch the Oscars. My streak ended about a decade ago, when I was traveling and couldn’t. And I’ve never resumed the habit.

Thinking about it, I wondered what the ratings for the younger demographics were. Because the show touches none of their buttons. It’s too long about movies they haven’t seen with variety elements that haven’t worked on television since the seventies, if not the sixties.

But I did read about the show.

That’s how you keep up today. You’re on your own personal hejira. There used to be FOMO. That’s gone, despite all the social media posters trying to tell us their lives are better than ours, despite the fact that beneath the skin they’re insecure, otherwise why would they be posting this stuff?

So you choose how to spend your time, and you graze and catch up on the activities you’re interested in in the news thereafter.

Like Mikaela Shiffrin coming back from injury and immediately winning. Used to be I’d tape the races. The results weren’t available otherwise. But now, unless you stay up/wake up in the middle of the night to watch the runs you find out the results immediately upon waking, and I don’t bother to watch the telecast. I might go on YouTube and see the winning run, but otherwise it’s a bad use of my time.

But I do read the results.

And I do read who won Oscars and some reviews, to get a feel for the show.

And the snubs and surprises… They don’t matter much to me, especially after seemingly every outlet did a feature on who should have won in the past and didn’t.

But Jimmy Kimmel responding to Trump’s comment on Truth Social…

You don’t mess with someone who has a big audience. Despite shrinking, the audience is far greater for the Oscars and its fallout than Trump’s comments on the rinky-dink Truth Social.

So Trump didn’t like Kimmel and the show. But talking about George Stephanopolous’s height? George had no control over that. Just like Trump had no control over the fact that he lost his hair. Then again, unlike Robert Reich, who owns his short stature, Trump tries to cover up his baldness. Just like a high school bully, who can show no vulnerability, their whole demeanor is one of impenetrability, until they find that everybody has abandoned them, because what we end up being attracted to most is vulnerability.

And in a speech before that, Trump made fun of Biden’s stutter.

Now this is not about pronouns. This is not about politically correct leftism. This is about a modern society where we accept each other and treat each other as equal.

Trump seems categorically unable to do this.

Now in 2016, I must admit, I found Trump calling Warren, who I supported, “Pocahontas.” He was poking fun, breaking taboos, and pointing up an issue that deserved study, i.e. Warren’s Native American roots, or lack thereof.

I’ve got to admit, in 2016, Trump was a breath of fresh air. In that hoity-toity Washington was finally brought into the modern era, where people swore, where we had a much more fluid society.

But that was then and this is now.

Trump was a two-dimensional TV star. A revelation to many, especially compared to Hillary Clinton.

But that was eight years ago.

Who is Trump appealing to by these endless diminishments? It’s one thing to hate the libs, its quite another to denigrate their physical characteristics.

We’re all flawed. And some are unnaturally tall and others unnaturally short. We have physical disabilities, sometimes minor, but sometimes evident. And we have imperfect family members who we will not let anybody make fun of. And then this tyrant comes along and excoriates people willy-nilly?

I mean how many people qualify as good under Trump’s rules? It looks like it’s only him. Go against him and you’re toast. Whether it be Nikki Haley or Liz Cheney. He demands total fealty.

But everybody knows, or should know, that the only way you neutralize a bully is by standing up to them. But everybody in the Trump, er, Republican, Party is afraid of him. Where does this work?

Well, in authoritarian societies.

But we’re not there yet.

No one has the balls to blow the whistle on this guy. I mean in high school at least you have the administration as a last resort. But in this case, Trump lords his b.s. over us with impunity.

Sure, there are ignorant acolytes who will accept everything Trump does and defend him. Just like the circle of friends surrounding the bully.

But come on, if you were bullied you know it was only a matter of time before someone broke ranks, came up to you and if they didn’t exactly apologize, they acknowledged that the bully was out of line.

Trump is on a scorched-earth mission. Who is this appealing to other than the diehards, who are not enough in number to gain victory?

This is the way it always happens. The bully drives themself into a corner, where they end up being defensive after realizing they’ve lost support.

I mean if you’re one of the few undecided who will decide this election… Trump is making it very hard to vote for him. Sure, people tend to vote their pocketbook, there are certain issues that appeal to them, but most people have a problem holding their nose and voting for someone who is a pariah, which is what Trump is, and it’s getting worse every day.

Trump can’t read the room. Well, maybe the room of his speech attendees, but the public at large, which he needs to get elected? His ugly statements are amplified, and the rest of us are horrified.

Because we were brought up in a society where we knew this was taboo.

It makes Trump appear even more isolated. I mean where did you grow up, under what circumstances, that you could get away with this? It makes Trump look like the isolated elite his followers rail against. Someone who believes they’re above the law, can act with impunity.

I don’t buy that people love Trump more because he’s been indicted, because of his legal problems. Like a mother standing up for her son, many will defend Trump no matter what. But not most.

And if this guy can’t read the populace, how can he navigate the world? How can he deal with China, Russia, any complex situation where nuance is key in negotiation.

Eventually bullies are isolated and diminished.

But Trump believes he can use the bully pulpit and the legal system to stand up to anyone.

Kind of like the tax cheats who are stunned when they poke their head into public affairs and are revealed to be such, like Trump himself.

Trump may defeat himself.

It certainly looks like that.

He’s self-immolating. One winces constantly at his behavior.

This is not a winning strategy.

First, two notes re the Caitlin Clark article:

1. Unfortunately, part of one of the last paragraphs was cut out, here is that paragraph in full:

It takes a lot of perseverance, belief in yourself, to build your act this way. Sans instant gratification, slogging along. But just like doctors go to college and medical school and then do internships and residencies…that’s what the greats who change the landscape do. Before they emerge fully-formed.

2. I’m getting some feedback about my mention of Taylor Swift, why bring her up? If you’re a voracious reader of the news you know that writers are comparing Caitlin Clark to Taylor Swift, and I thought that was inaccurate, because Clark is new and Swift has been in the business in excess of fifteen years. Having said that, the first two Swift albums, with songs co-written with Liz Rose, were equivalent to teenage Joni Mitchell. And as a result, they resonated with millions of now fans. This was not a teen fad, those two albums were real. And Swift’s career became a juggernaut as a result.

_______________________________________________________

Spotify playlist: https://shorturl.at/htuWY

THE HERD

“From the Underworld” – 1967

HUMBLE PIE – 1970

“Earth and Water Song”

“One Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba”

SHINE ON (Humble Pie) – 1971

“Shine On”

PERFORMANCE: ROCKIN’ THE FILLMORE (Humble Pie) – 1971

“Four Day Creep”

“I Don’t Need No Doctor”

WIND OF CHANGE – 1972

“Fig Tree Bay”

“All I Wanna Be (Is By Your Side)”

FRAMPTON’S CAMEL – 1973

“Lines on My Face”

“I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)”

“Do You feel Like We Do”

SOMETHIN’S HAPPENING – 1974

“Baby (Somethin’s Happening)”

“I Wanna Go to the Sun”

FRAMPTON – 1975

“Nowhere’s Too Far (For My Baby)”

“(I’ll Give You) Money”

FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE – 1976

“Show Me the Way”

“Baby I Love Your Way”

“Do You Feel Like We Do”

I’M IN YOU – 1977

“I’m in You”

“Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)”

WHERE I SHOULD BE – 1979

“I Can’t Stand It No More”

NOW – 2003

“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

FINGERPRINTS – 2006

“Black Hole Sun”

THANK YOU MR. CHURCHILL – 2010

“Thank You Mr. Churchill”

FRAMPTON FORGETS THE WORDS – 2021

“I Don’t Know Why”

ALBERT HALL-2023

“Georgia On My Mind”

“(I’ll Give You) Money”

“Do You Feel Like We Do”

“All I Want to Be (Is By Your Side)”

“Somethin’s Happenin'”

This is the Beatles, not Taylor Swift.

This is not a victory lap by a known quantity, this is something brand new, something most people were unaware of that will change the landscape forever.

Let me ask you, did you know who Caitlin Clark was last year?

Unless you were a fan of college basketball, of women’s college basketball, I’d posit no. But today? Caitlin Clark is everywhere, and not because of the self-hype of social media, she’s barely testifying at all, it’s all because of her playing, her ability, the sheer wow factor of what she does on the court.

This is the antithesis of parents pushing their prepubescent kids’ musical travails. As if we’re interested in the work of kids who haven’t lived who desire nothing so much as fame.

This is someone who paid their dues off-screen, not in front of all our eyes, when no one was paying attention, and let the work speak for itself. There’s no hype involved, Caitlin Clark is just that good.

Kind of like Michael Jordan. But most people didn’t become aware of him until he was in the NBA. And as great as Jordan was, he was not the first great basketball player, not the first legend, just a bit better than those who’d come before.

Whereas Clark comes out of the blue, in a moribund venue boosted by Title IX. We weren’t paying attention, most people didn’t care, but Caitlin Clark has done more for women’s basketball than anyone before her, and it all comes down to her abilities, her playing.

Like the Beatles.

You’ve got to know, prior to January 1964, almost no one in America knew who the Beatles were. Hell, Capitol didn’t even want to release their records.

As for the Beatles…they and the acts who followed were influenced by the roots records imported by American seamen to Liverpool. They honed their chops ad infinitum when U.S. radio was dominated by teen phenoms like Bobby Rydell. Most acts didn’t write their own material, the music business was a sideshow, but after the Beatles it became the main show. By time we hit the seventies, record divisions were generating more profits than the TV divisions of entertainment conglomerates. Warner’s music companies built the Warner cable system. Truly.

So when the Beatles appeared in January ’64 with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” when they appeared on “Ed Sullivan” the following month, they were fully-formed. How was it a band that we’d never heard of had developed off the radar, and when we finally heard and and saw them we discovered their music was superior to all the rest on the chart?

This was not New Kids on the Block. The Beatles were not a fad. They led first and foremost with their music, which didn’t sound like anything else. And was laden with harmonies, bridges, memorable choruses…they’d studied what came before and then concocted something new, beyond what anybody had come up with previously.

And then the gates opened.

Turned out they were not the only off the radar act in England that had honed its chops.

We got the British Invasion.

And then the Yardbirds and the original Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, all these blues-rockers who built FM radio.

And the music business was never the same.

Sure, there was Beatlemania, but as much as people had their favorite, it was always about the music, always. And unlike the media-trained stars of today, the Beatles knew who they were, they were experienced in life, they were cheeky, they smoked, they were themselves, which was a revelation.

We’ve got musical stars today. But we’ve got no Beatles, haven’t for a long time. Nothing new and different that blows our minds, that lifts the entire business.

I could posit why, but that’s not my point here. My point is we’ve been waiting for something to take us to the next level.

And we never got a new Beatles, but we did get Cream and then prog rock and even disco, which was denigrated but has never died, and underpins some of the great music in history.

And Kurt Cobain was an original. I mean melodic punk? With meaning? No wonder he and his group were immediately accepted and adored. In one day “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit MTV and everyone in America seemed to know who Nirvana was.

And it wasn’t that different with Alanis Morissette. A world-weary twenty one year old talking about her feelings and sex? She blew up too.

And there were all those hip-hop acts/tracks, from “The Message” to “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang” to “Gin and Juice” to…

The twenty first century.

The internet splintered music into a thousand pieces and therefore what succeeds most is that which is on-trend and homogenized.

Want to read an interesting article? Read this one, from today’s “Washington Post”:

“The word ‘viral’ has lost its meaning – In a world where 20 million views is routine, our understanding of virality has shifted”

Free link: https://wapo.st/3Va2Ndi

Facebook got sued for inflating statistics. And now Twitter/X is doing it too. All those numbers the record labels are relying on…they’re not so trustworthy, never mind millions of views is no longer viral, never mind the hype for clips/trends that are promoted as viral and reach very few.

In other words, both creators and record labels are following a pipe dream, down the drain.

The search for something fully-formed, new and different, a great leap forward, that the public may not understand at first and is then fully-embraced… Has stopped.

It’s not like Caitlin Clark just started playing basketball yesterday. She’s been at it for years. And was great before this. But the moment came and we were all wowed, we’d never seen anything like her before. And that’s what we’re looking for, human excellence, beyond our comprehension, that we didn’t even know we were looking for, that we can’t take our eyes off, that changes our lives.

That’s what we live for. Not promotion, not hype.

When everybody is doing it one way, that’s the time to do it a different way.

This may not be a great analogy, but they’ve been having Formula One races for decades. But an innovative, extremely watchable series on Netflix, focusing on personalities, blew up the entire sport. We might have known a little bit about the drivers, but not the team owners, the support people… The series was so good, so riveting, that it blew up Formula One, to the point where people not paying attention are now riveted.

All it takes is one lever. One thing completely different.

And it always comes from outside.

That is why the heart of America is streaming television, not movies. Movies are imitative, streaming series are original.

We’re looking for originals, that which we haven’t seen before. And when we find it, we don’t only embrace it, but the entire landscape, all boats are lifted, we enter an entirely new realm.

All we hear about from the major labels is profits and losses. Laying people off, reorganizing. Believe me, you’re never going to revolutionize the landscape that way.

And, innovation always comes from outside.

But too many buy the old paradigm, of instant worldwide success. That’s history. Today you hone your craft, pay your dues, off camera. And then if you’re good enough you blow up on the main stage seemingly eons later.

It takes a lot of perseverance, belief in yourself, to build your act this way. Sans instant gratification, slogging along. But just like doctors go to college and medical school and then do internships and residencies…that’s what the greats who change the landscape do. Before they emerge fully-formed.

Like the Beatles.

Like Caitlin Clark.