Tune in Saturday December 6th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

Maybe if Ted Sarandos buys Trump a gold Bentley…

I don’t see how this gets approved.

Then again, if you’re predicting the future…it’s a fool’s errand, because Trump has become so UNPREDICTABLE!

It’s kind of like antisemitism… You know, they came for the Jews, and I did nothing because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

You’re not an illegal immigrant, so you shrug your shoulders. You don’t live in Venezuela and don’t run drugs, so you shrug your shoulders. You’re not a criminal, so when someone else is pardoned, you shrug your shoulders. Why should you think nothing is going to affect you, why do you think that the whims of a strongman won’t affect your everyday life?

I went to the grocery store yesterday. I bought an 8-pack of Caffeine Free Diet Coke minis, three bottles of Vitamin Water Zero and a small container of cashews… The bill? $40.86. But Trump says there’s no affordability crisis in America.

And today, the Trump Administration said that Europe should emulate the U.S. Elect right wing parties who will stifle migration and promote nationalism. But you don’t live in Europe…

But you do watch streaming television.

Should Netflix get HBO?

On the surface, it’s good for the consumer. Because then you get the best two streaming services for one low price! Don’t ask me how Amazon, Paramount and Peacock compete, because they can’t. We’ll see further consolidation and…

So in the race for subscribers, Netflix has dumbed-down its programming. Sure, HBO focuses on the highbrow, but if there’s no competition…how much highbrow do you need if the public can’t get it anywhere else? Amazon is going down-market intellectually, and Paramount and Peacock have always been slumming it.

But we’re told that the real competition is YouTube! With its own app on your television set/Roku and all that viewing time. But are these two entities really selling the same thing? And do we really want to give Google more power? Eliminating competition?

So they let Universal buy Capitol, after divestiture of certain assets. Was this good for the public, only three major recording companies, who control deals with DSPs? They can coast on their catalogs, they don’t even need to sign new music. And sure, the world has gone indie, so maybe this is okay, then again, there’s that leverage of the catalogs.

And after terrestrial radio consolidation…we have a vast wasteland. But who listens to broadcast radio anymore anyway?

The bottom line is does the future ensure that we need no antitrust enforcement because of ongoing evolution in the marketplace. Maybe the public loses in the short run, but it doesn’t matter in the end.

We could debate that all day long.

We could debate whether more major labels would sign more and different acts, be responsible for more innovation…or is there enough from the outside.

But the bottom line here is the Trump administration.

Skydance got to buy Paramount because Paramount’s CBS settled a bogus lawsuit with Trump and the Ellisons are supporters of the president.

Seemingly every corporate titan has sucked up to the president. For their bottom line. And if you don’t, it’s only a matter of time until you’re caught in the government’s crosshairs…

And this is the opposite of JFK’s the best and the brightest. With doofus Hegseth and RFK, Jr. putting our nation’s health at risk.

Who is steering the ship? A couple of behind the scenes players and the Heritage Foundation, whose leader refused to castigate Tucker Carlson’s interview of Nick Fuentes. As for the Federalist Society, right wing legal bedrock, it now is on the outs with Trump. As referenced above, what makes you think you’re protected, that you’re immune, that in the future you and your livelihood and lifestyle won’t be at risk because of the whims of the government?

The bottom line is we’re all in this together. This is what the public just can’t understand. It’s not us vs. them, it’s just us. We all pay high grocery prices. As for the lowering of fuel standards… It always amazes me when I see these giant SUVs on the road. Who is paying for the gas? People to whom the price doesn’t matter, because they’re so wealthy. The real issue in America isn’t red vs. blue, it’s income inequality. And too many are brainwashed by the proposition that the success of the rich will trickle down to the masses and we should let them operate unfettered, even though these benefits have never been seen.

Too many are snookered. You’ve got the language police on the left and the religious believers on the right, everybody in their corner with opinions on narrow issues that don’t affect the general population. Can we throw all that aside and get real? You can have an opinion all day long on trans women in female sports, but the bottom line is the number of athletes in question is so tiny they couldn’t even field a team!

We’ve got creeping authoritarianism right in front of our eyes, but the Hatfield and McCoys of America are fighting irrelevant battles ad infinitum.

The bottom line is no one knows if this merger will be approved. NO ONE! Probably not even Trump. He’ll make a decision when he has to, after the wooing period is over, after the parties have kissed the ring, or refused to do so.

Or maybe as a condition of the deal Trump is going to require Netflix to cough up 10% to the government, like Intel.

Hollywood has lost the plot. You’ve got movie directors testifying this merger is bad for films… It’s way beyond that, it’s the soul of America.

You can’t plan your future business roadmap because you don’t know how the government will react. Will there be tariffs, regulations…

As someone said to me yesterday, the woke left got so progressive that they drove the country into fascism…

It’s not only the woke left that has to wake up, but the Democratic party. But they refuse to. It comes down to you and me. We are in charge, this is our country, we just cannot shrug our shoulders as Netflix charges fifty bucks a month for less that we want to see. And sure, we’ll have options on YouTube…but who is going to spend a fortune to produce highbrow content on that service?

So we could discuss this merger through an antitrust lens, but that would be a waste of time. It’s just a matter of what Trump thinks and will ultimately do.

As for the reams of press about the details of what a merged Netflix/Warner will look like… This is just like the nation at large, everybody focusing on the wrong issues while ignoring the big picture.

And we’re told by the usual suspects to wait for the next election…

If you think free and fair elections are coming… You haven’t followed the scuttlebutt re voter rolls and so much more. Those in power don’t want to give up power. Period.

But it’s you, it’s us, we truly have the power. And we’ve been asleep. Or fighting amongst ourselves over irrelevant issues.

I don’t want to think about the government all day long and neither do you. And we didn’t used to. But the last decade…

It’s time for this to end, before they foreclose on the power of the public completely.

Hang with those from the other political side… You’d be surprised, you agree on almost everything. Can’t we agree that we want a country run by a democratic process with clear rules that benefit us all?

Because we don’t have that now and we’re all suffering.

And it’s only going to get worse.

Guitarist extraordinaire!

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tommy-emmanuel/id1316200737?i=1000739662023

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/f53d2cdc-6ed9-412a-abb1-abf7ded7aa0c/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-tommy-emmanuel

You know that feeling when you’re about to land and suddenly the pilot pulls back on the controls and the nose of the airplane rises into the sky?

Then you know you’re not going to make it.

Actually, one time I was landing in Toronto on a snow day, our plane actually touched the tarmac, and then we lifted right back up. WTF was that?

It seems to me in the old days, the pilot would get on the intercom right away and hip you to what was going on. But we were mystified in T.O. until we were way back in the sky and the pilot said there was a plane further down the runway and with the snow we might not have been able to stop soon enough…

The second time was a charm.

But not today.

There’s a direct flight from L.A. to Aspen now. Used to be you had to land in Denver and take a puddle jumper into Sardy Field. You know that bucking bronco from “Urban Cowboy”? It was oftentimes like that…

Well, do people even remember “Urban Cowboy” and the line-dancing craze? When Debra Winger dominated the screen? She disappeared for a while, never to be replaced. Now we tend to get 10s who can’t act. And the great thing is Debra was a 9 or an 8, better looking than the average bear, but you’d grown up with someone like her, you could relate.

Eegads! Did I just use a numbering system to rate women? That was a faux pas before Trump… But we’ve pulled back from the politically correct woke, as we should have… Then again, pardoning Cuellar and getting rid of the CAFE rules… Every day I turn on my phone and read the news and am convinced I’m living in Bizarroland.

So we go up, up, up, and I’m convinced that we’re being diverted, to probably Grand Junction on the Western Slope…that’s a different weather pattern, it’s much drier.

But no, we circle back around, the nose of the airplane dips, and now the hills are so close you think you can reach out and touch them. We’re just about down…

And the pilot pulls back up on the stick…

And I’m asking myself… How much fuel does this plane have? They don’t fly with much more than they need and….I’ve been diverted because a plane was low on gas.

So what the hell are we going to do now?

We’re heading up into the stratosphere, like we never ever came close to land, and then finally, the pilot comes on the PA and tells us we’re going to go to Grand Junction. And we’re going to track the weather, and if it’s clear enough, we’ll take another shot.

Or they’ll bus us.

Which they ended up doing. Summoning a coach. Add two hours and fifteen minutes of road time to this journey. But I wasn’t pissed. In my old age I cope with f*ck-ups better. We’ll miss our annual lunch at the White House Tavern, and I won’t be able to go to every ski shop to see the new wares (although most of the stuff is online these days), but we’ll get there in time for the annual BBQ.

Yes, that’s how Jim Lewi’s Aspen Live starts, on Wednesday night.

It used to be the Aspen Artist Development Conference, but then the labels cut back on artist development people and then cut back on spending all together, and doesn’t live run the business today?

As for the conference… It’s old home week. You start to see people in the airport. You walk into the lobby of the Limelight Hotel and it’s like a summer camp reunion. Makes you feel connected and loved.

So we’re riding along in the bus, and there’s no snow on the ground, up at the top of the glorious mountains there’s a little, but things are dry…

Until we’re a bit out of Glenwood Springs and there are flurries.

My phone is going wild with people in Denver, planning how they’re going to make it over the passes to Aspen, but…

The flurries turn into snow.

One thing you’ve got to know about Colorado is it’s not like Utah. In Utah it DUMPS! Four or five inches an hour at Alta and Snowbird. We get that in Colorado a couple of times a year, but really it’s a regular drone of snow, light stuff that accumulates.

And that’s the snow we’re getting as we’re taking Highway 82 into town.

And then traffic is backed up in the other direction.  This usually happens when there’s a snowplow leading, but I didn’t see one.

The pavement is now completely covered with snow. It’s only dangerous if you don’t know how to drive in these conditions. But today with four wheel drive and anti-lock brakes…it’s much easier than it used to be.

And we’re rolling along slowly and then…

How do I say this… It was like being in a movie, going from color to black and white, from today to yesterday…

I was suddenly rooted. I was no longer looking at the environment, but part of it! This is how it was living in Vermont. Where the snow never leaves the ground during the winter and the days are gray…the land of hot chocolate and board games.

My roots.

Now we live in a world where flights are cheap and people travel constantly. So to pick up and fly to Colorado to ski…it’s not the exotic effort of yesteryear. And when I’m in the condo in Vail… The streets are heated and the gondola is right outside the door and I don’t do that much driving.

But now we’re on the highway into town, driving by Paepcke Park… I’ve been  coming to Aspen since 1970, back before the logo stores appeared. I’ve got roots. And I’m not bragging, I’m just saying it felt beyond familiar, like this is where I belong, like this is home.