Keyboardist extraordinaire Bill Payne is an original member of Little Feat, and has been a member of the Doobie Brothers and the Leftover Salmon too. Bill has written songs and recorded with a who’s who of artists. This is his story.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bill-payne/id1316200737?i=1000623296335

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/98319d16-9a4f-478c-b70f-d104ef825824/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-bill-payne

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/bill-payne-305913228

Taylor Swift was terrible on the Grammys. Maybe the worst performance ever. She was way off-key singing with Stevie Nicks, in front of the whole world. I’d been getting e-mail from people for years saying she couldn’t sing, but had held back from writing anything. But here was evidence. 

I thought it would end her career. Didn’t Billy Squier dance around on MTV in a  pink shirt and kill his career almost overnight?

But no, I was wrong. Taylor Swift wrote a song about me and she’s bigger than ever.

Just like Donald Trump. 

One of my favorite tweets of the past week said people have already forgotten that Trump was convicted of sexual assault only a few months back. You remember E. Jean Carroll, don’t you?

Now there’s a similarity between Swift and Trump. That the believers are true and everybody else doesn’t care. This too is a difference from the past. Fan bases are narrower than ever before, and their members are more rabid than ever before. They have the belief that it’s them versus the world. That others are out to get them. And they must protect their heroes and themselves at all costs. They must preemptively protect themselves. They’re aggressive. And it’s not only in politics, everybody feels put upon, with a need to self-aggrandize for fear they’ll be marginalized.

In other words, nothing is going to convince Trump supporters to give up. That’s not their nature, that’s not the modern paradigm.

And Taylor Swift is the biggest and most talented artist in the world, and if you say otherwise… Well, I still get tweets and e-mails from fans, calling me a hater, over a decade since I wrote about that Grammy performance. I know that might sound contradictory, but when it comes to ammunition defenders know no limit. They remember every slight, perceived or real.

So what does this mean for you?

Your past doesn’t matter. We keep saying your reputation is everything, your credibility. Not in the big time. Maybe at home, in your little life, in your little circle.

Cardi B throws a mic in the audience in response to an audience member throwing something at her and…

Mainstream media debates behavior. What was going through the mind of the thrower. The person hit by Cardi’s mic’s injury. But my audience? It can’t believe that the music still played, that Cardi B.’s vocal continued, long after she threw her mic away.

That’s the story here. She wasn’t singing!

But does that make any difference?

Ashlee Simpson’s career was killed overnight when she was found to be lip-synching on SNL. Today, do something like that and shrug. No matter what the brouhaha, your fans, your believers, will stick by you. And oftentimes they’re the only ones who care, so over time your narrative triumphs.

As for Taylor Swift’s voice…

The story this week is how her concert created an earthquake, how there was seismic activity. This was everywhere. But the “New York Times” reported today that this is a regular occurrence in Seattle, the Weeknd caused seismic activity, and so did the Seahawks. But let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good story, of myth-building.

And then there’s the Weeknd himself, Abel Tesfaye. Responsible for one of the most reviled TV series of the year, “The Idol.” Every news outlet had a story about the impact on his career. How this would hurt him, indelibly. But these writers are not students of the game, it won’t hurt him at all! I’m not saying he’ll hit the height of “Blinding Lights” again, but his chart performance was in decline anyway.

Bruce Springsteen was castigated over ticket prices. Remember the blowback? Well, the dates played and everybody was happy. You could even buy tickets at the last minute for some of the shows. “Backstreets” closed down in protest, the joke is on the magazine, no one cares, it all blew over.

How about that famous band that scalped its own tickets? All over the news a few years back. You don’t remember who it was and the fans don’t care. Just like the fans of Motley Crue who overpaid to see the final tour, written in blood, and then the band went back on tour again. The believers believe, and everybody else forgets or ignores from the get-go.

This is a phenomenon that is incomprehensible to boomers and Gen-X’ers. It was never that way. If you screwed up on MTV, the whole world was watching. But now the whole world is watching nothing, it’s an endless slew of hype, assuming you’re paying attention to begin with. Everybody’s selling and you’re picky about what you’re buying.

So it’s not that Taylor Swift sings better, or Donald Trump is suddenly honest. It’s that the crimes of the past don’t matter in the future.

And even those who get caught in the quagmire and are convicted and pay their dues… Used to be they were experienced seers, worth listening to. John Dean has been commenting on TV for decades. Michael Cohen? No one is listening to him anymore. He had his moment and it’s over.

Hell, Andrew Cuomo could run for office again. His only problem is that many people didn’t like him to begin with, and he didn’t have a whole hell of a lot of hard core fans. But as for his faux pas?

Louis CK understands the game, he got back in it. He knows it doesn’t matter what you think, only what his fans think. He may be a pariah to you, but his fans are keeping him alive.

The only people still concerned about the Morgan Wallen n-word controversy are those who never listened to his music and never will.

As for Jason Aldean… This is the best thing that has happened to him in over a decade. He’s added life to his career.

Then again, Aldean took a side. He wasn’t worried about what you think, only about what his fans think. He didn’t make the video knowing it was going to become a national controversy, it wasn’t planned out, it was just a dog whistle for country bumpkins and gun-lovers, those who feel the denizens of the city, those lefties, must be held at bay, otherwise they’ll take their guns, their lifestyle, everything they believe in. Sure, the left may continue to hate Aldean, but it doesn’t matter. Aldean knows it’s not about appealing to everybody, but just somebody, the passionate.

Remember when network television was all about appealing to everybody? That’s a death sentence today. Today you want to be narrow and edgy, and maybe those who love the show will turn their friends on.

So if you screw up… Stay silent. If you don’t amplify it, if you don’t defend yourself, it will go away, buried under the tsunami of news that is spewed out of the firehose each and every day.

Nobody cares about you. Or shall I say those who do can provide a very good living.

And nobody is all-dominant today, no one appeals to everybody. I’ll bet you haven’t even heard most of the songs in the Spotify Top 50. Has anybody? Sure, there are youth that are focused on the hits, but there are tons who are only interested in the niches.

Chances are you haven’t even seen “Barbie.” Divide those grosses by today’s high ticket prices and…not everybody went. Doesn’t even matter how good or bad the film was, most people just shrugged, don’t care, will never care. And you’ve got right wing bloviators trying to gin up the base by criticizing the film’s values. When something you don’t like gains traction, shut up!

That’s the way to win in today’s society.

It doesn’t bounce like a tennis ball.

I was supposed to see a legendary musician in concert, one whom I’ve never seen, who may not tour again, but I couldn’t pass up Lesley’s 60th birthday party at the Santa Monica Pickleball Center. There was going to be instruction and everything!

But I wouldn’t know almost anybody.

This is a regular experience when you are young, going where you don’t know anybody. It’s expected. Like the first day of summer camp, the first day of college. Then again, except for a few, nobody knows anybody else there either, whereas at this party…

Was my social anxiety going to hold me back?

NO!

So… It looks simple, and it is. But there’s a learning curve, and for me it was all about the ball, and its bounce, or lack thereof.

I consider myself a pretty good athlete, winning the athlete of the year at Camp Laurelwood was one of the highlights of my life, but when was the last time I tried something completely new? And, by the way, I’m not that good of a tennis player, never was. Learned at that aforementioned camp, and there was the boom in the seventies, but I was not a member of a country club, I never got a leg up, I was never good, even though I played, we all played. And the skills are transferable, right?

Well, not exactly.

So the instructor had us all line up, we were going to practice serving the ball. You can do it one of two ways, you can either drop it and then hit it after the bounce, or drop it and hit in the air, volleyball style, albeit underhand. Looks simple, right? I was TERRIBLE! Man, it’s so frustrating. Like the kid you put in right field, the one you pick last, who’s got no ability whatsoever. I was dribbling it into the net, if it went that far. The teacher was dealing with me like I was completely inept. I could hit the ball on the fly, but it seemed the pros dropped it and then hit it, and I just couldn’t do this.

So I practiced. And when everybody went off to eat pizza and chips, I continued to practice. That’s when it occurred to me, I dropped the ball and I expected it to come right back up, like a tennis ball. Hell, I’ve been playing with tennis balls my entire life, throwing against the wall, playing baseball, playing catch, never mind playing tennis. The bounce of the ball is ingrained in my DNA. But that’s not the way a pickle ball bounces. In truth, it barely bounces at all, and you’ve got to prepare for this.

I finally got it right. And it felt so good. I knew my talent was in there somewhere, I knew I wasn’t DOA, I knew I could do it.

And then it came to playing.

They split the group into two, those who needed remedial lessons and those who could play by themselves. I went with the group who could play by themselves, there were four of us, on the court. And the funny thing is the worst player, this woman, was a stickler for the rules, she was the one keeping score, the rest of us didn’t really care.

And this was when I learned even more about the ball. If she served it, with little oomph, it was going to cross the net, if it did at all, and die. If I was standing in the back of the court, waiting for it to reach me, it didn’t.

But if the guy on her side served, it was different. It was easier to judge the bounce, maybe because it bounced right in front of me.

But then that guy was replaced by a guy with a wimpy serve and he was dropping them like crazy. I had to move closer to the net. And then the woman was replaced by someone better with a better attitude, that it was all about fun.

And the guy on my side, he was taking it seriously. Thank god, he was having some of the same problems I was having, with the bounce, I didn’t want to be the weak link.

And I’m loving playing, and then my brain starts firing…how am I going to feel tomorrow? At my age running around, clomping on the court… But I couldn’t stop, I was having too good a time.

But after an hour and a half or so, when my shirt was inundated with sweat, I took a break, my game was falling apart, I needed sustenance. And I told myself I wasn’t going to eat the pizza, the heart doctor said to go light on the carbs, but I couldn’t resist, I was just too hungry. And the pizza tasted so good! Having worked out, you know how good food feels after that, and you feel good about yourself.

And after some game where we all tried to hit the ball in a hat, most people continued to kibbitz, or gave up. But there was this one woman, who was unskilled and having a hard time getting it, she was on the court asking questions of the instructors, as if this game could be conquered intellectually. But in truth, you just had to play.

But the guy she was playing with, he was the good time sort. He knew it wasn’t about winning, it was about playing. After all, we weren’t champs.

And I took a blank space on the other side of the court with the instructor. I must say, he could reach balls I couldn’t. And there was one hit…I found myself reaching, extending, on one foot…and I realized that’s how you get hurt. Yes, I was scared off pickleball by that story in the “New York Times” last summer, the one about all the injuries, I didn’t want to sacrifice my ski season: https://tinyurl.com/mt3fwfbr

Then again, I don’t want to be one of those people who’s afraid to experience sport because of the potential for injuries, then you’re not living. It’s all about playing, participating. Believe me, on the court I wasn’t thinking about politics, I wasn’t thinking about anything but the game.

And the way it works is after the ball goes over the net, on the serve, you go forward. Because of the short bounce. And if you can smack it then…

We’d had some good rallies, and they felt so good. Believe me, it wasn’t hard, especially if you’d played some tennis, once you got over the bounce factor. (I know I’m hammering this, but in all my reading about pickleball I’ve never seen it mentioned. Sure, people talk about it being a whiffle ball, but we never played tennis with a whiffle ball.)

And now I’m in the groove. I know not to extend for balls almost out of reach, this wasn’t life and death, we were just playing, not even keeping score.

But the instructor kept on complimenting me, putting his hand out for a slap when I hit a good one. I felt good.

So I’m rushing the net, I’m gonna slap the ball good, hit it where it can’t be returned and…

And…

I’m still not sure exactly what happened. Whether I misjudged it or missed it. And, once again, if you’re used to tennis, the ball doesn’t move the exact same way. But the little yellow ball, about the size of a baseball, came over net and…THWACKED ME RIGHT IN THE EYE!

I didn’t see it coming. My eye was wide open. And…

Did my contact pop out? Did I break the contact?

My eye was closed, stunned. I mean for a minute there you think about losing your vision, but then you raise your lid a bit and can still see so…

You still wonder.

And everybody’s concerned. But it’s not their fault. And I don’t want to be the one person injured at the party, there’s always one. The one nobody knows.

So I sat down on the bench and waited to recover. And as I did, I realized I was going to have one hell of a shiner the next day. Kind of like when I ran into that wooden hanger in Oslo. And the black and blue takes a while to go away.

And then I started to wonder if the eye would close up over time. I thought I’d better leave before that happened, while I could still drive home.

But when I got home there was no black and blue, just red smarting spots above and below my eye. As they say, it appears I dodged a bullet.

Not that the sensation is gone. My contact survived, intact, in place. And I was worried it would hurt to get it out, and hurt to put it back in, but that was not the case. It’s the penumbra of my eye that took the brunt, even though my eye was wide open.

So I won’t call it a battle scar. And since I really wasn’t hurt, I’m chalking it up to the cost of playing the game. And still being confused by the trajectory of the yellow plastic ball.

But I’m ready to play again.

This isn’t about violence, this is about power.

It’s not the twentieth century anymore. And the media and titans of yesteryear and those following in their footsteps are ignorant and unaware.

The landscape has changed. For all the doody about adoration of artists, more people now believe artists are no better than they are. The emperor has no clothes. Let me see, the people being hit have been built by a machine that requires willingness more than talent. These acts are foisted on the public like they are gods, when in truth they’re frequently empty vessels, parading their wealth and lifestyles with supposed impunity. The hoi polloi has had enough, they want to bring these people down a notch or two. And whatcha gonna do about it?

Gonna sue ’em like file-traders? Gonna arrest ’em? Are you even able to find out who they are? Are you going to lock down concerts? Give privileges to the beefy security guards who used to be sued on a regular basis after mishandling the public?

Income inequality. It’s your fault you’re not rich. Oh yeah? You keep telling us that, but we don’t believe it. Forget the blind ignoramuses supporting Trump, those delusional people are driving the Republican party off a cliff. I don’t care how old Biden is, unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Trumper you’re never going to vote for that man. In other words, the Republican brass has lost control. As has Fox News. Even Trump himself. He praised vaccines and got booed. This is what happens when you feed the monster, the monster devours you.

So what has happened in the past two decades is the public has gained the power of communication. Used to be you needed a media outlet to get your voice heard, and then only a tiny few got the privilege, oftentimes through connections. Media ruled and it was believed the public was going along.

Then the public got a voice.

TikTok is more powerful than Netflix. Think about that. The government pooh-poohs it, the Chinese company spends no money on “programming,” and the public eats it up. Because the public is into visceral, into life. It doesn’t want a bland presentation massaged for mass consumption, it wants the truth, reality, which is always stranger than fiction. Why watch a phony dating show when you’ve got people of all ages and all sexual persuasions testifying as to their experiences online? Regular people, not just the beautiful picked by TV producers. Talking about real issues, like cheap dates who want to split the tab, never mind whacked dates.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum because those running the asylum believed that change does not happen. This is how Trump got elected in the first place, it was a giant middle finger to Hillary and the establishment. They were sick and tired of being told they didn’t count, to get to the back of the line, by people who kept telling them they were smarter.

Of course there was white nationalism. Woken up by Trump via dog whistles online, and then good people on both sides hogwash. Trump understood the media landscape. How it was now one to one, and you had to make news every day. Trump understood more about media relations than anybody else, he went directly to the public, screw the middleman. This is how you do it in music today, forget radio, forget the in-betweens, go directly to fans. And don’t insist on the brass ring. The Grammys, the trophies… The public believes they’re fake, and there are no trophies for them anyway.

In other words, if you’re out of touch and rich, you’re a target. Like Howard Schultz in Congress. You made those billions all by yourself, as if we didn’t buy all that coffee? It happened in a vacuum? And Bob Iger castigating the talent for wanting more when he makes triple-digit millions? And even Zaslav, canceling that Batgirl movie, in one fell swoop he lifted his profile and became an object of hatred.

We’re in the midst of a reckoning right now. Will it succeed? I’m not betting on it, but people are pissed about income inequality. We’ve got unions and strikes and the only people on the fat cats’ side are other fat cats.

So you take the stage at some overpriced gig, not only the tickets, but the fare. And then someone in the audience feels empowered by their buddies and throws something at you, demonstrating their power. Whatcha gonna do? You can’t sue, these people are judgment proof, it’s the star who has the cash. And if you think you’ve got the public on your side…

Miranda Lambert stopped the show and criticized the people down front for taking selfies and… The woman in the audience got national publicity, sympathy. She paid, why shouldn’t she be able to do what she wants? She became a hero instead of a zero.

And the wealthy and supposedly powerful keep trying to corral us. Tell us we’re wrong. Don’t use TikTok, it’s bad, you’re sacrificing your privacy! Meanwhile, we’ve got no privacy, our data is everywhere and the government helps collect it. And now you’re worried? That ship sailed long ago.

Like Congress in general. Nitwits like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene. They delusionally believe they are powerful. And they have been elected in their gerrymandered districts, but in truth they’re laughingstocks. The institution of Congress has been brought down more than a couple of notches. I mean if these nincompoops can get elected… And then there’s the Supreme Court. Getting endless gifts and making excuses about it like a five year old. Well, if I didn’t take the seat on the private jet it would have gone empty, so there was no gift to me. In what world does this wash? None!

But you expect the public to respect you and the institution? Used to be people were afraid of lying in court, now we’ve got an ex-President who lies every time he opens his mouth and a rigged judicial system that can’t be trusted. Who are you gonna believe in? Yourself!

Don’t tell me I’m wrong, don’t even think this is about politics. Those are just examples, it crosses many lines. Like the Bud Light boycott. That’s about the public, not the leaders. They want to give the middle finger to Budweiser, show the company who’s boss. And they did!

The corporations are hipper than the government. But they’ve got no backbone. Hell, Bud Light should have doubled-down, instead it caved, satisfying no one. This is the age of credibility, it’s oftentimes more powerful than money. Have an identity, have beliefs, and stick to them. Don’t do anything for the money, those are entertainers. And sure, influencers will take corporate money, but many are brain dead and even though their audiences might be large, they’re de minimis in the overall scheme of things, and the media just focuses on the stars because that’s all it knows how to do, when really it’s about the nobodies, the endless sea of nobodies, that feels it’s been pissed upon for years and isn’t going to take it anymore.

The public is on the side of the unions, both nascent at Starbucks and Apple, and striking like the WGA and SAG. People can’t understand how Apple, the richest company in the world, can’t lay out a little more. Why not? Ditto on Starbucks, on every corner, an American institution, why should Howard Schultz get all that money?

This is what the internet has wrought. It has brought us together, showed that we are like-minded and have power, that we are not lone wankers. Come on, go online, you can find a group for anything and everything. You feel included. The media might not pay attention, but you feel powerful.

This is the story of our age.

And the powers-that-be think they can just quash it as opposed to appease it, get in bed with it. Only a police state could change the course of history. Which some people want. Yes, those Trumpers feel powerful. As for that Jim Caviezel movie, a conspiracy-mongering piece of trash, it’s got a huge gross based in large part on people not going to the theatre. Don’t you know that story? Sold out shows are empty. They’re gaming the system.

You have to pay attention.

And the way you do this is by participating too. By going online, by being on social media. But all traditional media can do is decry the internet. Put your phone down! Don’t upgrade it! Take time off! As if everybody is a harried executive working 24/7. No, the average person… Do you know anybody without a smartphone? Oh, I hear from Luddites and will after just writing that, but I do not know anybody without a smartphone, ANYBODY, except for people under ten. Think of the power, more computing power than landed men on the moon, right in your pocket. And the ability to not only consume, but broadcast your thoughts and beliefs across the entire world, instantly.

But even some supposedly bright people are clueless. Like Elon Musk. Turning Twitter, er, X, over to bros who ruined the platform. That’s what freedom looks like. Hell, the public doesn’t even understand free speech. A social network can edit and censor anything it wants, it’s a private company, not the government. But people believe they’ve got a raw right to say whatever they want whenever they want. Are you surprised people are throwing objects at entertainers?

You shouldn’t be.