From: Lindsay Berra

To: Bob Lefsetz

Subject: It Ain’t Over Doc

Hi Bob, Lindsay Berra here, Yogi’s granddaughter. A dozen or so friends forwarded me the post you did on Grampa’s documentary today. First, I’m so glad you enjoyed the film, and second, thank you so much for taking the time to write something about it! We made this film independently, and getting folks to the theaters nowadays is a Herculean task, so I so appreciate your kind words about the film and the memories you shared!

Thank you, thank you!

Lindsay B.

_______

From: Bob Lefsetz

To: Lindsay Berra

Subject: Re: It Ain’t Over Doc

I think the film will do great streaming, hard to get the older audience out to the movie theatre, hopefully when it streams there will be another round of publicity.

Bob

_______

From: Lindsay Berra

To: Bob Lefsetz

Subject: Re: It Ain’t Over Doc

From you lips to God’s ears! We could not have done more from a press and marketing perspective, but no one goes to the theater any more. As Grampa said, “If people don’t want to come to the ballpark, how are you going to stop them?” Just sub “theater” for “ballpark.”

_________________________________

From: Paul Zullo

Subject: Re: The Yogi Berra Movie

A case of Yoo Hoo sustained us for 4 days at Woodstock

PZ

_________________________________

Subject: Re: AI

Tell it Bob! An drum machines are an interesting example: Yes, they replaced humans as timekeepers and monotonous dance groove producers, but the fact that they could be programmed by non-drummers led to beats no drummer would have imagined, but later many would mimic. Example: non-drummer programmers’ lack of knowledge led them to replace complicated fills with a bit of silence to delineate song sections. This proved equally, if not more, dramatic and was soon copied by some  live drummers. Also, when early AI was pitted against a player of the immensely complicated Chinese board game of Go, it beat him consistently. But the player learned new moves from his AI opponent and was then able to consistently beat other human opponents.

What I do fear is the way it could amplify the already toxic world of misinformation. In the 90s, when I got my first computer, one of the first emails I received was a piece of misinformation, unmasked by a quick Yahoo check. I thought, “Great. Now that people can check anything on the Internet there will soon be no point in trying to deceive them.” Well, we all know how that worked out.

 

Like social media, AI will provide a new world of possibilities. Whether that world is a Utopia or a Dystopia is ultimately up to us.

Michael Ross

_________________________________

From: Craig Anderton

Subject: Musicians being replaced by drum machines etc.

When a musician’s union guy was complaining to me that synthesizers were going to put musicians out of work, I said “Who do you think plays synthesizers? Accountants?”

Craig

_________________________________

Subject: Ivan Neville

Bob,

Congratulations on your thrilling conversation with Ivan Neville.

 

Ivan takes his anointing as seriously as the swamp water that courses through his veins. He can summon the barrelhouse mambo of Professor Longhair and the spidery intricacies of James Booker. He can play spooky, atmospheric chords like Dr. John. He can riff like Sly Stone with catchy, melodic chord progressions. He can throw intense, impulsive jabs when he jams with his blood brothers in Dumpstaphunk. And his new album is tough-minded but also tender — a valiant, vulnerable love letter to the Crescent City.

 

When the levees failed during Katrina in 2005 and the world’s greatest musicians were scattered to the four winds, and they wondered whether they would ever go home or would want to go home again, I felt helpless to care for the people and the city that I love. Ivan was the first person that I called to celebrate the Old Neighborhood, even if it wasn’t there anymore.

 

From the diaspora of musical genius, we found Henry Butler, who shares with Ivan the history of Crescent City piano in his fingertips. We found those Sultans of Syncopation, bassist George Porter Jr. and guitarist Leo Nocentelli, founding members of The Meters who know how to keep time in the dark. We found the irrepressible drummer Raymond Weber, who doesn’t need a watch to keep time either. Their lives were in storm-tossed transition; they wondered whether they would ever go home — or would want to go home again. For some it was a test of faith. Others saw it as opportunity to reaffirm their trust in the wisdom of the Universe.

 

Plopping a plate of paprika-spiked fried chicken on his Hammond organ, Ivan was determined to find a greasy vibe that would bring “Fortunate son,” John Fogerty’s ageless anti-war anthem, down to where it needed to be. Listening back to that Hammond humming, George blurted out,“Wat’cha gonna do with the money?!”  Everyone knew who he was talking to, in Washington and down river in New Orleans.

 

The healing came slowly, like an unspooling film, in snapshots, one frame at a time. The musicians channeled their rage and fear and frustration, their heartbreak and heartache, their defiance and devotion; over seven sleepless days, ”Sing Me Back Home” by the New Orleans Social Club was born. “Catharsis never sounded cooler,” as Entertainment Weekly said. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ARmcd0r55I

 

On a crystalline day before Jazzfest this year, Ivan made me a pot of gumbo. The family recipe is closely held; it requires a lot of attention; there are lots of details. “You gotta love the process,” he said, swaggering in front of his stove with the kinetic strut that he brings to the bandstand.

 

Aromatic, robust flavors wafted through his festive kitchen which was bathed in purple and gold. The ingredients — generously cut pieces of onion, bell pepper, garlic, celery, three different kinds of sausage, six chicken thighs and three chicken breasts, lump crab meat and shrimp — simmered and cackled in a well-worn pot. But he became a drill sergeant when he made the roux.

 

First, he blended vegetable oil, bacon fat and flour together; then, with a strong, tattooed arm, he stirred the mixture, slowly and continuously, into figure 8s with a wooden spoon. For the next 25 minutes, the colors changed from a light blond to a beige, similar to the color of peanut butter, until the roux became a deep, chocolate brown.

 

“Nutty, smoky, a little bit of a kick,” he said, blowing on a spoonful, satisfied and smiling. “Reminds me of how my Uncle Art describes it: ‘Tastes like them old people.”

 

The flavors, Ivan said, are not unlike his new album. “I compare them both to the love you get from a good bowl of chicken soup,” he said. “Very soothing for the soul.”

 

Our friendship has deepened through the years and we’re at work on his memoir. It chronicles his complicated emotional and spiritual journey as an artist, a father, a son and a man. His trials and triumphs are seen through a precious lens: the cherished gift of recovery.

 

Leo Sacks
Sunnyside, NY

_________________________________

Subject: Re: Jewish Matchmaking

So I too am watching the show and the only thing that jumped out at me was that snowboarding dude in Wyoming of all places, who said one of his requirements was someone who liked music and then he admitted that he was a Phish fan and it’d be cool if she liked Phish but obviously that’s a hard ask. That other tribe is even smaller. Then I got to thinking about how cool would be if there was a Phish matchmaking show. That one I would watch.

Leilani Polk in Seattle 

_________________________________

Subject: Re: Jewish Matchmaking

My roommate, Evan Carmusin, was on this show dating Nakysha (final episode).

Evan returned home to North Carolina basking in the glow of newfound love (not to mention tasting the allure of showbiz), and rode the high for about… a week… til Natasha laid it on the line.

She needed a man who could PROVIDE… financially that is.

Evan is a wedding DJ and grocery store manager, who struggles to pay rent most months. She wanted a man who could foot the bill for her and an eventual family… entirely.

Evan has a huge heart, and I found it sad to watch her break it off for a reason as such.

You are right that it’s the little things that count… and I think Evan dodged a big bullet getting out of that one.

– James Davy

“It Ain’t Over” trailer: https://rb.gy/04zou

1

Baseball came before music.

I know there are people who are older, who lived through the advent of not only Elvis, but Bill Haley. But I was not born, or even aware back then. By time I came of age, there were novelty songs, like “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” Elvis was a has-been that we pooh-poohed and we were yet to be aware of the history of rock and roll, our eyes were opened when our heroes started to talk about their influences.

We were addicted to baseball.

Now let me be clear, we played basketball, but when the Knicks came to my summer camp, no one was excited. As for hockey…you might have a stick, but no one got up at the crack of dawn for ice time and there were only a handful of teams in the NHL and the only reason you knew anything about them was because the games were one of the few things to watch when you were home on Saturday night.

As for football… New York had a great team, the Giants, we watched the blacked-out games on a fuzzy UHF station from New Haven, but the NFL was not front of mind, the first two Super Bowls were even kind of a dud. Then came Namath and the Jets and seemingly overnight it became about football.

But before that…

Funny to think that our heroes were ballplayers. Who didn’t make anywhere near the kind of money today’s athletes do. Who were indentured servants to their teams. Mickey Mantle eventually made a 100k but that’s not what endeared him to us. It was the history, the long home runs. And the knees. And the osteomyelitis. We knew everything, even that his father was a miner.

They say that young players don’t have a sense of the history of the game. I’ve seen evidence of that, but it’s a different game. Back then, baseball players were national heroes. And baseball was like music in that it happened in the game first, and it made all the difference. Integration. The opening up of the west coast…

We couldn’t wait for the season to start. We knew that the Yankees had switched spring training to Fort Lauderdale. We hated the Red Sox, who weren’t so good anyway. Then again, when Carl Yastrzemski had his triple crown year, who couldn’t admire that? And opening day wasn’t something you overpaid to be at, but you were even more excited at home, the season had begun, spring was in the air, eventually summer, and then…

The World Series.

All the buzz is about the Miami Heat, how they’re going to make the NBA finals having barely made the playoffs. Used to be different, either you won the pennant or you didn’t. If you led the league you were entitled to go to the Series. Which was held in early October. No cold November nights. As a matter of fact, no nights at all. The World Series games were played in the afternoon, we ran home to hopefully catch the last inning or two. And you could remember who won the year before, it wasn’t an endless morass of sports playoffs to the point where it all became a wash.

We had baseball cards. They came with crappy bubblegum, I personally preferred Juicy-Fruit, and five cards. And you never knew what you would get. You wanted stars, you wanted members of your team, but you had to trade or flip for those. And we had no idea the cards had any commercial value. We kept them in a big plastic bag and would go to a friend’s house for the afternoon… Binders? Are you kidding? And sure, many wanted to keep the cards in good shape, and those who did not were looked down upon, but no card was too good to be in your pile, no card was set apart, they were all fair game, in your bag together.

And we studied them. You’d be stunned at all the baseball statistics boomers can rattle off. They were on the backs of the cards. And then there were annuals. And the programs when you went to the game. And the first game I went to was in the spring of 1961 and…

It was the five of us, my father Moe and me, and Harry Sheketoff and Michael and Alan. We sat in the lower deck of Yankee Stadium, on the first base side, you wanted to be on the first base side, on a sunny afternoon, for a game that went into extra innings. Fourteen in fact. At the bottom of that inning, with a man in scoring position, Yogi Berra came up to pinch-hit. And Yogi hit a single up the right field line, ran to first base and then straight to the dugout. I didn’t get it. Why didn’t he continue? But the man had scored, the game was over, we had to wait for the second game of the doubleheader to begin. We only stayed for a few innings, we had to meet up with “the girls,” but I was not happy, I wanted to stay to the end, and every other time we did.

I even went to the Yankee game on my birthday. You started off with big birthday parties and then boiled it down to how many could fit in a car and we all went to the game and… For a boy who grew up without brothers, it was meaningful.

And I know all of the above, but…it all came flashing back watching “It Ain’t Over.”

2

Ostensibly, “It Ain’t Over” is about making the case that Yogi Berra was a superstar and has not gotten his due. The flick starts off with footage honoring the four greatest living baseball legends and he’s not one of them. But you’ve got to know, Yogi was in a class by himself, because he was on the YANKEES! And the Yankees always won. Until they didn’t. But by then Yogi wasn’t playing anymore.

You expected the Yankees to be in the Series. And you expected them to win, which they didn’t always do.

And in addition to Mantle there was Maris, and their 1961 home run duel. But also “Moose” Skowron on first. This was back when ballplayers had nicknames, when kids had nicknames, when Robert was “Bobby” and David was “Davy” and Andrew was “Andy” and… It was loose. And the game was flooded with immigrants, or the descendants thereof, and there was a cornucopia of names and there was a sense of birth, of our time being now, that was the sixties.

And Bobby Richardson on second…

He’s in the movie. Wow! He was the clean-cut one, the choir boy, the one who caught that line drive to win the Series. He’s Bobby, but older. He’s a person. We never saw them as people, they were the other. Far different from today’s social media world that equalizes everybody. Sure, actors were movie stars, but that was all based on mystery and charisma, everybody knew they didn’t write the lines. But the ballplayers lived and died on their performance. We knew who was in a streak and who was in a slump. We read the box score every single day. We tacked up the schedule to our wall. We knew when the team was here or away. And we listened on our transistors. That was their first use. Under the pillow. Late at night. So we were ready when the Beatles arrived in ’64, we had our radios.

So what we’ve got here is blue chip footage from back in the day. When most people still watched the games in black and white. When they were aired for free in your local market. Before there was even a Game of the Week on network. And from the early days, there’s a plethora of black and white film footage, from historical games that we know about, even if we weren’t even conscious at the time.

Like the perfect game in ’56, Yogi jumping into Don Larsen’s arms.

And even the Babe and…

Wow, I go numb just thinking about it. Because those were my days, kind of like the theme song from “All in the Family,” which I barely ever saw, going to college without television and then being on the road thereafter. We were just growing up, we saw everything as natural.

We’d get gloves by the time we were five. We’d beg our parents for an upgrade. We knew the brands, the models.

And we had our own bat. Mostly Adirondack, even though the pros used Hillerich & Bradsby Louisville Sluggers.

And after coming home from school and changing into our play clothes we’d ride our bike to the diamond, where there’d be a pickup game. Sometimes there weren’t enough people for a game, so we had hitting practice or played Home Run Derby, but… We were out there, sans supervision, it was part of life.

As was Little League.

There was no t-ball. Most parents were not involved, never mind arguing with the umps. We knew it wasn’t serious, but to us it was everything.

3

Eventually they hit the Steinbrenner years, the war with Yogi. The reconciliation years later.

But now Steinbrenner is more famous for “Seinfeld.” George brought the team back but few felt good about it, many had switched their allegiance to the Mets. Upstarts featuring the great Tom Seaver. Gone now too.

And Yogi had a twenty year career, not uncommon back then. If you were good, you spent a year after high school in the minors, then you flew right up to the majors. And if you were good you lasted, and lasted… Usually traded at the end of your career, but not Yogi.

Who I also knew from Yoo-hoo. My father owned a liquor store, I could have as much as I wanted. And I remember others endorsed the drink, like Gil McDougald, who was basically done by time I came of age. Kids loved chocolate back then, we had powder we put in our milk to change the flavor. And syrup too. And honestly, Yoo-hoo didn’t taste that great, but it was still cool…

So the movie switches from Yogi’s playing days to his coaching and managing days. And you’ve got to know, back then most players fully retired. They were gone when they retired from the game. Somehow Yogi seemed entitled to continue. And he did. Until George got in the way.

And the second half of the movie is great.

But the first half, the playing days, are FANTASTIC!

A lot of time has gone by. Sixty  years, in fact. That world no longer exists. But unlike previous generations, there’s film, there’s data, history can be recalled.

And the flick makes a great case for Yogi’s greatness.

But we already knew that.

But it’s great to see Yogi get his due, for those who may not have lived in the New York area, or might have been young or unborn back then. When the Boys of Summer were baseball players, before they became the subject of Roger Kahn’s book, before they became the basis of a legendary Don Henley song.

But Henley knows. We all know. It’s part of what makes us who we are.

And it’s all there up on the screen.

It all happened.

And we were there.

It’s 2023’s NFT. As in everyone’s talking about it, few understand it and the effect will be nowhere near as large as perceived.

Well, that’s not exactly right. Ultimately AI will have a big effect. But right now everybody is SCARED!

Yup, they’ve seen too many science fiction movies. The machines are going to take over the world. They’re going to kill the populace.

Hogwash.

First and foremost you’re already using AI and probably don’t realize it. When your iPhone tells you how long it will take to return to your point of departure, even though you didn’t ask it too. Or when it suggests apps to use. That’s AI.

AI makes life easier, not worse.

But what’s important here is the holding back of the future.

Let’s start with the writers, who’ve been screwed since day one, disrespected to boot. If the machines can write the scripts, LET THEM! Because every talented person knows they cannot write good ones. As for cleaning up/adding to an AI-written script… Rewrites are worth a fortune, and take less time. Furthermore, you can’t take a turd and turn it into chocolate pudding, it remains a turd. Put a BMW body on a Ford chassis and it may look like a BMW, be a car, will be able to drive, but it won’t be a BMW.

So everybody’s afraid. First and foremost of losing their job. Makes me crazy, if no one can sacrifice, how can we move forward? All you anti-free-traders out there, want to be like some South American country that legislates the populace must use a domestic product, even though it’s inferior? That’s one of the great things about America, you can buy and use all products. And, since so many are made overseas, they’re cheap (and some expensive too!)

So manufacturing left America. Do you really think you’d be able to buy a flat screen TV for a couple of hundred bucks if we couldn’t import them from China? No way. But, you say, all those people who used to make TVs in America… What are they going to do?

They lost out. Unless they were skilled.

Now don’t confuse what I’m saying with raw compensation issues. I believe in unions, I don’t like all the fat cats making billions off the backs of their low-paid workers and the consuming public. Workers should make more, but we should not guarantee them a job at the cost of moving forward.

Like that legislation in Congress to boost fossil fuels. Talk about a head-scratcher, makes no sense on the surface. In many cases, fossil fuels have already declined. In any event, fossil fuels damage the environment. Did you see the story in the news last week that the next five years are expected to be hotter than ever before? Oh, that’s right, you can’t trust the news, facts are fungible, better to place your faith in God, or some bloviator on an opinion page.

Progress happens. Hold it back at your peril.

Let’s talk about the drum machine. Roger Linn sampled playing and the performer got paid once. Should the drummer have been compensated for further use? I’d argue they should have, I’d say the drummer lacked foresight. I’ve got no problem with royalties. If AI scrapes your information to create something new you should get paid. However…

So for years drummers complained that the machine replaced them.

But a funny thing happened along the way. Many hit records used drum machines, not only to save money, but for the sound. And the records started featuring a drum “programmer.”

But that was back when major labels ruled and their productions were created for hundreds of thousands of dollars in commercial studios.

But then the audio companies came out with cheaper equipment that was nearly as good, if not as good, as that in the commercial studio. And home studios put a dent in the commercial studio business. Many fewer exist today.

And then came plug-ins, where you could simulate sounds of equipment made by legacy manufacturers, some who got license fees, others who got into the business themselves.

And simultaneously we had the internet. And Napster. Which sank recording revenues. So fewer acts made expensive records. And the old acts complained that the old paradigm was being eviscerated. As did the labels, who wanted the CD to be standard, physical forever (and Netflix just canned its DVD by mail division). Everybody wanted to preserve the status quo.

But suddenly, live burgeoned. There are more events at higher prices than ever before. Sure, the mailbox money might not be so good, but tell me about an industry that is unaffected by progress, where its workers never have to pivot, and I’ll show you one where with many unemployed workers.

Like in the legal business. Used to be there were secretaries, who did all the typing. Now the lawyers do it themselves and there is no typing pool. But being able to edit on a computer? A godsend. And all those typists doing a mindless job? They’re freed to do something more stimulating, more productive, maybe in the tech field that displaced them.

And let’s go back to the drum machine. Suddenly, everybody could make a record at home, they didn’t need a live drummer. And we started having hits that were made at home, sometimes by one person. All impossible without the drum machine.

And all the studio gigs for drummers and other players declined to almost nothing when labels stopped laying out all that money for all that time in commercial studios.

You see what you think is a loss is actually progress. And it plays out over time with many innovations.

And with progress comes loss, it’s inevitable.

Cars used to come with vent windows. For ventilation. But then when all cars came with A/C, the manufacturers eliminated them. I liked the vent windows, but I like A/C in every car better. Think about it, you call up an Uber and it has vent windows and no A/C. There’s airflow in the front seat, but you’re in the back. Shvitzing if there’s no A/C.

We’ve got to stop protecting people’s jobs for the sake of their jobs. I’m not saying they should go broke, I believe in the welfare system, I might even believe in a guaranteed income. Then again, if you think education is b.s. and all you can do is manual labor, you’re going to be in trouble when your job disappears. And it always seems to, that’s the nature of progress. And I hate to sound like a Republican here, but that’s your responsibility, to prepare for the future. Unlike the Republicans I don’t want to leave you out in the cold, I don’t want you to starve. You’re entitled to a roof over your head, food on the table, a free education and I’d say health care too. That free education… Can we stop dissing public schools, the ones the Republicans call “government schools”? Just because you can afford to send your kid to private school… And I’d argue that we’d be better off if people were better educated so they could actually understand what is going on, but instead, in Florida and other states, they’re limiting what is taught. How is this progress? It’s just like the fear of AI. It’s the bogeyman. Information helps broaden one’s view, the key is to teach people how to sift through information, but we’ve devolved into an indoctrination educational system, keeping people dumb, why?

If AI can write a better song than the hitmakers, let it! It would serve the public. But that je ne sais quoi, that innovative element that pushes art into the iconic, AI can’t do that. And if it ever can… Once again, if it’s just as good as you it should take your job, free you to do something else. Should we be coal-mining and strip-mining forever?

How about all those people who lost their jobs when Eli Whitney created the cotton gin?

Or the laundries that lost customers with the advent of home washing machines and dryers?

Or the ice companies who were put out of business by refrigerators?

There were people behind each and every one of those businesses, which were put out of business.

So when people keep telling you about the dangers of AI, ignore them, because they’re ignorant. Yes, AI will change the landscape, FOR THE BETTER!

During the Napster era people said no one would pay for music again.

Well, that turned out to be untrue. Streaming came along and paid quite handsomely, but only if you had a big hit. But all the people who used to be supported by record companies complain that the system is unfair. How unfair can it be if you’re compensated based on listenership? There are other ways to make money in the music business, more than ever before. And, the percentage of Spotify revenues going to the hits keeps declining. And everybody who makes music is not entitled to make a living at it. Just because you can put a recording up on Spotify, that does not mean you should be rich.

But you can record nearly for free in your bedroom and put the end result on Spotify for almost nothing and then hype your work all over the web, FOR FREE! Everybody overlooks this.

Fear the future at your peril.

Embrace it. It will be good to you. As long as you are aware and willing to pivot.

Should we have kept CD pressing plants in business?

No, the medium of music delivery changed. Are we going to stop progress across the board?

I say no.

And in your heart you say the same thing.

Songs with “Friend” in the title.

Tune in Saturday May 20th, to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz

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