“Earth to Moon”: https://shorturl.at/8Fvqk

I spent all afternoon finishing this book.

I hadn’t planned to, I hadn’t planned on finishing it all. I tried a couple of pages a few weeks back and the style…let’s just say the writing did have a style, and it was interior dialogue, somewhat choppy, and this was not the exposé of Frank and Gail Zappa I had expected it to be.

That’s what all the press said over the summer. And I’m a big Zappa fan. And you do learn about Frank, but really this book is about Moon and her mother.

Yes, another book about a daughter and her mother. That’s what some might think. But I got e-mail from Gail… Out of the blue. And she was the exact person Moon depicts in this book. Running at 100 miles an hour spitting fire and…

If I write about you and you’re this angry, go for it. But if I haven’t said anything negative about you, even worse, if I’ve complimented you, this has always flummoxed me. Then again, some people can’t help themselves. Interestingly, my worst experiences have been with the wives of legendary musicians…and they haven’t been defending their spouses so much as lashing out from their own perspective and…

I grew up always wanting to move to Hollywood, be on television.

Reading this book you’d never want to grow up in Hollywood.

Moon is a seeker. If you grew up in the east, you’ll be rolling your eyes, with all the touchy-feely crap, the gurus, the mantras… People do what they need to do to cope, but knowing the progeny of famous entertainers, this is not uncommon, this search for answers.

And so many of these famous musicians didn’t go to college themselves, in many cases they were poor students, music was all they could do, not by choice but by gene. So you have Moon getting her GED three years before she was scheduled to graduate from high school.

On one hand she’s free of constraint, on another she’s under the thumb of her mother.

All Frank does is work and screw. Ahmet told me his father was a swordsman. And it’s all documented here. Frank keeps threatening to leave Gail for Gerda in Germany. And there’s the groupie from New Zealand who actually lived in their house for a while who contacts Gail when Frank is dying and asks for some sperm so she can have his baby…

You’ve never experienced the weirdness that famous musicians endure. It’s not just fame, it’s not movie stars, you see musicians speak through their music, they are that person, and fans want to get closer and will…

Meanwhile, Moon has a crush on Jon Bon Jovi.

Moon is famous. With a hit record and TV appearances but she can’t get a date, she’s self-conscious over her looks, especially her acne. If you want to get into the mind of an adolescent and then teenage girl/woman…Moon does an excellent job here.

But mostly the family is living in isolation, up on Woodrow Wilson. Everybody knew that was Frank’s house, with a studio in the basement, it was legendary.

But the kids might as well have not been living in regular society. It’s only when Moon goes to high school that she truly learns how the other half lives. Everybody in the family has dinner at the same time, eating the same thing, and no one can get up until everybody’s finished? UNHEARD OF IN THE ZAPPA HOME!

And Gail herself is street smart, but that’s about it. She’s got all these crazy theories about witches and…

She just doesn’t know how to come through. Moon keeps waiting for her to deliver and she doesn’t, no matter how many times she is given a chance.

And then there is the money… They tool around in a Rolls, which ultimately doesn’t run yet is bequeathed to Ahmet, but cash is always an issue. When Frank gets sick he’s got no health insurance and they make Moon sell her house to pay the bills.

So when Moon finally leaves the house she has the adventures the hoi polloi do not. She hangs with famous actors, even dates Woody Harrelson, but when you read the stories you don’t feel like you’re missing out.

And when a married musician asks her to come visit him on the road, Moon asks her parents and they say to go. You can imagine how that plays out.

And then there’s the legal issues. Gail f*cks with Moon and Dweezil from the grave.

And I’ve heard Ahmet’s version of this, but all I’ll tell you is you’ve got to split up your estate equally, leave every child the same amount, or…

A sibling kept on asking my ever more frail mother to carve out money for her challenged child. My mother couldn’t believe I wouldn’t agree to this. This was after she wanted to split family money seven ways, so I got the same amount as my four nephews, and their mothers.

I told her I could never catch up financially with all the money she’d given to my sisters and their kids, for real estate, education…that I had written off that money, but now she was going to F*CK ME IN THE ASS?

She couldn’t understand that this wasn’t fair.

And this sibling kept on leaning on my mother, and finally I told my mother that if she didn’t split up the money equally, I’d never speak to my sisters again.

And then one day I got a letter from the lawyer saying to sign something. What was this? This same sibling had gone behind my back and made it so all three kids were executors of the estate. Just before he died my father told me he made me the executor because I was the only one who had any business sense.

But when it comes to money…

As a friend of mine once told me, you never really know your family until you share an inheritance.

And I’ll tell you I was positively stunned when I read my mother’s will and I got a third, after a de minimis payment to my nephews. And I ended up being the executor of the estate anyway…and unlike the fears of an in-law…OF COURSE I WASN’T GOING TO CHARGE TO DO IT!

And there’s a great segment in the book about Moon’s ill child and…

If you’re looking for Zappa gossip, just read a review. If you want to know the travails of the child of a musical icon and his unpredictable, self-centered, tempestuous wife…

THIS BOOK IS THE PLACE!

“Nobody on the road

Nobody on the beach

I feel it in the air…”

One thing you can be sure of is the boys of summer will return. Human beings are incredibly resilient.

As for Pacific Palisades?

That’s another matter.

So it’s akin to lockdown, but instead of arguments over vaccines, it’s over California. Was the dreaded left coast bastion of liberal excess asleep at the wheel, or was this an act of God, or maybe more accurately man, as in climate change.

That was my first reaction, that’s what my instincts tell me, but it doesn’t matter, America doesn’t have the political will to address the problem head-on. Either it doesn’t exist, or like a teenager the finger is pointed at other countries not doing their part. Ain’t that America, all people can do is complain and nothing gets done. Best to demonize someone rather than look at the root causes of the problem and try to fix it.

So we’re living in suspended animation. We don’t know where it’s going to light up next. As the reality of Tuesday night was being metabolized on Wednesday, just when so many felt lucky, it started to blaze in Runyon Canyon. And although all the press was about the fire crawling down from the hills and invading Hollywood, the true fear was the wind would blow the embers west, and burn everything from Hollywood to Beverly Hills to Bel Air and down the other side of Mulholland all the way to Ventura Boulevard, taking everything from Studio City to Sherman Oaks. And then would the embers cross the 405 and burn up Encino and then Tarzana and…

It’s hard to believe that fire wasn’t set. In the middle of nowhere, a park. Then again, I thought Richard Jewell was guilty and he turned out to be innocent.

But they think the Kenneth fire just over the border in Ventura County was arson…

As for those few houses that burned up in Studio City… Even the assistant fire chief on TV doubted whether the embers could fly all the way from Runyon. Then again, fires do happen everywhere on a regular basis, isn’t that why we’ve got the fire department to begin with?

And you wouldn’t catch me doing that job, putting myself in harm’s way. I’m not saying I wouldn’t volunteer, do my part if called upon, but it’s a special breed of people who join the fire department. And it’s not quite like crabbing in the waters off Alaska, but it’s pretty damn dangerous.

But humanity cannot always triumph over nature. What do they keep telling us, Silicon Valley will solve the climate change problem? What, when they can’t even put out fires?

So people have been contacting me from all over the world. How am I?

Well, I’d be lying if I told you Wednesday night I wasn’t shook up when it started to burn in Runyon.

And then last night there was that notice to evacuate, which made no sense and then turned out to be false.

And if the Runyon fire had spread as per above, it would have truly wiped out Los Angeles. A city decimated, period. Because most of the power in Los Angeles lives in these hills.

Then again, living in the flats is no longer an insurance policy protecting you from devastation. South of Sunset was wiped out. Taking the houses of…

Very close friends.

This is when relationships count, they already got a new apartment in Westwood. Is everybody else this networked?

And my shrink’s house was wiped out. I thought he’d want to cancel our virtual session on Thursday, but he said it was business as usual. He’s out in his house in the desert, he’s got his laptop and…it’s just stuff.

But what he really lamented was the loss of community. He and his wife had become best friends with their next door neighbors, that’s toast. I mean it’s one thing to be connected via the smartphone, quite another to be just twenty feet away in real life.

Some of these people have second homes.

A lot of them don’t.

Where are they going to go?

Where did all the evacuated go?

No one is untouched by this disaster, everybody knows someone who lost their home.

And not everybody was rich.

So now what… You’ve got NOTHING! You’re starting all over, from your toothbrush on up.

And then this morning Felice started to remark about the housekeepers and the gardeners and…their business has been wiped out.

And yes, a lot of those workers are undocumented. Because you can’t find citizens to do this work. Meaning the government safety net might elude them.

And it’s going to start blowing again.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk has been excoriating the state. This guy doesn’t realize people are turning against him. But he’s addicted to the attention, if not the power.

And it’s interesting to see the media’s response…

The “Los Angeles Times” has been stripped to the point that its coverage is no better than the “New York Times,” which today published a picture of exactly which houses have been lost:

“Mapping the Damage So Far From the Palisades Fire”

Free link: https://shorturl.at/0OxHZ

When it comes to natural disasters, it’s about boots on the ground. And if you’re running a lean operation… It’s like the public living paycheck to paycheck, you’re not prepared for a disaster.

And then I’m getting e-mails telling me I can’t go on with my regular life, I can’t write about anything but this disaster. Then again, maybe regular life is paused, I had a pneumonia vaccine canceled at the last minute by CVS this afternoon, that’s a first.

And my exercise of choice was hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains, exactly where Palisades fire was. But the air is too bad to exercise outside anyway.

Ergo, the feeling of lockdown.

And you can donate all the money you’ve got and it still won’t solve the problem. The losses are in the billions.

I can’t wrap my head around it, if you don’t live here…

You see the view from 30,000 feet.

But on the ground the whole city is in shock.

Mark Morton is lead guitarist of Lamb of God. Even if you have not heard of them or are not of a fan of their music, you’re going to love Mark!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-morton/id1316200737?i=1000683302491

 

 

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/e56a6b0b-eb4f-4e52-913e-437122adae47/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-mark-morton

Nine out of ten of last year’s biggest grossing movies were sequels. And the tenth was “Wicked.” But the mainstream press is caught up in Oscar fever. Why?

The vaunted Golden Globes didn’t even get 10 million viewers. But it dominated coverage in the same mainstream press. As for why I even bothered to write about Nikki Glaser… If you were reading the mainstream press there was a one month run-up, tons of stories orchestrated by publicists building up to this pebble falling into the lake.

There are 340 million people in America. And most don’t bother to go to the movies. Not that they’re not consumed by entertainment. It’s just that feature films are a construct of the past, of the last century. Kind of like writing the Great American Novel. That went out with the fifties, maybe the sixties… Thank god no one writes about that anymore. Although there are still novels, purveyed by an antique business run by English majors with some of the worst marketing of all time. Which is why James Patterson came along and dominated the business, he knows how to SELL!

Unless you’re living outside internet range, and with the advent of Starlink, that’s impossible, you know that the mainstream press has lost credibility. The general public pooh-poohs it and doesn’t trust it. You’d think the publishers would notice this and adjust, but they keep on keepin’ on like they’re the record companies in 1999.

Napster was all about disruption. Giving the people what they wanted, which the labels refused to do. Breaking apart the album into the desirable singles. Making available rare and live cuts.

And there are musicians still complaining about this. Songwriters bitching that only the single drives revenue anymore. Meanwhile, YouTube is a plethora of live, everybody is recording on their smartphone when the acts themselves are not putting up videos.

Things change.

And a lot has changed in the music business. Concerts have superseded recordings. The majors have less market share and less influence. The big acts have never been so small. The barrier to entry is essentially nonexistent.

Then again, all we get in the mainstream is a printing of the weekly Top Ten, which is woefully inaccurate, a complete manipulation. Taylor Swift’s last album was kept atop the heap by endless iterations, sold to brain dead lemmings.

So the pandemic put a stake in the heart of theatrical distribution. Movie theatres don’t work anymore, not as a ritual. The films don’t start when you want them to in an on demand world, the tickets are expensive and for the price of one movie you can get a month of Netflix, or another streamer. Why go?

Which is why people do not. But Hollywood doesn’t want to adjust. Which is one reason why its business has been stolen by Silicon Valley. The studio heads used to be icons, now not even people in Los Angeles know who they are.

As for what is streamed… It’s not the endless films that open in theatres to little box office, but old and new series.

But series are seen as second-rate in the mainstream press. Even though every A-list actor seems to have deigned to participate in them.

But if you read the “Times,” either New York or Los Angeles, you’d think that the entire nation has Oscar fever. That the general public cares about movies they have not seen and really have no interest in seeing.

I’m not saying you can’t make a movie, I’m not saying a movie can’t be good, but if you want to have an impact upon hearts and minds, which is what the mainstream media desires, you have to wake up and follow the people and admit things have changed.

There is some coverage of video games now, but it’s de minimis, despite video games eclipsing films in revenue.

As for series…

The “New York Times” reviews every film that is released in the city, but not every series that launches on Netflix or its competitors. Why?

Because series are déclassé. For the hoi polloi. The intellectuals…

Who? Those old fart boomers and Gen-X’ers who think they know better? Who keep on excoriating the smartphone and hate on technology?

The internet is the best thing that ever happened to me. I can reach and maintain contact with people around the world. You too. But in the “New York Times” you constantly read about people who use flip-phones, who digitally detox. This is like trying to get people to stop drinking, but even worse. Sure, there can be overuse/harm from smartphones, but the solution is not abstention, but going through, possibly changing the use.

You’re not going to get me to put down my smartphone, which tells me the news, the weather, allows me to research any point, make contact… Enough with the mind police.

The world changes. If you want to make a difference you must keep up with it.

The Democrats were so out of touch they lost control of D.C. They thought they could hide Biden’s decline like it was FDR in the forties. But there’s just too much media today, the truth always outs. And people were ultimately offended by this dishonesty. And then they told us Kamala Harris was the candidate as if we lived in a third world country. And if you were on the left and didn’t line up for Harris…you were a traitor, you were the enemy.

And the end result is the further marginalization of those living in the past who keep telling us they know better. The same people and press who told us the economy was great when prices were out of control and people were hurting.

This does not make me a Trumper, but it does say I want to live in reality. Face the facts.

Movies other than the few blockbusters are a marginal business. Nearly the novel of our day. If it’s not a sequel most people don’t see it and most people don’t care. But they keep telling us to care. Hell, the “New York Times” talked about last night’s fire putting the Dolby Theatre in danger. There’s nothing special about the Dolby, it was initially called the Kodak, there’s no gravitas there. Maybe the foot and handprints at the Chinese Theatre, but the era of the movie star is kaput. It’s been eclipsed by the dreaded influencers, who execute a completely different paradigm. Rather than withhold and massage, they’re posting incessantly, with much more raw footage.

The entire landscape has changed. The general public has never had more power. And it doesn’t like being talked down to. The paradigm of reading the press and watching the network news with no pushback, feeling powerless, in thrall to icons, is gone. I’m not saying to let the lunatics take over the asylum, but at least report on them and respect them, because they are what is truly happening in these United States.

People don’t care about awards shows. They can get endless fashion displays and tips online. And actors are two-dimensional vessels, if you want truth you’re better off listening to a musician, then again too many of them are compromised, brands with no core, like the Silicon Valley titans kowtowing to Donald Trump. These techies used to be heroes, now they’re zeros. We can see what you’re doing, you’re playing a game to curry favor, to avoid retribution, that’s not what an artist does, and you were the new artists, but no longer.

America is hungry for truth from uncompromised people in touch with the landscape. And if you think you get that in the mainstream press…

Hell, the “New York Times” is propped-up by gaming and cooking subscriptions.

The mainstream news has already been disrupted, but they don’t know it.

What a sorry state of affairs.

As for the Oscars… Who won last year?

And if you haven’t seen the movies why would you care?

PEOPLE DON’T!