Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/3Pg5GmB

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3AFlMSG

I heard “Poor Boy” on SXM the other night. I’d say it stopped me in my tracks, but I was driving east on Sunset just past Bundy, and it made me feel so good, it connected me with what once was and today.

Split Enz have been forgotten. However Crowded House has been remembered. I always preferred Split Enz, even though I saw Crowded House at Club Lingerie (and Split Enz at the Whisky!)

So I’m lying on the couch trying to entertain myself. I can’t slow myself down enough to watch a movie or TV series, so I start reading the news, then the magazines on my iPad, not that they’re resonating, I’m reading the news the whole damn day, so I pulled up “Avalon” to listen in hi-res on Amazon Music. And it sounded so good.

And I’m thinking how “Avalon” was a commercial stiff upon release in the U.S. How it took years to gain consciousness in the consumer mind. Then it was a staple, the ultimate soft rock staple if you ask me, even though it’s not so soft. For a long time my favorite has been the second side opener, “The Main Thing.” But today I got hooked on “To Turn You On.” Listen to that on headphones, you’ll think you’re off Broadway after dark loving the view.

And now I’m thinking how the purpose of an album used to be different.

First and foremost, they were short, Forty minutes was long. They were easily digested. But the goal was different. It was to lay down your statement. Sure, you wanted to exit the studio with one radio track, but the greats never cottoned to commercialism. Now it’s all commercialism. Except when practiced by those with no hope of commercialism. Today’s music is just one step away, whereas the great records of yore are hermetically sealed, they exist in a parallel universe that you can only visit, only understand if you listen to them.

And in addition to being shorter, there were so many fewer albums. But the paradigm was different, you had to buy them, you didn’t get all the music for ten bucks a month. So, inherently you owned few. You’d go to a friend’s house and see that album you were curious about, that you wanted to hear, and insist they drop the needle immediately, you couldn’t wait. Also, you went to a friend’s house, especially a new one, and saw the same relatively obscure album you owned and you felt connected, part of a substratum not recognized by the mainstream, but powerful nonetheless.

That’s how I felt when I went to this woman’s apartment and she had “Waiata,” the first Split Enz album after the breakthrough, “True Colours.”

There’d been a skein of albums before this, on Chrysalis, right? I bought ’em as promos at Rhino Records. Can’t say that I played them much, but I played “True Colours” incessantly! (And note, I’d purchased three Split Enz albums BEFORE I purchased “True Colours.”)

You see it was “I Got You.” I heard it on KROQ.

Suddenly, the band was firing on all cylinders.

It’s hard to describe a record like “I Got You” today, a band like Split Enz. Because in addition to being from New Zealand, they were not dead center in the game. “I Got You” didn’t strike you in the face, it didn’t make you pay attention, rather it contained an indescribable magic that drew you to it, that made you buy the album.

On A&M in the States. With a laser-etched disc. Yes, you didn’t have to be a platinum act to get a special package, that was part of the sale pitch, even though I never ever bought an album based on the cover, or the disc itself, who would do that?

So “True Colours” became one of my favorite albums. Maybe it was so good because Neil Finn was now fully integrated in the band, a rival to his brother Tim. But Tim did write the second side delectables, “Nobody Takes Me Seriously” and “Poor Boy,” absolute killers that sounded like nothing else but nailed you to the ground nonetheless. You see this was the goal, to go on your own hejira and have the public come to you, it’s the same thing that happened with “Avalon.”

Now my favorite Split Enz track is contained on the 1983 album “Conflicting Emotions,” which was a disappointment overall. But “Message to My Girl”? One of the most majestic cuts of all time. As great as the original studio take is, the one with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is TRANSCENDENT! I got it on Napster, wrote about it twenty-odd years ago, and now through the magic of YouTube you can hear it too. There’s a whole documentary intro, but the music starts just shy of a minute in, if you’re a fan of the song, and you know who you are, you must hear/see this: https://bit.ly/3AzSBAs

But today I was playing “True Colours,” and I got stuck on “Poor Boy” but I eventually decided to slip into “Waiata.”

“Waiata” was not as good as “True Colours.” The song on KROQ was “History Never Repeats,” a Neil Finn banger that is really quite palatable, and ultimately memorable, and it got a lot of airplay.

But the other big song from “Waiata,” which I don’t remember listening to in years, was “One Step Ahead.”

And now I’m deep into Split Enz, surfing the web, trying to find out things I don’t already know. And what I do find out is there are live albums, but they’re not on streaming services, and this is disappointing. But, I think, there have been so many iterations of the “band.” Maybe there’s some live work under Neil Finn’s name.

So I go to Wikipedia and I find this album released in 2020. It’s entitled “Solo at the Seymour Centre, 2010.”

Now let me see… A ten year old solo concert released ten years later? How good could this be?

Then again, this is what is amazing in the twenty first century, the unearthing of all this live product that we would have salivated over in the pre-internet era that is released without a trace, that you only hear if you stumble upon it.

Now most of these solo concert records are acoustic, a facsimile of the original, for fans only, and usually not to be listened to that many times, so my expectations were low. So I look at the track listing and decide to play “One Step Ahead.”

First and foremost he’s playing an ELECTRIC GUITAR! Nobody does that solo. And there’s this ethereal intro and then Neil starts to sing and I’M FLOORED! I’m tingling writing about it right now. This is so amazing!

Now Neil Finn has gotten a victory lap as a member of the reconstituted Fleetwood Mac. But shy of that, he’s a journeyman. In the rearview mirror in popular music, not a streaming giant. But I’m listening to this live version of “One Step Ahead” and it’s light years ahead of the Spotify Top 50, it evidences a humanity that they do not. And unlike too many vaunted artists today, great players, Neil Finn can write, being able to play is not enough.

It’s the mood. The sound and the lyrics. You can feel nascent love, after the initial infatuation phase, when either you hang on for the ride or absent yourself, unwilling to ride the roller coaster, and it’s always bumpy at this stage, up and down.

Earlier I’d been thinking how all the music I was infatuated with was fading, people say it’s just a matter of age, that today’s music is just as good and important to the younger generation.

NO!

I’m lying on the couch listening to Split Enz and Neil Finn and I start to realize this is how it used to be. Just me and the music. Having the record spin, listening to it, was enough activity for an afternoon, studying the album cover, memorizing the credits, even though you didn’t realize you were doing that. Life was slower, there were fewer distractions. And we knew we were only home for a while anyway, we were going to go out that night, to a club, to a movie, to a friend’s house, being home alone all day was death.

Today you listen to music while you’re doing something else, maybe many things. Music is mostly background. Life moves too fast to slow down and smell the roses, never mind listen to the music.

It’s forty years ago, but Neil Finn is still one step ahead.

1

I haven’t washed my car since September.

Tuesday I had to drive to Melrose to drop off my tax information. Sure, I could have mailed it, even FedEx’ed it, but I didn’t want to take any risk, as so many of the documents were one of a kind. And as I was sitting in traffic…I said to myself THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME!

Now L.A. has the worst traffic in America. But it wasn’t heavy this day. Maybe because it was the July 4th week. But even so, all three map apps said it would take between 27 and 29 minutes to get there, just east of La Cienega.

And I love to drive. And I’ve got no problem with traffic. And I was flipping the presets on SiriusXM from Howard to music to NPR, and on NPR I found this very interesting story…that I can’t really remember right now, but I know it’s in there somewhere. I’m not one of the NPR people. Whenever they e-mail to be on, which is not recently, there are few translatable stories in the music business right now, other than sponsorship and greed, they tell me about the outlet’s reach, as in it reaches more people than any of the news on TV. And this is true, if you’re on NPR people hear you, I always get emails after appearing on NPR, but I can be on TV stations and there are crickets, except for CNN International, which seemingly every American traveler turns on in their hotel room. I’m on at some ungodly hour, late in the evening on the west coast, and I always hear from friends in Asia and Europe that they saw me. Fascinating. So be on NPR. The rest of the outlets? Pretty much a circle jerk.

Like today’s L.A. “Times.” All the articles in the Calendar section were hype. Sure, there were a few reviews, but the rest of it is endless b.s. from celebrities hawking their new product. I mean who cares at this point? Meanwhile, I read on Twitter that the new Minions movie was set on fire via TikTok. If you’ve been following the receipts, it got bad reviews, and the last Pixar film released to theatres was a financial disappointment, but this Minions movie, “The Rise of Gru”? It’s been doing boffo at the b.o. Meaning that despite all the kiddie product released direct to video during the pandemic, parents will still take their children out to the theatre. What does this mean? I’m not exactly sure, it is summer, do they just want a baby sitter for a while?

So so many of my “commutes” have fallen by the wayside since the pandemic. Doctors? I see them via Zoom. My psychiatrist gave up his office. And now, years later, I can see all the time I’ve saved.

And, all the action is at home. I can sit in front of my screen and reach the world, never mind take the temperature of the world. This is impossible out. While you’re driving you can’t pay full attention, as for doing all your work on your phone… Did you ever notice that you read an e-mail on your phone and get all pushed out of shape and then when you read it on the big screen, on your desktop or laptop, it’s nowhere near as heinous as you think, sometimes even positive? Has happened to me too many times. Now I’m reluctant to send serious e-mail responses immediately on my phone, I may get the attitude wrong, never mind the response.

And when I’m deep in the heart of the city, I think about everybody going to lunch.

Now in truth, there are a lot of people who go to lunch with a different person every day, it’s networking. Funnily enough, they always go to restaurants near their office, they don’t burn much time. But their dining companions? You’ve got to get in the car, drive, park, eat and then repeat. You lose hours. To accomplish? This is very different from a meeting to seal a deal, this is just conversation, is it worth this time investment? Is it worth it to talk live to anybody these days?

This is another thing the boomers can’t understand about the Millennials and Gen-Z, I hear it all the time…PICK UP THE PHONE! The younger generation communicates electronically, i.e. e-mail, iMessage, etc. Whereas the boomers work on the phone. They’re confounded that the office can be so quiet. But this is the way the world is going. Electronic is so much better. You don’t waste so much time, you get to the heart of the matter, and you’re not on hold, even worse not waiting for a call back. That’s one of the reasons I hate to call, because then I can’t relax until the call is returned, which may not even be the same day. I know, in the office this is de rigueur. But in the creative world, you cannot work unless you’re in the zone without distractions. If people tell you otherwise…well, I guess there are exceptions, but I don’t know any. That’s why recording studios are dark, with no windows, you want to remove the act from the real world, create a unique space.

So I’m hiking in the mountains listening to the Pivot podcast. That’s basically where Kara Swisher asks questions of Scott Galloway. Ms. Swisher is constantly dropping names and engagements, but as a result she doesn’t smear people like her compatriot. Galloway lays down the truth. Like Swisher repeating her take on the Elon Musk Twitter employees meeting. Yes, she had access, very cool. But she drank the kool-aid, Galloway wasn’t buying it. Elon Musk has been backing out of the Twitter deal almost since its inception, and Galloway is not letting him off the hook.

But during this podcast, they were talking about working from home. Scott’s take was very interesting, if you want to get ahead, if you want to be mentored, go to the office. And that rang true. But most of the younger generation don’t want to return, they don’t want to waste all that time, just like me!

Now in truth the days of tech wonderment are done. All the new hardware, then the new software. For nearly two decades tech drove the culture, now it’s politics. Behind that? Well, there’s streaming television and in a distant last place music, which abdicated its power all by itself. Have you been reading all the stories talking about how music sucks?

Well, first let me say if you want to keep up on what is going on in the tech sphere, you’ll get hooked on Pivot, this is the episode I was referencing:

“Twitter, Layoffs, and Streaming: Pivot’s Q2 Quarterly Review”: https://apple.co/3c3CkJX

As for those articles about the decline of music…

One is by political writer Umair Haque:

“Forget the Apocalypse, Let’s Talk About What Happened to Music – Why Music doesn’t Sound Like Music Anymore”: https://bit.ly/3RjiD0O

The other article is in “Inc.”:

“Why Music Has Lost Its Charms – There’s little doubt that corporations have stifled creativity”: https://bit.ly/3InIxwh

This second article is by Howard Tullman, a VC guy.

Do I really care what either of these guys have to say? Especially the one with money? Not at all. I could quibble with their analyses, but once a concept, a wave of information gains hold, you know there’s something there. The truth is the recording industry, as practiced by the major labels, skews to an ever smaller slice of the population, and very rarely does it provide cutting edge tracks that impact the culture at large. Like I said, the music business has abdicated its power, no one took it away.

2

So I used to go to the car wash.

And then during Covid, I started washing my car myself, I bought all the equipment, the varying brand name cleaners and shammys and…even a clean bucket!

And the effort was not that major, not that I could get it up to clean my car that often, there’s that nasty time factor once again. Never mind I seem categorically unable to wash my car without getting wet myself.

But now we’ve got a water shortage in Southern California.

Have you been reading about that glacier coming down in Italy? I have, being addicted to skiing, all things mountains. Read this:

“Glacier Tragedy Shows Reach of Europe’s New Heat”: https://nyti.ms/3uyZXjT

If you’re not horrified about global warming reading this, you’re probably the CEO of an energy company. As for the Republican party which installed these Supreme Court justices beholden to the energy suppliers, the big story in the news is how the Conservative party revolted against Boris Johnson, a serial liar, never mind bad actor, but the Republicans never revolted against Trump. Johnson didn’t want to go, but everybody kept resigning. In other words, the Republicans are wimps. I’m gonna lose a few more subscribers here, but I’ve got to stand up for the truth a bit, and the Republicans are the sorest winners I’ve ever encountered. As for Tucker Carlson…

You’ve got to see this performance. This is what the Tuckster said about Taylor Lorenz:

“She showed up to an interview wearing some sort of face gear, was she going to rob a liquor store? We don’t know.”

Lorenz’s big offense? Interviewing someone in public while she wore a mask, having underlying immune issues.

Check it out: https://bit.ly/3PaFaLX

So, needless to say I can’t be seen with a hose in front of my house, cleaning my car, hell, you can only water your lawn once a week.

As for going to the car wash…

Well, I’ll spend twenty bucks.

Now wait, I’m not going to go at all, because of my immune issue. I finally have enough B-cells to get the vaccine again, I now have 39.33 antibodies, which is better than none, which had been my total previously. But you want 150. 100 is okay. I just got a second shot, but I could only get a booster, not a full shot, I won’t bother you with the rigamarole, I’ll be tested again in ten days.

Anyway, my car is a disaster. Completely covered in dirt. Just leave your car out one night in SoCal and it’ll be covered in dust. And we only have a one car garage, so it’s got to be on the street.

Now I’d say I’d wait for rain, but that won’t come until at least September, if not later.

But really, the problem is the sap. These yellow dots all over my damn car. I can take it to the car wash and they don’t even make a dent on them.

So Felice sent me a discount coupon for Washos. 15% off!

Well, am I really gonna spend fifty bucks to wash my car?

Well, by time you get through tipping at the car wash you’ve spent twenty, and it’s not even clean.

So I start doing the research.

NEVER EVER GO DEEP! Or at least know how to reject the outliers. Search online and you’ll find someone talking crap about everything, listen to them and you won’t buy anything. And there was one picture on Reddit of a guy with a brand new Panamera, who bought a detailing package and… The pictures tell it all.

I was horrified.

But I’ve got a seventeen year old car which came with a crappy paint job to begin with.

Now dig into Washos and you’ll find they use this non-water cleaning method. But my car is uber-dirty. So… Can they really clean it this way?

When I decide to jump in (frustrated with a couple of other problems in my life, I figured taking action washing my car would show I had some power), I booked Washos a day later. And did I want a cleaning with water or non-water? But they say if your car is really dirty, they’re gonna have to use water. But water is free, and non-water is an extra five bucks. I ended up checking them both. But I’d filled out the form a couple of times and the date reverted to a couple of hours hence so I changed it, canceled, and then started all over.

I booked for one today. Now even amateurs know you shouldn’t wash your car in the bright sun. But better to take action than to do nothing.

So the guy came ten minutes late. No biggie, they said to give him fifteen.

And he immediately asked me to move my car to the shade. Which was not all-encompassing, but good enough for him. And I pointed out where the spigot was, and he said HE BROUGHT HIS OWN WATER!

Now the guy pulled up in a car better than mine, a new Dodge.

So I left him to it, he said it would take about an hour and fifteen. And then he’d get me to move the car closer to an outlet so he could vacuum.

So, I go out there to move it and… I’m positively stunned. My car hasn’t looked this good in years! All the sap is gone, I’m astounded. However, a couple of the glued-on letters have disappeared from the tailgate. Hmm… He should have mentioned to me they came off. I ended up walking to the shade and finding them. Then again, how pissed can I be? One of the glued-on letters came off when I was washing the car a year ago. And it is a damn old car.

So then, when I’m walking back inside, I notice the wheels are still dirty. I don’t know what it is with my car, it’s very different from the BMWs I’ve owned previously. As in you can clean the rims…AND THEY GET CLEAN!

He said he was going to clean them.

About twenty minutes later I came out… And they were!

Now the next thing I have to do is get my car serviced. But because of Covid they no longer give you a wash for free. And your car has to arrive relatively clean to begin with, otherwise they don’t respect it, at least that’s my thought. But really…

CHALK THIS UP AS A VICTORY!

As for leaving my house to run any kind of errand ever again…

Let’s not forget, there’s Instacart, and Amazon Prime…

https://www.washos.com

And here’s a 20% discount code, supposedly good through November 4th: TIME20

Finally, Washos is not available everywhere and I’m only testifying as to the basic wash, beyond that, re detailing etc…you’re on your own.

That’s right, Mr. Simple Minds! We cover everything from Bowie to Iovine to Hynde to his hotel in Sicily… Jim is a charismatic raconteur, you’re gonna dig this.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jim-kerr/id1316200737?i=1000569128013

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/b0e29ec9-3544-44a6-8545-c31a7a2f8f79/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-jim-kerr

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/jim-kerr-204688525

Trailer: https://bit.ly/3ymjHbC

Oliver Platt is SO good in this I’d say to watch it just for him, even though his participation is limited. But during the party scene, watching him switch from angry to amenable, and him telling that story, PRICELESS! He seems like a regular guy, one you would know, like the rest of the characters in “The Bear,” not setting the world on fire, just living their lives.

This show got good reviews and excellent RottenTomatoes scores, so I put it on the list. Not that I read much about it, I just read the first and last paragraphs of reviews to see if they’re positive, because I like to go in cold, the experience is part of the magic of novels, TV and movies. Like life, you don’t know what is going to happen, you just decide to dive in.

But before we did…

I got e-mail. From one person saying he turned it off, because he didn’t like any of the people in the show, there was no one he could identify with, no one he could root for. WHEN DID THIS BECOME A THING?

I read a great tweet today by Taylor Lorenz, about there being a business in telling people what they want to hear, being optimistic, giving them hope. Especially in the music business. When I’m honest people hate it, they don’t want their dreams trampled upon. Even though in most cases they’re just dreams, they’re gonna give up long before they get close, because it’s just too much work. Why does everybody need to be boosted? And why do you need to identify with characters. Did you ever work in a restaurant, did your brother… It’s supposed to be fresh, it’s supposed to give you INSIGHT! And if it’s all negative, so what, so is so much of life. When people demand inspiration you usually end up with tripe.

And “The Bear” isn’t tripe.

But I’m not exactly sure what it is either.

You see it’s only four hours long, eight episodes, although the finale is a bit longer. It’s just a start. You mean I’m gonna have to wait a whole ‘nother year to see where this goes?

And since it’s an American show, you can predict the mood of the ending. Not that I’m revealing too much, I thought about this from the very first minute, American shows can’t leave you on a downer, I wish they would.

So Carmy takes over his brother’s restaurant, his family’s restaurant. The twist is Carmy is a legendary chef. Jeremy Allen White, who plays Carmy… I’ve never seen him before. But this is not the pre-internet era, where you know everybody’s backstory. I marvel at some actor’s performance, and then people tell me they were in some lowbrow network show… I haven’t watched network in decades. Literally. I’m looking for something spicier, more direct, in a narrower vertical. When you’re trying to appeal to a broad audience, you inherently lose me.

And what audience is “The Bear” shooting for?

I’m not exactly sure. But I’d say one that is looking for visceral entertainment.

So what you’ve got here is a deep dive into the workings of a restaurant. And as many shows as there have been about this, I’ve never seen anything close to this. It’s not feel good, pressure is high, nerves are shot, and everybody takes things super-seriously. This seems to be a characteristic of restaurants, they treat it like it’s life or death, like world peace hangs in the balance. And speaking of balance, it’s a balancing act getting everybody to deliver at the same time.

So it’s chaos. And it’s fascinating to watch. Is it appealing? To some people, maybe not. But to me? Yes. Because everybody’s caught up in their job, too many people work to live, as opposed to the opposite. There’s all this hogwash that Americans work too much, take their jobs too seriously, and I’ll say that vacations are critical, they rejuvenate you, but when it’s all on the line, that’s when it gets interesting to me. I’ve found this over and over again, people don’t want to take it as seriously as I do. Furthermore, I want to walk the fine edge. You know, the one if you push it too far you can fall over and fail. The magic for me is in that last one or two percent. That turn good, even very good, into excellent, INCREDIBLE! That’s why I buy the top of the line products in areas that are important to me. I use those features no one else does. I read the manuals. Do you know with Focus in the latest Mac OS, Monterey, if you mute your computer, IT AUTOMATICALLY MUTES YOUR iPHONE! May not sound like much, but it is. Assuming you don’t want to be interrupted, and when I’m writing, I don’t.

That’s one of the interesting scenes, at the high end restaurant, the head chef being boorish, having no tolerance for failure, needing it EXACTLY right, stuff you don’t think is really important, that most people won’t even sense. But it’s this little bit that people do sense, even if they don’t know what it is, that makes the end result TRANSCENDENT!

Like Oliver Platt’s performance. The way he laughs to himself and then laughs with the others. They’re two different things, he separates them, gets each of them right.

Then there’s Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who plays Richie, the “cousin” who is not. He’s been in a slew of stuff, but I know him as the boyfriend in “Girls,” the folk musician. He plays a somewhat similar role here, but here he’s a hothead, he’s over the top all the time. He’s highly strung. And you know people like this, they’re constantly screwing up, denying responsibility, biting back, making mistake after mistake, and then they ultimately admit it AND NOTHING CHANGES! As adults people abandon them, they’ve got fewer and fewer friends, they end up working at piss-poor jobs not because they’re dumb, or untalented, it’s just that NO ONE CAN GET ALONG WITH THEM!

Tina, the longtime employee who’s averse to change. She’s been doing it this way for years, and if you want to mess with it, she won’t do it, furthermore she’ll sabotage you. I don’t care how right you might be, getting workers to heed your advice is a huge hurdle.

And the guy who makes the cakes, who dreams of a bigger future as a baker. There are numerous players with different mentalities. You’ve got a small world here that takes everything and doesn’t deliver money so much as being part of a family.

So “The Bear” is kind of a drive-by. We want so much more. There’s all this set-up, and we want depth. We’ve been trained by streaming series. Movies? Two hours and they’re done, they’re separate from life in almost all cases. But series? You get to know the characters, you see and feel them living, you get much more invested, and you expect more!

Did you see that HBO Max just cut all European production? “Golden Life” was an HBO Max European production. This always happens, a new person comes in, in this case David Zaslav, and they think they know everything when they know so little. About HBO, CNN… When it comes to the arts, music, movies and TV, it can oftentimes be about one album, movie or TV show. No one bats 1,000. You’ve got to step up to the plate more than everybody else to win. You’ve got to give your creators free rein, you can’t be cheap, Netflix has the winning formula yet is constantly derided by the street, believing like Zaslav that it’s all about the money, making the trains run on time. Money is important, but you can balance the books in entertainment and go bankrupt. You can only win if you support artists. Let them do their thing. Where Netflix is king.

But “The Bear” is on Hulu. You should watch it. Like I said above, it’s not a huge commitment. Because it will affect you. And isn’t that exactly what we’re looking for in our entertainment?