This is not for the faint of heart. Felice cut bait after one episode. But if you like your entertainment dark and visceral, this is your ticket.

“Rivers of Fate” is set in Brazil. And French Guiana. And life couldn’t be more different from America. The standard of living is not high and lawlessness rules. If you’re dependent on the police, you’re SOL. They’re just trying to make the trains run on time, they’re not up for solving the problem. And there’s so much nefarious activity transpiring that it cannot be combatted.

You start on the river. This landscape is totally foreign. With travelers and thieves making their way. There are restaurants in the middle of the water. The big city is just a boat ride away, but despite infrastructure, things are not much better there. Who can you trust. Can you trust anybody?

A girl commits a modern faux pas. The kind you read about. And her parents punish her for this. And you know there will be consequences. Boy, are there.

And everybody’s out for themselves, everybody’s trying to get ahead. And no one is looking out for the lost and downtrodden. You’re on your own. Janalice was going to school and living a safe life, and then…

Man, this made me thankful I wasn’t a woman. I was walking in a parking structure close to midnight last night and I was anxious. But if I was female?

The men in “Rivers of Fate” are not constricted by the mores of America. Seems like everybody is willing to bend the rules and get theirs.

So we’ve got Janalice, a gang, human traffickers, multiple stories happening at once, but the series is completely comprehensible.

It’s shot in the modern way… In that the cinematography and editor are right up front, right there with the story. The effects, the cuts… But in this case it’s not for humor, like so many American productions, it just adds to the intensity.

“Rivers of Fate” is from the team that brought you “City of  God.” If that was too much for you, don’t even start this four episode series. But if you thought that film was art, far from the dreck produced by the studios, you need to check this series out.

There’s a ton of action. And many themes, not that you have to analyze, you can just go with the flow. It never devolves to cops and robbers, but lives are on the line, and just about everybody is corrupt. And the good guys don’t always triumph, never mind live, and…

There is no buzz on this series. But it’s right there, available on Netflix. It’s got an 83 critics’ rating on RottenTomatoes, and no audience rating whatsoever. Now that I’m done, I’m not exactly sure whether “Rivers of Fate” was great or a bit too pulpy. But one thing is for sure, I was riveted.

Watch a bit and you’ll get an idea.

But be forewarned, it only gets more edgy and intense, more visceral. But if you’re looking for something to take you away this is it.

Assuming you can handle it.

Tune in Saturday August 30th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

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

If you’re looking for a book to read this holiday weekend, I highly recommend this one.

What we’ve got here is something conventionally called a thriller, and normally I don’t read that kind of book, but reviews have been great and the action all takes place in the heart of San Francisco tech.

Jakob Kerr gets it right. Probably because he was one of the first employees at Airbnb. He could afford to take years off to write a book. And the funny thing is he’s just gone to work for Anthropic, you know, the AI firm that just settled with authors. But all the hype says he’s a lawyer, a role he hasn’t played in a long time, he’s a master of communications at these enterprises, but knowing the law Kerr could construct an interesting legal wrinkle that gets the book going.

So what we’ve got is a murder. Of a guy who runs an Uber-type company. He’s loosely based on Travis Kalanick. If you’re a student of the game, you can recognize the real people behind the characters.

Like Eleanor… She’s obviously based on Sheryl Sandberg, albeit with a bit more self-knowledge.

As for Hammersmith the VC… Kerr gets Sand Hill Road down right.

What makes the book so fascinating is not the plot, but the characterization of the world-beating techies. You’ve got the one only looking out for himself. The eccentric brilliant coder. The dreamer… They’ve all come together to make billions, and they all believe their sh*t doesn’t stink and they’re above the law.

So they’re pursuing the killer. And Mackenzie is translating for the FBI, she works for the VC, and she too started off in law, but gave up a gig at the big firm to go to the coast and try to make her fortune.

Furthermore, there’s a lot of lessons in this book. If you’re directionless, you might want to read “Dead Money” to learn the score.

“Dead Money” is the best fiction book about the tech culture I’ve ever read. And fiction is more honest than nonfiction, meaning there are some great nonfiction tales about tech, but usually the author is too invested, or at arm’s length, and can’t see what is really going in. “Dead Money” tells you the truth.

Having said that, the last section of the book, which concentrates on the plot, becomes somewhat fantastical, kind of like a movie, with twists and a scene at a popular location I won’t name, however the ending redeems the book.

This is an easy read. It will call out to you after you’ve read just a little bit, you will be hooked.

Wisdom is dropped throughout, I’m going to list some of what is said:

“Hammersmith had always been proof of an old Silicon Valley axiom: The worse a man dressed, the richer he was.”

If you’re rich you don’t have to prove anything. You’re satisfied with who you are. Sure, you want more, but you don’t have to advertise your wealth, you’re above that.

“It doesn’t matter how original your idea is: All that matters is how well you execute it.”

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Who has the perseverance to bring an idea to fruition? Very few.

“He wore expensive un-scuffed leather boots, the type favored by men who consider themselves outdoorsy because they take an annual trip to the Yellowstone Club.”

Kerr nails the players. He makes you laugh. People don’t understand that you can see right through their trappings.

“You work yourself into the right places, get connected to the right people. Eventually you’ll be met with an opportunity… A chance at something truly big.”

You’ve got to be in the game. Even founders can’t exist outside the game, they need the VC’s money. I’ve found this paradigm in music. Those who think they know the most, who drop names, are often completely outside the game.

Once you get a toehold, you’ve got to find a way to advance. Will you choose to do what Mackenzie does? If you want the big money you have to play by different rules.

“Humans have yet to discover a sum of money large enough that they couldn’t find a manner of wasting it.”

My grandmother gave each grandkid 10k upon her death. She would harangue my mother over the details of the giving and how it would be used. And my mother’s response was, THEY CAN SPEND $10,000 IN A DAY!

“Our world is not built on fairness. It’s not built on right and wrong, hard work, smarts. It’s built on one thing and one thing only: ruthlessness. Our system rewards those who sacrifice. Those who are ruthless enough to give things up in pursuit of their goal. Give up their friends, give up their time, give up their ideas about the way they thought their life was supposed to go.”

Wow, I should just send these words to all the people complaining to me that the system is stacked against them, that with a level playing field they’d succeed. IT’S NOT A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD! And Kerr doesn’t embrace the trope that nepo babies will get their comeuppance, oftentimes that’s not true. “Ruthlessness” has a bad connotation. Unfortunately, to succeed in business that’s usually the way you have to be. Unless you’re a worker bee. And sacrifice? That’s another thing the wannabes have no idea of. They complain they can’t make the car payment and mortgage and can’t put shoes on their kids with their Spotify revenue. Who told you to buy a house, have kids, even have a car? You think this is unfathomable, but these are the kinds of sacrifices winners make.

“He texted like a Boomer—sporadically, with unnecessary punctuation”

Boomers HATE hearing this, they consider themselves digitally-savvy and no one can tell them otherwise, even though in most cases this is untrue.

“Tennessee Quick Cash” stood out in the Pulse of Americana playlist on Spotify. That’s what you’re looking for, something that jumps out and grabs you, and this did, so I decided to dive deeper. And I found that Crockett had a new album, “Dollar a Day,” that came out on August 8th, and his previous record, “Lonesome Drifter,” had just come out in March.

“Tennessee Quick Cash” was on the new album, so I decided to fire it up and have been playing it ever since.

Kinda reminds me of Ry Cooder. Not the sound really, but Cooder started to get traction with his second solo LP, 1972’s “Into the Purple Valley,” which focused on songs from the past that became contemporary when remade by Cooder. “FDR in Trinidad”? Most listeners were completely unaware of Roosevelt’s 1936 trip, but that didn’t inhibit enjoyment of the music.

I purchased “Into the Purple Valley” unheard, and believe me, it didn’t sound like anything I’d heard before, but it penetrated me, I got into it and played it incessantly, I can sing every word on the album. Even though the radio played none. But I went to see Ry in Jackson Hole in the fall of ’74, and bought every album for a long while.  But “Into the Purple Valley” was always my favorite, and I believe it’s the best, but the slickly produced debut and “Paradise and Lunch” are close. Ultimately Ry got some mainstream press, with the supposed first digital album, “Bop Till You Drop,” and entered the public consciousness with his movie soundtracks. But when Ry was making albums in the seventies, he was in his own lane, his own genre, he wasn’t in the traditional music business, but I was a big fan and I wasn’t the only one.

Now Charley Crockett’s music is not as out of date as Cooder’s, not as idiosyncratic, but this is not the kind of stuff you find in the Spotify Top 50, not even in the country chart, but it resonates more than all that stuff because there’s an authenticity, an honesty not found elsewhere. Along with changes and…

At first you might be caught off guard by Crockett’s voice. It’s not traditionally radio friendly. More akin to a Texas troubadour, someone from the sixties and seventies. But the more you listen…

Which is what I did.

The opener, the title cut, “Dollar a Day,” is a cover, but it’s intimate, an introduction, just Crockett, a guitar and vocal. It’s a prelude. Instead of hitting you over the head, it’s an invitation, you get the sense something serious is going on here. And there’s a delicious change in the middle and the song is not even two minutes long and the album segues into “Crucified Son,” which sounds like the Dust Bowl. With background vocals akin to “O Brother.”

“Caught a plane out of Austin

This morning in the drizzling rain

Bluebonnets line the highwayside

Let me know it’s spring”

You can visualize it. This is not the platitudes of wannabe hit music.

And then:

“They wanna put me in a TV show

I don’t know if it’s right”

There’s self-knowledge involved, we’re living in the present, the music is not a complete throwback. And when was the last time an act wondered if a TV appearance was right for them? Crockett ultimately does it, but he thought about it.

But the best song is track four, “Ain’t That Right,” which has a honky tonk feel. As well as a bunch of changes, which is a revelation after hit music based on one chord.

And this ain’t modern Nashville music, with babies and trucks and church. And it’s neither left nor right. More the story of an adventurer. Which reflects Crockett’s nomadic life. Which is not brief like the barely pubescent wannabe chart toppers. Charley is forty one. Didn’t they used to say this was too old?

Not anymore, there are no rules.

Furthermore, Crockett’s made fifteen albums. I don’t know what kept him going, a lot of self belief. But also some positive indicators. If things aren’t improving and you continue to make albums you’re probably more of a hobbyist, but to have a career you’ve got to cause a reaction, such that people want to pull your music in the future, and tell people they know about it, and want to see you.

And I was immediately thinking of seeing Crockett listening to his music. This is the kind of sound you can get into, not the overamplified wash of noise that is too often experienced at the venue. This music is more intimate, without being precious. It’s about the vocal and the lyrics, you get to know Crockett’s persona, they all come together to paint a 3-D picture. This is the kind of music you don’t have to know to enjoy the live show, and that’s very rare, and if you do know the songs you sing along with a smile on your face.

As for “Tennessee Quick Cash,” you’re hooked from the lyrical picking of the intro, which slowly becomes louder and louder.

“Well I’m hard to understand

And I can’t work for the man”

THERE’S the essence of being a musician, it’s the only thing you can do, not because you don’t want to work for the man, but because you CAN’T! You don’t fit in, you can’t subjugate your personality, play by insane rules, kiss ass to move up the ladder, no, you can only be yourself, expressing yourself.

“I earn my livin’

Playin’ one night shows

On a long and windin’ road

I don’t care about where it goes”

This is not the star business, this is the music business, earning enough to make it all work, not worried if everybody knows your name. And the funny thing is the more you adopt this persona, the more people are drawn to you. You’re not living your life in public on TMZ, you’re not ripping us off with multiple versions of the same damn album to move up the chart, it’s solely about the music. And if the music is good enough… And this Charley Crockett album is…good, that is.

“Well the memory it stays with me

I went on before the committee

They put me up so late

The doggone joint was closed

But before they cut out the light

On number eighty two that night

A woman lockin’ the door

Gave me some good advice”

Once again, there’s self-knowledge, and you can relate. Open mic night in Nashville, a rite of passage if you want to make it, but it’s disheartening, you play late to a tired, jaded audience, what are you going to?

GET A PAYDAY LOAN!

“If you need some money fast

Hit the Tennessee Quick Cash”

Not that Charley doesn’t know the downside:

“Now I know what you’re about to say

About their predatory ways

But brother at least they let you know it right up front

‘Cause if you take that ride downtown

Where them rounders hang around

You’ll find anything in the world but a fair deal”

If you’re broke and desperate, you’ve got no choice.

For more go to: 

https://tnquickcash.com

It’s a real place, if it’s a real story I don’t know, but I do know the business wouldn’t exist if it didn’t have customers. It’s not only hard to get ahead, it can be very hard to keep your head above water.

But irrelevant of the lyrics, the music has you nodding your head, tapping your toe, and there’s that rollicking piano and everybody’s having a good time, even if they don’t have any money.

Now when you make records like this…your goal is to capture lightning in a bottle, it’s not about having a hit, you just want your music to have that something extra that catches the ear of people. It’s not do or die. It’s not the label needing something commercial. It’s digging deep and driving on instinct. Trying to convey emotions, so people can relate. People can admire hit music, but usually it’s hard to relate to. Whereas this sounds like real people playing real music, sans artifice, just like you.

Do I expect Charley Crockett to suddenly become a critics’ darling, with features in every publication to man? No. Hell, “Dollar a Day” isn’t even fleshed out on his Wikipedia page, for that you need an army of rabid fans. Then again, Wikipedia will give you the outlines, but you can’t hear it. And today you can hear everything, even for free. But so much is dreck you find yourself not wanting to listen to anything new. But then you find something and it’s like an oasis in the desert.

That’s how I feel about Charley Crockett’s “Dollar a Day.”