It’s the manmade snow.

Slalom racing used to be completely different, then again, so were the Olympics. The Olympics used to be held in winter burgs with nearby mountains with natural snow. They even used to be held in mountain towns, like St. Moritz, or Squaw Valley, even Lake Placid. Now the winter Olympics are held in the metropolis, to maximize dollars. The venues are almost secondary. It all comes down to money. And the country with the most money gets the games, and if there’s any doubt, any difference, any question, that’s where corruption comes in. The Olympics are no better than the Golden Globes. Pierce the surface of the telecast and you will not like what you see.

So, nobody wants the winter games anymore. Because they’re too damn expensive. So that’s how we end up with the games in Beijing, Xi believes the money spent is worth it, showing the advancement of China. As for Sochi… Since Putin is a kleptocrat, he gave the contracts to his buddies and even made money personally from the spend. And when the games were over he invaded Ukraine. As for the Sochi games… Sochi is a seaside resort. There are mountains, but the sun and temperature are intense, and what you want in ski racing is consistency, so the snow warmed up and later racers were penalized in Sochi, because the wetter snow is slower, and in Beijing…

There’s essentially no snow at all. Depending upon reports, where the races are held they get somewhere between two and eight inches a year, so you’ve got to install the guns and make the snow yourself.

Now slalom used to be a game of going around the poles, i.e. gates. But with the advent of shaped-skis and breakaway gates, you now go through the gates as opposed to around them.

Yes, in the late nineties the skis changed. And it was the racers who cottoned to the new shaped skis last. But those who were there first, like Bode Miller and Deborah Compagnoni, ate up the field and then everybody switched… To much shorter skis that you only had to lay on edge and they carved.

As for the breakaway gates… At first the gates were made out of bamboo. Then they went to plastic, and when you hit them, it hurt. But when skiers hit traditional gates they frequently popped out of the snow. And then the race had to be stopped while the pole was replaced, and this happened over and over again. So someone came up with the idea of breakaway gates. They’re still made of plastic, but there is a hinge at snow level, so when you hit the pole it bends, maybe even all the way down to the snow surface, and then pops back up, ready for the next racer

So the game changed. Now you donned your short shaped skis, which carved on a dime, put on your armor and then went as straight as you could, right into the gates.

As for the surface itself…

In the old days there used to be ruts. The initial skiers down the course had an advantage, the surface was smooth, yet it quickly got torn up. But, if they could make the course firm, it would be the same for everybody, much more fair. And you have to make it a bit fair for those at the bottom, otherwise they can never get good results and move up the ladder. And the solution to the rut problem was turning the surface into ice.

Which every recreational skier hates!

But the racers love it. Because it’s consistent.

And to ensure there is ice, before the race they inject water into the course the night before, so it will freeze into ice, I kid you not.

Now making snow is an art. And don’t confuse the manmade snow in Beijing with that on your local hill. The local hill always makes snow with a high water content, to make a firm base. They want a layer to cover the ground and stay there. And for decades, manmade snow was known for its iciness. But then with new equipment and greater insight they were able to make snow closer to the real thing.

So what happened in Beijing is they laid down high water content snow, for a base, but the top surface…they tried to replicate something closer to powder. So what you end up with is a firm surface with some kickaround dust that’s akin to sand on top of it.

And underneath this dust is not conventional ice. It’s rock hard, but it doesn’t resemble what comes out of your freezer whatsoever. It’s like highly compressed sand. It’s firm, but the surface is different from natural snow.

So let’s say you’re a world class skier, a champion, and you want to win in the Olympics. You study the course, but if you’re doing it right, you’re skiing on feel. The more you inject your mind into the equation, the worse, the slower you ski.

Now a great slalom skier can set an edge and actually accelerate out of a turn. And a great World Cup slalom skier believes the surface surrounding the gate will be ice. That’s right, like you have in your drink. You may not be able to ski on it, but their boards are tuned to an incredible sharpness at a higher angle than recreational skis and the athletes are in unbelievable shape, and so when you set your edge… It’s essentially the same the entire winter. But in Beijing…

The greats have been faltering. Not only Shiffrin, but her boyfriend Kilde and her direct competitor Vlhova.

So Shiffrin pushes out of the gate, she gets into her groove, and sets her edge and… She feels this layer of sand on top. And underneath this is the brick hard compressed snow that is much harder to get an edge in than ice. So, you don’t get instant grip, so you set your edge harder, and you bungle, what happens is not what you expected, your edge gets caught, or your ski slides and…you’re out of the course.

But it gets even worse. Because the temperatures at the courses have been so damn low, hovering near zero, all the moisture that does exist in the snow has been wiped out, pulled out of the snow and is now gone. Try skiing on a bitter cold day, oftentimes your skis will barely move, because all the moisture has been sucked out of the snow, and the ski needs to heat up the snow underneath it to create a wet layer to slide ahead.

So, Mikaela Shiffrin feels the pressure, she’s got to win. And she’s got confidence in herself, she can ski these courses in her sleep, and she never skis out. But she’s running on instinct, setting an edge, and it just doesn’t feel like it normally does. Do you employ a lighter touch or a heavier one? Heavier ones usually slow you down, but if it’s steep enough and you’re good enough you can set an edge and accelerate. But your ski must hold the line exactly, never waver, which is very hard to do in the snow in Beijing.

Shiffrin is not the only skier having this problem. Her boyfriend Kilde, dominant in the downhill on the World Cup, got aggressive and set his edge and lost fractions of a second which left him out of the medals.

Same deal with Vlhova, Shiffrin’s rival. She was way back in the giant slalom, and as I write this way off pace in the first run of the slalom.

But doesn’t everybody ski on the same surface?

Yes, but there’s less pressure on the non-stars. They can relax more, to their advantage. Whereas the stars, especially Shiffrin in the slalom, have to ski to win! They can’t let their foot off the gas. And in this aggressive pose, they set their skis into this junk…

I mean it doesn’t even feel like regular snow. Like I said, the top is like sand, small grains floating around. And underneath this is the same substance, just compressed so hard that there’s almost no give. Whereas if it’s ice, the edge comes in and melts the ice ever so minimally and you hold your carve, the ski doesn’t slip, and you’re on your way.

What next, winter Olympics in Miami?

This has gone too far.

P.S. Petra Vlhova won the gold medal in the slalom. Like I said above, she was far behind in the first run, in eighth place, .72 seconds off the pace, but the truth is Vlhova and Shiffrin can make up as much as 1.5 seconds in the second run, they’re just that good. And on the second run, the start order is reversed. Slower skiers first, fastest skiers last, and there are thirty of them. And with absolutely nothing to lose, Vlhova threw down a blistering second run. To go into first position. With seven skiers left. And this is very tough psychologically for the remaining skiers. Vlhova is the best on the circuit, even better than Shiffrin this year, and if she threw down such a great run…to win, they had to lay down a blistering one too. Talk about pressure. No one could.

https://spoti.fi/34IItr2

Spotify is never going to get rid of Joe Rogan.

The truth has now outed:

“‘In 2019, our music and podcasting catalog was not that differentiated, and because of this we were locked out of deals with some critical hardware partners like Amazon, Google, and even Tesla,’ Ek said. ‘They had or were working to build their own streaming services with essentially the same content, so there was really no reason for them to integrate our service.'”

https://lat.ms/3LiO1cO

As I always say, distribution is king. You may have the greatest product extant, but if no one can consume it, or if it’s hard to find, you’re dead in the water.

These tech titans are evil. For a while there they were exalted. But most people today know that they are cutthroat operators. My best example of this is Bill Gates, who insisted Dell and other computer manufacturers pay for Windows EVEN IF IT WASN’T INSTALLED ON THE MACHINE! Yes, maybe you wanted Linux. You could get that, but you’d pay for Windows anyway.

And now, it’s taken nearly forty years, but Bill Gates is a pariah. Turns out he’s a creep. A nerd who never learned the boundaries, since he had bread and status he thought he had sexual power, he started hitting on everything that moved, EVEN THOUGH HE WAS MARRIED!

Karma, it’s a bitch.

Will karma kill Mark Zuckerberg? Well, he took a hit last week, and the pile-on has been incredible, people were just waiting for this moment.

But of all the tech titans, the one with the smallest footprint and the least amount of power is Daniel Ek.

You can get his music from multiple platforms. He can compete on algorithms and playlists, but that’s not enough of a differentiation to dominate.

Although Spotify does dominate in a way, that’s where the most listening transpires, it’s where the biggest music fans are. But now some of these fans are pissed and are ankling the service in the wake of Neil Young and his compatriots removing their music from the platform. That’s right, CSNY & Nils Lofgren, who plays with Young. And India.Arie.

They’ve achieved their goal. You’ve got to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. The concept of getting rid of Rogan is a specious one, because of the above. Spotify needs Rogan for DISTRIBUTION! If you control the most popular podcast in the world, exclusively, other platforms need to make a deal with you. People want to hear Rogan via Alexa. And Tesla owners may not be that angry they’ve got no AM, but no Rogan? Why? It makes no sense to them.

So now these other platforms need to make Spotify available. They’ve got no choice, you can’t get Rogan and other exclusive Spotify podcasts anywhere else.

Exclusivity. Apple was asleep at the wheel. They had first mover advantage, after all, they call it a PODcast! But they let their platform languish, and then Spotify came in, which needed podcasts, which Apple did not, and the green logo company bought the sphere in plain sight.

Everybody else saw podcasts as an open platform. Daniel Ek saw the power of exclusivity.

And he finally has a foot in the door and he’s going to pull it out? NO WAY!

Not that Spotify should not be considered a publisher. Along with Facebook and the other social media platforms. Someone’s got to take the tech titans’ fingers out of this dike, let the water flow, leave them no choice but to admit they’re publishers and need to oversee the content on their platforms.

But for now…Joe Rogan is on the run. He’s going to think twice before he hosts a misinformation spewing nincompoop. He’ll never use the n-word again. And if he does, HE’S TOAST! All those people defending Joe…once the n-word story came out they reneged, or went silent. You can’t be aligned with the n-word unless you’re Black, you cannot explain your usage of the term away, you’ve just got to shut up and be silent, AS IT SHOULD BE!

As for further misinformation, what Neil Young and his compadres should do is put their music back on Spotify and with the funds they now earn pay someone to listen to each and every Rogan podcast, and then blow the whistle if Joe crosses the line. That’s how you win here, hold Rogan’s feet to the fire. Because Ek is not giving him up unless he crosses the line, and when someone does this, after being warned, they’re abandoned, repeat your bad behavior when the whole world is watching and there’s no forgiveness, YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER!

And believe me, Joe Rogan hasn’t been sleeping too well, and is thinking about who he is booking and what he says in the future. You may not know this if you’ve never been in the public crosshairs, but anybody who has does.

As for all the b.s. about Spotify payments… CAN EVERYBODY STFU?!!

There are only a hundred cents in a dollar, Spotify is already paying seventy to rights holders, they can’t pay you more than they take in, NEVER EVER!

And let’s stop talking about penny rates per stream…THAT’S NOT HOW THEY’RE CALCULATED! It’s a percentage, which changes based on the number of subscribers. It’s not written in stone, never was.

And if we’re bitching about the value of a Spotify stream, why not the payment for a terrestrial radio spin…which presently is NOTHING for the recording in the U.S. And this shouldn’t be so, but in truth all online outfits pay for use of the recording, including Spotify, and terrestrial radio keeps fading, it may end up being mostly talk.

So let me see… You want more money. And Spotify’s got no more. So where is it going to come from? OTHER ARTISTS! Yes, why don’t you go to Drake or the Weeknd or Bruno Mars or Lady Gaga and say…you worked your butt off, you made it to the top, you sacrificed so much along the way, and now we’re going to PENALIZE YOU for being so successful. Do you think they’re going to buy it? NO WAY!

Yeah Kanye… You’re too successful, you’re taking up all the air, give a big chunk of it to us, the ones who’ve never broken through, because we’re working really hard and we DESERVE IT!

Huh? Exactly why??

As for songwriters, they were screwed by the major labels, who own their own publishing companies, best to take less for songs and screw the rest of the songwriters. And this is on EVERY platform. As for Spotify agitating against songwriter increases… Like I said, there are only a hundred cents in the dollar, most quarters Spotify LOSES money. If you want more money songwriters, get in the face of the major labels!

That’s right, all the artists bitched about streaming payments in the U.K. and the government held hearings and found out the main culprit was the major labels, paying a small percentage of what came in to artists. If songwriters want more money they need to protest against the majors, but they’re opaque organizations which are famous for hoarding what they’re not entitled to, do you really think they’re going to give you their money? But that’s where it would have to come from.

Daniel Ek is not saving Joe Rogan, he’s saving HIS COMPANY! The same company that is THE MAIN DRIVER OF RECORDING INCOME! You want Spotify in business, believe me. Pressure got Ek to publish guidance, content rules, focus on those who break the proffered rules going forward! Forget the past, it’s set in stone. Neil Young doesn’t remake “Harvest” and post it online instead of the original.

So I’m posting my playlists on Spotify…

And do you know why I do so?? BECAUSE OF THE FREE TIER!

That’s right, ANYBODY can listen to the above playlist, ANYBODY! You don’t have to subscribe to Spotify. And none of the money from music subscriptions is given to podcasters. It’s the free tier that built streaming into a behemoth, that saved the record business, get rid of it and watch revenues stagnate. And that’s right, you can listen free on YouTube, and for years the recording industry has been fighting for higher payments and what have they achieved? BUPKES! In truth, despite all their b.s., Google could give a damn about music, it’s a small part of the company’s overall revenue. But, turns out dedicated music listeners have abandoned YouTube for Spotify, AND THIS IS A GOOD THING! YouTube isn’t great for music, but Spotify and the rest of the streaming platforms are.

But Bob, WHAT ABOUT THE LITTLE GUY?

SCREW ‘EM!

This makes me crazy, want to make some money? Jobs in America are going begging. Why are you entitled to make music from recordings? Give me one good reason. Because you WANT TO? It’s a competition, and only the best win. And if you’re not winning, your music doesn’t appeal to most people. So either convince them to listen or deliver what they want. If you want a subsidy, talk to a museum, a nonprofit, not SPOTIFY!

I’d like to play for the Yankees. I like baseball. They should let me play. At least in the minors. And pay me enough to take care of all my bills. And I don’t want to ride in the bus, give me a limo.

You can go to all these sites making a TON more money than me and get false hope. They’re feeding you b.s. so you’ll pay to use their platform, telling you you can win when you can’t. That’s an entire business, giving false hope to wannabes. How many of these wannabes break through? CLOSE TO ZERO! But they all want to be paid. They’re “professionals,” they deserve to make a living in music. Drake, CAN YOU HELP A BROTHER OUT?!

Once again, Spotify should consider itself a publisher and Joe Rogan should not be spewing misinformation. Now we’ve drawn attention to the behavior, now they’re under the microscope. Mixing metaphors, once again, hold their feet to the fire, it’s the only way progress can be made.

Turns out the other acts don’t want to follow in Neil Young’s footsteps. Own it Neil. For your own credibility. Stop spewing nonsense that people should quit working for Spotify. ARE YOU GONNA PAY THEM?

It’s what they told us in the sixties, if you want real change you’ve got to go inside, run for office! If you want real change you want to stay on Spotify, you want to continue to use Spotify, TO MONITOR THEIR BEHAVIOR!

So tonight when you chase the dragon, listen to the above playlist on Spotify.

You might want to tour the southland in a traveling minstrel show, but that’s a hard road to go down. I mean you’ve got costs, and you have to sell tickets…

Some people are listeners and some people are players. Some people are professionals and some people are hobbyists.

And if Rogan touches the third rail once more, go back Neil, and do it again, wheel turnin’ ’round and ’round, go back Neil and do it again!

Tune in today, February 8th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive

And now the odds of her winning five gold medals are history, her odds of winning ANY gold medals are very long.

Makes you hate American media. They need a face for the Olympics, they decided it was Shiffrin, just like they decided it was Bode Miller back in 2006 in Torino. And not delivering, despite being the overall best in the world, Bode was forever branded a loser, when in truth the Olympics are just one set of races, subject to the vagaries of the system, and the fact that Bode went on to win three medals in Vancouver, one of each color, was not good enough, the focus was now on Lindsey Vonn.

Vonn won gold in the downhill, and a bronze in the Super-G, so she became America’s sweetheart. Julia Mancuso’s two silvers in Vancouver, to go with her gold in Torino and bronze in Sochi…Julia WHO?

If you’re a student of the game you know that Shiffrin has not been as dominant since her father died. But life intervenes. You also know that Annemarie Proser-Pröll, probably the best women’s ski racer ever, not that anybody recalls, never mind remembers history, took a year off to take care of her sick father, otherwise…we wouldn’t be talking about Lindsey Vonn challenging Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 82 victories. Moser-Pröll won 62 times in 11 seasons. She won the gold in the downhill at the Lake Placid Olympics. Whereas Vonn won 82 times in 19 years, and there were two more events, the super-G and combined. Unlike Vonn, Moser-Pröll could win in all three events of the time, instead of today’s five. But at first Moser-Pröll was not photogenic, she was significantly overweight. She ultimately slimmed down considerably and still won, but most Americans have never heard of her. The machine needs a new face, and they got it with Vonn, and they expected it with Shiffrin.

Shiffrin was a machine. She finished seemingly every race and won in slalom again and again. Once again, if you watch ski racing, you know this is essentially unheard of. Hermann Maier wasn’t as good. Marcel Hirscher was the closest thing to Shiffrin, but he didn’t ski downhill, with its higher odds of injury.

Now you can’t completely count Shiffrin out in super-G and downhill, but the odds are very long, especially in the latter. As a matter of fact, Shiffrin skipped the speed events recently to concentrate on the so-called technical events, slalom and giant slalom, in preparation for the Olympics. After she recovered from Covid. She had to deliver for America, she was the great blonde, white hope!

But along the way, a new contender came along. She’s just as good as Shiffrin in the slalom, AND NO ONE HAS EVER COME CLOSE! Petra Vlhova has already won five times in slalom this season, Shiffrin only twice. Psychologically, this is very difficult for Shiffrin, who always knew she was better, she could hold back on the first run and cruise to victory in the second, knowing she had just a little bit more in the tank than anybody else. But now she’s got to go all out, all the time, which increases the odds of mistakes, like today.

Let’s see… Today. A steep, icy course. Vlhova herself bungled. Shiffrin got past the first problem area, where others had fallen and bungled, but further down…she went over.

I’m sure Shiffrin’s mind was now in front of her skis. She’d gotten through the hard part, she was on her way. But she lost her edge, her skis slipped out from under her.

Now if you watched it on TV, you were stunned at the angle she was at to begin with. Everyday skiers don’t even come close.

But there’s no joy in Mudville tonight, the mighty Shiffrin has gone down.

And if it were the normal season, Shiffrin would shrug and move on. Everybody makes mistakes. Never mind this race being on a new hill covered in manmade snow which is notoriously icy. Good for later skiers, but a bit tougher overall.

So the odds of Shiffrin delivering like Lindsey are very long. You won’t see her on late night TV, she won’t be on the cover of magazines and newspapers, she disappointed America, she’s nothing but a LOSER!

Anything but.

It’s one race out of the season. But America only pays attention to the Olympics.

Everybody knows that Shiffrin is a legend, superior in her skills to Vonn, even Bode testifies as to Shiffrin’s talent. But she disappointed America, she blew it when the light was upon her, forevermore she’ll be known as the woman who didn’t deliver.

Forget her victories in the past, even gold medals. Doesn’t matter, she was not in the spotlight, she was not carrying the weight of the entire country onto the slope.

Now in Europe, they know how good Shiffrin is. Bode too. They’re heroes. They’re Americans, but their legends really live overseas. And Shiffrin is one for the ages. But in the eyes of America, she’s no Lindsey Vonn.

Shiffrin is 26. She could regain her edge and break Stenmark’s record of 86 victories in 19 seasons. And sure, when Stenmark competed there were two fewer disciplines, but he, unlike Shiffrin, doesn’t ski the downhill. But Shiffrin has even won in the downhill. She’s a five event skier, like Bode Miller, a true oddity in this era of specialization. And Shiffrin has won 73 times in 12 seasons. Quite an achievement.

Now in truth ski racing is no longer the sport it was in the sixties, when Billy Kidd came out of Stowe, Vermont to challenge and beat the Europeans. Kidd was slight. Today everybody works out in the gym, year-round, something Kidd never did. Today’s ski racers are jocks, they’re about as similar to the average citizen as an NFL player. Because if you’re not in the absolute best shape, you have no chance to win.

And in truth, almost all sacrifice their education to compete on the circuit. And when their careers are over, they can trade on their fame, or they could go back to school, but when they finally get in the groove they’re a decade behind everybody else.

And no one is more regimented and focused than Shiffrin. Which is what makes her so great. She famously skied gates on powder days at Burke Mountain Academy, which is like showing up at school on a snow day, unheard of. That’s what it takes to be a champion.

But no one sees all that, especially in today’s world where everybody’s hyping themselves online ad infinitum.

The fact that Shiffrin can compete at all with the weight of expectations upon her astounds me. You’ve got to be loose and flexible in ski racing, anxiety and pressure make you tense.

So I’ve got no problem with Mikaela Shiffrin falling in today’s giant slalom, none at all.

Unfortunately, America does.