Tune in today, January 11th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

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This is a chance for the organization to get up to date.

What I’m proposing is an 86 night extravaganza on social media highlighting the nominees in each and every category.

Let’s speak English. The Grammys can’t afford to piss off CBS, its benefactor. Without that big check the Grammys are SOL. But when you’re beholden to the dying old you’re behind the 8 ball when change finally arrives, and it’s hard to catch up. As it is the Grammys are out of touch with the public. As are the Oscars. You leave the public behind at your peril, you must keep people INVOLVED!

So it’s an 86 night pre-game show, a run-up to the actual ceremony, and it takes place on YouTube. Why YouTube? Because it has the most eyeballs and it’s free. Sure, some other platform will offer a big check, but that defeats the purpose. Sometimes you have to leave money on the table in the furtherance of your goal, which in this case is exposing the most people to the most music.

Let’s be clear, the public is flummoxed, they don’t know where and how to find new music. Did you read that MusicBusinessWorldwide story about 82% of the U.S. market being catalog? That’s right, over three-quarters, and it keeps going UP! Turns out the public is tuning out new music, or doesn’t know where to tune it in, so this is where the Grammys and YouTube come in.

Every night it’s a new category. That’s right, for 86 days straight a Grammy category is going to be featured. An explanation of the category, maybe even some history, and then the nominees themselves. And sure, it can be one half hour long stream, but even better is to break it up. This is how you do it. You can consume the whole thing straight, or you can consume the bits you want to, which are featured conspicuously on the Grammy YouTube page AND LIVE THERE FOREVER!

Now of course  you can just play the recordings, or the music videos, but with people paying attention, nominees will clamor to present new renditions. Which the Grammys will embrace. Cut it acoustic, do it live, make a new video, it’s the artist’s choice, and it’s at the artists expense.

Now the big categories are spread out through the three months. And maybe the big categories even get two nights in a row. And one of the reasons we do this is because we’re going to tie-in TikTok. For each big category we’re going to have a TikTok contest/challenge. With the winner flown out to the ultimate Grammy ceremony where they get to meet and and create a TikTok video with the act whose song they created the clip to. And, of course, pictures will be on the Grammy Instagram account. The Instagram account will be an endless stream of information and photos for the 86 days. 

The key is to create a destination people return to on a regular basis. One and done is history. Like too many albums. They promote them and they’re over in a weekend, if not a day. That’s the wrong paradigm in today’s culture, you keep yourself out of the public eye at your peril. And one long Grammy show on CBS filled with commercials at an appointed time is so last century it’s almost not worth staging. Then again, there’s that contract with that big payment. Only 56% of Americans still watch satellite and cable TV. Think about that, Dan Bongino’s YouTube channel reaches more people than CNN. You’ve got to go where the people are, and make it easy for them and ON DEMAND, so they can watch it when they want to.

If other outlets want to get on board… 

No. Everybody needs to know to start at YouTube, you can’t muddy the water here.

And let’s hope that this Grammy extravaganza causes outsiders to participate, not only on TikTok. We want naysayers to create their own videos complaining about who has been left out. And if the Grammys are smart, and they rarely are, an award must be added that is voted for online. I know the ballots are in, so we’re going to create a new category, Entertainer of the Year. I’m not married to the moniker, the hipper the better, but let the fans vote.

Make it available and get the fans involved. It’s not a difficult concept.

And CBS will have no complaints, this will drive traffic to its ultimate awards telecast. And as far as CBS having its own streaming platform… They can give the show away for free there, they can capitalize on the show, but they get none of the run-up on their outlet, because they’ve got too small a footprint and no buzz.

And in truth the awards ceremony should be on Netflix. Which can afford to pay for it and would. But then there’s that old CBS contract to contend with. Once again, you’re married to the past at your peril. But in this case the Grammys have some options and they should grasp them and try to save the organization, because they’ve done a good job of streaming straight ahead into irrelevance.

This is a victory for the little guy.

You see there are two tiers of justice in America, one for the rich and one for the poor. The rich skate while the poor plea bargain and go to jail.

And everybody knows it.

It’s not like this paradigm has been hidden. That’s what the O.J. Simpson trial was all about. Forget whether he did it, the Black man has been treated unfairly by the justice system, and Simpson’s acquittal was pushback.

But both of them were guilty.

And O.J. is about race as opposed to money. He had the best defense money could buy. Which ran circles around the prosecution. Hell, Elizabeth Holmes had the best defense money could buy and she didn’t even have to pay for it! Yes, an insurance policy delivered her defense. Does your employer have such a policy for you? I highly doubt it.

Now if you read all the press, the analysis has been what the effect of Holmes’s conviction will have on behavior in the tech world, in Silicon Valley, BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT! That just demonstrates the myopic elitism that has people voting for Trump. Do you know what it means to be a member of the underclass today? And just about every American is a member of such group. And it’s not only about money, it’s about power, it’s about being in control of your own destiny. It’s been disheartening.

Let’s see, the banks blow up the economy and no one goes to jail. But it gets even worse, these same banks are rescued by the government by one of their own on the inside, Timothy Geithner. It’d be like having a member of the gang as judge when you come up for trial. Imagine that!

And it wasn’t only 2008, it was Covid too. If you were a member of the underclass you had to go to work, expose yourself to Covid, and this was before vaccines were available, Worst offenders? Meat-packing plants and Amazon warehouses. Which paid poorly for work done under heinous conditions by people who couldn’t afford to quit. Meanwhile, those with a desk job could work safely from home, and while the government helped out some of the underclass financially, that paled in comparison to all the bread made by the truly rich. Imagine that, profiting from a disaster! But it’s not only Covid, but Afghanistan, the rest of the Middle East wars. Forget whether we won or lost, the truth is the contractors made a fortune. But building infrastructure overseas is not as sexy as TikTok, so almost no one one knows. And if you think these contracts are open, fair bids, you also think American executives never bribe foreign officials to smooth business operations in their countries. Hell, the OLYMPICS is a hotbed of illegality. You want the games, you’ve got to bribe the officials!

And for a while there, being a tech entrepreneur was the new American game. Popularized everywhere. Hell, that’s the genesis of “Shark Tank”…how do you think those sharks made all that money? And the show is never canceled because there are an endless number of people creating in their backyard trying to get rich, it’s easier than working for the company that has no investment in your future and will fire your ass.

And for a while there, Elizabeth Holmes was the poster child for tech entrepreneurship.

Now here’s where it gets dicey, when I talk about sex. After all, so much of the blowback about this trial and its conviction centers on the fact that Holmes is a woman. But the truth is the conventional venture capitalists in Silicon Valley wouldn’t give her any bread. No, her investments were made by dirty old men reeled in by an attractive young woman. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but Elizabeth Holmes knew exactly what she was doing. When confronted by an employee of the fraud at Theranos, Holmes said…I’M TOO PRETTY TO GO TO JAIL!

That’s a quote.

And that’s another reason we want her behind bars. No one is above the law. Except when they are. Like Trump and his cronies. I mean we live in a banana republic. Roger Stone is convicted for helping Trump get elected and then is pardoned by Donald Trump. This looks bad on the surface, forget the details. And let’s not even mention Steve Bannon.

And Holmes has shown no remorse. Zero. Even worse, she and her team fought the truth every step along the way. She hired David Boies and his impeccable reputation to intimidate John Carreyrou and the “Wall Street Journal” from publishing the truth. They tried to get Tyler Shultz, one of the two main whistleblowers, to sign a document shutting him up. And with this and the Weinstein scandal, Boies’s reputation has taken a hit, then again, this is just the kind of representation bad actors desire.

So Holmes is awaiting trial and…

She’s living a life of glory. With a rich boyfriend in a big house with a new baby. She runs into old Theranos employees at lunch and wants to converse like nothing has happened. Meanwhile, their tours at the company impacted their careers, negatively, and no one is rescuing them.

So it’s this hubris that drives the public wild. Like Elizabeth Holmes is better than us, that she’s above the law. And I’ve got to tell you, if you’re playing the home game, it’s hard not to feel this is American reality. If you’re rich and connected you live a completely different life, not only in lifestyle, but when it comes to laws. WE WANT A CORRECTION!

As for her abuse by her boyfriend…this is like 1/6. We can see the video of the insurrection, but they tell us what’s on the screen is not truthful. That these were heroes quietly protesting. And if you don’t believe that, it was Antifa. And if you don’t believe that, we’ll come up with another cockamamie explanation. Because facts are fungible, there are multiple truths, isn’t that what Kellyanne Conway said when she spoke about alternative facts? Meanwhile, Kellyanne had to quit the Trump administration to save her marriage and her family. Then again, Trump has been married three times with children by each wife. Once again, if you’ve got enough money the rules don’t apply to you. AND TRUMP IS PROUD OF THIS! Being duplicitous and not paying taxes. As for Elizabeth Holmes, the boss with ultimate power, the buck stopping with her, being held back by a boyfriend underling…next we’re gonna hear from Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos that their wives caused their philandering, caused their divorces, that all their bad behavior was attributable to their spouses!

So you watch the game and it’s much more interesting than sports. Then again, we’ve got Formula 1, which rigged its seasonal championship so Lewis Hamilton wouldn’t win once more, to make the sport look more competitive. I don’t know if I can watch anymore, Formula 1’s credibility has been sacrificed. Then again, Formula 1 is no longer owned by racing fanatics but Liberty, which is interested foremost in dollars, not rules. This would be like moving the fences a few hundred feet back while Babe Ruth’s ball was in the air so he would not hit a home run. This would be like the Babe hitting it over the fence between the foul poles and calling it foul instead of fair, making up the rules on the fly to make it a more competitive game.

Everything is done for the money and there’s no fairness. Colin Kaepernick is an American hero but he’s banned from playing in the NFL by rich old white men. They’re taking away his right to earn a living. But racism is the scourge of America. That’s right, when the Black underclass revolts against senseless murder it’s equivalent to trying to topple the government. That’s what white people who watch Fox believe. There’s just no truth I tell you.

As for Silicon Valley…OF COURSE this will have a chilling effect on lying/obfuscation/fraud. To say otherwise is also hubris, working the refs. Believe me, the “Blurred Lines” decision had a chilling effect on music creation. But you create a take, stand with your brethren and push it down people’s throats.

But Elizabeth Holmes has a BABY!

Yeah, right. If you knew you were possibly going to jail you wouldn’t remove your IUD, thinking about the potential child first and foremost. It’s hard not to see the pregnancy as a cynical effort to sway the jury and reduce the term of any potential sentence.

And then Holmes takes the stand and paints an alternative universe of Theranos.

And it’s not like Holmes is some unknown tech insider. If you paid even minimal attention to the press…she was all over it, LAUDED, making you wonder about the veracity of what you read, maybe all those heroes paraded in front of our eyes are actually zeros.

And it’s not like she turned down Harvard when they made her a member of the Board of Fellows of their medical school. And when corporations did not give her the pass/contract she wanted, she just used their logos anyway, she faked it. As she did by constantly saying the army was using Theranos’s systems.

Used to be honor and morality were paramount. But now if you’re accused of something you deny it and fight it, you don’t own up to your faux pas unless you’re an entertainer, who goes to rehab to try and salvage their career.

And today it looks like the Supreme Court will invalidate vaccine mandates.

Read about that antivax 46 year old lawyer in Orange County, the Republican doyenne? She didn’t get vaccinated and she died. Meanwhile, the sick believe they can just get antibodies or a pill if they get Covid when the truth is the supply is so minimal that the treatments are essentially unavailable. Even worse, in the triage, if you got three shots you go to the back of the line, irrelevant of your comorbidities. Meanwhile, those who spurned the shot and got really sick are getting your treatment instead.

I’m just telling you the truth here. And the truth is I’m happy Elizabeth Holmes got convicted, joyous in fact. I don’t like seeing someone’s life ruined, but think of all the lives and fortunes she ruined! She’s got to serve time, enough to hurt. Not like the brief terms of Lori Loughlin and the rest of the college admission manipulators.

Then again, Loughlin has become a pariah, she can’t work, especially not in the wholesome movie field that was her bread and butter. The producers are afraid of the public reaction. But once again, that’s entertainment, the opiate of the masses, the bread and circuses they consume while the people who run this world play by different rules and go unpunished.

Finally, someone has hit the wall. Finally, there is justice. And it’s got nothing to do with the fact that she’s a woman. She broke the law, her sex is irrelevant!

As for her appeal… The public doesn’t realize that an appeal is not a complete retrial, it looks for errors in the original trial, and if there were none, the appeal is denied. But who knows, Holmes may stay out of jail until her kid goes to college, while she has another one or two along the way. Delay, delay, delay. When she could just bite the bullet, go to jail right now and serve her sentence, get out and have a life.

And who could live with the prospect of jail over their head?

Elizabeth Holmes and the rest of the delusional bad actors who think the rules don’t apply to them…

BUT THIS TIME THEY DID!

He was a self-satisfied blowhard, but he had a window…

You had to see “The Last Picture Show.” Not because of any special effects, not because of the look, but because of the performances, because of the story. “The Last Picture Show” impacted the culture. Today’s superhero comic book movies do not. It’s kind of like music. They’re still making it, there’s a business, but it doesn’t even resemble the heyday.

At best we’ve got “The Sopranos” and other extended TV series. But movies? There’s the occasional foreign film or indie flick, but no matter how good these movies are, they don’t have the reach of the films of yore. Few see them, most don’t care about them, and the only thing that counts is…MONEY!

When did this start.

You can talk about Steven Spielberg, with “Jaws.” Spielberg is a fine-tuned machine, he knows how to create tension, drama, but he’s not an auteur. He’s a television director, isn’t that how he made his name, with “Duel’?

But George Lucas was something different. “American Graffiti” captured the zeitgeist of the early sixties. And then it was the look and feel of “Star Wars” that was such a breakthrough. The dirtiness, the grunginess, it wasn’t made to be loved by everyone but that’s why it was. The more personal you make it, the more you go inside, the more it resonates with the public.

Lucas burned himself out. But before both he and Spielberg, we had Francis Ford Coppola. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t seen “The Godfather,” it’s embedded in American culture. And I’m of the belief that the second is better than the first, I’m of the belief that “Godfather II” is the best film ever made. “The Godfather” had everything: the look, the feel, the story… Unfortunately, Coppola could never reach that height again He came close with “Apocalypse Now,” but the freedom of the cash, owning his own studio, getting invested in technological breakthroughs, trying to always top himself, ultimately detracted from the product, and he never could get himself back to the garden.

And then came the eighties.

I’ve been trying to think when all this nonsense began. It’s easy to say it was with Trump, then again was he a symptom or a cause? Actually, I don’t think we’d be in this democratic crisis if it weren’t for Trump. He has turned the election process into a farce. When the Republicans win the presidency in 2024 the Democrats will accept it. And believe me, the Republicans will win, because otherwise the Republicans won’t accept it, but the truth is they’ve rigged the system, so they can’t possibly lose.

But before Trump we had Mitch McConnell, who broke the country by refusing to hold hearings over Merrick Garland’s nomination for the Supreme Court. Mitch is of the belief that he’s winning, but he’s losing. Do you have faith in the Supreme Court? I certainly don’t, especially not one that has thrown out the bedrock legal concept of stare decisis and is about to get rid of Roe v. Wade, even though the majority of the public wants abortion rights.

But then before that we had Newt Gingrich in the nineties. Let’s not even talk about Bush II…where Gore was gracious and conceded. Never mind the fact that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs.

And before Newt we had Ronald Reagan. Who told us that government was evil and we were on our own. It’s Reagan who started breaking the country, but let’s be clear, the public was for it, the boomers wanted their educations turned into riches. Reagan is responsible for income inequality, the scourge of our nation, even though he’s got endless edifices bearing his name.

So it became about money. Quick, how much money did “The Last Picture Show” make? NO ONE HAS ANY IDEA!

And the truth is there was publicity about the grosses of “What’s Up, Doc?,” but if you weren’t a student of the game, you were unaware.

As for “Paper Moon”… Tatum O’Neal and her two hundred dollars, that’s what you remember, from an era where lines uttered in movies became legendary.

So there was a schism. In the late sixties, the directors took the power from the studios, just like the musicians took the power from the labels. But by 1980 the execs had regained power in the film business. Too many auteurs had spent too much money on flops. And why go for the small money when you can go for the big? That’s what amateurs don’t understand, studios don’t want to make $5 million on your $10 million picture. Forget the opportunity cost, never mind the marketing cost, the profits are just too low. They don’t pay for private jets, they don’t pay for the LIFESTYLE! And that’s what everybody is competing on today, lifestyle. That’s what you post to social media, not your possessions, and it takes a lot of money to keep up with the Joneses.

So when “The Last Picture” show came out, most Americans had not been to Texas, flights were still expensive, airline fares were regulated by the government. So, you got insight into a whole ‘nother world, in addition to getting insight into your own.

But Peter Bogdanovich broke the moral code, leaving his wife for Cybill Shepherd, and then the public was out to get him, they couldn’t accept it, never mind ultimately having a thrice-married presidential philanderer. And when he misstepped with “Daisy Miller,” it was over. Not only did the film miss the mark artistically, Cybill Shepherd was not up to the part, she didn’t yet have the acting chops she displayed in the eighties in “Moonlighting.”

“At Long Last Love” was another turkey, Bogdanovich was too far from his element, and although he came back with “Nickelodeon,” the buzz was done, he’d been superseded, and since it took a lot of money to make movies, his opportunities diminished greatly.

So then Peter returned to his roots, with the smaller picture, “Saint Jack,” but it was for believers, and there weren’t that many of them left.

“They All Laughed” had a bigger budget, but less critical success, and then came “Mask,” a return to form, but the credit went to Cher and the film didn’t push the envelope like Bogdanovich’s earlier work and that was it. Peter made some more movies but the impact was low. And word started to spread that it was Polly Platt, his original wife, who made his initial films so great.

And then there was the soap opera of Dorothy Stratten, never mind her sister, and Bogdanovich became a pariah.

Oh, but those early movies.

Eventually Bogdanovich was given some airtime, he got a reprieve, since his buddy Orson Welles was now dead and he could tell stories about him. And just like Orson, when you can’t get a film made, you rely on your stories. And then the film business changed so much Bogdanovich was called in to testify about the old days, when we all still believed in the power of movies.

That’s not to say we don’t have cutting edge art forms today. But they’re not movies and music. Once again, the excellence of movies has moved to TV, the art conforms to the medium, and on the flat screen you can go deeper, do ten hours instead of two. Meanwhile, albums with only one good track conformed to the CD and got longer and longer, to the point where it became about the single and only the single and the internet blew up the whole business.

And today the public are the stars. The world has changed, and those who don’t change with it are left behind.

That’s what’s confronting us today, the changed world.

And it changes when you’re not paying attention. Read this article by Indi Samarajiva. He lived through the Sri Lanka civil war, in many ways it was business as usual, just like in America today.

“I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There. Living in Sri Lanka during the end of the civil war, I saw how life goes on, surrounded by death”: https://bit.ly/31x2nEi

But even more, you must read this article in “The Guardian” that delineates today’s America, to oblivious Democrats who believe the system still works, but it doesn’t.

“The next US civil war is already here – we just refuse to see it”: https://bit.ly/3pY7eYC

Today when people talk about old films, they talk about pics from the late nineties and early two thousands. Kind of like oldies radio, the sixties are in the rearview mirror, as are the seventies. Everyone says what is made today is just as good, but they’re just convincing themselves, it’s totally untrue. Computers are better. There’s been a communications revolution, but now politics has the public eye…think about it, name one major musician who’s aligned with a political vision, who is trying to move the ball forward? I can’t think of one. As for those on the right side of the fence, they just want to jet back to a past that never even existed in the first place. Country music is not only rearguard in belief, but sound… It sounds like the rock music of the seventies, albeit with lamer lyrics. And the heroes of the younger generation? THE KARDASHIANS! Forget the music competition shows, the Kardashian family knew their show had to be all about them all the time, to make them household names. And they glommed on to every publicity opportunity. It was all about mindshare and money, and now everybody is trying to replicate their paradigm, but in music? Everybody’s bitching about TikTok and social media and stating that the album cycle must be maintained, just like the inane “Billboard” chart… Our country is not about albums whatsoever, but you wouldn’t know that by reading the music press, never mind listening to most of the musicians.

As for doing it yourself, Max Martin is the biggest star in America. He’s the Idolmaker, we’re living in the early sixties. Bobby Rydell sold records too!

But once upon a time…

You went to the movie theatre and…

It was far from expensive. And the lights went down…

Nobody had a cellphone. And most people didn’t talk, because the films were seen as art, you bathed in the experience, and you talked about the pictures for years thereafter. It was about social impact, not grosses, and the movies had an impact, art drove society, it does not today.

For a while there, technology drove the culture. And just like with music, you can’t tell the techies their days are done. No, the public is in charge today. And people are oftentimes misinformed, but in a culture where you tell people what they want to hear, they’re convinced their opinions are right. Proud To Be Dumb, that’s the motto of today’s America.

And America itself isn’t even the same. The self-professed Greatest Country in the World”? Er, no. We’re less vaccinated, upward mobility is lower and the minority either rules or prevents the majority from enacting legislation. You can argue, but that just proves my point. Where have you been? Been to Canada? Scandinavia? They don’t want you, but they know they’ve got it better than you do.

Everybody keeps fighting yesterday’s war. Like arguing about Spotify payments and talking up vinyl, even cassettes. Most people don’t even know how Spotify pays, they’re unfamiliar with publishing splits, never mind on demand versus radio, and know nothing about record royalties. But that does not mean they don’t have an opinion, which they get from the ill-informed whose message is spread by websites for traffic, because to learn that making bucks in music is just too scary and difficult…no one wants to hear that.

But I lived through the golden era of art.

And I lived through the golden era of the internet.

And despite all the wankers saying they don’t want to hear about politics, they don’t want to hear anything negative, I’m doing my best to pay attention to what is going on, because that’s all that’s going on, we’re in a fight for democracy, our American way of life.

But we used to have time for art, we could take our eye off the ball. Except when our heroes said to pay attention. These artists who could not be influenced by the man and his money.

I remember yesterday, and I remember Peter Bogdanovich, and he made some of the greatest films ever, I’ll certainly always remember them. They were anything but disposable.

But today most of America has no idea who Peter Bogdanovich was. They’re living in the present, refusing to comb the past for lessons and experiences.

But Bogdanovich left us the bread crumbs, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the movies, they’re there to partake of if you wish.

You should.