That’s right, the hoi polloi, the supposed flyover people, the peanut gallery…WE RULE!

And we have contempt for you if you step out of your lane. We may even have contempt for you if you stay in your lane!

That’s what the billionaire backlash is all about.

Stoking the starmaker machinery
Behind the popular song

No one is a free man in Paris anymore. Everybody’s findable. Just like you! Jeffrey Katzenberg used to say if you don’t bother to come in on Saturday, don’t even think about coming in on Sunday, at least that’s the legend. Today, if you don’t answer your e-mail on the weekend, if you don’t get back to people right away, you’re gonna lose your job. That’s what separates today’s winners from the losers. Those willing to work 24/7 and those who are not.

Oh, don’t give me all this wellness crap. That’s just liberal b.s. to deal with future shock. This is the world we live in and we like it! We like the adrenaline hit of our phones buzzing, that means someone cares about us, someone needs us, WE’RE IMPORTANT!

So right now they’re televising the Golden Globes. I remember when movie stars were heroes, larger than life. Now they’re just actors, propped up by a hype-industrial complex that believes nothing has changed…you know, you hire a publicist to get you into the paper and you’ve got gravitas. Only today you don’t. Because stars aren’t made in the papers. As for the print ones, ask the reporters, they’re all on Twitter, not wanting to miss a beat.

So there used to be idolmakers. They even made a movie about it. You find someone, even if they’re two-dimensional, without talent, and you turn them into a star, you’ve got all the relationships, you push the button and it happens, at least often enough. But now terrestrial radio is calcified, stars are made on streaming services, the traditional outlets come last. And hell, even Ricky Gervais made a joke about the power of Netflix…yup, I caught that in the news online…do you really think I’m going to sit through all those commercials?

Of course there are young nitwits looking up to pop stars. But that’s also why the pop stars have gotten so young. Billie Eilish is their contemporary, not Zach de la Rocha. The young ‘uns aren’t into the oldsters and the oldsters…they don’t know what the hell is up.

So if you raise your head above the fray, if you think you’re important…

You’re gonna be knocked down.

If you haven’t experienced this, you’re just not popular enough. That’s right, save the planet, create world peace, there are still gonna be haters online giving you grief. They’ve got power, they’ve got a microphone, they want you to know if they just got off their asses, they could do it too. And some of them do! Which is why we’re inundated with entertainment product online. Remember when the usual suspects bitched that piracy would ruin creativity, that no one would bother to create if they couldn’t get paid? Turns out creativity abhors a vacuum. While the oldsters were bitching about recorded music payments the rappers were giving it away for free online and they’re now the ones getting paid on streaming services, proving once again if you don’t go with the flow, it buries you.

Pete Buttigieg? Getting money from the fat cats? Money can’t buy you love. We all believe we’re entitled to access, that we’re in this together, and if you leave us outside…either we don’t care about you or you’re gonna pay the price. There was an article in the L.A. “Times” about crashing the Golden Globes. Why? Who cares?

It’s kinda like the movie industry doesn’t understand we live in an on demand economy, and unless we can have it when we want it, we probably don’t need it. I saw “Marriage Story” because it was on Netflix. The rest of the Oscar contenders? Do you expect me to waste that much time, to drive to the theatre, park, endure the trailers and the talk just to see a flick that’s probably not that great anyway?

Yup, that’s the movie industry, they want to get rid of Rotten Tomatoes! They think it’s unfair! Believe me, the public loves it, I live by it, I check the ratings before I watch anything, I don’t want to waste my time, I don’t want to be duped.

We all know everything. Yup, we’re privy to the same information as the fat cats. And if the fat cats want to pull one over on us, we rebel. Which is why the stars with the most dedicated fan bases are those on the so-called periphery, jam bands, Americana, they’re accessible to their audience, they don’t talk down to them.

So what happens now?

Ratings for awards shows continue to tank. Hell, it’s easier just to go online and look up who won rather than endure hours of b.s.

But the truth is all network TV, all real-time TV, is in a bind. That’s just not how we live our lives anymore.

And it affects all media.

Despite raising e-book prices to the point they’re oftentimes more expensive than hard copies, the truth is e-books are burgeoning at libraries! Just think, you don’t have to even leave your home! You look up what’s available online and you get it immediately, or queue up for when it becomes available. And the publishers are pissed! They’re changing the terms libraries acquire these books at. Then again, they could have gone along with Amazon to begin with, and priced e-books so low people wouldn’t bother with the library. If you try and protect your old turf…you lose.

Make America Great Again?

Only by embracing the future. Globalization. People of color.

We’re not going backwards baby. You’re addicted to your cheap flat screen. Hell, manufacturing is going down in the U.S., despite Trump saying he’s going to bring it back.

It’s like we’re in a giant high school!

And the real stars of the young are not the people they’re fed by the machine, but those who make it all on their lonesome, online. Yup, the YouTube stars, the influencers…they’re seen as more real, they’re accessible.

Sure, the stars of yore still have pull, that’s the essence of classic rock.

But they don’t make ’em like that anymore. The classic rock stars benefited from the scarcity of product. You were addicted to the radio and you could only buy a few albums. Today? It’s a smorgasbord of product, everyone’s sampling and if they don’t like something they don’t play it until they do, they move on!

This is what populism is about. A reaction to the libs who think they know better.

This is what Bernie and Elizabeth are about. They appeal to the young and those left out. And the establishment hates it! The establishment likes to maintain control!

Give the Republicans credit, they rallied around Trump after he won, it’s the only way they could maintain power. Yup, it’s positively tribal out there, but it’s not only Democrat and Republican, it’s metal and the rest of the genres. Sure, people graze…but chances are you haven’t listened to a metal record in years. It’s not the metal of yesterday, you need a secret decoder ring to understand it, and that’s just the way that tribe likes it.

So you can build it…

But they may not come.

You may triumph…

And then immediately lose.

Today, if you’re not in it for the long haul, don’t even bother, just get a straight job and stay out of entertainment. The road is harder than ever. Despite everybody being able to play at little or no cost, it’s nearly impossible to gain adherents, i.e. fans. But if you pay your dues and treat your audience right you can gain a living.

Look at the Coachella lineup. The reason most of these acts are not stars is because there’s not room for them in today’s landscape, and there are so many other options. There can only be a few people we all know. Then again, other than Billie Eilish, who in truth has been in development for years, who else has broken through in the past year? Drake, the rest of today’s stars…they made it years ago. And every year is different, change is rampant. And chances are if you’re not down in the niche, you’ve got no idea what’s happening in it.

That’s another feature of the modern era, you can’t get a hold on everything…you can barely get a hold on anything! It’s all about your own little life, baby. You’re the star of your own movie. Literally! Posting on Instagram and YouTube!

Every year the landscape flattens more. And if you want to jump genres, from one success to another? Good luck! People resent you using your money and relationships to try and do this. That’s what people have against Bloomberg, irrelevant of his beliefs, they feel manipulated!

And the only way to be a true star today is to maintain your credibility…don’t blow with the wind, don’t play for dictators, don’t change your beliefs willy-nilly. People still need people to believe in, but today you’ve got to have a CV, and you must not leave your channel and tell us you know better, BECAUSE YOU DON’T!

No one knows who anybody is anymore!

My e-mail has been buzzing with the Coachella lineup. Who are these acts? Can they really draw fans, is their audience that big?

Now Rage Against the Machine… They’re headliners, their reunion is news, but are forty and fiftysomethings going to Coachella? I don’t think so, unless they’re insiders with passes.

Travis Scott is a big deal, as is Frank Ocean. But read the second line of the lineup (www.coachella.com) Do you know who each of these acts is? Have you even heard their names? Read below that and it’s gobbledygook, some names stick out, but most are unknown!

This is not a negative reflection on Coachella itself, it shows the power of the festival, that it doesn’t really matter who is on stage, it’s an event built for today, when the audience is just as important as those on stage, if not more. And one thing’s for sure, Boomers and Gen-X’ers don’t want to stand in a field to see their favorites. But really, you’ve got to ask, WHO ARE THESE ACTS?

In case you think you’re out of it, I draw your attention to this article:

“We Asked You to Name These Athletes, Politicians and Celebrities. Here’s How You Did.”

Actually, before you delve into the article, take the quiz yourself:

Quiz: Can You Identify These Politicians, Athletes and Celebrities? Most Americans Can’t.

There are 52 faces, hang in there. I got 40 right, which put me at 79% of “New York Times” readers. In other words, 21% did better than me. And two I knew and the names just would not come to me, Steve Bullock and Stacey Abrams, but there were some who baffled me, I had no idea.

Then read the analysis. (Actually, you can skip the quiz and scroll right down to the analysis.)

You know who was recognized most in the U.S?

Oprah Winfrey.

Then came Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian.

The fifth most recognized person in the quiz? Bernie Sanders! 67% of Americans recognized him.

Only 56% of Americans recognized Joe Biden. And this is fascinating, because 92% of “Times” readers did (Bernie was at 91%), so you can see where the bias originates. “Times” readers and writers are in a bubble. They think Biden is known best!

But it gets even more fascinating when you scroll down to the generations…

Gen Z, age 13-22? About 50% knew Bernie Sanders. Only about 21% recognized Joe Biden.

When it came to Millennials, 23-38? About 65% could pick out Sanders, about 45% could pick out Biden.

Gen-X, 39-54? About 70% recognized Sanders, about 10% less recognized Biden.

Boomers, 55-73? Bernie was recognized by 75%, Biden was just a bit higher.

Then you’ve got to look at the total picture, of all 52 faces. Only 32% of Gen Z recognized Tom Brady. And they say football is our national pastime and will dominate forever! Obviously a lot of kids aren’t interested.

48% of Gen Z recognized Bernie Sanders, only 12% recognized Elizabeth Warren.

Now I’ll let you go deeper, and you should, even if you abhor the “Times.” Because the research demonstrates that even if you’re a household name…you may not be. Only 66% of Gen Z could recognize Kim Kardashian? Yes, 81% of Millennials could, but it shows that Kim K. is just a product of her generation, and will be forgotten like everybody before her.

So, despite being Vice President for eight years, Biden is not as well known as Sanders.

You’d think this would be impossible, with all the press, the debates…but the truth is a lot of people are not watching, are not paying attention to the news. That’s how hard it is to reach people today. That’s why Trump got such a big bump being on TV every week.

What did the Firesign Theatre say…”Everything you know is wrong?”

What you think is popular probably isn’t. You think everybody knows, but they don’t.

And you wonder why there’s chaos in the world.

I’ll pull up a Spotify playlist and wonder…am I the only person who has ever heard this track? There’s no context, no groove to fall into. At least with TV there are fewer shows. But society is just overwhelming!

So, all that press, that buzz you see and read about new and established acts?

It isn’t having that much of an effect. It’s mostly an echo chamber. Especially because you have to click over to Spotify or YouTube to check out their music, and that’s just too much effort. You’re overwhelmed, you’ve got no time, you’re waiting to hear from your friends, your trusted sources, whether it’s worth the investment.

And the “Billboard” sales numbers are anemic.

And the Spotify streams… They may be in the millions, but is that just the same teens playing the same songs on 24/7 repeat?

It’s not only Facebook and social media that have lost control, where the platform has moved beyond the grasp of its handlers. What do all those streams on Spotify and YouTube mean? How many unique individuals are listening, how much? And since the money is in the data, very little of it falls down to the hoi polloi, and Facebook, YouTube and Spotify’s are all about the money, the underlying culture is secondary, if not irrelevant.

We’re living on a Tower of Babel planet and all the old sources are telling us we’re not, that life is cohesive, understandable, if we just place faith in them and their impaired outlook.

We are not at the beginning and we are not at the end.

For twenty years we were wowed by technical innovation.

Now, for the next twenty years, we’re gonna try to make sense of it.

Tesla met its delivery goal.

My first car was a ’63 Chevy. Passed down to me from my sister. It was a convertible, it was loaded, and if you didn’t keep your eyes on the road it would pull right off of it. On a cold day in January, right after New Year’s, it wouldn’t start. So I went to the gas station in Manchester, Vermont and they installed an Interstate battery. My brain said I needed a Diehard, but there was no Sears in sight, watcha gonna do?

My following car was a BMW 2002. If it wasn’t totaled by a drunk driver on St. Patrick’s Day, I’d still be driving it. As it was, I still drove that thing for 180,000 miles. The first 120,000 miles were hell, literally everything broke, even the steering wheel, but after that, it was a dream!

Except for the batteries.

It came with a Varta. Heard of it? Probably not. You probably know Bosch, if you’re old enough you remember Blaupunkt. But this was before most people knew what a BMW was. I’d drive it cross-country and people would stare. It handled like a dream, you could drive right into a dip and it would absorb it, and the visibility!! It’s like someone lost the formula, have you seen the recent Lexus RXs? How you supposed to see out of that thing? Anyway, the Varta only lasted three months. And they would not replace it for free. And the dealer said it was junk anyway. So they recommended a local replacement, a J battery. It was a quarter the price and lasted about a year. After that, I’d go to Sears. The Diehards died. And when they did, after you got jumped, the car would fart as you drove it, you thought the thing was gonna explode, you drove to Sears to get a replacement immediately, where people were lined up at the Ticketron window, that’s how long ago it was.

And after that 2002 got totaled, after ten years, I got a 325e. That car required fewer repairs, but by this point people knew what a BMW was and the repair prices were insane! Nothing major would break, but the cost of a minor repair would set you back just as much. People would ask me about buying used BMWs and I’d say NO!, they had no idea of the costs involved, even if you had an independent mechanic, and they started to fall by the wayside, because the cars became more electronic and they didn’t have the equipment to test and repair them.

The battery of the 325e was in the trunk. Supposedly there wasn’t enough room up front. If you wanted to jump it, there was an electrical stump under the hood that you’d attach the cable to. And despite jumping cars ad infinitum in the sixties in Vermont, by this point they were telling you to not attach the negative cable to the post, but to a body part. I only had to jump the 325e once, in a blizzard, on a surface that was not flat, it was an adventure. But luckily, by this point batteries were maintenance free, which meant you didn’t have to put water in them, which was a huge pain in the ass in the old days, especially if you have OCD and you’re worried about the acid.

Then again, in my 2002, when it wouldn’t start, I’d have to go out and clean the battery posts. My skin would be ravaged. But you didn’t want to call Triple-A unless the car was absolutely dead.

So now I’ve got my Saabaru. Yup, it says Saab, but really it’s a Subaru WRX. I wanted a WRX, but when I test drove it it was stiff like a race car, and after putting Bilsteins in my 2002, I knew there was such a thing as too stiff, so I passed. But then Jim Rondinelli told me about the Saab 9-2x, which was a WRX, albeit with a slightly less stiff suspension and the steering rack of the WRX STi, which is essentially a race car, you know, you see them on the street, the ones with the wing.

So my car drives fantastically.

But that’s all it does.

It’s got a turbocharged engine, from back when that was a rare thing, when only performance cars had them.

And it’s got four wheel drive.

And if you’re buying that much performance, of course you get a stick, all of my cars except for the Chevy were sticks.

And being a Japanese automobile… It breaks less and the repairs are cheaper. But it still breaks, which surprises me, because I know people with Hondas and Toyotas with hundreds of thousands of miles that have been essentially maintenance free.

And speaking of maintenance, at first it was free, and you had to go to the Saab dealer, where they knew absolutely nothing about Subarus. The service writer did me a favor just before the warranty wore out, he installed a new battery. But then a friend noticed the tail lights weren’t working and I brought it back and there was battery acid everywhere, they installed the wrong battery.

From then on I took it to the Subaru place.

Where I bought a new battery, sooner than I thought was necessary, but I didn’t want the car to die in the hinterlands.

And in 2016, when I got rotator cuff surgery and the car wasn’t driven, I called AAA for a jump-start and they said the battery was dead, or was gonna die soon. Once again, I didn’t want to run on fumes, so I told them to replace it. And the deal is they come to your house and there’s a three year for free replacement warranty and…what the hell.

So I got home from a trip and the car wouldn’t start.

Cool. They jumped it, and I drove it and let it idle for another forty minutes, which is even longer than you need to to recharge the battery, and it started right away, but the next morning it wouldn’t. I had to go to a doctor’s appointment, so I borrowed Felice’s car, and by time I was free it was dark so I waited until this morning to call AAA.

Jose came in less than thirty minutes.

It’s all contracted out. And if you have a battery problem, they come in a pickup, not the whole tow truck. And the alarm went off when I opened the door, however softly, because the remote would not work. And Jose went about testing and…

I asked him how long he’d been doing this.

He said ten years.

I thought this was kind of an intermediary stop, you know, something people do for a few years and then move on. Which drives me crazy, because no one’s an expert. I figured Jose was an expert.

And yup, the battery was dead. How can this be? Other than the 2002, batteries lasted five years, it’s barely been three, I noticed it occasionally didn’t start on the first turn of the key, but I figured it was a deeper problem, like the starter, and I didn’t want to get it checked out, I’m anal about my car, if the service center says to do it, I do, and I’m trying not to put money into this car, even though my original goal was to drive it until we had driverless cars, which I now know will not happen.

And if I get a new car, I’m gonna get something I want, but I don’t want to spend the money, which leaves me driving the Saabaru.

But in a car-based city, I’m uber-uptight about a new machine. So having an old one…I’m less uptight.

As for leasing… That’s like setting a match to money, unless someone else is paying. And I don’t need to drive a new car every few years. That’s one thing about getting older, you stop worrying about impressing people, you are who you are. Actually, when people try to keep up with the Joneses you laugh, you figure they’re emotionally retarded.

So Jose likes his job. He looks young, but he’s over forty. And he’s married with two kids. And his wife manages a supermarket. I ask him if that’s a hard job, and he says it’s a good job, but I wouldn’t want to manage all those people, there are always one or two bad apples that make your life hell.

I asked Jose how he met her. He told me he’s Nicaraguan. And although he was born here, he met her on a trip down there.

You see this is de rigueur in California. We’ve got no problem with immigrants, sometimes it seems they outnumber those born here. And I wasn’t born here, I immigrated here, albeit from the east coast. I got here before the tide turned, before people became so jealous they had to denigrate the place. I can bitch all day about Los Angeles, but there’s nowhere I’d rather live. Sure, the traffic is hell. But it’s a land of freedom. The only person who ever asked me my SAT scores was from the east coast. It’s a fluid society, and everybody treats you like maybe you’re floating to the top, even though everybody’s so into their own trip they ignore you, which is exactly what I want.

So Jose has got two kids and as we’re talking he asks me if I have the receipt for the old battery.

OF COURSE I DO! THAT’S JUST THE KIND OF GUY I AM!

Turns out, on a prorated basis, I’ll have to pay just shy of eighty bucks. Cool, install it.

And then I’m thinking of battery installations previous.

They’re fewer than those in the 2002, but they still happen.

Why does the damn car need a battery, why are there so many moving parts?

So I was talking to Ron Stone’s kid Zach the other night about his Tesla 3. Ron said Zach loved it, couldn’t stop testifying about it.

I asked about charging. Zach said it was a non-issue. And that the charging curve was steep, you got a lot of miles right at the beginning, it’s only if you wanted the last couple that it took a long time.

But what stuck with me was when I asked Zach about maintenance costs. You hear all these stories about build quality.

Zach had driven it for 31,000 miles and the only money he’d spent on maintenance was for window washer fluid.

Hmm…

Now Teslas need no tuneups, there are very few moving parts. And the acceleration/performance is of near-supercar quality.

And sure, the batteries in a Tesla are more voluminous and integral than they are in my Saabaru. And if you drive a Prius long enough you need a new battery pack, which ain’t cheap.

And the right wing can’t stop laughing about electric cars. As for pollution, there is less, even though you’ve got to create the electricity, because electric engines are so much more efficient, i.e. the energy goes to power, whereas with gasoline internal combustion engines, a lot of the energy is thrown off in useless heat.

And supposedly Tesla would be eclipsed by the major car companies when they got up to speed, but the truth is Tesla’s battery technology is far superior.

So, does Tesla win?

Damned if I know. Look at WeWork. As for Elon Musk, he’s got a credibility problem, he’s demonstrated that nerds are not normal, but he is a visionary. If you want to make America great again, it will be about pushing the envelope of the future, not returning to the past.

And in the future I don’t want to own a car. And people won’t. Because it’s a bad use of a resource, it sits parked most of the time.

But I can’t get a Tesla anyway, because I’ve got to park my car on the street, we’ve only got a one car garage.

But it’s funny to be living on the cusp of the future, caught between two worlds. I’m replacing my car battery, Zach Stone has never stopped at a gas station, his car won’t need the fuel injection cleaned.

We expect everything to work right out of the box, until it doesn’t, then we throw it away and get a new one, which bugs oldsters, they’d rather repair, but that’s a bad use of human resources. Furthermore I don’t trust humans, I trust machines. Yup, straight off the factory floor, that’s how I like my products, as soon as a human touches them…they oftentimes screw them up, like I said, they’re only in the gig for a while and they’re low-paid with little expertise.

But I’m confident Jose did a good job.

But I’d rather not buy another battery for this car.

Jamie Kitman is not only a music manager, he’s the New York Bureau Chief at “Automobile” magazine. In addition to his column in “Automobile,” Kitman’s National Magazine Award-winning commentary has appeared in “The New York Times,” “The Nation,” “GQ,” “Foreign Affairs” and more. Listen as Kitman gives the scoop on SUVs (they make more profits for the manufacturers and handle much worse than sedans) and his history managing They Might Be Giants.

Check out some of Jamie’s columns here:

Articles by Jamie Kitman

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