Thank god I live in California.

Not only does California have the lowest covid infection rate in the country: https://wapo.st/3klHYZk starting October 7th you’ve got to be vaccinated or show a negative test to attend an event with 10,000 people or more: https://lat.ms/2VXPeBy That’s another reason Newsom won by such a large margin, COVID!

The story was that by having dinner at the French Laundry he sacrificed not only all credibility, but the ability to govern the state. When did we enter this zero tolerance era? It was beyond stupid that Newsom broke his own covid rules, but last I checked people learn from experience. And if it was about faux pas, wouldn’t Trump have been impeached? Oh, that’s right, he was, twice, but his lackeys wouldn’t allow him to be convicted, because loyalty to the team is everything.

Turns out most people are for vaccination, and they’re sick and tired of the people who won’t get jabbed. If you won’t get jabbed you’re no friend of mine, you’re just a narcissistic self-dealing pariah endangering the rest of the population because… Exactly why? You can’t say the vaccine isn’t safe, then again you do, and we live in a Facebook world where anything goes, but despite the words of Kellyanne Conway, facts do exist, however obfuscated they might be.

So in the wake of Newsom’s victory the Democrats are changing their strategy, kumbaya is out the window, they’re no longer going for unity, they’re now going to run against Trump and the anti-vaxxers: https://wapo.st/3lEB0Ox Turns out that’s a winning strategy, because there are more people on the anti-Trump/pro-vaccine team than the other way around, VASTLY more! It’s just that those who oppose them are very vocal and threatening to the point where people are afraid to speak up. It’s like the woke police in reverse. Say anything supporting vaccines and your inbox will fill up with hate, vitriol that is not only words, physical harm will be threatened. Leaving us in a Northern Ireland situation.

That’s the talk right now. That that’s where we are. And that peace needs to be brokered between the sides.

But all that blathering is by people who’ve never been to Belfast, where not only does the anger still boil, there are walls between Catholics and Protestants. The Berlin Wall? Holds nothing against the walls in Northern Ireland, and they still stand! And sure, you can venture from one side to the other, from one neighborhood to the other, but you’d better be on your guard.

Which is where we’re going to in America.

All bets are off. The Republicans call for Milley’s resignation when they break the Constitution constantly. Thank god someone stood up to Trump, otherwise you end up with an authoritarian akin to his hero Putin. And there are people who still support Putin, did you read the investigation of voters?

“As Russians Vote, Resignation, Anger and Fear of a Post-Putin Unknown”: https://nyti.ms/3znAidA

Turns out many hate Putin but vote for him anyway, remembering what it was like in the nineties with the corruption and endless battle for assets from the soon to be oligarchs. This is the same way many Republicans vote for Trump and his cronies, because a vote for Democrats is a vote for socialism, the “colored” people will take over, they’ll hand you free food in your government housing and the American way of life will cease to exist, even though the vision they cling to hasn’t existed for half a century.

Not that the Democrats are a picnic either:

“Despite AOC’s infamous dress, Democrats are getting cold feet on actually taxing the rich”: https://wapo.st/3AucfuY

This is why so many have given up on the system. The fat cats pay the politicians and they ultimately get their way. The definitive statement is the failure to get rid of the carried interest rule, despite it serving no purpose other than to make financial managers even richer.

As for California, as the screws have been tightened on vaccination the truth has been revealed, so many of the public employees are scoundrels.

There’s that firefighter who’s bitching that he’s got no freedom to abstain while he actually resides in Texas and made $247,000 last year. If that doesn’t spin your head, you aren’t aware that 2,600 members of the LAPD want religious exemptions to getting the vaccine. And we thought the firefighters and the police were on our side, serving and defending the people. Absolutely not! They’re a right wing cabal. But at least L.A. keeps tightening the screws, no overtime from working at events or off-duty security unless you’re vaxxed or show a negative test: https://lat.ms/3nGuSrU You hit them where it hurts, in their pocketbook, that’ll get ’em vaxxed. And overtime is where these public employees keep making all that money, how do you think that firefighter made 247k in a year? And he’s far from the only one.

The rich know to do their lobbying behind closed doors, to ensure plausible deniability. But those still working for a paycheck are too stupid to know how the game is played. Angelenos are flipped-out that you can live outside the city, get paid by the city, and refuse to keep them safe. There will be consequences.

Meanwhile, Texas is a paradise. Florida too. Lands of freedom.

As for California, if you listened to these bloviators you’d think it’s wall to wall homeless people and that houses in the hinterlands cost a million dollars. Homeless come to California because the weather is good, it’s just that simple. And everybody wants to live in the city, that’s why housing is so expensive. Take that you rural nitwits.

And they are nitwits.

For far too long the tail has been wagging the dog, the minority has ruled. Hell, McConnell refusing to raise the debt ceiling? They only believe in government, compromise, forward movement if they’re in power. Larry Elder was bitching that the election was fixed before it even took place. Talk about threats to democracy.

And I’m not writing this for the right. They’ll be the first to react, my inbox will go nuclear, with scathing attacks, false information from unknown websites. No, this is for those of you on the left, who are scared, who think you are losing. YOU’RE NOT! Things are moving in the right direction, now is not the time to be depressed, now is the time to exalt, to push forward. Know that the majority is on your side. That’s a fact, not an opinion. And people are pissed at these anti-vaxxers. So feel free to call these people out.

This is what happens when you push too far. And never forget, what people care about most is the safety of themselves and their loved ones, and when something threatens their family there’s nothing they won’t do to ensure their safety. This has got nothing to do with “freedom,” this has to do with life and death. As for the harmlessness of covid:

“1 in 3 COVID-19 patients suffer from long COVID, a CDC study of Long Beach residents finds”: https://lat.ms/3ksovGN

And if you’re feeling lucky, think the odds are on your side, that you can fight off the virus by being diligent, employing your God-given immune system, I leave you with this:

From: sari leon

Subject: Re: Vaccine Mandates

Hi Bob,

To your loyal fans: GET F’IN VACC’D

My partner did not get vaccinated. He’s a strong healthy guy who has followed all masking  protocols, we never eat indoors, and have gone the zinc, D3, C vitamin cocktail since 12/19.  I’m fully vaccinated.  He got Covid, I got him scheduled for regeneron treatment within 72 hours of diagnosis.  He was fine for 24 hours and then the s__t hit the fan.  It’s day 10 and  I’ve already had 911 here but they thought he was better off at home- as I am a MA – then taking him since there was a 90 minute wait at the closest hospital’s ER.  So now I have an oxygen unit here which he is using 24/7 as his O2 without oxygen hovers around 88%.  Oh, and trying to even obtain the medical equipment?  I reserved one and said we’d be paying cash. He’s on a steroidal inhaler and a steroid dospack, to help his lungs.  I have becomes kinder  Nurse Ratchet and he has become weaker each day.  I can only pray that he turns a corner for the better sooner than later but whenever, his struggle for full recovery will take months.  It’s alarming as he could play tennis for hours 3 x per week and now he can hardly get to the bathroom.

GET F’IN VACC’D

sl

Florida 

It’s freaking me out. What happened to summer?

I just walked out the front door to get the mail and not only was the light yellow instead of white, there was a nip in the air, at least by California standards, I’ve been wearing a sweatshirt all day whereas just last week I was wrestling with Felice how low to set the A/C.

The seasons change subtly in Los Angeles. When you’re a newbie you think it’s all the same, but it’s not. Live here long enough and you’re hip to the subtleties. There comes a point when you’ve got to have an extra layer at night. And that happened this week.

I was out hiking and the temperature was in the low sixties and I had to wear another layer. And usually during the night it does not get too cold down by the beach, where the trail I hike starts. The water… It keeps the air from getting too hot in the summer and too cool in the winter. Although my last few years in Santa Monica I was thinking I needed to buy an air conditioning unit for the window. Used to be there was only a week in Santa Monica you needed A/C, now it’s almost the entire summer. Your house starts off cool and then it doesn’t cool down until almost daybreak. So sleeping ain’t easy.

But I no longer live there anymore.

In my present abode I’m just a tad over the ridge, in the dreaded Valley. You couldn’t be any closer to the Westside and still call it the Valley, but it is. In the seventies the Valley was taboo. Now there are residents who rarely ever go over the hill. Then again, there are people who rarely leave their house anymore. There’s the traffic and then the communication methods. You used to have to leave your house for meetings, appointments, now you can even see the doctor in the privacy of your own home. And for decades there hasn’t been a reasonable music space in the Valley, the Country Club’s been gone for eons, now even the Universal Amphitheatre is gone. Action takes place downtown, or in Silver Lake or Echo Park, and the truth is they might actually be closer than they were in Santa Monica, especially since all the hip companies decided to decamp to the coast, never mind all the tech bros who can’t live too far from the beach. Santa Monica is gridlocked. All of L.A. is gridlocked. But the truth is all the action is on our screens, despite oldsters telling us to get off of them. Everywhere I go people want to talk about streaming TV, and we’re all constantly scrolling, catching up with our feeds on our smartphones. It’s a conundrum. Because they’re personalized, and we stay in constant contact with our buddies, but oftentimes we only see them once or twice a year, if that. And the truth is as you get older no one just drops by, you become ever more isolated. As for those people who are aged and single, good luck. It’s hard to live the life of a singleton as an oldster. Going to bars, hanging out. What did Chris Rock say, you get married because you don’t want to be the oldest guy in the club? I feel that these days. In my eyes I’m not a day over fifty, younger in fact, but to everybody else? There are the lines in my face giving it away. Now when there are more photos than ever before you’re confronted with this on a regular basis, how people are constantly changing, it’s subtle, but you can see it.

Well, that sounds like a march towards death. Which is what fall really is. But to tell you the truth, I love the winter, that’s when the snow falls, when you can go skiing, my passion. But before that…

Growing up in Connecticut fall was reasonable until the end of October, when Daylight Savings Time ended. November brought low temps and rain, utterly miserable. In December it starts to snow. But they don’t get the kind of snow they got when I grew up. Hell, with Zoom they don’t even have snow days anymore, I can’t imagine not waking up listening to local radio as they call out the towns where school is canceled.

The leaves don’t start to change color until October sometime. And you drive down the street, especially on a Saturday, and you see piles of leaves smoldering, that’s what you used to do, burn them. But my father never made me rake the leaves, sometimes we did it for fun, but my dad was cerebral, not physical, if he tried to fix something he broke it, I could give you numerous examples.

And on the east coast you’ve got a fall jacket. And a spring one too. They’re part of your wardrobe. They don’t exist in L.A. You’ve got your cold weather covering, as if the temperature would go down into the twenties, which it never ever does, and then light wraps for the rest of the year, but it does turn to fall, even winter.

When I went to college in Vermont, the first week of school was often warm. You occasionally had classes outside. But then the temperature dropped pretty rapidly. The leaves started to change halfway through September and peak was the first weekend of October. Now it’s later. Then again, it depends where you are in the state, Southern Vermont is about a week later than Northern Vermont.

And I go to the Vail cams every day, and the Aspens are starting to go gold. It’s an interesting effect, doesn’t hold a candle to Vermont foliage, but it indicates death. Even the grass has gone from green to yellow. The snow will start to fall soon. It won’t stick, but it’ll come down. And after losing its connection to A-Basin, Vail is having its earliest opening ever, on November 12th, think about that, it’s not even two months away. If you’re on the east coast, seemingly anywhere but the deep southwest, drink up the atmosphere, the weather, because it’s all downhill from here.

And the truth is we all have good memories of the fall. That slight nip in the air, having a hot drink outside in the afternoon, you feel invigorated. And too many people hate the winter and do their best to stay inside. They see living in the east as a burden, they want to decamp to Florida. We never did this. Furthermore, I have no problem fighting the cold weather, it makes you feel alive. That’s one of the upsides of Alaska not that I’ve been there in the winter. And did you see how much it snowed in Greenland a few days back? Actually, I read a book based in Greenland just the other week, entitled “Phase Six,” and I don’t wholly recommend it, but it’s interesting to put your mind in that place, with only a handful of people fighting the elements far from the infrastructure of the city. Then again, the phone works everywhere these days. It’s confounding to us who grew up when this was not the case, when even long distance phone calls in the U.S. were expensive. I spoke for an hour with Ralph in London yesterday and it was like he was a few blocks away. Then again, it’s always interesting to get a firsthand take, if you read the news you’d think shelves are bare, as a result of the trucking/infrastructure/Brexit situation, but Ralph said a chicken chain ran out of birds, but otherwise the markets are full. Not that your experience isn’t different. Today everybody believes they’re entitled to have their opinion heard, everybody’s always correcting the record, and as a result there is no accurate record, you can hear yourself speak but does anybody else? You can post to Instagram and no one sees it. And everybody wants to grow their audience online, even kids in the single digits.

Now on the east coast summer is fully defined. There comes a week in April when you realize winter is history and you start going out in shorts and a t-shirt even if it’s in the sixties, the fifties. And then Memorial Day is the start of summer. And Labor Day is the end of it. So you’ve got to squeeze your time in. If it rains on the weekend you’re pissed. Here it never rains during the summer, there’s no need to squeeze in activities, we can pretty much do everything all year long, but that does not mean I’m not shocked, positively shocked I tell you, that we’re now on the verge of fall. Technically it’s still four days away. Then again, next week it’s supposed to get hot in L.A. once again. It’s gonna work its way up into the nineties. But the days will get shorter and soon it will be in the low sixties or fifties every night, despite a few more burning hot days, and then it will be done.

As for fall activities…

When you’re an adult they’re a goof at best. Going to the corn maze. As for Halloween…it was little more than a blip on the radar screen when I grew up, it wasn’t about costumes but candy, and older people wanted nothing to do with it. Now Halloween is a national holiday. Hell, I saw decorations at the end of August. Soon I’ll be seeing Santa. Sure, there’s the spirit, but also the commercialism, the corporations love it.

But the sun used to set at 8:11 PM. I checked it on the first day of summer. Today it’s 6:56. And once it’s dark, it’s a completely different mind-set. I actually like the dark, it’s when I get most of my work done, when I can truly get into it. Then again, it’s depressing. The days get shorter, you drive home from work, traffic is heavy and it’s already dark. That’s weird.

And especially since L.A.’s hottest days are at the end of the summer you can fool yourself into thinking the warm days are gonna last forever. But then, pfftt! They’re gone.

Then again, if you’ve got any bread you can always fly to where the weather is better. That’s another thing that’s hard to fathom if you grew up in the sixties. Most people hadn’t even been on an airplane. A vacation was within a couple of hours’ driving distance, at least on the east coast. The rest of the world was exotic. No longer.

The world is getting smaller.

Then again, Mother Nature is immutable. You can’t hold back the shortening of the days. It’s gonna happen no matter what.

And as Don Henley sang, there are only so many summers, and so many springs. Used to be the change of seasons was almost a surprise, but you get older and not only do you expect them, they lose a lot of their meaning. It used to be that the change in seasons meant you were jumping through the hoops of life. Going to school, graduating, and then you get to the point where you can see the end. Nobody lives forever. And you don’t want to, all of your friends are dead. And so when the seasons change you think of how the time you have left is dwindling. And for those of us who want to accomplish things, to go places, time is running out. You realize you’ll never get to certain locations, that you’ll never get back to others. And although you want to keep enough money in case you do live long, you don’t want to cheap out either, because there’s so much stuff you’ll be unable to do while you’re still alive. Like physical activity. First you can’t do sports, then you can’t even travel, and then many people are just waiting to die.

Not that an elementary school kid thinks about this, but I do.

All the clichés are true, it goes by in the blink of an eye, but you still don’t believe it’ll happen to you. And you’ll never get a chance to go down a different path. It’s too late. You don’t want to get a divorce and go back into that pool of singledom referenced above. You can kill time in your twenties and thirties, but get over sixty and every moment is precious. Sometimes you waste time and you’re mad at yourself, there are only so many days and years left!

You want to grab hold.

But this big wheel keeps on turning, the sun hits it at different angles and you can’t turn back the hands of time, isn’t that what everybody says? There’s even a song about it.

But sometimes I want to.

“Your Song” wasn’t the only legendary ballad released at the end of 1970, although it took longer for “Wild World” to become a hit.

Not that Cat Stevens was new. Like Elton John he’d been kicking around a while, released music previously, but suddenly the stars aligned. To the hoi polloi they emerged fully formed, it was nearly a miracle, where did this music come from?

Now the truth is Cat Stevens had actually had a bit of success previously, it’s just that most people were unaware of it. Those who needed more bought imports of Elton’s “Empty Sky” and were disappointed. But when you went back and bought Cat Stevens’s earlier LP, “Mona Bone Jakon,” you found something darker than “Tea for the Tillerman,” more uneven, but with highlights just as good. It was kind of like “Hunky Dory” before the breakthrough of “Ziggy Stardust,” although the truth is “Ziggy” was nowhere near as big as either “Elton John” or “Tea for the Tillerman” in the U.S., Bowie had to make three more LPs before he had the giant hit “Rebel Rebel” off of “Diamond Dogs,” then again those paying attention, living for music, already knew who he was, it was only the johnny-come-latelies who were surprised, who now had to see Bowie in arenas instead of theatres.

But although the early successes, the earlier artistic peaks, of both Elton and Bowie were high, they continued to crest again and again over the years, Cat Stevens did not. Would Stevens have found the magic once again if he hadn’t retired? Possibly, but his albums kept getting worse. “Teaser and the Firecat” had three big hits, but it was a less satisfying listening experience, and a step down in quality. Then, despite making six more albums, Stevens only had two more hits, “Oh Very Young” from “Buddha and the Chocolate Box” and the non-album single “Another Saturday Night” and called it a day. It was big news, Cat’s religious conversion, because despite the internet today in the seventies music was the dominant cultural force, far exceeding television, and by the latter half of the decade the blockbuster era had flowered in film, and although there was corporate rock at the same time, there were still monumental albums, too many to list, and “Rolling Stone” had the impact and gravitas of a major newspaper.

Now the truth is Cat Stevens woke up a couple of years back and went on tour and if you didn’t see him you missed something special. And then he rerecorded “Tea for the Tillerman.” This should never be done. Artists are clueless as to what makes their albums hits, why the public gravitates towards them. Unless, of course, you’re going for a hit, but despite radio action those cuts rarely resonate throughout history, it’s the ones when you’re deep in your hole, doing your own thing, not worrying about the audience, that connect. And as Steven Wilson, the best remixer out there says, you don’t want to mess with the sound fans know. Acts are constantly telling him to tweak, to “improve” the sound. But Wilson says these remixes are for fans, and he wants them to sound identical, but clearer, that’s what they want. Despite reams of hype, nobody wanted a reimagined “Tea for the Tillerman,” but the original…

And speaking of originals, not only did “Mona Bone Jakon” precede “Tea for the Tillerman,” but “Matthew and Son” and “New Masters,” and Cat’s previous work, gained notice and at this point one must say “The First Cut Is the Deepest” is a standard, covered by many.

Also, in the seventies the film “Harold & Maude” became an art house classic and “Trouble” from “Mona Bone Jakon” played in one of the best scenes in the movie so if you look back at the era, the decade, the seventies, Cat Stevens was a big star.

But it all started with “Wild World.” That’s when most people got their first taste of his music. After all, the initial two LPs were on Deram and most people were completely unaware of them.

Now if you listen to “Elton John,” despite some raucous numbers, many of the greatest tracks are dark. With rich production from Gus Dudgeon and strings by Paul Buckmaster. But “Tea for the Tillerman” was different, the songs might have been dark at times, but the production was not, the album had a sunny tone, and as a result ultimately got played out and discarded, well relatively. People kept spinning those early Elton John albums but “Tea for the Tillerman” had been so overplayed, embraced by both casual fans and diehards, that you didn’t hear it. And now, decades later, revisiting it is jaw-dropping.

Now the truth is “Wild World” was the hit, but it’s not my favorite song on the album. I bought the album based on reviews, I was living in the hinterlands, far from commercial radio, I knew every cut on “Tea for the Tillerman” before I ever heard “Wild World” on the radio, and I remember exactly where it happened, April 21st 1971, on the way back from a gorgeous day at Stowe, in a parking lot in Burlington, a guy had the side door of his van opened, and the song was emanating. A connection was made in my brain, this song really is that big. But ultimately my favorite cut on the album was the final one, a minute five long, the title track.

“Oh lord, how they play and play

For that happy day, for that happy day”

It was just Cat and his piano. Quiet. And then the song built to a flourish, all excited, with backup vocals, and then it was done, and this was long before CD players, if you wanted to hear it again you had to get up and lift the needle. And for a one minute song you rarely did, so hearing “”Tea for the Tillerman” at the end of the LP was a treat, back when we listened to complete sides anyway.

Now strangely, fifty years on the biggest cut off of “Tea for Tillerman” is track 10, deep on the second side, “Father and Son,” now that the boomers are parents, at this point even grandparents.

And if I were going track by track, I’d have to singe out “Miles From Nowhere” and “Longer Boats,” and most especially “Hard Headed Woman,” never mind “Where Do the Children Play.”

But right there in the middle of the first side is “Wild World.”

“Now that I’ve lost everything to you

You say you want to start something new

And it’s breaking my heart that you’re leaving

Baby, I’m grieving”

This used to be the basic paradigm of songs from the blues era on. Broken relationship. Man on the losing end. How we got to this macho turnaround I’ll never know, actually I do know, but I can’t say, because of the woke police, I can’t be politically incorrect, I risk getting canceled, but whereas you could identify with the music of yore, today you often end up feeling inferior, kinda like surfing Instagram. And never forget, despite the bravura, men take breakups harder than women.

“But if you want to leave take good care

Hope you have a lot of nice things to wear

But then a lot of things turn bad out there”

Now wait just a minute here, he’s starting to sneer, turns out he’s angrier than he let on, he’s not only licking his wounds, he’s biting back, despite the pleasant “la la” music.

“You know I’ve seen a lot of what the world can do

And it’s breaking my heart in two

Because I never want to see you sad girl

Don’t be a bad girl”

He’s wiser, he’d protect her, but now she’s out on her own without his direction, he’s warning her she’s gonna take hits, get into trouble, even worse don’t encourage men, don’t change your personality, don’t go down the wrong roads.

“But if you want to leave take good care

Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there

But just remember there’s a lot of bad and beware”

This is just a spin on “You don’t know what you’re losing, you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone, you’re never going to find anybody better than me.”

“Oh, baby baby it’s a wild world

It’s hard to get by just upon a smile

Oh, baby baby it’s a wild world

And I’ll always remember you like a child girl yeah”

The truth is you can get very far just upon a smile. And the singer knows this. He resents this. The doors opening for his ex while he’s home licking his wounds. He’s warning her what’s out there, the bad to come, and says he doesn’t want to know what happens to her, when she grows up, when she loses her innocence, he’s going to remember her how she was with him, a child, who he probably tried to control. The guy in this song probably caused her to leave, by coddling her, trying to clip her wings. Then again, young love rarely lasts. Then again, it’s hard to get over your first.

Not that you know all this at age seventeen, when I was listening to “Wild World.” Your whole life is in front of you, you’re inexperienced, despite thinking you know it all. And the funny thing is I was brought up in an era of freedom, to be who you wanted to be, you could get by on minimum wage, you didn’t need a “career,” you also didn’t need to stay with someone if you were unhappy, and therefore it’s hard to find a boomer who isn’t divorced. And you’ll also find aged boomers who are alone, many with regrets, but there are no do-overs in life. Even worse, the one you fantasize about, who left you…unlike in the song most did quite well, had relatively happy lives, they were looking for the one before they settled down, they wanted to make a good choice, not stay with their first. Then again, not all stories have good endings.

So what you’ve got here is a legendary hit, a bedrock song, that plays all sunny, that people smile at when they hear it on the radio, but the truth is despite the lilting music, it’s really a downbeat number. Casual listeners think the singer is accepting the loss, wishing his ex good tidings, when the truth is just the opposite. But how many lovers scorned don’t have resentment.

And one thing is for sure, as we grew up we realized Cat was right, it was definitely a wild world out there and we’d give anything to be a child once again, with our hopes and dreams, our wherewithal still intact. But we’ve still got this music, which is why they call it classic rock. Is today’s music classic? I’ll let you decide.

TheFatRat is the king of gaming music. He’s got over 5.5 million YouTube subscribers and over 2 billion streams on YouTube and Spotify. Find out how a musician from a small city in Germany conquered the music business, going from Berlin to America and ultimately back again, signing to Universal and then leaving, finding he makes more money independently and can do whatever he chooses artistically. Want to know how to make it today? LISTEN!

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