Tune in today, August 10th, 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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All Things Must be a Joke: https://bit.ly/37vS03a

Hallelujah! AEG demonstrates some backbone, evidences some leadership, where is everybody else?

Hanging it out on their own. Limp Bizkit killing August shows. Fall Out Boy and Counting Crows canceling dates. I ask you, if members of these acts’ touring parties tested positive, what are the odds audience members have too? 100%

But everybody’s passing the buck.

Live Nation says they’ll allow acts to require vaccination or proof of a negative test, but they’re not taking a company-wide stand. And enough with this proof of a negative test, let’s just say you have to be vaccinated, to make it easy, to make it simple.

Like the armed services.

The story is we’re in spring of 2020. You know, when right wing media flipped and stopped saying Covid-19 was no worse than the flu. That’s right, it won’t be long before right wing politicians and news outlets start saying to get the vaccine. They’ll blame it on the left, of course, Nancy Pelosi first and foremost. And let’s not forget Hillary Clinton… But, when science and tide collide, you don’t want to be on the wrong side.

As for the public getting vaccinated…

“Americans who are still unvaccinated have gone from ‘not right now’ to ‘I won’t get it at all.'”: https://bit.ly/37tTTx5

Do you read the statistics? Do you know anybody who won’t get vaccinated? They’re never ever gonna change their mind until they’re absolutely forced to. Don’t tell me about FDA approval, that’s not the sole reason these people are not getting the jab, they’ve got a whole litany of reasons. Can we stop setting up these irrelevant straw men? They’re not gonna get vaccinated until they have to. Which could possibly be never. But we can make their lives damn hard without the shot.

That’s where we are now. It’s just that elected officials are so worried about pissing off their constituents they won’t lead. Isn’t this why you get elected to begin with? Private companies have been leading like crazy, not only AEG, but even Walmart, based in ARKANSAS! But if you’re an elected official, you’re paralyzed. Or on the wrong side and doubling-down. Ron DeSantis is running his reputation into the ground, he’s taken it too far, he’s been so busy catering to the crazies that he’s lost all perspective.

“U.S. judge says Florida can’t ban cruise ship’s ‘vaccine passport’ program”: https://reut.rs/37xiVeE

That’s right, he keeps losing. Come on, who wants no vaccine requirements on a cruise ship? Not anybody who wants to get on one! Only yahoos who are not leaving home to begin with. As for not allowing mask requirements… These are the same people who constantly want to hold up religious requirements, what bakers and caterers can do based on what a fictitious man in the sky has to say. But when it comes to science, life and death, NO!

You can be encouraged by the regretters. Then again, there’s the woman in the “Wall Street Journal” whose parents died of Covid in the last ten days who refuses to get the shot. Let me ask you, what do you think is gonna convince her? NOTHING!

“Neighbors’ Deaths From Covid-19 Have an Arkansas Town Reassessing Vaccines – With many still deeply skeptical of the vaccines, community leaders are trying everything to persuade a reluctant populace to take them”: https://on.wsj.com/3fJv3xK

(Unfortunately behind a paywall where those who need to see it won’t.)

The L.A. “Times” interviewed mayors where inoculation is low. They won’t take a stand. For fear of blowback. What next, we won’t certify elections because we’re afraid these same people, all good people, are going to riot at the Capitol? Talk about the tail wagging the dog.

“Why are vaccination rates so low? We found the worst county in each state and asked the politicians”: https://lat.ms/3AqVmkb

Covid keeps creeping. The Delta variant is spread more easily and is more powerful. As for Eric Clapton saying you can’t require to prove vaccination to go to his shows that’s not what the Albert Hall promoters say: https://bit.ly/3s1YzUm No, you’ve got have gotten the jab or show that test saying you’re Covid free…I mean isn’t it easier to just get the shot than get tested?

OF COURSE!

But that’s not what it’s about. It’s about digging your heels in and refusing to change because you’re mad at…exactly who? The government, the medical establishment, seemingly everybody. Isn’t it time the institutions these people are angry with stop trying to cater to them and pull their trains away from the station? No one likes to get left behind. They just want to make sure you can’t leave too.

So the noose is tightening. Not only in hospitals, where even the young are dying, but out in the world with the institutions that are mad as hell and just can’t take it anymore!

As for masks… People can’t even wear them right. I was getting my blood tested today and a bloke walks in with his mask around his mouth but not his nose. As if your nose is just ornamental, that you don’t breathe through it. I told him to pull his mask up, but I was afraid, you’re damn right. But why should I be! It’s not like the building doesn’t insist on masking. Masking is like suing Napster when you’ve got Spotify. Cut them off at the pass!

And that means if you want to go anywhere, you’ve got to have the shot.

Stay in your home. Walk in a field. But you can’t go in a building without the shot.

And why not? You’re afraid of these wankers? When is everybody gonna start standing up to them, demonstrate that they’re in the minority. I’m sick of minority rule, aren’t you?

Come on, you went to school. No one is released until someone admits fault. That they wrote on the blackboard, stole the milk money. Everybody sits there until someone raises their hand. We can do this in real life, but everybody refuses!

You’ve got to squeeze people. And yes, the good have to be penalized too, because we live in a society and we’re all in this together.

Concert promoters should all get together, they’ve got an organization, and say no jab, no show. Finito. If everybody is on the same page, no single venue takes the heat. Come on, even First Avenue has vaccine restrictions. They can’t be on bigger buildings, stadiums? Hell, even Garth Brooks has stopped selling tickets to stadium shows in the future. Can’t we get a CONSENSUS?

No, because no one wants to lead, no one wants to sacrifice, they want someone else to move first. This is how we got into this hellhole to begin with. You kept thinking someone else would do the job. You can waste water and energy because someone else is conserving, the problem is just too big for one person, and if you violate the rule, so what. You can still get an abortion, so who cares if someone else can’t.

And then it finally happens to you. And you change your mind. Dick Cheney supports gay marriage because he’s got a gay daughter. Everybody has a gay person in their family, EVERYBODY! And if you don’t think so, that just means the person is too scared to come out of the closet.

But if we wait until everybody has a family member die of Covid…it’ll be way too late.

We keep waiting for something to change with the unvaccinated. WRONG! It’s the vaccinated who have to change their approach.

NO SHOWS FOR YOU!

It’s not even a war of information. You can’t beat the online disinformation establishment. That’s the story of the past ten years, the world is run by social media, not elected officials. And you wonder why they have bans on or control of social media in authoritarian countries?

Just lead.

AEG is first. Who else is gonna get in line?

The Olympics killed freestyle skiing. And have put a huge dent in snowboarding too. Now they’re gonna put a dent in skateboarding as well. I mean who wants to be associated with prepubescent gold medal skaters? That’s athleticism, not culture, that’s sport, not lifestyle, THERE’S NOTHING TO BELIEVE IN!

And belief is everything.

There was a mantra in the sixties that has long since disappeared. It said you didn’t want to be co-opted. That was a grievous sin. To sell out to the man, especially when you expected a win-win, for them to have your best interests at heart, wanting you to succeed…

On their terms.

A price is extracted for every sellout. They say they’ll let you do it your way, which is true, as long as it doesn’t contradict their way, their goals, which are markedly different from yours. The man wants to maintain his business at all cost. Rough edges are excised. The key is to keep gaining adherents and never lose one. Come on, you’ve seen the stock market, it’s all about GROWTH! Furthermore, companies are bought and sold all the time, different people run them with different precepts, and this is how you bury loss, bad decisions, you just sell to or merge with another. So if you’re throwing in with the man, you can’t offend anyone, you can’t do anything off brand, you’re already a second-class citizen.

So freestyle skiing was a renegade sport. Pursued by people who didn’t want to be constrained by racing gates. They didn’t want anybody to tell them how to do it. First and foremost they wanted to have fun. Which included not only skiing, but alcohol and drugs… You dressed in a certain way to stand out, akin to growing your hair long in the sixties.

But then came legitimacy. Inclusion in the Olympics.

Well, the sport had to be cleaned up. First came the outfits. With patches on the knees so you could see that the skiers had their knees together, something anathema in the rest of the ski world. Yes, ever since the late sixties it’s been about skiing with your legs apart, creating a platform, for more stability.

And in order to make it fair, the courses had to be equal, so the moguls were manufactured, all the same, everywhere. This is like trying to make the waves the same for everybody surfing. And yes, surfing was in the Olympics this year and you can include that sport in the paradigm I’m establishing. That a small coterie looking for “legitimacy” and bread undermines the whole enterprise.

And there used to be three freestyle skiing events: moguls, air and ballet. But ballet was too judgmental, so it was dropped. And that killed it. No one does ballet anymore. As for aerials? It is now populated by gymnasts, not skiers, the fact that they have skis on their feet is incidental. Believe me, the average skier does not think about doing multiple twisting flips.

And then the sport evolved. There was a technical breakthrough. Shaped skis. Skis got wider and shorter and…

Bump skis got narrower, stayed relatively long and were soft. As a matter of fact, no major ski manufacturer makes a specialized bump ski anymore. There’s one company that makes them in Japan, and you only see them on the feet of these mogul skiers in their inane outfits practicing precision in fake bumps. Something no one else in their right mind would do. But it’s an Olympic sport!

As for snowboarding, you can tell me all day long how big Shaun White is, but the truth is for most of the past decade snowboarding has been on the decline, growth has subsided. Not only does snowboarding have some inherent flaws, snowboards are poor/difficult in the aforementioned moguls and they’re useless on the flats, but snowboarding is no longer cool! It was Gen-X that adopted snowboarding and grew the culture. Talk about renegades. But now that it’s been formalized, youngsters would rather ski, test limits out in the wild. And there are big mountain ski competitions, but it’s certainly not an Olympic sport. They’re daredevil enterprises, which is anathema to the Olympic committee.

It wasn’t until the early eighties that people were made aware of how much money could be made in the music business. It was a combination of MTV and the CD. MTV had a singular playlist blasted throughout the country, whereas radio was Balkanized. And there were images! So if you were on MTV, you were on your way. MTV was around the world, so you could tour everywhere and sell your music on overpriced CDs and stars became bigger, and richer, than ever before.

But they had to be good-looking.

And then in the twenty first century, when recorded music revenue sank, bands became brands, and whored themselves out to anybody who would pay. The dollar became paramount. And the core, the essence, the music itself, secondary. You win a gold medal, does the sport matter? Not really! And medals trump the regular competitions. Everybody knows in ski racing it’s about the World Cup, a season-long enterprise. The Olympics are just a set of races. But the Average Joe doesn’t realize this, so if you can just win a medal… And in some sports, like swimming and track, there are a plethora of medals. And in most sports, the only glory is in the medals, you’re forgotten for four years until the Olympics come ’round again. If you’re REALLY lucky you can cash in on your fame, but only a few do, the rest continue to labor in obscurity for the next four years, after the previous ten to twenty of training…WHO WANTS TO DO THAT?

Yes, it comes down to what people want to do.

Rihanna was just declared a billionaire. I ask you, what does that have to do with music? NOTHING!

God, most of the statistics are phony. If you can’t enter the chart at number one you need a new team, it’s a game that can be played and won by everyone. But no one buys a record because it’s number one, no one even listens to a track because it won a Grammy. You can tout your Grammy, but no one really cares but you. As a matter of fact, the more you get to core artists who are about the music foremost the less they care about the Grammys, because they know they’ve got nothing to do with music!

But the world wants to slice and dice, categorize, judge, when in so many endeavors this is impossible.

Like freestyle skiing.

Like skateboarding.

Like music.

Mogul skiing was never about precision, it was about hanging it all out, showing your mettle, as opposed to conforming. Watch the bump skiers today, BORING! It’s all the same!

Same deal with skateboarding. It was about the trick, the cool factor. It was about the stars, not the victors. Falling was part of the game. Quick, name who won the skateboarding medals? YOU CAN’T!

Just like most people can’t even name two Rihanna songs.

But they can mention multiple tracks from albums by old acts that younger people are unaware of.

But in order to play the long term, credibility game, you have to be willing to say no, in a world where everybody wants you to say yes, where selling out is a badge of honor, the the athletes/musicians/singers come and go, but the industry remains. You’re just grist for the mill. And if you do it your own way you’re derided.

Then again, we live in a world without credibility.

Which is why people are so hungry for it, for something to believe in. Which is the power of online stars/influencers, it’s direct to the consumer. Of course too many are whored out to the corporations themselves, but so many fans see it as a badge of honor, how nobodies extracted money from the man, “ripped them off” in the parlance of the sixties. It’s the influencer and the fan against the man.

Don’t play this out too far.

Then again, most influencers don’t last.

But for those who do, it’s much more about them then the products they’re selling. As for those getting clothes and other items just to feature them on their channel… The star is the items, not the people, and the old people burn out and new ones come in and no one maintains, because there’s no there there to begin with, there’s nothing to believe in!

You’ve got to learn how to say no. To do what you feel, not what others tell you to. The audience, people can tell. You can’t measure it, but you can feel it. They don’t print it in news stories, but people who hew to their values have longer careers, with more lifetime earnings.

But we live in a short term world.

Which is fine if you’re working for the man at the corporation. But if the product is you, guard your image very closely. One misstep can ruin your career.

And know when it comes down to art, organization is anathema. Which is one reason artists have never been able to organize, they don’t see eye to eye!

And that’s a good thing.