Tune in today, May 18th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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You’re gonna want to buy a new playback system for this.

Today’s news is Apple went lossless. Which Amazon has already done. And they both announced new, attractive price points, but Amazon Music can stream in Ultra HD right now, and the difference is between 16/44.1, i.e. CD quality, and 24/192, and you can hear it. But most people don’t own systems good enough to properly feel and hear the incredibly enriching experience of full band audio. Sure, it sounds better even on crappy equipment, but when you fire up the good stuff and listen, you’ll be AMAZED!

Come on, the hits of the classic rock era have been remastered so many times most have tuned out. Now the effort is to remix these LPs, which I believe is heresy, unless you’re like Steven Wilson and trying to exactly replicate the original, which he does. Bottom line, we don’t expect any more. But this “Déjà Vu” package delivers more, you feel like you’re jetted right back to 1970, and it feels so good, even if you were never there! That’s the power of classic rock, cut before the loudness wars, for vinyl.

To tell you the truth, I was more interested in the bonus tracks than the originals, which I know so well, so I scanned the track listing and clicked on the “4 + 20” demo…and I felt like Stephen Stills was sitting two feet away, and his voice was still intact, and the experience was so different from what we experience today, Stills paid his dues before he wrote this, even though he was then only 24.

“Four and twenty years ago

I come into this life”

That was in 1945, January 3rd in fact, technically Stills isn’t even a baby boomer, the war was still raging, on both fronts, Europe and Japan.

“I walk the floor and want to know

Why am I so alone”

You could be lonely back in the last century. Yes, you can still be so today, but you have options, you can go online and try to find like-minded people, but in 1970 all you had was the telephone, there weren’t even answering machines, you sat there, unable to sleep and at wit’s end… Then you put on a record. And the pain of the performer resonated with the one inside you, and this connection allowed you to soldier on.

Another revelation is the demo for David Crosby’s “Almost Cut My Hair.” You’ll listen to the guitar strum, repetitively, and then just over half a minute in Crosby starts to sing and you’re snapped to attention, the hair on your arms stands straight up.

“Almost cut my hair

It happened just the other day”

This was when people in some burgs were just growing theirs long, even though the Beatles had broken through more than half a decade earlier. They couldn’t take the risk. They needed everybody else to do it first. They didn’t want the parental blowback. But David Crosby was a rock star, he was beholden to no one, and he could debate whether it had to go, but he wanted to let his freak flag fly. And over the ensuing decades, Crosby’s rep has sunk. He’s difficult, he’s opinionated, but one thing is for sure, back then he sure could sing. And I was so enamored of the demo that I pulled up the original. And there’s that exquisite winding Stephen Stills guitar intro and then Crosby starts to sing, and once again it’s like you’re in the studio with him, not in the control room, but sitting mere inches away as he sings into the mic. For eons people have thought “Almost Cut My Hair” was a dated curio, but here it’s up front and center once again. Crosby’s rep is instantly rescued, and Stills’s is elevated, too much history has ensued since, but at the time Stills was a giant.

I wondered if all the original, remastered tracks were such a revelation. So I pulled up the overplayed, never disappearing “Woodstock.”

Let’s see, Joni Mitchell wrote it, connoisseurs will say her later released, slowed down less bombastic take is superior, the definitive statement. And Ian Matthews had an AM hit with a soft version of the song, but…this original is so powerful, so in your face, that it’s UNDENIABLE! Stephen’s guitar is spitting, the drums are pounding, you can feel them, and then Stills sings on top of it all and it’s as if he’s testifying, not self-conscious at all, as if he’s live on stage singing for thousands and caught up in the moment.

“Said I’m going down to Yasgur’s Farm

Gonna join in a rock and roll band

Got to get back to the land

And set my soul free”

There was only one Woodstock, it’s never been replicated since. Because they had all the best acts and no one knew so many would come, that it would be a defining cultural event showing the power of the youth bookended not by Altamont but the Moratorium in D.C. in November. We had light before we had darkness. Our souls were nearly completely free, that’s not even a goal anymore, now everybody wants to sell out and cash in, you’ll sacrifice your credibility, your beliefs, anything for the buck, telling yourself everybody else is doing it so it’s O.K. And “Woodstock” never weakens, when it fades at the end you want to run and catch up, you replay it, just to marinate in that joyous sound, which makes you come alive, you might have been passive before, but no more.

But the real thrill of this package is not only the demos but the originals that were never included, especially the Stills cuts that were ultimately released later. “Know You Got to Run” appears in two versions, the first a demo as exquisite as the one for “4 + 20,” albeit louder, with less inherent intimacy. And it’s sans the vocal mistakes we expect in the preparatory tracks, Stills could sing every note. And the 48th track, at the package’s end, is a fully produced take, that didn’t make the album, it’s so interesting, it’s electric and powerful instead of acoustic and quiet like the version on “Stephen Stills 2.”

And there’s even a demo of “So Begins the Task,” which didn’t come out until 1972, as part of the Manassas package.

“And I must learn to live without you now”

This is the flip side of today’s music, where you kick them to the curb and crawl out of the wreckage into a brand new car, the rock stars of yore were three-dimensional, they could get hurt, they had pain, which is one of the reasons their works meant so much to us, they were living a life that we would soon experience, if we hadn’t already.

All the hype has been about the demo for “Birds,” which was soon released as part of “After the Gold Rush,” which wouldn’t have meant much if it weren’t for “Déjà Vu.” It’s a ten, but we’ve been privy to so much of Young’s vault. But the publicity is about it because Neil Young’s credibility and stature are still intact, whereas what’s left of the others’ is in tatters. But, I must admit Graham Nash’s background vocals here add another layer.

But there are all these Crosby cuts, the man who is seen as the lightweight of the act in retrospect, his guitar was unnecessary, and Nash wrote the hits. There’s even a take of “Song With No Words,” which appeared on his initial solo LP, which went straight into the dumper a year later and has been resuscitated in reputation recently, to a degree undeservedly, but this was one of its great cuts.

There’s even a demo of “Laughing,” another one of the really good cuts on “If I Could Only Remember My Name.” The album was released in the dead of winter, I remember lying in the dark, stoned, listening with my headphones on, the demo is less polished, but even more intimate. Even better is the demo for “Triad,” once again incredibly intimate.

And you’ll want to listen to “Bluebird Revisited,” for the guitar if nothing else, remember when we were into guitar players, argued about them, and it wasn’t just how fast they played?

There’s even a version of “Change Partners”!

I’ll be honest I haven’t listened to most of the Graham Nash stuff, but there is a demo of “Right Between the Eyes” which is less cutesy than the take on “4 Way Street.”

And then there are the alternate takes, the alternate mixes. Most are not especially gripping, but the alternate mix of the title track is especially interesting, the original didn’t have the gravitas, the impact of other cuts on the album, but this version does, and be sure to listen to the demo.

And the truth is “Déjà Vu” was a disappointment, but no one could live up to that original Crosby, Stills & Nash LP, oftentimes people do their best work when no one is paying attention, when they’ve got something to prove. And in truth, the Neil Young songs don’t really fit, even though “Helpless” is now considered a classic and I always liked “Country Girl,” especially the last section, entitled “Country Girl (I Think You’re Pretty),” I was living in the country, but I was no one’s country man, that’s for sure, any romance was in my head, triggered by these songs.

And the Crosby, Stills & Nash debut percolated slowly in the marketplace, it was like Led Zeppelin’s debut, it built, and then when the second album was released everyone had to have it IMMEDIATELY!

I remember the day “Déjà Vu” came out, driving to a mall that no longer is used for retail to get it, with its faux-leather cover, and I got home and dropped the needle…

Now the funny thing is Graham Nash wrote the singles, the hits, but there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that the star of the band was Stephen Stills. And the track that truly put the act over the transom, turned them into stars, was the opening one on the first LP, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” a song embedded in every baby boomer’s DNA which has not caught fire with the younger generations which cotton to the softer and the louder, James Taylor and Led Zeppelin, but in ’69, even ’70, Crosby, Stills, Nash (and sometimes Young), were bigger than either of those acts, and it was because of this one damn song.

Why was “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” so great? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS!

First and foremost it’s a suite, it slowed down in the middle and gained further gravitas and then it accelerated once again, it needed all of its seven plus minutes.

Second there was the intro acoustic guitar, which people at home tried to replicate but no one seemed able to do.

Third, Stills’s vocal. It’s not about having the best voice, it’s about having the most expressive voice, just ask Rod Stewart or Bob Dylan.

Fourth, there’s the electric guitar dancing throughout this seemingly acoustic number.

Fifth, it’s Stills’s exclamation…oh-a-oh-a…just shy of ninety seconds in, it’s so human!

Sixth, and most important…THE HARMONY VOCALS!

We’d never been exposed to something so rich, so perfect. Turns out they couldn’t replicate the sound live, just listen to “4 Way Street,” but at this point we did not know that, all we knew was these three meshing voices together sounded so transcendent that the end product seemed inhuman. So the question was…could CSN and now Y come up with another “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” a track that affected us so?

Of course not.

Then again, maybe…

It’s the opening track that nobody talks about anymore.

But it’s the best cut on “Déjà Vu,” no matter what anybody says.

“One morning I woke up and I knew

You were really gone”

The sound was even BETTER than “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” I know, seemed impossible, but you couldn’t deny it.

“A new day, a new way”

There was the acoustic guitar intro, but this time the vocals were amped up, you were drawn to them, you had to pay attention.

“The sky is clearing and the night

Has cried enough”

There’s that dancing electric guitar once again, but “Carry On” is not a remake whatsoever, it’s its own damn song, but with nearly equal magic.

“Where are you going now my love

Where will you be tomorrow

Will you bring me happiness

Will you bring me sorrow”

Yes, after an instrumental interlude, the song completely changes, also akin to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” yet different.

“Oh the questions of a thousand dreams

What you do and what you see

Lover can you talk to me”

But the bottom line is overall there are fewer dynamics than “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “Carry On” is more aggressive, less quiet, more demanding of attention, and therefore it’s inferior to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”…BUT IT’S SO DAMN GOOD!

I’d wake up every morning and drop the needle, “Carry On” would get me amped up for school, I could drift through the halls with this sound in my head, no one could penetrate me, I was protected.

“Carry On” is not background, none of CSNY’s music is, at least not on the first two LPs, this is not music for playlists, tracks cherry-picked to get you through your day at the office, they’re statements, THEY’RE LIFE ITSELF!

And now you can get even closer.

I’ve got my original vinyl, which sounds different, but nowhere near as clean, here the steel wool has been scrubbed away, I used to be outside the building, now I’m in the studio with the band, it’s a dream come true.

Now the truth is all four members have continued to carry on. With varying levels of artistic and commercial success. But there will come a day when you can no longer see them.

Crosby has been the most experimental, but Stills even went on tour with Judy Blue Eyes herself, he’s taking risks, but they’re all getting older by the minute, and they’re a bit worse for wear. Furthermore, they all swear they’ll never play together again, because of Crosby’s mouth, some things should not be said, no matter what you think.

I’ve got the feeling I’ve been here before. But I haven’t been here for so long, I thought the place evaporated. But then I pulled up this album and started listening and I was drawn through the vortex to a scene, an album, a feeling, a life, fifty years ago, as if it were yesterday.

I don’t think newbies will feel quite the same. Then again, if you’ve never heard music like this, it’s kinda like the English axemen discovering the Delta blues records.

But no one wants to put this kind of time in anymore. Everybody involved had paid a lot of dues, even had hit records, before they came together in this formation.

And they’re top vocalists and players but the reason the rep remains is because of the SONGS! They’re hard to write, but when you’ve got the skill we want to hear what you’ve got to say.

You’ll be positively blown away when you hear how these tracks sound. They might even inspire you to upgrade your reproduction equipment, realizing you want to listen to music at the level you listen to TV, even better.

We are stardust, we are golden, we may have to shake off some rust but the roots are still there, we know where we came from, what we experienced, we felt. And at this late date the only thing left to do is get back to the garden.

Listen to the 50th Anniversary edition of “Déjà Vu” and your journey will begin. You will be optimistic instead of pessimistic. You’ll think of the possibilities. You’ll remember what once was and start to believe…maybe we can make it come back again. After all, we’ve now got the Dead Sea Scrolls. They’re cleaned up, they’re pristine, we can digest the message fully, we can’t help but be overwhelmed and motivated. There’s still time…

It’s very simple. They both lost the streaming war. And this is a Hail Mary pass to elbow in before the game of musical chairs ends and there are no more seats at the table.

But all the news has been about AT&T’s balance sheet, who will run the combined operation…this is what small people address, the smart people look at the bigger issue. And the bigger issue is streaming consolidation.

HBO played its hand completely wrong. It was late to market and was focused on satiating its cable customers, and as a result, the price for HBO Max was too damn high. You could get Disney+, with a better catalogue, for half the price. And you got Apple TV+ essentially for free. And everybody has Amazon, because of Prime, and Netflix is the big kahuna, with first mover advantage and the most direct pay subscribers, where do we go from here?

One thing is for sure, the public will only pay for a limited number of streaming services. End of story. Right now, it’s more expensive to watch TV than it was in the cable bundle era, assuming you subscribe to everything, which is why most people don’t. Furthermore, there is endless churn depending upon hits. If you don’t have a steady slew of new product, people will sign up for one show and then sign off. That’s no way to run a business. And that’s why Netflix has spent so much on production as the lay people keep bitching about its balance sheet. You spend now to reap the reward later, didn’t we learn this with Amazon, which also had first mover advantage? You don’t let anybody else play.

And let’s not forget Hulu, which is mostly selling traditional TV shows. Less necessary than Netflix, but how necessary?

It’s a well-known fact that the CEOs of these companies who try to diversify are clueless. Not only communications companies, but Microsoft too. Buying Skype for all that bread, never mind Nokia. Just because you’re smart in one area does not mean you are smart in another. Which is why doctors and dentists are notoriously bad investors, and Apple rarely makes big acquisitions. Apple isn’t trying to eat everybody, it’s trying to grow what it’s got. And it already got burned on the Beats purchase, the software had to be rewritten, they bought air, they won’t do that again. As for headphones, they now make their own, overpriced of course, Apple can be out of touch with the public too, did you see they just discontinued their HomePod? A device no one was clamoring for. If you’re interested in audio, you buy boutique brands. If you’re interested in voice control, you go with Amazon, maybe Google, but Amazon was first with the Echo, and perception is its voice control is better than Apple’s, people have had too many bad experiences with Siri.

So, AT&T and Verizon buying media properties? That’s like Oracle buying the Yankees. It’s apples and oranges. We learned these projected synergies don’t work all the way back in the nineties, when Bob Sillerman sold a bunch of concert promoters to Clear Channel radio. Let me see, do I know anybody, ANYBODY, who has changed cell phone providers based on the perks, i.e. HBO Max, Discovery+, Apple Music? No, not a single one! Sure, most people stay with their carrier, but the big story in the last half decade has been T-Mobile, which focused on price. That’ll get people to switch.

And buying DirectTV, or AOL… What next, BlackBerry? And these guys make eight figures, their boards should be held liable, or is everybody with money in America completely out of touch with the street?

Is WarnerMedia a drain on AT&T’s balance sheet? Yes. But that’s not the real reason they’re offloading it, they’re looking to the future, and they’re worried they’re going to be in a whole heap of trouble. It’s like Cisco buying Flip, they soon woke up and realized video was going to be a feature in smartphones so they shut it down, while it still had a viable market!

So there’s all this scuttlebutt about who will control the combined company, the day after the “Wall Street Journal” did a whole feature on WarnerMedia’s Jason Kilar. You may think you have control, but control always goes with the money, no matter how good a job you’re doing. And everybody is expendable, everybody! Think of all the HBO programmers who left that we thought were irreplaceable, like Chris Albrecht…the power is in the platform, not the individual, and this not only in TV…think of all the wankers who believe they can make it alone on Substack, what do they say, don’t give up your day job?

As for John Malone’s tax shenanigans… Everybody who has followed this movie knows that the king of cable doesn’t like to pay taxes, that’s anathema. But he’s been in the business for decades, the youngsters writing about this merger are still wet behind the ears.

So now we’ve got a ball game. This merger is streaming genius, a combination of highbrow and lowbrow. HBO and HGTV. And if you read the story in the recent “New Yorker,” you know many people today watch HGTV like they used to watch CNN…as in it’s on 24/7, like wallpaper, are they willing to pay ten bucks for the package? Sure! Well, you need to start cheaper, Discovery+ is priced at $6.99. The introductory price is always lower, everybody knows that, it behooves you to sign up early, which makes me wonder about the bozos at HBO with their fifteen dollar price point. Mercedes has never sold as many cars as Toyota, never ever. Aren’t these lessons you learn in business school?

Well, these executives out of their depth can read a spreadsheet, they can work the numbers, they just can’t see the big picture. They’re focused on margins instead of market share. This is playing out in newspapers as I write this. The enemy is Alden Global Capital… It’s maintaining its margins to make money, cutting staff and planning on taking its papers down to zero and then throwing them away. This is the opposite paradigm, but it’s still relevant. Alden knows where it’s going. Even worse, after twenty years, all these local papers have been unable to adjust to the internet. Sure, the aforementioned WSJ and the NYT and WaPo have…but the rest, they can’t get anybody to pay for their online product for two reasons: 1. There’s not enough content, the news hole has been cut too far. And 2. The first-mover advantage, they’re already subscribing to one or two or all three of the big three, and that’s more than enough.

Content is never king, never ever forget it, it’s all about distribution. And HBO Max and Discovery+ were heading for distribution death, it doesn’t matter what they wanted to air, it’s too late. But combine them and you’ve got a fighting chance, assuming they continue to roll out a plethora of new product and start with a low price.

Sure, if you work for one of these entities you’re worried about your job, I understand that, but if you’re an investor or consumer this is manna from heaven, the only question that remains is…

How many streaming services will people pay for?

We don’t know yet.

“Rock Me on the Water: 1974 – The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics”: https://amzn.to/3fpmpDt

At first I loved this book.

Then it depressed me.

Ronald Brownstein posits that 1974 was the apotheosis in entertainment and it all emanated from Los Angeles. This is patently untrue. I hate when writers come up with a theory and shoehorn the facts to make their case. Didn’t David Hepworth write a whole book about how 1971 was the year music exploded, they even made an Apple TV+ series about it, as a matter of fact it’s going to launch this week! But Hepworth is a music journalist and Brownstein is a political writer and it makes all the difference. Brownstein is a better writer, but he’s got no innate feel for the landscape. But it all happened so long ago, a long long time ago as Don McLean sang, but that was in 1972.

1974… I graduated from college.

I remember going to the Beatles’ 50th Anniversary taping. Supposedly Paul had been reluctant and Ringo gung-ho but really it lacked gravitas, almost intentionally, at least what I could see from the floor, it might have played a bit different at home. It was a celebration, it was light as opposed to heavy. But when it gets heavy…

So Brownstein starts with Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson. That was a golden era of film, the late sixties and seventies. But I’d never say that ’74 was the peak. And Brownstein never mentions “The Deer Hunter,” which came out in ’78, and was the most dynamic and thought-provoking anti-Vietnam film of the era.

Not that Brownstein doesn’t discuss the penumbra, what happened before and after ’74, but he says it was basically all downhill thereafter, that the social consciousness flicks were from the earlier part of the decade.

Anyway, Warren Beatty is now 84 years old. And Jack Nicholson is the same age. Warren is still around, but Jack has completely disappeared. There are rumors he is ill, but if this is so, no one is talking. And I learned a bit of info reading about these two, my mind drifted back to that era, talking to Jack at the sporting goods store I worked in when I first moved to L.A. And I thought how the Oscars were a cultural rite back then and are nearly irrelevant today, but that’s because TV has usurped the throne that film abdicated. Studios decided they were going solely for the bucks, and they ruined the business, at least artistically.

And then Brownstein went into music. Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles. There was very little I didn’t know, but the scene came alive in my mind, I know those records by heart, and it’s about more than the records, what we felt back then. And it’s fun to read about what you already know, as long as the writer gets it right, and Brownstein does here. He interviewed all the subjects, he had access to everybody, the book is littered with footnotes, as a matter of fact, 25% of the book is footnotes, then again, I could write the music stuff off the top of my head, at least 95% of what Brownstein did, and his perspective is different from mine, he’s doing research, he’s coming from the outside, he’s not rock and roll. And therefore, especially as the book unfolds, it’s all about analysis and descriptors…I won’t say style trumps substance, but I also won’t say his viewpoint is the same as everyone else’s. He cherry-picks Jackson Browne’s apocalyptic lyrics while leaving the personal ones completely aside, and any fan knows Jackson Browne is a star because of his insight into people and relationships.

But then the book shifts to television. It’s basically the story of Norman Lear. And CBS, which aired most of his shows. And the truth is…when I went to college we had no TV, I was aware of these shows, but I never saw them. Hell, I didn’t own a TV until 1987, and I don’t think I missed much. Sure, I gathered in houses to watch SNL, when I had mono I watched “Mary Hartman,” but back then it wasn’t happening on television, not at all, you could exist quite easily without ever turning on the idiot box, as a matter of fact TV was considered a time suck, and if you avoided it wisdom was you lived a much fuller life. TV didn’t really become a thing until HBO started its original programming, and then the whole paradigm was blown up and jetted into the future in 1999 by “The Sopranos,” Sunday night was for HBO, the networks didn’t even bother to program against it.

But then there was a chapter on Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda and…it was all about politics, not Jane’s movie career.

Many are now aware of Hayden as a result of the recent Chicago 7 movie, but he was never ever rock and roll. Nor was Jane Fonda. And as far as what they did in 1974…it wasn’t much different from what they did before and after.

So why do we even need these two?

Because politics is Brownstein’s beat, his everyday gig. And the truth is by the very early seventies, music disengaged from politics, and other than the news, TV wasn’t involved at all. This is when Brownstein, trying to weave the story, loses the thread.

And this was when the book started to become tedious. Which completely surprised me, because I was so into it previously.

This is when I reminded myself that fiction is so much more rewarding.

This is when I started to realize everything that happened in this book happened a long damn time ago, almost half a century.

Let’s see, I won’t say it feels like I graduated from college yesterday, I feel like I’ve got runway left, but having said that, everybody I know outside the music business has retired. And that’s it. Done. You can have experiences, but your life has basically been written, at least the way these people live it. They play golf and travel, but they don’t change the world, despite having so much time on their hands.

And when you read this book you can’t stop thinking how different things are today. TV and politics are obvious. But music is too… Acts don’t migrate to Los Angeles to make it, you can make it from anywhere today, that’s the power of the internet. Sure, you might ultimately move to the west coast, but back then you had to! And you paid a lot of dues. And hung out and got drunk and theorized… Today everybody is going where they’re going real fast, there’s no time to woodshed, the fear is that you’ll be superseded, and never be able to catch up.

So music has completely changed. It’s driven by the internet and it’s about branding and money and the building blocks…that’s a step you hope to skip. You read about these old tunes and you realize there are no modern equivalents, none… Come on, Linda Ronstadt’s “You’re No Good” was her breakthrough, we haven’t had a track that engaging and powerful in eons. As for “Hotel California,” which was ’76, that’s a high water mark. The Eagles are hated because they were so damn good, talented, polished and great singers and songwriters, the reaction was punk, breaking it down, even though punk was really a reaction to prog and corporate rock. Simple had power. And in truth, punk didn’t really have its heyday until ’91 and Nirvana. And the reason that act was so damn great, and ultimately legendary, was because of the songwriting, Kurt Cobain had both punk and pop sensibilities, he knew how to write a song, and he had what all of the classic acts of the seventies possessed, he was alienated, he was the anti-Dave Grohl.

But forget debating quality, the point is those great records were fifty years ago. And as I’m thinking of the age and career status of those who made them it occurs to me they’re all in their seventies, some, like Ronstadt, have already retired from the road. Soon, they’ll be gone. And then I will be too.

One thing is for sure, time marches forward.

That’s another thing that’s upsetting about this book. I have sixties and seventies values, but those days are a couple of changes back.

The police are now gods, except when they kill people. Back then they were “pigs,” yes, even Joni Mitchell sang about kissing a “Sunset pig.” But that was back when Sunset Boulevard was the epicenter of the music business, not only is Pandora’s Box gone, but so much of the music and arts infrastructure, the real estate values are just too high, now you’ve got residence towers and offices and…the culture has been excised.

Our worst enemy was Nixon. Sure, there were rednecks, but we didn’t argue over the facts, just the opinions.

And the military! Vietnam vets were angry their efforts were not respected. Today people in uniform are exalted, irrelevant of the results of their service.

In other words, I grew up in a different era.

Most people my age have given up trying to keep up. They’ve got a smartphone, but oftentimes it’s a few generations old. As for TV? They’re the generation that still watches in real time, check the data. It’s easy to use the clicker to change channels, quite another to record to the DVR and use the smart TV or the Roku to watch streaming outlets, never mind dig deep into the offerings. Of course there are exceptions, people who are computer savvy…then again, the truth is you no longer need to be computer savvy, the devices and operating systems are superior.

And the digital excitement and exploration of twenty years ago is almost extinct. Remember the Naked News? Probably not unless you’re over 30. Now you can just Google nude bodies, sex acts, and your next door neighbor is flaunting it on OnlyFans.

In other words, culture moved. Forget judging whether it’s for better or worse, one thing is for sure, it’s different.

And so am I.

If I went back to my college campus, which I won’t, the students there would see me as an oldster who attended in an ancient era. And they’d be right. We had no cable, no DVDs, no internet…it was literally a different century.

And then I start thinking about how much runway I truly have left. Do I really have twenty or thirty years? And even if I do, what will be my quality of life? Junior Bounous may have skied Pipeline at 80, and gone heli-skiing a month ago at 95, but you probably have no idea who Junior Bounous is. Bounous was the original ski school director at Snowbird, a legendary powder skier, was his life equal to that of the entertainment stars? I spent a lot of my life in the mountains, is that where I should be? Wherever I should be, whatever I want to do, I should go there and do it now. Most people don’t live to 95.

But boomers thought they’d never die.

Therefore they’re not prepared for retirement not only intellectually, but financially. Most can’t afford to do what they want. And now my generation is the conservative one, living in the Villages in Florida, on a fixed income, not wanting to be taxed for social programs that don’t benefit them. We used to blame our parents for thinking like this, now it’s us.

Now if you didn’t live through the aforementioned era, if you weren’t in your late teens in 1974, you’ll take everything in “Rock Me on the Water” as gospel. But it’s not. It’s not that the facts are so wrong, as a matter of fact they’re almost universally right, but the feel and context are a bit off. Because Brownstein was not part of the equation back then, that wasn’t his life. As a matter of fact, he was born in 1958. Chris “Mad Dog” Russo was born in ’59, just a year later, and he was testifying to Howard Stern how the book was a revelation, that he was too young to truly experience what was happening back then, so he loved it.

I didn’t love it.

He or she who writes history owns it.

As far as the history of the late sixties and seventies…

It was an era where we had time, today we don’t. You could be bored, today you can’t. Big ideas were important, cash was secondary, what you stood for was everything, credibility was key. That’s hard to understand for today’s generation, which is struggling just to keep its head above water. No one with a brain moves to Hollywood to spend a decade trying to make it in music, they exit much earlier if they try at all. Today you graduate from college and get a high-paying job, you get a business degree, never mind an MBA. No one I graduated from college with met with a recruiter, never mind got a corporate job. I don’t think I even knew what an MBA was until the eighties. My life was about experiences. Which were rich. But not valued much today.

So you can listen to the records of yore, you’re not going to bother to watch the TV, as for the movies, now classics are from the early twentieth century, but the context…one in which music was everything, when you listened to albums to from your opinions and direct your future, I don’t think that comes through via the wax alone.

It was a long time ago, it’s history.

And soon I will be too.

P.S. Brownstein posits “On the Border” as an artistic breakthrough for the Eagles. He’s the only one who sees it that way. Yes, it was a commercial success, but the real breakthrough was its follow-up, “One of These Nights,” in 1975, never mind “Hotel California” a year later, and all believe that its predecessor, the commercial disappointment “Desperado,” is superior to “On the Border” artistically. And as my old friend Tony Wilson said, if you get the little things wrong, who is to trust you’ll get the big things right?