It only took Sony two decades to wake up.

Kobalt was built to be sold. Haven’t we seen this same paradigm over the last two decades in the internet sphere? Independents gain headway, needle the big ‘uns, and then sell out at a high price. And eventually, the big ‘uns get so big, they can’t be challenged…can you say FACEBOOK and GOOGLE?

The music business has changed dramatically in the past half decade, despite no acknowledgement of this whatsoever. For ten plus years the conversation centered around distribution, i.e. the journey from Napster to Spotify. And since Spotify and its streaming cohorts turned revenue around, in other words so it started going back up, all the conversation has been about payments. Ironically, almost all of this jawing is from oldsters who were disrupted by technological change, you don’t hear the youngsters bitching, unless they’re complete wannabes. Why is it those with the smallest purchase make the biggest noise? Why is it these wankers get paid attention?

Anyway, the story of the last five years in music has been its complete Balkanization. There may be three major labels, but they control less of the landscape than ever before. You see the barrier to entry is nonexistent, and so many are playing and…

Let me give you an analogy. TV. There were nearly five hundred shows made in the past year, a giant multiple of those produced in the pre-streaming era. However, shows are expensive to make, and distribution is key, there are a limited number of outlets. In music, creation has exploded, but distribution is easy, therefore there are oodles of new acts, some with traction, some with less.

Going back to the oldsters versus the young ‘uns… The young ‘uns harnessed the new internet tools. They uploaded to Soundcloud, gave it away for free. Promoted for free online via social media, never mind having made the music on the cheap, employing computers. The young ‘uns bought fully into the new world. You either do so or die. Remember that.

But now there are so many acts and so many labels that the landscape is incomprehensible. As is the chart. Sure, there are a number of very successful songs, but they mean less than ever before, they reach a smaller percentage of the population than ever before. And their share of the aggregate is going down, yes, that’s what the latest reports have said, income is being distributed to more acts.

So…

If you’re a modern label, your best way to survive is to hoover up all the small players, get that revenue for yourself, control that revenue.

Consolidation is the way of business. And this Sony/Kobalt deal is evidence of this. Sony just entered the present. Its competitors have shrinking release schedules looking for hits, that’s a different game.

Meanwhile, the customer is completely confused. What should they listen to?

So Kobalt came up with a better mousetrap. AWAL. Giving partners just what they needed at a rock bottom price. Genius. As was Kobalt itself. Kobalt revolutionized publishing, from the ground up it was based on the internet, and transparency. You could see where your music was being played and what you should get paid, whenever you wanted. This was anathema to the old players, whose business model is based on obfuscation and theft. And sure, the old players eventually modernized, adding client computer dashboards, but the truth is they’re part of major labels operating under old rules, they’ve got no vision. So, Round Hill, Primary Wave and Hipgnosis swooped in and bought key assets, revolutionizing the business as well as driving catalog prices up.

Now the dirty little secret is the majors and their associated publishing companies like the way things are, they want no change. You see it’s one big tent, and therefore the labels don’t really care about the publishing share of streaming. Yes, the split is inequitable, songwriters get screwed. But this is going to change. BECAUSE MERCK OWNS TOO MANY HITS! Yes, Hipgnosis and its independent compatriots are going to lobby for changes, to right the wrong, to raise songwriter royalties, and they’ve got an excellent case, and now they’ve also got leverage.

The major labels could have had this leverage, but they were asleep. These new publishers had vision. Why do we not have new labels with this vision?

Catalog. The music business runs on catalog. New hits are sexy, they get all the ink, but the catalog drives profits. It costs nothing to make and market and the revenue keeps pouring in, especially in these days of streaming, where there’s no manufacturing and distribution.

Will someone ever build a new label powerhouse?

It turns out no one is willing to play the long game. Which is necessary here. Although unlike in the past, the opportunity has never been larger. You’ve got to build a catalog. But with so much content available, so much to bet on, the opportunities are rife. But music is seen as a secondary business that got trounced by the internet, never to recover. WRONG! The internet has been the best thing that has ever happened to the music business. There are umpteen new revenue streams, marketing is cheap and if you don’t understand this you’re an oldster who believes direct consumption of recordings is the only thing that matters in music. It is not. Widen your horizons or get out of the way, the future continues to be built.

But now Sony has done what I told Roger Ames and the rest of the CEOs to do almost twenty years ago, they’ve cast a wide net, knowing that the aggregate is key, nothing is as big as before so you’ve got to be the pipeline for more.

This is a bad sign for artists. The more power major labels get, the worse it is for them.

But the race is not over, it is still being run.

But now the people who left major label distribution to go to AWAL…are back where they started, and there’s no viable alternative.

Never ever forget that distribution is king. And Sony has just amped up its distribution power. Think about that.

Playlist: https://spoti.fi/39zSPtp

This is bringing me right down.

Now it’s getting out of control, every week seems to bring the passing of a rock star of yore, some that you recognize, some that you’ve hardly even heard of.

Leslie West. I bought the first Mountain album, which was really a Leslie West solo LP. Yes, I knew he was in the Vagrants, but I never heard any of their music. This was when you read about records and had to buy them to hear them, but you couldn’t buy all of them. Not that I’m exactly sure what made me buy the first Mountain album, maybe I heard it at a friend’s house, because I certainly never heard it on the radio. 

It was on Windfall Records. Distributed by Bell Records. Let’s see, Bell was a powerhouse of rock and roll, famous for releasing Edison Lighthouse’s “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” and Climax’s “Precious and Few.” No, not the Climax Blues Band, and if you wanted the really heavy stuff on Bell you listened to Tony Orlando and Dawn. Bell was a singles label. And either it got on the airwaves or it disappeared. What room was there for Leslie West? Essentially none. Especially in an era where all the good stuff came out on Warner Brothers and Columbia.

Upon Leslie’s death I was stunned to find out about the reputation of “Long Red,” how many times it was sampled. Actually, my favorite song on the LP was “Baby, I’m Down,” and “Storyteller Man” was great, as was the finale, “Because You Are My Friend.” This was before anybody knew who Leslie was, so he could be both noisy and soft, bombastic and sensitive, all on the same album. And I played that album over and over, it was fun to be into something only you knew about. 

So I had to go see Mountain at the Fillmore East. The headliner was the Steve Miller Band, supporting their new album “Your Saving Grace,” which I did not purchase. I love the title track, but at that point, I was off the Steve Miller bandwagon, ultimately “Number 5” was worse. Then people stopped buying Steve’s albums, I saw “Rock Love” in the bins, just like the ridiculously titled follow-up, “Recall the Beginning…A Journey from Eden,” but no one I knew owned them. And then, out of the blue, Miller had a monster hit with “The Joker” and he was everywhere. My favorite album was always the third, “Brave New World.” Sure, it’s got “Space Cowboy,” but it also had “Kow Kow” and “Seasons” and Paul McCartney on “My Dark Hour.” I still play “Brave New World” today, even though diehards believe it was already over by then. You see Boz Scaggs was already gone, to purists it was about “Sailor,” with the indelible “Quicksilver Girl,” which too many people still don’t know, and preferably the debut, when the band was supposedly still pure.

I’ll tell you, Miller delivered, but he was just a bonus, I wanted to see Mountain. And by this time, there was a band. With Felix Pappalardi and Corky Laing and Leslie sang like he meant it, there was incredible power, this was an offshoot of Hendrix and what had come before, today’s heavy music is sans melody, but not Leslie West, not Mountain. Mind you, this was months before the second album, “Climbing!,” came out in March. “Mississippi Queen” was an immediate success. In bedrooms and basements. You never heard it on AM radio. But by this point, if you lived in Fairfield, Connecticut, you were listening to FM, New York was only fifty miles away.

I remember being stoned listening to “Climbing!” in the basement of someone I did not really know and feeling that the album was passé, it was already June, there was new stuff. And I’d heard enough of “Mississippi Queen” within weeks of release. Actually, my favorite cut on the album was “Silver Paper.” And I knew “Theme for an Imaginary Western” from Jack Bruce’s solo and “For Yasgur’s Farm” was one of the Woodstock songs, but ultimately Mountain was not in the Woodstock movie, a decision made by management, when you used to say no instead of yes, and West carried this chip on his shoulder for the rest of his life. If only…

And then Mountain got heavier and heavier, more bombastic, and when that avenue ran out of steam there was a supergroup with drummer Laing and Jack Bruce and that was the height of bombasticity and corporate rock came in and then disco and Leslie West was a gunslinger with no saloon within which to show his chops. MTV was about synths. A few hotshots survived, but only a few, like Eric Clapton…even Jeff Beck was struggling for attention. Music is funny. Have enough hits and you can trade on them forever, playing them to smaller and smaller audiences. But people come to hear the hits, you’re a prisoner of your past.

But now that past is receding further and further, to the point where unless you’re the Beatles or the Stones, your work from the sixties may be fading away, and the seventies and eighties too. At least in the sixties there were all these big AM hits. But the seventies were about FM staples, so there were a lot of acts that got airplay but were not known by absolutely everybody so their paint has faded so much as to almost be unknowable.

Then there’s Gerry Marsden. His band had gigantic hits. But it seems no young ‘un knows them, they’ll never get chills when they finally see the Mersey and have the words of his song play in their heads. And you’d think in this era where pop rules, someone could have a huge hit with a cover of “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Cryin'”…then again, that can’t happen until the chart migrates from beats back to melody.

As for Sylvan Sylvain… He had the privilege of being in a cult band. With cult fans. The Ramones never had a hit, and now you see their t-shirts on babies. The Dolls have lived on because they pushed the envelope, so you saw a lot of ink about Sylvain’s death, but most people had no idea who he was, never mind his music.

Tim Bogert? A monster supporting player in no bands that were iconic hitmakers. Sure, Vanilla Fudge’s version of “You Keep Me Hanging On” was the precursor to “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” an extended number for stoners, but there was never a hit single version, unlike the Iron Butterfly number. I saw Cactus multiple times, I can’t say they deserved to break through, and they didn’t. As for Bogert’s work with Jeff Beck… Finally his moniker was in the headline, in the name of the group, but Stevie Wonder had the hit version of “Superstition.” So, if you knew Bogert, you felt his loss. But he was never the member of a sexy band so he got a hell of a lot less ink than Sylvain Sylvain.

And now Hilton Valentine.

Quick! Name the guitarist in the Animals!

Very few can do so. Their hits were 55 years ago, over half a century. To give you some perspective… That would be like kids in the sixties, the Animals’ heyday, knowing the hits of 1910, which they most certainly didn’t.

Now the Animals were hobbled by being on MGM Records, which was never cool. We knew that back then, we saw the labels on the 45s, we knew the orange and yellow of Capitol, the red of Columbia…MGM was a lame label, without the infrastructure of its big time competitors.

But the Animals were giants.

It was the summer of ’64. The summer of “A Hard Day’s Night.” The British Invasion was in full swing, our minds had expanded to encompass the work of seemingly everything from the U.K., assuming it was good. And the Animals were.

At that point most people had no idea “House of the Rising Sun” was a Dave Van Ronk staple, never mind being on Bob Dylan’s first LP, it was the rock sound that put the Animals’ version over the top. Of course you had Eric Burdon’s vocal, but there is not a boomer alive, that’s how ubiquitous hit songs were back then, who doesn’t know the opening guitar lick to “House of the Rising Sun.” That lick was played by Hilton Valentine.

Now the original incarnation of the Animals only lasted until 1966. Sure, their hit-making era was only three years, from ’64-’66, but they’d paid dues before that, beginning in ’62, in Newcastle upon Tyne, an industrial area without the hipness of Liverpool, never mind London. The Animals had a dark name and they were perceived as dark. But they had a slew of hits.

Sure, “House of the Rising Sun” was a breakthrough, and went to #1, but “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” which only went to #13 in the U.S., was a bigger song, probably better remembered. Barry Mann and Cynthia Well wrote it, but the Animals made it their own, and it did not have the legacy of a standard, it was fresh, brand new.

As for “It’s My Life”…

Eric Burdon was gonna ride that serpent, he was gonna break loose, because..

“It’s my life and I’ll do what I want

It’s my mind and I’ll think what I want”

This was the ethos of the sixties, it’s not the ethos of today. Our parents were not fighting us for attention, there was no question of them being our best friends, we were throwing off the chains of society, of expectations, we were gonna forge our own path.

It’s a great song, Burdon delivers it, but never underestimate the importance of Hilton Valentine’s twelve string guitar.

And the Animals had other hits, but “Don’t Bring Me Down” is my favorite. 

“When you complain and criticize

I feel I’m nothing in your eyes

It makes me feel like giving up

Because my best just ain’t good enough”

The hormones had awoken. Puberty was in full swing. What you wanted was too often unattainable. You had crushes. But to them you barely existed, if at all. But to you, they were everything. The only thing you had to soothe yourself was this music.

“Oh, oh no

Don’t bring me down”

Give me a chance. I’ll show you, you’ll see, I’ll have this music playing in the back of my mind, I’ll be emboldened, I’ll be undeniable.

Now in the case of “Don’t Bring Me Down” one cannot underestimate the importance of Dave Rowberry’s organ, and Eric Burdon sings with nuance, something absent from too much of today’s music, and it’s a great Gerry Goffin/Carole King song, but what truly makes “Don’t Bring Me Down” a hit is Hilton Valentine’s fuzz guitar. It’s a bedrock element of rock history. And you probably had no idea who Hilton Valentine was. He’s that guy!

They no longer die before their time, they don’t O.D., their bodies give out and they’re gone, and there are so many of them these days that their deaths are less shocking and get less attention, after all, nobody lives forever.

But if you lived through the era… These people were everything. They took over from sports stars. They broke new ground. And we followed them. The Beatles were not the only pied pipers.

Now the truth is we’re next. These musicians are a decade older than so many of us. But the Grim Reaper is coming for us, we’re next on the chopping block. Everything that was so important, everything that we lived for, is fading away, probably never to return. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

I’m in the middle of this.

Been a strange day. First and foremost it was raining, which means snow in the mountains, Mammoth got over a hundred inches, not something you can fathom if you live on the east coast, if you live anywhere but California, where it doesn’t snow often, but when it does it dumps, unlike in Colorado, where you get constant dustings, 2″ here, 3 or 4″ there.

And when it rains in L.A., the whole city shuts down. Well, it’s kinda shut down anyway, traffic is lighter than it normally is. Normally rush hour is a drag that must be factored into potential trips. But there are no traffic jams these days. And this was important because I had to go to Ralphs to get my Covid vaccine.

I got three opinions. My hematologist said to get it as soon as possible, that even though my B cells would be nonexistent, the vaccine might work on my T or NK cells. My psychiatrist said to get it immediately because the future was unclear. And that we all might need a booster anyway. My internist said to wait a month, wait for my body to generate some B cells after the Rituxan infusion, so I could get a proper immune response, form some antibodies, however low in number.

I went with the majority, somewhat reluctantly, but then Ralphs canceled my appointment and it was moot.

Scrambling for an appointment is a thing. You hear from a friend or a relative, in this case my sister Jill, you go to the site and the time slots are gone and then it’s a matter of how fast you can type, how fast you can fill in the boxes, to see if now you can get an appointment. And I was a pro, they were evaporating fast, but I got ’em for me and Felice.

But before that I also got them at a different Ralphs for a much later date, for January 29th instead of the 17th. Thank god I did, because I didn’t heed Jill’s warning the next time around, to ignore what the site said, that it was health care workers only, and not over 65, but she was right, the reservations were valid, but I only realized this after the fact, when nothing was available. Thank god I had the prior reservations, because nothing continued to be available.

But last night there was a big story in the L.A. “Times’ that Ralphs was canceling appointments…and I got nervous. But I called Ralphs and they said I was still on the schedule, not that I wholly believed it, especially after all the stories of unavailability in this morning’s news.

Oh, if you’re playing outside L.A., let me make this clear. California said anybody over 65, which I am, could get the shot, but it didn’t apply in L.A. County, and then it did.

So I went to Ralphs today…where nothing was happening. I expected a line, some commotion, but it turns out they only vaccinate 15-20 people a day. So the process proceeded leisurely, and I had time to talk to the injector, a pharmacy student, who told me Ralphs was only canceling appointments after February 7th, you see the store had to kick back 10,000 shots to the city, and that I would get a second shot, they would call me…he convinced me, but now that I think about it I’m not so sure.

And when Felice returned from getting her shot ninety minutes later, we fired up Bill Maher. Normally I’d go hiking, but tonight it would be way too muddy. And the show was disappointing. They didn’t touch on GameStop, and Bill wasn’t familiar with the Jewish Space Lasers Van Jones was talking about, a story which broke Thursday, but I guess it’s hard for everybody to keep up these days, to know everything.

And when Bill was done, we fired up “Deutschland ’89” on Hulu. It’s the version with subtitles.

Now the problem with these shows is you can’t remember what happened in the previous seasons, in this case “Deutschland ’83” and “’86.” So it’s confusing. Just as bad is “Spiral,” they’re dripping out two episodes a week. And it’s hard to remember from one week to the next. I hate these companies, let me binge. The same way I hate the “Billboard” album chart. Huh? Just add up the streams, please, instead of coming up with complex formulas to service the record labels who rarely advertise in the magazine anyway. 80% of revenue comes from streams, which are all individual tracks, but the chart? The chart references albums, ridiculous.

And after watching two “Deutschlands,” Felice was taking a break so I started surfing the services. I do this on a regular basis, to see what is new, which is how I found “Deutschland ’89.” And after coursing through Hulu and Netflix, Felice still hadn’t returned, so I decided to check out HBO Max, it’s now on the Roku.

And that’s when I saw the Tiger doc. I walked in on Felice watching it earlier in the week and Tiger’s caddie was talking and it was fascinating, I decided to start from the beginning.

Tiger’s father is waxing rhapsodic, how his son is going to change the world, not only in golf, he’s going to be a great humanitarian.

And after Earl drones on…they show Tiger in a jail cell. Quite a juxtaposition.

And when Felice returned to the living room, we decided to stay with the phenom as opposed to going back to Germany.

Come on, when you were a kid didn’t you want to be famous? Didn’t you look up to the stars? Didn’t you think if you were on TV your life would work?

Well, this is how boomers felt before all the child actors got arrested, before today, when everybody is trying to gain a following online.

You grow up in the suburbs and…you dream of something more. I’m envious of those who grew up in L.A., it was all at their fingertips, they could gain knowledge of the game, which took me years to figure out in my twenties.

Then again, there are people who grow up in the suburbs and stay in the suburbs. But that was never me, I wanted to get out, I needed to get out, California was always my dream and I was going. Staying in town sounded like death, get a job and…repeat what your parents did, their lives? No way.

But it wasn’t until I was almost thirty that I realized for most people the dream died, they were happy going along and getting along. Not me, I wanted more, much more.

And it turned out there was so much I couldn’t do. Practicing law? I’m too much of a perfectionist for that. If I made a mistake, I’d affect someone’s life and be horrified. And the truth is the only people who can get thorough legal service are those who can pay, for the work of the large firms or the specialty firms. In L.A. there are scores of firms for every specialty. Law was not for me. Nor was regular business. I’m not cut out for that either. It’s all about getting along, being jive, playing the mental game, the work is secondary. I learned this the hard way. To me, the record had to be its very best. But to my superiors? Everybody had to be happy, you didn’t want to ruffle feathers, I didn’t understand that whatsoever.

So I’ve got to work for myself, I’ve got to be a lone wolf. Because if you work for anybody else inherently there are limits. Unless you’re top dog. But how many people did you have to kill to get there? Most people have no idea how business really works, how people end up at the top.

Tiger ended up at the top.

And he sacrificed his complete life for it. He played no other sports, he had no friends, and when he finally had a girlfriend, his parents made him break up with her, cut off all contact in a letter after three years. You see they were afraid the girlfriend was going to impede Tiger’s progress, that he wouldn’t get to the destination.

Now I never envisioned having a wife, kids and a house. But I certainly never wanted to be so focused that there was no room for anything else.

And Tiger’s father is training him. Pushing him. It’s relentless.

But it was his mother who carried the big stick. She set the limits, and if you crossed her, there was going to be trouble.

Now one thing that has always bugged me about Tiger is if he hits a bad shot, he can get angry, he can throw down his club. I was taught etiquette in golf was key, by my mother, at the public course, she loved to play golf. But Tiger lived in his own bubble where winning was everything, he was Vince Lombardi on steroids.

And he and his mother made fun of Phil Mickelson. That he was twenty pounds overweight and didn’t practice as hard as Tiger.

Now the truth is I know a lot of famous people. And fame comes with a lot of perks. Old school fame, based on talent, comes with a lot of money, and if you don’t blow it…and if you’re a musician you can continue to tour and you get your ASCAP/BMI and…

But fame won’t make you happy, no way. And if you lose too much of it, people make fun of you, call you a has-been. It’s a tough row to hoe and very few people know the inside game. Instead you’ve got fans who support you, but irritate you. Sometimes you don’t want to hang out and sign autographs. Tiger plays and he’s endlessly signing autographs, it’s a burden, and anybody who’s famous will tell you…one false move, give one fan a bad look, don’t pay fealty to them, and they’ll hate you and talk about you whenever your name comes up for the rest of their lives, it’s their brush with fame, and you didn’t come through. Talk about the pressure…but it’s nothing like playing sports, certainly golf, which no one plays perfectly.

But few athletes are well-rounded people. They do something physical, whereas…artists have to experience life to express themselves, it’s part of the process, and how you express yourself is important, which is why when you’re just the face of a committee production…it’s hard to have faith, it’s hard to believe, unless you’re a mindless fan entranced by the fame, just like Tiger’s army, some of whom hated blacks, but Tiger wasn’t seen as black.

Not even to himself.

But there are some other athletes who set the record straight. That Tiger can call himself a Cablinasian, but no matter what he says, most people see him as black. There are immutable truths, but somehow Tiger felt they didn’t apply to him.

And then there were the enablers, first and foremost Nike. To Nike you’re a product, and the only reason they’re interested is to sell stuff. You’re fungible, there’s always another athlete coming down the pike. And Nike presses the button and…whew, suddenly you’re everywhere!

It used to be this way in the music business, back before the internet and the fracturing of society. Actually, Tiger would never be as big if he started today. Then again, everybody’s interested in a phenom, remember when Steph Curry started hitting all those three-pointers? People who had no idea where the Warriors played were now following the story, just like non-golfers followed Tiger Woods.

So… They’re setting up Tiger’s infidelities. Turns out his father and his friend the golf pro were horndogs, married, but playing the field. And it’s not like Tiger had any other role models, these were almost the only people he had contact with!

But Tiger was made to self-destruct. It always happens. You can only stay that focused for a while, then the world creeps in and you re-evaluate and…

They reference how much bodily effort Tiger puts into his swing, they ask the question of whether it would hurt his back. Tiger just had his fifth back surgery and…once you go down the back surgery road, you never get completely better, surgeons never really tell you this, they live to cut, and they’ll cut again if you want them to. But, the truth is the body breaks down, and injuries come primarily from overuse. You can’t really overuse your mind. Which is why my father always focused on it, whenever I spoke of being an athlete he’d go berserk, and discount any time spent pursuing my goal, he considered my two years in Utah a waste. I don’t agree, if anything I learned I didn’t want to live that life. But this was long before the rich got richer, when you could work at a bank or become an entrepreneur and pull away from the rest of society, and the truth is today’s smart kids know this, they don’t want to start at the bottom, they want insurance, they want a job, they’ll put their dreams aside because they don’t want to be broke. And never forget, for every Tiger Woods, of which there is one, there are thousands of wannabes that you’ve never heard the name of.

So this documentary is riveting. I didn’t watch the Michael Jordan doc because I lived through it, I watched way too much basketball in the nineties. I felt the same way about Tiger. None of the reviews of the Tiger doc conveyed the experience of watching it. The talking heads talk and…it’s like listening to audio Dead Sea Scrolls. And you see everybody’s job, and wonder where they fit in, and where you fit in. Years have gone by, people look old. Happens to the best of us, unless you check out early, O.D. And you can get plastic surgery, but like Lowell George sang, you’re just fooling yourself. Your interior doesn’t care about your exterior work, and to young people you’re a joke. It’s extremely rare that you don’t look done, that you look natural, and people know and make fun of you behind your back. That’s the truth.

So, the golf pro at the Naval course… He just lived a life. He’s not famous. And there are a bunch of writers, some very articulate, but unless you read the sports pages back then, most specifically “Sports Illustrated,” you don’t know their names. And sports writing, like music criticism, has fallen on hard times. “Sports Illustrated” was sold, it’s not the same magazine, and who wants week old sports news these days? Today it’s just the facts, no one is paying big bucks for sports writing like they used to. Same deal with “Vanity Fair,” the new editor produces a lame magazine. But the truth is… Condé Nast cut her budget severely, so the best writers have gone elsewhere.

So you watch this documentary and your whole life flashes in front of your eyes. Tiger started almost at birth, but it’s too late for the rest of us, that ship has sailed. So you evaluate your choices, try to feel good about them, but… This Tiger documentary also disincentivizes you to achieve goals you wanted to. Rich, famous, the best? People pay attention to you for a minute, and then they move on. And when your time is done, and it’s done for almost everybody, you’re forgotten. And the biggest of stars can soon be nonentities. Ask a kid about Johnny Carson. Who?

So the Tiger documentary is quite an achievement. It’s anything but a rote telling of the events of his life. And it’s much more than a melodrama. It’s about life itself. And you only get one. What do you want to do with it?

It’s the tyranny of the ignorant, and the misinformed.

Every day there’s a new story about the perils of Brexit now that it is here. Today’s concerns the British car industry:

“British Auto Industry Risks Slow Decline After Brexit – Lacking a strong domestic battery industry, Britain may be left behind by the shift to electric cars.”: https://nyti.ms/3t5QZbu

Then there was that story about the marginalization of Britain when Scotland and Northern Ireland secede, which you know is going to happen, they don’t want to sacrifice the benefits of being part of the EU, which are gargantuan, never mind the touring industry being hobbled by the lack of consideration in the ultimate deal, Boris leaving musicians high and dry, needing papers to travel outside the U.K.’s borders.

“Brexit and COVID have slammed the not-so-United Kingdome. Its survival may be in danger”: https://lat.ms/39shekt

How did this happen?

First and foremost, there are no longer authorized sites of truth. Oh, sites of truth still exist, but they’re dwarfed by alternatives with an agenda, oftentimes promoted by the politicians/stakeholders themselves. Everything in the world is cult of personality today, so if you believe in the act/performer/politician, they can do no wrong. Say something negative about Taylor Swift at your peril, never mind Donald Trump, the haters will come out in force. Furthermore, there’s a concomitant denigration of all alternatives. To cultists life is a zero sum game. If they succeed, you can’t, and they need to succeed, they will succeed at all costs.

And institutions are unprepared for this.

Used to be we not only counted on publications to inform the populace, but to set the course of conversation, to impact policy. Now you can write all you want in the “New York Times” or the “Washington Post,” but the effect will be minimal, it’s just another voice in a sea of voices. Used to be the hoi polloi could relax, put politics and business on the back burner, because they believed their elected officials were competent and they would be kept in line by the media. That is no longer the case. If anything, politicians and the media are now beholden to the wiles of the web. As for the newspapers…they see themselves as separate to their detriment. They’re so busy being fair and balanced that they have no agenda and have little effect, other than Rupert Murdoch’s properties. You can rail all you want about Fox News, but you cannot deny it changed our political landscape, our country. And Murdoch bought the “Wall Street Journal,” giving the right its authoritative news source, such that all other voices don’t need to be heard, you can live in the right wing bubble.

Now on television we’ve got MSNBC on the left, but it started too late, and the agenda is different. MSNBC is about pointing out flaws, Fox News is a cry to action, it’s an indoctrination, it’s a cult, it’s us versus them, and being a member of the tribe is more important than seemingly everything else in life.

Meanwhile, the left continues to be disorganized, continues to fear not only the right, but its own constituents.

So why are so many ignorant?

Because they were left behind by advancements, globalization. They do not have the education to be retrained in technology to any productive level, they used to work with their hands and made a good living and they can’t balance the realities of life. They want all products made in their home country, not knowing that irrelevant of available resources, the end result is that products will jump in price, are they ready to pay $2500 for a flat screen? NO WAY! They want it all, and they don’t want to pay for it. Like the concertgoer who believes they’re entitled to sit in the front row at face value for every show. The demand drives the price up and still demand outstrips supply, there are only so many front row seats, but they feel entitled to one! Two!

So you get left behind economically. One thing’s for sure, you don’t want any of your cash spent helping others, you’re already crippled enough. Taxes must be lower, welfare must be diminished, they’re sick and tired of paying for it. Forget the fact that these people may pay little or no income tax, forget the fact that blue states might overpay so red states can have more government programs, that’s too wonky, it doesn’t feel right, in today’s world feelings are everything! That is why the left is so hamstrung, it’s afraid of hurting anybody’s feelings! Meanwhile, the right has banded together to prevent the left from…ruining the country? The left has been labeled socialist, and in a world where everything can be contained in a slogan, it’s easy to rally the troops if you create one. Your agenda must be short and comprehensible. So, we know what the right stands for…the left? We’re still arguing about it!

But now that there are so many ignorant, uninformed people out there, there’s this canard that they must be played to, they must be satiated. Which is like listening to the passenger tell you there’s no chance of hitting the iceberg. Expertise is demoted, because it might hurt someone’s feelings, no matter the cost. The tail is wagging the dog!

And truth is fungible, facts blew away in the wind. Everything’s a sport, you either win or you lose, and just like the Astros and the Patriots cheat to win, everybody believes this is fine in other aspects of their life. Meanwhile, Robert Kraft gets caught red-handed, and gets away with it.

That’s another way to rile up the troops, speak of inequities, income inequality, even though your professed policies may hurt them more…they don’t care, if they’re even aware, they’re willing to take one for the team!

Meanwhile, institutions continue to play by the old rules until they’re disrupted, as if it’s a surprise the masses won’t be coming after them eventually. Then again, everybody lives in a bubble, no one can truly comprehend the world, so usually you don’t see it coming, like the election of Trump to begin with.

There’s no center anymore. Turns out our elected officials have clay feet. They’re no longer heroes, they’re just regular people. So, we have individuals paying fealty to the cult, as they do their best to kill the leaders and the followers, the soldiers of opposite cults.

And very few with any actual power are aware of this, so government and corporations are always behind the curve, buffeted by these changes, which happen deep online, it’s a full time job keeping track of what’s going on, and even then you still don’t know. Meanwhile, tell the truth to someone in power and they’ll ignore you, they’re so busy making money today that they can’t conceive it will be different tomorrow. And usually they’re just a cog in the machine, they didn’t start the company, they know how to manage, they’ve got no vision, so it’s not surprising when they’re disrupted.

And to achieve their goals…the cult leaders lie with impunity. It started with Clinton, Trump just amped up the paradigm, took it to the max. Remember when you were afraid of lying in court? Very few feel the need to be honest anymore. Certainly the bigshots don’t.

And there are no consequences, there is no court of truth. And the world moves so fast that what happened yesterday is already forgotten. Trump foments an insurrection…yeah, but that was WEEKS AGO! Let’s go for unity, it’s not that bad, but if you try to undermine the nation itself, democracy, if you’re doing your best to steal an election, which is what Trump did, shouldn’t there be consequences?

Of course not. Because unlike in sports there are no referees. Or they’re part of the tribe themselves. Yes, to become a Trump judge you essentially had to take a loyalty oath. Vote our way, that’s more important than your qualifications, than the truth.

So there are constantly eruptions all over the world. And they are rarely contained. There’s not enough manpower, and certainly not enough truth, to do so. Furthermore, you can’t change anyone’s opinion, even if it’s been proven wrong, it’s anathema to show weakness in today’s world, you never admit you were wrong, unless you’re someone with no real power doing a mea culpa and going into rehab.

There’s no there there anymore!

So, Boris and Nigel’s team won. Hooray! And by time the consequences are truly felt, they’ll be long gone. And when things go wrong it won’t be their fault anyway. That’s the blame game, personal responsibility is out the window. Not only are you not responsible, if you lose someone needs to make you whole…can you say WALL STREET?

Media should know it is the most powerful influencer around. Being a traffic cop is not enough, you must have an agenda, you must do your best to sway minds, democracy depends upon it.

And cyber warfare must be elevated above physical warfare. Wars are fought online today, and without Russia’s influence online, Brexit never would have happened in the first place!

As for institutions… Rules are propped up as if they still apply. What was written in the Constitution 250 years ago is truth, just like the Bible, inviolate, so forward progress is impeded. Such that governments can’t take swift action to address ills. Ills are always addressed, if not propagated in the first place, by corporations, outsiders, private citizens, often online. They’re nimble and uninhibited. And if you make your message sexy enough, it can go viral and outweigh the truth. We learned this years ago, people slow down to see the car crash. Now everybody is slowing down to see the wreck online all the time. We’re fed incendiary material, irrelevant of its truth, and its purveyors say they’re not responsible while they hoover up our information and sell it to advertisers, our privacy has been lost in the process, but these titans are too rich and powerful to hobble. As for the proletariat, it’s been sold the fantasy that it too can become as rich and powerful, not realizing there are only so many seats at the table, and over the past two decades the table has become smaller and smaller, and more static.

The fix will not come with government, unfortunately. The fix will come from outside, those who dig up the facts to begin with. But this requires them to toot their horns and gather their tribes just like their opponents have, but that seems sleazy and opposite the ethos established eons ago.

Come on, do you have faith the people in D.C. know what they’re doing? You’ve lost faith in everybody but your cult leader and his or her minions. As for those who think they’re above it all, who refuse to participate, the joke is always on them. You need a smartphone, you need internet access to be informed, to play, to understand, to protect your interests. While you’re disconnected others are plotting to truly take away your freedom, but you’re unaware until it’s too late, when it’s in the process of happening or already has.

There are so many people. Many more than politicians. So, you either become a cult leader leading the people, or you’re victimized by them. And, if you decide to become a cult leader, be ready for the slings and arrows. AOC wants to speak her truth and she gets death threats. Meanwhile, the consequences for Cruz and Hawley speaking their nonsense are nonexistent.

But America is better prepared for the future than the U.K., an island nation with limited resources, that got a boost from banking which is now emigrating.

This is what happens when facts are ignored, when feelings reign, when the ignoramuses are riled up and appealed to.

And the worst is yet to come.