“Titan: The OceanGate Disaster” – Netflix trailer: https://rb.gy/2235z2

This was not the film I expected it to be, not the gory details of the explosion, but the choices and behaviors leading up to it. Sure, they show some of the retrieved detritus, but there are not panicked recordings…

But you will be positively unnerved at the noises of carbon cracking as the titan descends during other dives.

So what we’ve got here is a self-serving educated man who believed not only that he was right, but that everybody else was wrong. Sound familiar? Absolutely yes. But most people are not playing with other people’s lives.

At the end of the doc it’s said that Stockton Rush was in pursuit of fame. Which he ultimately got, but not in the way he desired.

“Stockton”… On some level that’s all you really need to know. Of course his first name is not “Stockton,” it’s RICHARD! Was he always called “Stockton”? It’s possible, because prep school kids adopt these nontraditional first names that are sometimes derived out of thin air, but are oftentimes family names, which are their middle names, in this case it’s “Richard Stockton Rush III.”

I didn’t know anybody named “Brooke” until I went to Middlebury. That’s the advantage of going to an elite institution. Being exposed to those who never touched the public school system, who’ve been living an alternative life from day one. There were a lot of lessons this middle class Jewish suburbanite learned from being exposed to the prepsters. One, don’t take anything too seriously, it’s just another chapter in your life (then again, they had a job lined up from birth). The due date was flexible, not a strict deadline you had to obey. Give respect to authority’s face, denigrate in private. Don’t be flashy and stand out, better to wear chinos and Top-Siders than anything out of a fashion magazine. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself, that’s for the nouveau-riche, who are never accepted by the bluebloods. But the bluebloods run the world.

However it is a bit different today. Not everybody who is rich inherited their money, those who made it like to parade it. But the real string-pullers are people you don’t know the name of but wield incredible inside power, the ones who will benefit from the tax cut in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, if it passes.

That’s who Stockton was. He went to Exeter, and then on to Princeton. He only played at the top, and the only way he could make a name for himself was to do something extraordinary, ordinary riches were not for him, he wanted to go down in the HISTORY BOOKS!

So was Stockton Rush like a typical techie, pushing the envelope despite the naysaying, or was he out of his league from day one?

The latter.

Stockton hired all the experts. Who were intrigued by the idea. But when they blew the whistle, he froze them out and/or fired them. To the point where you were afraid to speak up. This was not Steve Jobs. Steve would insult you for poor work, he was in search of excellence, but his first move was not to fire you, furthermore he liked those most who could challenge him to create ever better things. Rush had an idea, and he was going to shoehorn his efforts to fit it, science be damned.

So on one hand you’re watching this documentary asking why Rush didn’t listen, on the other you’re thinking how almost every envelope-pusher does not. Then again, once again, most envelope-pushers are not dealing with people’s lives.

And you only hear about the winners, when they’re far outnumbered by the losers. Yes, delusional hypesters are plentiful, especially in the arts, where the barrier to entry is so low. People with little talent who spend decades trying to make it and don’t, because they’re just not good enough. They believe the system is stacked against them, that someone is out to get them, which is kind of what Stockton felt, except he had that pedigree and a modicum of intelligence.

You don’t change the world by listening to the establishment.

But you can’t bend the rules of science either.

So this is the story of Stockton’s adventure, from having an idea for a submersible to charge people to visit Titanic to actually doing it, whilst ignoring all the red flags along the way.

Everybody else built their submersible out of solid material, like steel, whereas Rush built his out of carbon fiber, because it would be lighter and cheaper.

They’ve been using carbon fiber in skis for years now. It’s light, and it’s strong, but no one has been able to get it right to the point where the skis are cheap and as good as what’s already on the market, most manufacturers have given up on the idea of carbon-fiber based skis. But if you bought a pair and didn’t like them, they didn’t disintegrate all at once and send you into a tree.

And you think the naysayers are all wusses who played along until the disaster. But this turns out not to be true. Are you willing to quit when you no longer believe?

Most people are not. They rationalize staying.

So ultimately “Titan” is an American story. An entrepreneur who convinces others to join the team by spinning a fantasy. Turns out being a great salesman is a key part of success. These people don’t care about you, just that they get what they want. Beware of salesmen, always.

But if you can’t sell, you’re never going to be a successful entrepreneur. Venture capital is built upon hopes and dreams, fantasies, the cutting edge, and oftentimes it’s discovered the purveyor is a huckster and the idea is faulty. This is especially true in entertainment, where everybody is full of sh*t and it’s hard to separate winners and losers, truth from fiction. This is what a big swinging dick in the entertainment business can do, ferret out who is real and who is not. Which is why executives are prone to working with those they know as opposed to those they do not. Especially in a world where everybody lies and everything is built on hype. The show that’s sold out oftentimes is not. The act has ten million streams on their single? Dig deep and you’ll oftentimes they don’t even have a hundred thousand, and when you catch them in a lie they just double-down. Hell, look at Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, he lost in court this week, in a definitive decision, and what did he then say? HE WON! Then again, Donald Trump is a huckster/hypester and he lies all the time. And even his minions know this. So what’s the truth worth?

The truth is Stockton Rush was a bad guy whose effort was always going to end up in failure. The lights were flashing brightly. But when you see it all laid out in a movie, it makes you question more than the man, you have to rejigger your take on America, who is a bully with bluster with nothing at the core, do you do what is right or stay with the team?

There are bad actors out there. And not all of them are uneducated gang members in the inner city. Some come from the elite.

Like Stockton Rush.

From “The Rapper” to “Ah! Leah!”

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/donnie-iris/id1316200737?i=1000713550413

 

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/137b885d-157f-4794-95d2-3aed873bd0b5/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-donnie-iris

 

Spotify: https://rb.gy/sqfyaf

YouTube: https://rb.gy/2xe2yn

1

We knew the record, we knew the name, but we couldn’t pick Lou Christie out of a lineup.

That’s how it was back in ’66, when the Brits still had a hold on the Top 40, album rock was becoming a thing, but every once in a while something American would sneak into the chart from left field, something that sounded so right, but could have been released before the Beatles as opposed to two years after.

But we were all addicted to the radio. Top 40 ruled. Underground FM was still a year away. And there were anomalies that would confound you now, but were part of the fabric back then. Like Mike Douglas’s “The Men in My Little Girl’s Life” being number six on the WABC 1/18/66 chart, when “Lightnin’ Strikes” broke in at number 19. Unfathomable today, where the niches are so narrow, where tons of very popular music does not only not make it on to terrestrial Top 40, but doesn’t break the Spotify Top 50 either. But back in the day, if you were on the chart, you were popular, and everybody knew your song.

#1 that week was “We Can Work It Out,” the Beatles’ Xmas single which featured “Day Tripper” on the flip side, one of the amazing Beatle two-sided singles, and neither of these numbers were part of “Rubber Soul,” which was released on December 5, 1965. What a long strange trip it was from “Beatles ’65” the previous year to “In My Life” and “Norwegian Wood.”

#2 was Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence,” which ruled over the holiday. Not only did people wonder whether Garfunkel was his real name, there was endless debate regarding the meaning of the song, something we no longer have in today’s scramble for cash music business.

#3? The Stones’ ballad, “As Tears Go By.”

#4? The sadly overlooked by today’s kids Kinks, with one of their best songs ever, “A Well Respected Man.”

#5? Gary Lewis and the Playboys’ best song, “She’s Just My Style,” which Leon Russell had a hand in and sounded like a modern day Beach Boys cut.

And then came that Mike Douglas number.

But there were other anomalies, like the Statler Brothers’ “Flowers on the Wall,” which everyone loved and sang…

“Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo

Now don’t tell me, I’ve nothin’ to do”

I’m not going to delineate every record on the chart, but I will say that the Supremes and the Marvelettes were on there, as well as one of the best English-sounding American tracks, the Knickerbockers’ “Lies” and one other record that fit into the same slot as “Lightnin’ Strikes,” “Five O’clock World” by the Vogues, which had been completely forgotten until Bowling For Soup did a cover for “The Drew Carey Show” and we realized how f-ing great that number had been. It was there in our memory banks, but “Lightnin’ Strikes”? We never forgot that, hell, I was singing it to myself just yesterday, truly! 

2

“Listen to me baby, you gotta understand”

It was the urgency that got to us. And the record has a great intro, with even horns, but oftentimes the deejay cut that off and got right to the lyrics. But the intensity, it BUILT!

“Listen to me baby, it’s hard to settle down

Am I asking too much for you to stick around”

Ah, the need, the desire, the hormones. Believe me, we were hopped up, we felt it.

And then a complete change.

Which was heralded by a veritable twinkle, which set up the unexpected section:

“Every boy wants a girl

He can trust to the very end

Baby, that’s you

Won’t you wait, but ’til then”

The feel has completely changed. In the opening verse he’s begging for her attention, but now he’s got it. He’s softened his delivery, he’s looking into her eyes.

And then the number gets truly intense, like a teenager unable to control their will.

“When I see lips beggin’ to be kissed

(Stop)

I can’t stop

(Stop)

I can’t stop myself

(Stop, stop)”

Have you got it, he cannot STOP! He’s gone from begging to reasoning to PURE EMOTION, which then bubbles over.

“Lightning’s striking again

Lightning’s striking again”

He’s cast off all self-consciousness, he’s raw emotion, he’s in the moment, HE JUST CAN’T HOLD BACK! The release is palpable!

The falsetto chorus, angels singing from heaven, are on Lou’s side. I mean what woman can deny THIS?

It’s a veritable tour-de-force, and then the number breaks down once again, but with an added level of intensity:

“Nature’s takin’ over my one track mind

Believe it or not, you’re in my heart all the time

All the girls are sayin’ that you’ll end up a fool

For the time being, baby, live by my rules”

Now he and the background singers are positively testifying, his message is undeniable, how can she not be on his side?

As for “live by my rules”… You may think the sixties were a dark age culturally, but I must say, these words made the listener squirm even back in ’66. The man’s rules?

“When I settle down

I want one baby on my mind

Forgive and forget

And I’ll make up for all lost time”

Believe me, listeners weren’t thinking about settling down, this was a hangover from a previous era, the Beatles didn’t sing lyrics like this, and the aforementioned Kinks? They were singing social commentary.

Now the number is completely amped up.

There’s a break with a solo, but ultimately those high vocals come in over and over again, talking about lightning strikin’ again.

“There’s a chapel in the pines

Waiting for us, around the bend

Picture in your mind

Love forever, but ’til then”

The record is taken to a level unforeseen, an intensity that squeezes out everything else in the world, the listener is carried away, they’re all in.

But it’s the outro that seals the deal. Lightning is not only going to strike, not only going to strike again, but AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!

This was the essence of a hit record in the sixties. When it was over, you could not wait to hear it again, which drove you to the record shop to buy it to spin it at home over and over and OVER again until you were finally satiated, worn out, and you were just starting to be hooked by another record and ultimately repeated the process. But not all of those records were all time, but LIGHTNIN’ STRIKES IS!

3

I can literally remember hearing “Lightnin’ Strikes” hanging outside junior high waiting for the bell. Wearing my sweater as I’d agreed with Peter we would do. Although I wore a shirt underneath, he didn’t bother, I couldn’t do this, the itchiness would get to me.

These records lived everywhere. At the school dance, at the bowling alley, they were part of the fabric.

By the next week, “Lightnin’ Strikes” was at number 7, and the week after that, the chart of February 1, 1966, it went all the way to NUMBER ONE! And it stayed there, AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, three more weeks, four weeks in a row. And then it started to descend and by March 29th, “Lightnin’ Strikes” was off the chart completely. Which meant you rarely heard it on the radio anymore, but you didn’t need to, YOU KNEW IT BY HEART!

We all learned about the records at the same time. You couldn’t claim to be hip by knowing a song before everybody else did, we all started from the same line. Records did not take a year to break, hell, a year after their success an act could be working a day job. A hit was oftentimes a lark, a one time shot.

But Lou Christie had another hit, “Rhapsody in the Rain,” which was great, but not “Lightnin’ Strikes.” You don’t know how you reach the peak, you’re inspired, you’re channeling an energy that came from parts unknown, you lay it down and you know what you have but good luck trying to climb to the top of the mountain once again.

“Rhapsody in the Rain” had a very memorable chorus, but the dynamics were as not extreme and the verses were not as good as they were in “Lightnin’ Strikes.” “Rhapsody in the Rain” was fodder for the radio, “Lightnin’ Strikes” was LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE!

4

So I walked in the door and Felice told me Lou Christie had died, she’d heard it from her sister. I was completely out of the loop, it was news to me, and news period, the death was on Wikipedia but you could not find it searching the Google News. Nor Apple News+. I was living it in real time.

And I’m thinking about those who didn’t live through the era. They only know the track as an oldie, with the detritus of years of charts cleaned away so only the true goodies survive. And put against the rest of the songs from that era “Lightnin’ Strikes” may not be seen as quite the triumph it was. We were addicted to the radio, every Tuesday night I did my homework to Cousin Brucie doing the weekly countdown. When a record emerged it rode shotgun with our complete life, everybody we knew knew it, in a way today’s culture knows almost nothing, when even the average person can’t say who won the World Series, but back then…our cultural moments were universal peaks we all shared.

Now I was shocked to see that Lou Christie tried and tried and tried. He never gave up, kept searching for another hit, at times changing with the times, writing song after song after song, oftentimes with his partner Twyla Herbert, who was twenty years older than he was.

Songwriting partner, not romantic partner. That was Francesca Winfield, an English model who he stayed married to, just like in the song, it was forever.

And I knew he’d changed his name. After all, I’d researched him over the years, that’s one of the magical elements of the internet, the past comes alive.

And Wikipedia tells me Lou was on “Where the Action Is,” but I don’t remember that. Then again, other than Paul Rever and the Raiders….that show was on five days a week, much of it was a blur. Then again, I remember rushing home to watch the Yardbirds perform “For Your Love” on the show. So I couldn’t pick Lou Christie out of a lineup. But that’s not what he was selling. The acts of the late sixties and seventies were selling more than the songs, their identities were enmeshed with the music. As for “Lightnin’ Strikes”…it was written to strike on the hit parade, right?

But that does not mean it was not great, just that the song has superseded its singer. And co-writer, the aforementioned Twyla. But Lou was involved with two noted crooks, Morris Levy and Stan Polley, did he end up with any rights, never mind royalties? I hope so. Then again, what do you want, riches or a hit? You think they always come together, but not necessarily. You can be famous and broke, believe me.

But being ensconced in the hearts and minds of an entire generation? That’s an achievement nearly beyond comprehension, very few achieve that, and when you do…

You and your record are for all time. Everywhere you go, every time you’re introduced, people are stopped in their tracks, they start to testify where they were when they listened to your record, what it meant to them, you’re just human, but to listeners, you’re a GOD!

AI couldn’t write “Lightnin’ Strikes.” It wasn’t a paint by numbers dream. There had to be inspiration and excitement, not only in the composition, but the recording!

Technology was primitive. There were no synthesizers. You could replicate these records at home, if not always their rudimentary reverb and other effects.

Then again, I don’t remember any local band playing “Lightnin’ Strikes.” That’d be like trying to impersonate God. It’s untouchable. Baked into the grooves is pure magic. From the piano to the horns to the backup vocals…not pieced together over days, with the vocals comped, but laid down all together, all at once.

Then again, the record was more than Lou. “Lightnin’ Strikes” was produced by legendary arranger Charles Callelo, who Al Kooper has testified about to me again and again and again. Then again, Kooper was in bed with and ultimately ripped off by Stan Polley too.

But that’s all music business history.

Then again, it was a different business back then, peopled by renegade hypesters, people who could promote and intimidate, and artists with little portfolio but an unbelievable hunger to make it.

Like Lou Christie.

Spotify: https://rb.gy/rmm2oj

I know this track came out in March. I even know that HAIM is about to drop a new album on Friday. But don’t ask me how I stumbled on this, I can’t remember. But about halfway through this cut I got hooked.

Well, let me explain that. I’m not telling you for your opinion, I’m not even sure I’m trying to turn you on to it, or maybe that’s just me trying to avoid the tsunami of abuse from the minions. Everybody has to prove their taste is better than yours. There’s a chilling effect. But…

I’ve been unable to get this song out of my head, even though this has never happened previously with a HAIM track…nice normal girls, at least the one time I hung out around them, but the music was just one step left of repeatability, it was more intellectual than emotional, whereas “Relationships” is the latter. If you want to know what the seventies sounded like, after Vietnam was in the rearview mirror, after the protests were history, this is the feeling, if not the actual notes. That’s one thing that’s been lost in the last few decades, optimism. We’ve got anger, frustration, and they’re roots of rock and roll, definitely, but hope and everyday hedonism, driving with the windows down with the radio blasting or sitting on the beach or out anywhere in the elements, that’s been eliminated. Whereas our music used to enhance our good feelings. It wouldn’t make you happy if you weren’t, but if you were, the music rode shotgun and lifted your mood even higher, that’s the alchemy of identity and music, they meld together to yield something more, that you cannot get anywhere else.

“Wasting time, driving through the Eastside

Doing my thing ’cause I can’t decide if we’re through

Well, are we?

And if we are, what are we gonna do?”

Only a woman could sing these lyrics. Men don’t reveal this straightforward honesty in music, or real life either. If men even deign to discuss relationships it’s with attitude, a power dynamic, whereas the amazing thing about the lyrics here are they’re sans heaviness, which makes them so appealing.

“Baby, how can I explain when an innocent mistake

Turns into seventeen days f*ckin’ relationships?”

After finding out that “Relationships” came out three months ago I Googled the lyrics, and this is the one that stood out. What exactly is going on here? I don’t think of innocent mistakes leading to relationships, just the opposite. As for seventeen days… That’s the life of rock stars or people floating in social circles far from mine, where the threshold to getting involved is low and you can get over someone in the blink of an eye. I mean it might take me seventeen days to reach out, have a conversation back and forth and maybe go on two dates, but this entire relationship was seventeen days from beginning to end?

“Don’t they end up all the same

When there’s no one left to blame?

I think I’m in love, but I can’t stand f*ckin’ relationships”

Actually, they don’t all end up the same. But I get the concept of the thrill of love and the baggage of the actual relationship. You look into their eyes and feel the connection, you walk with a bounce in your step, but then you find out you’ve got completely different values, they can’t show up on time and you hate their friends and…

“You gotta tell me the truth

If you don’t want to try

I hear a voice in my head

And it keeps asking, ‘Why am I in this relationship'”

The power imbalance. When you want it more than them. When you’re not even sure if you are in a relationship. They’re present and then they’re elusive. You’re invested and they’re hit and run. And you get frustrated and ask yourself whether you should disconnect, but just like in “Annie Hall” you find it difficult, because you need the eggs.

“Oh, this can’t just be the way it is

Or is it just the sh*t our parents did

And had to live with it in their relationship?

Relationships

F*ckin’ relationships”

What’s with all the profanity? I love when girls swear, when they’re not prim and proper. But if I spell the word out completely this e-mail will be blocked by corporations all over the world. Then again, there is a clean version of this song, but… How did our parents do it? Was it just a matter of commitment? And none of the HAIM women is married or has children, it used to be only men did this, maybe they froze their eggs, maybe they don’t care about having a family, I never did, then again, my window of opportunity never closed.

“But I would do it all again

If you put down your defenses

I think I’m in love, so why I am trying to escape from it?

Maybe that’s just how it goes

When you’re not fully grown”

It’s not only men who have defenses, then again, as I’ve referenced above, women will talk about their feelings, men almost never will, so you can’t even get down to the real nitty-gritty. She’s all-in, she’s ready to play, but he isn’t…is it because he doesn’t want to, doesn’t know how to or is afraid to? Meanwhile, the woman in this song is exactly the one most men want to be involved with. For all the debonair elusive dudes, most men are clueless and want women to make the move and lead, at the same time so many are afraid that by committing and tying themselves down they’ll miss out on…exactly what? Someone better who never arrives? And then there’s that twist of the knife, about him not being fully grown, not mature, women can see the window of opportunity will shut, men think it’s open forever.

Having written all of the above, the magic of the lyrics in “Relationships” comes LAST!

Maybe some musicologist from Berklee can explain exactly what is happening in this track, all I can say it’s hypnotic, your mind is nodding your head, even if your cabeza really isn’t.

You get into a trance, that you want to continue, which is why I put “Relationships” on endless repeat.

And then there’s that piano note. I think it’s a piano. Then again, I don’t like the fake drums and the fact that there may be a chorus but no real changes, so “Relationships” is not for all time, just now, but it fits a niche that is too often empty.

So I went to YouTube and found a magic video which only had 1.9 million views. But the images had the same feel as the lyrics, and listening with the captions on I realized “an innocent mistake” might have been casual sex…women might refer to that as a mistake, men never do. Also, for some reason the break where all the instruments fall out and then slowly come back in, the bass and then the piano(?) is part of the magic.

And then I go on Spotify and see there are 20 million streams, so… You can’t get rich on that number, but it does show people are listening…

And I was about to check out Mediabase to see if there was any radio action and then it occurred to me that fans of HAIM would not be listening to terrestrial radio with all its commercials, they want to hear what they want to when they want to.

So is “Relationships” a hit or irrelevant?

Neither. Not everybody knows it. Media has been telling us a new HAIM album has been coming for months, the hype building in intensity up to Friday’s release, but despite knowledge of its imminent drop, I had no intention of listening to it, but then for some reason I can’t put my finger on, I ended up playing it, and playing it…

And then I played the rest of the already released cuts from the new album and they didn’t resonate the same way.

So I went back to the earlier work, listened to track after track and felt like I always had, I had no desire to hear them ever again, never mind play all the way through.

But I can’t stop listening to “Relationships,” I can’t get it out of my head. It just makes me feel GOOD!