https://spoti.fi/2WA1xAK

1

The Doors revival is now forty years old.

The early eighties saw the introduction of U2, Soft Cell and Human League, and then MTV. There was a schism between what came before and what came thereafter, the late seventies were seen as calcified, with corporate rock and disco, finally the scene was reinvigorated. And the Doors came back?

Let’s be clear, Led Zeppelin didn’t come back. They hadn’t been forgotten, but there was not a renaissance. The sixties still existed in the brains of those who lived through them, but the music was fading away, except on oldies stations, as for the early eighties…this was before the creation of classic rock radio, never mind the appellation. Why the Doors? Could it have been “Apocalypse Now”?

You had to go to the movies in the seventies, but not to see superheroes, yes, it was the beginning of the blockbuster, with “Jaws” and “Star Wars,” but those were phenomena, not de rigueur. You can exist quite easily without ever going to a movie theatre today, even be considered hip and cool, to the degree anybody is in today’s multifarious society, but if you wanted to be in the know, participate in conversation, evidence your bona fides, in the seventies you went to the movie theatre.

Francis Ford Coppola sat atop the pyramid, because he’d made the “Godfathers.” I believe “Godfather II” is the best movie ever made, all I can say is if you proffer a twenty first century flick as a contender I’m going to stop listening to you. Best TV show? That’s positively modern, but best movie? It’s somewhat ancient.

So Coppola was both an auteur and popular, he could sell tickets, his work impacted the culture, and for years we heard he was making the definitive Vietnam movie, and I don’t believe “Apocalypse Now” ultimately lives up to that billing, but there were moments that have entered the culture, that are definitive, like the surfing and water skiing and Robert Duvall’s comment about napalm, but ultimately the journey up the river did not reach a satisfying conclusion, despite ending up with the grand poobah himself, Marlon Brando.

But the beginning, oh the beginning…

Movies used to be platformed, as in they opened in New York and L.A. and after weeks they went elsewhere, in steps, there was no thousands of theatres on opening day, you see culture truly started on the coasts, that is untrue today, everybody’s got cable TV and the internet, there is no flyover country, except maybe politically. And sometimes works in progress were released, films the director was still tinkering with, that might have played film festivals but were not completely locked, it was usually a one week run, and “Apocalypse Now” played for a week at the Cinerama Dome on Hollywood Boulevard.

Needless to say, tickets were precious. We ended up going to a noon screening. And publicity told us there were no titles, but we were not prepared for the opening, the helicopters swooshing and…

The Doors’ “The End.”

I have a vinyl copy of the soundtrack album. But this version is not on streaming services. It’s slightly remixed, a little more in your face and…you can see it all on YouTube: https://bit.ly/38lyI0d

So, the theatre goes dark, the curtains open, and helicopters start flying around the Dome, as a result of multichannel sound, you felt like you were in Vietnam yourself, the mood immediately changed, this was serious, you left your regular life behind.

“Can you picture what will be

So limitless and free”

That certainly isn’t 2020, that certainly isn’t the modern era, that was the sixties, when life was easier, assuming you were not a minority, and it was all about possibilities, experiences, fulfillment, discovering who you should be and then pursuing your dream.

And I certainly owned “The End,” I knew it, but now I had to go back to the apartment to play the track again, and again. It had new meaning. And at this age I truly understood the Oedipal angle.

But “The End” was not what they were playing when I went to the Forum. Maybe it was Genesis. The between act songs were by THE DOORS?

2

The Doors broke through, were put-down, were laughed at, and then executed an unexpected comeback with their last Morrison LP, “L.A. Woman.” Producer Paul Rothchild had exited, it was now 1971, the Doors were on a downswing. Yet, they surprised everybody and dominated the airwaves with the title track, “Love Her Madly” and the modern day standard, “Riders on the Storm.” Yes, the seven plus minute album closing cut comes on the radio whenever it rains, wherever it rains, you expect it, at least I do, and although I’ve heard it too many times, I can still luxuriate in Ray Manzarek’s Rhodes, the haunting feel of the track, akin to Steve Winwood’s “Night Train” ten years later. The album wouldn’t die, it played regularly for a year, even “The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)”. Jim had died in the summer as a has-been and now people were lionizing him, they wanted more.

The second album, “Strange Days,” was respected by the critics, maybe because it had no hit singles, and the first LP had broken through organically. Sure, you might have heard “People Are Strange” and “Love Me Two Times” on the radio, but they got a fraction of the airplay of what had come before. However…they were part of the renaissance, the swinging songs, the dramatic songs were, not the dreamy ones.

“Waiting for the Sun” delivered a monster hit single in advance of its release, “Hello, I Love You,” just when AM started to play FM’s music. But the critics started to sour on the act as a result.

When it came to “The Soft Parade,” the critics puked, the Doors went from heroes to zeros. They were seen as bombastic, slick, above ground instead of underground, and the title track was seen as bogus, especially compared to the extended cuts that closed the first two LPs. I love “Runnin’ Blue,” which no one ever talks about, and the following “Wishful Sinful” and “The Soft Parade” too…hell, one of the opening lines became a standard utterance in college, albeit with a different conclusion:

“YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH ________!”

As for “Morrison Hotel,” it was written off, too basic, not innovative enough, history has been rewritten, now it’s seen as a modern classic, a genius return to the band’s roots, and “Roadhouse Blues” is bedrock in the aforementioned classic rock canon, “Peace Frog” too, although I’m not sure when Jim is referring to “blood in the streets in the town of New Haven” the hoi polloi know what he is talking about.

But really it’s all about the debut, the eponymous “The Doors.” And not “Light My Fire” as much as “Break on Through,” this was the essence of the Doors revival, a breath of fresh, energetic air in an era where everything else was obvious as opposed to dark. “Break on Through” was made before video, when it was solely about the music itself, it was a tear, you wanted to be, needed to be, in the club when the band was performing it, even though Jim was now dead ten years when “Break on Through” started to permeate the culture. Yes, the first Doors album came out in 1967, the same year FM underground radio was born, long before the ubiquity of the FM Superstars format in the seventies that was heard in every hamlet and burg, and by this time it was Yes, Jethro Tull, Alice Cooper, et al, playing to arenas, mass audiences, whereas when “Break on Through” was released as a single it got so much traction it made it all the way to number…126. You had to own the album to truly know it.

Not that “Light My Fire” was not part of the renaissance too, but now it in its extended version, listening to the Doors was no longer casual, the unexpurgated version was dominant. And these truly L.A. songs, the ones straight to the heart and brain, were the ones younger generations were exposed to, that they cottoned to, they were not self-conscious, it wasn’t about outfits, publicity, it was just the music, and in this case that was more than enough.

And eventually “Rolling Stone” did a story about the comeback of the defunct band, and there was a movie too, but the turning point, what probably cemented the band in the public consciousness, was the Cadillac commercial…THEY REFUSED TO DO IT! For a payday of $15 million. Who would turn that money down? John Densmore. He said Jim wouldn’t approve. It was against the ethos of the band.

And that’s why the Doors survive when so many of their contemporaries do not, credibility, putting the music first. In a world where conventional wisdom is you sell out, you take the money, it makes no difference, it takes a special few to go against the grain, but they truly know the score, leave the money on the table, show your cojones and your career lasts LONGER! Ask Neil Young, but decades hence I believe the Doors will be bigger. A band that was ultimately reviled by the critics survived all of them, just like Led Zeppelin, which took less money to do the aforementioned Cadillac commercial, but now Zeppelin’s music is bigger than the band itself, boosted primarily by the internet, that’s what accessibility delivers, do you think kids would have discovered Zeppelin in droves if the music weren’t freely available online?

3

There’s not a clunker on the Doors’ debut. And some minor cuts are major in the culture, like “Twentieth Century Fox” and the band’s cover of the blues classic “Back Door Man.” And it’s these loud and direct cuts that dominate today, but my favorites are the quiet ones, like “The End” and “The Crystal Ship.”

“Before you slip into unconsciousness

I’d like to have another kiss”

By this time I had been kissed. Not that I was completely comfortable with it. It had happened at summer camp, when that was what you were supposed to do if you had a girlfriend, as well as dance with them at the socials and sit next to them on bus trips. Not that I was not dreaming about kissing thereafter. We evolved from the AM transistor era to album rock on FM. Album rock was completely different, most people did not know it, it wasn’t mainstream, and your relationship was directly with the LP, assuming you bought it, to a great degree radio was a sampling service, if you heard it and liked it you took a risk and went deeper.

Not that I purchased the Doors’ debut when it came out. That happened a year later, in March of ’68, I heard it at Sally’s house below the base lodge at Stratton, we went there for lunch and laughed and then ultimately played bumper pool as the record player spun the Doors’ debut. Sure, it was a magical moment, one emblazoned upon my brain, but the music matched it and enhanced it, I bought the album as soon as I got back home, and my favorite cut was always “The Crystal Ship.”

“Another flashing chance at bliss

Another kiss, another kiss”

That’s where we’re always dreaming of slipping back to, that is elusive, that moment, akin to orgasm, that is exquisite and fulfilling but brief. And bliss is positively post-coital, when you’re spent and all you can do is let your body take over as your mind slowly drifts.

“The days are bright and filled with pain

Enclose me in your gentle rain”

Being a teenager was completely different in the sixties, you weren’t connected with everybody, you did not have all these outlets of self-expression, there were only three TV networks…no, you spent most of your time unfulfilled, dreaming of something better, freedom. Being a teenager was painful, let’s just say high school was painful. And sure, today parents talk about bullying, but back in the sixties if it occurred you had to suck it up and endure it, no parents ever went to the principal about it, and, if they had, you might not have lived another week, truly. We were all looking for a safe place, with someone else, maybe on our beds but hopefully somewhere else, free of the restrictions of society.

“The crystal ship is being filled

A thousand girls, a thousand thrills”

There might have been a thousand girls in Southern California, but not in New England, where everybody was following the rules, chafing at them for sure, but we were not transcending our society, we were not boarding a modern day ark with our brethren in the era of free love, before AIDS.

The thing about the Doors’ music is it’s simple. The tracks are not burdened with junk, the instruments are defined and shine, with Jim atop it all, steering the enterprise, the crystal ship.

Jim could be bombastic, but here he was being sensitive, inviting, you felt included, at least in your brain. Jim was multidimensional, as was the music. This was the power of music, yes, you could create a whole movie in your mind but even more the experience was emotional, you could drop the needle on “The Crystal Ship” and transcend your bedroom, everyday life, to a place where you were accepted and had hope.

Listening to “The Crystal Ship” was like being bathed in warm oil, delivered to your body by the object of your desire.

“Oh tell me where your freedom lies”

Right here, in the grooves of this vinyl, now digital, now streaming out of the speakers in 2020, but mostly in my mind. “The Crystal Ship” is burned into my brain, I can call it up at any time, recite the lyrics, relive the experience of listening to the track, which is mine as opposed to everybody else’s. That was the power of the album track, especially when the label did not hop from single to single, four or five from one LP, trying to entrance casual consumers to buy, albums were for the hard core, either you knew them or you did not, either you were in the club or you were not, and if you were you shared this bond, you were related, and it had nothing to do with blood.

Before the average Joe was exposed to the “Billboard” chart, the music drifted down from heaven to infect a chosen few, and we didn’t find so many were on the same page until Woodstock, that was the story of the festival, how many people showed up, drawn by this music that was mostly far from the hit parade. The seventies were a roundup and ultimately a victory lap, but it was not all set in stone in the sixties, we were still figuring it out, both the art and the distribution, experimentation was embraced, records surprised you.

Not everybody made it back from that era. But I did, I’m dropping a line in case you never made it onto the crystal ship, we’re still taking passengers, feel free to get on board.

Chelsea Handler has a new comedy special on HBO Max, “Evolution.” We discuss that, as well as politics, relationships, books, streaming TV and our mutual passion…SKIING! You’ll truly get to know the real Chelsea, who seemed as interested in me as I was in her!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chelsea-handler/id1316200737?i=1000502688702

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/chelsea-handler-80222378

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/The-Bob-Lefsetz-Podcast

“Facebook Attacks Apple Software Changes in Newspaper Ads”: https://bloom.bg/2LN4TOJ

Your business model is not inviolate.

Now let me get this straight… The techies disrupted music, retail, seemingly every walk of life, but when it comes to them disruption is off limits, they must be protected? Who protected MySpace when Facebook disrupted the first big social media site? Who protected AltaVista and HotBot, never mind Yahoo, when Google came on the scene? This is the ultimate in hubris.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, Apple wants to give you the opportunity to opt out of being tracked. But Facebook and Google make their money on selling ads, and by utilizing all the data you inadvertently provide, they allow advertisers to target very specific users, and charge more for this. The other day someone told me they were uptight about putting their birthday online. I hate to tell you, BUT THEY’VE ALREADY GOT IT! They literally know where you live and what your interests are. And Google has your search history, yes, of all the porn sites you’ve visited. And true, you can delete your Google search history, but they don’t advertise this and they don’t make it easy to do so, almost nobody does it.

Now I go to too many sites that require a Facebook login before I can see the content, especially videos. What do I do? I PASS! I don’t want to give Facebook any more data than they already have. And the only Facebook account I have is a fake one, which I barely use, but still I’m served up ads based on where I’ve surfed all over the web, even though I clicked on nothing on Facebook. Creepy. Come on, we’ve all had this experience over the last decade…HOW DO THEY KNOW?

But they do.

The backlash has begun, but only the business people and legislators have power. As for the public…sure, people can boycott, but so far that has never ever worked, because Amazon is too efficient and trustworthy and you can’t resist hanging with your friends on social media. As for getting rid of online shopping and social media…while we’re at it, why don’t we get rid of airplanes and automobiles and mobile phones. Whenever you try to jet back to the past, it does not work, even though all the older intellectuals keep telling us to do so. But the joke is on them, because social discourse, the veritable pulse of society, lives online…BUT AT WHAT COST?

The biggest question is content. Google serves up different results based on the same query and Facebook makes no effort to balance opinions. Zuckerberg says the platform is neutral, as he cozies up to Trump…but it’s not neutral when it comes to its business model! That’s America, pure greed. You wonder why our country is in the crapper? Because no one is willing to sacrifice no one is willing to lose. No one is willing to make less money. No one is willing to give up their space at the elite institution. And if this doesn’t make you hate coastal liberals, you are one, they’re the worst offenders. Then again, in the heartland they don’t believe in a social safety net, even though to the degree there is one, never mind the “invisible” funding of works in their state, the money is provided by said coastal elites in those blue states. California has the biggest population, but the smallest voice per voter in the Senate. The right is winning with this and the Electoral College, yet it’s the left’s fault?

But on social media, you’re in your silo, you click around and the site labels you and feeds you more of what you’ve already seen, and tries to titillate and outrage you so you won’t sign off as they feed you more ads.

Facebook SEEMS free, but it’s not. You’re paying with your data, which is extremely valuable, for the privilege of access. It’s almost like dope, they give you a hit and you can’t resist, you get hooked. But if you had to pay for Facebook, how much is it worth, is it worth anything at all? Does Facebook have an inalienable right to have an ad-supported business?

Apple has a completely different philosophy. Apple sells hardware, and a few services, and respects your privacy. As for all those supposed hacks, the servers were solid, it’s just that the users employed lame passwords. Yes, our idiot in chief used the password “maga2020,” which is little better than “1234,” read about it here: https://bit.ly/2IVlwXa

I pay a lot for my Apple products. For the very simple reason that as Steve Jobs said, they just work. Also, I know they’re the most secure. Use an Android, never mind a PC, and you’re inviting hackers in, you’re inviting trouble. But, since Apple is high-priced, and its adherents are vocal, believers in the company’s excellence, there’s a backlash. People hate Apple because their phones are not customizable enough. Hell, do you want to customize your television, your automobile, and at what cost?

So Apple stands up for the little guy and…

Crickets. Because the majority uses Android. In handsets, not in dollars, Apple rules the app market.

And if you follow Apple closely, the company was promoting this ability to decline trackability for months. They delayed it once, to allow Facebook time to adjust, but now Apple wants to turn it on in iOS14, which was released a few months back, and Facebook is APOPLECTIC!

But most people don’t know, because they don’t follow Apple news and they don’t read the physical newspaper, where Facebook took out giant ads decrying the new Apple privacy process. Those ads are for legislators to see, business people, to wake them up, to get them motivated, to see which side they want to be on, to see who will pay them to be on either side. Facebook doesn’t care about you and me, even though they’re saying they do, because by tracking us they give us the “privilege” of directly targeted ads. But anybody who thinks ads are a service online…I haven’t met anybody, except for those in the advertising business itself. I don’t want to be followed around online by a product I clicked on once, that I’ll never buy, OR ALREADY BOUGHT, for eternity. And you click on the blue button in the upper righthand corner but the truth is it doesn’t work, the ads don’t go away.

Maybe you should have to pay for Facebook. That could kill the service, or it could improve it, then the user would be the customer as opposed to the advertiser.

And if Facebook doesn’t have your data…it could lose a few bucks, and advertisers could have less targeted ads, but are both of these so critical that they must be supported by our government, written in stone?

Meanwhile, the government is suing Facebook for antitrust. And Facebook’s main complaint? You approved their acquisitions. There’s no double jeopardy clause in business, this is not a criminal matter, then again maybe it should be, maybe Zuckerberg, et al, should be threatened with some jail time, they might clean up their act.

And everyone knows the wankers in Congress, beholden to the money, don’t understand technology anyway, they still have AOL e-mail addresses. And what happened to AOL? With its walled garden with ultimate access to the web? Its business model got undermined by high speed internet access provided by cable and phone companies. You didn’t see AOL lobbying Congress to make dialup the norm, to hold back broadband. But that’s essentially what Facebook wants here!

As for Apple… Have you used Sign in with Apple? Check it out: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210318 It’s not on every site, but it does work on Reddit, why should I cough up all my info to Reddit, and I certainly don’t want the site to know my interests. Facebook IS Big Brother. Zuckerberg knows more about the individual than the government, more than anybody in history, but Mark is crying and demanding no change, so he can continue to rape and pillage our society. Think about it… Fox News was bad enough, but once Facebook gained traction the country split into two silos, with two sets of “facts.” Meanwhile, Facebook kept pouring gasoline on the conflagration, firing up users to hate others. This is the company we want to protect?

I’d love to tell you you have power. But really, this battle is being fought way above our heads. Then again, if everybody knew about it…

As for paying for Facebook… Have you noticed you’re paying for so much online these days? News… All the papers have paywalls, maybe soft, allowing you a certain number of articles for free, but if you want more you pay. And I pay for the “New York Times,” the “Washington Post,” the “Wall Street Journal”… AND I subscribe to Apple News+, for ten bucks a month I get even more, and a good chunk of revenue goes to the publications, as opposed to Google or Facebook which essentially steal it with impunity.

Or else you download an app. Right up front it says you can pay with ads or you can pay for the no-ad version. And usually, the paid version has more capability. What’s wrong with this business model?

The future is coming down the track, we cannot stop it, but we can guide it, we can influence it, we can try and steer it in the right direction. Also, if we see flaws after the fact we’re allowed to fix them. BUT NOT FACEBOOK, Facebook is forever, it should be able to hoover up our info willy-nilly.

HOGWASH!

Bode Miller gets a bad rap. By being a classic American, an individual with his own mind, he got excoriated by a groupthink nation which said he must conform and play the game its way…ultimately to be accepted and then discarded. Yes, the U.S. needs grist for the mill, someone to shine its light on temporarily before it moves on to a new subject, with very little substance along the way. Furthermore, there’s an endless line of wannabes willing to line up for a moment of fame before they go back to their own little lives of drug addiction and arrests. Yes, fame has a cost, you’d think people would know that by now, especially in the social media era where despite some acolytes, most people are there to tear you right down, get you down into the pit where they are, illustrate you’re no better than they are, yes, if you want to rise to the pinnacle, beware of the costs.

Bode’s big crime? Speaking his mind, being himself.

The public doesn’t understand most sports. Unlike basketball and football, in skiing the playing field, i.e. the course, constantly changes, both at different sites and during competition, and weather plays a factor and no one wins every time, no one. And there are those who specialize in one of the five events who can’t win in all of them. So, to determine the best ski racer in the world there’s an entire season of races, called the World Cup, but in America the only thing that matters is the Olympics.

Where Bode Miller has more medals than any other American skier, seven, in fact, gold, silver and bronze. But he’s been labeled a loser, because in Torino, in 2006, he won nothing. Lindsey Vonn won three Olympic medals, one gold, but she’s a hero and Bode is a zero. It’s all about perception, and instead of playing the Great American Hero, lying about his identity, Miller spoke his truth and as a result was excoriated, his name is a bad word in America.

It gets even worse. Bode was castigated for his commentary at the 2018 Olympics because he analyzed the skiing as opposed to being a cheerleader, boosting Americans until they ended up out of the money. It’s a messed up country we live in, really. We want you to be phony, but your phoniness only carries you so far, because unless you are an individual, you do not last. And, if you’re lucky, you’ll live a long life. What are you going to do with your time outside the spotlight, especially when you’re an athlete, your career is brief.

I’m burned out on the news podcasts. It’s like every day there’s a crisis, we had the election, what has happened thereafter is just not that important, but they make it seem like it is. So, last night, hiking in the mountains, I pulled up the Blister podcast with Bode Miller.

He can talk! He’s articulate! He knows it’s “anyway,” not “anyways”! I was nearly stunned, he’s been portrayed as a bumpkin from the hills of New Hampshire who never went to college, a boozer who should be ignored. Instead, he’s a thinker with opinions, who is curious. Trust me, this is not ski racing. Now, more than ever, ski racing is a jock sport. It’s about working out in the gym, getting strong, cracking jokes in the locker room, if you’re not a member of the “team,” there’s no place for you. It didn’t used to be this bad, Billy Kidd was not a fantastic physical specimen, but today if you’re not an exercise fanatic, you’ve got no chance.

Bode was an outsider, wanting to do it his way. Coaches couldn’t handle this. Coaches are authoritarians, it’s their way or the highway. But Bode kept on breaking the rules and winning!

If you ski at all, you know that around the turn of the century there was a revolution in skiing equipment the so-called “shaped ski.” Funnily enough, these advanced planks, taking their inspiration from snowboards, were adopted by the hoi polloi before those at the upper reaches of the sport. You see tradition rules at the elite level, and if you want to change, you’re put down. This is how Billy Beane revolutionized baseball with data. No one else believed it, baseball was a gut sport. But it turned out it wasn’t. So, Bode Miller employs a recreational shaped ski, the K2 Four, and jumps from the back of the pack to success at the U.S. Nationals. You see shaped skis carve a smoother arc, they’re easier to turn to begin with, and they allowed a different line away from the gate, that allowed you to maintain your speed and go faster. But the ski racing community was reluctant to adopt these winners, until athletes like Debra Campagnoni got religion, changed to shaped skis and jumped onto the podium consistently. Don’t know who Campagnoni is? According to Wikipedia, she’s considered “the best Italian female skier of all time,” a legend over there, unknown over here. Campagnoni won four Olympic medals, three gold. She won sixteen World Cup races in fourteen seasons. Bode Miller won thirty three races, and two World Cups in sixteen seasons, and now you know why he was a hero, the biggest man on the Alpine circuit in Europe, a household name. You could never count Bode out.

So in this Blister podcast, Bode initially talks about an education initiative. Truth is, most education turns people into automatons, whereas creative, critical thinking is the basis of American business, never mind its reputation and excellence. And Bode is involved with apps, and a ski company, and he even went to South America to do ayahuasca…in other words he’s a seeker, he’s taking advantage of the doors opened by his fame, he does not want to rest on his laurels. BUT HOW DID HE GET HERE!

He credits his grandmother. He was seven and wanted to be a world champion. She said you don’t even get to compete to be world champion until you’re twenty or so, don’t get discouraged, you’ve got a long time to work out the kinks and get better. This is the antithesis of the ethos in the music business, where I’m constantly e-mailed music by parents touting their kids. Am I supposed to believe you were born this way, and at age 11 or 13 or 15 you’re an individual genius? It’s possible, but highly improbable. It’s the journey, the hard work, the failures that get you there. And, the basics. Sure, you can sing, but can you write? Kind of like skiing…can you create your own line?

But Bode was a skinny guy, without the bulk of Hermann Maier. And he wasn’t a fast runner. On paper, he looked positively mediocre at best. You know today’s athletics, they quantify you, as if that’s the sum total of your ability, your stats, but it’s not. So, Bode realized, he could not compete with the elite physical specimens. But that did not mean he could not succeed, he had to do it his way, take advantage of what he did better than anybody else to win!

This haunts the music business. It’s me-tooism. One person is successful, and then everybody imitates them. Innovation is too risky. The road is too hard. Nobody wants to truly go their own way, they just want to do poorly what other people have already done well. Come on, isn’t this country music? The radio tracks are all about trucks, beer and good times and then Chris Stapleton, a man with miles on him, with no prior big success, does it his way, with an outsider producer, and he becomes the biggest act in Nashville seemingly overnight, and everybody agrees! And his fame is not limited to country music, it crosses over to rock and other genres, because he’s just that different and good, dare I say unique. As for hip-hop…

So what could Bode do that his compatriots could not? USE HIS BRAIN! He figured out a different way to ski the course. The so-called “line.” Everyone agrees where it is but Bode. Then again, that’s another tool in Bode’s box, he’s willing to lay it all on the line, to go for it, to not hold back, to do it his way. If it all worked out, he won. But sometimes he crashed. The American coaches couldn’t handle this. He just had to play it safe, do it their way, but Bode knew he could only win doing it his way, and it was the only way that interested him, otherwise the sport wasn’t worth doing.

Everyone else played it safe. To get points for the season-long competition. Bode skied to WIN!

That’s another point Bode makes. When you start in ski racing there are a hundred racers, and the course deteriorates with each one. So, those in the back of the pack just try to move up the ranks, to get a better starting position. But not Bode, he skied to WIN! And either you’ve got a winner’s mentality or you do not. Not everybody can succeed, usually they’re not willing to pay the dues, especially when no one is looking. Bode grew up skiing at Cannon Mountain, with some of the worst weather in the country. But when it was snowin’ and blowin’ he didn’t stay inside, he went out, it was about flipping the perspective, making it fun! And believe me, most people don’t want to go out when it’s below zero and there are gale force winds. But the winners do.

Another one of Bode’s strengths was the mental game. He wrote down scenarios, in a book, something the outside could not see. And when he was in the starting gate, he ran these scenarios through his head, blocked everything else out. That was half of his starting gate mentality. The other was ANGER! Bode speaks truth, he says a lot of winners have a chip on their shoulder, they’ve got something to prove, having been put-down and ignored forever, they want to show people. I hate to tell you, but a ton of winners, in athletics and business, feel this way. I’m not talking about the person who moves up the ladder, starts at the bottom and becomes CEO, they’re managers, not innovators, they’re enthralled by their position. Truth is if you’ve got rough edges, if you speak the truth, you’re kicked out of the corporation, but it’s these one of a kind people who built the damn corporation!

So, with a unique line in his head, willing to lay it all on the line, Bode believed in himself, wanted to prove to everyone he was right and pushed out of the gate with a totally different mentality than the rest of the skiers, AND HE WON!

Bode says he doesn’t know of a single other person who does it that way in ski racing. But he also admits it’s hard to see inside someone’s brain in skiing. But he did reference Ronnie Lott in football, how he got geared up, angry…

But skiing is an individual sport. And artistic success is all about the individual. Sure, they need a support team, but…if you listen to the label, if you conform, you’re a loser. However, if you do it your way, be prepared to become an outcast. But aren’t all the true legends in music outcasts, different, from Little Richard and Jerry Lee to everyone from Trent Reznor, Biggie and Prince, who had a chip on his shoulder bigger than his body, who kept telling everybody he needed to do it HIS way?

Corporations hire these old athletes as motivational speakers all the time. Most of what they say is hogwash. It’s traditional coach stuff that turns the stomach of individuals. Or else they hire people to talk about their unique feats, who recite the history, but it’s hard to identify with it. Listening to Bode last night was one of the few times I’ve ever heard anyone articulate what it takes to truly make it at the elite level. The perspective, the self-knowledge, the analysis… But most people can’t lock on, because they don’t want to work that hard, because they’re more interested in getting along, being a member of the group. Success is a lonely road, never forget it. And no matter how much success you have people will still put you down, like Bode, but Bode has it right, he knows, you should listen to him, not the bloviating pontificators who keep saying they’ve got the answers. You’ve got to find the answers yourself, what makes you special, how you can succeed. That’s the American way, or at least the way it used to be. We’re a country of individuals. And that does not mean going maskless to the grocery store…Bode never put anybody else at risk in his ski career, only himself, in search of his own personal fulfillment, and a strong dose of needing to prove to the rest of the world there was another way to do it, and he did, he’s the most decorated male ski racer in American history, but he’s a loser, don’t you know?

Start listening to Bode on the Blister podcast at 24:36

“Bode Miller on Education, Mental Preparation, Technology, Ski Design, & More”: https://bit.ly/3muy6ue

You can also download/listen on Apple: https://apple.co/3ah0ain