London Spy Netflix

This is a fantastic series.

We’ve been on a losing streak. “Stranger,” that Korean show I was telling you about? It was interesting, but just didn’t deliver, and it took sixteen episodes to get to the end of the first season! The cinematography was great, Seoul was intriguing, but it took so long to get to the ultimate culprit that I wasn’t sure I cared. We started the second season, because sometimes there’s an improvement, but the premise was even more implausible than the first, so we bolted.

To “The Forgotten,” “Les Revenants” in French. Word of mouth was so good that I took a chance, even though I’ve got no time for zombies or fantasy…people recommend these shows to me all the time, and once something comes out of the woods, once the special effects show up, I’m done. I need truth. Gimme some truth.

And there’s a lot of truth in “London Spy.”

Having said that, one caveat, the ending is not as satisfying as the rest of the show. Which is too often the case with these series. Nothing can supersede, or even equal, the buildup. However, when it was all done, and I was thinking about it, I felt better about the ending. But your mileage may vary.

We’re used to entertainments. A night away from this harried life. That is not what “London Spy” is all about. Sure, it’s entertaining, but there’s social commentary and wisdom and they don’t dominate, but they lift this series above the run-of-the-mill stuff that you watch and you forget.

Like how you dress. How you handle yourself. That’s more important than money. I thought I knew money until I went to Middlebury College. Grow up in the suburbs and somebody has a Cadillac, they vacation in the Virgin Islands, they’ve got all the new toys, you think they’re rich, but they’re not rich at all.

Now rich has changed. When I was growing up rich was inherited, now rich is made, and it’s tilted the playing field. But in the days of yore, the rich were not showy, but they were very judgmental. They read the cues. And to play you had to learn how to read the cues too.

Never ever boast. Don’t tell people what you own, where you’ve been, it’s déclassé. Your image is not based on your acquisitions, your car, your house, it’s based on heritage and knowing how to navigate the canals of power.

Which most people never learn. They believe if they’re bulls in a china shop they can succeed. But oftentimes the doors are closed to them.

Who really runs this country?

Used to be they were faceless. Now they’ve come out of the woodwork, in most cases reluctantly, but their goal is to get no publicity, as they move the chess pieces.

This is what Donald Trump hates. He’s spent his entire life trying to be accepted by this group, and he has not. They abhor crass. And they’re smart enough to know if you venture into the public eye you’re going to get scrutiny, which is never wanted. Would the “New York Times” be looking into Trump’s taxes if he wasn’t president? Of course not, they never had previously.

“What county in the United States has the highest rate of tax audits?

The answer is Humphreys County in rural Mississippi, where three-quarters of the population is Black and more than one-third lives below the poverty line.”

“Who’s the Tax Cheat: The Lady in Jail or the Man in the White House”

They demonize taxes, tell you it’s your money, as they demonize the broke for not paying income taxes, although they’re paying a wealth of other taxes which sustain our society. But the rich and faceless are the real winners here. As evidenced by the quote above. It’s laughable on its face. But the IRS has been neutered, by elected officials beholden to the wealthy class.

And Danny shows his sketchbook to Scottie, it evidences a wealth of talent, but Scottie criticizes him, for bouncing around from image to narrative to poetry… Scottie says to pick one and double-down on it. He tells Danny he’s waiting for someone to recognize his talent, and that’s a fool’s errand, you’ve got to focus and blaze your own path.

To this day most people have no idea how you gain success. They think talent is enough. They butter up the underlings with big titles who are unable to make a decision. Very few can make it to the top and the road is so hard that if most actually saw it they’d stop.

Relationships… Do you want them so much that you avoid them? Do you privately pray that someone will notice you while you try to perfect the image of needing no one?

And how many people can you truly count on. If you’re lucky, one.

And most people don’t make it to the top anyway. Because of a misstep, because those in power don’t want them to. The game is oftentimes bigger than the players, like the music business, they don’t need your music to succeed, they just need SOME music to succeed!

And how important are you anyway? Does your little life truly matter in this fast-moving world?

And is it about truth or expediency. If you stand up to the system can you win?

And what are you willing to risk. Danny’s got nothing, so he’s willing to take chances that someone with a big CV will not. And some of those chances lead to big rewards and some of them ultimately prove fatal. But when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose. Which is why today it’s the broke who break down barriers. Those in the upper middle class and above are so inured to their education, are playing it so safe, that they’re ripe for being blown out of the water.

But don’t underestimate the power of money, never.

So, “London Spy” can be slow. But just as you start to get bored, there’s an unforeseen twist.

And Danny may not be educated, but he’s street smart, he trusts his intuition, and that’s often the key to success more than education.

The system is stacked against you. And if you raise your head, anything can happen. Get press and you can lose your job, never mind the press rarely getting it completely accurate, after all that’s not their business, their business is selling ads, papers and subscriptions. They just need grist for the mill. They’ll swarm you today and forget you tomorrow.

And if you’re in a pinch do you have someone to call? Who’ll call up an attorney to show up and keep your ass out of jail? You can’t make it in this life without friends, literally, no way.

So there are only five hour-long episodes.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Charlotte Rampling. With no plastic surgery, she’s better and more believable than all the Hollywood actresses who’ve ruined their faces out of peer pressure, believing if they don’t look young they cannot work.

Like I said, “London Spy” is not a huge commitment. But you’ll find yourself plowing through the episodes. And unlike a typical American, you won’t be talking while the show plays out, you’ll be riveted, you’re drawn into the mood, the life.

Hell, watch one episode and then make your commitment, or not. That’s what I hate about recommendations. If you don’t know the kind of show I like…well, I told you above…supernatural, zombies, they’re not my thing. But they may be your thing, and you might hate “London Spy.”

But if you’re a student of the game, of life, of choices, of getting ahead, you’ll be transfixed. You’ll think about the show after the screen goes dark. You won’t be able to resist clicking to the next episode.

Oh, and Alex revealing his truth to Danny?? That’s what we’re looking for in a relationship, in life, someone to tell our truth to, who will accept us, not only warts and all, but inexperience and all.

“London Spy” was a surprise. The “New York Times” recommended it eons ago, it’s on the list I keep in Apple Notes. It wasn’t even in my must-see category (yes, I do that much research). But there was enough positive response to give it a chance.

I’m so glad I did.

Dua Lipa/London Grammar

I got stuck in a Dua Lipa loop.

You’re probably aware that “Rolling Stone” just published their updated “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” It’s a complete waste of time. A way to draw attention to a dying empire hurt by the lack of advertising that is charging up the yin-yang for magazine and online access, SEPARATELY! As a matter of fact, “Rolling Stone”‘s music news is top-notch, far superior to “Billboard”‘s, which is a vast wasteland of wanker writing appealing to a public that’s not interested, a true trade magazine no more. But once you put up a paywall, you inherently lessen your audience. And tycoons and wannabes can pay for the “Wall Street Journal,” and most other highfalutin’ publications have a soft paywall, but the hoi polloi are notoriously cheap, people don’t want to pay.

However, “Rolling Stone” is baked into Apple News+, both the magazine and the online news, but I’m vastly disappointed in Apple’s product, because too often the pages turn slowly, you’re waiting forever, it’s not equivalent to reading in print.

But the “Wall Street Journal” is where I want to start. Referencing Mark Richardson’s article on “Rolling Stone”‘s “500 Greatest” list.

First and foremost, these lists are just a way to grab attention. Buzzfeed built a whole business on lists. But now they’re devalued and seen as clickbait and most people ignore them but since it’s music and “Rolling Stone” there’s been attention, if for no other reason than the re-ranking of legendary LPs, like “Sgt. Pepper.” That breakthrough album was #1 the last two times “Rolling Stone” did this, now it’s #24, and that’s positively insane. It creates controversy just for the sake of controversy. For if you were alive back then, you’d remember the huge breakthrough “Sgt. Pepper” was, an album long statement with no singles, all the rest of the albums on this list would not be there if it hadn’t been for “Sgt. Pepper.” As for comparing albums from the sixties to today, that’s like including Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey in a similar listing in the heyday of the Beatles. Times are different. The Beatles tested and surpassed limits. Inspiration is the essence of creation. Doing something new is what we look to, what we cherish, that we drown in accolades. And then there’s public acceptance and so many other reasons this 500 list is a waste of time but I’d recommend Mark Richardson’s article, even though it too is behind a paywall, because he says something I’ve been saying for eons, to seemingly myself. But now that it’s in the WSJ, maybe the public will accept it.

We no longer live in a monoculture. There is no longer one music business. The major labels and the Spotify Top 50 are one business, but only a sliver of the overall business. They’re getting disproportionate ink.

But here’s what Mark Richardson has to say:

“In 2020, we’re living in a shapeshifting musical world filled with many possible histories. Today, two serious music fans can have lengthy year-end lists of favorites that have zero records in common. The sheer number of releases on offer – tens of thousands of new songs are uploaded to streaming services each week – and the proliferation of new genres and sounds mean that everyone who devotes significant time to listening to and following music is a specialist.

The website Every Noise at Once provides a list of almost 5,000 genres, each of which might have hundreds of subgenres beneath it (the site was started by an engineer at the streaming platform Spotify). When you sort genres by popularity, at the time of my writing this Brooklyn Drill, the aggressive style of hip-hop defined by the rapper Pop Smoke, was the 140th most popular genre; grunge, most associated with Nirvana (the group’s 1991 “Nevermind” is No. 6 on Rolling Stone’s recent list), came in at 266.”

Rolling Stone’s Canon Fodder

BINGO!

5,000 genres? No one owned 5,000 records in the last century, before the internet, before file-trading and streaming. We’re all listening to different music. And the news is a fiction. Nothing is as big as it used to be, and everything is smaller than the media hype tells us it is. The manipulated “Billboard” chart is almost completely irrelevant. There can be a festival that sells 100,000 tickets and none of the acts even appear on it.

Which brings me back to Dua Lipa.

I stumbled upon the Tensnake remix of her track “Hallucinate.”

And I couldn’t turn it off.

From the very first moment it’s got that EDM sound, that disco beat. Which is anathema to mainstream rock fans, even though Prince employed it to incredible success on “Dirty Mind,” even though seemingly everybody likes the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack, even though disco never died.

“Hallucinate” was not a hit in any fashion in the U.S. This disco sound does not work on Top Forty, and it certainly does not fit on Hot AC and it brings up the sign of the cross at AAA. But…

Keep your ears open. Let it play. You will not be able to sit still. You don’t have to tell anybody you’re listening, that you like it, this experience is just for you. This remix is a monster. Not a breakthrough like Avicii’s “Wake Me Up,” but a distillation of all that came before into something undeniable.

And this is how I like to listen. Over and over again. It’s kind of like the short attention span that everybody accuses the younger generation of having. NO WAY! We’ve just got no tolerance for average, even good, but when we find something we love, that rings our bell, we’ve got unlimited time for it.

So, I decided to go to the original track. “Hallucinate” before the remix, from Dua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” LP that’s such a smash. And the basics are still there, I like it. But the Tensnake remix elevates it. Blows the roof off the joint and jets listeners into the stratosphere, the remix takes over your body and mind, permeates your physicality, if not your soul.

And what I’m really doing is checking myself. Finding out if I’m behind the curve, if the Tensnake remix is really that good.

So I go to Dua Lipa’s “Club Future Nostalgia (DJ Mix)” remix album, because I listened to it and I don’t remember being stopped in my tracks by “Hallucinate.” And there are two remixes on the album, but neither are by Tensnake. As a matter of fact, they’re a bit generic, in their own genres, neither are as good as the original studio version on “Future Nostalgia,” even with Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” inserted into the Blessed Madonna remix.

So, to check my ears, I went back to the Tensnake remix and once again I got that feeling, it was just ten or fifteen percent better than the original studio version, but that made all the difference.

But I could not write about it. Because I’d be inundated with hate, put-downs. The rockers would decry the disco and the Dua Lipa/pop fanatics would tell me I wasn’t immersed enough in the scene to comment.

But then Felice came into my office, where the Tensnake remix of “Hallucinate” was blasting, and she started to dance, it was just that infectious. But was it just for me?

And then I listened to London Grammar’s “California Soil.”

I was a fan, but I was not impressed live, the band did not touch me in quite the same way. But “California Soil,” I couldn’t turn it off! It reminded me of Air’s breakthrough “All I Need,” but it was its own independent concoction.

This could not be more different from “Hallucinate,” in any incarnation, other than for the 808/fake drum sound, which always offends me. But not enough to overlook this dreamy track, which had me floating above the ground, like listening on headphones in the dark fifty years ago, not that it sounds anything like the music I liked back then, that anybody even made.

I left my soul
On California soil

This is not the troubled California of the news, this is the California dream of the English, the non-Americans, who are mesmerized by the freedom and weather of California.

Not that “California Soil” is about the lyrics. Rather it’s about the feel, the sound, the ethereal vocal. It’s hypnotic.

I wasn’t gripped quite as immediately as I was with “Hallucinate,” but then I played “California Soil” so much I started hearing it when I wasn’t listening to it, it was playing in my brain, I couldn’t get rid of it, I needed to hear it, I put it on my phone as I stretched.

And just like with the albums of yore, “California Soil” slipped into “Baby It’s You,” not the old sixties nugget but something brand new. And “Baby It’s You” was more upbeat, more optimistic, and I got hooked on that too.

Honestly, I discovered “Hallucinate” from a playlist this guy sends me, there’s always one or two good tracks. But I was reluctant to mention that for fear I’d be inundated with recommendations from people whose taste is suspect.

And I discovered “California Soil” from Jeff Pollack’s weekly playlist. Nothing else resonated, but I immediately heard “California Soil,” that’s how it is, the greats jump out.

But what would my audience think of what I was into. I knew I’d be judged, negatively. That’s just how it is.

But then I read Mark Richardson’s article in the “WSJ” and I realized just like in the sixties, it’s about letting your freak flag fly. You can feel comfortable being into what you are. It’s those stuck in major label/Spotify Top 50 land who are suffering, who are left out, as well as the rockers who cannot be open to a synth, to a new sound, their ears are closed.

The “Future Nostalgia” “Hallucinate” has 93 million listens. The YouTube clip has 32 million. The Tensnake remix doesn’t break a million on either platform. It’s like it doesn’t even exist, yet I’m hooked on it, it’s superior to all the other iterations.

“Hallucinate” is the most streamed track from “Future Nostalgia” in the U.K. But in the U.S…CRICKETS!

As for the London Grammar tracks…”California Soil” has a million streams on Spotify, “Baby It’s You” has got five million. As for YouTube, “Baby It’s You” has just over a million, “California Soil” about half of that.

These are the numbers the acts of yore bitch about, that they’re not getting paid enough for. But London Grammar knows all the money is not in streams, but fans! Who’ll come to see you live, who will invest in the act’s culture, irrelevant of whether the band ever breaks into, probably doubtful, the Spotify Top 50. And chances are London Grammar fans never ever listen to Top Forty radio, never. Chances are they don’t listen to terrestrial radio at all!

So I’m wandering in the wilderness just like everybody else, assuming you haven’t given up as a result of the tyranny of choice and the labels and the complicit media hyping a very narrow sliver of what’s available.

This is the new world. We are never going back to a monoculture. There are more genres, more sounds than ever, we just need a way to establish coherence, expose those who are interested in what they very much might like.

YouTube links:

“Hallucinate”-Tensnake Remix

“Hallucinate”-“Future Nostalgia” original

“California Soil”

“Baby It’s You”

Mrs. Everything: A Novel

I loved this book. I mean loved, loved, LOVED!

I am not a guy’s guy. If you want to make fart jokes and snap towels in the locker room I won’t be there, or I’ll be standing in the corner, detached.

Not that I don’t like a good fart joke. I’m just referencing the way guys interact, with sexual innuendos, talking about people’s appearances, what they’d do to so and so, however laughingly. I guess I’ve been put down enough in my life that I’m unwilling to put down another. And I’ve been made to do so much I don’t want to that I won’t force anyone to do anything they wouldn’t want to. In other words, I’d never get arrested for sexual harassment. Or as that old shrink once told me, I’d rather talk to women than screw them.

Which is all to say this is not a book for most men.

Men like to read books that get them somewhere. Biographies, business books. They want to improve themselves, they want to see themselves as members of the group, participants in the game. And even though music is very much an independent business, where individuals thrive, inside the halls of the corporations, the labels, the radio stations, the promotion outfit, it’s very much about getting along. That bro behavior I referenced above. It’s anything but being vulnerable. You can be vulnerable in your music, but that does not work if you’re a cog in the machine. And in this machine, the music business, if you’re not going up, you’re out. Which is why all the successful acts have managers, because they themselves can’t interact with the suits. The better the artist, the less they’re able to be compromised. They can’t go through the mental machinations of negotiation, they don’t have a tolerance for it.

But women?

Women are different.

Then again, our entire culture has changed. You can express vulnerability if you’re on your way to rehab, or giving a mea culpa, otherwise everybody is a winner, at least on the exterior. And groupthink is rampant, whether it be on the college campus or amongst your own little circle. Challenge the precepts at your peril.

In the seventies it was different. Sure, we had the personal development programs like EST, but after the tumultuous sixties, people were looking inward, trying to figure out their problems, and that’s when Sara Davidson’s “Loose Change” came out. It was a rage amongst my older sister’s friends. It told the story of girl friends from the sixties and how their lives played out. I read it, I’ve never forgotten it. Even though I’ve never read it again. I don’t understand rereading, watching movies over when there’s so much stuff left to check out for the first time.

But life, it’s a mystery.

Today I had a long conversation with my mother. In December, she’ll be 94. You think you want to live that long, but you don’t. All your friends are dead, you’re forgotten by society, at best you can play cards and go to the movies and to a great degree just wait to die.

You don’t want to be old in America. First and foremost because you might be broke. This is what I don’t understand about people taking social security early. You’ll want more dollars if you live that long, because you won’t be able to make any, there’s no place for you in the workforce. And I’m willing to die with some money on the table, letting the government beat me, but in a world where the government is the enemy and it’s everybody for themselves that’s anathema. You blew your money on a fancy car and now you want someone to rescue you when times are bad. I feel for you, but how come our entire country can’t save for a rainy day, assuming people can do more than make ends meet. Meanwhile, the rich get mad when the public hoards its money, because by not spending they’re hurting the economy, the stock market, the rich are not continuing to get richer.

And if you’re over sixty, wait for it, you’re instantly irrelevant. Younger people make fun of you. You’re happier and have earned wisdom but that does not matter, you’ve got lines on your face and are subject to derision. So how many people can be true winners, have all of their dreams fulfilled? Very few, if any at all.

So “Mrs. Everything” is the story of a family, from there to here, essentially from the nineteen forties until now. The two sisters are a little older than I am, and that matters, because what was acceptable in the seventies was not in the sixties, but people are people, as Depeche Mode sang.

So you think you’re in charge of your journey. But if you keep the reins too tight, you miss out on opportunities. And if you loosen them too much, you close doors. I didn’t want to get married, because I didn’t want to get off track, I didn’t want to sacrifice my vision. Buy a house, have kids, and you’re working to support them. Then again, family might be the most important thing, who knows.

And your choices…

Talk to anybody and they have dreams. Some times puffed-up, false dreams. Oh, I was pre-med before I dropped out and became a musician. Yeah, right. I went to college and I know that organic chem separated the winners from the losers. If you didn’t get an A, find another career track. I’d see it in slow motion, students’ dreams getting dashed.

But you’ve got to pay your bills and you end up with a job that becomes your life. It started out temporary, or maybe you prepared for it in graduate school, and now it’s unfulfilling, it was your safety net, but you’re making too much money to start over and you certainly wouldn’t be able to pay your bills so here you are, this is your life.

This describes many huge music fans. They use their bucks to feed their addiction. They couldn’t risk coming to Hollywood and trying to make it. It was too dangerous. Or maybe their parents would not have been supportive. Which is to a great degree why entertainment is run by individuals, entrepreneurs, oftentimes college dropouts, who are so unique that if they didn’t run their own organization, they wouldn’t be able to get a job. That’s what they don’t teach you in school. As a matter of fact, school teaches you to conform. It’s very hard to break out of the system, just like it’s very hard to be anti-bro amongst bros.

So…

Kids never turn out the way you planned. The one with straight A’s drops out of school, or gets pregnant. Or loses their job.

And who is your responsibility to? Your parents or your siblings or yourself?

And what if what you’re doing is taboo? Kind of like trans rights today. But that was just like gay rights back then. And gays are still fighting for equal rights, look at what Thomas and Alito said just this week.

So, life is complicated, daunting, and you wake up one day and you find out you’re too old. Hopefully, before that, you found out you don’t matter. Even Sumner Redstone died, even though he believed he never would.

So I grew up in a female dominated household. My dad earned the money, took care of the financial issues, but my mother and two sisters steered the softer issues, the social issues. So, I’m quite comfortable hanging with women, I know what they’re interested in. However I have learned, that despite their delineated preferences, their yearning for softer men, they frequently like the exotica of the opposite, the bros. For every woman who wants to forge their own path, there’s another who wants the door opened, the chair pulled back and the man to bring home the bacon.

I’m not laying down the percentages. I’m just saying it’s complicated, not that we can discuss any of this out loud, because chances are we’ll fall into a politically incorrect pit, where we’ll offend someone and when you’re the target of slings and arrows, those bros won’t come out and defend you, no way, they’re staying silent behind the scenes, which is also to say that despite Harvey Weinstein many men are still unconscious sexual abusers.

So, “Mrs. Everything” is the story of women. Sure, men play a part. And they’re sometimes what they appear to be on the surface, but…

You’re in high school and you’re hyper-aware, everything is important. And then you get old and laugh at yourself. You’re hung up on someone romantically and you get older and you can’t believe you were. Or you get married and wake up one day and realize not only does it not solve all your problems, it hinders you and you’d rather be somewhere else.

These are the questions, the issues you won’t find in business books. Or biographies. The issues of life. The choices, the mistakes, the successes, the willingness to accept where you are, even if it does not match your dreams.

And life never works out how it’s planned. Hopefully not, it’s the accidents that deliver rewards. But a lot of bad stuff happens along the way.

This is what “Mrs. Everything” is about. Life. How it’s rough and tumble. How you make snap decisions that have you turning left and end up somewhere where it’s impossible to turn right.

I looked forward to reading it every day. It’s a treat.

For a special kind of reader.

Maybe that’s you.

Cousin Brucie is a legendary deejay who was friends with everybody from the Beatles to Lesley Gore. Listen to hear how Brucie retrieved Ringo’s St. Christopher medal as well as how he got his start, his name and so much more. Brucie was my gateway drug for music radio. It was a thrill to speak with him!

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