This was recommended to me.

It’s a police procedural, on Netflix, and the gimmick is there are four editions, one for England, one for Germany, one for France and one for Spain. I was worried about seeing them in order, but the truth is they were all launched, or as the kids say, “dropped” (what is the derivation of that word, now anything can be dropped, not just records) on the same day, September 20, 2019, not that there’s been any buzz, at least none that has crossed my threshold.

So Felice wanted to start with the U.K. To tell you the truth, I prefer a foreign language, it’s more exotic, it titillates me in a way, I love going to countries where I do not speak the language, I love that barrier, that difference, it makes me feel alive. Oh sure, the U.K. is great, but when you’re someplace where you have to live by your wits, that thrills me.

I check how many episodes there are. Three, that’s strange, usually there’s ten, sometimes six or eight. Three is digestible, enough to get the complete story across, but the show doesn’t unfold like I think it will, in that each one is self-contained, other than the investigators, one does not connect with another, so you can watch just one and get it, have a completely satisfying experience, and that’s what I’m recommending you do, watch just one episode of “Criminal: UK,” the second one, featuring Hayley Atwell.

The first stars David Tennant, who was so great in “Broadchurch.” He’s not quite that great in this, he’s good, but he doesn’t open up until three quarters through the inquiry, that’s the role unfortunately, I wanted more of him.

But Hayley Atwell…

I’ve never heard of her. But as I look at her Wikipedia page I see she’s in the “Avenger” movies, not that I’ve seen one, life is too short for comic books, I want real life, the truth, and that’s what Ms. Atwell evidences in this episode.

David Tennant is a doctor, dignified, whereas Hayley Atwell plays someone much further down the social stratum, in a country where class matters, where it’s hard to climb up the ladder but people are cool with it. We’re reaching a similar situation in the U.S., it’s just that people are not cool with it.

So, they’re trying to get the story out of Hayley. She’s sassy, voluble, unlike David Tennant in his episode. She’s not scared of the investigators, she’ll tell her story.

Now the nature of this show is the accused says one thing and then another story unfolds. I’m really not giving anything away, once you reach the Atwell episode you know the formula, from the Tennant one that precedes it.

But it’s the story of her life that is so riveting.

Everybody’s got a life, everybody has sex, or wants to, doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor. And everybody is tempted, and everybody gets caught up in the moment. That’s’ one thing about crime, your life is chugging along, if not quite swimmingly, at least adequately, and then one false move later, the whole picture changes, and it’s never the same thereafter, and you get no do-overs, no matter how well you did in school, no matter how much you love your mother it’s irrelevant, you did it.

So when Hayley tells the story of her sister… Whew! Sibling relationships, they’re primary, they’re fraught with issues, these are the people closest to you but oftentimes you wish they were far away.

So Hayley Atwell’s performance is so spectacular I had to remark upon it to Felice during the episode. I never used to talk watching TV, but when you watch these series and get to know the characters…

You’re looking at the flat screen and you truly believe Atwell is this person. She goes from confrontational, to acceptance, and then vulnerability, and then pleading…just like a real person would.

I don’t want to tell you more. But the truth is despite the plethora of product, excellence still stands out. I’m not sure we’re going to watch any more of “Criminal,” but it was far from a waste because of this second U.K. episode, because of Hayley Atwell’s performance.

In America a movie star is something different. They’re always beautiful, with no imperfections, they’re always people you’d want to have sex with, oftentimes with little acting ability.

And then there are those who are lauded for their technique, but the truth is their technique supersedes their performance, you just cannot believe they’re somebody other than the star. Of course there are exceptions, even Jack Nicholson, but maybe because he grew up in pulp, B-movies, with Roger Corman.

The movie business used to be exciting, it was the talk of not only the town, but the world. Studio heads were gods. Going to the movies was a ritual, especially in the late sixties into the seventies. The flicks were fodder for conversation. And a good deal were made by the major studios, and then there were those that were not.

Today anybody can make a movie, and oftentimes it seems like anybody does. Your iPhone is 4k, Soderbergh and others have shot features on them. But this technology didn’t exist half a century ago. Films were expensive, and the independent ones, the cheap ones, were made completely differently from the studio pictures. They were done fast, with experimentation, people filled multiple roles, in front and behind the camera. Production had the vibe of “let’s put on a show,” and oftentimes the result was dreck, or close to it, but there were plenty of gems too.

That’s the world Jack Nicholson came up in. So he evidences a weird credibility, believability, in every role. Sure, he’s Jack, but oftentimes you don’t see him as Jack, whereas those classically trained, in universities, frequently don’t resonate as well on film, or can’t hide their identity, like Meryl Streep. Oh, she’s great, and sometimes she blends into the role, but frequently she does not, but in Hollywood once you’re built-up, once you’re accepted, you stay on your perch unless you screw up, you see the system needs heroes, people to believe in. And the strange thing about internet culture is the ones we believe in are frequently the hoi polloi. Bari Weiss may bitch about social media hate and bullying, but the truth is regular participants in the social media world, unlike those in the establishment, puffed up with their degrees, hiding behind the masthead, know this goes with the territory, it’s de rigueur, you’re not supposed to complain, that does you no good, you need to just jump into the fire and stay there, and in the world of so many distractions what you think is so important is a case of myopia, the truth is other than those in your little circle, most people don’t know and don’t care, and events are soon forgotten. You never want to take yourself out of the game, you never want to whine and moan, because that means you don’t understand the game whatsoever.

But the truth is Hayley Atwell was classically trained. But in the U.K., where actors move fluidly from stage to film to TV, they are performers, the emphasis is not on stardom, but the role.

So… I think I’ve spewed enough. But I was touched by Hayley Atwell’s performance. That’s what I like about these series, getting into the world portrayed, forgetting about regular life, believing these people are the characters, and when I clicked the flat screen off the mood sustained and I thought…

I’ve got to tell people about this.

Johnny – Spotify
Johnny – YouTube

I heard this on the Spotify Americana playlist.

I’m getting sick of the news podcasts. The big outlets are neutral when more emotion is necessary. And the ball never really moves.

So I decided to listen to music. I pulled up my Discover Weekly, and surprisingly, every track was up my alley, but only two resonated, David Bromberg’s “Sharon” and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Swingin’.”

She called her mother-in-law
And said ‘I need a little money
I know I can count on you
After that night in Vegas
And the hell we went through

This stuck out. Funny how you can hear a track a zillion times yet still learn new things, how it can hit you in new ways. She didn’t call her mother, but her MOTHER-IN-LAW! My ex asked for money from my father just before she moved out. Funny, aren’t the parents of your spouse supposed to be the enemy, especially your mother-in-law? But when you’re down and out who can you count on? Only those related to you by blood and law.

I never thought of “Swingin'” as a major track. It was not laden with changes, more of a riff and a sound if nothing else, a workout, noise when you’re angry, but judged against the rest of the stuff in the playlist this Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers cut loomed large, illustrating that you can know how to play, can know how to write, can know how to sing, but still not be transcendent, there’s an alchemy of those skills that makes musicians and their work memorable, Petty sings like he means it, as if he’s got an important story to tell, albeit with attitude, and the rest of the band plays exquisitely, but this was already in the era when MTV had gone pop/hip-hop and now if you’re an ancient rock band and you release new material the tree has definitely fallen in the forest, but almost no one hears it. Many people make music today, but few deserve attention, we need focus on those who do, but then there are poseurs not quite up to snuff, have you been hit by the Phoebe Bridgers hype, have you listened to the album, when you’ve got a story in the “New Yorker” in advance of release I’m suspicious, when something is jammed down my throat, I’m suspicious, it’s only when I hear about something from friends that I pay attention, it’s not that Ms. Bridgers’s work is bad, it’s just that based on the endless hype you’d expect it to be spectacular, and it’s far from it.

She went down swingin’
Like Glenn Miller
Yeah, she went down swingin’
Like Tommy Dorsey
Yeah, she went down swingin’
Like Sammy Davis
She went down swingin’
Like Sonny Liston

Humor. Irony. Petty sings these lyrics straight, but the deeper meaning cracks you up. The image portrayed earlier in the song is of someone who is struggling, not someone who is dancing, but music is a long continuum, and if you know your history you know that the mentioned musicians did, swing that is, but so did Sonny Liston, so the song ends with that pugilistic legend. “Swingin'” never hit me this hard before, it was rewarding, but once again it was so much better than everything else in the playlist, but it was minor Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, then again in the sixties and the seventies the best and the brightest went into music, whether they were educated or not, and the music was enough, we never did get Tom Petty jewelry, never mind cologne.

I found my Release Radar playlist much less rewarding, too much that was not actually new, and the final cut was “Mother of Muses” by Bob Dylan and once again, I respect the new album on paper, it’s just that it’s not that listenable.

So what next?

The Discover Weekly playlist had been so rewarding. And so many of the genre playlists are not. There was a lot of country in my Discover Weekly, but there are too many skips on the country playlists.

So I went to the Americana one. Which was not extremely rewarding until I got to Sarah Jarosz’s “Johnny.”

Sarah gets credit right out of the box, for not changing her name, compromising her authenticity. John Legend? His real last name is “Stephens,” what’s so wrong with that? Even worse, “Legend” is too self-important, and the truth is this guy is reasonable, especially in attitude/statements, but his moniker undercuts his image, same deal with Alicia Keys, whose real last name is “Cook,” but that was not good enough for Clive Davis, calling yourself “Keys,” would Arthur Rubenstein call himself “Artur Keys”? Once again, it’s self-congratulatory and undercuts any gravitas she might evidence.

Johnny’s on the back porch drinking red wine

THE PRODUCTION!

Now that the barrier to entry is so low, not only do people with substandard voices make music, they surround themselves with amateurs across the board, even though these players and producers believe they’re superstars when the truth is there are journeyman professionals who are superior and available, but it does take some cash.

How could a boy from a little bay town
Grow up to be a man, fly the whole world round
Then end back up on the same damn ground he started

The sound, the playing, and the GROOVE! I immediately locked on to it, was nodding my head, felt good. In other words, to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, you know it when you hear it.

But the chorus was not up to the standard of the verse.

Nor was the bridge, but at least there was a bridge!

But I had to play “Johnny” again, and again, to sustain the mood, that’s what music delivers that is absent from not only the news, but movies, television, even books, that’s music’s magic.

Lately he’s been thinking ’bout the meaning of time
The small amount we’re given must be sort of crime
Yet the little we have feels like too much most of the time

Well put. Especially in this Covid-19 era, where we’ve got so much time but so much we don’t want to do, we could hoover up the classics, movies, books, but somehow nothing feels right as the clock keeps ticking, and the older you get the more it bothers you, you can see the end, but then there are so many of my generation who’ve surrendered, retired, in thrall to the Grim Reaper long before their time.

He takes another sip of that blood red wine
Just waiting on the stars that will never align
A little luck, a little love, a little light and he’ll be doing just fine

We’re not looking for that much, but it’s amazing how elusive it is.

Sarah Jarosz has been around forever, she first released music at 19 and now she’s only 29. But it took her this long to get seasoned, to have some perspective, despite being nominated and winning a few Grammys, showing how irrelevant those awards are, how come in film and TV there are so few categories and in music there are nearly a hundred, cheapening the already worthless awards, not to mention the imprimatur of victory killing careers, let’s see how Billie Eilish follows up “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,” I’ll tell you where there is to go, down, that’s the only direction from the pinnacle, Michael Jackson spent the rest of his life trying to equal “Thriller,” and he never did, despite labeling himself the “King of Pop,” he became a caricature of himself, the music has to make you feel good, not the statuette.

Unfortunately, “Johnny” is not good enough to cross over. It won’t go from the swamp of Americana to the country playlist, never mind Top Forty, but if it were just a tad better, if the chorus and bridge were as good as the verses it would be undeniable, the kind of thing you’d play for everybody you knew, unable to get out of your head, but too many settle for good enough, don’t push themselves to excellence, because it’s hard, it’s easier to stay in the backwater as opposed to going for the brass ring, which you might not even reach. But that’s art, it’s a competition with yourself and the closer you get to the goal the more anxious you become, the harder it is to get to the peak, and as soon as you’re self-conscious, you’re screwed, which is why it’s so hard to do to begin with, those who blaze trails are to be respected, to follow in footsteps is relatively simple.

Yes, I’m employing absolute scale. In an era where the history of recorded music is at everybody’s fingertips and you can only listen to one thing at one time, I like “Johnny” more than all the rest of the new stuff I’ve heard recently, but that just makes me want more, I don’t want Sarah Jarosz to rest on her laurels, I want her to PUSH IT, like Tom Petty, who continued to reach peaks long after his initial heights, who was never satisfied.

“Swingin'” – Spotify
“Swingin'”  – YouTube

Former worldwide head of music at WME, Marc Geiger has history as an agent, a record company executive and a tech founder. Known as a seer, here Marc dives into the inner workings of the agency business and assesses the concert landscape. Listen for insights into the music industry as well as Geiger’s history, from UCSD to Hollywood.

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Maybe you have to know someone who died.

Hope. It’s an elusive concept, but you need it to survive. Not blind hope, but a belief based on facts, on odds, on the notion that if you do the right thing events will work out in your favor.

But not only your favor, but everybody’s favor.

But that’s not the way the world is going.

You grow up studying history, all the turf wars, you think it can’t happen now, but then it does. Why? Well, it’s got a lot to do with income inequality. When things are going badly, many abdicate their power to a strongman, who promises they’ll make everything right, and maybe they do for a while, make the trains run on time, but then you wake up with fewer rights as you’re lorded over by an omnipotent power. It’s happening in Eastern Europe. And Russia.

But we didn’t think it could happen here.

Timing is everything. There’s only so much you can control in life, luck plays a big part. And I was lucky enough to be born in the fifties. The fifties weren’t so great, but the sixties were. They started off with the election of JFK.

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

We live in bizarroland today. George Costanza rules, people do the opposite of this.

“My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

Together. An interesting concept. The U.K. breaks away from the EU. The U.S. pulls out of the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal and the W.H.O., as if we, and the world, can go it alone, when everybody knows you need a team to triumph.

So JFK said we were going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. We were torn, whether to put faith in the president’s proclamation or deem it a pipe dream. But then Americans rocketed into space, and despite setbacks like the Apollo 1 fire, in the summer of ’69 men walked on the moon, and we watched it all on television.

You might say we can Zoom around the world these days, but there’s no colony on Mars, we stopped exploring, because it was seen as too costly, but the truth is the space program paid dividends. Not only Tang, but computer development.

So JFK gets assassinated, but LBJ gets civil rights laws passed. The younger generation questions everybody and everything, and protests the war to the point that LBJ decides not to run in ’68. Sure, there was opposition, but both sides agreed on the facts, it was only a matter of spin, of opinion, what to do next.

But the sixties were thrilling. Kinda like seeing Prince. Or Freddie Mercury. You were either there or you weren’t. And you might be able to listen to recordings, watch videos, but they’re just facsimiles, you can’t feel it, you can’t live it, you’re at a distance, your heroes are dead.

And the truth is in 1970 a bunch of heroes died. Most notably Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison and Duane Allman in ’71. Suddenly, we were licking our wounds, we were living in a can’t do culture, and we’ve been living that way ever since, except for a brief period of internet excitement at the end of the nineties and the beginning of the twenty first century, before the techies became billionaires and we ended up with a Tower of Babel society, with no one taking responsibility.

Responsibility. Credibility. Morality. Honor. Important concepts in the sixties, irrelevant today. You’re just a person, equal to the billionaires and no better than those of color. But that is not the message you’re sent. You’re told you’re inadequate and if you don’t get in line, crawl for cash, you’ll fall through the cracks and no one will rescue you. We went from help your brother to put down your brother, and that had consequences.

So despite smartphones and flat screens, life is hard in today’s U.S.A. Both parents have to work and you can’t make it on minimum wage. Sure, you can save up for the front row for Drake, but then you can’t afford another show all year. Meanwhile, the banks and the corporations drink from the public trough and you’re parched, just waiting for a drop of water. Even worse, it’s deemed your fault. It’s your fault if you’re poor, if you get cancer, if you get Covid-19. Because the winners won’t succumb.

But they do.

I just got word a friend is in hospice for Covid-19.

It’s not like a car accident, it doesn’t happen suddenly. You get sick, then maybe you get a little better, and then maybe you get sicker and then, weeks after it all began, you pass.

How did he get it?

His granddaughter flew to a distant state to hang with a friend. If the states had been closed, if there wasn’t a quick reopening, he never would have gotten Covid-19, he would have lived.

This is not rocket science, you don’t need a genius to explain it. But somehow even if they can understand it, many won’t accept it. Why?

Because they believe it won’t happen to them.

But it always does, it’s just a matter of when.

Your kid gets cancer. You lose your job. Your wife leaves you. Life isn’t smooth sailing, the goal is to hang in there and survive.

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another
Right now

Now you piss on your brother. Raise your head and you will be attacked. Even worse, those who truly commit faux pas, even when they’re caught, they skate. They just ignore it. Or wait for the afternoon, when another story will replace it.

There are no consequences.

The worst thing that could happen when I grew up was to come home with a note that your parent had to see the principal.

Today, if a kid comes home with said note, the parent goes to the school and tears the principal a new one, after all, their progeny can’t be at fault.

No one can be at fault in America today, it’s always someone else’s problem.

And then the music stops, and there’s no chair left for you.

Even worse, no one cares, except for your family and friends.

That’s America today, no one cares and there’s not enough money to go around. You can’t get ahold of the unemployment office in California, if you’re poor, it’s your fault, find your own damn health insurance, borrow money from friends, assuming they’ve got any, sleep on a couch, or on the sidewalk, after all, you’re responsible.

But what if your birth circumstances were not privileged? What if you got the short end of the stick through no fault of your own?

Tough nuggies.

Recent news says if we all wore masks, Covid-19 would be harnessed in three weeks. Is this true? Maybe, maybe not, but we could at least try it.

But that would mean you’d be responsible, you’d have a duty, you’d have to care about others, and that’s just not today’s ethos.

It’s a free-for-all, and no one is in power.

They fine people for breaking the rules in foreign countries, in America even when there is a law, the governor might choose not to enforce it.

So who should you listen to, who should you believe?

And then there are the optimists, who believe a regime change will solve all our problems, when the truth is you can never catch up to the computer age if you’re using fax machines, you’ve got to tear down and start over, rebuild the infrastructure. But that costs money, and the government is the enemy, and therefore you should not pay taxes and the rich shouldn’t either because they are the job creators, wrong, and they know where the money should go, not those in power, so screw ’em.

But it’s all irrelevant until it hits home.

If it hasn’t already, it’s gonna. It’s just a matter of time. No one wins forever. And when things don’t go your way, good luck. Chances are the government won’t be there for you, and in a country of 300+ million people, a few can be lost. But what if it’s you?

None of the above can be debated, it’s written in stone. How you choose to live your life is up to you, but actions have consequences, and in the old days it was incumbent upon bad actors to take responsibility, today they deny and that’s all she wrote.

Black Lives Matter was an illustration that America doesn’t work for everybody, whether you stand for the “Star-Spangled Banner” or not, that’s all show, it won’t put money in your bank account.

We’ve got a vacuum of leadership. We revere corporate titans, are beholden to their wares, but when it comes to what is between the ears, we get no food, no direction.

There are a lot of false prophets. Most especially religious ones. But if you believe prayer is the answer to all your issues, I hope you don’t get Covid-19.

We need someone to take control. Someone akin to JFK, or MLK, or even Mario Savio. Someone who’s driven by what’s right as opposed to what pays out.

While we’re waiting, there will be casualties.

Like my friend today.