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Tune in today June 2nd, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive

Could the music industry do any LESS?

I’m talking about the recorded music industry, the live business has been blacked out for months, with no light on the horizon.

But the labels…

Let me see… Warner, Sony and Universal. Keep congratulating yourself as you only sign and promote hip-hop and pop. Oh, don’t tell me about the exceptions, own the truth. You’re leaving out a whole swath of America, to the point that the “hit” music business means less than ever before.

Music has gone tribal. And the labels and the streaming services, everybody in the food chain, to a great degree the same players who were there pre-Napster, act like nothing is different. We’ve got forty hits, and the rest don’t matter, just like black people in America.

Don’t you get it? That the killing of George Floyd was just a flash point, and the hardships African-Americans must bear are only a part of the picture.

You see the U.S. is screwed-up.

There, I said it.

We’re first in almost no category. But we keep hearing about freedom and comparisons to “socialist” countries that have health care and high taxes and…you wouldn’t want that, would you? OF COURSE WE WOULD!

The music business is just like the Democrats and the Republicans and big media, they’re following the story, they’re not prepared to get ahead of it, they’ve been blind to the future for decades.

Come on, black music is the bread and butter of these three big labels and it took this to get them to say something? Where were they when Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner and the rest were killed. NOWHERE!

And this is not 1992, this is not the L.A. riots. Back then the first thing that occurred to me was Ice-T WAS RIGHT! N.W.A. too. They’d been telling us about police abuse for years, finally we woke up and confronted the truth.

In Los Angeles. The rest of the country thought it was a local problem. That it couldn’t happen there. And now they’re protesting in Salt Lake City? Have you been there? Cities and states don’t come any more white. It’d be like preschoolers agitating for abortion rights, completely incomprehensible.

But maybe foreseeable.

Forget those that disagree with you. NOW! Of course Trump is still president, of course Fox News still has power, of course there are white nationalists, but the truth is there are more of us than them, but we let them set the agenda, whether it be reopening in the wake of Covid-19 or immigration or…

It’s like parents complaining they’re at the mercy of their children. When are left wingers gonna look themselves in the mirror and man-up?

Well, a whole bunch of them just did, and D.C. and the media think it’s an isolated event, that will blow over.

No way!

They’re protesting for change at Facebook today:

Facebook Employees Stage Virtual Walkout to Protest Trump Posts

Workers want Zuck to grow a pair and do the right thing. Ever hear of the right thing? I don’t think so in today’s mercenary culture.

So, where are today’s anthems, that we can all rally around?

THEY DON’T EXIST!

I’m not sure if they could ever exist today, but the recorded music business has its head so far up its rear end that it can’t see what is going on, that it’s lost purchase on most of the public. This was proven by Adele, she sells ten times the number of records as anybody else but do we get more Adeles? NO WAY!

And now I’m in dangerous territory, you can’t say anything against hip-hop or black people in the music business.

But I will.

Where are all the tracks speaking to the human condition, auguring for change? No, it’s all about getting rich, the lifestyle, accumulating enough money to live behind a gate.

Except for the struggling. We don’t hear from struggling basketball players, why do we keep hearing about struggling musicians? Maybe they’re just not up to snuff, don’t have the talent!

So why don’t the black acts refuse to record for their labels until they hire more African-Americans? One thing is for sure, the artist has the power, ALWAYS! Where have the artists been as incomes go down and the white man rules? Crickets. Of course there are exceptions, but…

We just hear that Jay Z called the governor. Nothing wrong with that, but what does that mean?

The only words that have mattered have been those of Killer Mike:

But he was co-opted by the powers-that-be, he asked for calm when the protesters were not ready to be calm, unlike Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:

Op-Ed: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge

No one likes to be criticized, but it’s the only way you can hear the truth. Sycophants feel good, but the truth is what’s important.

Kinda like Lady Gaga… She’s being criticized for being out of touch with the times, wanting to dance and party while our cities are burning. Well, that was just timing. But, her album is being criticized everywhere for being a return to what once was, that it’s safe. This is not what artists do, they keep pushing the envelope, changing, getting ahead of the audience. If you give people what they want they’re gonna forget you. Because you’ve got to give them what they NEED!

And Lady Gaga is white, but Marvin Gaye was and Stevie Wonder still is black. And Marvin put out “What’s Going On” and Stevie gained control of his recording career too and amongst his gems was “Living For The City.” Ever listen to the break in that song? Same as it ever was. Blacks being arrested. But we’ve never heard Stevie say I’M A BUSINESS, MAN! It was always about the art.

And with Kanye it’s all about himself.

And the white acts are just as bad. It’s our selfish culture imbued with braggadocio. But the truth is not everybody can be famous, not everybody can be rich, WHAT ABOUT THEM?

And statistically African-Americans get the short end of the stick, but god forbid a white person sacrifice.

What exactly is the sacrifice in Blackout Tuesday? People won’t work for ten minutes? What does that do? Where’s the call to action? Nowhere, because the recorded music industry doesn’t want controversy, it just wants to go on raping and pillaging like it always has. With opaque royalties.

As for the Viacom channels… This is free press, MTV and VH1 haven’t meant anything in music for eons. What next, record stores going dark?

Do you really think ten minutes of silence is gonna change anything? Do you really think the public at large IS EVEN GONNA KNOW?

Music has power, but it’s been totally abdicated. It’s about having hits so you can get sponsorships, maybe even your own line of clothing and/or perfume and living a high lifestyle in St. Bart’s. This is what you’re selling? Many are even proud of their privates, even when they do them for dictators.

As for another concert, another charity single…

Concerts only appeal to a slice of the audience and singles flop, because they’re always a bad song, usually a creepy ballad, a kumbaya moment for different genres to get together when the truth is they never coexist anywhere else, on concert stages, on radio… Bonnie Raitt always had legendary blues people opening her show. Laura Nyro employed Miles Davis. We don’t see that cross-culturalization anymore.

But black music drives the youth, is the most defining musical culture, even though it’s not as pervasive as the labels, radio and press tell us it is. So that’s the conundrum, the youth love hip-hop but their parents seem ignorant of this. That’s right, not only the president of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked.

So the whites control the corporations and the blacks are big in entertainment but entertainment doesn’t matter. But last I checked, entertainment WAS ALL that mattered! Without culture, a country is hollow. Then again, they’ve eliminated all the music and art programs from public schools as Betsy DeVos gives money to the private schools.

But that story doesn’t get spread.

But the protesters CAN FEEL IT! Their futures have been sold down the river! Do you really think this many white people would be out protesting with African-Americans if it was only about George Floyd? NO WAY! There were race riots in the sixties, but they were localized, and there were very few white faces, you’d only get white faces at antiwar protests.

Everybody keeps thinking they’re immune. But no one is immune.

The hoi polloi get $1200 and all we keep hearing is about corporations that don’t get enough. The focus is on the big companies, the economy must be saved. How about saying jobs must be saved? How about a living wage? How about free child care so those in poverty can be lifted up? How about free health care so breadwinners can continue to work?

No, these are all takers.

You see the government and media have been selling us falsehoods for decades. You’re a winner, if you pull yourself up by your bootstraps you’ll make it! But we can’t even get the government to forgive school loans to veterans who were hoodwinked by for-profit institutions.

CAVEAT EMPTOR!

Yes, America is all about ripping you off. And selling an image that makes you feel worse about yourself. What’s the latest, Kylie Jenner cheated and she’s not really a billionaire? Is that really the role model we want, a young, uneducated nincompoop who just happens to be rich?

And Barack Obama is elected president and we think we’ve made headway. But he’s so afraid of appearing the angry black man that he lets the whites walk all over him. Look at his pronouncements now, there’s little emotion, little anger, because he’ll be excoriated by the commentariat. WHO CARES ABOUT THE COMMENTARIAT? They’re not in control of the country!

That’s what we’ve learned in the past week. There’s not enough government to control the mob. As for obeying curfews…let me see, Trump told all his followers not to wear masks, what makes you think people are gonna obey curfews?

The little people have to obey the rules, whereas the big people break them and go scot-free.

It gets worse and worse. Zuck is so myopic he can’t do the right thing. And Jack Dorsey does the right thing and even the left gives him a hard time. Baby steps first. Unless you’re so slow that you engender revolt. Yup, it’s those in the public eye who have to make the first move, not some faceless people at the label going out for a smoke break.

So what we’ve learned here is the music business has lost its power. It used to reach everybody and there was no greater influence. Today, streaming TV gets all the attention and generates the most influence. Because that’s where risk is taken, where outside voices are amplified, where real life is reflected.

Let me see… Have you ever even seen a Rolls? Unless you’re in L.A. or Atlanta, probably not. Do you own a yacht? Do you even have a college education?

The recorded music business gets younger and younger… Tell me again what Billie Eilish knows about life, she was even home-schooled! She’s got no clue what’s going on, but we keep on lionizing her.

The Grammys kick out their female boss because the old men want no change. And you’re surprised the doors in business are closed to outsiders? I thought entertainment was supposed to be fluid!

And the NFL’s got few black coaches.

Yup, there’s systemic racism.

But there’s more than that.

There’s income inequality and disinformation…

You’re worried about Trump getting re-elected, by those who want law and order. Do you really think he’ll stay in office and everything will be hunky-dory? OF COURSE NOT! You haven’t seen riots in the street like you’ll see if Trump wins, this weekend was just a dress rehearsal. And don’t tell me these protests can be contained, they’ve been going on for days!

Those in power are clueless. You’ve got to fall in behind the negatively affected, learn and then take charge, support people.

But that’s not what happens. Enlightened lefties self-flagellate, the right goes underground and there’s no change.

Meanwhile, we keep hearing in the media that they nailed Harvey Weinstein.

Did they nail my boss at the trucking company?

You can spread any word you want to now. Whether you’re with or against the protesters, whether you’re for change or you’re not. DOESN’T MATTER! The proletariat suddenly took control of this country. Trump couldn’t see it and hasn’t known how to react as he’s huddled deep in the White House bunker. We keep hearing politicians’ hands are tied, there’s nothing they can do, and if you’d just vote…

I’m gonna vote, but I’m not hopeful for change. Because the truth is the elite of this nation have pushed the hoi polloi down so far that there’s absolutely no way people can pick themselves up. But it’s worse, they left people behind and then pissed on them, and told them they could be rappers or athletes. How much opportunity do you have in the inner city? They took money from the schools and you endure bullies and gangs outside your domicile and if you move to the suburbs the whites want you to leave your culture behind, to be just like them.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN!

Can you find one person who predicted the riots and protests of the past five days? I can’t. But I am a student of history, and it’s all about flash points. We’re in the middle of one. And one thing is for sure, we’re not returning to where we were, no way. A new society will arise and I ask, are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

If you make 400k and pay all your taxes… That’s not enough, you should be paying more, you should be giving money away, the system worked for you, make it work for everybody else.

If you’re rich and you made it through your own hard efforts…CONGRATULATIONS! But just because you created some snappy software that does not mean you can solve the problems of the inner city.

Zuck gave money away…TO HIMSELF! I’d recite the details, but the truth is he avoided taxes, the money is not spent and he’s still in control of it. That’s what the government allows you to do. What does the government allow poor people to do?

You must obey the rules, stand behind the lines, when the media keeps clapping for outside rule-breakers like Elon Musk. What message are we sending here?

Oh, that’s right, socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.

It’s not only the music business that is out of touch. All our institutions have lost touch with our citizens. So, they don’t know what to do. They’ve been running unfettered for decades. They kept their cash overseas and when they were forced to bring it back they paid pennies on the dollar in taxes.

Meanwhile, you got $1200. How far will that go? That’s dinner for music business people, if it even covers the bill.

You were lucky, think about those less fortunate.

Revolution always comes from the bottom. And the truth is we’re in the midst of the revolution right now. WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

I want to see Rob Stringer in the streets. Stephen Cooper. I want Blavatnik to offer up his private jet to fly leaders to D.C…

I want Fox News and the president and other elected officials to stop saying it’s a few bad actors, antifa, white nationalists…there aren’t enough of them everywhere to have been protesting in all these cities these past few days. This is the same logic they’re using to hobble voting by mail…all those miscreants who are gonna abuse the system. Who are these people, aren’t they the ones in office?

So if you want to do something, work towards a solution. Take a stand. Be unafraid of the man. Say you can do as opposed to you cannot. Lay down your money but speak with your mind.

This is judgment day.

Get ready.

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

Bob Dylan

How do you lose control of a country?

Slowly, then all at once.

It started with Trayvon Martin in Florida. Then it progressed to Eric Gardner in New York, Michael Brown in Ferguson and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.

And now it’s George Floyd in Minnesota.

We thought the threat was coming from white nationalists, that they’d shoulder their rifles and shoot up the place.

But when these suburban dads showed up at state capitals, the governors and legislators immediately took notice and backed down. The media too. We had to reopen America. It was a silent change.

But when protesters railed against death in Minneapolis?

They government brought out tear gas and rubber bullets.

Because there are more alienated African-Americans than disenchanted whites, because the African-American has been a second-class citizen from day one in America.

Now the right and the Supreme Court want to deny this, they want to whitewash the problem. The Supreme Court said we no longer needed the Voting Rights Act. That blacks in Texas and Georgia and…could register and vote just fine.

But that didn’t turn out to be true.

And then Tucker Carlson criticized the left for talking about race, saying we live in a post-racial society, which is like the slave owner saying the plantation works, and not to complain.

Then Colin Kaepernick takes a knee and becomes a pariah.

But not to the younger generation, getting older and more powerful every day, to them he’s a hero!

The NBA is run by its players. The commissioner thinks twice before issuing any edicts.

The NFL is Maggie’s Farm. They make the rules and you either obey them or you’re out of the game. The players are fungible. After all, it’s not the owners on the gridiron getting brain-damaged. They have their money, they throw the underclass, with its only opportunity for wealth, to the lions…

And people cheer about it.

So, protesters are burning down their own neighborhoods. Of course it makes no sense. It will take years to rebuild, after the ’92 riots in L.A. there was a dearth of supermarkets in South Central.

But…

What does it take for the empowered to take notice and take action?

They charged the killer with third-degree murder quickly, the mob did that.

But the mob has been taking it on the chin for decades.

They were told America is the land of equal opportunity. That we all begin at the same starting line, and if you don’t make it, it’s your fault.

Meanwhile, a white woman calls the cops on a black man in Central Park. And admit it, you tense up when black men get into the elevator with you. We’re all a little racist. And some of us are doing our best to self-adjust. And then we’ve got a President fanning the flames of the haters. How come there aren’t good people on both sides this time Trump, come on, answer me that!

But, this time, there are more of us than there are of them. There just aren’t enough policemen in Minneapolis to quell the dissent. So they’re bringing in the army, the National Guard is a bunch of weekend warriors who when not trigger-happy are scared to death themselves.

But once you start arresting reporters and keeping peace through the armed forces do you still have a democracy?

You see this is what D.C. and the media don’t get. They think Minneapolis and the associated protests in other cities are an isolated event, that will blow over, just like everything else. But that is completely wrong, they are signposts on a continuum.

And we’re close to the end.

The world was rolling along just fine, what problems there were were under the surface, and then Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated and we got the first world war.

Same deal with the Arab Spring. Everything’s hunky-dory, there is control, and then one overeducated fruit vendor sets himself on fire and the government fails. Mohammed Bouazizi paid with his life. Do you think the Floyd protesters are worried about some buildings in their neighborhood?

They tell us to vote.

But what difference does that make? Especially in an era of gerrymandering and voter suppression, especially in an era of one party winning the popular vote and the other getting the presidency via the electoral college. But those are the rules! But if the game is rigged, if you always lose, if you can’t change the rules, you flip over the table.

But the winners of the casino known as life don’t understand this. They don’t understand the sacrifice. They paid their dues, got educated, worked hard, it’s not their fault that George Floyd was killed.

Only it is.

At the top, it’s not about left or right, it’s about power. It’s a club, and you’re not in it. And the way they keep you in check is by telling you to work the system. But the system is flawed and the judges keep letting the game play on whenever we cry foul.

Two steps forward and one step back.

The civil rights acts of the sixties freed black people, but it also institutionalized racial hatred in whites.

Same deal with efforts to level the playing field of education. Busing, affirmative action… After a few years went by, the whites were up in arms, their chances were being taken away! And if they couldn’t get the rules changed, they too worked the system. By educating their children in private schools, and tutoring them into the best colleges, which they could pay for. And then Betsy DeVos wants public money to go to these private schools, which inherently leaves less for the disadvantaged, who are told that vouchers will save them. Everybody can’t migrate to the mountaintop, there’s not enough room, many people are going to drown at the bottom.

But they’re poor African-Americans living on welfare having too many kids driving expensive cars so screw ’em.

Even though the real welfare crime is all the money the energy companies and other fat cats get in tax breaks, if not direct handouts,

But that’s not a sexy story, and the underclass doesn’t control the media.

Which brings us to social media. The past week has been inundated with words about the flaws in social media. But what I don’t get is without social media, most of these people wouldn’t even have a voice! It’s like the musician who made his album on his laptop and distributed it for free on Spotify via Songtradr complaining that they’re not getting advances from the major labels or making money from streaming. You only get to play, you only get a voice from the internet.

Which is what makes this story different from what came before.

Oldsters are watching television.

Youngsters see the pictures and video on the internet. They comment on it, they read others’ comments.

Meanwhile, you think the internet is only about showing off.

Instagram is cool. But Twitter, a hotbed of ideas? IT MUST GO!

So, did you really think the rich could get richer for four decades and there would be no consequences?

Did you really think you could ship all the jobs overseas and the suddenly out of work employees wouldn’t feel the pain?

You’ve got an iPhone.

See a lot of iPhones amongst the underclass?

No, it’s all Android, because they’re struggling, they can’t afford Apple.

And since they’ve got a smartphone and flat screen, you think they’ve got enough. But they don’t.

Meanwhile, all the established do is continue to cut the safety net.

And the Democrats are complicit too. Never forget that Bill Clinton slashed welfare. But now, representatives of the underclass, the abused, those without a good future support Bernie Sanders and he’s taken down by the establishment. Oh, come on. All the news outlets, “The New York Times” and MSNBC and…James Carville and the DNC said we couldn’t afford Medicare for all and corporations can’t be taxed and controlled and we must run an insider, who can play the game.

And then the outsiders blow up the game.

This has been a long time coming. And it’s not about control. You can’t control hearts and minds, no way, didn’t we learn that in Vietnam?

But now history is being rewritten, the talking heads and the books say the sixties were an aberration, that the damn hippies screwed everything up, that that war was winnable and…

It’s disinformation all the time.

But now the disadvantaged have cameras in their phones and they can spread the word online and…

This is just the beginning, when the dust settles in a few days it will not be over, it’s just a harbinger of what’s to come.

Now the sad thing is after revolution often comes autocracy. The stay at homes are fearful, they want law and order. So, we get Nixon in ’68. We get all the Eastern European autocrats.

Meanwhile, Trump keeps praising these dictators.

The problem with Trump is he doesn’t know the people. Today the upper classes do their best to never interact with the rest of the public. They live behind gates. They see an occasional servant, but they do not have friends who are working for a living, who are trying to make ends meet on minimum wage as Bezos and the Waltons get ever richer.

The only way the unrest can be addressed is by giving to those with less.

But that’s never gonna happen. Because that means the empowered will have to sacrifice. And they’re not gonna give up one damn thing. A litmus test…is it all right for your kid to go to the state school because an inner city black or Latino took their place at the Ivy? I don’t think so!

Deny all I’ve said. Attack me personally. Spin fantasies you heard on Fox and the dark web. Talk all you want about the need for peace, the need to keep immigrants and minorities down. But it won’t make a bit of difference.

You see the protesters are fighting on what they feel. You know, your gut, your instincts. The spin slides right by them. They’ve taken it up the rear end for years, and now they’ve reached their limit. Black people have shorter life expectancies than whites. Why? BECAUSE OF HEALTH CARE! Can you afford to go to the doctor, can you afford insurance?

Oh, don’t nitpick. That’s what the right has been doing for decades as it tries to drown the government in the bathtub. Saint Reagan said the government was the problem and that is written in stone, just as powerful and lasting as the Bible.

But then, we have a pandemic and we’re unprepared.

But now Trump is saying he did a great job!

This only works in the echo chamber of mainstream news. If you’re working at the grocery store, if you’re delivering food, if you put your life on the line every damn day, if you know people who’ve died, that’s your truth, no matter what anybody else says.

So fire your slings and arrows, your emails and tweets. Won’t make a damn bit of difference. You’re a professional commenter, you’re working the refs 24/7, you have a voice because of the internet and you don’t want anyone else to be able to have one, never mind have a louder one.

But this isn’t about the internet either.

This is about a society that looked the other way for four decades, that said it was too poor to care about people while billionaires were minted and lionized and the upper class pulled so far away from everybody else that there was no way to bridge that gap. Hey you, out there! You boomer! You Gen-X’er! You worked damn hard to get into a good college, you became a professional, and now even you are left out! You can’t afford the concierge doctor, you can’t get a good seat at the restaurant, you can’t afford the luxury vacation spot.

There are more of us than there are of them.

And if you really think the white militias are gonna start shooting at the underclass, you don’t realize that they’re their brethren. They’re all losing out. They’re just blaming it on different people.

You cannot steal constantly from the jar without running out of cookies.

You cannot price fast food cheaper than healthy food and not expect the underprivileged to get fat and have diabetes.

You cannot screw the same people year after year without pushback.

We did not expect it to go down this way.

And we did not expect it to happen now.

Trump skirted impeachment and the DNC anointed Biden. The lanes were clean, the choices were clear, everybody thought it was about an election.

But if you have faith that electing Biden will put food on your table, will get Wells Fargo not to screw you, then you’re delusional.

But the people protesting are not delusional. They know more truth than those in government and media. The bottom line is America is not working for them anymore. And they are sick and tired of being abused.

Shoot the messenger, go ahead. I hope it makes you feel good, because it won’t make a bit of difference.

The upper class, the media, the government have lost control.

And according to the protesters, it’s about time.

Meet the new boss.

The music industry was disrupted by Napster. Could it control its customers? NO! It had to adjust to them, damn the old business model.

For twenty years we were enraptured by the tech titans. But those days are through.

Now it’s about ideas, not widgets, not algorithms.

It’s about people, not bots.

Mark Zuckerberg is not prepared. In fact, he’s blind, like most of the people in the government.

They think they have all the power.

But they don’t.

It’s morning in America. Wake up and smell the burnt coffee.

It was a new day yesterday, but it’s an old day now.

The Knockout Queen

This book is so wild.

When I was a freshman in college, second semester I took an English course entitled “The Picaresque Novel.” Now if you look up “picaresque” in the Oxford dictionary, it says “relating to an episodic style of fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest but appealing hero.” I’m not sure every book we read in that class fit that description, but one thing is for sure, the main character in each book was different, one of a kind, didn’t fit in, was a leader of misfits or…

Now at Middlebury, 45% of the students came from prep school. They had it all wired, they knew things I did not. Like “Celtic” is pronounced with a “k” sound as opposed to the “c” of the Boston basketball team, and that you didn’t have to read all the books and you never had to turn a paper in on time.

As for the last…I eventually behaved that way too. You’ve got to be motivated to write a paper. Oh, that’s one more thing, there were no objective tests at Middlebury, no true/false or multiple choice, they were all three hour essay tests, and you had to write tons of papers. So, I’d feel the pressure the night before and write my paper, but…

It was a different era. Oh, how I wish I went to college in the computer age. Not only would I not be isolated in nowhere Vermont, I’d be able to print as opposed to type, or maybe just e-mail the finished result to the professor. You see that was the biggest challenge, when you were done scribbling, you had to type your composition. And although I studied touch-typing in high school, maybe the most valuable course I took, my typing was not yet perfect and if you made too many mistakes you had to start over and it was a real pain in the ass.

As for not having to read all the books…

That was wisdom, that was genius.

Some courses would assign you a thousand page book a week. Really. How could you do any other schoolwork, how could you even finish that book? And all this hoopla about online learning…I learned a hell of a lot more out of the classroom than in it. That’s why you go to college, to meet different kinds of people, to grow up, most of what you learn in the classroom is close to worthless, especially today when they teach you business crap as opposed to the liberal arts. Which is all to say I don’t think I read most of the books in that class that semester. Not that they were any good, not that I missed anything. But I did miss the first week of the semester skiing in Courchevel, and I never really caught up. And I am exaggerating, as everybody is wont to do, I read most of the books, but I distinctly remember not reading “The Ginger Man.”

But I did read “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.”

It changed my life.

That and “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” that summer.

It’s different now. Even by 1970 people would have rather recorded the Great American Album as opposed to writing the Great American Novel, but this was before blockbusters. Just like “Jaws” and “Star Wars” ruined the movie business, James Patterson and John Grisham ruined the book business. Suddenly, you could get rich writing a novel. Well, before the techies came along and added a bunch of zeros. So, today we’ve got genre books, mysteries, romance, and “literature,” which is the product of the writing schools wherein the writing supersedes the story and most of it is only read by a small subset of Americans as opposed to everybody.

That was not “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.”

Its main character is Gnossos Pappadopoulis. It was written by Richard Farina, who was married to Joan Baez’s sister Mimi, and he died in a motorcycle accident two days after the book’s publication. That was big news back then, today no one even knows who Mimi is, never mind reads this book.

You see it’s a combination of irreverence and alienation. The human condition. That’s what’s been lost in today’s mercenary society, everybody hides their identity to get along, to appear a winner, when the truth is being human is challenging, you’re living in your head, does anybody really know you, and does any of it really matter?

Neither of the above books are why I became a writer. That happened earlier, in the fall of my freshman year, but that’s a story for another day.

But “The Knockout Queen” is the story for today.

You see you have an alienated gay teenager whose mother is in prison for attacking his violent father. And this teenager is living with his aunt. And he befriends this tall, rich girl who lives next door.

And that all happens right away, I’m not really giving anything away. That’s what I hate about reviews, they just give a precis of the book, and that’s not what I want…what I want to know is if I should read it!

And I’m not recommending “The Knockout Queen,” because I don’t think it’s for everybody.

But if it’s for you..!

Come on, are you the type who likes to analyze, who takes nothing at face value, who feels like they exist outside the system?

Are you the type who believes life is rigged, never mind politics?

Are you the type who lives for adventure, even if it’s not gonna be posted on Instagram?

Are you the type who adds up the injustices, but soldiers on?

Are you the type who believes it’s just not gonna work out for you?

That’s a lot of us, but most of us don’t want to admit it.

So, by being very small and focused, “The Knockout Queen” becomes universal. Well, that’s overstating the case a bit, but you get what I mean, it speaks to the human condition.

What is said and the choices characters make and the way people act…it’s just like people you know in real life. The one who says they’ll do you any favor, even though they don’t really mean it, they just want points for saying it.

I guess what I’m saying is I was reading “The Knockout Queen” and I suddenly realized, THIS IS ME!

No, I don’t mean I was any character in the book, but it brought me back to who I once was. And believe me, there’s so much I don’t want to go back to from college. But me and my friends used to say, if we ever got rich, we’d establish a chair for “flipped-out literature.” We really said that, again and again. It was a rebellion against the conservatism of Middlebury. Where they didn’t want to know your opinion of the book, they just wanted you to study someone else’s opinion. So why read, you’re removing all the joy from the experience!

As for Rufi Thorpe, the author of “The Knockout Queen”…

The funny thing is when you read a book, you kinda feel like you know the author, And you’re drawn to find out more. Even though if you met in real life they’d want nothing to do with you and you’d find out they’re different from your preconception. But the beauty is you never meet them! You have your own fantasy!

Now most of celebrity journalism is based on movie and TV stars. Who literally play a role. There’s very little there there. Who cares what they’re saying or doing? And then there are reality stars, like the Kardashians, those are business stories, how did they hoodwink America to make all that cash…come on, would you like to hang with these people, the conversation would be inane! And then there are authors. They came up with the story, they’re in the book.

Rufi Thorpe said MFA programs were b.s. Not to go if you had to borrow money to do so. That they were a good place to go to have time off to write, but as for learning anything…

You see the U.S. is one big conformity system. They’re training you to get in line and be just like everybody else. But deep inside, we’re not. We feel different and we’re always wandering around like in that children’s book, asking ARE YOU MY MOTHER? We’re looking for someone who gets us, who is on the same page, who understands us.

And it happens rarely.

Ever try to change your friends? It can’t be done. Oh, you can fake it, but you can’t become a different person. Turns out the popular people are different. They’re fake and duplicitous and fabulous and you need to hang with someone else just as alienated as you.

So, I read “The Knockout Queen” and I was stunned to find someone on the exact same page as me! Once again, not the characters, but the sensibility…as in you’re marching through life and it doesn’t make any sense.

Rufi Thorpe said she wrote what she wanted to write. Which is where all the great stuff comes from. You can go to Nashville and learn how to write for country radio, but you won’t be an original. But originals are who we’re truly looking for! But the gatekeepers think you’re too dangerous, you’re not getting encouragement, and chances are even if what you do is great it’ll fail in the marketplace and…

I did not like the ending of “The Knockout Queen.” Primarily because people don’t change their spots that much. I felt Michael…turned into someone different, as did the Knockout Queen.

Oh, she’s 6’3″ but she’s neither beautiful nor popular. Personality is a factor. Some tall girls become models, and many others regret their height, like Bunny.

Now “The Knockout Queen” is not going to be the book of the year, read by everybody. A lot of book groups will abhor it, because it’s pretty downbeat and the characters are not so likable…it’s not light fiction. Oh, it’s not hard to read, you’re drawn to it, you get caught up and it’s difficult to put down, but it’s not about endless victories.

But there is humor. Life is absurd, sometimes all you can do is laugh.

So if you’re one of those people who wants to only read about music. Who wants to constantly bitch about Spotify. Who watches cartoon movies. I doubt you’ll like this book. It doesn’t give you any answers, it doesn’t pay any financial dividends. And it’s less about the story than the attitude, the viewpoint.

Then again, there’s some of that comic wildness that was in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” but instead of being 70mm, “The Knockout Queen” is 16mm, it’s home video, it’s shot on your iPhone and not posted online, it’s only for you.

I’m having a hard time diving into another book because I don’t want the feeling I got reading “The Knockout Queen” to go.

It’s so funny to live so long, see your dreams quashed, march forward somnambulantly and suddenly find out you’re the same person you ever were and someone else is on your page.

That’s how I felt reading “The Knockout Queen.”

Maybe you will too.