Do you think it’s safe to go outside?

Many Democrats are now asking themselves this question.

This is tribal warfare, but the more interesting element is groupthink, how you change someone’s opinion.

Last night Bill Maher said to open America, he wants to go to a restaurant.

Today people are strolling on beaches in Florida, why can’t you? After all, you believe you’re Covid-19 free. Sure, some people are asymptomatic carriers, but obviously you’re not one, and you’re not going to infect anyone, so you should be able to go outside. And if you get near someone else…nothing will happen, because they’re confident they’re healthy too.

And then you’ve got Bethany McLean, a business reporter for “Vanity Fair,” saying Florida didn’t run out of hospital beds as predicted, so maybe the people are right.

“And yet, the predicted surge that was supposed to overwhelm hospitals due to Floridians’ obvious stupidity hasn’t happened yet. Maybe they know something that the states shutting their parks don’t.”

So now you’re wondering…maybe you’re wrong, maybe you’ve been taking this too seriously, after all, many people you know who’ve been loose with self-quarantining are just fine. You know, the people who had their housekeeper come, albeit wearing a mask, those who’ve seen their grandchildren. And you’re losing money sitting at home. You did it for over a month, and that’s enough.

So, the self-quarantiners wonder if it’s worth it to stay at home at all, if everybody else is not.

Meanwhile, the other side is just fighting with science.

But science is fungible, haven’t you heard? As for statistics, they can be manipulated, so you’re best off not believing any of them, just go with your gut.

As for facts… Trump’s not wearing a mask, he’s fine, and he’s around people all the time. Same deal with Congresspeople, sure, some got infected, but maybe they got it elsewhere, otherwise all of Congress would be infected.

And if you’re rich, fine. But I could use the money from going back to work.

And I’m sick and tired of listening to Fauci, he’s a tool of Trump and he’s lost credibility.

I think I’m gonna go with the flow, it’s time to open America. It’s time for me to live my life. It’s time to put Covid-19 in the rearview mirror, after all, nobody I know died. As for the people who did die…people are dying all the time. And that’s another question I have. Are more people dying from this than the flu, and isn’t China to blame?

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The right has been on a full court press to make Covid-19 a political issue.

You may not have seen Dr. Fauci on Laura Ingraham’s broadcast, you should read this and watch the video:

“Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s interview with Anthony Fauci goes sideways – Fauci repeatedly dismissed Ingraham’s dodgy premises in an interview that reinforced how punditry like Ingraham’s has flown in the face of what health officials are saying”

Just as interesting is this story about Michael Savage, who turns out to have a Ph.D with training as an epidemiologist:

“Why Michael Savage Is Blasting Hannity and the Right-Wing Media on the Virus – Mr. Savage, the conservative radio host, is still loyal to President Trump but says right-wing media got it all wrong by doubting the severity of the coronavirus early on.”

Neither of these stories got any legs, never mind not being featured on Fox or other right wing outlets, which amplify the words of doctors Phil and Oz. And you might dismiss them, but the reason they’re being featured at all is because they’ve got large audiences, primarily those of housewives, who make decisions about the health of their children.

The left does not understand how to play this game. The left does not know how to get people to question their values and beliefs. The left is not organized, it’s busy infighting, coming to consensus, abhorring leaders and being left behind.

What is the promise of Biden’s campaign? A RETURN TO NORMALCY!

We’re not going back to normalcy, just like we’re not going back to dial telephones and vinyl records. Oh, oops, that’s something the left has been able to sell, a faulty story about the return of vinyl records, when their distribution and revenue is de minimis in the world of music consumption and revenue.

But you’ve got people amplifying these falsehoods. Just like you’ve got the Never Trumpers, does it make any difference? NO!

Just like the media has sold the story we live in a hip-hop nation. Look at concert grosses, which are not shared with the general public. It turns out people have much more diverse interests than hip-hop. As a matter of fact, those on the hit parade tend to sell fewer tickets and fall off the radar screen sooner.

But that doesn’t matter, it’s all about perception.

So, you’re sitting at home, cheering Andrew Cuomo’s press conference yesterday, but you’re not spreading the word on it, chances are you’re unaware of its details, you’re hearing about it from me.

“Reminder: Don’t get on Andrew Cuomo’s bad side”

You don’t need to read the article, just scroll down to the video. Cuomo nails Trump without becoming histrionic, but we’ve placed our faith in Old Joe, who can’t get any ink, can’t get any mindshare.

“Biden Is Losing the Internet. Does That Matter? – The coronavirus has forced Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee into an all-digital campaign, and he’s struggling to break through.”

Meanwhile, Trump owns Facebook.

“How Facebook Works for Trump – Donald Trump won the presidency by using the social network’s advertising machinery in exactly the way the company wanted. He’s poised to do it again.”

The war is fought online, that’s where you ensure victory, not on television, and Biden and the Democrats haven’t even gotten their army together, never mind started to fight.

As for the truth?

“Protesters slam California stay-at-home orders as ‘tyranny.’ But truth is more complex.”

Read the article. Most people are scared and are willing to stay home, overwhelmingly, but the scuttlebutt is all about the protesters!

Women and Democrats have these mass gatherings, these mass protests, and nothing happens. The Republicans inspire a few acolytes to go out on the front lines and everything changes.

And it’s not only leaving your house during the era of Covid-19, you’re questioning a lot of other things.

Maybe the government does waste money, maybe I am better off keeping my taxes, donating if I feel like it, it’s everybody for themselves in America anyway.

I don’t have the money for an electric car, which they tell me are expensive, I need cars to be cheap, and if lowering the pollution standards does this, so be it. And technology will take care of the climate crisis, didn’t all these car companies come up with anti-pollution methods and increase gasoline efficiency when forced to?

Maybe the Democrats only do want to tax and spend. I have compassion for others, but I’m sick and tired of supporting those who are unwilling to work.

As for Medicare for All…I’ve got a good policy and I don’t want to risk losing it, after all, Obama said everybody could keep their policy and that was untrue, even if I was able to keep mine.

Are you getting this? The truth doesn’t matter. As for the score… Sure, we’ve got elections, but this is not a game of football or basketball, where you can see all the plays and cheating is limited. In this case, plans are made secretly, and if you don’t have a plan, you’re always playing defense. And, if you’re living in the twentieth century, you’re one century behind and you’re never going to catch up.

So, let’s look what happened in the music business. For years, we had oldsters bitching that music was undervalued, CDs sounded best and the youth were not to be trusted, they wanted all the music for free. Now, today, the youth have inherited the business and the oldsters are irrelevant. Only those who’ve embraced the internet, who employed Soundcloud, who gave their music away for free, have traction in today’s recorded music world. And, the younger generation is willing to spend for streaming and is willing to pay sky high prices to go to concerts. Meanwhile, the older generation is still bitching that it’s right, but nobody is listening.

You’ve got to fight today’s battles.

And the left keeps saying Trump is losing.

But if you look at the landscape today, it appears he and his minions are winning!

Think about this. Your heart may be in the right place, you may rely on facts, but you’re in the minority.

Is Coachella about what happens on the stage or off? About the music or the audience?

Both.

But we’ve been vastly underestimating how important the non-music experience is.

I’m not talking about food. America has turned a corner. No one wants to eat boiled hot dogs and limp french fries at an event anywhere anymore, I’m not even sure toddlers will eat that crap.

I’m talking about the attendees themselves.

In yesterday’s “New York Times” there was a story about how the cancellation of Coachella is killing brands.

“For Festival Fashion, the Music has Stopped – Festivals like Coachella have been postponed, leaving scores of online fashion retailers with a mass of unsold inventory and unpaid suppliers.”

You go to show off. You need a wardrobe. And in today’s era of cheap fashion-forward clothing concertgoers buy outfits and accessories just for the festival, AND THEN THEY THROW THEM AWAY!

This can’t be understood by oldsters, who were taught clothes were to be worn until they wore out, or at least saved until that style came back. Today clothing is like a meal, an experience, worn briefly and then discarded.

You can’t go to Coachella in your cut-offs and t-shirt, YOU’LL BE IGNORED!

It’s all about attention today. Which is quantified online. And if you’re a teenager, chances are you have no status other than your appearance, so you double down.

And acts are not the only ones being paid at Coachella, brands pay influencers to flaunt their products at the festival, you can read about it here:

“Macaroni recipes and hand washing videos. How influencers are adapting to the coronavirus crisis”

Forget that more than a few of these influencers make six figures a year, their incomes are driven by advertising, and with everybody staying at home, people are not buying, and ads have plummeted.

But the advertisers are looking for opportunities.

Now everybody keeps saying how nothing will be the same after Covid-19. I think they’re wrong. They said the same thing after 9/11, and all that really happened was flying became more of a hassle. More people will work at home, technology will stop being denigrated, other than that, it’ll look pretty similar. Sure, some changes will be accelerated, but they were in the pipeline anyway.

Multiple people have been e-mailing me this article from Bloomberg:

“People Are Paying Real Money to Get Into Virtual Zoom Nightclubs – Can a novelty for the bored-at-home last after the coronavirus pandemic?

That is another trend that will be accelerated by the coronavirus…more and more, news will not be free. Oh, your neighbor can voice their opinion on social media, you’ll find out if a bomb was dropped, but anything beyond that…someone will have to pay for.

People want news. And right now they’re addicted. And most newspapers are going out of business, leaving the big three, the “New York Times,” the “Washington Post” and the “Wall Street Journal.”

Read this article from last week:

“News Media Outlets Have Been Ravaged by the Pandemic – Roughly 33,000 workers at news companies in the U.S. have been laid off, been furloughed or had their pay reduced. some publications that rely on ads have shut down”

And when these other outlets die, even the biggest, like Gannett, power will be concentrated in the above three publications, the NYT, WaPo and WSJ…and then they’ll have leverage. They survived by spending, most notably the WaPo, with the infusion of cash by Bezos, whereas every other outlet has been stripped to the bone, there’s even a hedge fund buying up papers like the “Denver Post,” stripping them bare and making the profits now, while they still exist, and writing off their futures.

So, just like in tech, just like in every business, once there are fewer entities, prices go up. Facebook and Google can’t live without news, it’s one of their main drivers. Now they can get news from many outlets, but soon they will not be able to.

Which brings me back to that Bloomberg article.

Bloomberg has a soft paywall. You only get a couple of articles free, then you’ve got to pay. The decision makers pay, the rest of the world remains ignorant. A sad state of affairs, but never forget that Stewart Brand said…”Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive.” Now the tide is turning towards the latter.

But getting back to the content of this Bloomberg article, entrepreneurs are filling the role of traditional concert promoters.

Let’s face it, concert promoters were in their heyday until this lockdown. Prices, attendance, grosses…they’ve gone through the roof! And there’s almost no innovation, you build it and they come.

But now they’re not coming. Ezekiel Emanuel says no concerts until the fall of 2021, Garcetti says at least not until 2021 begins. And we know that concerts will come last, because of the close contact of the people. So, is everybody just going to sit on the sidelines for over a year?

Of course not, the entrepreneurs won’t let that happen, they’re eating the big boys’ lunch.

Forget livestreams, the novelty is over, who even cares about this weekend’s two hour event. Yup, you boil the essence down for consumption, squeeze it tighter, and fans are not interested, only looky-loos. We need real concerts, real festivals, real events.

Believe me, people will pay to see their favorite acts online. And that should happen NOW!

Sure, a lot of big name talent is tied to Live Nation and AEG, but a lot of it is not. The field is ripe for the picking by anybody with a great idea and a little cash.

Now if you read the Bloomberg article, what you find is these Zoom nightclubs work because of the AUDIENCE, not so much the performers. The audience gets dressed up, the audience is on camera, the audience interacts with each other, the music is just a setting.

Just like at Coachella.

So this desire to show off and interact could be easily harnessed. By EDM deejays and solo acts…and even bands, eventually. And, just like today, where there’s a festival for every genre of music, you go and meet like-minded people and dress accordingly.

Jimmy Buffett?

Most people don’t care, but those who do know how to get outfitted, to put on their Hawaiian shirts and have boat drinks right by their side.

Telluride Bluegrass Festival? I’ve yet to go, but I love that music, and would wear my jeans and sit in front of the screen.

So, true live music is not coming back for a long time. But just like people are interacting even more, albeit online, during this crisis, there’s a yearning to go to the show. People will pay. But, once again, it has to be an experience. Maybe make everybody cook and show off what they’ve made, there are a zillion ideas for creative people.

But just like the digital disruption of the past thirty years illustrates, change always comes from outside. At first it’s laughed at by the big boys, it’s cheap and crude…and then the upstarts supersede the big boys.

All the news is about how WME will survive. All the talk is about banks and loans and…same deal with Live Nation and StubHub. Couldn’t the people working at these entities stop crying in their beer and start innovating?

They said recorded music was gonna be free and go extinct.

Well, it turns out twenty years later that many are willing to pay for it, and there’s a plethora of people making it. Furthermore, without retail stores, with music being streamed virtually, business continues, revenues continue to come in.

And they could come in for the live business too, if promoters just started thinking out of the box. Your time has come, now you have to work hard for the money.

But one thing’s for sure, people want to spend to attend and interact. Music and live events have been burgeoning for a decade because of this. And in today’s quarantined world, the desire is even greater!

No way, I thought.

Now I’ve been wrong pretty consistently for the past year. I thought a centrist had a chance, and then Elizabeth Warren ate up the airwaves and dominated the polls. Then, Warren shot herself in the foot, by kowtowing to the center, changing her Medicare for All plan, refusing to answer how she would pay for it for far too long, and then Bernie Sanders took the progressive flag and ran with it, and with victory in sight, the DNC and the media circled the wagons, kicked out every Biden challenger and got behind Joe. And it worked!

But no one is excited about Joe. What’s worse is he’s got no traction in today’s Covid-19 world. And when he tries, he fails.

Old Joe wrote an opinion piece in the “New York Times,” how he’d address the coronavirus…AND HE WAS EXCORIATED! You don’t have to read Biden’s original piece, it’s boring, but if you want to, it’s here:

“Joe Biden: My Plan to Safely Reopen America – An effective strategy to beat the virus is the ultimate answer to how we get our economy back on track”

But you do need to read the blowback:

“Critiques of Joe Biden’s Coronavirus Plan”

Now the amazing thing is Joe Biden did his big coronavirus reveal and…crickets. I saw no mention of it outside the “Times” itself. It’s like a classic rocker playing a new tune and the only people who heard it were in the arena, at least those who did not go to the bathroom. We’re hanging on Trump’s every word, but we don’t even want to listen to Joe, even if we’ve decided to vote for him. Joe is the safe candidate, the compromise candidate, the consensus candidate, he’s like the horse created by committee, which is a camel in case you don’t know the aphorism.

Joe’s got no media traction, he doesn’t know how to make news. And he’s too old to figure out social media. The only sunlight he’s gotten recently has been when Bernie, Barack and Elizabeth endorsed him.

And when asked point blank whether she’d accept the VP nomination, last night Elizabeth Warren gave Rachel Maddow an instant, emphatic YES!

But I didn’t buy Elizabeth until I read the piece in the the “New Yorker Today” last night:

“The Case for Joe Biden to Pick Elizabeth Warren As His Running Mate”

Biden has already said he’s picking a woman. But we expected it to be someone significantly younger, who had the same middle of the road positions. As far left as he was gonna go might be Stacey Abrams, but even she’s considered an outlier. Maybe Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, that’s a state in play. Or Amy Klobuchar, she’s got more mindshare. But then I’m reading the article and thinking Gretchen and Amy won’t add anything significant to the ticket.

Now usually the VP is an afterthought. Except for maybe Nelson Rockefeller, who wasn’t even elected, but appointed.

And sure, Biden was picked as the old steady hand to guide Obama, but Biden had failed running for president and he did not come with his own, built-in cadre.

But Elizabeth Warren?

The only people who are attacking her, who hate her, are those on the right, who are never ever going to vote Democratic anyway!

So, all the theoretical baggage Warren has evaporates. Oh, they’ll chant “Pocahontas, Pocahontas!,” but that did not prevent her from being a frontrunner in the Democratic race for quite a while.

As for baggage… Believe me, Hunter Biden and Ukraine have not died in the eyes of Republicans, they’re the new Hillary’s e-mails!

You don’t need to satiate everybody to win, that’d be too bland a candidate to succeed anyway. No, what you need is to excite Democrats to come out and vote. AND ELIZABETH WARREN WILL DO THIS!

I’d finally get excited about the ticket. All the Bernie Bros…they’d sign on. And even Bernie Sanders himself, he’d campaign vigorously if Warren was on the ticket.

So, in one fell swoop, the Democrats would consolidate the party and be on the road to victory. As for Biden-lovers who dislike Warren, believing she’s too far left…that’s not gonna make them vote for Trump.

And one thing we know about Warren is she can eviscerate people in an eye-popping way. Hell, she killed Michael Bloomberg’s candidacy in one debate, he had no idea what hit him! Warren is our attack dog, with good values…everybody’s broke, the “stimulus” is going to the corporations and the rich and we need Medicare for All, or something like it!

As for Covid-19… Read those letters in the “Times.” She got better reviews for her coronavirus plan than Biden!

“Congress Needs a Plan to Confront the Coronavirus. I Have One. Government action is essential to save lives and to rescue our economy. Let’s get back to work.”

Yup, Elizabeth Warren has a plan for EVERYTHING! Laugh all you want, but in an era where Trump seemed to have no plan at all for fighting the coronavirus, Warren’s position looks PRETTY, PRETTY GOOD, as Larry David would say.

And since Warren has a gig, as a senator, she’s at the center of the action, she gets ink, she gets attention when Biden gets none.

Bernie will stop arguing for a push left for the platform. He’ll be instantly quieted, made part of the team. And wait until they unleash Warren on Pence, it’s no contest, TKO.

Biden will be bad with Trump, it’s scary to contemplate a debate.

But if you study history, duels always have a second, hopefully a strong one.

The Democratic convention has already been postponed, most likely it will be canceled, it should be canceled, its only advantage would be an economic boost to Milwaukee and a trip for the delegates, it’s basically a waste of time.

So, Biden should nominate Warren NOW, TODAY, in the middle of the crisis, when everybody’s paying attention.

Biden nominates Warren and she’s in the news every damn day. She’s already a player, time to elevate her to the big leagues.

Once again, I thought it would never happen, that Biden wouldn’t go this far left, he wouldn’t nominate anybody as strong, if not stronger than he is.

And I was fearful of Warren’s baggage, but the whole Ukraine affair didn’t keep Biden from winning the nomination.

This is the way to go, we’ve just got to convince Biden and the DNC.

And just like the media killed Sanders, they could elevate Warren, making it a fait accompli.

Hell, the “New Yorker” is first, who’s next?

John Watson started in A&R at Sony Music and then went on to manage Silverchair, Missy Higgins, Midnight Oil and more. Listen to how a guy from Down Under breaks acts internationally. (Recorded live at Australian Music Week.)

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