This is a call to action.

Musicians are the most influential people in the world. Check the social media stats. It’s time for them to use this influence for good.

Forget the so-called social media “influencers,” that’s a different thing, that’s about whoring yourself out to corporations as you set yourself on fire for attention, the musicians are selling their identities, their credibility, and we can argue all day long that musician credibility is at a low point, but compared to those empowered in the government, these players and singers and rappers look like seers.

Old people are staying home. Not all of them, but check the statistics, many are afraid to go to restaurants. But many are part of the Fox News disinformation network. Read Margaret Sullivan’s article in the WaPo today:

The data is in: Fox News may have kept millions from taking the coronavirus threat seriously

Three studies have now concluded that Fox News caused its viewers to not take the coronavirus seriously to their detriment. I don’t care if you don’t believe it, my point is to ignore these people for now, right wing oldsters, if they can be reached at all, it’ll be through their progeny, the young, who hang on every word of the rappers.

Last night “A Hard Day’s Night” was on television. It reminded me of how we all instantly started to grow our hair long, bought guitars to play along, to try and become rock stars. That’s how influential musicians are. Which is why so many youngsters aspire to be rappers. They want to be like these acts.

As for country… That’s the music of many conservatives, red states, those who believe that they should be free to not don masks. The funny thing is too many country acts are not free. They’re afraid of being Dixie-Chicked. But in an era where there’s no more “Dixie,” does this old paradigm really apply, if all the country acts join together with one message, especially when even country artists rap?

And heavy metal. Lamb of God and other acts you may not be aware of are very influential, and they have red-leaning fans. As does the still relevant, amazingly so, Insane Clown Posse.

So…

The music industry told everybody to put a black square on their social media feeds. What did that accomplish? NOTHING! If anything, it clogged up the channel when important messages needed to be distributed.

So, every musician, everybody in the Spotify Top 50, everybody with an audience, everybody ever paid for playing, must now take a picture of themselves in a mask and post it to Instagram, the most influential social media site, where young people live, with a caption telling people to WEAR THEIR F***ING MASKS!

Maybe we should leave the swear word in. Illustrating how important this concept is. Or maybe we can come up with a better tagline. I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully at this point. Should it have the word “mask” in it, is “cover” okay?

But musicians must do it.

Check the web, musicians are SELLING masks, UMG is even behind it, but there’s not a concerted effort to tell people to wear them. Unfortunately this is today’s music business, money first, but that must change.

And the effort cannot be led by the Grammys. That outfit has no credibility.

But do you remember the launch of Tidal? The service failed, but the press conference got a ton of attention, it’s still seared in my brain, because of the confluence of superstars from all different genres.

One other thing… Musicians must wear their masks 24/7 in public. Yup, this cannot be about telling people to vote when you’ve never voted yourself. This cannot be about telling people to stop doing drugs when you’re still getting high. This is about walking the walk.

Furthermore, there should be a concomitant campaign to shame those musicians who are not wearing masks. Same deal with members of the public. This is social media shaming with a BENEFIT!

Bottom line, masks reduce transmission by 90%. Or in that neighborhood. Let’s not argue numbers, the point is wearing a mask is altruistic if you’ve got Covid-19 and you’re wearing a mask, the odds of transmitting the virus are very low, like those hairdressers who wore masks but infected none of their clients.

Once again, if you want to argue with me, I’m not listening to you. You’re either on the bus or off. That’s the spirit of the sixties. You’re with us or against us. And the wheels of justice move slowly, which is why it’s going to take a long time to see if the Black Lives Matter protests will have a serious effect, but if everybody in America wore a mask we’d see Covid-19 infections decrease immediately, to a de minimis level. This is not complicated, it’s just that the disinformation network is causing people not to mask-up (maybe that’s the name of the campaign).

July 4th is around the corner. If you think everybody is gonna stay home, you don’t realize infections jumped after Memorial Day weekend.

And the odds of getting infected outside are lower, but not infinitesimal. And after you’re at the beach…you’re gonna go inside to stream movies and… The holiday weekend will be an incubator for infection.

But not if everybody wears a mask.

Sure, young people tend not to die when infected (although some do!), but they are the ones moving about this country freely. Even worse is asymptomatic people. Who infect zillions without knowing it!

This has to be a concerted campaign. Leaving politics and the government out. They’ve forgotten about us, it’s time for us to lead.

Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge? It spread like wildfire, most people were not even knowledgeable as to the disease it was raising money for, but they wanted in on the action.

People will want in on the action.

Maybe there’s a song. A very simple one. That can be cut in all genres, just like Shania Twain released multiple versions of her songs years ago. Maybe we should bring back Mutt Lange to do it. He knows a hit. Force him to work quickly, normally anathema to him.

Or a certified hitmaker like Pharrell. Even better, Max Martin. He may be a Swede, but he lives in Los Angeles.

And then these tracks can be pushed on TikTok, instead of the drivel the companies are now seeding. Get the public to make videos of this mask-wearing song.

And maybe even have a contest. Where you get access to your favorite hitmaker.

But oftentimes today participation is its own reward.

This is not hard, it’s damn easy.

And it will make a huge difference.

Start posting to Instagram TODAY!

P.S. This is the best illustration of the benefit of masking up I’ve seen: bit.ly/2YIn6B0 Click it and spread it.

pic.twitter.com/GzJBSV1w2m

— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) June 25, 2020

 

P.P.S. Music is both serious and irreverent. Keep these concepts in mind when you post. Blandness is anathema.

P.P.P.S. Do we need an organization, or can this just happen spontaneously? I don’t know. But if there is an organization, it must be one run by musicians. No big business filters in-between.

P.P.P.P.S. I’ve got no problem with enlisting corporations. All those companies dying to attach themselves to the credibility of musicians. They’ve got the money, they advertise, they love a cause. And right now, corporations are feeling their oats, standing up to Facebook and hitting Zuck where it hurts, his pocketbook. These corporations would love to align with this.

P.P.P.P.P.S. Like Covid-19, this program can explode exponentially. Because people want to be part of the pack, they want to believe in something, they want to DO something. Our goal is to get everybody wearing a mask next weekend. At the pool, on the lake, in the backyard, in the house, this must be cool. And if media doesn’t pick up on the effort by itself, we’ll employ the high-priced music PR people to do this for free. No money is changing hands here, this is not about the Benjamins, but LIFE! It’s a matter of life and death, don’t you forget it.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Either post and wear the damn mask or get out of the way. Look yourself in the mirror, do something for somebody else for a change. Forget about money, let’s all unite as Americans for the sake of Americans, is that such a hard concept to fathom?

1

I needed to own Alice Cooper’s Alcohol Cookbook.

I grew up in the marijuana era. But when I went to college in 1970, Vermont changed its drinking law to coincide with other rights in the state, which meant you could imbibe when you were 18.

I spent winter term smoking dope. Watching the zilch drip. Listening to “Idlewild South” and “Layla.”

But in April I turned 18.

But really, my freshman year all I consumed was Boone’s Farm. You know, the apple wine. The Grateful Dead, most notably Pigpen, were famous for consuming Thunderbird, which tasted even worse, but it was fortified…so alkies could get their hit just that much faster.

Kind of like malt liquor. It does it quicker. And by sophomore year, Miller Malt Liquor was a staple, as well as Jack Daniel’s and Michelob on the weekends.

We drank in our dorm rooms. But more famously we drank at the Alibi, a bar overhanging the river that cut through town, where beer was fifteen cents before six, and a quarter thereafter. It was a clubhouse, a malt shop, and at first we only went on Friday and Saturday, but then Thursday became part of the routine…and you knew the hard core because they’d be there Sunday or Monday, like you, eventually.

Drinking was fun. Marijuana relaxed people and put them to sleep. Alcohol enlivened them.

And when I went to Jackson Hole to ski after finishing my senior thesis, I went to the famous Cowboy Bar, which still exists. I’d met a guy living in his van. I allowed him to shower in my hotel room, a hostel, but this late in the season I was the only person in this room that accommodated four. He said he’d been a sommelier at some hotel restaurant in Maryland. We went to dinner, and he said Chateauneuf-du-Pape would go well with our meal. And it did. Then we got in his tan Ford Econoline and ventured into Jackson, from Teton Village, to the bar where the seats were made out of saddles, and this newfound friend insisted I drink a Golden Cadillac.

Once I got properly tanked up, the right record came over the speakers and I strode to the dance floor. There were only two people on it. Girls. We were grooving, having a good time, and then all of a sudden a cowboy came over and threw me to the floor and my buddy came to rescue me and we ran out to his van and…

It wouldn’t start.

But then it did, and we drove under a million stars back to Teton Village. He told me to pick a cassette, I opened the case and found Bonnie Raitt’s “Takin My Time.” I fast-forwarded to “I Feel The Same.”

2

You didn’t immediately subscribe to a magazine, you bought a few issues, determined whether you liked it. And so many were fly by night operations, too often appealing to the reader as opposed to having a singular voice.

But “Creem” passed the test. But I subscribed after the issue with Alice Cooper’s Alcohol Cookbook.

I ended up buying it at a record store next to the Bitter End, I needed to own it, because one of the drinks Alice Cooper cooked…was a Golden Cadillac.

3

Irreverence. That was the essence of “Creem.” Something lost to the sands of time, not only “Creem,” but this attitude, this way of looking at the world. Today everything is so serious. It’s all about money. No one is satiated by a prank, too many people are worried about pissing others off, assuming they have any status, because if you don’t, it’s open season. The world has completely changed.

Now if I wanted to embrace the “Creem” spirit I’d trash this movie.

And the truth is at the beginning it’s pure hagiography. You’d think Detroit ruled the music scene and “Creem” was known by all and was always great, all of which was untrue. Sure, there were a number of acts from Detroit, but “Creem” never made it to the top tier, it was always fighting for recognition, at the same time self-satisfied in its efforts. Which appears to be the outlook of its publisher, Barry Kramer, according to this film. Then again, someone who stays up for days and is manic…like the movie says, they might be bipolar. Today everybody’s got a diagnosis, but in the seventies there was no spectrum, a psychiatrist was for loonies, you let your freak flag fly, and people accepted you, when they didn’t abhor and avoid you.

So the best thing about this movie is the people. They’re lost in the era. They may be forty-odd years older, but they’re still wearing the same clothes, they’re still worried about their image, their rock cred. They sacrificed their entire lives to rock and roll.

And rock and roll doesn’t pay unless you’re on stage, or attached to those who are, but in the seventies, you’d do anything to become a member of the circus.

Today it’s all about income inequality. Elites. When a new venture is formed, you expect it to be Ivy League graduates or dropouts. State schools are perceived as diploma mills. You just can’t compete with the coddled with opportunities. But somehow, this ragtag band of writers in Michigan established a national reputation, with the stars driving to their office, to meet them, and what more can you want?

For a long time, you’re wondering why Chad Smith is even in this movie, he’s too young. But it turns out he lived five miles away, and he rode his bike down to Birmingham, and Alice Cooper was stepping out the door. You have no idea unless you were there, not only teens, but twentysomethings, were enthralled by rock stars. As for Cooper, he ruled the charts, everyone with ears knew “School’s Out.”

So Barry Kramer got his cash from owning head shops. Through the eighties, a lot of startup capital in the music industry came from dealing dope. Can you say Doc McGhee? And if you can make it in dope, believe me you can be a rock manager. Everybody was self-styled, self-educated, flying by the seat of their pants, making it up as they went, there were no rules, no course of education, they were building it, and it was fun.

Dave Marsh came from WAYNE STATE! Not even the U of M, never mind Michigan State. And when you see him at nineteen, skinny, with hair…you’re not so scared, but this was a guy with a legendary attitude, he built his rep.

Dave was the editor. As far as everybody else? They were nobodies from nowhere. Who just needed to get closer to the sound. Mostly from the environs, although Lester Bangs journeyed from SoCal. They thought they could do it, and they did. Her school newspaper did not allow Jann Uhelszki to write, but “Creem” did, and her first article…was genius.

Give a person a chance, someone with desire, and you don’t know what they’ll come up with. When people need it that bad, they deliver. You can’t even get a chance today.

So Lester Bangs writes his truth and causes trouble, as he drinks too much and pisses people off. He had to die to get a rep out of rock, but the truth is he too wanted to be a star. And ultimately, Cameron Crowe made him one.

As for everybody else?

That’s the movie I want to see. What have they been doing for the past thirty-odd years, how have they been staying alive? These are people who did it with no insurance, sans graduate degrees, their only professionalism was in rock and roll.

And life is hard and getting harder every day. You can’t get by on minimum wage, and the older you get, the more you need health insurance. The road is littered with deceased rock writers, they’re listed at the end of this film, even Robert Palmer, the writer, not the singer, ended up broke and dying, and he’d been the critic for the “New York Times”!

4

Once again, it’s cool to see the stars. But it’s even cooler to see the people you just know the names of. They’re real, they can talk. Some with heavy accents. Some evidence smarts, but few evidence education.

But the building blocks were different back then. “Creem” was on a mission. To get its voice heard. To have an impact on the world. To not sell out. To be known for its identity more than its monetary worth.

No one would do this today, no one would trek to Detroit and work for nothing as a rock writer. Today everybody is on a journey. Oftentimes planned long before they enter the working world. And if you’re not going somewhere, you’re going nowhere, which is why everybody gets a college degree, to prove they deserve a look, even if it’s for a gig as an assistant.

Our society has changed. It has lost its soul. For the past twenty years it’s been all about technology, the breakthroughs of the nerds. Tools built for creators. Now it’s about how those tools are being used, and to what degree they should be controlled. We’re living in a Tower of Babel society where there are no facts, never mind agreement.

But there were plenty of facts back in the seventies. And either you believed in them or you didn’t. And if you didn’t… There were categories of that. How far out there were you willing to go? As a writer, as a musician, as a person.

And everybody was locked into their own little world. You couldn’t go online and find like-minded people. You stuck out like a sore thumb in your neighborhood, but there were these people in Detroit, putting out a magazine, who were on the same wavelength. That’s one of the things that stunned me when I moved to L.A. At Middlebury College, I stuck out, I was the guy with the record collection, who challenged precepts, who just didn’t put my nose to the grindstone unthinkingly. But in L.A., I found a zillion people just like me!

5

Now when you’re an outsider, you need badges of identity.

For me, it was not only that issue with the Alcohol Cookbook, but…

The t-shirts. I had two. Wore them everywhere. Back when you never saw a single other person wearing one. Sure, the people in this movie were part of the club, but its acolytes were loners out in the hinterlands. And I wore them until literally they were nothing more than shreds. But I kept them, until very recently, when I moved.

That ethos is gone.

I don’t want to be one of those people buying a leather jacket at a Stones show, buying a vintage t-shirt at the retail store. Not everybody could dedicate their life to rock, you had to be in the know, you had to go to the show to get that merch, which was never sold anywhere else ever again.

6

Now the challenge of life is living. Anybody can O.D. What would the perception of Lester Bangs be if he were still alive today?

Bangs was a contrarian. He wrote a review of Alice Cooper’s “Killer” that was so over the top, I had to buy the album to see if it was true, I was willing to waste the $3.50.

And when I dropped the needle in the groove, Alice Cooper talked about a girl being under his wheels. What? And the dead babies were priceless, believe me, the straight world could not handle that, when they ultimately became aware of it. Mind-blowingly, today the controls, the consternation, comes from the left, not the right, from the young, not the old, you must be woke, you must adhere to a code of conduct, you must warn people if you trigger them, and irrelevant of whether that’s right, it’s certainly no fun.

Rock and roll was serious, but it was also fun. Going to the show, getting high, meeting new people, getting closer and resonating with the music. However big it was, rock and roll was the other. Well, at least until corporate rock, which killed the business, allowing disco to slip in, before the whole industry cratered.

As did “Creem.” There was too much KISS. KISS was never credible, they did not deserve the ink. Was “Creem” now for little brothers? Maybe even sisters?

Oh, being 2020, this movie goes on about the sexism of the era. But what is curious is the women say they were fine with it. And I don’t want to excuse it, but rock stars were gods. Everybody wanted to get closer. And most of the performers being men, women had a distinct advantage. And the scene didn’t work without women. You could not sell arenas unless women were fans. And many of the musicians were only in bands to meet women. And this does not excuse the sexism, but…

This is a dicey subject. They’re tearing down statues, can one even write about groupies without acknowledging their abuse at the hands of the rock stars themselves? Must one decry the era’s dearth of female stars, female executives? They even find a token black person to be in this movie. And I’ve got no problem with that, but “Creem” was as white as they come. Today its readers would be white nationalist Trump fans.

Then again, “Creem” couldn’t exist today.

7

If you’re young, unless you’re a student of the era, I doubt you have a desire to see this movie.

And if you’re old, and were not living for rock, you’re probably not interested either.

But if you were there, if you ever read the magazine…

The film is imperfect. Ultimately the arc becomes discernible, whereas at first you’re not sure where it’s going. And on one hand it’s the story of Barry Kramer, and on the other it’s the story of Lester Bangs, but what it truly is…

Is the story of us.

Sure, the records still exist. The stars who haven’t died have gotten plastic surgery to tour. But we, the audience, on the other side of the lights, we don’t look so good. And if you worked for “Creem,” you can’t afford plastic surgery. And how you looked was secondary to your clothes, your personal style, anyway. It was about what was inside, what you were into, what you believed in.

And if you were there, you’ll see yourself in this movie.

And you’ll marvel what a long strange trip it’s been.

And you’ll wonder…was it worth it to sacrifice your life for rock and roll?

HELL YES!

It’s time for Biden to take control of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Oh, I hear what you say, he’s not yet been elected President, we’ve got a system, and we must be in stasis until the election, allow Trump to bury himself in faux pas. BUT PEOPLE ARE DYING!

I don’t know about you, but I’m positively horrified at the numbers, going the wrong way. I’d delineate them, but you’re either paying attention or not, either you’re staying home or not, either you think you’re immune or you don’t. But for those of us aware, it’s astounding how the U.S. is a bastion of incompetency with a raging coronavirus, our response akin to that of third world nations, to the point where even the EU is questioning whether we should be able to cross its borders.

It’s not that difficult folks. You’ve just got to test and track.

But so far there’s no organized effort.

So, Biden rounds up all the blue state governors, all the red state ones who want to join, and he institutes a plan. Call it a shadow government, call it whatever you want, but in an era where Trump’s justice department keeps challenging norms, why are the Democrats sitting on their hands?

Masks… Every state signing up to the Biden plan must require them. Oh, people don’t want to be told what to do…that’s not America, that’s REPUBLICAN! Where is the Democratic leadership?

And contact tracing and daily tests and fourteen days of quarantine for anybody who is exposed.

Trump dumped Covid-19 treatment on the states, why are all the states acting as if it’s impossible to take coherent action, impossible to band together for an adequate response.

Once again, this is not about government, this is about lives.

Biden is the man. He organizes the governors. They enact a coherent plan. Covid-19 is contained. Do you think Trump is going to take any action? He thinks the virus is dying out, that people should come together and celebrate, despite Secret Service people getting infected at his rally in Tulsa. For Trump it’s all about the economy, but there will be no economy if everyone is too afraid to leave their house.

So, it’s very simple. A graph.

You’ve seen it. The one comparing the U.S. to other countries. Sure, we flattened the curve, it’s just that it didn’t go DOWN, and now it is going back UP! Whereas in Europe and elsewhere, the lines on the graph are pointing way down.

We publicize this each and every day. America comes together to achieve a goal. You’re either on the bus or off. Either you’re a patriot or you’re not. It’s time for Democrats to reclaim that word. A patriot is not someone who does whatever he wants and lionizes the military, a patriot is someone who stands up for the health of the country!

We need an organized plan.

Yes, it’s going to be hard to get everybody back into their houses. But maybe we do that for a week or two, while we get testing in place. Those who interact with others need to be tested EVERY DAY! Have Biden oversee the manufacture and distribution of said tests. And then there is contact tracing, if someone is infected, all those who came in contact with them must isolate for fourteen days. People are willing to sacrifice if you’ve got an organized plan, if it’s for the common good.

The purpose of the government is to serve the people, not enrich those in power.

If Biden is such a good leader, it’s time for him to do so now. And what’s even better is he can do it from his bunker, he doesn’t have to go on the road, the tech allows him to interact with everybody.

Have a Zoom meeting of all the governors. Get organized. Do it together. None of this my state is different, we’re all fighting the common enemy!

So, everybody stays home.

Meanwhile, we distribute the tests.

Then we let required workers and more slowly go back into the workplace, testing them EACH AND EVERY DAY!

And if someone is infected, we send them home, as well as everybody they came in contact with.

Forget Elon Musk, technologists and manufacturers do not run the country. And since the states will be organized, his threat to move to another domain will be empty.

The government and the people are in power, not the corporations.

So, we slowly roll out the economy, give freedom to the populace after the line on the graph goes way down.

We keep it down.

It just takes organization. Which they’ve got seemingly everywhere in the world but the United States.

Trump is not tying our hands, we’re tying our own!

Employ celebrities to tweet and post pictures of themselves staying at home, getting tested, paying fealty to the government workers in charge. Any money raised is for tests and contact tracing. Hire the unemployed to do said contact tracing. Fill the vacuum Trump has created.

And as there is success, and there will be, because it’s not rocket science, as I said previously it’s been done elsewhere, the naysayers will come along.

Meanwhile, ignore Fox News. Even ignore Trump. Just lead us out of the wilderness!

It’s your time Joe. And the somnambulant DNC too.

We’ve had revolution in the streets for a month. They’re tearing down statues and changing names. But when it comes to the true enemy, the coronavirus…crickets.

It may sound revolutionary to you, but it’s time for a revolution. It’s time for the Democrats to lead, because the Republicans are not. It’s not like the Republicans are saying the states can’t act, can’t organize, can’t mass purchase, they’re just saying they’re not gonna tell them what to do.

An end run that will save lives and embellish the image of those who take action.

Too big a risk?

Then you’re not part of the challenged demo. And last time I looked, Biden and Pelosi and so many other powerful Democrats are over sixty.

Meanwhile, the youngsters may not die, but they spread it to everybody else.

I’m willing to give up some privacy to save my life. Are you?

Can’t we come together to lick this problem?

Can’t we have some leadership?

The graph: cnn.it/2A7W4tg

Creator of “Bosch,” Michael Connelly’s new book “Fair Warning” currently sits at number seven on the “New York Times” best-seller list. Listen as we cover Connelly’s transition from newspaper reporter to full time novelist, and the intricacies of the production of the hit Amazon television show starring Titus Welliver.

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