Buy Rihanna lingerie and get stuck with a fifty dollar monthly subscription without knowing it.

That’s this week’s biggest music business story:

“Rihanna’s Lingerie Line Accused of Deceptive Marketing-A consumer group claims that the buzzy Savage x Fenty line ‘ensnares consumers into unwanted monthly charge.’ The company disputes the accusation.”

Read the article, which has almost no legs, CNN followed up two days later, but “Elle” and E! are just promoting the clothing, as if there’s no scam.

And believe me there is. This is a false equivalency headline. The company’s excuse is as lame as the dog ate my homework.

Yup, you buy $20 leggings and you get hooked into a fifty dollar subscription, and it ain’t easy to get rid of it.

Does this speak to Rihanna’s credibility?

OF COURSE, SHE HAS NONE!

That’s what the internet era has wrought, everybody’s got an agenda and everybody’s trying to get rich and word is spread that people don’t care but they do!

That’s why Bernie Sanders is so successful.

That’s this week’s big political story, how Bernie won in New Hampshire yet the media didn’t feature his victory, just said how well Buttigieg and Klobuchar did. AND THIS IS THE LEFT WING MEDIA! As for the right, Fox took Bernie’s side, and by time they were through with the left wing media it was hard not to agree with them.

But the media and the pundits and the DNC have an agenda too…THEY WANT TO KEEP THEIR JOBS!

It’s all about ratings, not truth. And since we all have different news sources, no one is holding anybody to account.

Except for the public.

There’s this fiction, referenced above, that the public does not care, BUT IT DOES!

Today’s big story is Michael Bloomberg’s meme factory on Instagram:

“Michael Bloomberg’s Campaign Suddenly Drops Memes Everywhere-A campaign of sponsored content for the candidate flourished suddenly on Instagram. A new outfit, called Meme 2020, is behind it.”

Seems brilliant in conception, but…people on social media will hype anything if you pay them, and the entire nation runs on social media (that’s why we argue about it, if you’re not on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp or even Snapchat, you probably already made up your mind who you’re voting for).

Which brings us to the Bezos story. Talk about a man who is out of touch with the public.

Bezos wanted to repeat the Tesla exercise, wherein Elon Musk got various localities to bid against each other to give incentives for Tesla to locate in their burgs.

“Behind Amazon’s HQ2 Fiasco: Jeff Bezos Was Jealous of Elon Musk-Determined to meet Bezos’s demand for Tesla-size government handouts, the HQ2 team became victims of their own hubris.”

But Bezos didn’t realize Amazon was not Tesla, and that there would be blowback.

That’s also the story of today, how the rich and the media are out of touch with the hoi polloi. And when Amazon pulled out of New York, you had all the big swinging dicks saying the public was ignorant, but now the public is on the side of their New York brethren, it’s the elite that are on the losing side.

Which brings us to Trump. Believing if he won on impeachment, he was home free. But now Barr has turned against him.

So what you see is identity management is becoming very important in the internet age, when all the players, the ten percenters being the worst, say this is not the case.

This is why Bernie is winning. He refuses to play the game.

As for all the negative press, Bernie said he doesn’t bother to call the reporters on their birthdays. Yup, insiders manipulate the game. They hire pros who advise them. And it all used to be hidden, but now the internet has shed light on these practices, even though it’s hard to get the word out, as in the Rihanna example above.

You’ve got to be able to say no.

It’s turning into the classic rock era all over again.

A musician can never be as rich as a techie or a banker, impossible unless they invest themselves, like Bono and Guy Oseary. You see these people are not in entertainment to make a statement, but to get rich, to gain power, not knowing the power comes from the art.

So what we’ve got now with Bernie is a public uprising.

And a concomitant reaction.

When the truth is Bernie is a band and he has fans. Does Mike Bloomberg have any fans? None I’ve found, certainly not outside of New York, certainly not any who are not already wealthy and want to protect that wealth.

There were few Hillary Clinton fans.

Few Kerry fans.

Few Al Gore fans.

And they all lost. They looked good on paper, but they could not get the public excited about them.

This is how the old guard screws up. It wants incremental change at best. It wants one of its own. And the public? Could care less, and doesn’t want to be pushed around.

Bill Clinton was a baby boomer, young and hip.

Obama promised hope.

Joe Biden promises a return to the past, which is why he’s being decimated in the primaries. No one wants middle of the road, no one wants safe, they want to BELIEVE!

And if you triangulate and leave emotion out, focusing on math, you’re screwed.

Now I’m not saying Bernie Sanders is gonna get the nomination.

But I will say if Pete or Amy had won the press would have excoriated Bernie, said he was toast.

And how excited are people about Pete and Amy?

Pete’s power peaked a year ago. Amy’s has yet to arrive.

People in the music business know all about this. You put your efforts behind a star, and if you’re smart, it takes a long time to make it, you’ve got to percolate in the market before you break through.

Which is why so many acts in the Spotify Top 50 cannot sell a ticket, and acts like Breaking Benjamin sell out arenas, albeit not in New York and L.A:

“The Chart-Topping Rock Band You’ve Never Heard Of-Breaking Benjamin has gained a huge following between the coasts but is largely invisible to everyone but its fans”

Don’t complain the article is behind a paywall, information wants to be expensive as well as free, and frequently it’s the most expensive information that is the most important and worthy.

That’s the amazing thing about the internet age, you don’t have to know anybody to get a leg up. Almost all the information is available online, the tools of production too. So, even though nitwits are creating TikTok videos, there’s a whole slew of motivated individuals employing all this information to change the world.

And the world is changing.

Is the Barr statement one and done?

Maybe.

But how do you lose a Presidency?

Very slowly, then all at once.

Trump doesn’t realize there’s a limit, that you can only push it so far before there’s a backlash.

Susan Collins is a joke, and may now be toast, and should be, because if you’ve got no backbone in today’s society, we’ve got no use for you. Take a stand and stick to it. The four prosecutors who ankled their jobs illustrate this.

You get a choice, you can either be part of the sausage factory or exist outside of it. To live outside the law you’ve got to be honest.

And they hate Bernie Sanders because he didn’t play the game. That’s why the compromised Hillary Clinton complained about him. She sold out, she did what was expedient, he should too.

As for the primary turnout? An irrelevant metric. Most Democrats will vote for whomever wins the nomination. It’s about getting out the vote, not trying to convince people who voted for Trump last time.

So, as you can see, there’s too much news to keep up with. And the cycle is so fast, it appears things get lost in the shuffle. But they don’t, just like Bloomberg’s faux pas which are coming out now that he’s a contender, never mind that he didn’t release his tax returns when he was mayor, talk about a Republican in Democratic clothing.

So the people are pissed. On both sides. That’s what this election is about. Who is gonna catch the Hail Mary pass.

Music has got the distribution figured out, it’s just the content that needs attention.

Television has got the content, but do the distributors truly believe we’re gonna sign up for all those streaming apps?

No one is thinking about us.

But we’re in control. As long as we keep paying attention and speak our truth and vote, whether it be on the ballot or with cash.

Al Schmitt is a legendary sound engineer who has worked with everybody from Frank Sinatra to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney to Steely Dan and scores more. Furthermore he produced Jefferson Airplane’s “Volunteers” and Jackson Browne’s “Late For The Sky.” Al even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, right outside Capitol Records, where he prefers to work to this day. Listen to hear Al’s story.

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DELIVER WHEN THE SPOTLIGHT IS UPON YOU

Amy Klobuchar went from zero to hero in one debate, with just a couple of lines. Proving that you must ride the tiger until your moment arrives.

The dirty little secret is talent is secondary to perseverance and the ability to shine at the right time. Most people are not made for the stage. Furthermore, you are not born to it. Most people get mic fright, it’s only through repeated experience that you get good at anything.

Turns out it had nothing to do with whether she was a woman or not, what she looked like or not, but what she said. I wasn’t a huge fan, but when she referenced FDR and said she was on our side and would fight for us, it resonated. Yup, she was a middle class woman, without the benefit of riches or stunning looks, who did the work, paid her dues, and was ready when everybody was paying attention.

Oh, there you go again Bob, talking about women’s looks.

But the truth is it’s always about looks. Do you know any of the naturally beautiful? Their lives are completely different from the rest of ours. They get endless opportunities, they can screw up and survive, they’re picked first. And just like Albert Brooks says in “Broadcast News,” looks fade, but very slowly, life is long, high school is not the end of time, if you continue to play you have a chance of winning, when many others have opted out or made excuses or…

At the end of the day, it’s about relatability. And watching Klobuchar I realized she wasn’t that different from me, I could relate to her.

And she was honest when it counted. Standing up to Bernie’s socialism.

This is where the educated and moralistic can emerge victorious, by having principles and hewing to them. This is the opposite of the sausage-makers, the yes-men, the people who view their career as a game, wherein you know enough people and smile and are duplicitous and you move up the food chain. That’s what’s wrong with America. And never forget, America was built on the saga of the rugged individual, the lone wolf, the cowboy, and that ethos still stands.

THE MEDIA IS CLUELESS

Can you say JOE BIDEN?

Just because they say it, just because they wish it to be true, that does not make it so.

Come on, have you followed Joe Biden’s career? His fake smile, the hair plugs, the mistakes he made in previous campaigns to his detriment? Thinking he could win is like thinking the guy on the bench is the key to the World Series.

And he’s from Delaware, the land of the banks and corporations.

As for his vaunted appeal to people of color… Why? Do the math on this for me please.

Not that Biden can’t be a good communicator. I was watching CNN after last Friday’s debate and they showed a clip of Biden wherein he connected to people who had experienced cancer, he pounded morality, said he told his kids they could never criticize someone for something they could not change, like their looks. But Joe could never be this person when everybody was paying attention. He only started to fight when the tables turned, and then he looked desperate.

MOMENTUM IS EVERYTHING

It’s no different with a record. Either it’s hustling its way up the chart or… If it stops climbing, it’s probably over. And momentum begets more momentum. Pete Buttigieg isn’t radically different from how he was before Iowa, it’s just that he did well there, giving himself the imprimatur of electability, which is a flawed concept established by those who want to steer the election to their benefit. Come on, if you win a number of primaries, why is it you cannot win the national election? And there was a statistic in yesterday’s paper, showing more blue people read the “Wall Street Journal” than red. Everything is not cut and dried, everything is murkier than it seems.

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE DELUSIONAL

Or, as the justifiably reviled Peter Thiel might say, don’t fight fights you can’t win. All these marginal candidates, what were they thinking?

Marianne Williamson has a long history of employing attention/media to build and embellish her career. She knew she had no chance of being elected, but she got what she wanted out of the experience.

Michael Bennet?

As for Andrew Yang, did you read the exposé on how he ran his company, how he was insensitive to women? He spoke English no one else could, even youngster Mayor Pete, Yang knows technology, it’s just that he was not vetted deeply enough, just like Trump. People bought the b.s. Yang was a guy who believed he was entitled. Who was confident. Who could give up the Ivy League leg-up to go his own way because he deserved it. I buy the ideas, but not the man.

As for Tulsi Gabbard… You were in the military, so? Bush II and Trump were not, and they got elected, military service ain’t what it’s cracked up to be, people don’t care that much, especially in the era of the all volunteer army, where most people with any cash refuse to go. Tillman died. Mayor Pete uses his service as a resume builder. Come on, when you look at Pete, do you believe him? Or do you think his brain is churning before he says anything.

IT’S A LONG RACE

Elizabeth Warren was ahead, she’ll drop out soon because she’ll have no money. You don’t want to peak too soon, and you don’t want to screw up when people are watching. Just like Klobuchar’s one debate performance boosted her campaign, Warren’s killed it, when she was asked directly how she was gonna pay for Medicare-for-all over and over again and refused to answer. It looked like a kid telling his teacher why he didn’t do his homework…and the interesting thing is Warren was a teacher!

MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING

Biden can’t raise it, he’ll soon be gone.

Bloomberg has an unlimited supply, he ain’t goin’ nowhere.

CHARACTER IS EVERYTHING

I know, I know, this doesn’t apply to Trump, but to beat him you’ve got to be the antithesis. There’s a belief that you’ve got to fight the Republicans on their turf their way. And the Republicans have been laughing to victory for decades. The Republicans punch and the Democrats cry. The Republicans say the news is bogus and the Democrats accept the polls saying Trump is stronger after impeachment. Let me see, if the polls were wrong about Biden and Buttigieg, why should they be right about Trump? You run your own race, once you start changing for the game, being impacted by others, you’re toast. This is what happened to Warren, saying she’d delay the implementation of Medicare-for-all.

EVERYTHING’S A JOKE UNTIL THE PEOPLE VOTE

It’s like listening to a record company hype you on an act, or the film industry telling you about the future success of a movie.

Then you wait until it’s released and instantly you know what’s going on, especially in the movie business, you just go to Rotten Tomatoes and look at the numbers. Spotify can tell if an album is a stiff in a matter of hours, based on the skip rates.

Old school thinking is all about spin, say it to the point people will believe it and accept it as true.

New school thinking is launch and refine, start small and win in the end. Like Google, like Amazon.

PEOPLE WILL SURPRISE YOU

We keep hearing about AI, but the truth is people are unpredictable mammals, that’s what makes life interesting.

Bernie Sanders should have been toast, he was too old, had a heart attack and was a Jewish socialist from Vermont. But he resonated with people. This is something that cannot be quantified, it’s a feeling. And elections are more about feelings than facts. It’s just like love…the person who looks good on paper, even in pictures, if there’s no simpatico it’s no-go. We hear about love at first sight, but more often it’s love after a while, suddenly the light turns on.

MEDIA HAS AN AGENDA

We were taught to love and respect the media.

I’m not talking about fake news here, I’m not echoing Trump’s statements, all I’m saying is media is run by people, who are human, with flaws and agendas. Just because you read it in the paper, that does not mean it’s true. Didn’t you learn that in elementary school?

Then again, school is supposed to teach you the power of analysis, which too many Americans lack, they accept what they’re told at face value.

A rich person knows everything is negotiable, even at the department store.

A poor person pays the price.

Success comes to those who can divine the psyche of others. But that does not prevent people from trying to spin.

But we’ve seen that exercise too many times, the spin machine is worn out.

But there’s no national database of facts, so everybody employs their own.

What we know is the election process is way too long, and way too expensive. And the frontrunners often are not. You play the game, do not let the game define you.

What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where Steve Bannon knows more about the Democratic party than the DNC?

Did you watch Bannon on Bill Maher last Friday?

You should.

Of course there’s a lot of insane drivel, but don’t forget it was Bannon who got Trump elected, somehow he had his finger on the pulse of America more than Hillary Clinton and her minions.

So, let me get this straight, the party of the people, of labor, of the underdog, of the big tent, is gonna nominate a Republican oligarch to be President?

Come on, the Democrats rail incessantly against billionaires, income inequality, they want a seat at the table and now they’re going to get behind a man who represents everything they’re against because they think he can beat Trump?

Bloomberg cannot win enough delegates to secure the nomination on the first vote. The math is against him. If Mike Bloomberg wins thirty percent of the delegates on Super Tuesday, a good number, he has got to win sixty four percent of all delegates thereafter in order to pull himself over the threshold, a near impossibility. That’s math, Nate Silver did it. But the Democrats run on emotions, they tend not to go deep, unlike the right, they just go with what feels right, which is why they often lose the debate and the war.

Bloomberg is the man for African-Americans! Yup, Mayor Pete, who couldn’t even keep peace in his own damn city, is discounted because he can’t appeal to black people. But what about Mr. Stop & Frisk?

Now that Bloomberg has bought his way into the race, proving that billionaires are anathema to the process, the spotlight is finally upon him. Let’s see him wiggle his way out of this one. He flipped for the nomination. Isn’t that why Bernie is surging, since he’s been true to his beliefs, been saying the same damn thing for decades?

And you wonder why people don’t vote. They’ve given up hope!

As for Donald Trump, that was a protest vote, by people who felt the government was not working for them. Sure, he was on TV, sure he was supported by white supremacists, sure he had a lot of billionaires on his side, but there were not enough of the foregoing for him to emerge victorious. Talk to your friends, calmly, you’ll be surprised who voted for the Donald. But you’re so busy hating on them you won’t listen to them. Hillary promised business as usual, more of the same, Trump promised change. Forget the truth, the 2016 election is history, even though Trump and Fox News keep squaring off against Hillary, it’s now 2020, and the concomitant feeling is happening on the left. And what do the DNC and the media want to do? SHUT IT DOWN!

This is why Republicans win. The Democratic elites feel they’re better than the rank and file, they don’t want to know them and they don’t want to hang with them. They want to stand behind the velvet rope before they fly private. So, a group of insurgents is fighting for the heart and soul of the Democratic party and what do these insiders do? MAKE SURE IT CAN’T HAPPEN!

The media has been excoriating Bernie since Iowa. It just can’t be. How can a septuagenarian socialist Jew who just had a heart attack be ahead? This has got to be stopped. Biden faded, so let’s push Mayor Pete, the boy wonder, and if that doesn’t work we’ll let Michael Bloomberg buy the election! Yup, that appeals to college students and laborers. Let’s put all our faith in someone we hate, just to beat someone we hate even more.

But it gets even worse. ANY Democrat can beat Donald Trump. Not only do the polls say this, so does Rachel Bitecofer. Who? The woman who called the 2018 election correctly when no one else did.

There are almost no independents.

I say this all the time. People are afraid to admit they’re Republicans. Just ask them…”When did you last vote for a Democrat?” They’ll be scratching their head, and then they’ll say…”Well, I’d consider one.” But they don’t. Furthermore, the same thing exists on the left, independents who always vote Democratic. So instead of fifteen or twenty percent of the public being swing voters, Bitecofer believes it’s really just six or seven percent. So, it’s not about playing to the middle, trying to pull people over the transom to your side, but rather rallying your party, circling the wagons, getting out the vote.

Look at Bitecofer’s numbers. By turning off the Bernie fans and nominating Hillary third party candidates surged, denying Hillary the Presidency. Do you think it can’t happen again? That’s what the DNC is attempting by trying to trip up Bernie through any means possible.

Oh, there’s that word “socialist.” Truth is America is already socialist, can you say Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Trump wants to cut the social safety net, how well do you think that’s gonna resonate with people, especially those on the right who were against Obamacare but wanted the government to keep its hands off their Medicare. Let’s see, you work your whole life knowing there’s a pot of money at the end that will help you survive and now the insiders are gonna take it away from you? Never gonna play.

And it’s sixty five degrees in Antarctica yet climate change is not a big issue?

The economy is burgeoning but you can’t make ends meet on your low-paying service job income?

Bernie is speaking English, that’s why he’s got traction.

Of course Bill Maher is afraid of socialism, he owns a piece of the Mets!

Everybody with money is freaking out, afraid they’re going to lose something, which is why they’re getting behind Bloomberg. Yup, when the going gets tough everybody wants to save themselves and their lifestyles, they’ll sacrifice you in a heartbeat. Which is how we got into this mess.

So if the Democrats rally around their candidate, whomever it might be, according to Bitecofer, they’ll win. But by rewriting the debate rules in midstream, speaking of the bad acts of the “Bernie Bros,” what are the odds these people are gonna rally around Bloomberg?

And let’s say Bloomberg gets elected, do you really think he’s going to undercut his fellow oligarchs, turn against his class, suddenly become a bleeding-heart liberal after stop and frisk? ARE YOU NUTS?

Of course I’d rather elect Bloomberg than Trump. But I don’t believe he’ll fix the endemic problems of this nation, the can will just be kicked further down the road. We need radical change. Isn’t that what the last twenty five years have been all about? Did you miss the memo on mattresses in a box, electric cars, glasses via mail, everything shipped to your home, the internet itself? We’ve been through a wrenching transition, and the truth is some people profited handsomely, and many did not. As for those who did not, the winners keep telling them they’ve got a computer in their pocket, they’ve got the means of creation at their fingertips, if they too just put their nose to the grindstone they could win. Meanwhile, best to let the winners run the table and rule.

HOGWASH!

Steve Bannon on Bill Maher (watch at 6:45 and then wind back to 4:25)

Nate Silver on Bloomberg

“An Unsettling New Theory: There Is no Swing Voter-Rachel Bitecofer’s radical new theory predicted the midterms spot-on. So who’s going to win in 2020?”