I never want to get divorced again.

This would be better tomorrow, when my mood stabilizes. But that’s not how life works, it comes at you unexpectedly, the twists and turns…the older you get the more you realize you can’t plan for anything. Oh, you can plan, but it never turns out that way, something always derails your desire. Life is full of potholes. And one of the deepest is relationships.

Which also come with their highs. You know the moment, when you’re falling in love. Some people can’t resist that, they go from person to person, never wanting to get deep. Some can’t get deep. Some are just afraid to. But it’s when you plow down through the layers, that you feel most alive.

Now this movie was made by Netflix, although it played in theatres first, for a brief while anyway. You see instead of allowing streaming to take its own course, the film industry, mostly the Academy, i.e. the Oscars, wants to stay in the past, kind of like a marriage that is dying, you’re going down the track and nothing can stop the train.

They keep tweaking the rules, trying to get youngsters involved. They expanded the number of Best Picture nominees, trying to rope in the superhero faction, but the ratings keep dropping, and the best pictures go unseen.

But not anymore.

The studios want to protect their windows. Kind of like how the record companies wanted to protect their retailers. Look how that worked out, all the retailers died. You see it’s hard to impose an old model on a new paradigm, i.e. the internet. We live in an on demand culture, we want everything at our fingertips, and if it’s not…

We ignore it.

That’s the dirty little secret the entertainment industry doesn’t want acknowledged, how much of their product goes straight into the dumper. Only a few things truly succeed, and now with the tsunami of offerings, you can’t look back to what played in theatres months ago, years ago, you want to stay current, even though today’s human condition is to always feel behind and out of it, unless you’re fooling yourself.

So, after a very brief window, “Marriage Story” has appeared on Netflix. If you’ve got an account, you know, it’s featured up front and personal on the home screen. This is the most valuable real estate in visual entertainment. They used to talk about endcaps in record retail, talk about the marketing dollars spent to advertise a movie, now all that is superseded, we can all know about something right away, left and right, Democrat and Republican, we can all be united by art.

And there’s more truth in this movie than anything in D.C.

Maybe you’ve never been married. Maybe you’ve never been divorced. But when you stand in front of family and friends and say “I Do,” when it’s over you get a feeling, a pit in your stomach, as if you failed the final and didn’t graduate from college.

Oh, you cannot see this coming. Word on the street is divorce is painless…

But it’s not.

So Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are married. Happily. With a child. It starts this way, and then over the years…one partner becomes unhappy, even though the other usually doesn’t know about it. What did Esther Perel say? In every marriage there’s one person looking to leave and another who thinks everything is okay.

Adam Driver thinks everything’s okay.

He’s self-made, a known figure in the avant-garde theatre world of New York City.

But Scarlet Johansson feels suffocated, unacknowledged. She thinks she sent this message, but if she did it was subtly, and Adam Driver didn’t get it.

So Scarlett moves to L.A.

Yup, that’s a constant theme in the movie, west coast versus east coast. And the truth is in today’s less than mobile society, where people cannot afford to pack up and move, the only people who’ve experienced this are entertainers and fat cat business people.

In L.A. you’ve got space.

In New York you’ve got feelings, it’s about the interior as opposed to the exterior.

In New York, theatre is paramount.

In L.A., it’s movies.

New Yorkers think they’re superior.

Angelenos don’t care.

Now the promotion may have made you aware of Laura Dern’s spectacular performance as a high-paid divorce lawyer, but print cannot do justice. Dern encapsulates the jive, rich, friendly but cutthroat women in this role. And Ray Liotta’s performance as her counterpart is great too.

Yup, the attorneys are friendly, it’s all just grist for the mill. Meanwhile, their clients are ground down to nothing.

How do you break up a marriage? Their family was your family, it was all kumbaya, and now it’s not.

And you hate each other but still love each other. You want to see the other person dead but there’s no one you feel closer to.

Yes, the acting is great, Julie Hagerty reclaims her intellect from too many doofus roles. Merritt Wever always shines. And Alan Alda…encapsulates the discarded but wise in this case attorney. Yup, they squeeze you out, you’re too old, you’re not producing, but your talent and experience are undeniable.

But too often unacknowledged.

Now we used to go to the theatre for experiences like this. You know, the movie theatre, with its darkness and sticky floors and no interruptions, other than the talkers, and this is a film where the talkers will bug you.

But just like the symphony, and the opera, independent film has been kept alive by the oldsters, who’ve all decided it’s just too much effort to go to the theatre when there’s a cornucopia of entertainment at your fingertips and you don’t have to hassle to get it.

Of course there are those who still swear by the experience, but the truth is independent grosses have tanked. And they’re not going back up.

Meanwhile, the world is topsy-turvy. Mainstream movies are cartoons, and the essence of life is on television.

Now I don’t think I’ve conveyed the elements of this movie fully. On one hand, I don’t want to. On the other, I want to implore you to watch it.

Sure, it’s two hours and sixteen minutes long, but you won’t be able to turn it off, because even if you can’t reveal your inner feelings, they’re in this movie, it reflects real life, which as I said is not in mainstream movies and not in music either. We’re beholden to the surface. Express your feelings and you’re branded a loser. You’re supposed to be a winner. But you just can’t stop talking about the breakup, even though they’re never coming back and your friends are sick of hearing you talk about it.

You see what you shared was just between the two of you.

And when Adam Driver sings Stephen Sondheim’s “Being Alive,” the lyrics resonate, that’s what we’re all looking for in relationships, someone who gets us, someone who supports us, someone to experience life with, someone to heighten our senses and watch the movie of life with.

And the truth is everybody’s unhappy. At best people complete each other. She’s sloppy, he’s neat. But no matter how much he bugs her, she’ll never be neat.

And you’ll never truly be a member of her family. They circle the wagons after the defeat, you’re left alone, an outsider. All your hopes and dreams come to a halt. You thought you were cruising on all cylinders, then you were blindsided. Suddenly, all that you thought was important is not.

Now the seeker…frequently does not find what he or she is looking for.

And the one pining for stability…is oftentimes in the same spot.

I’m not talking about drugs and physical abuse, I’m talking about those who get along and then someone pulls the ripcord.

We all want to get what we’re looking for. We all want to be understood, we all want to win. But the truth is even if we gain career victories, they often leave us hollow. Turns out everyday life is the reward, the most invigorating and satisfying victory, but if you don’t have that totem of success, you somehow feel less than.

Insecurity, it sidelines the best of us. We think we’re putting up a good face, but the truth is most people can tell it’s fake. You want to just be yourself, but deep down you believe yourself is just not good enough.

Society will mess with you. Might even ruin your life. And in the end, most people find they have not found what they are looking for.

So what to do?

Experience art, that contains truth. I’m not talking about escape, but resonance. When you see yourself in a movie or book or record, you no longer feel so alone.

So I can’t tell you about awards, but in truth they’re bogus.

But great art affects you, leaves you off-kilter when it ends.

I’m messed up now that “Marriage Story” is over.

This is not “The Irishman,” this is not gloss, this is not another world, this is you, your essence, your life, can you handle it?

You know you want to.

So fire up Netflix and watch “Marriage Story,” if for no other reason than when it’s finished you too can weigh in on its merits, or lack thereof. Yup, now that it’s on Netflix, essentially available to everyone, during the holiday season, you can go places and discuss it.

And that’s what makes you feel alive, the human interaction, the weaving of opinions and stories.

That’s what you’ll find in “Marriage Story,” but just like in real life, it doesn’t always work out.

But you do your best to soldier on. Keep looking. Lick your wounds, but if you hang in there long enough, things will start to turn.

Assuming you’ve got a support network, maybe a therapist.

But too many are alone and too many have little cash.

Well, at least you can watch “Marriage Story” and know you’re not the only one.

We’re all alike under the skin, it’s just that the winners don’t want to be seen as ordinary and the hoi polloi are told they’re inadequate.

Then again, I wish I could make art as great as Noah Baumbach’s.

“Amazon Accuses Trump of ‘Improper Pressure’ on JEDI Contract”

Will you speak up if you’re going to lose your job?

Amazon Web Services dominates cloud computing, it is the leader in all categories, it was destined to win a ten billion dollar Defense Department contract and then…

Trump said: “other ‘great companies’ should have a chance at the contract.”

Speak your mind, tell the truth, and you’re out of a job.

And most people need that job.

Peloton? Are you telling me no one involved saw a problem with that ad? Sure, the CEOs are out of touch, having been brought up with a silver spoon. But no one else involved wanted to blow the whistle, messing with all that money, all that hard work and spending for the company?

Just ask the whistleblower. He spoke his truth, Trump and his cronies want his name revealed.

They call this a “chilling” effect. Yup, it’s part of the bedrock of Constitutional law. Just ask all those with a paper Constitution in their pocket, they never reference this as they say that the Second Amendment allows the hoi polloi to own guns. Law is based on stare decisis, i.e. you make new decisions based on prior decisions, just not out of thin air, and if what the government does has a chilling effect…

Just ask Comey. Just ask all those dismissed from the government under Trump. You do what he says, or you’re gone. Isn’t that the essence of impeachment? Ukraine had do to what Trump wanted, or it wouldn’t get the money. You don’t need it in writing, you understand. Raise your hand in the meeting and go against the CEO and you get a black mark. We hear all about entrepreneurship in America, but the truth is most people work for someone else, furthermore, in the vaunted tech sphere, don’t dare compete in any way with the FANG companies, i.e. Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google, and Microsoft too, they’ll either buy you or put you out of business. Tech is a game of musical chairs, and now everybody but the Big Five is out!

But you hate Amazon.

While you use it.

Kinda like the “Delete Facebook” movement.

It turns out that people like convenience, they like to connect with their brethren. And to tell them not to is like taking away oxygen, it won’t work.

This is what the music industry failed to understand. That people would pay for convenience. They’d pay to stream everything as opposed to stealing. As for stream-rippers…if you’re turning YouTube videos into files, you probably were never going to pay, you’re just like those people who recorded their friends’ albums on to quarter-inch tape. As for the cassette…it was much easier to use, but fascinatingly when they sold prerecorded ones most people bought instead of making their own, the sales of cassettes eclipsed those of vinyl, the standard at the time.

As for CDs…you’ve got to put them in the drawer, who has time for that?

As for vinyl…they re-enact the Civil War too, it’s a de minimis enterprise that can be ignored economically, despite the inaccurate reports in the press.

So Jeff Bezos buys the “Washington Post,” reinvigorating it, and his company loses a contract in the process. This was shocking to everybody who knows tech. But not shocking if you follow today’s political shenanigans.

So the message here?

Stay in your own lane. Tell Trump you’ll bring manufacturing to America, even if you really won’t. Kinda like Foxconn, building in Wisconsin, only the truth is they’ll employ almost no one, assuming the enterprise gets up and running. Meanwhile, it gets Trump off its back.

But chances are you don’t know Foxconn, and you want to see Amazon humbled.

Well, Amazon should be fought in the open, under the rule of law.

As far as knowing Foxconn…now, more than ever, the big, multinational corporations rule the world, and they’re beholden to no one, but they pay the politicians, they even write the laws and op-eds, and you think you’re in control.

The U.S. was based on free speech. And, under today’s law, corporations are people, entitled to free speech…how that happened, I’ll never know, then again, those lobbyists were involved, and never forget those lunches and plane rides and golf games…

Meanwhile, you think if you can rap about your problems, you’re in the clear.

No!

Try getting an abortion. Did you see the Supreme Court refused to hear the Kentucky case, wherein the doctors performing the operation have to essentially scare patients into backing away from the procedure?

Oh, maybe you’re anti-abortion, I don’t care, I’m just saying that forces larger than you are tilting the playing field to their advantage and you think your voice counts but it does not. Just try taking the unpopular stand. Isn’t that what America has turned into, a land of one vision or you’re out?

Not only in government, but organizations, companies. In the sixties you were supposed to let your freak flag fly, be an individual, now the greatest goal is to be a member of the group. Say something out of line, and the judges will come down on you. Men can’t even discuss Me Too, if they don’t take women’s party line, they are excoriated. This is what women don’t understand, men are fed up, they all think things have gone too far, I hear it all the time, but they won’t tell you.

Shoot the messenger. That’s what Trump does. That’s what everybody does today.

So you’re supposed to stay silent in your hovel, in your 10,000 square foot mansion, just to save what you’ve already got.

Is this the country we want to live in?

NO!

Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday December 10th, 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

Actually, for twenty attendees, the conference is still going on, they couldn’t get out of town because the airport closed.

That’s Aspen.

And speaking of Aspen, yesterday Rich Burkley, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development for the Aspen Skiing Company, sat down for an interview.

He said Aspen was a destination. And eighty percent of visitors are returnees. So it was about treating them right, saying yes if they complained, even if they were wrong, the key is to maintain the bond.

But the real issue is the IKON Pass.

You see there’s been consolidation in the ski business. There are now two rival companies selling cheap passes, IKON and EPIC. And as a result, more people are skiing and they’re going to dream destinations and the locals are PISSED! They want the mountains for themselves.

But Aspen is limited by its twelve thousand beds.

And the difficulty in getting there.

So why go to a conference that’s a glorified ski vacation?

Because it’s not about the panels so much as who you meet that makes conferences worthwhile. And when you ski with them…my whole social life revolves around people I’ve met in Aspen at Jim Lewi’s conference. Which used to be called the “Aspen Artist Development Conference,” but that was back in the nineties, when labels still had money to spare. So, over time it’s shifted to the live side, where all the action truly is.

That’s what I learned. There are two businesses. The label one that gets all the ink, and the live one.

Bob Roux, President of Live Nation, said his company does seven thousand shows in the U.S. a year. Sounds like a lot, and it is a lot, but there are thirty thousand shows in the country a year. Do you think they’re all from the Spotify Top 50?

No, as a matter of fact, these chartbusters are a disproportionately smaller part of the live business.

So who can sell a ticket? And who controls the ticket? Those are the two big music business questions today.

The promoters pay the artists, far more than the labels, it’s the promoters who build acts, especially those not Spotify Top 50/radio-friendly. Anybody can look at the chart and tell you what’s hot. But what is developing, what has buzz under the radar, that’s a completely different discussion.

So let’s get to the ticketing. Dave Marcus of Ticketmaster warned us about the BOSS act. Never forget that the government can’t understand ticketing, hell, even the fans can’t understand ticketing! So the brokers got in Congress’s ear and want to protect their advantage. They’re like the anti-abortion crew, they never sleep and are always pushing their cause, and if you’re not battling them each and every day, you’re gonna lose. So Marcus is trying to round up people to protect the industry’s interests, contact him, this is important.

But the dirty little secret is while the industry kicks and screams, hates the brokers, they also love them. Yup, sell them some inventory and you’ll protect yourself against loss. Cut a deal for some free inventory and offload the tickets on the brokers. It’s kinda like paperless, it turned out when the whole venue went paperless, the show didn’t sell out. So there’s a mania surrounding ticket prices, and despite all the data, a lot of guesswork is still involved.

So Ant Taylor, CEO of Lyte, is trying to beat the scalpers at their own game.

But I’m wary of outsiders gaining traction in the business. The industry does not want them to. The dirty little secret is the only profit for the promoter is in the ticketing. So…

The acts want a huge guarantee and ninety eight/two. In other words, the promoter gives the act almost all of the face value and makes it up on the ticket fees, and the ancillaries. And the fees are a way to keep money out of the artist fee, you see the artists are greedy, they want a piece of everything, which is why I’m skeptical of Lyte.

So here’s the story with Lyte… You sell your ticket to them at face value, and they have a waiting list of guaranteed buyers. The buyers cough up their credit cards for a guaranteed price, and if tickets are available, they get them.

So, Lyte monitors the brokers. For the first two weeks, prices are inflated, these are the ones you read about in the media. So Lyte waits two weeks and says it then undercuts the brokers. Yup, Lyte says its tech is better than the brokers’, but no one’s beaten the brokers’ tech yet. Try selling a ticket on StubHub, the brokers’ software will immediately underprice it. If you’re buying tickets to resell…DON’T!

But what is the incentive for the fan to cough up their ticket for face value, especially when the show is hot. Maybe a small percentage will go to charity, but…in a world of greed, where everybody’s trying to get rich, there’s no money for nothing, there are no chicks for free.

But let’s say it all works out. The uplift goes to…THE PROMOTERS! Do you think those representing A-level acts are gonna go for this? The promoters say to trust them, that the revenue will show up in the settlement, you’ll get your share… HUH? When did an act ever trust the promoter?

So Lyte had a deal with Goldenvoice for Coachella. I applaud where Lyte’s coming from, but we don’t live in a kumbaya world, and really, since the only money is in the tickets, the promoters, and Ticketmaster, do not want to give up control.

So Michael Belkin interviewed Greg Harris, CEO of the Rock Hall, and he was very impressive, he made you want to get on a plane to Cleveland.

However, we all know the nomination/election process is screwed up. I think they should have closed the doors years ago. We all know the limited number of acts that truly belong in there, just not crowd favorites. As for allowing in hip-hop, I hate the rationalization. Sure, R&B was a huge part of rock, that should not be denied, but now, as rock has essentially died, we have a new starting line and… Shouldn’t there just be a Hip-Hop Hall of Fame? Look at it this way, classical art, pre-nineteenth century, does not go into the Museum of Modern Art, it’s in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s the ROCK Hall of Fame, not the MUSIC Hall of Fame…not only keep out hip-hop, and the undeserving rockers, but the popsters too!

Then again, being an inductee has lost all credibility. Kinda like music in general, as opposed to those classic acts I referenced above.

Now this woman Becky Gardenhire, one of the heads of WME Nashville, was extremely impressive. She was interviewed by Jamie Loeb and suddenly, males felt like they were looking in as opposed to the reverse. Women talk to each other differently than they speak to men. A lot of issues were covered, Becky is making a difference.

As for Marc Ruxin, of Mixhalo…a slam dunk. You get clear sound no matter where you sit. This is happening now, at Staples, at the Park in Vegas with Aerosmith. Come on, unless you’re up close the sound in most venues is…awful. To be able to have a stream sent to your phone, the one the musicians hear? GENIUS!

As for the skiing…

It was a weak year, up until two weeks ago. But Aspen is almost completely open. On Thursday, despite the fog, we banged the powder bumps on the Back of Bell, up by Bonnie’s on Red’s.

So…

Stop railing about exclusion from radio, from streaming services, if you’ve truly got the goods, if you can build an audience, promoters are hungry for you. Not everybody can play, but those left out make all the noise, just like those who believe they should be able to pay ten bucks to sit in the front row for Post Malone.

We’re trying to make sense in this world. Especially in an era where those invested are proffering untruths in order to protect their territory.

But they do call it the music BUSINESS!