Fear is setting in.

The big story today, of course, is the old/new 17 minute Dylan track, “Murder Most Foul.” This is a masterstroke, whether the timing of the release was conscious or not. In an era where everybody is doing one thing, the person doing the opposite is king. Everybody is postponing their album release date as they live stream from their home, Dylan didn’t live stream and put out new music. Furthermore, it’s the opposite of today’s music, it is not disposable. Today’s music is all about refining the track until it fits through the little commercial hole. Have you listened to the new Weeknd album? I tried. His vocals are great, and then you hear the TR-808 and you wince. Yup, I’m talking about those synthesized handclaps/drums. Why does every track have to have this? Used to be sounds were fads. And, the first time around, after people were infatuated with drum machines in the eighties, the big thing was to go back to real drums. All this to say that I spent a long time bouncing from playlist to playlist the other night and was dissatisfied. On Apple, the acoustic singer-songwriter playlist was filled with B-level talent at best. After hearing Tom Odell, who is neither Elton nor Dylan but is above the line, this dreck was laughable. Let’s go even further! Most of these people should not be playing music for a living and their music should not be on streaming services, they’re just cluttering the lane so we can no longer find the good stuff. And no one is interested in curating the truly good stuff, no one is taking responsibility. Used to be we had multiple layers of curation. First, who got signed by the label, second, who got played on the radio, third, who got ink. Very few acts ran that gauntlet. Today, there’s a thin layer of “popular” music and no one cares about the rest. The streaming services promote what the majors want them to, even if it’s not pay for play, because the majors are continuing to release product that the streaming services need, and the hill being too hard to climb, the labels only work what is easy, and then we’ve got a ton of people who shouldn’t be in the business bitching that they can’t get paid at the bottom. And you wonder why everybody talks about Netflix instead of music. No one in music is taking any responsibility, at least no one with power or a vision.

I could go on about this forever, but we live in a world where no negativity is allowed. We’ve got to be upbeat, we’ve got to say our affirmations, polish our personalities until…

We all fall off a cliff.

That’s what’s happening now, reality is sinking in. You’re gonna be in your house for a long time.

And you might just get the coronavirus.

And you, or people who are dear to you, might just die.

The best information about the coronavirus came from Bill Gates last night on CNN:

Part 4: Entire CNN coronavirus town hall (March 26)

Wait a while for the video to load, and even though Bill is not on screen right away, hang in there, he will be.

This is the opposite of the bloviating from D.C. Here we have an intelligent person familiar with science who has studied the problem and is telling the truth as opposed to what people want to hear. That’s the problem with politics, it’s worse than show business, these people are so afraid of blowback even though we all know the truth.

Speaking of truth, the definitive song on this is Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows.” And at this point, everybody seems to know that, but they do not know the definitive version, which is by Don Henley:

Everybody Knows Don Henley Spotify

Everybody Knows · Don Henley YouTube

Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

First it took a while to adjust to the new normal, staying home, figuring out what you were going to do for supplies.

Second, you had to figure out how to do your work remotely.

Third, everybody was connecting, it felt good to actually talk on the phone.

Fourth, there was this incredible focus on the news.

Fifth, your work started to slow down.

Sixth, there was not really dramatic news every day.

And now, and now, you’re freaked out. Are you gonna get it? Is someone close to you gonna die? You can’t wrap your head around what is going on. Everybody is really staying home and business is shut down?

Then there are the deniers, like the Governor of Mississippi, insisting life will go on, goddamit, and if people get sick and die, well, not that many people will die. Death is not something you get over, whether you are the deceased or you are left behind. If you’re dead, you’re done. If you’re still around, you can’t get the deceased out of you brain, you think about them for the rest of your life, and if their ending was tragic, it makes it that much worse.

So now, we think D.C. has lost control. And we don’t understand how the right resisted a big stimulus in 2008 but is cool with one now. Proving that everything is up for grabs. In other words, the only person you can rely on is yourself, and that’s scary.

And systems are breaking down. My doctor told me his patient called an ambulance and the EMTs wouldn’t take him to the hospital, the emergency room was just too crowded. Really, this happened.

And every day someone famous gets infected. Today, it was Boris Johnson. Yesterday, it was Prince Charles. As for the President and Congress…they’re not social distancing, are they immune? NO! One of them is gonna get sick and kick too.

And then there’s that pastor who said it was all a plot against Trump and then died himself:

“Pastor who claimed Covid-19 ‘Hysteria’ Was Plot Against Trump Dies”

It’s sunny in Southern California, but it’s not sunny in our brains.

But if you want to get through it, I recommend this video:

“Nathan Sharansky on Fighting the Coronavirus”

Meanwhile, back to Henley. Am I the only person who has had “The End Of The Innocence” playing through their head?

Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn’t have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standing by

It seems so long ago, but it was only a couple of weeks ago.

We are in this together. Protect yourself and your loved ones, this will eventually end, and you want to be here.

Chief Membership & Business Development Officer of SOCAN, Michael McCarty is a member of the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame. McCarty started off as a recording engineer at Jack Richardson’s Nimbus 9 and had a long tenure running EMI Music Publishing Canada. Listen to Michael talk about the mission of SOCAN and changes in the music business. You don’t have to be Canadian to get this, it’s a worldwide business and Toronto is an epicenter of musical development.

iheart

apple

spotify

stitcher

The biggest story in TV this week is “The Tiger King,” the seven part Netflix documentary that might look unappealing if you’re not a big cat aficionado, but the people are so whacked, you cannot take your eyes off it. The funniest thing is this was all happening under our noses and we were unaware of it, or at least I was, illustrating what a big country it really is and how stories fall through the cracks. We are only one episode in, but I can see why everybody is hooked, the players are neither totally good nor totally bad, and they’re so passionate about big cats and you realize everyone needs something to live for, but this? My inbox has been going crazy about “The Tiger King.” Somehow, big media has missed the mania, they’re still reviewing films when it’s about TV, especially while we’re all stuck at home. Meanwhile, have you noticed how newspapers no longer have a separate sports section, both the “New York Times” and the “Los Angeles Times” are folding a couple of pages into the front section. No one is playing, there’s nothing to talk about.

Before “The Tiger King,” we watched “The Valhalla Murders,” also on Netflix.

Now I wonder if “The Tiger King” is so big because Netflix is featuring it on its homepage. And it truly is big, it’s the number one show watched on Netflix. So do price and position always triumph? Imagine what might break on the homepage of Spotify or Apple if they weren’t locked up with relationships with the major labels. Then again, word of mouth would have been incredible on “The Tiger King” anyway, it’s just too bizarre and funny and jaw-dropping.

Today I finished Erik Larson’s “The Splendid and The Vile.” I cannot recommend it. It reads like a paste-up job, a completed jigsaw puzzle of his research. I don’t remember his previous books being this bad, but nothing is said unless someone said it or wrote it previously and as a result, the narrative suffers. However, I will say the book did take me away from the coronavirus, which I have to commend it for. A good book takes you to a special place, you almost feel like you’re in Churchill’s London, although there’s got to be a better book about that era than this one.

As for “The Valhalla Murders”…

It too was on the Netflix homepage. But it wasn’t on the top of my list. Because the ratings were just not high enough, and the reviews were not quite good enough. But Felice couldn’t resist the landscape and I must say, that’s a reason to watch this, especially as winter turns into spring. It’s hard to describe Iceland. There are these giant peaks covered in snow but they’re almost untouchable, almost unreal. We went at the end of 2018 for Airwaves and I’d go back in a heartbeat, one of the few places where everybody speaks English that really feels different.

So, the problem with “The Valhalla Murders” is it’s too linear, too focused, it’s like a much better network TV crime drama.

And then it’s not.

Because the people are complicated.

The show stars Nina Dogg Filippusdottir, who you will know if you watched “Trapped,” which you should, before this anyway. But Olafur Darri Olafsson, as Nina’s estranged husband in “Trapped,” puts that show over the line. He is a big bear of a guy, who is so understated, but you can see his mind turning. And he’s also a producer and screenwriter. The smaller the country, the more opportunities you have, and the stardom is smaller, so instead of being caught up in your fame, you can focus on your work.

So, after an episode or so of “The Valhalla Murders,” you realize there are concurrent stories running under the theme of the murders. Nina and her son, and her ex, and her mother. Did she work so much that she broke up her marriage? I’ll let you decide.

And Bjorn Thors, who is Nina’s counterpart in criminal investigation, is harboring history, which slowly evolves over the series.

And then there’s that landscape. Maybe you never lived where it snowed, maybe you hate the cold, but if you ever lived in winter the landscape will resonate. The long stretches of highway with nothing on either side but snow. And there’s one moment where an actor gets out of his vehicle without his coat and eventually walks into a building. That’s how it is if you live where it really gets cold, you kind of adjust, you don’t bundle up heavily for every sortie. Sure, you’re wearing a long sleeve shirt, maybe even a sweatshirt on top of that, but the cold is invigorating, especially on a sunny day.

So, in the era of peak TV, when there’s no way everybody can see everything, I would not put “The Valhalla Murders” at the top of your list. If you like police shows, “Spiral” on Amazon is far superior, they both feature subtitles, and maybe people find it easier to just watch Netflix, but I cannot stop harping on how good “Spiral” is.

Now I downloaded a sample of Emily St. John Mandel’s new book “The Glass Hotel.” Did you read her prior work, “Station Eleven”? In theory it’s not really my kind of book, as it is set in the future. I like hard core reality, neither fantasy nor science fiction, but “Station Eleven” is one of the best books I’ve read in the last ten years, even though it’s set in the future it seems so real, and the book is so readable.

But to tell you the truth, we’ll finish “The Tiger King,” but what I’m really waiting for is Friday, because…

OZARK COMES BACK!!

I feel like I’m in “Groundhog Day,” every day is exactly the same. Which is weird. There’s nothing in the schedule, I wake up, read the papers, get on the computer…

I am anxious about sending so many missives about the coronavirus. People unsubscribe when there are too many missives a day. Then again, I write on inspiration, and right now I’m inspired.

I hope you read Jessica Lustig’s piece in the “New York Times”:

“What I Learned When My Husband Got Sick With Coronavirus – Our world became one of isolation, round-the-clock care, panic and uncertainty – even as society carried on around us with all too few changes.”

Actually, I know Jessica, but I haven’t seen her in years. She worked at “Details” after the turn of the century, when I wrote a couple of articles for them. I went to New York, we went for lunch, we talked on the phone a few times and then I followed her from afar, as we all do these days, virtually stalking, staying in touch with people we know but no longer communicate with. I enjoyed her article a few years back about taking her family skiing at Mad River Glen.

This story started making the rounds yesterday, it was all over Twitter, I got a bit of e-mail about it. I clicked through on my phone and saw the illustration but not the author, and then, late in the day, I had time and the inclination to read it and noticed it was written by Jessica. Weird how we’re connected to people with the coronavirus. Expect more and more of this.

But what has got me writing at this very moment, before I’ve eaten breakfast, just after I woke up and checked my phone, is this:

“The Coronavirus May Make Trump Stronger – Gallup finds 60% of voters approve of his handling of the crisis. As usual, the establishment is clueless.”

I now take every poll with a grain of salt, especially after Trump’s 2016 election, but the percentage was so high, I decided to start reading.

Now this is in the “Wall Street Journal” behind a paywall, so many people will not be able to read it. Then again, people forget the other half of Stewart Brand’s famous utterance: “Information also wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable.” I pay in excess of $500 for my print and net subscription to the WSJ. Most people will not pay that, but business people will. These articles are not written for everyday people. Therefore, if you are cheap, or broke, you’re left out. Welcome to the present day. Then again, is it the same as it ever was? And this information is very valuable, so I’ll quote some of it here:

“One reason Mr. Trump’s opponents have had such a hard time damaging his connection with voters is that they still don’t understand why so many Americans want a wrecking-ball presidency. Beyond attributing Mr. Trump’s support to a mix of racism, religious fundamentalism and profound ignorance, the president’s establishment opponents in both parties have yet to grasp the depth and intensity of the populist energy that animates his base and the Bernie Sanders movement.

The sheer number of voters in open political rebellion against centrist politics is remarkable. Adding the Sanders base (36% of the Democratic vote in the latest Real Clear Politics poll average, or roughly 13% of the national vote considering that about 45% of voters lean Democratic) to the core Trump base of roughly 42%, and around 55% of U.S. voters now support politicians who openly despise the central assumptions of the political establishment.

That a majority of the electorate is this deeply alienated from the establishment can’t be dismissed as bigotry and ignorance. There are solid and serious grounds for doubting the competence and wisdom of America’s self-proclaimed expert class. What is so intelligent and enlightened, populists ask, about a foreign-policy establishment that failed to perceive that U.S. trade policies were promoting the rise of a hostile Communist superpower with the ability to disrupt supplies of essential goods in a national emergency? What competence have the military and political establishments shown in almost two decades of tactical success and strategic impotence in Afghanistan? What came of that intervention in Libya? What was the net result of all the fine talk in the Bush and Obama administrations about building democracy in the Middle East?

On domestic policy, the criticism is equally trenchant and deeply felt. Many voters believe that the U.S. establishment has produced a health-care system that is neither affordable nor universal. Higher education saddles students with increasing debt while leaving many graduates woefully unprepared for good jobs in the real world. The centrist establishment has amassed unprecedented deficits without keeping roads, bridges and pipes in good repair. It has weighed down cities and states with unmanageable levels of pension debt.

The culture of social promotion and participation trophies is not, populists feel, confined to U.S. kindergartens and elementary schools. Judging by performance, they conclude that people rise in the American establishment by relentless virtue-signaling; by going along with conventional wisdom, however foolish; and by forgiving the failures of others and having their own overlooked in return…

Attacks on the establishment aren’t always rational or fair. They can be one-sided and fail to do justice to the accomplishments the U.S. has made in the recent past. Populism on both the left and the right always attracts its share of snake-oil salesmen, and America’s current antiestablishment surge is no exception. But the U.S. establishment won’t prosper again until it comes to grip with a central political fact: Populism rises when establishment leadership fails. If conventional U.S. political leaders had been properly doing their jobs, Donald Trump would still be hosting a television show.”

I’m loath to mention Bernie Sanders’s name anymore because of the intense blowback. Democrats lay a litany of events in my inbox, the failure of young people to show up, Bernie and Cuba, they’ve bought the assassination of him and his candidacy by the NYT, WaPo and MSNBC hook, line and sinker and have missed the major issue, which is delineated above. They’re so concerned with beating Trump that they don’t realize…people are pissed about government not working for them and they are the problem.

There, I said it. As you can see from this article, the majority of America wants a revolution, and that may just lead to Biden’s loss in November, assuming he gets out of his bunker alive, with his brain intact. Joe’s got no purchase on the public scene at this time. By waiting a week to weigh in, Biden took himself out of the narrative. Timing is everything in life. If you want an analysis of that, read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers.” A certain behavior may not work in one era, and then be mind-bogglingly successful in another. Today, you fight it out online and people forget what you did today as they follow the narrative into tomorrow. Biden’s handlers do not know this because they are not internet-savvy, and I’m sick of blowhards inured to the system who think it’s politics as usual. I like David Axelrod, but he is not living in this decade.

The first rule of law is know thine enemy. Trump has been President in excess of three years and the movers and shakers still have no idea why he got elected, what his base wants. And it’s funny to me that I had to read a right wing newspaper to get the truth.

And the part about the trophies for losers, the “relentless virtue-signaling; by going along with conventional wisdom, however foolish; and by forgiving the failures of others and having their own overlooked in return.” is so right on. It’s a club, and you’re not in it. But what is even more fascinating is the last three decades have told us institutions can be overturned nearly instantly by disrupters from the outside, it never comes from the inside, but the outside. And then, when it happens, the inside says “who knew”? Obviously the disrupters. What’s unfathomable today is de rigueur tomorrow. Like a black President and legal marijuana.

I won’t overload you at this time, there are a number of other interesting developments, but the above two pieces stand out and I need to make you aware of them.