Now what exactly was Scooter Braun’s crime here?

He made a business deal. Big Machine sold rights it held to Scooter, who had the money to pay for them. Done. Fair deal.

On the other side, you have Taylor Swift, who made a bad deal. Based on emotion, she left Big Machine for Universal, delivered a stiff record, is now trying to resuscitate it and someone must pay.

Meanwhile, Scooter observes the number one rule of social media, don’t respond, but then Swift’s activated fan base descends upon him to the point of threatening the lives of him and his family.

Welcome to 2019, where everybody feels as powerful as everybody else, where power is wielded by entertainers with social media followers as opposed to the rich. Where a President lies outright and is caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but not only does nearly half of America not care, there’s an entire news organization, never mind internet sites and social media, based on spreading untruths on his behalf and saying it’s no big deal. And you wonder why Taylor Swift is wielding her sword?

Let’s go back to Bill Clinton. If the President lies under oath, why should I tell the truth? Seems like in the past thirty years, no one is. Everything is up for grabs. Even life and death.

Tom Petty’s record company was sold and Petty insisted on concessions. Then again, Petty was poor, and was signed to a lousy deal with Shelter which was sold to ABC which was sold to MCA, the worst label in the business at the time. Petty declared bankruptcy and got a label, Backstreet, and an individual to run said label. Where in this process did Taylor Swift get screwed?

Taylor signed with Big Machine, which made her an international superstar. Big Machine owned the albums, which is standard industry practice. And then Big Machine sold its assets to Scooter. Nothing illegal here. As for morality…Swift knew Big Machine was up for sale, she didn’t insist the sale not be to Scooter, and was pissed after the fact.

But Swift can’t live with this. Because she’s supposed to be Teflon, she’s a pin-cushion of hurt. She’s stunned when the media turns on her. When other stars/celebrities turn on her. Not going to school, she does not know how to navigate the ups and downs, she feels like she should be protected, like all those kids who go to private school and have their parents complain to the administration that they’re being bullied. Do they call their parents when they get into a fight with a boy or girlfriend? Unfortunately, yes!

I mean come on, I don’t want to talk like a Republican here, but can someone take personal responsibility? I’m a big believer in tort actions, irrelevant of whether some of the attorneys are sleazy, but we don’t live in a strict liability world, where someone must pay for every loss. That’s life, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. The game is to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and play again.

As far as Scooter being the devil… If only Taylor Swift worked with some of the true criminals in this business. Scooter’s not perfect, but he does have a reputation for being artist-friendly. He didn’t buy the assets to screw Swift, they’re too expensive. He needs her cooperation. He can work without it, but it’s much better to align interests.

Furthermore, Swift wants to be immune to the career arc, where you’re hot and then you’re not, especially in today’s scattered, cacophonous internet world where you can release something great and it can still not flourish in the marketplace. You can play the game and lose. Then again, she’s got those royalties from all those old records. And she can go on the road based on that music.

But Swift screwed her fans with dynamic ticketing, never mind the shenanigans you had to pay for/waste time on getting the right to buy tickets. Do you think there’s not a hangover from that?

Swift misplayed her hand here, getting bad advice all the while, if she even listened to anybody. Any attorney will tell you she had the right to perform her old hits on the AMAs, hell, Scooter even admits that. As for synching with a Netflix show…she’s got no right to that, that’s a negotiation, how much does Big Machine want to receive in payment? They call it the music business, not music charity. Pay up, and Netflix can use ’em. Why should Swift get to use them for free, no one else does.

Karma is a bitch.

Taylor Swift refused to play nice with the industry. And when called on it, she developed a friend squad, which quickly abandoned her, then she enlisted celebrities to sing with her, who have been quiet, then she aligned with the LGBTQ community, which has not risen up in support for her…

But she does have her army of fans.

In a world where the average punter is uninformed or ill-informed and shoots up a pizza parlor, believing Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring there.

So what are the odds that Swift’s fans are aware of contract law, and what rights Big Machine does and does not have.

So Swift cries and says she’s gonna rerecord her music. Go ahead, hasn’t worked for anybody other than ancient artists doing this for synch purposes. She’s throwing a tantrum.

So now it’s come to this. Death threats. Will anybody really do it? Who knows? Ten per cent of the public is certifiably insane, and you don’t know which ten per cent it is! And kids do shoot up schools and there is gunfire and death at concerts and…

We have to be scanned at every public event, if not actually frisked, and they’ve got active shooter drills at schools.

Is this the society we want?

This is the society we’ve got.

Charlie Minor was shot to death. You don’t have to be on the front page to lose your life.

Meanwhile, Swift stays silent, to this moment, not calling off her dogs.

And Scooter’s impassioned plea looks completely reasonable, with a muted twist imploring Swift to start a dialogue and call off her troops. And what does Swift do? Remain silent!

This is her moment to be the bigger person. To go on national TV, Facebook Live, YouTube, harvesting all of today’s media and say of course she didn’t want this consequence, of course she’ll sit down with Scooter, of course she wants to resolve these issues, and she’s thrilled that Scooter wants to too.

Then she rehabilitates her image a bit. And can maybe salvage her career in the eyes of everybody but the Swifties.

You can have power, but you don’t have to use it.

She’s brought Scooter to the table, but you can read in his screed that he ain’t coughing up everything.

But he’ll cough up something. A victory for moral rights.

But if only we lived in a country of morality.

This almost didn’t happen. It was all set, but then Peter’s people said he had a hard out at ten to twelve and I didn’t think that would be enough time so I asked for an earlier start, and he canceled. Then I said the original start time would work and it was back on but it turns out that had nothing to do with it, the issue was whether the interview could be broadcast at Australian Music Week or not. Peter didn’t want it to be, Australian Music Week ultimately agreed, and it was back on the schedule.

So it happened at Studio 301 in Sydney. They don’t make studios like this anymore, with multiple rooms, even mastering. I get excited in places like this, this is the epicenter, this is where the music is made.

They had a museum of old equipment, an original Mitsubishi digital tape machine, never mind a bunch of Studers. Guitars even. They took me to every room, which I dug. Then we got to the big studio, the one that can fit orchestras, and in the control room, which was larger than most studios themselves, stood Peter Garrett.

I was intimidated. He’s six foot four something and has a bald head and he had to be out before noon and I figured he’d be recalcitrant, off-putting, but nothing could have been further from the truth!

Now I avoided Peter for the better part of ten minutes, if you converse before you start you risk leaving the best stuff in the green room, I’ve learned that, so they’re setting up the mics and it’s taking time and I’m getting more and more anxious and then we begin.

It was like talking to a long lost friend. And I’m looking at my watch at ten to twelve and Peter doesn’t even blink, he just keeps on going. We don’t stop until twelve twenty. Whereupon Peter says he wants to continue to talk, but first he has to go to the bathroom. I figured that was it, but Peter came back and we talked for another hour, until I had to leave for some TV show. We were wrestling with the issues, it was so much fun.

Now this subsequent hour was not on mic, but there’s plenty here.

What it was like growing up in Australia, how Peter joined Midnight Oil. His experience in the government.

Whether you’re a fan of Midnight Oil or not, you’ll enjoy this. Peter’s the opposite of the traditional musician. He’s eloquent, thoughtful, passionate…I dug it, and you will too!

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There’s nothing like it!

Although I’ve been all ’round the world and there’s no place I’d rather live than L.A. Sure, there’s the weather, but even more there’s the anonymity, and the phoniness, as a refugee from the east coast, it’s still refreshing, no one’s in my business and I’m not in theirs but I do miss the camaraderie, you meet someone one night in the east and they’re friends for life, you hang, in L.A…maybe you go out before you have kids, or turn forty, but after that all the entertainment takes place behind closed doors, and that tends to end early, since everybody’s got to get up with the sun to hone their bodies.

But there’s something about the pulse, the convenience of Manhattan, I mean where else can you walk a block at midnight to get distilled water for your CPAP machine? Then again, the world is changing, now it’s all about delivery, shopping only stands if it’s an experience, entertainment, but the truth is we’re moving away from consumerism, that’s the big story of the younger generation, one that the boomers refuse to acknowledge. Who needs a car? Who needs a big house? You want to be able to lock up and disappear…yup, that’s another thing the younger generation is into, travel.

But here’s where one gets blowback from the poor, the disadvantaged, those claiming poverty even though they’re doing quite fine. MUST BE NICE! What kind of country do we live in where it’s a badge of honor to be poor, and everybody who is poor thinks they’re one step away from being a billionaire. Cory Booker talking about all the disadvantaged wanting to be entrepreneurs, as if they’re not having trouble finding quality candidates for “Shark Tank,” a passe paradigm if there ever was one. Now it’s about society, the environment, not products. Suddenly we’re all in it together, even though that’s anathema for those who’ve got it, the winners.

Kinda like this thousand dollar hotel room. For that money, you’d expect the penthouse, but not in New York!

So I reserved a Lyft.

My flight was at eleven. I’m anxious, I don’t want to be late, I want to be there ninety minutes before, even though I’ve got CLEAR, I just never want to miss a plane.

But it was supposed to rain.

So I changed my reservation from nine to eight forty five. That’d be plenty of time. They say they’ll be there by eight fifty-five at the latest. But no, the guy who took the res squeezed in a ride before mine, I could see it on the map, and now it’s after nine and…

Oh, I know, FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!

But the truth is the standard of living has risen throughout the world. And that’s just a way for people to feel better than you. That’s one thing that drives me wild, when people e-mail me…”you’re better than that.” No, I’m not! That’s exactly who I am!

So this guy is a documentary filmmaker, and an actor, and he’s filling time before he has to go to Germany after the first and he does it for the conversation, and despite being a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, he’s concerned about Me Too.

All males are concerned about Me Too, at least those who’ve still got their balls. You see you can’t discuss it with women. It’s black and white. And men are afraid. I’m not talking about the repeat offenders, with no knowledge of themselves, I’m just saying guys are always talking about this, fearful they’re going to say something wrong and get canceled. And today, one strike and you’re out baby!

Dennis Prager was in security before me. I recognized him because he’s so tall. Did you see him on Bill Maher the other week? You should watch it, to get the right wing position. Yup, the problem is the left, there is no racism in America…huh? And his bag got picked to be picked apart and…

The plane ride was bumpy, that’s rarely the case anymore. The paper was jumping up and down in my hands. Oh, there were a couple of good stories in the “New York Times.” The one about getting topless in the mud to find love in Australia. The one about the jihad at Syracuse. These stories don’t even make the L.A. “Times.” Oh, but the LAT had that story about T-Series, which eclipsed PewDiePie on YouTube. Maybe you’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, god, it’s so easy to be out of the loop these days, but that’s why I read all the papers, to try and get the pulse of the world. T-Series…started out as a record counterfeiter in India. The founder got shot to death by the Mob. As for that Australian mudfest in the NYT? Everybody’s looking for love, and you find it in the strangest places, at least if you look, too many people get older and are afraid to look.

And after I finished the paper and the hot nuts, that’s why you fly American, for the hot nuts, I dug into my book, “The Most Fun We Ever Had,” by Claire Lombardo. The story of a family. With four daughters. It doesn’t always work out. And these are the stories I get into, about people, after all, that’s all there is. And I thought I’d finish it, but it’s seven hundred pages and I’m barely halfway through. I’ve got so much I want to read. And then there’s TV, I ran into Jeff Garlin at Sirius Tuesday and he told me to watch his Netflix special, because it addresses Me Too. But does one stay home or integrate or..?

My Lyft driver on the other end drove one of those toaster cars. At about thirty miles an hour. And I wanted to get to the hotel to watch the debate. And her route was so circuitous, she was breaking the rules of WAZE, which was in Chinese. I called her on it, but then I got uptight about my rating. So I tried to make nice and talk, but she couldn’t understand me, she barely spoke English.

And the truth is I’m excited by the city, amped up, running on west coast time, I love that New York never sleeps.

But there’s a chilling effect in America these days. Not only with Me Too, but everything. Every time I think of writing, I get uptight about the blowback. You can’t be yourself anymore, people disapprove. And god help you if you make a mistake, it’s as if you killed somebody. And I get it, like that old Dylan song, everybody wants to drag you down into the hole they’re in. But what they don’t realize is there’s a whole set of people above us, living a life they are not privy to.

So everybody in America is self-deprecating. Say you worked hard and earned it and deserve it and you’re a pariah. Then again, in hip-hop everybody’s the greatest.

So everybody’s fighting for recognition and everybody feels lost.

Music used to fill this hole. It took you away, to a special place, where you felt safe and understood.

But now music no longer fills that need. Now it’s mostly commerce, almost pre-Beatles. It’s just a business, it’s not THE business.

But say that and you hear you’re too old.

And then Scorsese comes out against Marvel movies and he’s laughed at. But how about a debate. Spielberg was wrong about movies needing to be in theatres, especially when at home you’ve got a sixty five inch set with the film starting whenever you want, but we can’t debate the bigger issues anymore. You’re wrong and I’m right, or vice versa. Or else someone’s provably wrong and they’re entitled to equal time, which drives one just nuts.

And what is the race about anyway? Is it about money and family, status? One thing’s for sure, you can’t have it all, you’re lucky if you can achieve one thing. And oftentimes it’s at the sacrifice of something else.

And sometimes you feel in the swing of things and sometimes you feel horribly out of it.

And we’re all looking for safety. That’s in Lombardo’s book. Things just don’t work out. Then they do, then they don’t. You wonder when you can calm down and relax.

Probably never.

OK Boomer!

Now that was a waste of time. I bet more people sat through Sondland than this dreary, mostly self-congratulatory so-called debate.

It is not business as usual. Trump has proven that. So what do the Democrats say, what does the establishment say, what does the media say? Let’s go back to the old rule book! It’s almost as if Trump is Napster and the Dems are the labels. And you know what? CDs never came back. That’s right, streaming replaced files, and reinvigorated recorded music revenues to boot!

So who is complaining?

THE OLD PEOPLE!

The boomers who think their doody doesn’t stink. Who believe since they lived through the sixties and can wear skinny jeans and own smartphones that they know what’s going on. But they don’t!

As a matter of fact, boomers are retiring in droves, passing the baton, but they want to give one more middle finger to those younger than they are, they want to keep everything they’ve gotten, all the spoils, and screw the rest of the public.

Now this is America. Where no one can sacrifice. Carter said to wear a sweater to stay warm during an energy crisis and he was excoriated, you can’t mess with the American way of life, which is all about raping the environment and pillaging while you’re at it. But if you speak to the younger generation…

The younger generation that’s into experiences, not assets.

The younger generation hobbled by student debt.

The younger generation with even fewer opportunities for upward mobility than their contemporaries in Europe…and they’re PISSED!

So what do we get during the debate?

ALL THE THINGS THEY’VE DONE! As if nothing has changed.

I’ll tell you what’s changed. We need passion. Trump is a great salesman. Amy Klobuchar starts talking and my eyes roll into the back my head. It’s a new day, talk about new day problems.

That’s why I’ve been excited by Elizabeth Warren. You can see she believes what she’s saying, the passion underneath, the refusal to play to the polls.

Now Mayor Pete had a pretty good night. I’m stunned that no one attacked him, since he’s supposedly winning in Iowa. And why is Buttigieg winning? THE ADS!

That’s right, at this late date, many people are unfamiliar with the candidates. Because they’re overwhelmed with information and in some cases disillusioned by the circus in D.C.

Trump says he’s gonna drain the swamp?

Dems say let’s go back to what once was, kumbaya, HUH?

So it is all about Trump. All the candidates saying it’s about issues are wrong. Trump makes it about his opponents and Dems say it’s about the issues. Trump calls Hillary a “nasty woman” and the Dems say the polls say that impeachment and name-calling works against them. It’s as if their schoolbooks are out of date, as if they were published in 2014.

So here’s the scoop.

It comes down to Warren, Mayor Pete, Bernie and Kamala. Biden is a joke. Yup, marijuana should not be legal. What’s next, parietals at party schools? I mean sometimes you’ve got to get out of the way for the future, isn’t that what Bob Dylan sang?

Kamala had a relatively good night. Because she was pissed. I’m pissed, AREN’T YOU?

Now Tom Steyer was right when he said is it’s not about convincing Trump supporters, but getting Dems to actually vote. Which requires a candidate that speaks to them, who they believe has their best interests at heart, who can move the ball forward.

Working with the Republicans?

Don’t make me laugh.

So what we’ve learned is the most powerful person in politics is Mark Burnett. He made Trump a star. I’d link to the “New Yorker” article delineating this, but you won’t read it if you haven’t already, it’s long, you don’t have the time. It turns out everybody in New York thought Trump was a joke, but Burnett made him into a star!

That’s what we’re looking for, stars. If you’re not one, get out of the way, you can’t succeed. You’ve got to have the goods and then you’ve got to be marketed. Yup, in 2019 cream does not rise to the top. As for TV…the only people watching are oldsters, the younger generation will just catch the clips, the spin, that’s all they have time for.

But the DNC and the establishment are afraid of pissing the boomers off. They want to keep their medical insurance, even though they’re already on Medicare. They don’t want any changes. They want evolution, not revolution.

But the last twenty five years have been all about revolution, tech revolution. Uber and Lyft killed the taxi business. Who wants the taxi business to come back other than the drivers and the shysters who have them paying for worthless million dollar medallions?

Of course Trump should be the issue!

My money is behind Warren. But Mayor Pete or Bernie would be o.k. Just someone who can stand up to Trump in a debate. Someone who can go for the jugular, no, someone who can go for the balls. Go high when they go low? No, you’ve got to play their game to win, even though they’ll be howling all the while. It’s a street brawl I tell you, and the old establishment doesn’t get it, they’re afraid of the UFC, they’re afraid of hip-hop, their idea of danger is staying up after eleven.

Gavin Newsom refuses to buy automobiles from the companies who sided with Trump. Gavin is employing his leverage. Maybe California should secede. Maybe the issues have to be defined, how the red states get disproportionately more from the federal government, how their two senators overrepresent their population.

But no, the Dems are playing to the media and the pollsters. The same ones who got it wrong last time around.

Oh, Nate Silver will say the polls were right. Yeah, it’s like a hundred to one shot. Yup, there’s a chance the horse could lose, but even Trump himself didn’t expect to win.

Just like the Democrats in Congress. Who keep going on TV and telling us the Senate won’t convict Trump. Why? Sondland flipped, they all flipped against Trump, but somehow the senators won’t?

The reason you play the game is you never know who will really win.

And just like in football, the rules keep changing. But there’s no NFL in charge of elections, as a matter of fact, even the government doesn’t have a hold on elections.

So I’m done with the debates. This one was billed as a barroom brawl. Instead, we mostly got niceties, at least until the end, after eleven on the east coast, when the aforementioned boomers, the only ones watching, were already asleep.

So…

1. Get the message out. That’s the hardest thing to do today. And the message is…ANYBODY BUT TRUMP! If you think it’s about the issues as opposed to Trump, get out of the way, put down your megaphone, you’re clogging the channel.

2. It’s about stars, not issues. God, if the Dems were smart, they’d hire Mark Burnett to do a “Voice” for them, get everybody to watch, let people see who has got it.

3. It’s about who can stand up to Trump in a debate. It’s not about building the best team of all time, it’s about forming the one that can win the World Series against the opposing candidate.

4. Ignore the polls. We won’t know what is truly going on until there’s voting. The truth is I won’t answer a poll, you won’t either, and I can cite chapter and verse where I’ve been right and the polls have been wrong, because it’s about guts, not intellect, it’s about what you feel in your soul, what resonates.

5. Fox News, MSNBC, NYT, WSJ, WaPo…they’re for the lifers, for those truly interested, mostly old people. The younger generation lives online. Call in Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, have them advise you. Or maybe even Sheryl Sandberg, she’s a Democrat. These are devious people who will do anything to win, they know how the web works, time to get them on board.

6. It’s a movement, not an election. You want people to feel included, and today the rank and file are the stars, elevate them, that’s one thing good about Warren shooting selfies.

7. They blew up the music business, they blew up the television business, they already blew up politics, but the only people who seem to know are the Republicans.

8. Hearts and minds baby.