I was sitting on the toilet.

Now you’ve got to know, it’s unlike any feeling you’ve ever had. Like I said back in ’94, you depend on the earth to be there. And when it’s not…

It used to happen all the time back in the seventies and eighties. Minor shakes. 2’s or 3’s. If it went on for a while, you went under a doorjamb. But now they say to do something different. I’ve forgotten what, there’s so much to keep up on.

And I don’t have an earthquake kit either. I guess in the Amazon age we believe we can get everything in a day.

But back in ’94 that wasn’t the case.

So I’m catching up on my phone. Isn’t that what you do first thing in the morning? I know, I know, it was closer to eleven than seven, but I slept in, I was up late reading “Fleishman Is In Trouble,” one of this summer’s hot books. I could write about it, but it’s not that great. Interesting, but not a home run. Ultimately, it’s about role reversal, where the wife is the go-getter, in this case an entertainment agent, and the husband takes care of the abode and the children. But he still works. He’s a liver doctor. But he only makes $258,000 a year, so he’s considered a loser in the modern world. Remember when your parents wanted you to be a doctor or lawyer? Those days are gone, you can’t make the big money, better to go into business. Then again, MBA programs are folding left and right. It seems that when it comes to business, you’re better off doing it for yourself. Business school teaches you how to be a manager, if you want to be an entrepreneur… But it is interesting that a quarter of a million bucks is now chump change. In Manhattan anyway. And the keeping up with the Joneses! It’s endless, there are always people with more money than you. And what bonds you is your fabulousness. But you know you’re not really that fabulous. Meanwhile, you leave your spouse for something better and…you find out it’s not better.

But I’m addicted to books. After finishing the Lori Gottlieb screed, I took a couple of days off, but I found myself lost, there was no center. Music used to be the center. It was driven by radio, MTV and print. You could comprehend the scene, it was clear what was worthy of attention… But today? I read all this hype about Julia Michaels, in “Entertainment Weekly” she looked like a god (goddess?) So I went on Spotify to listen to her new solo album, “Inner Monologue Part 2,” and I thought the opening track was close, not quite there, but interesting. And then… I checked the stream counts. At this point, only one of the eight cuts has been streamed on Spotify over a million times. In other words, despite all the hype, it’s a stiff. Proving that mainstream press just doesn’t matter when it comes down to big time stuff, the radio Top 40, the Spotify Top 50. And if I listened to the whole album and wrote about it…almost nobody would have heard it. Is it worth investing the time? You hear about an act, play a few tunes, understand why there’s attention, but unless a cut breaks through, you move on. Indie acts and the fans thereof hate this. But the truth is we’re looking for pointers, we want to be members of a club.

And a book is a club of its own. And it demands attention. You can’t graze it, you can’t give it five minutes to see what it’s about, you’ve got to delve in and go all the way. Although I do read some reviews, at least the last paragraph thereof, I don’t want to know what happened, isn’t that why you read a book to begin with? And I do look at the star rating on Amazon. And I do download the sample chapter and read it before I’m in. But if I make a decision, if I buy the book, I go down the rabbit hole. The experience is singular, definable. Hell, in today’s era, story is king. Which is one of the reasons TV is dominant and music is a second-class citizen. We’re looking for context, we’re looking to make sense of this world, we’re already overwhelmed with input, which is why you can dance to the tunes, go to the festival and shoot selfies as the band (DJ?) plays in the background, but you’re not gonna sit in front of the stereo looking at the album cover while the music plays. Actually, I’m thinking live business is gonna plateau and fall. The truth is, you go to be amongst the crowd, have an experience, the music is just the background live. Or, you’re going to hear someone perform their current hit. Or else you go to hear the classics, but they never even put out new music, they know it will come and go in a day, despite all the traditional hype.

So I’m catching up on my phone. Takes the better part of an hour. I’ve got to cruise the NYT, WaPo, NYMag, WSJ, LAT, and with my WSJ subscription I just got a free subscription to the “London Times,” which is otherwise behind a paywall, and not a soft one. And then there are the ski sites and Twitter and hitsdailydouble. I don’t bother with “Billboard,” too many bad writers filling up space. Actually, most of what’s written is close to unreadable, or boring. At least the ethos of the newspaper is straightforward reporting, but… Oh yes, I also read the “New Yorker” app, the one with the daily comment and…

I feel the toilet start to shake.

Now, toilets shake on a regular basis, not all are rooted to the ground so well. And oftentimes the seat is loose. But after a beat, it’s clear, we’re having an…

EARTHQUAKE!

That’s what I yelled out to Felice.

And I know what you do when it’s strong, you run out of your house, immediately, like I did in ’94, sans clothes in fact.

But that was at four thirty in the morning. Funny how most earthquakes never happen during business hours. Although I do remember waiting for a light on Pico one afternoon and my car started jumping around.

And this was the middle of the day, but it is a holiday.

And then… I’m monitoring the situation. And it does not stop shaking. It’s all you can think about, it’s like the end of the world. Who your parents are, where you went to school, how much money you have, they’re all irrelevant.

But it did not stop shaking. It was a real-life thrill ride.

And now I’m wondering if it’s ever gonna stop. Usually, it’s just brief jolts.

And I’m sitting there thinking about the science…giant plates are thrusting against each other. It’s not like it’s only my neighborhood, these are vast, catastrophic events.

And then after thirty seconds, enough time to wonder if it was ever gonna stop…it did.

Oh, what does it feel like?

First you feel some shaking. And with this one we went back and forward and back and forward and…we humans want to be in control, in this case I was not.

Now in the old days, when the ground stabilized, you’d turn on the TV. Assuming it worked.

Or the radio. Usually the TV first, because you could dial in to the local news network immediately.

And after a few beats, if the TV didn’t have a story, and it never did, the radio might say something.

And then in the internet era, you went to the LAT site.

But now I’ve realized, none of those outlets is truly prepared, there’s no one in the building ready to push a button. No, you’ve got to find a reporter, you’ve got to gather the facts…BUT I JUST EXPERIENCED THE FACTS!

So the only place you can go, for instant news, for an instant reaction is…

Twitter. That’s right, the site the oldsters abhor, but the digerati love. Instagram is a sideshow, Twitter is the high wire.

And people were already on it. Only a minute later. There was a link, which showed the epicenter, and it said it was a 6.6!

That’s really high. The numbers don’t go up arithmetically, but logarithmically. To make it simple, a 6 is ten times greater than a 5.

Now since it’s been downgraded to a 6.4. But they’re predicting tons of aftershocks, that’s what did me in back in ’94, the aftershocks.

But nothing fell off the shelves here.

But closer to the epicenter…

And not too long later, the news was all over the net.

This too was different from ’94. Back then, in the days of landlines, I called my mother all shaken up and she had no idea what was happening. But today, she called me.

Everything’s fine.

For now.

Fitting, don’t you think? Or would you rather have X, and “4th of July”?

Gerry and Dewey are great guys. Friendly and knowledgeable. You think of stars as being aloof, but not these two. Hear about their peripatetic lives as military brats and how they came together to make music and ended up shooting to the top of the charts, being picked up by David Geffen and selling more units than the supposed superstars.

I loved talking to them.

Listen:

iheart

spotify

apple

stitcher

“Scott Borchetta never gave Taylor Swift an opportunity to purchase her masters, or the label, outright with a check in the way he is now apparently doing for others.”

Don Passman
Taylor Swift’s Attorney Says Singer Never Had a Chance to ‘Outright’ Buy Back Her Masters From Big Machine

Horseshit. EVERYTHING’S FOR SALE!

That’s like saying you couldn’t go on a date because the girl didn’t ask you. Make an offer, see what they say!

I’m sick and tired of Taylor Swift playing the aggrieved party. It’s like Bill Gates complaining he was ripped-off, or Mark Zuckerberg. What’s the end game here? How can you win?

Then again, who are Swift and her team playing to? Insiders or outsiders?

The publicity was just dying down, and now Passman threw some gasoline on the fire, keeping it burning longer than it should, embedding this fracas in people’s brains. Some of this is Star 101. Where’s the manager? Oh, that’s right, Taylor manages herself, to her detriment, she needs an outside opinion, because she certainly can’t see the forest for the trees.

It’s about long term, not short. It’s about being likable. The last thing you want to do is piss people off, then it’s a press story, and the press lives for kerfuffles, it sells ads!

Insiders are ignoring Passman’s statement. Because they can see right through it. Suddenly knowledgeable enough to not respond, Taylor sent in her second. Come on, if Passman wanted to weigh in he would have days ago. As for Scooter’s seconds, they made statements nearly instantaneously. And the truth is Braun has more credibility than Swift. She’s gonna fade, he seems to always be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Hell, if you’re a young act, he’s one of the first you call, because he’s closer to your age and has had success. That’s the truth, too many of the great managers are long in the tooth, and the best and the brightest of the youth have shied away from the music business because it doesn’t generate enough cash. And do you really want to sign with a conglomerate like Red Light or Artist Nation, where you get lost in the shuffle working for the man? They call it PERSONAL management, and that’s what an artist wants most, personal treatment, if they don’t believe they’re number one in your stable, they move on, especially if they’re superstars.

Insiders know the score. With internet success you can make any deal you want. Labels don’t sign anything unless you prove it first online, and this gives you leverage. You can license the music, whatever your lawyer can negotiate. Sure, some people take the cash, some people think long term, but it’s the artist’s call. The artist has gained power in the twenty first century. Sure, recording revenue may have gone down, but not only is it now going up, you can make the music and put it online for essentially nothing! Of course, the landscape is littered with the work of wannabes, but that’s what happens with democratization.

And if you’ve got enough money and make an offer, you’ll find you can buy nearly anything. If you play in this game, especially in L.A., you know someone who had no intention of selling their house and then a buyer came along and asked for the owner’s fantasy price and the buyer met it!

Furthermore, EVERYBODY on the inside knew Big Machine was for sale. But Swift didn’t want to pay for it, she felt she was owed the masters emotionally, she’d paid her dues. But that’s like being the best customer at Tiffany and walking in and insisting you own the store, with no additional money paid. Or that everyone who ever made a bad deal gets a do-over. No, that’s why you have a team, a manager and a lawyer, so you don’t get screwed!

And irrelevant of the sale, Taylor should have stayed at Big Machine anyway. Never underestimate the power of being a big fish in a little pond. Swift’s music had to be successful at Big Machine, it’s their crown jewel. But Monty’s got a bunch of superstars, from the Weeknd to Ariana Grande to Shawn Mendes, and a bunch of stars too, like Florence and the Machine and the Jonas Brothers. Republic doesn’t need Swift to hit, as long as something hits, Monty comes up to bat regularly.

But not Borchetta, who built Taylor. And irrelevant of how the money was split, Borchetta did break her, never underestimate his efforts.

So Passman speaks and the Swifties are satiated. But these are the same people who will never abandon Team Swift. Then again, Team Swift is leaking members. As any act does after it’s past its peak. You can’t dominate forever. Own it. Or reinvent yourself.

This is what the music business has come to. There’s not an act out there with this kind of mindshare. The story has been covered everywhere, from the “New York Times” to “Billboard” to social media. We’re hungry for something to sink our teeth into. And we know it won’t be Swift’s new album “Lover.” Madonna was always a sly manipulator, it’s not like one day she said she’d let men take advantage of her. She was consistent. Swift was the hater, reacting to every perceived insult to the point where her thin skin was a joke, to the point where she couldn’t let anything roll off her back. And it’s not like Howard Stern, who went to therapy and changed his outlook, it’s just the same b.s. again and again. Swift a lover? What’s next, Trump best friends with Nancy Pelosi?

Leopards don’t change their spots, and it appears Taylor Swift doesn’t either.

The truth is most people just don’t care. And by keeping the story alive Swift is burning out many more, by appearing the narcissist who always plays the victim.

You want to make it about the music.

But suddenly it’s about Swift’s antics. Kinda like Charlie Sheen. Who lost his mind and was the train-wreck of all time for a few months, he even did live dates, but woke up one day and discovered he’d lost his television gig and couldn’t get another that paid anywhere near as much. Now Charlie is just a footnote. Keep acting this way Taylor, and you’ll be one too.

In my mind I can’t study war no more

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, whether to be freaked out or just let it pass.

But our long national nightmare will not be over even if a Democrat is elected President. You see there is gerrymandering, a Republican Supreme Court, and red states that are strictly red, in all branches of government.

Yet the Democrats are arguing amongst themselves, moderates rallying around a tired old man who will never be elected king when the truth is we need impassioned lefties to make our nation be aware of what’s at stake.

What’s at stake if you’re rich?

Not much. You can buy your way inside. If you’re smart, you’re not on social media and no one knows who you are as you fly in your private jet and live behind the walls at your numerous residences. For every Koch brother, there are tons of wealthy people who believe they can never be touched.

But you call this class warfare.

Actually, I just went on foxnews.com, and they don’t even mention Trump’s shenanigans on the Fourth.

That’s right, he’s gonna speak. There are gonna be flybys. There are gonna be tanks. And if you’re a VIP you sit right up front, to avoid hecklers getting close.

The “Wall Street Journal” told the story, but believe me, the rank and file Republicans don’t read that paper behind a paywall. All they know is they want a return to what once was, even though it wasn’t that good to begin with, when the truth is the future is being made every day and if you don’t change, you’re gonna be left behind.

But I get it. The elites changed the game and you didn’t get a vote. They call it globalization. And now all you can do is work in an un-air conditioned Amazon warehouse so wankers can get their products immediately.

Bread and circuses. We’ve got smartphones, we’ve got YouTube and Netflix and the public is so deep into its respective rabbit holes that it doesn’t know what’s going on.

Meanwhile, Trump is the biggest rock star out there, making news every day, staying in the public eye. Maybe that’s why rock stars are dead, you can’t record a hit song every day, but somehow Trump manages to. Music is relegated to the background, it’s so Balkanized that no one could sing the same song at a protest.

But that’s what we need.

We’ve got to protest where they can see us. We’ve got to make news. We’ve got to have our story heard.

We did last week, at the debates. And what did we hear? The game is rigged, the little people need help, health care, and what was the blowback? The establishment saying it can’t be done, scaring the populace into retreating, but is this so?

This is a music paradigm. The sound changes, it never stays static.

And neither does the world.

In the sixties, the military and the police were the enemy.

Today they’re vaunted kings. Hell, you can’t go to a public event without people paying fealty to the military, it’s the new American flag pin. But do you think they do this around the world? Of course not, because of coups, because of military abuse. The military is one step away from taking power, just look at history.

And there’s a canard that Democracy will survive. Why? it’s not doing so well in the rest of the world. What we’ve got is isolationism and strongmen. Who promise to make it all right and then end up consolidating power and ruling. Can you say Putin? He just declared the age of liberalism was dead, and he’s Trump’s best friend, a guy who couldn’t possibly have meddled in our election.

Up is down and down is up.

Maybe we need a draft. If your ass was on the line, where Trump keeps placing our troops, you’d be questioning these activities. No one wants to see their kid killed. But we keep lauding women in the military. Cool, a woman can do what a man does, but why would anybody want to be trained as a fighting machine? Especially in an era where the threat comes from technology, not brute force. If Trump really wanted to have a parade, he’d get all the denizens from Silicon Valley to come to D.C. and walk the streets, they’re the ones who’ve delivered what the people want, what’s making their lives so good.

Oh, that’s right, the bros in San Francisco have run ragged over our nation. And I’ll admit online abuse is an issue. Facebook and Instagram and Twitter have to set limits. But truly, are any of these outlets a bigger problem than Fox News? NO!

You’ve got to understand, we no longer have a national news source. Trump is the only person covered by both sides. It’s all Trump all the time. And the right reports and its audience is hypnotized and the left calls out the faux pas and nothing changes. It’d be like being the parent of a child and noting their misbehavior and expecting them to change without taking action. At some point you’ve got to delve in and do the hard work.

But no one wants to, they’re stars, on Instagram! Or, they’re too busy playing Fortnite. It’s the new American Dream, I’ll post on social media, become an influencer and get rich! But the odds are about as good as Powerball. Then again, lotteries are a tax on the poor. The poor are ripped-off and taken advantage of in this country day in and day out. But their spending keeps the economy humming. That’s right, everybody needs food and clothing and a roof over their head. Our country runs on public spending. But somehow it’s the corporations, the rich, who are our benefactors. You can invent a brilliant video game, but if no one plays it, no one buys the virtual tchotchkes, you’re screwed.

I know, I know, it’s been the same story for two and a half years, you’re used to it.

But that’s just what they want. To numb you into inaction.

Trump acts unilaterally and the Democrats in the House move at the pace of a snail, via the legal system, protesting when things don’t go their way, afraid of pissing anybody off. Trump doesn’t roll that way. He does whatever he wants. The fear is if the Democrats impeach Trump, he’ll win again. But this is just the behavior that is sealing the deal. In tech, no one wants a ten year old product, never mind one from the eighties or nineties. But somehow, the establishment believes Biden is the answer. That’s right, let’s all go back to Netscape, on AOL! On our big box computers, with their terrible color screens. That’s anathema, so why is Joe so great?

But not only is the right selling fear, but so is the left. The left is paralyzed, but AOC showed that change can be instant. I don’t care whether you like her or not, the truth is she came from nowhere on her own truth and is now one of the most powerful and famous people in America. Take that DNC, take that music industry!

And this is what entertainers don’t understand. AOC ain’t rich, she’s only selling her brain, her ideas, her credibility. But everyone in entertainment is selling out, trying to to get rich, but believe me, they can never be as rich as the ruling class. You’ve missed the plot if you think it’s about money.

So July Fourth will come and go, you’ll forget about what happens in D.C. and move on. But ever hear of a cumulative effect?

All over the world, in Hong Kong, Istanbul, Prague, people are standing up against authoritarianism.

But we believe it can’t happen here.

But it can.

Save the people
Save the children
Save the country
NOW!

“Save The Country”
Laura Nyro