Rain Songs

“Rainsong”
Moodswings

Moodswings – Rainsong

This is not on Spotify, Amazon or Apple…

But it’s in my heart.

Music used to be precious, it used to be rare, to get on a label’s mailing list was the holy grail, and this came out on Arista.

Hmm… They didn’t usually release this type of thing, I’ve got no idea what the deal was, literally, but they put out not only the album but a two-pack of CD singles, somebody was behind this, but it got no traction.

When it rains in L.A. it pours, and I believe it was back in ’92, the year this album, “Moodfood,” was released, that it poured for six out of seven days.

Funny to be in the metropolis and unable to leave your house. I remember I got sick of being inside so I journeyed out to Norm’s, a low-rent diner/dinner place that had these specials, including salad and sundae, for an insanely low price, I got hooked on them. And I was driving down Pico and hit a big puddle…you can drown your engine, it happens. It was almost as white-knuckle as driving in a snowstorm.

Anyway, when I think of “Rainsong” I think of that time.

And my ex-wife coming to my house two years later.

Now actually, “Moodfood” is famous for two reasons. One is it contains the definitive version of John Anderson/Vangelis’s “State of Independence,” in this iteration entitled “Spiritual High,” with Chrissie Hynde taking the lead vocal.

The most well-known take on “State of Independence” is on Donna Summer’s 1982 LP, her first for Geffen, produced by Quincy Jones. An album produced by Giorgio Moroder was shelved, and this was made in its place, and it wasn’t really successful, even though all these years later it resonates, even though Donna Summer is dead, my how time flies. The “hit” on the album is “Love Is In Control (Finger on the Trigger),” which wears its age pretty well, but the killer was always track number three, “The Woman In Me,” talk about smoky and sexy…

The other reason “Moodfood” is famous is it contains an exquisite instrumental entitled “Skinthieves” that features blistering guitar work by Jeff Beck. This was before his “comeback,” when Seattle was booming and Slash was slaying, but no one can hold a candle to Beck, you know it’s him from the very first note. And I’d put the CD in the drawer and play “Skinthieves” over and over again. But sometimes I’d forget to hit the single play repeat button and it would drift into the following track, “Rainsong,” that’s how I’ve discovered so many of my favorites.

Caught in a rainstorm
Wondering what I must do
I’m standing alone
So many miles from you

In today’s WSJ they’ve got the story of the making of Hall & Oates’s “She’s Gone.” Oates wrote the chorus, but the verses were written by Hall, who was getting divorced and just couldn’t get over it. Everybody was telling him his bad mood would pass, but it didn’t feel like that to him. Divorce, the scourge of America, it eviscerates your belief in trust.

I was thinking about our life together
Knowing it must be now or never
To get back to you

I hadn’t seen her in years, but we were not divorced. I’d lost everything, from my father to a body part to all my money. I held on to this marriage, believing it was the only thing that could save me, it was not. But on this last night she ever came to my house I showed her what I’d written, it was brilliant, she had her legs over mine as she read it, she made no comment, and this was the last time she ever walked through my front door.

“Mamunia”
Paul McCartney and Wings

The next time you see L.A. rain clouds
Don’t complain it rains for you and me

McCartney was not on a roll. He’d lost most of his credibility.

And then he put out the best album of the year, “Band On The Run,” but it took a long time for the world to catch up with it. It came out at the end of ’73 and I bought it based on the amazing reviews and I remember playing it all day as I futzed with the lock on my dorm room door.

It was a different era. “Band On The Run” blew your mind, but it was months before it became a single and most people knew it. Kind of like “Hotel California,” the radio was all over “New Kid In Town,” but when you dropped the needle on the title track the day the LP came out you couldn’t believe what was coming out of the speakers.

Now when I played “Mamunia” I’d been to L.A., actually just the summer before, but despite knowing the Albert Hammond song, I really did not know it never rained in Southern California, but it’s gonna rain tomorrow, and “Mamunia” is going through my head in anticipation.

“Rain”
The Beatles

It was the flip side of “Paperback Writer.” They don’t make upbeat music like that anymore, that touches your soul and forces you to get out of your chair and boogie. But the flip side was the the opposite, it was dark and moody, and contained backward vocals, and we all knew this.

“The Rain Song”
Led Zeppelin

I never need to hear “D’yer Mak’er” ever again. I hated it then and I still don’t cotton to it today. My favorite song on “Houses Of The Holy” was always the second side opener, “Dancing Days,” which is well known today, but was rarely heard on the radio back then.

I just don’t get how people say “Houses Of The Holy” is the best Zeppelin album. Even worse, there’s now a whole coterie who say “III” is the best, huh?

Up until recently, everybody seemed to agree the best was “IV,” which, being the contrary person I am, I could never agree with. But I love “IV” now, ironically not for the big famous tracks. I won’t say I turn off “Stairway To Heaven” every time I hear it, but I don’t need to hear it, as for “Black Dog” and “Rock and Roll”…I heard them on the jukebox every night at Tony’s Pizza in Middlebury, Vermont, but they too are not my favorites.

Let’s start with “When The Levee Breaks.” It’s all about the heaviness of Bonzo’s drums, quite possibly the heaviest rock track ever cut, not to discount Jimmy’s exquisite playing and Plant’s peals.

But my real favorite is “The Battle Of Evermore,” if it weren’t for it, almost nobody would remember Sandy Denny…and do you ever get her and Madeline Bell confused? They didn’t look alike, but Madeline played the Sandy role on Rod Stewart’s “Every Picture Tells A Story,” providing the vocal abrasives.

And the third in my triumvirate of “IV” favorites is “Going To California,” that’s what made Zeppelin legendary, they could rock…and they could roll, quietly.

For a long time the first album was my favorite. I loved it from the first note of “Good Times Bad Times,” and then came “Communication Breakdown” but the heart of the album is the quieter, slower numbers. I’ll start with “Dazed And Confused,” then “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and finish with “Your Time Is Gonna Come, which I sing to myself when I’m skiing alone on dark days…

Lyin’, cheatin’, hurtin’, that’s all you seem to do
Messing around with every guy in town
Putting me down for thinking of someone new
Always the same, playing your game
Drive me insane, trouble is gonna come to you
One of these days and it won’t be long
You’ll look for me but baby I’ll be gone
That is all I gotta say to you woman

YOUR TIME IS GONNA COME

You tell yourself when you’re on the losing end of distance. Is it correct? Not always.

But then I lived with six other guys and one woman, a wife, in a condo in Mammoth Lakes and skied for the month of May ’75 and Jimmy Kay played his eight track of “Physical Graffiti” every day to the point where it revealed itself to me, I thought I was burned out on Zeppelin, I thought I could never hear “II” again, but I was brought back, primarily by “Kashmir” and “Ten Years Gone”…and “Trampled Under Foot” and “In The Light” and “Down By The Seaside” (what a set-up for “Ten Years Gone”) and “Night Flight” and “Boogie With Stu” and…”In My Time Of Dying.”

“Ashes The Rain And I”
James Gang

I could be the only person on the planet who prefers the debut, “Yer’ Album” to “Rides Again,” but despite “Funk #49” being the breakthrough on “Rides Again,” this cut was always my favorite, people forget that Joe Walsh isn’t all bombast and humor, that he’s got a soft, sensitive side too, but my second favorite cut on “Rides Again” is “The Bomber…”

“Box Of Rain”
The Grateful Dead”

And I seem to be the only person who prefers “Workingman’s Dead” to “American Beauty.”

“Coloured Rain”
Al Kooper

The original is on the first Traffic LP, but Al does the definitive version, overproduced, as opposed to the underproduced original, with horns and sound effects, “I Stand Alone” is a classic.

“Early Morning Rain”
Gordon Lightfoot

You missed it, he still plays, but he can no longer sing.

Gordon did great work, but I must admit I prefer his latter hit the best, “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald,” which sounds like you’re really on a boat on Lake Superior, in a no cell zone, where it’s just the wind and your thoughts.

“Same Old Lang Syne”
Dan Fogelberg

This is how I met Irving Azoff. I wrote about this song and he insisted I come to his office at MCA so he could tell me the real story.

I always liked this number, but speaking of the mailing list…Epic sent a double LP Live album in ’91 entitled “Greetings From The West” and it contains the definitive version of “Same Old Lang Syne.”

And as I turned to make my way back home
The snow turned into rain

That’s the worst, it’s so depressing, snow is so lovely, it makes you feel good, but when it changes into rain, especially when it lands on snow…ick.

“I Wish It Would Rain”
The Faces

Speaking of Rod Stewart…

This is from the final Faces LP, a live one, “Coast to Coast: Overture and Beginners,” which I purchased, because I was such a Rod Stewart fan, the guy he was, not the one he turned out to be, but I didn’t play it much.

“Mandolin Rain”
Bruce Hornsby and the Range

From the amazing initial Hornsby LP, which contained the legendary “The Way It Is”…do you know what it was like hearing that piano come out of the radio in the summer of ’86, I immediately had to run out and buy the album, and I was not disappointed. “Mandolin Rain” is probably the second best song, but I like “Down The Road Tonight” with Huey Lewis just after he became HUEY LEWIS!

“Neon Rainbow”

Does this qualify as a rain song? I’m not sure. This was a surprise after “The Letter,” this was before Big Star, before we knew he was ALEX CHILTON, then again, after his name was in capitals I saw him in a bar in Downtown L.A.

“Raining On Sunday”
Keith Urban

From when he still thought he could do no wrong, from before his disappointment with “Defying Gravity,” after he intellectualized his career, went for safety with pop “hits.” The original is by Radney Foster, but this is one of the rare instances where the cover is superior to the original. I’ll include Foster’s version for comparison, but then I’m tempted to include “Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me,” from the same Urban LP, “Golden Road,” my second favorite cut of his, with such a great message, you know…

And the sun is shinin’
This road keeps windin’
Through the prettiest country
From Georgia to Tennessee
And I got the one I love beside me
My trouble behind me
I’m alive and I’m free
Who wouldn’t wanna be me

“Rain On The Roof”
Lovin’ Spoonful

All we hear is “Summer In The City,” maybe “Do You Believe In Magic,” John Sebastian lost his voice and his image is tarred from his rainbow outfit at Woodstock and therefore his brilliance is never noted.

My second favorite is “Six O’Clock,” which I did not know because it wasn’t a big single on New York radio, but I heard it during a battle of the bands at the Jewish Community Center and never forgot it…the band that played it won! Remember that era, when we’d go to the gym for a battle of the bands, talk about passe.

But my absolute favorite is “Darlin’ Be Home Soon”… I didn’t truly realize how great it was until I heard the cover on Joe Cocker’s second LP, but this song is just about as good as it gets.

“I Can Stand The Rain”
Lowell George

From his so-so solo album just before he O.D.’ed.

I’m thinking either no one will know Lowell George in the future or everybody will. That’s how it is. Sometimes the secondary figures are prominent in the future, look at Lowell’s work…he added spice, and never too much.

“Buckets Of Rain”
Bob Dylan

The last song on “Blood On The Tracks,” for a long time it was my favorite, so simple… Does anybody talk about “Meet Me In The Morning” but me?

“Rain”
Patty Griffin

From her masterpiece, “1000 Kisses.”

Once upon a time it mattered that A&M killed that Patty Griffin LP, but all these years later Patty and her style of music gets no traction in the world, making it a much harsher place.

“Baby The Rain Must Fall”
Glenn Yarbrough

I completely forgot this track until I got satellite radio and heard it and it sounded so good.

“Cry Like A Rainstorm”
Bonnie Raitt

Far superior to the ultimate Linda Ronstadt version, if Ronstadt gets a documentary, doesn’t Raitt deserve one? With her ups and downs, more honest instead of a whitewash?

Of course, Eric Kaz wrote the tune, I’m gonna include it here, so he gets some recognition.

“Delta Rain”
The Blessing

The right album at the wrong time, released just as grunge was emerging, “Prince Of The Deep Water” tanked.

The band was managed by my friend. In a gesture of good faith he tore up the contract and then the band left him, it always happens this way.

I still remember him playing me the demo at his house on Monument in the Palisades, he said “Don’t blow me out of the water on this..” and then pushed play. I’m a harsh critic, I never hear a good demo, but I loved this and told him so.

This is probably the best song on the album, which some say was overproduced, but I don’t think so. It was produced by Neil Dorfsman, who was so hot, but then he called it a day.

So did my friend, he committed suicide, not over this, but I wish he were here now so I could tell him how great this track still is.

“When It’s Raining”
The Samples

Jim Lewi was working for Rob Gordon, he told me they were putting out an album by the Samples, who’d left Arista after their first album, this was back in ’92, before it was a badge of honor to be on an indie, I did not know the band, I figured the record would suck…anything but.

This is the opening cut on “No Room,” the band’s best work, but “Transmissions From The Sea Of Tranquility” is really good too, with the version of “The Last Drag,” as a matter of fact all the Samples albums have winners, Sean Kelly was and is a real musical talent, just a bad businessman.

Listening to “The Last Drag” right now…makes me want to cry, that was so long ago, I’m connecting with who I used to be, before the internet both blew apart my life and saved it.

“Rainy Day Man”
James Taylor

From the very first album, on Apple, the definitive version, just before the magical cover of “Circle ‘Round The Sun.” This is the LP with the original, fast version of “Carolina In My Mind.” It does not contain “Fire And Rain” which I could not listen to for a long time but still resonates when I hear it now, but my favorite cut today is the title track, “Sweet Baby James,” with its lines…

Now the first of December was covered with snow
So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
Though the Berkshires seemed dream-like on account of that frosting
With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go

The Mass Pike had tolls, they gave you this card when you got on, do they still have them, I haven’t been on it in years.

And I know the Berkshires by heart, but Mt. Tom is no longer a ski area and the snow so often turns to rain there, south of Vermont.

Spring sprung a few weeks back in L.A. I felt it, the sun was brighter, it boosted my mood, but really I’m more of a winter guy, I don’t want the snow to go, maybe next time we’ll do snow.
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Of course it’s going to be canceled, it’s just a matter of when.

You see it’s all about the money. Goldenvoice has to pay the acts unless there’s force majeure, essentially an act of God, something completely out of the control of the promoter.

As for insurance?

Ever since SARS the promoters have none.

So, it would probably be wise to announce a cancellation immediately. That would save Goldenvoice some money and allow patrons to cancel/adjust their plans.

But who is going to take the hit?

Of course everybody loses money if the event is canceled. But right now, the promoter and the acts are playing a game of chicken. Goldenvoice is waiting for an edict from the government that the gig can’t happen, and the acts are not gonna cancel until that occurs.

So, we’re waiting.

But we know what direction this is going in. Just look at Italy!

As for China, recent word is it’s much worse than portrayed and it’s not actually fading.

The upside?

The live business is burgeoning, because it’s an experience in a world of fungible goods.

The downside?

It requires an assembly of masses of people.

Punters believe we live in a world of strict liability, one in which every loss is covered. It’s kind of ridiculous if you think about it. Furthermore, corporations want to pay less, railing about the fees of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. But the truth is those fees, and the ultimate payments, are usually quite small, relatively, and they’re the only check against these companies, if they don’t make you go to arbitration to begin with, where the company almost always wins. If you’re waiting for the government to save you… Just look at Boeing, and many other industries, the corporations basically check themselves, or there are too few inspectors to do the work anyway, like in the meat business. So we need class actions and “shyster” attorneys to level the playing field. As for the McDonald’s hot coffee case…on the surface, it sounds ridiculous, but in trying to make sure the coffee was still hot when you drank it at the office, McDonald’s made it so hot that it burned a customer’s skin. You want to be protected against that, right? As for bogus claims, they rarely get paid. Although nuisance claims get paid all the time, it’s oftentimes cheaper to pay than to go through the process of litigation. It’s an imperfect system, but it’s the one we’ve got.

And, insurance companies are in the business of not paying. It’s kind of like Vegas, if the gamblers were winning, the whole city would not exist. Insurers have to make a profit. And insurers can go broke. An agent writes the policy and oftentimes it’s laid off on a bunch of reinsurance companies, to spread the risk, but when a catastrophe hits, there may not be enough money to make all the insureds whole, the insurance companies just declare bankruptcy.

So, if you paid for plane tickets and Coachella is canceled, you’re eating them. Although, many airlines are saying if you book now and then cancel it’s okay… But what about if you already booked?

Your hotel may or may not give you your money back.

All those businesses in Palm Springs… That money is lost.

And this is bigger than Coachella. This affects the entire nation. The aforementioned airlines are screwed, they’re cutting back flights, but still costs are relatively static, whether people fly or not. As for the flight attendants and pilots, they’ll be laid off.

As for the government?

So far, it’s only saying it’s going to help the corporations. As in socialism for the rich and democracy for the poor. The government has got enough money, it’s just more concerned with the auto industry and other big donors than the individual. And sure, the big corporations do employ many people, but individuals are at the end of the line, always.

After Coachella…there goes Jazz Fest and Bonnaroo and the rest of the festivals. You’ve got to keep your customers safe, if they’re dead they cannot buy tickets.

And this is a Tylenol situation. It’ll be interesting to see whether promoters bend over backwards like Johnson & Johnson or deny like Perrier. In a crisis, too many companies do the wrong thing, especially since the executives did not start the outfit and have little ownership interest.

The promoters need to tell the ticketholders they will be made whole. Maybe, similar to the airlines, you can cancel any ticket two weeks out. This will give the promoter time to resell the ducat, frequently for a higher price.

The promoters have to say they won’t lay people off.

The promoters must give the illusion that it’s safety first. Which is why they should cancel these shows now instead of later, but it’s all about the contracts, the public comes last.

As for the public… You’re never gonna go to a show with tens of thousands of people from all over the world…no one will show up, they’re too scared, especially in a world where European nations are already limiting the size of public gatherings.

And instead of denying the problem, promoters have to get ahead of it, they can’t be like Trump telling everybody they’re safe and more people die from the flu. You’ve got to be overly cautious so people trust you.

As for the coronavirus being gone by the hot weather…there were three waves of the Spanish flu, so…

We don’t know what’s gonna happen folks, at least with the coronavirus.

We do know what’s gonna happen in the concert industry…shows will be canceled.

But what you don’t know is many performers and managers live hand to mouth, I’ve heard from a number if their tours don’t go out they’ll be broke. There’s this image that everybody in the music business is rich, but that is not so.

It’s a good time to own Netflix stock.

To live outside the law you must be honest.

Bob Dylan

I just wasted an hour watching Bill Maher tell Democrats to take corporate money.

He doesn’t get it.

Bernie Sanders is a bigger rock star than anybody making music today. Why? BECAUSE HE SAYS NO!

Being a rock star is all about credibility, which is why there are no financial rock stars, and very few tech rock stars. Rock stars don’t do market research, they hew to their own tuning fork, they don’t do what is expedient but what is right. And all this draws an audience to them.

Did you read that Justin Bieber had to scale down some of his dates? Yup, switch them from stadiums to arenas. Pop acts? Live by the hit, die by the hit. And nitwit Justin who has been in the spotlight for most of his life doesn’t even know right from wrong, he tried to game the system and got busted for it, further depreciating his credibility while releasing stiff music to boot. Come on, that single? One listen told me it wasn’t gonna go. You don’t need a Berklee degree to know which way the song blows.

But there are acts that haven’t had a hit in eons who can go clean at every gig.

Take a look at the Eagles. Hipsters like to rag on them. But the fans keep paying exorbitant prices to see them. Why? Well, first and foremost the songs, second Don Henley is really that guy. He stands by his choices. Stands up to the man. And this makes people believe in the music. Your identity is intertwined with your music, compromise either and you’re toast.

People like to say it’s different today. It sure is, no one’s got a backbone, no one is willing to hang it out there. They won’t take a stand because it might potentially alienate a fan. But if you appeal to everybody, you’re Donny Osmond. He tried to regroup but it was too late, he was branded.

So today you go on a TV singing show, even though no one has made it from “The Voice” in America ever, and TV has less credibility in music than it ever has. Used to be being on Letterman was a breakthrough, now late night TV has such anemic ratings you’re better off staying home, better off investing in social media. Just say no to TV.

And just say no to multiple songwriters. It isn’t about the hit. You can make it without hits at all. It’s about what’s coming straight from your heart. The audience wants to believe it’s coming directly from you, that you’re that person.

Sure, you can have a few hits and still play the lounge in Vegas when you’re in your seventies, but that’s commerce, not art.

People can tell the difference.

Everybody’s a sausage-maker today. Analyzing the landscape, molding their product for consumption, even though breakthroughs always come from rugged individuals on the outside. Like Steve Jobs. There hasn’t been a techie like him since, except maybe Elon Musk, who unfortunately overpromises and underdelivers. Meanwhile, the press and the short-sellers couldn’t stop ragging on Tesla, and then the stock price went through the roof! In other words, the media and the street were out of touch with the public, the investors. Kinda like Ford calling their new SUV a Mustang. What next, a moped called a Camaro?

It’s so hard to make it today that everybody wants to sell out, not realizing that everything builds slowly, most people are not interested in you, and if you hang in there long enough, and are good enough, you can make hay out of your career. Come on, all those people coming to the show to buy CDs and vinyl when they don’t have the equipment to play them on?

But purity is history in America today, even though it’s purity we are looking for.

We want Mr. Smith, and we want him to go to Washington, even though they don’t make movies like that anymore.

You’ve got to have the goods.

Bernie Sanders spends a lifetime in politics, Mike Bloomberg, a billionaire, comes along and expects to buy votes with saturation advertising. But it turns out it only worked in American Samoa! You see people are just not that dumb.

That’s what everybody keeps saying about the public, that people are dumb.

But they’ve got the same streaming channels, the same smartphones, the same internet as the rest of the country, why should they be so ignorant?

I’m not talking about being in their own silo. You’re in your own silo too. In a world where everybody knows more than they ever did, one individual knows less of the total world than he or she ever did. But the old swinging dicks, the reporters, the TV talking heads, talk down to us, like they know, WHEN THEY DON’T!

Art is instinct.

If a person is winning at the corporation, they’re probably not an artist. The aforementioned Steve Jobs couldn’t work for anybody, he brought on Sculley and immediately got blown out. Artists are leaders, not followers.

And artists have doubts, but they continue to forge ahead.

All of today’s metrics are wrong. The number of followers… Hell, we’re not running for school office here, we’re wondering about influence, and it turns out most of these influencers don’t have any, they’re just cottage industries that always go broke when the perpetrator finds out they’re working 24/7 and are burned out. And are they missed? An artist is missed if they don’t produce. Can you say Tool? Their absence made their fans grow fonder.

All we keep hearing about is selling. That’s what music advice has turned into. How to market yourself, use social media, get on playlists, with everybody going the same way don’t you think it’d be those who walk the road less taken who would stand out?

There’s not enough money in music to always say yes. Leave some money on the table. But in a world where the insider business person has a longer career than the act, these lifers just tell the acts to sell out and they do, to their detriment.

Maybe you just want some fame and some cash, some notoriety, the ability to cut the line.

That’s cool, but you are not an artist.

They hate Bernie Sanders because he didn’t play it their way. If you’re a student of the game, if you read all the media and watch all the TV, you’ll find it’s a full court press to eliminate Bernie.

I don’t care whether he wins or not (actually I do, but that’s not the point), but the truth is by staking out positions that are not focus-grouped, and sticking with them, he’s raised more money than any other Democratic candidate…now that’s support!

And who does he have to answer to? HIS FANS!

And what do the fans want? FOR HIM TO KEEP ON DOING WHAT HE’S DOING!

Actually, you see it on Patreon. It’s all niche. You haven’t heard of most of the acts and never will, but they’re concerned with being themselves and speaking to their audiences without any middleman.

Well, that’s not completely true, they’re all selling stuff to stay alive, Patreon’s a bastion of merch, but they are happy serving their base, and I’m cool with that, just as long as they don’t complain they’re not bigger.

Not everyone deserves to be bigger, not everybody is a rock star, not everybody is an artist.

An artist captures lightning and distills truth for the rest of us.

That’s what we’re all looking for, truth and insight.

And pop music has never delivered this, whether it be in the forties or today. Usually art is too dangerous, too different for the pop chart. But sometimes the noise is so loud the art invades the bastion. Like in the late sixties, when Cream invaded AM, Janis Joplin and others too.

But what happened after that?

AM died. Because all the action was on FM. AM was for losers. Ignore the charts from that era, singles meant little, albums meant everything.

And now the establishment keeps going on about albums. An artist would forge a different direction, but all the supposed “artists” just want a return to the past.

Picasso and Braque went totally abstract with cubism.

But Picasso kept changing and Braque kept repeating himself and it’s Picasso who is the legend.

Kinda like David Bowie. We don’t have artists like this today, who are willing to go in completely new directions, not caring about the audience’s expectations.

Artists don’t give people what they want, but what they need.

And there are very few artists out there.

And some of the best have been killed by the crowd. Let’s start with Lenny Bruce.

It takes courage to go the other way.

In this completely sold out culture we now inhabit, where facts are fungible and everybody is selling you something, it’s truth we want.

We’re waiting…

How many anti-Trump voters are there?

Turns out this primary season was not about the candidates, but Trump. And after the marginal candidates dropped out, after Biden exceeded expectations in South Carolina, the mainstream media spread fear and most Democratic primary voters lined up behind Biden.

This has got nothing to do with what Biden stands for, it’s just that the word has been spread that he’s the best person to beat Trump. That’s what all that “electability” conversation was about over the past year.

In other words, ultimately it hasn’t mattered what anybody has said, the DNC and the mainstream media want to play it safe.

It’s not only the “Times,” but MSNBC too. The channel has moved to the right under Andy Lack, Mr. Rootkit, and all over the web people are agitated about its bias against Bernie Sanders. Which was even referenced today in the “Times” article about Bernie finally going on the channel:

Bernie Sanders Had a Problem With MSNBC. Then Came Super Tuesday.

But it all doesn’t matter. Hell, it doesn’t even matter if Bernie or Biden is ultimately the candidate, because the media and the pollsters don’t have a handle on the mood of the country.

All you read about are the Trump supporters, his approval rating.

But not only were the polls wrong in 2016, but on Super Tuesday too.

In other words, the 24 hour news channels are too deep into it. The minutiae don’t matter, turns out most people hate Trump, and he’s gonna lose in a landslide.

Huh?

The left has let the right define the debate for decades now. Which is how we ended up with Bumbling Biden. You see after 2016 the left is so scared of the right that it’s afraid to take a risk, it’s afraid to fail, there’s no big thinking allowed, the media and the corporations and the wealthy are spreading this fiction that Trump is an indomitable force, when really he’s a doofus most people abhor. Furthermore, they don’t understand that their failure to stand for anything other than a return to the status quo will bite them in the ass in the future. But for now, any Democrat can win.

Come on, Biden is seen as history, a man who can raise no money, who was disgraced in New Hampshire, but suddenly he cleaned up on Super Tuesday? The man didn’t change, the spin did. The media and the DNC rolled up the African-Americans and other people of color and stated that they’ll only come out for Biden, and if you’re scared of Trump, vote for him.

None of the polls predicted this.

And now in the news it’s a fait accompli that Biden is the candidate.

And yes, Biden will be terrible in the debates, Ukraine will haunt him, his right wing compromises will surface, but it all doesn’t matter, because people hate Trump just that much.

Oh, don’t go deep on me, don’t make it about Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, never mind Florida, people hate Trump EVERYWHERE! And they can’t wait to vote against him. Which is why Biden did so well on Tuesday with very little money. The Democrats circled the wagons and said THIS IS OUR GUY!

And now they’re dealing with Sanders like he’s passe, but they still don’t get it, this election is about Trump, plain and simple.

But the Democratic wankers in Congress, at the DNC, are so caught up in history and polls that they can’t see it. Don’t they understand they’ve got Trump on the run? That Mueller and impeachment and Barr are all set-up for the big fall? The mishandling of the coronavirus wouldn’t be such a big deal for Trump if it didn’t come after the foregoing and Puerto Rico and now you’ve got that Republican judge bringing down Barr? I’ve got to say it one more time… How do you lose a Presidency? Very slowly, then all at once.

That’s today’s world. Things either happen slow or fast. Try breaking your record, good luck, it took Lizzo two years on the same damn album for anybody to notice. But Biden wins in South Carolina and the whole primary season changes. You can’t measure these events, you can’t even predict them, they’re about emotions, feelings in a world of facts. If you want to know what is going on in this world, pull back, the insiders live for the action and suddenly it’s not about the action, and it’s not about the details, it’s about one thing and one thing only…TRUMP!

Oh, you’ll get some advisors saying that’s a bad tack, to go after the man. But when Bozo is wearing no clothes and bouncing off the walls why would you ignore him when everybody notices him?

You’ve got the right wing nutjobs who voted for Trump. The evangelicals who are twisting the Bible, the gun nuts. But you also had people sick and tired of the system. They wanted to put a stick in the spokes. They wanted change.

And Trump did not deliver it.

All we keep hearing about is the economy. The average person doesn’t worry about the economy, but they’re damn worried about losing their job because of the coronavirus.

You’ve got to give the DNC and the media credit for one thing, after South Carolina they got organized. I’m not saying they were right, if they were they’d stop denigrating Sanders’s policies which in truth people want. But they scared the public and made it about Trump, to their credit.

Between the environment and China and Iran Trump is sinking his own ship. All the media does is write about those who agree with him, but most people DON’T!

And if the media had taken Trump seriously back in 2016, there’s no way he would have won, too many voters became complacent, Hillary was gonna win, there was no reason to vote.

I wish there was someone internet-savvy who could run for President, someone who knows how the younger generation really thinks, and how it acts. It wasn’t Buttigieg…the guy who endorsed Sanders in the past and then excoriated him when it became expedient, someone who couldn’t even run his own small town. No, this calls for someone familiar with YouTube, and social networks, someone who really understands how to build consensus amongst a populace that tunes out day to day affairs.

Youngsters have no respect for the game, none. They think D.C. is a joke. And they don’t need a Mueller report to teach them about hacking and privacy and the power of bad actors. Come on, Nigerians are trying to scam them EVERY DAMN DAY!

You’re your own policeman. If you don’t practice good computer hygiene, your computer will soon be overrun with viruses and become unusable. As a matter of fact, I personally know a couple of boomers experiencing this. They’ve given up on their laptops, it’s all phone all the time.

And everybody knows the tech world is run on the iPhone. But that’s not the story we read online, it’s all about finances. But when all the movers and thinkers are on one platform…

If you use an Android and know how to configure it, customize it to your preferences, more power to you, I see no problem in you using this device. But this is a vocal minority, most Android users buy these devices because they’re cheap, or think that a smartphone is really just a phone, quite a dumb one at that. Which is why despite having only a sliver of the market, the iPhone generates all the revenue, in sales, the App Store.

Yes, we find these truths to be self-evident. And there are a zillion truths, which the political industrial system is ignoring as it continues to adhere to business as usual, employing the same damn theories they did in the sixties and seventies, as if tomorrow Bob Seger is gonna rule the charts via vinyl!

No way!

Trump changed the paradigm, he went directly to his base, via Twitter. How brilliant is that! Biden probably thinks Instagram is a way to get candy delivered the same day you order it. In other words, Trump knows more about today than anybody at the DNC and those in punditworld. Trump understands everything is instant, and what is said today is forgotten tomorrow, and that if you don’t cross over the edge now and again no one will ever pay attention to you!

Screw a return to normalcy. You can’t wear jeans to school and your skirt has to cover your knee and your hair must not go over your ears??? God, things change, and you’ve got to change with them!

People don’t care if Bernie went to Russia, if he praises some good things dictators have done. That stuff doesn’t stick anymore! The media is all about canceling people whereas the public forgives, it’s all grist for the mill.

Like the cancellation of Woody Allen’s book. This looks insane to the hoi polloi. The guy is an octogenarian who was vindicated in a court of law but Michael Milken gets a pardon?

I don’t like that Woody married the adopted child of Mia Farrow, but we’re talking about child molestation here, and if we can’t trust a court of law…

It’s just like the Republicans. They’ve made the law irrelevant.

On many levels the Democrats are just as bad. The people fighting these issues ignore the rank and file, who are worried about putting food on their plate and sexual harassment at work. Sure, it’s great that they got rid of the news anchors, but how about my boss?

I mean if you really want to protest Woody Allen’s book, print it and implore people not to buy it. But Hachette is blown sideways by insiders, afraid to offend anyone, meanwhile Trump doesn’t care what anybody thinks and offends people every damn day!

So if these one issue voters can compromise for Biden, how many other people can overlook his faux pas just to get rid of the Orange Menace? MANY!

Make it about Trump. Don’t allow the right to quote polls and talk about the economy, they’re switching the subject.

The real subject in the United States today is how you can’t make it here, which is what Bernie and Elizabeth have spoken about.

But the elites couldn’t cotton to this.

Okay, so let’s play their game, let’s make it very simple, it doesn’t matter who the Democrats nominate because he’s gonna win, because most people want to get rid of Trump!

If you turned off the camera and stopped pontificating and listened you’d know this.

But insiders are always the last to know, they’re too busy protecting their fiefdoms.

Trump is history… BELIEVE IT!