I had a taste of the real world (just a drop of it)
When I went down on you girl

That’s what passed for salaciousness back in ’75, when the Jefferson Airplane, reconstituted as Jefferson Starship, sans Jorma and Jack, came out of nowhere to dominate the charts once again.

Actually, there was a prelude, back in ’74, on the previous album by this incarnation, when Marty Balin guest-starred on “Caroline,” the best track on “Dragon Fly.”

But Grace Slick gets all the credit. Not that she does not deserve a lot of it, she was one of a kind, Courtney Love with better music and a better temperament, even though Grace did go off the rails at the end of her fame with her drinking.

But Jefferson Airplane has been forgotten completely. Whittled down to two tracks, “Somebody To Love” and “White Rabbit.” An oldies act for oldies radio. Nothing meaningful, whereas that was anything but the case.

The curse of the Airplane was to be a progenitor, the first act from the San Francisco scene to break through, in ’67, before FM, before album rock. They were before their time, it’s just that they were so good, they ultimately succeeded on AM radio. But never having another hit when everybody was paying attention to LPs, their fame faded. Sure, they got footage in the “Woodstock” movie, but all the buzz was about the previously unheralded, those coming up, like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. And to be honest, by 1970, politics were starting to fade. Sure, there was Kent State, but the boomers were burned out, the era of hedonism, of retreating into the land, had begun. Jefferson Airplane was a band out of time. And now there’s no time left at all.

Paul Kantner passed with barely a whimper, although to be accurate, he went in a flurry of passings, Bowie and Frey eclipsed him. Furthermore, nobody in the Airplane was warm and fuzzy, they were a bunch of irascible hotheads, at least the three front people, Grace, Paul and Marty. They were not sanitized for consumption. According to Bill Graham, once they had any money they just wanted to go home and smoke dope. But, if today’s acts really wanted to break through, they’d study the Airplane, because their middle class ethos was the soul of the sixties. We’re as smart as anybody on the planet and we’ll mess you up while having fun all the while. It was all about testing limits.

But that did not mean the music was not ear-pleasing.

Sure, the band had no success without Grace, who debuted on their second album, with those aforementioned radio hits, but what sticks out besides them is “Today”…

Today, I feel like pleasing you
More than before

If you want to truly experience the sixties, get stoned in a dark room and listen to “Today,” that’s what it was really like, preserved on wax.

To be living for you
Is all I need to do
To be loving you
It’ll all be there
When my dreams come true

It wasn’t about assets, acquisitions, ho’s, it was about feelings, about love.

Today everything you want
I swear it will all come true

That was the optimism of the sixties. We believed we could have it. Not a bigger house and a bigger car, but personal fulfillment.

And it was Marty on “Young Girl Sunday Blues” from “After Bathing At Baxter’s,” Marty could not only be soft and sweet, after all he wrote and sang “Plastic Fantastic Lover” on “Surrealistic Pillow,” then again his voice was sweet and mellifluous, no matter what the material. This was back when you had to have talent to make it, pipes, and TV was for sell-outs.

And Marty cowrote “Volunteers” with Paul Kantner and supplied the enthusiastic, emphatic vocal.

One generation got old
One generation got soul

But now that generation is old and soulless. Overpaying to see their heroes perform the hits of yore, too many who were unwilling to grow their hair and stand up for something when that mattered.

But not Marty.

Actually, if you’re an attorney, it’s his name that adorns the most famous case in California entertainment law, Buchwald v. Katz. That’s right, Marty’s real name was “Buchwald.” You see they were in the band, it was their act, but their manager Matthew Katz held all the money.

So, the band broke up. There was that reconstitution as Jefferson Starship. Then there was another breakup, seemed like Marty could never go straight, never accept success, never do it for the money. Then Starship cut the execrable “We Built This City” and the whole band’s image has been in the dumper ever since, even though Marty, Jorma and Jack had nothing to do with that. Marty cut a solo LP for EMI, I bought that, it was not successful, and then, Marty faded away.

Oh, let’s not forget, before leaving Jefferson Starship, before they became AOR darlings then jokes, it was Marty who cowrote and sang the only hit on “Red Octopus”‘s follow-up, “With Your Love,” from “Spitfire,” and although he did not write “Count On Me” from “Earth,” it was his voice once again that put it over the top. But if you ask someone under thirty who he is, you’re gonna get blank stares. Hell, it won’t be long before Grace Slick will garner the same result. She retired, you’re not supposed to. But the point is these people are fading away, and they are not radiating.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, if you made it through you were supposed to last. If you made it to retirement age, you were at least supposed to make it to your eighties, hell, look at Paul McCartney, he’s chugging along, but his contemporary, Marty Balin, has bitten the dust.

And if you talk about performance, that’s another place the Airplane excelled. Because every show was different, because they were rough and experimental and then the band’s time passed. They tried to recapture the magic in ’89, but that failed, as it usually does, music is of a time and place. But it’s supposed to last forever, right? Seemingly not, can’t tell you the last time I’ve heard anything from “Volunteers” on the radio.

But for a moment there, for more than one moment…

If only you believe like I believe, baby

We all believed. Music was the baby boomers’ fuel. It was not entertainment, it was soul-fulfillment. If you wanted to connect with the universe, you turned out the light, lay down on your bed and let the music wash over you. And when you heard your favorites on the car radio that was all we had, no phone, no interruptions, your mind was set free, those were our peak experiences, and we’ve never forgotten them.

We lived in the age of miracles.

And Marty Balin helped perform them.

These people feel inviolate.

You cannot reach them and they don’t want to be reachable. That’s why they live behind gates, fly private and vacation in locations you’ve never heard of. There are a lot of bad actors these days, but now they’re being called out.

Like Purdue Pharma. Individuals run that company, and they’ve got our nation hooked on opiates. They say they’re just trying to salve our pain, but the truth is they spread false information to gain market share and profits, they literally said OxyContin was not addictive, even though no study ever proved that, just a comment from a doctor in a hospital after dealing with patients after treatment.

Someone’s got to pay for our flaws. Especially now that Wall Street has not.

I know, I know, you feel powerless, but never forget, the youth stopped the Vietnam War.

But that was a different era, when everybody under thirty was a liberal, when the Youngbloods sang about getting together and smiling on your brother, before the age of greed where if I succeeded and you failed who cared, and if you were poor and downtrodden it was your own damn fault. Never mind health issues, accidents, you should have made better choices and dem’s the breaks.

But protest got confused in the MTV era, despite the eradication of the fairness doctrine, outlets felt they had an obligation to depict both sides. But there aren’t always two sides. And sometimes one side has more value than another. But those pursuing good have been protecting the rights of those doing bad for so long that we entered the age of false equivalencies. If someone said the Earth was round, you had to write that someone else said the Earth was flat. And don’t laugh, there’s truly a flat Earth movement today, despite photos from space, that’s right, that’s how far science has been kicked down by people who want to do what they want willy-nilly for personal gain.

So we weren’t born with the protesting gene. Or maybe it was just dormant. My point is, in the early sixties not everybody protested, but some did. Most notoriously against racism in the south. And suddenly, people you knew were going. Our rabbi did. I wasn’t even ten, but that was surprising, shouldn’t he have been at the temple? No, sometimes you’ve got to crawl over the walls of your domain to stand up for the right thing, which is why when people say celebrities and sports stars should mind their own business you should ignore them. Because only people with mindshare, with traction, can get heard these days.

Unless there is a crisis.

We are in a crisis.

The patriarchy has been abusing its subjects for far too long. Is there a man in the universe who wants to stand up for sexual abuse? Other than the truly demented, no. So…

That brings us to the elevator pitch. No, it’s not just for business. Why is everything business in America, at the cost of people? Kinda like college, I went for the liberal arts, there was no business curriculum at Middlebury, nor any objective exams, everything was an essay, so you were forced to be able to write. How many Americans have this skill today? Yes, I am privileged, but I wish my brethren were too. I wish schools didn’t teach to the test, I wish it was legitimate to expand upon emotions as well as facts. Those are the teachers I remember, the ones who set my mind free, had me questioning precepts, like Mrs. Hurley and Mr. Harrity.

So we watched the Freedom Riders. We listened to folk music. And then came the Vietnam War. Did you want to get your ass shot off in Southeast Asia?

Now at first we thought we’d win. Easy, we’re the USA! Kinda like those nitwits chanting at sports events and rallies. Words are easy, accomplishments are difficult. Turns out we couldn’t win. And too many lives were sacrificed in the process. Did you want to sacrifice yours? HELL NO!

So suddenly there was a movement, and you protested too.

Now there is a women’s movement, but the patriarchy wants to ignore it, because it never confronted it. Women were for housework, cleaning and raising babies. And even if they had a job, they still had to perform these tasks, and stand by their man. Hell, how long until we have a woman President? And we keep losing female CEOs. Sure, there’s some affirmative action, but that’s gotten a bad name too, so white privilege can be sustained.

Then Johnson said he wouldn’t run.

After a D.C. protest Richard Nixon went to the Lincoln Memorial to speak with college students. Sure, he talked about surfing, but he tried. He got the message, the youth were unhappy. HOW IN HELL DID THE REPUBLICANS NOT GET THE MESSAGE THAT WOMEN ARE UNHAPPY?

They’re half the constituency. Are these guys so caught up in their game that they can’t see the forest for the trees? Sure, politics is a team sport, but without fans you’ve got no business.

And then you’ve got some women confronting Flake in an elevator.

No one likes to be called on the carpet, no one likes to be confronted, which is why we have the Secret Service, why every celebrity has bodyguards, to keep them from the hoi polloi. Sure, there are bad actors, but unless you’re willing to interact with the populace, you’ve got no idea what’s going on.

The Republican team has no idea what’s going on in America.

You can only push people so far before they revolt.

I thought it was about abortion, when it was eliminated we’d see civil warfare. But that hasn’t happened yet, even though it’s nearly impossible to get an abortion in some states.

But sexual offenses…

What do they say, it’s about power?

And no one wants to feel powerless.

And it’s bad enough enduring the offense, but being ignored when you bring it up?

Kavanaugh wants to be considered innocent before proven guilty. How about all those women who had to defend themselves after they were sexually assaulted? And don’t bring up some liars, there are exceptions to every rule. That’s gotcha! politics. One immigrant commits an offense and all immigrants are guilty.

But they’re not.

You’re taken advantage of and you’re guilty?

NO WAY!

So protest needs to be rethought for the twenty first century. Grabbing placards and hanging in a designated space does nothing. But when you’re in someone’s face, someone’s space…

I’m not preaching violence, I’m not preaching civil disobedience, I’m preaching access and action. Go to the source, because that’s where the problem lies.

It starts with the individual. Someone has to refuse to go to the back of the bus, someone has to confront Jeff Flake in the elevator. And somehow it’s always a member of the rank and file, with supposedly little to lose. Got anything in America and you cower, but that’s not what our nation was built upon.

And I don’t care about the right wing position, not a whit. They’ve controlled the dialog, never mind the government, for far too long, but somehow they’ve convinced America it’s our fault, the hardworking people. It’s most of America that has been battered, and based on the economics, we’re living in the shelter. But it’s our fault. IT’S NOT!

Just like the Arab Spring. It only takes one person to stand up for justice.

There’s not a woman alive who has not been disadvantaged by men. It starts in kindergarten, if not before. And the truth is change is hard, it makes men uncomfortable, but that does not mean it should not happen.

Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court is secondary to sexual abuse. There it is, plain and simple. Whether he gets confirmed or not. Maybe he’s just unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the last to squeak through before new rules. But some things are bigger than the individual. Sometimes you’ve got to jump out of your little life and stand up for what’s right.

Come on, you know what’s right. Deep inside. No matter what you say, it’s the telltale heart that cannot be denied.

Just because everybody else is a lying, cheating scumbag that does not mean you’ve got to be one too… As a matter of fact, you’re categorically against being one, you can’t bend the rules, you can only be honest.

But to triumph in America today that’s anathema. It’s all duplicity and shading 24/7. Not only in government, but tech. Hide behind the cloak of anonymity, but achieve your goals.

That’s not the American way.

What Ana Maria Archila did is more American than anything Lindsay Graham bloviated.

Let her be a beacon. Truth and passion go a long way, and always triumph in a game of rock/paper/scissors.

That’s the American Way.

He acted like a guy who always gets his way.

There’s a path. I’m not sure the underclass can see it, I’m not even sure the middle class can see it. Where you go to a good prep school to get into a good college to go to a good graduate school to end up at the top of the heap. In the legal world, it’s about making partner. You do well in law school to get into a great firm where you work your butt off and…

It usually doesn’t go this way. Life has a way of bumping you off the track. Not everybody can make partner, never mind get a job with a top-tier firm. And there are personal challenges. Your own health, that of your family. Death, accidents. No one lives a charmed life.

But Brett Kavanaugh believes he’s entitled to one.

We live on the internet, our privacy is shot, but somehow Kavanaugh is immune. He says how his life has been ruined. Ask anybody else in the public eye, raise above the riff-raff and you’re a target, and not all of the accusations are truthful, sometimes people, even anonymously, are just out to sully your reputation, hold you back, prevent you from getting not only what you want, but what they want.

Kavanaugh seems to be completely unaware.

And he’s labeling it all politics, as if the Republicans have been angels and the Democrats devils. This is especially prevalent on Fox News, where Tucker Carlson keeps calling Avenatti the “creepy porn lawyer” even when he agrees not to. You know these people, they are the devious ones, not popular, who are out to get revenge. What happened to Laura Ingraham that made her this way? And why is David Hogg’s personal life relevant and not hers? What about Laura’s romantic relationships…

I don’t really care, but if you want to be paid the big bucks, if you want to be on the court, you’ve got to endure the slings and arrows. Go to an NBA game, there’s always some nincompoop yelling at some player. But you can’t go into the stands and throttle them, you’ve got to be a bigger person.

Brett Kavanaugh was not the bigger person today.

Don’t make this left and right, don’t make this Democratic and Republican, just make this people. Someone is lying here, who is it? Furthermore, would you behave like Kavanaugh did today? Hasn’t he ever heard of media training? Hasn’t he ever gone to therapy? He will now, assuming he’s not confirmed, and he should, because he’s got no insight into himself, he’s got no idea how he’s coming across!

Blow a gasket, weasel around the questions, start to cry…where does this work, in your parents’ house when you’re called on the carpet for lying?

As for Ford and #MeToo… That’s not really the matter in question. It’s a side issue. There will be consequences, thank god. Men will be forced to curb their behavior, we’ve taken the first steps on a long dark road hopefully to redemption. But what Ford’s appearance and testimony have broken open is our country…

Are you entitled to a fair hearing?

Can evidence be suppressed?

Can a candidate not only be railroaded, but railroaded through the confirmation process?

What you’ve got here is an unbelievably biased candidate who was counting his chickens before they hatched. A Republican Administration and Congress who won when they didn’t expect to and have rallied around precepts most Americans don’t agree with. And having prevented the centrist Merrick Garland from going on to the court, they believe they’re entitled to pack it with young right wingers so their views will be protected forevermore.

Yes, the game is rigged folks.

Start with gerrymandering.

And it is a game. The Federalist Society started preparing for this decades ago.

And if you think what you see on screen is the total story, you’re ignorant. Watch “The First” on Hulu, where Senators trade horses.

And as for Lindsey Graham’s righteous indignation… Hard to take seriously when there have been so many doofus moments previously.

So, whether Kavanaugh gets approved or not, our country will be cracked open. The law is kinda like a contract, it’s not always enforceable. Otherwise, people wouldn’t be killing each other in the street and eluding punishment. Or, to put it another way, you can win the battle and lose the war. Let’s say Kavanaugh ends up on the Supreme Court… No Democrat alive is gonna have a good taste in their mouth. And there are more Democrats than Republicans. Hell, Trump lost the popular vote.

And Trump has lost control over California. Actually, he never had it. The centrist Governor, at least by west coast standards, has turned the Golden State into a powerhouse with a booming economy and a better social safety net than red states. Are there problems, of course. But if you think we want to live in the land of pollution out here, you’ve probably never gone for a ride in a Tesla.

Then again, the SEC is trying to bring down Elon Musk, but good luck with the rest of the techies. The government is subservient to them.

Furthermore, Trump’s policies can be felt on the street, by you and me. I went to buy a suitcase today, they told me it was gonna go up by 10% on Monday, because of tariffs.

So what I guess I’m saying here is yes, I’m smiling that the right-wingers have got their knickers in a twist, how does it feel, to be on your own, in the great unknown?

But I wouldn’t be surprised if Kavanaugh gets confirmed tomorrow. Hell, it’s not a game of emotions, but numbers, and the Republicans have them on their side.

So we could lose again.

But this episode will prove much.

One, lying is fine in America today. You deny, deny, deny and see if you get caught. Either Kavanaugh or Ford is not telling the truth, you can decide, but one is up for the Supreme Court and the other is not.

And life is about more than achievement. People make sacrifices, make deals with themselves all the time. No one is able to go untouched. And sure, you can move to Alaska and disconnect from the internet, but you forgo so many benefits.

Meanwhile, the Watergate hearings were not like this. We wanted Nixon gone, but we did not believe our entire country’s future was hanging in the balance.

Music is a far cry from today’s show. There’s nothing at the Forum or Staples that compares. Music is mindless entertainment made by nitwits who don’t understand the issues, I won’t say players have taken themselves out of the equation, they were never in it.

But Kavanaugh and Ford… They’re winners. They’re on a track TMZ never sees and never comments on. This is true power.

How will it be wielded?

We’re gonna find out.

Anything For A Hit

If “Anything For A Hit” was written by a man it would be a best-seller.

Every, and I mean EVERY wannabe should devour this book. Because it delineates the game and how it is played, and it’s much worse than you’ve ever dreamed.

Oldsters know all that. But they’ll read for the salacious details anyway, mostly about Ahmet Ertegun, who is dead.

This book is not what it was billed as. It’s not the sexual harassment expose. I’m not saying there’s not a lot of bad behavior, even actionable behavior revealed, but that’s not what the book is really about.

It’s the first half that will have you glued.

Dorothy Carvello’s time at Atlantic. Which is run like a family, a highly dysfunctional one where executives are underpaid and illegalities are rampant but fun is job one.

This is why people wanted to be in the record business. The endless money, the endless dope, the endless trips, the famous people, the high living. Yup, just as Dorothy tells it, that’s the way it was, and she’s not even bragging!

This is not a self-congratulatory autobiography like Clive’s unreadable “Soundtrack of My Life.” You won’t be able to put “Anything For A Hit” down, I devoured it and finished it all in one day, today, hell, it’s 2:25 AM, I should be in bed, but I’m all fired up!

Carvello is no picnic, but as Don Henley sang, it’s one of the things they loved about her. She’s sassy, alive, a good hang. One of the boys. And believe me, to make it back then you had to be one of the boys, or be the mistress of one of the boys.

But she’s also clueless. When one A&R guy labels her “relentless,” you come to believe it. She’s constantly misreading the signals, working against her own interests.

But don’t we all. I certainly have. Took me DECADES to figure out how this world worked. And I too credit therapy for opening my eyes. After Carvello goes to the shrink, on the advice of Tim Collins, a good man who’s been exiled from the business, we’ve got no space for them here, she changes, she mellows, she understands the game.

Not that the people on top do. They’re playing a completely different game, three-dimensional chess. Which is why you have to decide who you want to be, the boss or the employee. The boss can get away with it, the employee cannot.

And if you’re not the boss, you’re gonna lose your job in the music business. Eventually the bosses do too, but they last longer.

You’ll be horrified at Ahmet’s behavior, but those who knew him admit the man was charming.

And Carvello’s distribution of anger and praise will make insiders laugh. Be nice to her and you get a pass, are these passes deserved? I’ll let you read and decide, assuming you know the players.

And she makes a classic mistake, working without a contract. And believing her lawyer is loyal to her, not the industry. Acts come and go, the business remains. Stand up for yourself, tell the truth, and you’re history.

At least you were.

That business doesn’t exist anymore. Never mind label head, you don’t even want to be a rock star…a techie, even a financier lives a better life. The banker stays home most of the time, and he always flies private, and despite the illusion most musicians do not, often it’s somebody else’s plane they’re hitching a ride on.

Music is mature. It’s dead. The action is all on the promotion side. It’s much harder to get a record deal than a date. And at that date promoters can see whether the audience reacts, they’re the first ones to know whether you’re hot. And they speak with agents, not lawyers. The whole business has flipped.

And a hit is not what it used to be. You can be number one and most of America has never heard of you.

And you can be reviewed in “Variety,” “Billboard,” “The Daily Mail”… I figured this book was a stiff because it was published by an indie. But the hype has been as good as that for a book from a major.

But there’s no reaction. Because those outlets don’t sell books anymore.

You do.

Maybe you were old enough to remember when “Hit Men” came out, the industry all bought and read it in a week. This is the most honest music business book since, but no one cares.

Because the audience is being fed salacious details 24/7 on TMZ. Because we’re a long way from Christopher Moltisanti noting Tommy Motttola waltzing by the velvet rope into a New York club. Because everything unknown spreads slowly in this world of cacophony. Getting traction is nearly impossible, but once you get some, it builds.

This is a sexist business. And to a great degree, it’s eluded the #MeToo movement. Because everybody involved loves working in it and knows if they blow this whistle they’re out. Is this right? Of course not. But it’s the truth.

Buy this immediately.

Like I said, the second half drifts and is dispensable, although you read it anyway, but the first half…

It was written about the heyday, when music still drove the culture, when MTV was God, when CDs rained down cash.

I can’t tell you about what’s coming in the future, but…

“Anything For A Hit” is definitely how it was in the past.