My mother loved to watch sports. Especially golf. She knew all the players, was a member of Arnie’s Army, but only warmed up to Nicklaus when he won a major in his forties, old people cheer on old people. And when we were on the phone today, I told her I was going to watch the Belmont Stakes.

Not that I’m a fan of horse racing. I’ve only been to the track once.

But I’m a fan of dominance. To see those triumph again and again and again. It’s lonely at the top, it’s hard to be king, although as Tom Petty sang when he was channeling Mel Brooks, it’s good too!

But I didn’t want to view all the pomp and circumstance. I just wanted to see the race. To find out whether Justify could capture the Triple Crown. But when I turned on the TV at the appointed hour, I saw the east coast.

We don’t have days like this in Los Angeles. Grey. Cloudy. Threatening rain. Humid as hell. It’s an east coast thing. And watching Belmont Park, I yearned to be there. That’s the conundrum, you leave your past behind, but you never forget it, old girlfriends, old haunts, you want to go back, but it’s better to do so in your mind.

And this is a day when the spotlight shines on horse racing and its minions. Normally, they’re second-class citizens, but today… Justify’s trainer was there in his blue jacket. The grass was green and lush. And the horses…

Were the star attraction.

None seemed as big as Secretariat. Some actually seemed damn small. But they emerged from the paddock and the tension began to build, this was sports.

Sports, irrelevant but everything. Self-contained. With a definitive winner. A metaphor for life, as Bob Costas, the host here, once said. You think you’re over the races and games, you think you don’t care, and then you’re brought right back, it’s in your blood.

And as the horses are wandering to the gate, I’m thinking about the Warriors, how they got cheated two years ago, how they should have won that series, if one of their stars hadn’t been banished from a game. And then they would have won four straight, what an accomplishment that would have been.

And I’m thinking of the last time I watched the Belmont Stakes, when a horse was up for the Triple Crown, he didn’t make it. Because it’s hard to make it. It’s a mighty long road just to be included, to be on the track, to win?

And Justify’s jockey is 52 years old, I’m rooting for him like my mother rooted for Nicklaus.

And I read in the “Times” that he’s on the pole, and this is harder.

And I’ve got nothing on the line, I’m not a betting man, my money means too much to me, and then…

THEY’RE OFF!

And Justify pulls into the lead. Can he keep it?

This is the longest race, this is the one wherein horses run out of gas.

And Gronkowski is an also-ran, but he’s pulling up, but as they approach the checkered flag…

Justify sustains, he holds on HE WINS!

I was not there, but I saw it. My adrenaline was pumping. I felt I could will Justify on, like my innards were commingled with his. Like we shared the same brain, I was saying, run, run RUN!

And now…

Euphoria.

Does the horse know he’s won?

That’s what Felice asked, I don’t think so, but I don’t know.

But the feeling that went through Mike Smith the jockey, that was one I was familiar with. It’s uncommon, but when you experience it… A triumph. Based upon hard work, years of practice when no one was paying attention. Sure, the feeling will fade, but for now…it doesn’t even matter that the whole world is watching, because you’re at the center of the universe, you’re at one with God.

You’re a champion.

Netflix is a club.

Just like Howard Stern’s radio show. Occasionally Howard makes news, mostly while interviewing celebrities, the gossip columns go wild, but mostly if you don’t listen, you’ve got no idea what’s going on.

But those who do…

Kind of like Netflix.

Now some news outlets noted that Howard’s appearance was going live last week. But I saw no reviews. It wasn’t deemed NEWS! That’s right, despite all the hype about the internet, the Long Tail, the major and the minor, the truth is something different. We’ve returned to the sixties. There’s a burgeoning underground, even though those in control of the major media outlets deny this.

Kind of like network television. Kind of like Fox. Kind of like Disney.

If you read the so-called news outlets, Howard Stern’s radio show doesn’t exist. And despite the appearance of Obama on Letterman’s Netflix debut, the follow-up episodes had no fallout in the culture.

Unless you were a member of the club.

Now pay attention here. This is very important. This is the now, this is the FUTURE!

The MTV generation, the monoculture paradigm, existed for so long, dominated for so long, that most still see the world through that lens. But that’s over.

You can see this in politics. Where not only do we have different opinions, they’re fed to us by different news outlets, most people don’t even cross sides to see what the others think. Why should it be any different in entertainment?

What its competitors don’t realize is Netflix has established a clubhouse. No different from the one in “The Little Rascals.” You watched that show, right? You had a crush on Darla, Miss Crabtree, you loved Spanky and Alfalfa, BUT IT WAS A KID THING! Kinda like Nickelodeon, kinda like MTV itself, but now EVERYTHING’S A KID THING!

We’re not even reacting to the mainstream, we’re just going our own way.

So my car is in the shop, and I cannot listen to Howard, the loaner doesn’t have Sirius. So I’m listening to terrestrial radio, the non-comm stations, you can’t listen to the for profit ones, they’re too jive, there are too many commercials, but as you listen to KCRW and KCSN you realize they have communities. So when I go to a show and wonder how everybody found out, the manager or the promoter says PUBLIC RADIO!

But I’m out of the loop. I don’t have time. I’ve got to listen to Howard. I feel part of that club.

And I lament that I have less time to listen to music, but Howard has hooked me, and millions more.

So the movie business is dominated by Marvel movies, superheroes. But the truth is there’s a huge swath of the public who will never ever go to see one. Reading the news reports would have you believe otherwise, but it’s just like hip-hop. Hip-hop is the biggest musical genre, but no one forces you to listen to it, most people have never even heard Kanye West, EVER!

Once again, the news media tells us otherwise.

But the news media doesn’t like this. Because the news media believes if they don’t report on it, it didn’t happen. But what we’ve realized in the past ten years is oftentimes stories are broken online.

Now, forget about alternative news sources. Real news costs money. So we’ve got clickbait and gossip. But the truth is even that doesn’t get much attention, we’re all down in our little niches.

So I feel proud when I watch some show on Netflix, the same way I felt proud watching W.C. Fields films back in the sixties. They weren’t for everybody, just a few of us, and we felt good being a member of the club.

Appealing to everybody is death. That’s how network television got into this problem.

So if you’re playing for world domination… There’s no world to dominate, there’s no one place everybody’s paying attention. You’ve got to realize your audience is limited. And you must either build your own club or join another. If you’re on Howard Stern, you’re a star in his hemisphere, you’re a made man or woman. If you’re on “Stranger Things” or even…

But the media is slow to everything on Netflix. They didn’t realize “Stranger Things” was a phenomenon, they had to wait until parents reacted to “13 Reasons Why” to weigh in. And Netflix didn’t blink, because it has to be true to its audience, not some judge and jury outside the paywall.

Sure, HBO gets ink, but when it comes to Amazon and Hulu and Netflix…

Same deal with music. Just look at the festivals. Most of them ARE NOT hip-hop dominated, even though some of the big ones are. Proving the audience wants more.

Also, the festivals have become bigger than the acts, they’re clubs in their own right. Coachella sustains, the acts come and go. And the experience is similar no matter who plies the boards.

So you’re waiting for acknowledgement, you’re waiting for approval, you’re waiting for some committee to anoint you, most often the mainstream media.

But you’ve already made it.

And those playing the publicity game, the hype game, spamming, fall flat on their face. In a narrow, monoculture world we all pay attention to the few morsels that come our way. In an infinite world, we ignore them, or view them like a drive-by car wreck, interesting for a second, but they don’t stick with us.

P.S. If you’re a Stern fan, you won’t learn much new here, because Howard is so honest on his show. Which is a good thing, which is what made him. Although to see him visually imitate his parents is priceless.

P.P.S. Be sure to stay to the end, when Letterman goes to Utah to explore the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which Trump eviscerated protection of. Letterman’s taking a stand, one view of the landscape will close you, but chances are you were closed already. This is the echo chamber. But Letterman is now more honest, he even uses the F-word, you’re bonded to him in a way you never were before, he may be playing to fewer people, but he has more impact. And he realizes the old game is dead. SNL gets all the ink, but it’s a circle jerk for the New York media elite. And the show’s main problem, other than rarely being funny, is that we no longer share the same reference points, we don’t get the jokes because we don’t know the backstory, we’re all deep into our own clubs. This is the way it is now.

P.P.P.S. Netflix recently added a bonus episode of Seinfeld interviewing Letterman, recorded live at Raleigh Studios, which I attended and wrote about here. I have not seen a single article about the availability of this show in big time media, never mind a review, you’ve got to be a Netflix subscriber and a Letterman fan to find it, AND IT’S WORTH IT! But even more, it proves my point…you’re either a member of the club or you’re not. And FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is so last decade, nobody can see, watch and experience everything. You’ve made your choices, you’re open to new things, but you’re already overbooked so it’s hard for new things to break through. Which is why if you’re a producer, it’s best to be a member of a club.

The Very Best Of Prince

Prince didn’t live up to the hype.

Supposedly he was 16 or 17, certainly under twenty, and recorded all the instruments himself and produced too, we were unimpressed. McCartney had performed this trick almost a decade previously, sans the age, and the wizard, the true star known as Todd Rundgren, specialized in doing the hat trick, writing, performing and producing, this seemed like a gimmick.

Kinda like today. When kids who haven’t reached puberty are promoted as the next big thing. They haven’t lived yet, where’s the experience, never mind the talent?

So Prince’s initial album, sold to the rock market, didn’t. Yes, Prince was on Warner Brothers, known for white music, not black. He got press in “Rolling Stone.” And he had no impact, until…

It was 1979. Death to Disco time. If you could dance to it, rockers wanted nothing to do with it, there’d been too much Bee Gees, too much white suits, too much of everything rockers hated. This was before the Ramones became a cultural institution, their backlash didn’t permeate beyond New York City and London. This was before Blondie broke through. This was before MTV. This was just as the music business crashed.

But suddenly Prince had a hit on black radio, with a track known as “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” which most white people never heard, since it made not a dent on AOR. As a matter of fact, it was years before Prince truly got traction in the white world. “Dirty Mind” made minor inroads, and then with “Controversy” he opened for the Stones and was booed off the stage. Musicians are ahead culturally, although retarded when it comes to business.

Anyway, my car is in the shop. Long story, don’t ask.

And they gave me a loaner.

With no Sirius and a standard sound system. The sound is tinny. The stations bogus. And I’m surfing the dial until I come to Jason Bentley and “Morning Becomes Eclectic” on KCRW. And he’s right in the middle of the new single by Bob Moses, “Heaven Only Knows,” which resonates immediately.

It doesn’t even have a million streams on Spotify, it’s got even fewer on YouTube, but if you’re the target audience, you’ll get it.

But who’s the target audience?

This is the modern world, Kanye sucks all the air out of pressdom, and if you’re not a rapper, you get no notice. Unless you’re an obscure, flavor of the moment, which print gives attention to to seem hip. But those acts plowing ahead with careers, under the radar, are ignored.

Like Bob Moses.

But KCRW has acolytes. These bands sell tickets in Los Angeles. There’s a subculture, if not an industry.

And I’m contemplating all this as I drive to Santa Monica, where it’s not yet summer. That’s right, it’s a hundred degrees in Texas, kids are out of school, but it might as well be the beginning of spring out here, dark and cloudy. And I stop at 365 to stock up on provisions and when I emanate and turn on the radio in the Crosstrek, I hear…

“I Wanna Be Your Lover.”

I ain’t got no money
I ain’t like those other guys you hang around

But it’s the riff that engages me, that hooks me. What is that, a guitar? It’s completely different from what the rockers were employing at the time, but it’s the same instrument. And the repeated riff is nearly as strong as the one in “Smoke On The Water,” and it keeps repeating, until you get to the subtle bridge and then the chorus.

I want to be the only one you come for

We listened to Frank Zappa records to hear this scatological stuff, to hear limits tested, but you could get away with this in the world of R&B, of urban radio, when all the attention was not pointed at it, before MTV, before Michael Jackson truly crossed over.

It’s kinda funny
But they always seem to let you down

This is a theme in Prince’s music, the man who makes it on PERSONALITY! And art. He ain’t got money, he can’t compete with the usual suspects, trading on their cars and their cash, but if you give him the time of day, he’ll give you the ride of your life.

That’s right, musicians always wanted to make money, but they used to know they were the other, far from the mainstream, and if you dug their act, you couldn’t get it anywhere else.

There ain’t no other
That can do the things I’ll do to you

Confidence. Today’s acts beg you for attention. But Prince believed if you just turned your head, had a look, went on the trip, there’d be no challenge, no other, it would only be HIM!

And I get discouraged
‘Cause you treat me just like a child
And they say I’m so shy, yeah
But with you I just go wild, ooo, ooo, ooo

This is the fantasy, as you lie in your bed, wondering why you’re not popular, why you can’t get a date. The foundation of music used to be the outsiders, the football captain, the homecoming queen, got no traction, it was the oddballs who led in this sphere. And they believed, if they only got a chance, they’d win.

I don’t want to pressure you baby, no

He’s just laying it all out. It’s almost subtle. But the track is irresistible.
And I’m sitting there parked, as the sun comes out, and I cannot turn “I Wanna Be Your Lover” off. I’m thinking what a loss Prince was. He was one of the few who could still surprise us, who still might make us notice, who still might have a hit. He didn’t chase trends, he might embrace them now and again, but he was always just a bit off center, doing his own thing, and we never stopped paying attention.

We still are.

Bob Moses “Heaven Only Knows”

WWDC

It was a nerdfest.

The gold rush is over, tech is commonplace, the big companies won, you’re a user, not an early-adopter, and maybe you use Apple products.

Or maybe you don’t.

It’s the theme of our nation. The haves and the have-nots. It runs through politics and education and tech. Can you afford a Mac? Do you want to spend that much? Can you afford a BMW? Do you want to spend that much?

And if you lease your cars, you know that there’s an advantage to staying with one brand, they overlook mileage overages, they give you a good deal, they call this RETENTION!

And that’s what Apple is now all about.

And software.

Shiny gadgets are done. And Americans just cannot get over this. In a consumer society, they want to buy something they can show off, say they have, ergo the iPhone upgrade mania, you wanted to be branded by what you possessed. But now only the most sophisticated watchers, those who viewed this presentation, can tell the difference. Now it’s all about what your gadgets can DO!

And what they can now do is an incremental advancement, not revolutionary.

Memojis. Sounds bogus until you watch it demonstrated. Apple makes it easy to create an image of yourself.

Walkie Talkie. It’s almost enough of an innovation to make you get an Apple Watch, and force all of those close to you to do so too.

But you need cellular service for it. That’s right, you’ve got to pay, and most won’t, because they can’t afford it, or won’t spend for it.

Now you might be an Android person, you might worship at the feet of Google, which is a mighty impressive company. Then again, Apple doesn’t exclude Google or Facebook or Amazon or Microsoft, it plays with all of them. So the issue is, if you’re not in the Apple universe, you cannot partake of little features the Apple people can. Like iMessage, which acknowledges delivery. Now I don’t want to get into a debate of which platform is better, all I’m going to say is we’ve entered an era of tech Balkanization, which reflects our country at large. You’re in one camp or the other, and to a great degree both camps look down on each other.

The music business runs on Apple. It’s rare that you see someone with an Android device.

The rest of the world, outside the U.S., is dominated by Android.

And they ain’t gonna merge.

Apple people are not leaving, they’re too tied up in the system. And most Google people are tied into that company’s wares. And then there are those so poor they go for the cheapest option, which is Android.

Now I’m not writing this for the zealots, who will point out that this is a developer conference, and not for the general public. And I’ll retort that devices have been introduced at previous WWDCs. And there we have the argument with no resolution. There we have America in a nutshell. Opposing viewpoints, with both sides having contempt for each other.

But if you are not a zealot…

Chances are your life will be easier if you go all Mac. And if you’ve got an iPhone and a PC, you’re missing out. Tight integration of Apple devices yields bonuses, like the synching of Messages via iCloud recently announced.

And if you’re waiting for the new iPhones in the fall, you’re missing the point. The point is the power, your devices are tools. What can you do with them?

You’re on your own. You’ve got to figure it out yourself. But so many people can.

And you want a device that can harness these software features. iOS 12 will work with devices back to the 5S, but if you’ve got one of those, you’ve got a screen so small with a chip so slow you can’t do much. Ditto the Mac.

So where we are now is the software era. “Consumer Reports” criticizes Tesla for long stopping distances with the Model 3 and Tesla writes new code and pushes it out over the air to update cars in the field so they stop faster. Yup, this is how you do it.

Your iPhone and Mac are updated constantly.

Your Android operating system is not, or to be more clear, it’s difficult to update your Android phone.

And now I’m devolving into geekdom.

But the point is a door has closed, a window too.

Used to be you lived for tech, it was a pursuit, you purchased new devices to catch up.

Now tech is de rigueur. Startups can’t start, the behemoths won’t let them, or will buy them. It’s kinda like television… Once everybody had one, once the cool factor was over, the question became…WHAT’S ON?

Of course we ended up with color and the Trinitron and the flat screen, but it was less about hardware than software, the shows.

And we’re in that tech era now.

So, the geeks get it. They go into tech to fulfill an inner dream, to play in that sandbox more than to get rich.

And the rest of us don’t speak their language but benefit from the fruits of their labor.

But their tools are empowering.

What can you do with them? What WILL you do with them?

It’s personal and it’s artistic. What power will you extract from your phone, which you barely talk on and is really a computer.

What will you create with these tools. Everybody’s building stuff, poorly, but for those who reach the pinnacle of artistic and scientific excellence, rewards still rain down.

But the mania is history

Now we’re in our silos. Rich/poor. Democrat/Republican. Apple/Android. We’re just arguing, complaining, when the truth is we can change the world if we just employ the tech tools delivered to us. The sexiness isn’t the hardware, or even the software, but the PRODUCTION! The oohs and ahhs don’t come from a new box, but the end result.

People, start your engines.

And chances are, unless you’re a techie yourself, your journey will be easier on Apple devices.

P.S. Tim Cook handed most of the presentation to Craig Federighi, GOOD MOVE!

P.P.S. Many women demonstrated software, and quite well. Why is it that Apple got the #MeToo memo and the entertainment business is still struggling with it?

P.P.P.S. It’s the little things that make the difference, like the automatic authorization with Apple TV. People rarely recorded with their VCRs, it was too difficult for them. But the DVR made it easy. Sure, you can use an app on your smart TV, but the authorization of apps is a stumbling block, Apple just took that block away.

P.P.P.P.S. The reality distortion field still exists. This presentation did not deliver huge breakthroughs, some can be done on other platforms, but never underestimate the power of sizzle and the ability to make computing easier. But you’ve got to pay for it.