The Mechanism

We’re looking for a strongman. Someone to not only make the trains run on time, but to take care of us, give us a leg up, opportunity, even though our prayers will never be answered.

Blame the internet.

But it started before that. The rich spreading inaccurate information while they pay the politicians to make it all go away. Can you say Timothy Geithner? Can you say Wall Street? How many bad actors who blew up the economy went up the river. NONE! Why? It would be too detrimental to society, to our nation, business must go on.

At least that’s what they think.

So Trump gets elected and the left wing is jumping out of its skin. But if you notice, it’s primarily the educated left wing, those living on the coasts, who are angry that a system working for them might be broken up, might leave them with less. Meanwhile, these same people never cared about those left out as a result of globalization, and those profiting from globalization are making bank.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Wall fell. Communism faltered. Democracy was gonna reign. But it didn’t. Putin not only runs Russia, his countrymen approve of him! Sure, it might have been a sham election, but citizens like that he makes things work, eliminated the chaos, makes them proud to be Russian.

And now you’re apoplectic, telling me how wrong I am.

But I’m not sure that’s the case.

I just finished watching “The Mechanism,” a Brazilian mini-series about corruption on Netflix. I did because it has the same producer as “Narcos,” but I cannot recommend it, it’s slow and confusing and it doesn’t add up until the end, with a cliffhanger leaving answers for another season. But at least it’s not HBO. The lauded “Barry” began tonight. If you think I’m still up for appointment TV you’re dreaming, just like the movie studios. Nobody I know goes to the movies, I’ve been quizzing people, but every Friday the paper is laden with reviews. Meanwhile, the major outlets didn’t even review “The Mechanism,” and I doubt there will be word of mouth, so you won’t see it.

But the message…

It’s about corruption in Brazil. The good guys versus the bad, the cops versus the corporations. And then you realize, it’s just like here.

Sure, the cops shoot and beat up innocent people, but that distracts us from the fact that if we can’t depend upon law enforcement, the laws themselves are worthless. Which is why the firing of Comey and McCabe is such a big deal, why Trump’s denigration of the CIA and other agencies is so important. What we end up with is chaos.

And the only person who can eliminate the chaos is a strongman, we have to put all our faith in this individual, otherwise we’re screwed.

As for the internet, it was supposed to give everybody a voice, out the truth. But what has happened is we’ve ended up with cacophony, with everybody following their own news, and few knowing what is really going on. I woke up this morning and checked all the outlets, they all led with the Parkland protests, the anti-gun marches, the NYT, the LAT, even the WSJ. But not on FoxNews, if you went to their site you had to scroll down to nearly the bottom to see a line about the protests, without even a picture. Later in the day a story appeared further up the page, saying that the estimate of attendees was way off. So if you were relying on Fox for your information…

You didn’t believe what everybody else did.

But it gets worse.

Used to be there were very few news organizations. We trusted them.

But now everybody is a newsperson, and they’re spreading their stories, and there’s a plethora of places to get them. Not only the aforementioned biggies, but Apple News, all the other online outlets, like Facebook.

Will Facebook get a penalty or pay the ultimate price, destruction?

It almost doesn’t matter, because the truth is the Facebook-owned Instagram is bigger than its older brother now anyway. You could wipe Facebook from the face of the earth and Instagram would only grow, enriching the same damn people. They can’t eliminate Facebook anyway, because too many people love to share. To their ultimate detriment.

So right now, the corporations paying the politicians has never been more visible. Can you say THE NRA? Which is a lobbying organization for gun manufacturers? Congresspeople are afraid to go anti-gun, meanwhile, years of right wing diatribes have the same ignorant people voting for a strongman believing if they just have a gun, or maybe twenty, they can protect themselves from government overreach, ain’t that a laugh. The truth is these people are powerless, and as long as the string-pullers keep demonizing immigrants, people of color and gays, they’ll stay in their pocket. Kinda like this trans debate. Is that the biggest issue, trans people going to the bathroom of their choice? I’d say a much bigger issue is finding a public bathroom at all, but that’s been lost in the obfuscation.

The game was always rigged, but now it’s gotten worse. The rich live a completely different lifestyle from the poor. And the so-called middle class, the college-educated, don’t want to see the rich penalized so much as they want to be rich themselves! And if you’re poor, you don’t want your illusions shattered, life is too hard at your minimum wage job to believe this is all there is. Meanwhile, they play the lottery, a tax upon these same players, for a chance to make it. Even though the wealthy, those who institute this gaming, never play, they know the odds are prohibitive, better to hoard your cash. But they were the beneficiaries of the best schools, whereas the rank and file are victimized by a nation that believes taxes are bad, unions are bad, and it all comes down to the teachers, and if we could just privatize all this, everything would work out. Yeah, like the Austin bomber who was home-schooled.

Now way back when they made a movie about an honest politician, “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.” Hell, it wasn’t that long ago there was a movie about unions, “Norma Rae.” But the only senator speaking the truth was Bernie Sanders, who was undermined by the Democratic machine and Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and Scott Walker gets recalled and still wins, after eviscerating union power. Because people sit at home and believe the problem is everyone but themselves, if they were just left alone to live their lives without regulation everything would work.

Like the buildings collapsing in third world countries, like dying from pollution. We need government, we need roads, we need safety, but it’s been demonized to the point it no longer works.

Except for those running it.

The Great Alone

I was up until two finishing this book last night.

After reading it all damn day. I was involved, I could not get enough of it.

It was about Alaska, but so much more.

Do you ever wish you could disconnect, go off the grid?

I do. Every day there’s a slew of new emails, business to take care of, never mind news, in a world where we spend so much time alone we utilize our devices to plug in and it becomes burdensome, what if we could just check out?

I don’t mean die, I mean go where there is no cell connection. No cable. Nothing to tie you to the land but your wits.

Now I’m not leaving the city. I don’t want to be that far away from my doctors. I contemplate an emergency in the hinterlands and I squirm. Furthermore, I’ve lived in the hinterlands, where the locals are dentally-challenged and…

I downloaded the sample chapter on my Kindle. I know, I know, this is a constant debate, physical versus digital. And I’ve got to get on my soapbox once again. You see when I got my first Kindle, back in 2009, everything online was under ten bucks. So you took a flyer, you bought books on a whim. Now, with prices so much more expensive, you hesitate a bit, you don’t want to be ripped-off. The goal is to grow the pie. Which the publishing business is afraid of. Hell, look at the music business, people wanted to maintain the sales model and they went to streaming and the revenues went up! I’d love to have you buy “The Great Alone” on a whim, give it a chance.

But you won’t.

Because Kindles have been demonized and you’re not about to go to a store and pay $28.99 to find out you don’t like it.

Which is why I love the sample chapters on my Kindle, I can get a feel.

And I stopped halfway through, and then saw on Sunday that the book was number one on the “New York Times” bestseller list, I decided to give it another chance, I was hooked.

Now Kristin Hannah broke through, with “The Nightingale,” seemingly every woman I know read it. Which was kind of a turn-off, I was not looking for chick-lit. And you could argue that “The Great Alone” fits into this genre.

But it’s so much more.

But it’s popular fiction, so the muckety-mucks will denigrate it.

But it’s better than most of the lauded, unreadable books that are up for prizes.

Yes, first and foremost “The Great Alone” is readable, the number one criterion for a book.

Secondly, there’s plenty of plot. Too many highbrows focus on language, description, what happens is secondary, and what you end up with is writing, not a book. First and foremost you’re telling a story.

And “The Great Alone” is a story.

And it’s what a book used to be.

Divorced from mainstream society.

Too many tomes are comments upon or integrated with today’s world. You don’t feel disconnected or removed, but entwined. Whereas “The Great Alone” is about life itself, interior dialogue, challenges. The truth is no one cares what you’re doing, whether you’re a celebrity or an Ordinary Joe. You can post away on social media but everybody is truly internalized, with their own thoughts, hopes and desires. And this is what we want to read about, not people who are better than us, talking down to us, whom we can theoretically emulate, but people just like us, confused, putting one foot in front of the other, looking for elation around every corner, but falling into the holes now and again.

When you set the book in Alaska, you’re leaving the trappings behind.

So it was the mood and the setting that hooked me.

And the characters.

The father loses control. My dad lost control on a regular basis. He did not hit my mother, but he hit us kids all the time, when he would go nuts it was like there was a raving lunatic inside the house. Or in the car. Or absolutely anywhere, my father never held back. And the truth is he had a rough upbringing and he was totally internalized and he could not express his emotions any other way. So he held back until his feeling boiled over and then let loose. By today’s standards, we were abused kids. But that was the fifties and sixties for you.

So I identified with that.

And I identified with people who didn’t fit in, who threw the game overboard. What I hate about the rat race is it’s organized, you’ve got to buy in, so you try to climb the greased pole and very few make it to the top. Those odds are too daunting, they make me want to check out. So I do. Like the woman here who was a big city prosecutor and gave it all up. You used to see people like this all over the west, before the triumphant arrived with their satellite phones and private planes and lorded it over the locals how they could live in nowheresville and still be kings. But the truth is, when you truly live off the grid, you’re all in it together, but nobody on the top wants to associate with the riff-raff, and the riff-raff have contempt for those who are successful and that’s even in this book.

Along with romance. The way love happens. Always when you least expect it. And then you’re consumed.

And the system. It never works in your favor.

So the highbrows will say “The Great Alone” is not literature, but I beg to differ, there’s more honest insight than there is in a slew of Booker Prize nominees.

“Up here, there’s no one to tell you what to do or how to do it. We each survive our own way. If you’re tough enough, it’s heaven on earth.”

That’s what I used to like about Los Angeles, and still do. You’re a number out here, where you went to college is irrelevant. Everybody’s so into their own business, their own struggle, they don’t care about you. It’s the opposite of the east coast where who your parents are and where you went to school matter, they don’t in L.A.

“Everyone has a story.”

How true is that. And I love getting it. Rich, poor or otherwise. And usually, the less you’ve got, the more you’ve struggled, and the more interesting it is.

“Leni couldn’t have a real friend because she couldn’t be one.”

Friendship is complicated. Either you figure it out right away, find connections in school, emulate your parents, or you don’t. You have to know how to give to get, how to overlook. You have to know you NEED other people. You have to reveal truths. You have to listen to others, even when you want to roll your eyes. Life is about personal interaction, never forget it.

“He taught her something new about friendship: it picked right back up where you’d left off, as if you hadn’t been apart at all.”

Why is it I can go decades without seeing a college buddy and as soon as we reconnect, it’s like no time has passed. This happened to me. I know it happens to you.

“She knew what nightmares could do to a person and how bad memories could change who you were.”

I can’t get over certain things that have happened in my life. I love being older, I’m much more comfortable in my skin, but I’ve been burned and am twice shy. And how often do I have nightmares and they stick with me the whole damn day.

“Sometimes you had to go backward in order to go forward.”

I struggle with this, I talk about it with my shrink all the time. I’m afraid to give up anything I’ve got, even though if I backtrack, enter free-fall, I might end up somewhere better.”

“Hormones are like afterburners. The right touch and you’re in outer space.

Needs no explanation, it just rings true.

“Fatal mistakes often look ordinary.”

Actions have consequences. Try to get it right. And when people attempt to pull you off course, think twice, there might be no recovery, no return to normal.

“It didn’t matter how you lost a parent or how great or shitty that parent was, a kid grieved forever.”

If you’ve been here, you know this is true.

This did not turn out the way I wanted it to. Didn’t have the tone, didn’t have the flow. It would have been better at 2 AM, in the throes of having finished the book.

But if I’d written then I’d have been unable to sleep. Creative work is not like 9-5, or 8-6, or even 9-9. You get amped up, and then you can’t calm down. Which is why rock stars are creatures of the night, why they do drugs to try and sleep. All my best ideas come at night, when the world slows down, when people stop looking for me in such voluminous numbers, when I feel I have room to move.

But the world doesn’t function on my schedule.

That was one of the great things about moving to L.A. in the seventies, the twenty four hour stores!

But try seeing a doctor at 9 PM, ain’t gonna happen, unless you’re in the ER.

And then I wonder, if I do something great, that makes you connect, will it make any difference? Hell, it’s not like when I write something great cash comes out of the CD drive in my computer. As a matter of fact, my computers no longer have CD drives!

And I wanted this to be more personal, and a bit more ethereal, a bit more disconnected from everyday life, so it would plug you more into reality, if that makes sense.

It does to me.

And the thing is we no longer agree, on almost anything. There are people who will hate “The Great Alone,” say any male who loves it is a pussy. Yup, that’s the right word, that’s what males say until they reach their breaking point and need a helping hand. But they’re stoics before that, they don’t need no stinkin’ shrink, they’re the boss of the household, they don’t want to appear soft and weak, whereas the truth is we all are sometimes, and it’s o.k. to acknowledge it.

The truth is there’s very good writing out there. And this is not some of it, I mean what you’ve read above, but “The Great Alone” is. Because Kristin Hannah has evidenced life in story, and the unexpected twists and turns reflect what really happens, the unexpected accidents, the incorrigible personalities, the helping hands.

I hope I’ve convinced some of you to read this book. You know who you are. Those who believe the written word eclipses the visual, who know you can make a movie of “The Great Alone” yet it could never be as good. Because you can see the book in your mind, the landscape, the characters. And it’s not so much about what happens as the feeling the characters have, which you can relate to.

This is a piss-poor review.

But much better than the one you’ll read in traditional media, where they’ll tell you everything that happens and render a judgment.

This is an INVITATION! Do you want to go off the beaten track, do you want to think about your choices, do you want to feel as opposed to act?

THEN READ THIS BOOK!

It’s the business model, STUPID!

It’s not about third parties utilizing your data to surreptitiously influence your beliefs, it’s about you coughing up your life story so Facebook itself can slice and dice this data and sell it to advertisers so you can be equally influenced. Sure, we need to question Cambridge Analytica, but even more we need to question Facebook itself, which is a glorified SURVEILLANCE OUTFIT!

That’s right, while we’re busy debating the ability of the government to invade our homes, under the Homeland Security Act, we’re selling not only our souls, but our lives and activities, our core beliefs, to an outfit run by money-grubbing youngsters who will stop at nothing to get richer.

Come on, it’s not only Zuckerberg. It’s Sheryl Sandberg too, who fought with the company’s security head, she wanted the customers to know less…and this is the woman who is lauded in the press?

We’ve driven off the cliff here folks. Sure, it’s good to be able to connect with everybody you’ve ever known. But all this sharing of information, all these likes, all these things you do to burnish your image and make you feel included are gonna be your downfall, truly. You think it’s bad enough that ads are following you around online, Facebook knows more about you than your spouse does, literally. Or to put it another way, if you want to bring anybody to their knees, just threaten them with the release of their Google search history. No one wants their inner demons and desires revealed, but these wankers at Facebook and Google know it all, AND THEY’RE UTILIZING IT!

The question here is the solution. It’s not about penalizing Cambridge Analytica, it’s not about fining Facebook, it’s about the future of our whole damn country, WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?

Used to be bad enough that news outlets swayed opinion.

But when networks were king, we had the Fairness Doctrine.

But now Fox is so biased that a contributor jumps ship and false equivalencies reign but if you mention this someone brings up MSNBC and the Koch Brothers and I’ve got to ask you…how come liberals never blow up schools? Did you see the beliefs of that Austin bomber, all that right wing crap? And where did he get it? ONLINE!

It’s bad enough that bloviators can influence the unformed and inane with bad information. What’s even worse is that Facebook and Google are more powerful than our government.

That’s right, where are the techies in Congress? I don’t see them. Other than soon to go Darrell Issa, who made his fortune on car alarms, something that will be gone soon when we go to driverless cars. Oh, you think it ain’t gonna happen? Funny how the Phoenix tragedy is getting so much less ink than that Tesla death. Was that because people have it in for Tesla?

And speaking of having it in…

You get completely different news on Fox than you do on CNN and MSNBC. I know, because I listen, on the satellite, all the time. On the latter they were going on about lawsuits against the President, the challenges to him, and for twenty minutes, from the top of the hour, Fox was on about the Austin bombings, and I’m not saying they aren’t important, but how about Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal and Summer Zervos? Or, as the “New York Times” focused, Fox is continuing to run stories about female harassment, i.e. women bad actors, or actresses, even though the percentage of incidences, less than 9% of sexual crimes, has not gone up.

Talk about skewing your views.

But never forget that distribution is king. And Facebook trumps all news outlets, because the social network is the number one place people get their news. As for Facebook saying that it’s now focusing on personal interactions rather than news… Come on, a company that’s beholden to dollars?

Kinda like that hedge fund that just raped the “Denver Post,” in pursuit of profits it laid off reporters, which is kind of like trying to win the pennant by laying off ballplayers.

So you’ve got an inefficient organism, i.e. the government, trying to stand up to Silicon Valley while a somnambulant populace keeps coughing up its data to its detriment.

Who is gonna stop this?

You, but you won’t. You need to stop posting. On all these sites. Stop liking.

Then we need laws to scrub our data from all these companies on a regular basis. Every twelve months, Google and Amazon and Facebook must wipe their rolls clean, for the good of society. Hell, they’ll still make beaucoup bucks.

You’ve given up your privacy and it’s worse than you thought. You made intermediaries, social networks, profit-mongering whores, the rulers of our country. Misinformation reigns and it’s all their fault. And they ain’t gonna do anything about it, because they are myopic and ignorant and beholden to the mighty dollar. The government should protect us, but when one party says government is bad and we need less regulation and both parties are beholden to bucks, this will never happen.

It’s down to me and you folks.

WAKE UP!

“At the Fox News Site, a sudden Focus on Women as Sex Offenders”

He was telling me jokes.

You never know who these people really are. I was talking to Shirley Manson on Tuesday and I had the two-dimensional image in my brain, of a demure alternative girl. But she’s WILD! Very sharp, and can give it before you can. As for Eddie…

He was crucified in the seventies. For an airbrushed album cover. For basic music.

But I was a fan.

Which is why I went to this gig, I’d never seen him before.

You see Eddie is promoting his new AXS television show, which is basically “The Osbournes,” fifteen years later. Dad is dumb and the kids are running circles around him. Why are all the TV shows based on this premise? But Eddie is in on the joke, whereas Ozzy was oblivious.

Now if you’ve hung backstage, you’ve experienced this. For every serious rocker, for every Don Henley, there’s an Eddie Money, or a Robin Zander, who told me a joke I’ve repeated endlessly since he whispered it in my ear at the Whisky. It wasn’t risque, it was an insider’s story, if you’re not in the business, you wouldn’t get it. Whereas Eddie’s…

Were more along the line of a group of guys getting together to have a few beers and a few laughs, even though Eddie is sober.

And when we went down to the theatre, Scott Goldman teed up some questions about the AXS show, Eddie’s five kids, this series jump-starting their careers.

Meanwhile, Eddie is continuing to wisecrack.

He makes an anti-Hillary comment.

The audience boos.

That’s what’s changed since Trump’s election. The people are on their toes. They just don’t play along. They were with Eddie, but they had no trouble turning against him.

But Eddie tried to make it right.

You see, despite being a rocker, he’s in the Hollywood tradition. He’s been on the road so long that he knows it’s about being an entertainer more than the music. You want a bit of nostalgia, a bit of fun, and to go home feeling warm and fuzzy.

That’s not what it used to be about.

It used to be everything, it used to be life itself.

But the audience was more akin to Vegas than Coachella. Coasting on memories.

As was I. Of playing that first album in my apartment on Barry Avenue.

Of listening to the live EP driving home from Mt. Waterman.

I am a fan.

But my mental image did not quite comport with reality.

You see Eddie Money’s been earning a living.

We forget that.

Some give up, some go straight. The recently departed Tom Rapp, of Pearls Before Swine, became an attorney. Donnie Iris was a mortgage broker.

But Eddie Money’s been trading on his hits, which he had a lot of.

But he’s never gonna have one again.

Your old favorites, the classic rockers, forget about it. They’re not in the same place and neither are you. They’re not hungry and shy and wanting to make money and get laid, they’ve got kids and bills and they feel the pressure. Meanwhile, the business is so scattered that even if they made a great record there’d be nowhere to hear it.

So they’re working for a living. That’s right, even Huey Lewis.

That’s the news.

But Eddie’s story is fascinating. Although he can’t tell it straight, he can only do shtick.

Of being a policeman’s son. Of becoming a cop. Of almost being pushed off the force. Of competing with Billy Joel’s Hassles. Of getting a high draft number and moving to California. Of going to college with the Black Panthers.

Before doing a one-eighty and becoming a conservative.

And then the music started.

Nobody in the band seemed over thirty. Three family members played, they acquitted themselves admirably.

And when Eddie took to the mic…

It was 1977 all over again.

You realized why Bill Graham took a flyer. You see Eddie’s an ENTERTAINER! Back then you sold your music first and foremost. Whereas Eddie’s more of a performer. He’s twirling the microphone, posing, getting you amped up and involved.

And you realize this is the way it used to be. When we used to go to clubs to hear a live band. When rock and R&B ruled. When you could feel that energy.

It’s so different from the mechanized, hard drive music of today, where it’s about taking selfies and being a star yourself. You knew who the star was back then, the person on stage. And you felt their energy.

And when Eddie sang “Baby Hold On”…

You were waiting for that break, that you know by heart. AND THERE IT WAS!

And he not only played “Two Tickets To Paradise,” he talked about the GEICO commercial. He blamed it on new representation, wanting to up his image, but the truth is all these acts are fading in the rearview mirror.

As are we.

And when he does “Shakin'” you can remember the MTV era, you’re brought right back, you’re in the moment.

But when he made an anti-Semitic comment…

You think since they grew up in an enlightened era, they too are enlightened. But too many boomers, elder statesmen, are biased and ignorant just like their forefathers. This is not the MTV generation, that saw a rainbow of colors on the tube and has no problem with intermarriage and gays, rather Eddie Mahoney is a guy from Queens, and you can take the guy out of the borough, but you can’t take the borough out of the guy.

So it was ersatz. And ultimately offensive.

And if you saw it on a cruise ship you’d be happy.

But if you were paying good money…

Who is it who is paying good money? I don’t understand it. I’ve seen all these acts during their heyday and on multiple comeback tours. Why are boomers still going? Are their lives that empty that they can only repeat the past? Our music meant something to us, but watching Eddie Money I was reminded of sitting in the showroom at the Concord Hotel, watching the stars of my parents’ generation.

Yup, it happened. We may still be wearing jeans, but we’ve become our parents.

And it’s so confusing. Because even if you’re enlightened, unlike Eddie Money, you don’t like most of today’s music, even when you hear it. You don’t understand it, the hip-hop and the pop, where are those deep album statements from bands not beholden to the man?

They don’t exist.

So you can either live in the past or live in the present.

That’s the conundrum.

And after going back forty years Tuesday night it convinced me…

Forward.