There’s no traffic.

I know, I know, if you go on the 95, it can be gridlocked, BUT THERE ARE ONLY THREE LANES! But my mother lives on Park Avenue, on the Bridgeport side, the main artery from Sacred Heart University to the beach, and…I never have to wait to enter traffic, I can pull a U-turn, it’s positively sleepy whereas in Los Angeles traffic is so bad that everybody employs WAZE and even the backstreets, thank you Bruce, are bumper to bumper.

You don’t need a jacket at night.

Oh, you might wear a fur during the SoCal winter, but the truth is my first year in California I wore my jean jacket, when that was a thing, all winter long. But during the summer? You always have to bring a wrap. Not only for the overchilled movies, but for the nip in the air, whether it be on the Westside or the Valley. I just locked the car and strode across the parking lot a half hour shy of midnight and I was revelling in the lack of a need for a jacket, this is the summer I remember.

You can be rich or be an artist, take your choice.

Today we went to the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills. I never knew Tarrytown had such a long downtown, I never knew White Plains had high rises, but I do know the Rockefellers had tons of money. Did I ever tell you I went to college with Eileen Rockefeller, David’s daughter? Not that we were best friends, not that she’d remember me, but we did have some conversations, I remember she had a loom in her dorm room. And as a matter of fact, in the basement of the house on the hill, where Nelson’s art collection is, they have tapestries of Picassos. That’s the stunning element of Kykuit, the artwork, both outside and in. Anybody rich can build an edifice, maybe even a golf course, assuming they have enough property, the Rockefellers had 4,000 acres, but do you have the taste to acquire great art? Nelson liked to think he had talent because he knew where to place sculptures, but being inspired to create the work, that’s the thing. Today every artist wants to be a Roc-A-Fella, but the truth is you never can be. Dr. Dre may have reached a billion, but he cannot compete with Zuckerberg and Bezos, never mind Gates and Buffett. But money is no match for art. Steve Jobs is nearly forgotten, he won’t be remembered but Picasso will, the Beatles probably too, that’s the power of songwriting, that’s the power of melody. So, do you want to leave your mark or accumulate cash? Those are different paths, what it takes to get rich is cunning business skills. Do you know any truly rich people? That money was not easy to earn, they had to compete, kill a few people along the way, not that they are not smart. But we understand business, we can see the path, but art is incomprehensible, and the greatest art is about testing limits. Me-too is nowhere. We’re interested in those who challenge conceptions, who test limits, who take us to new heights, like the aforementioned Picasso as well as Motherwell and Calder and Warhol in Nelson’s subterranean collection, never mind the Brancusi and Maillol outside…

Progress happens.

There’s a carriage house, with carriages, you know, the horse-drawn kind, that’s how John D. got to Kykuit. But then the automobile came along and soon no one will own a car and then at some point the car will be superseded, by what, I don’t know. And I know you’re in future shock, and I know you lament the loss of the past, but the truth is the future keeps on coming down the track, faster and faster, and those who adapt win, and are happy in the end. That’s how you know you’re too old, when the tech and the changes overwhelm you, you’re done.

Everybody wants to talk about Trump.

Last night I went to a dinner party with seven women, most of the conversation was about Trump (and the death of a synagogue!) Tonight I was at a restaurant and the owner couldn’t stop talking about Trump, wondering how many illegals were working at the President’s clubs. The restaurateur says the truth is America runs on immigrant labor, workers who oftentimes pay taxes, even though they never collect social security.

You can see world class talent in Fairfield.

It used to be another suburb, no one commuted to New York, I won’t say my hometown was a backwater, but if you wanted to see a show you had to drive to NYC, or maybe New Haven, now we have the Fairfield Theatre Company, with two rooms, one a 700+ cap and the other 200. Furthermore, it’s not a dump. That’s right, too many clubs are warehouses and nothing more, no amenities and dirty toilets, even backstage FTC was first class, surprised me, but not as much as…

Australian bands can PLAY!

Castlecomer, that was the band playing in the small room, to not a big audience, another rock band trying to make it. But hearing them perform through the walls, I could tell their music was good, and almost all of these unknown bands are bad. The drummer… The pounding was powerful, it drove the music forward, but when we emerged into the venue I found the frontman to be doing the act of someone performing to thousands. That’s the mark of someone who’s gonna make it, someone who closes the few in attendance knowing they will never forget them.

Castlecomer played 500 gigs before they were anybody. The frontman was an attorney who gave up the practice to write songs, because really you can’t do both. He wrote “Fire Alarm” the night he quit his gig. It attracted attention, the band flew to SXSW and were courted by labels and are now signed to Concord. “Fire Alarm” has 6,000,000 streams on Spotify, which means the band is not making any money, but they are getting attention, building a fan base. And if you see them you’ll be closed. But rock in the States is a backwater, there’s little room for new stuff on commercial radio, and it never crosses over to the mainstream, yet I enjoyed sitting there listening to an unknown band perform, reminded me of the way it used to be, way back when, in the seventies, before Netflix, when being home was a drag, when you had to go out, and there was no deejay playing records, there weren’t even any sports bars, you listened to bands. Now only the hard core is interested, the looky-loos, the casual fans, have moved on to other pursuits, but the hard core remains, and from this hard core emanates a rebirth. Only takes a spark to start a fire, but people, fans, communicators, are the oxygen, they make the whole thing go, they make it blow up.

More…

And the truth is although it’s the same country, the east coast is very different from the west. It’s beautiful, but somewhat calcified, kinda like Europe, there’s a ton of tradition, but it’s hard to break out of, whereas in California, the west, it’s new, everything’s being invented for the first time, there’s more freedom. Then again, some great art comes from those reacting to the status quo.

I’m in Connecticut, visiting my 91 year old mother.

I didn’t arrive until 1:30 AM, the flight was late because of weather in NYC and it took nearly an hour for my bag to descend and the pickup area needed to be overseen by FEMA. Why is it everybody in America feels entitled? Especially the richer they are? This one person with a Range Rover wouldn’t move, no matter what the “cops” said. Therefore, all pickup traffic was slowed-down and…

It was not like L.A. Where the gestapo reigns. Where it is not so humid. Where you can’t get a good bagel.

Now my father used to visit the deli every Sunday morning. After Sunday School we had family brunch. With whitefish and herring and other seafood I never touched, as well as bagels and lox and pastrami… That’s right, Jews never want to run out of food, if you don’t have leftovers, you bought too little. And there were the milkshakes, made in the ancient blender, my father loved to buy used curios. From a player piano to a meat-slicing machine, he got a “deal.”

But I never ate the lox.

And I didn’t think twice about the bagels.

Our rye bread came from Richelsoph’s, down on Black Rock Turnpike. We’d order and they’d run it through the slicing machine and I’d eat two or three slices before we got home, which was close nearby. My mother would always warn me that I would lose my appetite, but this never happened, an old wives’ tale like waiting an hour after you eat to resume swimming, not that my mother was so rigid on that, but it’s been recently debunked. But just wait another year and they’ll reinstate the doctrine, kinda like stretching, you should do it and then you shouldn’t. The science news is full of contradictions.

And the best part of the rye bread was the end, the heel. It’s all about the crust, especially after the inside cools off. My mother never bought Wonder Bread, although I envied those at school who ate it, we all want to fit in. Then again, my mother never ever made lunch for us, we ate the hot meal in the cafeteria.

So when I arrive in Connecticut I get freaked out. Because not only is it so different, I used to live here and I knew no better. Didn’t think twice about how green it was, about the rolling hills. The aforementioned humidity. And my mother’s condo is full of pictures. All of us younger and thinner, some of us no longer here. At first it creeps you out, reminds you of the passage of time, how we’re all just animals, here to reproduce. You’re young and you think you understand the game, then you grow old and you realize there is no game. If you’re trying to ascend the ladder, acquire possessions, the joke is on you, no one is really paying attention.

So it’s disorienting. You think you know what’s going on and then you don’t.

And after sleeping I woke up to converse with my mother at the kitchen table. It’s always at the kitchen table. And she asked me if I was hungry, after eating a coffee yogurt and taking my pills I said no, but then she said she needed a sandwich and I opened the fridge to find…

Lox.

Now I don’t know when I started to like lox, maybe sometime in my twenties, when I was already living in Los Angeles. But that’s faux lox, relatively dry, relatively tasteless. But east coast lox… It’s oily and neither sharp nor tasteless, rather it’s satisfying, with a soft solidity and a subtle palate tang.

And then there’s the cream cheese. Sure, if you’re on the run you buy Philadelphia, but when you go to the deli you always get the handmade stuff, which is thicker.

And I’m sitting there eating the lox and cream cheese because I’m not supposed to be eating carbs, and then my mother has half of her bagel left, that she’s not gonna eat.

Now I toasted it for her. In the Black & Decker Toast-R-Oven. Remember when these were made by GE? When GE used to make everything? And bagels oftentimes did not fit in our regular toaster, the Toast-R-Oven was a breakthrough. But how do you get the browning right? Personally, I love a deep brown, my mother wanted a light brown, but you know how it is, the window is very short, and I didn’t want to overdo it.

But a watched bagel does not toast.

But there are pictures on the dial. I chose the one that was half & half, half light, half dark, and the two sides of the bagel did not remain the same, one was darker than the other. Worried about burning I popped the window, shmeared the results with cream cheese, put the lox on top.

And…

Breaking the rules of my nutritionist, after getting a good report from the cardiologist, I ate the final half of bagel.

It was a REVELATION!

The bagel has been dumbed-down. Still round, still with a hole, but in most places it’s akin to bread. Used to be you could use them as car tires in a pinch, today’s bagels would just collapse. Certainly on the west coast. Even many east coast bagels, like the vaunted S&S, are too soft, a bagel’s skin should be so hard that you might break a tooth when you bite into it, your choppers should leave a mark, it should be crusty.

And this one was.

And the dough, the inside, it should be stiffer than soft, and it should have the consistency of nearly-cured cement. It should be chewy. You should need to roll it around in your mouth a few times before swallowing it.

And this one was.

And my mother took it for granted, but not me.

This lox and bagel was the elixir of youth.

Nobody knows anything. Not only about show business, but politics and finance. This is the story of this generation, how the media missed Trump and so much else. Hip-hop is gigantic, but Drake, the biggest act in the genre, and red-hot Migos, can’t sell every ticket and postpone opening dates for “production issues”… Like they didn’t know they were going to play those buildings to begin with? Then again, you certainly can’t trust entertainment reporting, where the scribes are sycophants looking for perks and will write anything their bullying patrons say. The Taylor Swift U.K. tour was a disaster, full of empty seats. But there was nary a word in the U.S. press, although the U.K. “Sun” printed pictures. But if you just push back hard enough, swing some swill about slow ticketing, then you get a pass.

But entertainment is irrelevant. Business and politics are not. The “New York Times” has been having a self-debate whether the Democrats are running too far to the left while the Republicans are saying that they are, laughing while they continue to define the debate, it’s the right that’s against Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic powers-that-be will probably nominate another compromise candidate for President nobody wants. That’s not 2018. People want something to believe in, which is why Trump won, which is why pop music failed, if you’re thinking of appealing to everybody, you’re appealing to almost nobody. And niches are strong enough to support you. You may not get ink, but the EDM and jam band acts are doing quite fine, thank you.

As is Facebook.

Don’t think of it as the signature service solely, think of it as Instagram and WhatsApp too. The truth is there’s little disruption in tech these days, because any disrupting company is either purchased by the big kahunas or put out of business via competition by these same behemoths. That’s Amazon’s business model. The only high-flying company that does not depend upon acquisitions is Apple, quite possibly to its detriment.

So now we’ve got Facebook missing Wall Street’s numbers. BARELY! $13.2 billion in revenue instead of $13.4. 11% user growth instead of the previous quarter’s 13%. This is like complaining your Prius got 43 miles per gallon instead of 45, your mileage is still PHENOMENAL!

Now Facebook might be overpriced, but the point is this double digit drop is a reaction to everything but the fundamentals. Facebook is the whipping boy for the anti-Trump forces. That’s right, you’ve got to blame someone other than yourself. Not that Facebook is innocent, wow, Zuckerberg and Sandberg were ignorant as to the power of their platform and the ability of nefarious users to employ it. But social media survives. People have to connect somewhere. And Snapchat is fading and Facebook controls the big 3, Facebook itself, the burgeoning Instagram and the dominant outside the U.S. WhatsApp. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

Oh, there’s Twitter.

You read as much negative stuff about Twitter as you do about Facebook. People like Maggie Haberman lamenting the nastiness. Come on, when you decry online hate it just illustrates you’re a newbie. Nastiness has been extant since the turn of the century online, if you’ve been playing, every day people tell me I’m an asshole, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And the truth is Twitter is the epicenter of breaking news. It’s imperfect, but if you want a taste of America, a truth you might not be able to handle, even if it’s riddled with falsehoods, you need to log on. Just ask the NBA, which lives on Twitter. But the mainstream media comes last, and that includes Fox and the WSJ.

But at least the right wing has a self-serving agenda.

The left wing media, the NYT, is all about self-flagellation and a return to the past. That’s right, there was an article in the paper of record how to return to a flip-phone. What’s next, an article how to return to standard transmissions, even though automatics can now shift more quickly and get better gas mileage?

Oh, then there’s the canard that phones are distracting and we must turn them off, take vacations.

What hogwash.

People need to CONNECT!

We heard these same stories when teenagers were addicted to telephones.

I mean I’d love to live in today’s world as a teen. Where you come home and connect with all your buddies, where you are not isolated. Sure, there’s some increase in bullying, but every step forward comes at a cost. A/C in automobiles ended vent windows. We lived!

Wall Street is Las Vegas for experts and chumps.

And the truth is some experts are not that smart to begin with. The index fund beats the pickers. And hedge funds are doing poorly. If it all made sense, there’d be better predictions, but there are not!

So Facebook stock will go back up, just you watch. It’s not about the death of tech, but the power of tech. Where else are you gonna put your money, GE???

It was astounding.

If you want to know what it was like in ’68, if you want to steep yourself in the concert experience from way back when, go to this show.

First and foremost it was in a theatre. Hard to believe, but the acts lamented the move to arenas at first, because of the SOUND! It was muddy, still is. Sit in the back and if you don’t know the words by heart, you’re in trouble. And with fewer people it felt more intimate.

And everybody sat.

I don’t get the standing thing. I think it’s just a way for promoters to make more money. But once they got rid of the chairs, the whole encounter changed. It used to be a religious experience, sitting in your seat, letting your mind drift. Then it became about a hang, a social scene.

But tonight was a trip to church, or synagogue, and even if you’re not a believer, you would have bowed down to the music emanating from the stage.

On the surface, this is 1 + 1 + 1 = 4. That’s right, Roger McGuinn’s been singing the same old hits for eons, if you wanted to hear them live, you already have. And although Chris Hillman has experimented musically, he’s in even less demand. But if you add in wild card Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, you end up with something you didn’t anticipate, the whole enterprise is lifted to another level. OF MUSIC!

We’ve gotten so far from the music it’s crazy. If you make hits, it’s about the trappings, your stardom, curating your social media feed is part of your act, what’s on stage is often canned, on hard drive, it’s just a celebration of the rest of your career. But the truth is recordings are dropping in influence. It’s what’s done on stage that counts. And when you get it right, like the assembled multitude did tonight, it’s TRANSCENDENT!

I didn’t expect it to be a Byrds concert, I didn’t expect it to be a celebration of what once was and still can be.

The show started with “My Back Pages.”

Wait, they weren’t immediately going to go into “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo” and play a few hits and exit thereafter?

And there were stories before each number, they gave context, not too long, but just right. And the second song was a cover of Porter Wagoner’s number “A Satisfied Mind,” sung by Marty. I never heard it, never knew it, but instantly I loved it!

Marty Stuart, the guy with the big hair who never crossed over to rock. His locks are white these days, but he’s younger than me. He’s lived in a parallel universe, and our paths have not crossed. But tonight!

The thing about these country players is they’re TIGHT! You get the idea they play every day, whether there’s an audience or not, they’re cohesive, and strong, the sound is AMAZING! It’s so weird to hear what once was and now still is again. There was nothing on hard drive, plastic surgery was not a factor, these were old guys who were still young.

Chris Hillman had to sit in a chair at times. McGuinn never doffed his hat. But when the band fired up it was just as vital as way back when. But curiously, there was no nostalgia factor, at least not until they paid tribute to Tom Petty at the end of the show.

You know, you go to hear the oldies, to trigger your memories. Hell, Journey is not the only band with a faux singer. It’s about the songs, they’re now ours. But these players owned the material, it was as fresh as today, you reveled in the sound, you expected them to come back next year with a new album.

But they won’t. Because no one wants to hear it, that’s not how it works anymore. Used to be you had to go to hear the new stuff, otherwise you might never hear it again. But now its just old nuggets, again and again.

But “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo” never gets play on stage.

But before that, in the first half, they toured their career, it was an Evening With.

And it wasn’t just hits. Sure, we heard “Mr. Tambourine Man,” amazing how McGuinn can still pick those notes, but there were obscurities, like “Time Between” and “Old John Robertson” and exquisite takes on “Wasn’t Born To Follow” and “Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man.”

As for the second half…

That’s what people came to hear.

The bass player switched to pedal steel, Marty picked a mandolin when he wasn’t wailing on Clarence White’s guitar, and after a couple of Marty and band songs, it was…

“You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.”

I didn’t buy “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo,” at least not in ’68, but in the fall of ’70, I went to visit my high school buddy Marc at the first year of Hampshire College and he picked it out on his guitar, I was immediately hooked. Funny how the hits fade and the album cuts persevere.

“Life In Prison” had meaning beyond the original.

“Blue Canadian Rockies” had visions of mountains hovering in front of your eyes.

“The Christian Life” made you a believer.

And “I Am A Pilgrim” united the audience, we’re all searching for song.

And then another take on “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” with the audience singing along, half the melody, half the harmony, and…

Even if you were not a fan of “Sweetheart,” even if you didn’t know the material well, you got it tonight, that’s the power of music, that’s the power of sound, that’s the power of playing, that’s the power of BEING THERE!

After twenty three numbers I wasn’t sure there’d be an encore. And then they played “So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” after McGuinn said most people think it’s a Petty song…

They went into Petty. McGuinn played his cover of “American Girl,” which just made me miss Tom.

But then Hillman performed his cover of “Wildflowers,” the same, but different from the original, and you almost weeped, for the loss, that’s when I got nostalgic, for what once was and forevermore will never be. Aren’t your elders supposed to die first? Not that they shouldn’t live, but in the natural order of things shouldn’t Tom be paying tribute to the departed Byrds?

But then…

It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down
I had the radio on, I was drivin’

Whoa! What? That’s right, Marty Stuart was singing RUNNIN’ DOWN A DREAM! I thought back to buying “Full Moon Fever,” that amazing run of songs on the first side, can those days ever come back? I’m not sure, as Tom is gone, but I’m still here and the band on stage was fully ALIVE!

The finale was “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and then they were gone.

To everything there is a season.

And we lived through it, the assembled multitude, no one under forty, most over sixty. When McGuinn wore his granny glasses on national TV, when we followed the personnel changes and stopped paying attention to sports, when there was a new exciting act on a regular basis, just like there was a new exciting app half a decade ago. We lived from one musical moment to the next, hopping along in ecstasy.

And then it ended. We loved that the young ‘uns embraced Zeppelin and the Doors, but then melody went out the window and it became about melisma whereas subtlety used to have a place. And the oldsters sit around and bitch, wishing the old days would come back…

TONIGHT THEY DID!