That’s what my car thermometer just said.

Now if I was in Vail, that would be a heat wave, get any warmer and the snow might get too slushy to ski. But in L.A?

The weather is backwards in L.A.

I remember working at a summer camp in the White Mountains. By time you get to the middle of August, you’re freezing in your sleeping bag, you’re curled up inside, trying to suck your own heat.

But in L.A?

It doesn’t get hot until maybe September. Memorial Day? You don’t want to go to the beach, there’ll be a nip in the air.

And cold weather?

That happens in December. By time the New Year rolls around, it starts to get balmy. Hell, I’ve seen 90 in January many a time.

But this year…

I used to own a BMW that had a bell when it got to 36. For all I know, BMWs still have that feature. But I never experienced it until I drove to Mammoth. It went off and I had no idea what was going on. Was it a classic BMW defect, i.e. after owning a BMW past warranty, you’ve got to expect ghosts in the machine, that rarely reappear when you bring it in for service and you learn to live with. And I’m paranoid. If there’s a bell in the car, gosh darn, there must be something wrong.

But it’s just a feature. To warn you. Bridges freeze before roads, did you know that? I certainly do, having grown up on the east coast before the days of four wheel drive, before the days of all-season tires. Back then you put on your snows before Thanksgiving, and didn’t take them off until April. With studs, for traction on the ice. Today people use all-season rubber and think they’re covered, but they’re not. But those in the know today put snow tires on all four wheels, we never did that.

But on the east coast, in Connecticut, by time you hit March 1st, you’re almost in spring. Sure, it might snow, but it’ll melt. You break out your baseball glove and go to the park and fight the wind as you throw the ball around. But you’re eager, you’ve been waiting for this. Back when you watched the Grapefruit League on TV with no thought of going down to Florida to see it live.

But in California you can ski until July, but in Vermont, you’re sometimes lucky if you can make it to April 1st.

Which reminds me of 1971, an especially good snow year. We skiers remember. My friend Ronnie came to Middlebury in his sister’s Datsun and we drove for spring skiing at Stowe on April 21st. On April 22nd, we went to the quarry and jumped in, went swimming. In Vermont, if it’s in the fifties, you break out your shorts.

And when I go back to Vail will it even be winter? It’s supposed to be in the forties next week. Sure, it can snow. But will the surface be soft and wet and will I wonder where the winter went?

The years don’t start to speed up until you leave school.

Remember waiting for Christmas vacation, taking the bus home elated? I vividly remember that in high school.

I walked to elementary school. And my mother never took me and never picked me up, even the day there was a hurricane. I didn’t think twice. Actually, I enjoy battling the elements, as long as disaster doesn’t lurk. I like riding the chairlift in the snowstorm. But that time our tent blew over below Tuckerman Ravine…I was scared.

Have I told you I’ve been on the edge of death a number of times? I’m not boasting about it, it’s just that when you engage with nature, stuff happens. Mother Nature doesn’t care about you, no way.

Now next week it’s supposed to warm up a bit. Be 60 during the day. And with the sun higher in the sky, you feel the warmth, especially in your automobile.

But at night, they’re still talking less than 50.

So it’s a conundrum. I like the winter more than the summer. But after a while, you get used to the mild winters of SoCal. You probably read that it snowed here yesterday. Not where I was, and even though I saw pics, it’s hard to believe. They were citing a storm back in the forties in comparison, that’s how rare it is.

But I used to live in the cold weather.

And there you look forward to the warm weather, the spring, when everything comes back alive.

But the world is going so fast, and the older you get you realize it doesn’t care about you, and the focus is on the young, and you feel displaced. You want to tell someone that you’re freaked out about how fast time is going, you want to know what this means.

And they can debate all about global warming, but you realize all the predictions are gonna happen after you’re dead.

Then again, the “New York Times” said they’ve lost 23 ski days in the Rockies since the eighties. Vail used to be open until May, that never happens anymore. And they lost 27 in the Sierras.

But only 8 in Vermont, where the season was short to begin with.

Still…

I feel like a lobster. I’m in the pot, they’re turning up the heat gradually and I don’t notice it, but soon I’ll be cooked.

And so will you.

Everybody’s in their own silo.

Only in this case, hip-hop is the coasts, the “New York Times” and the “Washington Post.”

And everything else is Fox News.

That’s right, hip-hop won. The only people who don’t know are oldsters, who are irrelevant. In this case it’s the opposite of politics, as in the old people are inconsequential and the young ones count. It does not matter what baby boomers say about music whatsoever. Peter Tork just died, and Frampton just announced his retirement from the road. Sure, oldsters will line up to overpay to see their classic rock heroes, hopefully before they die, but they’re not subscribing to streaming services, they’re not going to clubs and they’re certainly not haunting Soundcloud to see what’s developing.

But, the insiders are out of the loop. Just like Trump upset the apple cart in politics, the same thing is gonna happen in music. Because despite its domination, a great swath of the public does not like hip-hop, does not pay attention, does not care at all, even active music consumers.

But they are ignored by the music business.

Radio plays records that are already old. Streaming services do a subpar job of breaking records. So many have tuned out completely, because they just cannot fathom the present world.

But many like genres other than hip-hop.

And major labels and the media refuse to acknowledge this.

Think about it, the internet has turned the world into the Tower of Babel. Yet in music, we’ve still got one chart of hits that we see as tablets from the mount. Does that make sense?

Look at it another way, does Netflix just make sci-fi? No, they make superhero shows and distribute English dramas and make comedy specials, they’re doing their best to appeal to everybody, although not caring if you’re buried in your own little niche.

But in music, we’re just appealing to the hip-hop and pop crowd.

Kinda like that inane story in “Billboard” about Ariana Grande breaking the Beatles’ chart record. That’s like saying a kid hit 60+ homers in Little League and broke the Babe’s home run record. It’s two different worlds! You couldn’t avoid the Beatles, everybody knew them and their music, oldsters and youngsters. But I’ll posit at least fifty percent of America has not heard Ariana Grande’s new album, if not more. Howard Stern did not know who Childish Gambino was and his show is centered on pop culture!

So what happened in politics?

Blowback. The underserved, when given a chance, got rid of the status quo. And rather than understanding their motivation, the coastal people just told them they were wrong, had contempt for them. Proving, if nothing else, that there is no agreement.

Our nation has broken apart. Our world has broken apart. Elections have proven this in politics. As for the internet, you can tweet, but there’s a good chance no one will read it. Medium failed. We’re positively lowest common denominator, i.e. Instagram, it comes down to showing a picture of yourself and trying to gain followers. Meanwhile, it’s all fake, because no one posts a bad pic. Music, when done right, reveals warts and all. But today, everything is streamlined, no one shows vulnerability, everybody’s FABULOUS!

But we know that is not true.

Hell, most genres are not played on terrestrial radio. And a huge slice of the public never tunes in to the over the air band, despite the disinformation campaign of stations. Ain’t that America, we deny problems until we collapse.

Hell, we had a more equal distribution of musical styles in the sixties and seventies than we do today! Just look at an old chart, Sly coexisted with the Beatles who coexisted with Petula Clark and I could go on, but you get the point. But now, when every genre can surface online, we’re narrowcasting and thinking everybody’s interested, BUT THEY’RE NOT!

Meanwhile, there’s not enough money in the music business to appeal to the young intelligentsia, so the landscape is still run like the gangster operation it always has been. Just ask an act if it trusts its label…

So, the music industry could prepare for the coming tsunami, but it won’t.

Yes, now is when major labels should be developing acts. They think if anything gains traction they’ll be able to hoover it up. But that’s so last century. To prepare for the future you invest, you broaden your portfolio. Kinda like Apple, the iPhone is their cash cow, but they’re constantly creating new products to prepare for the day, which may have already arrived, when iPhone revenue craters.

But not the music industry.

Nobody owns anything and everybody’s looking for their bonus.

So be prepared for the audience to turn over the table.

It’s gonna happen.

They used to dominate the music landscape. People who were the “other,” who seemed to march to a different drummer, whose values were different from those of the rat race.

Like Woody Guthrie. Like Bob Dylan. Like the Rolling Stones.

Sure, eventually the Stones became members of the glitterati, but we laughed about it, how we invaded the upper reaches of society, how things were on our terms now.

They haven’t been on our terms for quite a while.

I was listening to Barry Diller on “Recode/Decode” and his attitude made me puke. Like he single-handedly could give back to society. How about if he paid more taxes and we built it! He knew everybody, from Gates to Bezos, and kept testifying about the good they’d done in society, talked about how Zuckerberg was gonna figure it out and when confronted with “billionaire bashing,” he was essentially silent.

Billionaire bashing, We used to revere the wealthy, pay fealty to them, want to be like them, rich, in private planes, raping and pillaging…

That’s right, too many of these supposed “job-creators” took and took, especially jobs, and then gave little back.

Kinda like Trump. That’s how he got elected, he was supposedly a billionaire and he knew better. Now we know he doesn’t know nearly anything at all. As for his supporters…they believe in the racism he promotes, the anti-immigrant screeds, but they didn’t have to get these positions from him, then again, maybe they’re southern rednecks or prairie people left behind as the country moves forward, just like the denizens Charlie Daniels sang about before he became a Republican. That was the word in the sixties…you’d better not bring your long hair and coastal values to the south or you will pay a price, it’s the same today.

And the right wing rose up under Trump, and then what ensued was a BACKLASH!

That’s what we’re talking about here. To piss the right off, I’ll call it the payment for forty years of Reaganomics. Let the rich run free and it’ll trickle down to the poor. How’s that working for the underclass, for the middle class…IT’S NOT!

Therefore you see the rise of progenitor Elizabeth Warren. And then AOC. These people came from the outside and insiders hate them. AOC toppled a long-established Congressman for her seat. They’re not doing it to get rich, to become a lobbyist, to go to work at the corporate law firm, rather they’re standing up for what’s right, remember that?

Doesn’t matter if you disagree. If you’ve got a problem with Warren’s roots. The country is against you. The country is pissed and motivated and so far, the stars are not musical. Michelle Obama got the biggest applause at the Grammys. And Walter White did everything to help his family, he didn’t want aid from his rich friend who ripped him off.

Standards, principles, they’re out the window.

But now they’re back.

Music is in such a bad place. All we’ve got is moneygrubbers at the top of the chart. As for rebelling…I’m not talking about getting in trouble with the law.

We’re gonna get a whole new set of stars. More like Jason Isbell than Lil Yachty.

That’s how they came up with the “rock star” moniker. People who could do it their way outside the constraints of society. Wreck hotel rooms and then pay the bill. Leave hundreds of thousands behind, and fly back to England. Sure, Led Zeppelin’s music was great, but the myth was even better.

And John Lennon proclaimed the Beatles bigger than Jesus. Now winners at award shows keep thanking God, even though facts tell us our nation is moving toward atheism. Just another way performers are out of touch.

But everybody is making beats and rapping while the truly creative have jettisoned their dreams and are working hard in the straight world just to make a buck.

This is the shift. After the pushback. We want more honest performers. Refusing to play for oligarchs, standing up for people as well as animals.

The ship turns slowly, and then it’s completely turned around.

That’s the point we’re getting to today.

The vapid artists will be history overnight, just like almost all were at the advent of the Beatles.

Oh, who am I kidding. Music has gone from a leading enterprise to picking up the crap after the elephants, not realizing the circus has been canceled.

The labels only support what already sells and the streaming services take no responsibility for breaking new acts and the public goes underserved, which is why they’re getting behind politicians, addicted to the news. Meanwhile, all we’ve got is the 808, an ancient sound, and songs about lifestyle.

The RBG movie is a phenomenon, but its song can’t make it on today’s hit parade.

Authenticity. Marching to the beat of your own drummer. Money subservient to message. Hell, Dylan’s “Dont Look Back” is more popular now than it was when it was made. Why? Because Dylan refuses to cave, to play the game.

We need fewer game players.

It takes a long time to start a new movement in today’s fractured society. Took decades for the pushback to arrive. But it’s happening. And we’re gong to see the effects in the music business. It won’t come from the suits, but people who resist them.

You don’t need to be rich to be intelligent. You don’t need to have a college degree to make a statement. You don’t have to play by the rules to win the game.

But it takes a special individual to do this.

They’re coming.

Felice asked me if I ever rode the horse outside the supermarket.

I said yes. Although I then thought about it. Surely I had, but most times my mother declined to honor my request to plug in a dime.

In return I asked Felice whether she remembered parcel pick-up.

I got a blank stare.

Then, on Bloomberg Radio, channel 119 on Sirius XM, I heard them talking about Wal-Mart’s numbers, which shot through the roof with the death of Toys-R-Us, and that the company was expanding curbside pickup of groceries to a thousand more stores…

DIDN’T WE HAVE THAT IN THE SIXTIES?

Maybe you don’t remember, in the days where you paid for food with a check and not a credit card, in the pre-scanner era. But you’d pay for your groceries and a bagger would put the paper bags in a cart, akin to the one the postman delivers your mail in when you come back from a long vacation, and that cart would be placed on a system of rails and then you’d drive your car to the curb and they’d place the bags in your trunk and…WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THOSE?

They seem to have disappeared with S&H Green Stamps.

My mother never bothered with stamps, nor coupons, life was too short. But when we were kids, we got the books, we pasted in the stamps, and found out we could never afford what we wanted.

But King Cole had no stamps.

It was the Whole Foods of its day. The Stew Leonard’s. Opened in 1958 it had sixteen checkout lanes and even sold furniture… It was the future, right now. It was for gourmets.

You’re five years old and you’re wowed by chocolate covered ants. Yup, they sold those, along with dried grasshoppers. They were ahead of their time, now to save the environment everyone is talking about eating insects.

And by this time I was too big to ride in the grocery cart. That was another breakthrough, the built-in seat. But my sister Wendy got to. And we’d push her around the store… When you’re a little kid, you want to push the grocery cart, it makes you feel powerful as you point out all the things your mother won’t buy you.

And when we’d check out…

They had parcel pick-up at King Cole, but it went underground, to a whole new location!

This was the tech breakthrough of the fifties. Kids are fascinated by conveyor belts and Rube Goldbergesque constructions. The fact that our food went underground, that was like a ride at Disneyland, which we saw on TV every Sunday night but had never been to. We always wondered, could we get in the cart too? We were certainly small enough.

And then we’d go out to the Ford Falcon, pull up to the distant destination where our food was, actually, just across the parking lot, and drive home.

Now yesterday was not like today. Most mothers didn’t work, and most families didn’t have full-time housekeepers, never mind nannies. So, a mother would have to take her kids with her to the store. And you know kids, they never want to be distracted from their fun and games.

But if we were going to King Cole!

This was before seatbelts, when safety was a non-issue, when dashboards were made out of metal.

We’d climb over the seats while our mother was driving. We’d delve into the bags and extract some Fudge Town cookies or bread. The car was just another playground.

And it wasn’t only King Cole that had parcel pick-up, Grand Union did too. Even the A&P, where my mother refused to shop, claiming it was dirty.

This was a standard feature, you’d see the rollers right out front. There’d be a doggie door between the store and the outside. A kid could watch the parcel pick-up delivery system for the entire time his or her mother was shopping, when you got old enough to be let out of her sight.

But parcel pick-up seemed to disappear, long before the advent of self-service gas stations. Seems like something is always lost in the march to the future. Like vent windows. I bet kids today have never seen them. But before the days of auto a/c, you’d crack the vent and it would blow air right into your face and it would feel so good!!

But now Wal-Mart is delivering your groceries curbside. Will the metal rollers of parcel pick-up arrive next?

Or, comb through the pics here:

Parcel Pick-Up