A winter’s day
In a deep and dark December

I was freezing my balls off on the Tea Cup Express. The plan had been to ride the Orient Express up to the poma to ski Bolshoi Ballroom, but the light was so flat on the Poppyfields I decided to exit back to the front side, but in order to do that I had to endure the Tea Cup Express.

They call them “Express” because they run two and a half times as fast as the old fixed-grip lifts, the Expresses detach when you get on and off, and whoosh you at high speed in between, Tea Cup in the great wide open of Vail’s Back Bowls, without a tree to block the wind. It was just me and the elements.

And I loved it.

It’s hard to explain, from back when the world was bigger, when living in the country meant you were disconnected, out of the loop, dependent upon friends and alcohol to get you through. With internet and cheap jet travel no place is that far away these days, and something’s been lost in the process. Not that I want to go back to the days of isolation, but stuck on the Tea Cup Express my mind drifted to college, where I spent four years in this environment. The sky was spitting snow, it was far below freezing, and I was loving every minute of it. It was a homecoming of sorts, even though it was thousands of miles away.

Then again, after college I spent two years in Utah, what a bizarre place that was. Living in the flats of the Salt Lake Basin surrounded by young families. Like a fish out of water, only in this case a ski bum out of snow. There’s little snow in the Basin, but as you climb the highway up Little Cottonwood Canyon…

And when I lived in Utah back in the seventies, you were stuck there. Sure, you could drive to L.A., but that was twelve hours away. As for airline travel, that was a no-no. You got behind the wheel, put cassettes in the deck and went off on a solitary journey, just you and the landscape. And it’s lonely and comforting all at the same time. I mean I love the city, I can’t imagine living anywhere else but L.A., with all that’s going on, the opportunities, but I remember when my pursuit of skiing led me to the hinterlands, and you can never get rid of the memories, like an old girlfriend.

And I’ve got four layers up top and two below and the wind is cutting through me and “I’m A Rock” starts playing in my head. It was the lines above.

And as I thought about it, I realized it wasn’t quite winter, it’s still fall.

And it’s early December, not deep December.

But it was certainly dark. The two previous days were broad sunshine, and we remarked about the shadows, with the sun so low in the sky. But on this stormy day, it was all gray, funny how the lack of color can inspire you.

Now I went to see Simon & Garfunkel in the lull, before “Mrs. Robinson” and “The Graduate.” The headliner was Soupy Sales, he was riding the success of “The Mouse.”

But Paul and Art had a slew of hits. And “I Am A Rock” was the third one, not counting their foray as Tom & Jerry back in ’57.

“The Sound of Silence” broke in the late fall of ’65, when the Beatles were still riding high, but there was room for new acts. And we thought it was a made-up moniker, a one hit wonder, but the sound of the record, it was eerie, that’s one thing that’s been lost in the internet/social network/hip-hop era. The darkness. The haunting. These records descended upon us from another universe, and then they became our everything.

Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow
I am a rock
I am an island

The quiet. After the storm, but primarily during. It’s like God has put a pair of noise-canceling headphones upon the world, there’s only room for your thoughts.

I’ve built walls
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain
I am a rock
I am an island

That’s what bonded us music fans, our aloneness. We were not cheerleaders, we were not star athletes, we didn’t fit in, we lived in our heads, and the music spoke to us.

We wanted love, we had friendship but we yearned to be popular. We were spinning our wheels, trying to start.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock
I am an island

This was before the great economic run-up. Back when we were mostly middle class. And our pursuits and culture were everything. Reading, being in the school play, those were activities, not being an entrepreneur. The only thing we were starting up were bands. We were on this great adventure, surfing the zeitgeist, not knowing we were in the midst of a generational revolution.

We had time to waste. We weren’t booked 24/7. Our rooms were everything. As a matter of fact, “In My Room” played in my head as I got off the Sourdough Express on the front side, after my flight of endurance in Tea Cup Bowl.

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries

I was feeling pain, I was frozen, but I knew it was useless to cry out, as for extracting my phone to text Felice, that was never gonna happen.

But that was physical, Paul Simon was talking emotional.

The funny thing is baby boomers have come full circle. Burnt by failed romances, they’re wary about starting again, they want to keep their good feelings intact. There’s a growing loneliness amongst my generation. After all the striving, after all the achievements, we’ve realized it all barely matters, that we’re the same, we want to bond, we want to connect, but too often we’re afraid.

But we’ve got our music.

I Am A Rock

You’d like to believe the people, mostly men, running America’s companies know more than you do.

Now I’m not so sure.

Did anybody think that Yahoo had value? Or AOL? If you haven’t switched to Gmail, the joke is on you. There’s been no investment in AOL’s e-mail product in seemingly a decade. Change your address now, because chances are you’re not getting all your e-mail.

But I am getting all my phone calls, texts and e-mail on Verizon. Unlike many Americans, I’m willing to pay for the best. And if you believe Verizon is not, you’ve been convinced by advertising, i.e. fake news, or you subscribe to a competing service and don’t want to admit you’re wrong. It’s kinda like driving a Hyundai and being convinced you’re driving a Mercedes-Benz. Then again, those Genesis models are pretty good. America is the land of delusion, where bedrock is unfindable, our whole country is shaking, possibly from fracking. Hierarchy is abhorred, everybody believes they can be a star, and the winners don’t want to sacrifice, nobody in the U.S. wants to sacrifice anymore, you can’t take away their jobs, you can’t make them drive fuel-efficient automobiles, they’ve got to be free to leave the lights on and pollute the air. America is full of adolescents, parading under the banner of FREEDOM! No one gets to be that free, no one gets to do whatever they want all the time, unless they run a Fortune 500 company.

These overpaid nincompoops make one mistake after another, and the Street is too stupid to know what’s going on. Look at the valuations of Uber and Tesla, meanwhile, Warren Buffett is investing in railroads. And somehow, the titans of wireless believe they can become entertainment companies.

We saw this movie once already, when Andy Lack was imported to run Sony Music, because there needed to be order and the music business is run by unprofessional know-nothings who need to be taught a lesson. No, Andy Lack needed to be taught a lesson, and after the rootkit fiasco, he was booted.

The CEO who built Verizon Wireless is long gone, and those who’ve followed in his seat have been so inured to Wall Street that they’ve lost their senses. Does ANYBODY think AOL has value? How about Yahoo?

But Verizon overpaid for those properties. The last bungle this stupid is when HP bought Palm.

AOL was training wheels for the internet, and after you could ride on two wheels, you gave it up. As for Tim Armstrong and his advertising strategy, he was proven a snake oil salesman long before the acquisition, why did Verizon take the bait? Oh, it needed an advertising system, one which never quite worked, to go along with the backward one acquired via Yahoo.

Some products deserve to die, some are superseded. But there always seems to be a mark willing to invest, to grow that which no amount of water and sunshine, and dollars, will ever make live again.

Like the BlackBerry believers. When I see one of those devices in the wild, I laugh. And it’s always carried along with an iPhone. As if the owner cannot type on glass. Hell, I can type faster on glass than I ever could with smartphone keys.

But you can’t teach old dogs new tricks, and youngsters keep eating the world.

That’s the story of Facebook and Google. How they took the ill-formed executions of concepts, social media and search, and refined and built upon them. Facebook switches from desktop to mobile nearly overnight, and Verizon buys dead properties. Hell, give me some of that $4.5 billion, you’re playing with my money, my rates only go up!

But no, the titans of industry believe they’re entitled to their salaries.

But the truth is they’re so locked in their silos they don’t know what is going on. Why didn’t they ask their children about AOL and Yahoo, after all children are our future, the customers coming. But NO, they know better, like the MBAs and Excel experts who never built anything. Isn’t it funny that the biggest corporations were built by college dropouts, maybe they got out before the educational system depleted their creativity. It’s conformity all the time. Meanwhile, we’re led by those thinking outside the box. When you hear about coal and the rest of the retro crap dismiss the speaker, because the future is coming down the pike and what’s successful today may be forgotten tomorrow. Does anybody want a Debbie Gibson CD?

My parents kept on telling me someone else knew better, that I wasn’t up to the game. But the longer I live it seems like we live in a nation of Ozzes, and they’re anything but wizards. They’ve been taught how to read a financial statement, yet they know nothing about the real world.

Verizon, the next time you want to buy something, call me first, I can save you a boatload of cash!

You don’t want to be dissed by a woman. Hell, Carly Simon built her whole career on it. “You’re so vain…”

“After she returned to Capitol Hill, Ms. Pelosi said that for Mr. Trump, the wall was ‘like a manhood thing for him.’

‘As if manhood could ever be associated with him,’ she said.”

5 Takeaways From Trump’s Meeting With Pelosi and Schumer

She’s playing Trump’s game, but better.

In other words, you can teach an old dog new tricks.

The Republicans have defined the debate for decades. They are the ones who kept screaming about Pelosi. It was a very good strategy, to a degree the Democrats bought it, but Pelosi navigated and appears to have emerged victorious, she will be the Speaker.

And the Donald will have to deal with the adult in the room.

Men are afraid of strong women. Their tricks don’t work. Furthermore, most men are pussy-whipped. The woman sets the agenda and the man follows, except for the occasional blow-up, when the woman lets the guy have his way.

Or, you can marry a slave. That’s what Richard Lewis used to do. He got involved with women who would do whatever he wanted. Watch Scorsese movies all day long? NO PROBLEM! But he married a woman with power, who could stand up to him.

With Trump it’s “my way or the highway.” Sure, you can surround yourself with acolytes who never bark back, but when you encounter professionals, especially women, you’re unprepared.

That’s what we don’t like about Sheryl Sandberg. She’s a woman, but she’s playing a man’s game, like a man. Whereas Nancy Pelosi is being a woman, and it’s working for her. She’s not raising her voice, she’s not ranting and raving, and she’s got no problem getting in the ring with power.

Furthermore, she’s experienced.

Somehow, experience has been waylaid. Sure, you need new perspectives, but in every profession time spent playing the game pays dividends. In music, we embrace the young and new and throw the old overboard. And the disses are never over anything important. It’s a girlfriend or misbehavior in a club. Musicians used to be seers sitting atop the social pyramid, now they’re bozos running around in the circus, it’s pure entertainment.

And Pelosi is not playing Hillary’s game. Hillary was like a deer in the headlights, so worried about what people thought of her that she couldn’t and still can’t be honest. We know acts like this in the music business, they have their hit(s) and are forgotten. We’re looking for someone more honest, more singular, evidencing their truth, that’s what we’re drawn to.

And the problem with Trump is the lack of truth. But Pelosi called him on this, she refused to be pushed around and misrepresented.

Guys know how to mess with guys. Women? They don’t know how to play, especially in public. Do they bend over backwards and then stick the knife in in the dark?

It’s been a long time coming.

And it won’t be a long time gone.

It’s here to stay.

One thing’s for sure, Trump has woken up the country. I don’t expect Fox News and Trumpsters to celebrate Pelosi, anything but, but the truth is the game is not one of snapshots, but rather an entire movie.

Fox is running out of ammunition. Fighting the war of Clinton and Obama when the last I checked, they held no political office. Hell, the entire Republican agenda is a blast to the past. And Me Too has evolved. Now it’s not about who you mistreated as much as how you treat women today. And women who embrace their newfound power are the winners.

Come on, a 78 year old rock star?

Who’d you rather talk to, who’d you rather hang with, Nancy Pelosi or Cardi B?

You use your power to move the needle.

You don’t bitch about the old game, you redefine it. Hell, there are still rockers lamenting streaming. Meanwhile, the game is about audience and touring. How do you develop your own fan base that will support you.

OH NO! I need the help of the label and radio and the press, I can’t do it alone.

Yes you can.

The power of one can never be underestimated. One person changes the world. We’re looking for beacons, we want to follow in the footsteps of leaders.

And every leader has those who don’t support them.

But living in the past under falsehoods never wins.

Martin Mull once said “Politics is show business for ugly people.”

But it turns out show business is politics for beautiful people. All the maneuvering, all the falsehoods, all the TMZ…or, as another performer once said, “Show business is high school with money.”

And I never want to go back to high school, do you?

At some point you have to grow up and become an adult. But the music business is stuck in endless adolescence. And if you are an adult you’re pushed to the side.

I gave up on the circus long ago, hell, it was canceled by society just a few years back.

Meanwhile, the rank and file get caught up in the sideshow, the comic book movies, while the adults rule the world.

Like Nancy Pelosi.

Recorded live in Dublin, Ireland.

Tune in today, Tuesday December 11th, on Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive