Clear

Felice hates to wait.

It doesn’t bother me that much. I’m not saying I love the traffic, but I endure it, it’s payment for the privilege to live in SoCal. Then again, I tend not to drive during rush hour.

So we were at DIA last summer and Felice became intrigued by Clear. Funny how I’m not always an early-adopter. We now expect things to work right right out of the box, but I remember the old days, when you never bought a car in its first year and the products you got often didn’t function. And didn’t a company like this already go out of business?

Clear gets you into the airport faster. To be exact, you skip the I.D. check. Go straight to the conveyor belt/scan. It costs a buck seventy five a year. But we got free passes, for a while anyway, Felice saved hers, I threw mine out. I don’t sign up for anything I might cancel, a free trial, FORGET ABOUT IT! Then you’re dunned ad infinitum with e-mails forevermore. As for those people playing the credit card game, signing up and canceling for the miles… Life is too short to play the mileage game. I guess I’m my mother’s son, she’s never used a coupon in her life, saying it isn’t worth the nickel or dime, but I do remember forcing her to save Green Stamps way back when, to paste in the book, when I saw the paltry offerings, I never did this again.

You see you can concentrate on making money or grubbing at the bottom. If you’ve got a travel agent who can cash in your miles for a trip, fantastic, but otherwise it’s a full time job, I feel I’m better off working, trying to make real money.

So I didn’t sign up for Clear and Felice implored me to. Saying she wasn’t gonna wait for me in the airport.

But last summer Clear wasn’t yet in L.A., and usually we fly to EGE, only DIA when the direct flight to Vail ends. But she pushed me and pushed me, saying she had one month free, and I did it.

Actually, I had a problem with the website. Could have been user error. That’s the problem with modern life, you’re doing so much that if you try to do everything you screw up. It’s a full time job paying bills and keeping your enterprise running. In the old days, before everybody worked 24/7, mothers didn’t and they did this. And don’t go all #MeToo on me, I’m just reporting history, which cannot be changed, even though it can be analyzed.

So I e-mailed the customer service guy, the bigwig on the website, and he got back to me right away and helped me. And then I was in.

Until today, when I got to the airport.

They said you had to sign up, go through some mumbo-jumbo to complete the process.

Thank god there was a woman there to help me, although at first there wasn’t and I would have skipped the process accidentally but I asked a question… My father always told us to ask, sometimes it bugs people when I do, sometimes I feel self-conscious, but in this case the operator was away from her station and the clerk pointed her out and she helped me sign up.

Along with the woman next to me.

I need full attention. I get uptight when things get official.

And there were problems with the scans, they just couldn’t get my fingerprints right.

But worse was the iris. The operator told me to skip it, to do it next time, but I was having none of that. This was my one and only time, I didn’t want to wait again.

And then I thought I was done.

But there were questions…

The name and age of my mother. THEY HAD IT! I had to confirm it!

That’s weird.

But then they asked me where I’d gotten mail in the past couple of years other than Santa Monica and I realized they wanted Felice’s address.

HOW DID THEY KNOW ALL THIS?

As for my fingerprints, I’m not afraid of coughing them up, you have to do this to become an attorney.

But all this other info?

I get it, I get it, Cambridge Analytica used all that data to try and sway people’s opinions, and I’m unswayable, then again, I did believe that fake news during the election saying Trump thought Republicans were stupid, before I realized he was stupid, but the truth is…

The privacy ship has already sailed. We’re living in the future. And I’m still shocked.

Now I thought PreCheck was enough. But it’s not. That’s how life is, just when you climb the rung of one ladder, they put another one up on top. The PreCheck line is getting longer and longer. In this case, I bypassed the TSA agent corroborating identity and ticket and went straight to the conveyor belt and realized…I SAVED SOME TIME!

But at what cost?

Like I said, a buck seventy five. I realized that after the free trial was up I was gonna pay it. For all the b.s. about people not wanting to pay, they do so for convenience, which is why you can still steal music but it’s just easier to pay Spotify, because stealing is time-consuming and problem-ridden.

As for the airport lounge…

That’s now been broken down in two. If you get the black FIRST card, you get a free buffet and no screaming children, at least not today.

But it’s nothing like flying private.

And you wondered what they were gonna do with all that repatriated cash.

The truth is Tim Cook has been propping up the stock with buybacks for years, funnily enough borrowing the money to do so, knowing he had all that moolah overseas. But without any growth opportunities on the horizon, with no breakthrough hardware product imminent, he’s decided to break Apple’s mantra “not invented here” and purchase an outside product to leap ahead.

The truth is Steve Jobs was never against this. He stole the graphical user interface from Xerox, he bought SoundJam to make iTunes, and the self-satisfied inheritors of his legacy have yet to learn his lesson. Rumor has it Steve’s widow Laurene called Cook to complain, to inform him of the past to get on the right path, but I haven’t seen that confirmed anywhere.

Now there’s precedent here. Google bought YouTube and Facebook bought WhatsApp and Instagram. And look at them now! You get to the point where you run out of ideas and you just purchase those of others.

And no one else can afford Netflix.

But Apple can. A hundred billion when they’ve got a multiple of that in the bank? NO PROBLEM!

So the entire landscape is rejiggered. Suddenly, Amazon has a deep-pocketed competitor in visual media. As for the TV networks, one knows they’re no match for a techie. Napster and Spotify, need I say more?

Apple tried to go it alone. But none of their shows has worked and the big investment in Witherspoon and Aniston… One show does not a network make. Your distribution pipeline needs product, which is why all the major labels make deals with the indies, they’ve got baked-in overhead. And without catalog, you’ve got a sea of red ink. You need past hits to keep you alive while you’re sorting out new.

Meanwhile, this keeps Apple from doubling-down on data, something Cook said last week the company would never do. Then again, Netflix decides what to make and promote based on what its users watch, so that’s kinda contradictory.

So where does this leave the landscape?

The studios are history. There’s nothing that says Netflix can’t make superhero flicks, and as a matter of fact they do! Can you say JESSICA JONES? The studios have backed themselves into a corner, a self-satisfied one, they thought they ruled the culture when the truth is tech does, and we’re all addicted to our mobile devices. If I hear one more director say their film was not made for viewing on an iPhone… The same damn people who shoot and edit digitally. It reminds me of the musicians bitching about streaming while they make their music on laptops and promote it for free online.

And the conglomerates??

Viacom… TOAST!

MGM? RIGHT BEHIND!

Disney? A day late and a dollar short. So busy focusing on theme parks and monopolies, they’re behind the eight ball. That’s right, Apple kills legacy ports. Gets rid of the old before their time. Whereas Disney milked ESPN to the very end, who’s gonna overpay to see these sports in the future? CERTAINLY NOT THE NEARLY NINETY MILLION PAYING CABLE SYSTEMS NOW! And Disney is based on LESS product, whereas Netflix is based on MORE! Disney is out of touch with the times, Iger should have gone years ago, this is the guy who couldn’t even pick a winning football franchise!

And then there’s HBO/Time Warner. Don’t expect the AT&T sale to go through. Furthermore, HBO’s got the wrong model too. A thin cross-section of product dribbled out. Netflix already has three times the subscribers of HBO, and it’s only going to get worse. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

So…

Amazon is gonna buy Time Warner. Yup, you heard it here first. Sure, Bezos usually doesn’t spend, but this Apple acquisition of Netflix illustrates there are only a few chairs left in this musical game, and Amazon doesn’t want to be left out.

And the new head of HBO? JIMMY IOVINE!

The truth is Iovine is being squeezed out of Apple. Hell, Cook doesn’t want to admit he made a mistake with the headphones and the needed to be rewritten software for the streaming service. Hell, you read last month’s story about Apple developing its own cans, right?

“Apple Turns Up Audio Ambition With High-End Headphones”

Beats are crap.

But “The Defiant Ones” was a huge success. And HBO needs a rainmaker. And Iovine doesn’t want to go back to a label. And everyone other than Bezos is faceless at Amazon. A perfect solution!

As for the other channels… TBS and TNT… Bezos doesn’t want them, they’re gonna be spun off, just like Parlophone in Universal’s purchase of EMI.

The good times will continue to reign for producers. With Apple and Amazon bidding up fees. But it won’t last forever, one outlet will win, and then fees will go down, just like in the movie business. But it’s an on demand all the time world we now live in and will be forevermore. Meanwhile, both Netflix and Amazon have made movies in the past, and Netflix goes day and date on its service, so expect all those movie theatres to…

Be in big trouble.

Reed Hastings will continue to run Netflix. But he’s angling for Cook’s job. Cook just might declare victory and move on, he hasn’t got a creative bone in his body. As for Jony Ive, he will only stay if he gets to redesign the Netflix logo, employing skeuomorphism, you see it really is a return to Jobstown!

As for Ted Sarandos…

He’s jumping to Spotify. That’s the secret sauce in the streaming company’s Wall Street listing. Sarandos is gonna convince the best bands to forgo the major labels and sign directly with Spotify, just as he did with visual talent at Netflix.

As for the other Silicon Valley titans…

Google is taking out more ads and billboards for YouTube Red, believing if the public just knew about the service, it would win. But there’s no truth you can only see the promotions with Google Glass.

Facebook is buying Snapchat. Snapchat is in a death spiral, shedding workers, and now Zuckerberg can get it for cheap, paying in stock, which has been devalued as a result of the Cambridge Analytica crisis. Of course, Instagram is a solid competitor to Evan Spiegel’s creation, but the ink is dry, no later than May 1st the combined entity will be known as INSTACHAT!

Microsoft? Steve Ballmer destroyed that company. Can you say NOKIA? Can you say SKYPE? Redmond is sitting on the sidelines, licking its wounds, just hoping to survive.

So it’s all about software and services, and the entity that controls them wins.

And the cable systems and channels never got the new model, believing that they’d just migrate the old one to the internet, that you’d pay for multiple services, how wrong they are. You’re gonna end up with two. Amazon, because it’s baked into Prime, and Netflix, because everybody else is there.

I know this is a lot to digest. Especially since the mainstream media was so busy producing fake news for ratings that they missed it completely. But not Trump, he’s ahead of the game, he’s signed for a news deal with Bezos, you see all that Amazon bashing was really just a negotiation, when Trump’s gone from office he’s just gonna stream his b.s. And Ivanka will be able to sell her tchotchkes on Amazon too. It’s a win-win.

Proving, once again, you’ve got to be deep inside to truly know the game.

No wonder so many Americans vote against their interests.

So all Apple television projects will now be under the banner of Netflix. Those Sony guys will be like a studio within, just like Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp:

“Report: Netflix is ‘in advanced talks’ to acquire Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp studio”

All this consolidation is good for Wall Street but bad for consumers. But what else is new.

The world is getting smaller and circling the drain at the same time.

If you’re depressed about it, pull up “13 Reasons Why.”

Or “Narcos.”

That’s right, Apple sells tools for fools.

And those fools are US!

Why do you always learn stuff you never knew before?

You grow up in the same house, stay in touch via phone and iMessage, and then you get together…

And they drop a bomb.

You’ve got the whole world organized in your mind, the past is clear, it’s the future you’re concerned with, and then you hear a story and…

I spoke with my father the night he died. He had his hearing aids out, he could barely hear, he was scared, and then he passed. Or at least I thought so. Tonight my older sister said my mother’s best friend Selma called her in the middle of the night to ask if it was all right to pull the plug. Huh? Turns out his heart had stopped and he was brain dead. Now, of course, if his heart had truly stopped he’d already be gone, but when the stories are decades old you can never get down to the nitty-gritty. But my mother confirmed the story, it was true.

My mother is 91. She’s still here. But she’s pissed. She’s handicapped and feels like a burden to her friends. I asked how she’d feel if she went to sleep and didn’t wake up. She was fine with it. Which spooked me. Especially since I have so much left I want to do, to live for. But the weird thing about getting older is you go through changes and you no longer care. The people my age are either running the company or retired. And I can’t imagine the latter, but you get to the point where the game no longer interests you, you’ve seen too much, and you want to remove yourself.

So my whole family is in town for the Seder. Four generations. Jews and non-Jews alike. And my brother-in-law is leading the Seder and it occurs to me…

I’d do it a different way. I’d read every page, I want to hit the high points, not only the plagues and Dayenu, but the explanations. It seemed interminable growing up, but now it roots me. Hell, we’ve even finished the Seder a few times recently, which never happened way back when.

And he didn’t believe in passing the baton, having each attendee read a section, so I’m sitting there at the table thinking…

How when the Seder happened in Connecticut the weather had turned, baseball season had begun, this was when we not only watched, but played, I lived for Little League.

And in a good season there was still some skiing left. Although you had to drive to Vermont to do it.

But it was definitely spring. Which means so much on the east coast. It’s a rebirth, a beginning, you congratulate yourself you made it through the winter.

But I missed the winter, with my pemphigus, I want to hold back the change of seasons, it’s been in the seventies in L.A. all week, it’s positively scary, soon it will be festival season, where does the time go?

We used to look forward to drinking the Manischewitz, getting high from the wine in our paper cups. Now I abstain from all alcohol.

I still don’t eat the jello mold, I don’t get that whatsoever.

But the chicken soup! I doubled-down on that, no gefilte fish for me.

And you sit there as the people banter and you realize who you are. What made you you. And you don’t exactly like it.

I mean it’s hard to believe I spent so many years growing up with these people, in the same damn abode. Being pushed around and misunderstood. The shrink asks why I don’t ask twice, it’s because in my family no meant no, and you didn’t want to bug someone for fear of reprisals.

And you think about being a prisoner without options. All the things you wanted to do, but couldn’t. You didn’t have wheels, you had to convince your parents.

Whereas now you can come and go as you please. But to a great degree you don’t. And as the cacophony rises you wonder what’s best. To be right alone or be a member of the group, albeit one with sharp elbows.

Some people never change. Their foibles get in their way forevermore, they cannot see another path.

You learn bits and pieces that fill in the holes, that make the stories all make sense.

You make sure to talk to everybody because you never know if they’ll be there next year.

And you think about not only your Seders past, but those of generations before you. When intermarriage was a no-no and Jews were abused but surviving. Now a cushy life and intermarriage has Judaism in jeopardy, but that does not mean the gentiles still don’t hate us.

And you try to explain to people how it works. The self-denigration, the low expectations, the belief that you’re lucky, privileged to be here. The insults, the stepping over each other in conversation. Hell, one thing Jews do is talk, that’s what was unfathomable at Middlebury, so many people had nothing to say, or thought about it before they did. Jews speak and think later.

And this is all going through my head as I hear about the foibles and missteps and choices of family members I was blissfully unaware of previously. I lay in bed last night unable to fall asleep, trying to put the pieces together again.

Once upon a time I had answers.

Now I only have questions.

NEVER PROMOTE BEFORE AVAILABILITY

You’re lucky if someone’s noticed, if they’re aware of what you’re advertising/promoting, in a world of endless messages once you’ve got someone hooked you need to allow them to click through freely to purchase/experience your wares, this is why Amazon introduced One Click shopping. You want to reduce friction, you want instinct to take over, once someone thinks about spending their money or not, you’re lost.

NO ONE’S GONNA REMEMBER

Which is why if you’re a known quantity you want your publicity front-loaded and if you’re unknown you want to wait until you have traction. If you’re someone and your new project doesn’t come out of the gate roaring, it’s a stiff, and no amount of sycophantic old media press will resuscitate it. If you’re no one, the instinct is to promote to overcome ignorance, this is a mistake, you waste your budget, you burn your relationships and everyone is frustrated and depleted. Now, more than ever, you start small and develop a story. You’re selling the story, not the project. That’s what hooks people in today’s cacophonous society. Not information so much as ANALYSIS! We all see the headlines, but we rarely go beyond that. We do when there’s a genuine hook. A real hook is not “This is my latest project, it’s the best one I’ve ever done and let me tell you about my favorite color.” Nor is it the classic “I’ve experienced tragedy and I’ve distilled it into this work.” No, it’s more about the reaction of the audience, your experience in slogging it out to get ahead. Where you won over the audience, where you didn’t. Ink without story is worthless, there’s just too much of it. And only a few may actually read, but those people will be bonded to you and spread the word. You’re not speaking to everybody, just somebody. Broadcasting is passe, just look at TV ratings, you’re narrowcasting.

ATTENTION IS EVANESCENT

Just because you’ve got ’em today doesn’t mean you’ve got ’em tomorrow. In a world where what happens in the morning is already passe by the evening you’ve got to keep the story rolling, you need new product, more music, more YouTube clips… You satiate the core and when the looky-loos finally come on board there’s a plethora for them to experience,

ATTENTION IS OFTENTIMES QUANTIFIABLE

There are no turntable hits. You check the Spotify streams and the YouTube count and if’s not reacting forget about it. Never lie, people can check the truth instantly, and then you’re dead in the water forevermore.

THE PUBLIC IS IN CONTROL

Never ever try to bend people’s will, follow them, or get ahead of them in unknown territory, which is how Spotify won, people didn’t even know they wanted streaming. We live in an on demand culture. Put up hurdles at your peril.

GIVE UP THE GHOST

Spielberg believes movies must open in a theatre. Yeah right, so they can be ignored there and forgotten when they hit the small screen. Be thrilled anybody’s watching/listening to your stuff at all. When someone starts speaking about protection, stop listening. Windows are impediments. Critics have been superseded by the wisdom of the crowd. The music business woke up, the holier-than-thou movie business is way behind the curve, as are network and cable television. Sure, it’s about the content, but if it’s not easy to consume whenever and wherever I want, I’m not watching.

DISTRIBUTION IS KING

Think about the outlet. If you’ve got a choice, sacrifice payment for eyeballs. You don’t want to be the guinea pig at Apple television, no matter how much they pay.

OLD MEDIA IS A CIRCLE JERK

Everybody involved is backslapping, believing they’re fighting the good fight, when the audience has completely tuned out. Youngsters don’t read the newspaper. And they go straight to rottentomatoes, as do I, why should I waste my time, which is so precious!

YOU’RE A HIT OR YOU’RE NOT

Fewer projects are ubiquitous and ubiquity ain’t what it used to be. If you don’t hit right away, give up or be in it for the long haul. No one wants to listen to your sour grapes.

MONEY GROWS ON TREES

That’s right, there are so many ways to monetize success that to get hung up on the old ones is a major mistake. The biggest rappers give away their music. People buy merch they don’t wear or play, just to feel involved.

YOU’RE BUILDING A BOND

Be human, have frailties, whether it be in your art or personality or both. Rough edges hook people. Which is why “The Voice” stars never translate to Spotify. We’re looking for vulnerability, originality, we want to identify. Plastic surgery just makes you look like everybody else. Stop feeling inadequate, own who you are, it will pay dividends.