He acted like a guy who always gets his way.

There’s a path. I’m not sure the underclass can see it, I’m not even sure the middle class can see it. Where you go to a good prep school to get into a good college to go to a good graduate school to end up at the top of the heap. In the legal world, it’s about making partner. You do well in law school to get into a great firm where you work your butt off and…

It usually doesn’t go this way. Life has a way of bumping you off the track. Not everybody can make partner, never mind get a job with a top-tier firm. And there are personal challenges. Your own health, that of your family. Death, accidents. No one lives a charmed life.

But Brett Kavanaugh believes he’s entitled to one.

We live on the internet, our privacy is shot, but somehow Kavanaugh is immune. He says how his life has been ruined. Ask anybody else in the public eye, raise above the riff-raff and you’re a target, and not all of the accusations are truthful, sometimes people, even anonymously, are just out to sully your reputation, hold you back, prevent you from getting not only what you want, but what they want.

Kavanaugh seems to be completely unaware.

And he’s labeling it all politics, as if the Republicans have been angels and the Democrats devils. This is especially prevalent on Fox News, where Tucker Carlson keeps calling Avenatti the “creepy porn lawyer” even when he agrees not to. You know these people, they are the devious ones, not popular, who are out to get revenge. What happened to Laura Ingraham that made her this way? And why is David Hogg’s personal life relevant and not hers? What about Laura’s romantic relationships…

I don’t really care, but if you want to be paid the big bucks, if you want to be on the court, you’ve got to endure the slings and arrows. Go to an NBA game, there’s always some nincompoop yelling at some player. But you can’t go into the stands and throttle them, you’ve got to be a bigger person.

Brett Kavanaugh was not the bigger person today.

Don’t make this left and right, don’t make this Democratic and Republican, just make this people. Someone is lying here, who is it? Furthermore, would you behave like Kavanaugh did today? Hasn’t he ever heard of media training? Hasn’t he ever gone to therapy? He will now, assuming he’s not confirmed, and he should, because he’s got no insight into himself, he’s got no idea how he’s coming across!

Blow a gasket, weasel around the questions, start to cry…where does this work, in your parents’ house when you’re called on the carpet for lying?

As for Ford and #MeToo… That’s not really the matter in question. It’s a side issue. There will be consequences, thank god. Men will be forced to curb their behavior, we’ve taken the first steps on a long dark road hopefully to redemption. But what Ford’s appearance and testimony have broken open is our country…

Are you entitled to a fair hearing?

Can evidence be suppressed?

Can a candidate not only be railroaded, but railroaded through the confirmation process?

What you’ve got here is an unbelievably biased candidate who was counting his chickens before they hatched. A Republican Administration and Congress who won when they didn’t expect to and have rallied around precepts most Americans don’t agree with. And having prevented the centrist Merrick Garland from going on to the court, they believe they’re entitled to pack it with young right wingers so their views will be protected forevermore.

Yes, the game is rigged folks.

Start with gerrymandering.

And it is a game. The Federalist Society started preparing for this decades ago.

And if you think what you see on screen is the total story, you’re ignorant. Watch “The First” on Hulu, where Senators trade horses.

And as for Lindsey Graham’s righteous indignation… Hard to take seriously when there have been so many doofus moments previously.

So, whether Kavanaugh gets approved or not, our country will be cracked open. The law is kinda like a contract, it’s not always enforceable. Otherwise, people wouldn’t be killing each other in the street and eluding punishment. Or, to put it another way, you can win the battle and lose the war. Let’s say Kavanaugh ends up on the Supreme Court… No Democrat alive is gonna have a good taste in their mouth. And there are more Democrats than Republicans. Hell, Trump lost the popular vote.

And Trump has lost control over California. Actually, he never had it. The centrist Governor, at least by west coast standards, has turned the Golden State into a powerhouse with a booming economy and a better social safety net than red states. Are there problems, of course. But if you think we want to live in the land of pollution out here, you’ve probably never gone for a ride in a Tesla.

Then again, the SEC is trying to bring down Elon Musk, but good luck with the rest of the techies. The government is subservient to them.

Furthermore, Trump’s policies can be felt on the street, by you and me. I went to buy a suitcase today, they told me it was gonna go up by 10% on Monday, because of tariffs.

So what I guess I’m saying here is yes, I’m smiling that the right-wingers have got their knickers in a twist, how does it feel, to be on your own, in the great unknown?

But I wouldn’t be surprised if Kavanaugh gets confirmed tomorrow. Hell, it’s not a game of emotions, but numbers, and the Republicans have them on their side.

So we could lose again.

But this episode will prove much.

One, lying is fine in America today. You deny, deny, deny and see if you get caught. Either Kavanaugh or Ford is not telling the truth, you can decide, but one is up for the Supreme Court and the other is not.

And life is about more than achievement. People make sacrifices, make deals with themselves all the time. No one is able to go untouched. And sure, you can move to Alaska and disconnect from the internet, but you forgo so many benefits.

Meanwhile, the Watergate hearings were not like this. We wanted Nixon gone, but we did not believe our entire country’s future was hanging in the balance.

Music is a far cry from today’s show. There’s nothing at the Forum or Staples that compares. Music is mindless entertainment made by nitwits who don’t understand the issues, I won’t say players have taken themselves out of the equation, they were never in it.

But Kavanaugh and Ford… They’re winners. They’re on a track TMZ never sees and never comments on. This is true power.

How will it be wielded?

We’re gonna find out.

Anything For A Hit

If “Anything For A Hit” was written by a man it would be a best-seller.

Every, and I mean EVERY wannabe should devour this book. Because it delineates the game and how it is played, and it’s much worse than you’ve ever dreamed.

Oldsters know all that. But they’ll read for the salacious details anyway, mostly about Ahmet Ertegun, who is dead.

This book is not what it was billed as. It’s not the sexual harassment expose. I’m not saying there’s not a lot of bad behavior, even actionable behavior revealed, but that’s not what the book is really about.

It’s the first half that will have you glued.

Dorothy Carvello’s time at Atlantic. Which is run like a family, a highly dysfunctional one where executives are underpaid and illegalities are rampant but fun is job one.

This is why people wanted to be in the record business. The endless money, the endless dope, the endless trips, the famous people, the high living. Yup, just as Dorothy tells it, that’s the way it was, and she’s not even bragging!

This is not a self-congratulatory autobiography like Clive’s unreadable “Soundtrack of My Life.” You won’t be able to put “Anything For A Hit” down, I devoured it and finished it all in one day, today, hell, it’s 2:25 AM, I should be in bed, but I’m all fired up!

Carvello is no picnic, but as Don Henley sang, it’s one of the things they loved about her. She’s sassy, alive, a good hang. One of the boys. And believe me, to make it back then you had to be one of the boys, or be the mistress of one of the boys.

But she’s also clueless. When one A&R guy labels her “relentless,” you come to believe it. She’s constantly misreading the signals, working against her own interests.

But don’t we all. I certainly have. Took me DECADES to figure out how this world worked. And I too credit therapy for opening my eyes. After Carvello goes to the shrink, on the advice of Tim Collins, a good man who’s been exiled from the business, we’ve got no space for them here, she changes, she mellows, she understands the game.

Not that the people on top do. They’re playing a completely different game, three-dimensional chess. Which is why you have to decide who you want to be, the boss or the employee. The boss can get away with it, the employee cannot.

And if you’re not the boss, you’re gonna lose your job in the music business. Eventually the bosses do too, but they last longer.

You’ll be horrified at Ahmet’s behavior, but those who knew him admit the man was charming.

And Carvello’s distribution of anger and praise will make insiders laugh. Be nice to her and you get a pass, are these passes deserved? I’ll let you read and decide, assuming you know the players.

And she makes a classic mistake, working without a contract. And believing her lawyer is loyal to her, not the industry. Acts come and go, the business remains. Stand up for yourself, tell the truth, and you’re history.

At least you were.

That business doesn’t exist anymore. Never mind label head, you don’t even want to be a rock star…a techie, even a financier lives a better life. The banker stays home most of the time, and he always flies private, and despite the illusion most musicians do not, often it’s somebody else’s plane they’re hitching a ride on.

Music is mature. It’s dead. The action is all on the promotion side. It’s much harder to get a record deal than a date. And at that date promoters can see whether the audience reacts, they’re the first ones to know whether you’re hot. And they speak with agents, not lawyers. The whole business has flipped.

And a hit is not what it used to be. You can be number one and most of America has never heard of you.

And you can be reviewed in “Variety,” “Billboard,” “The Daily Mail”… I figured this book was a stiff because it was published by an indie. But the hype has been as good as that for a book from a major.

But there’s no reaction. Because those outlets don’t sell books anymore.

You do.

Maybe you were old enough to remember when “Hit Men” came out, the industry all bought and read it in a week. This is the most honest music business book since, but no one cares.

Because the audience is being fed salacious details 24/7 on TMZ. Because we’re a long way from Christopher Moltisanti noting Tommy Motttola waltzing by the velvet rope into a New York club. Because everything unknown spreads slowly in this world of cacophony. Getting traction is nearly impossible, but once you get some, it builds.

This is a sexist business. And to a great degree, it’s eluded the #MeToo movement. Because everybody involved loves working in it and knows if they blow this whistle they’re out. Is this right? Of course not. But it’s the truth.

Buy this immediately.

Like I said, the second half drifts and is dispensable, although you read it anyway, but the first half…

It was written about the heyday, when music still drove the culture, when MTV was God, when CDs rained down cash.

I can’t tell you about what’s coming in the future, but…

“Anything For A Hit” is definitely how it was in the past.

That’s this week’s Sirius Show topic.

Tune in Tuesday September 25, on Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Everybody knows the prep school kids are the worst offenders.

You think we live in an homogeneous society, all starting from the same line, with the same information, with melting pot backgrounds with various pluses and minuses that balance out in the end.

You’re very wrong.

I went to a melting pot high school. There were only a handful of African-Americans, but no truly rich people. But some from the projects. I grew up fifty miles from New York City. Partook of New York media. I thought I knew what was going on.

Until I went to Middlebury College.

I went to Middlebury because it was in Vermont, had its own ski area, was coed and prestigious. It just seemed like another step in the endless road forward, of life.

But I was wrong.

I learned a lot at Middlebury. But almost none of it was in the classroom. You see 45% of Middlebury students came from prep school.

They were self-confident, they knew the game, and they were much better read than us, the public school denizens. That’s right, you get a much better education in a prep school. Forget DeVos and vouchers, that’s for the religious and poor, what’s left of the middle class. Those with money like DeVos, they send their kids to prep schools. And I’m not talking about the exclusive NY and L.A. institutions like Trinity and Dalton and Harvard-Westlake and Campbell Hall. No, I’m talking sleeping away miles from Mommy and Daddy, being formed by the wisdom of the crowd. That’s a reason breakthroughs are rarely from the preps. You see prep school teaches you how to get along. Sure, you want to excel, but you know first and foremost you want to be a member of the group. That life is long and relationships pay off. A public school valedictorian dreams of future opportunities, the prepsters are born to them.

They see education as a game.

The prep school kids taught me that you didn’t have to hand a paper in on time. You could always go to the teacher and get an extension. And it was true!

The prep school kids are the ones who lobbied for a bar on campus.

The prep school kids joined fraternities.

The prep school kids knew what an MBA was, I certainly didn’t.

And you can read on TMZ the inner-workings of seemingly every celebrity extant. But the prep school kids, the true insiders, know that it’s best to remain silent.

Let’s see… The prep school kids taught me how to rip off the Pepsi machine.

The prep school kids had names for all the girls in “New Faces,” the printed Facebook of its day. Don’t think you had one of those at your high school, never mind your college, right? It was the prep school kids who’d marked all the “attractive” women by move-in date.

So when I hear Kavanaugh and his cronies denying their behavior, I have to speak up, because it’s BAKED IN!

You see there are two Americas, the privileged and the not. And most people never encounter privilege. They watch “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous,” but the truly rich try not to be famous and will never be on a show like this. And they can bury bad news, by hiring David Boies, as Harvey Weinstein did to try and keep stories out of the “New York Times,” which was also paying for Boies’ firm’s services. You see it’s a club, and you’re not in it. Even worse, you don’t know about it.

So you sit at home and judge shenanigans through the only lens you know, which cannot see bad behavior.

“Animal House” was based on Dartmouth. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to go there, back then there were still no women. Now a bunch of these legendary prep schools do have women. But the stories I heard…

Show weakness and you become a pariah. There’s no running to your parents, if they’re even paying attention. You learn not to snitch. You learn not to reveal bad behavior. You learn how to bend the rules.

Now I cannot tell you whether Kavanaugh behaved as alleged or not. But the only thing I know is this behavior is consistent with the prep school ethos.

And this is far beyond right and left, far beyond racism and abortion. Then again, the preps are overwhelmingly white, they let in a few anomalies, but listen to the testimony of those in endless books, they’re outsiders living a separate life. You’re stunned when you hear “educated” people utter anti-Semitic and racist comments? They’ve been exchanging them for years unsupervised in prep school.

That’s right, there’s no supervision. No accountability. No parental oversight. No one saying otherwise in your formative years.

I met rich and famous people in college, it’s helped me in my so-called career. I learned you never fawn, never talk about money, that first you sidle up and become friends, and that’s oh-so-hard to do, because the rich and famous are skittish, they are not open books, and they believe the system outweighs any momentary event.

There are some things you cannot learn unless you experience them.

Talk to a prep school graduate.

Then again, they won’t tell you.