What kind of crazy fucked-up world do we live in where a rapper has more gravitas and self-control than the President of the United States?

One in which the culture is driven by African-Americans and elder white people want to jet back to a past that never even existed in the first place.

Donald Trump is sowing the seeds of discontent. He’s speaking to his base. The same people he addressed when the football players took a knee. Forget that Trump couldn’t understand that it wasn’t about the flag but the rights of African-Americans, the “Wall Street Journal” scraped the data and found out that the protests had nothing to do with the reduction in NFL viewing. Proving that Trump’s base…just cannot stop watching football.

And they just cannot stop listening to hip-hop and watching the NBA.

Trump’s 71, he missed the memo. It’s hip-hop that dominates, it’s the NBA that is growing in leaps and bounds. But you’d expect this from a doofus who does not read and gets all his information from the biased Fox News.

That’s right you right wing nitwits, I’m slinging it straight. If you don’t think Fox is biased, that’s all you watch. And if you don’t read the “New York Times” I feel sorry for you. Forget the politics, it’s the number one news/information-gathering organization in America. Most of what you know comes from it. Come on, you’re surfing the web and you have to rely on the NYT to break the story of fake followers? Even Hilary Rosen, the grand dame of the RIAA? But that’s the world we live in, where “team players” denigrate all that they do not agree with delineating the rest as fake when the truth is anything but.

And the truth is life is a struggle. Especially for African-Americans.

As for Trump’s tweet about African-American employment rates… That does not include all the black men in jail, those out of the workforce entirely, never mind the big drop was under Obama. Talk about fake news. Why is it no one can go beneath the surface.

And the fascinating thing is Jay Z doesn’t shirk controversy, he’s willing to lay it on the line, his truth, when too many other musicians are worried about pissing off a potential audience member. Hell, this makes me feel even BETTER about Jay Z, he’s not only an entertainer, but a man of meaning! We need more beacons, we need more truth. And right now you get it most in hip-hop. Sure, there’s glorification of rich lifestyles and drugs, but there’s also explications of depression and romance and life…it’s all there, but Trump isn’t listening.

But his kids are.

Hell, let’s get Barron’s playlist. Ivanka’s. His sons Uday and Qusay.

This is the greatest fight of our lifetime. It encompasses so much.

First and foremost, globalization. It’s here. Own it. Yes, too many people have been left behind in the march forward, but we cannot turn back, it will only be to the individual’s detriment.

Second, income inequality. We’ve been lionizing the rich for far too long, as the job-creators, as know-it-alls when the truth is they’re just rich. Who is looking out for the rest of us? Used to be the Democrats, then it wasn’t, and that’s how they lost power. There’s more of us than them.

Third, privacy and individual rights. By time Trump and his cronies get through bringing down the press and the FBI their legion will believe in nothing but their own bizarre rhetoric, trusting no one in the process.

But never forget, the most trusted people in the world are entertainers.

That’s why corporations tie up with them for endorsements. Sure, Bob Dole did a deal with Viagra, but politicians are rarely used in commercials, because no one believes them, no one follows them, no one wants to be like them.

But they want to be like Jay Z.

You become a legend when you’re more than an entertainer, when you stand for something, when people believe in you. Olivia Newton-John had a string of hits, but she ain’t no legend, Jay Z is.

And it’s funny to watch this movie. One in which the older generation, mostly white folk, denigrate hip-hop and their progeny are addicted to the sound and the story.

That’s where they get the news.

And Jay Z just dropped a bomb on Trump.

And the President responded with a whimper, he doesn’t even know what the war is about.

It’s about you and me folks. Fighting for the right for everybody to live a full and happy life with dreams.

The old white people want to keep you down.

But the African-Americans want to lift you up. After centuries of oppression they still maintain their optimism.

And if that ain’t an inspiration, I don’t know what is.

“Jay Z thinks Trump is ‘in pain.’ The President responded by bragging about helping black people.”

It was a simpler time. We lived in tract houses. We knew nobody rich. We were all in it together. And our horizon was limited. To our own neighborhood and California, because all the TV shows and films were shot in California.

And there were seasons. The wait from September to June was interminable, but strangely shorter every year. You learned that spring would come.

But I loved the winter.

Why?

Because of the coziness, because of the disconnectedness. You could stay home and read or play board games, wrestle with your Lionel train, or you could go out into the great outdoors and explore, have fun.

Have you ever walked in a snowstorm? It’s one of the greatest feelings extant. It’s so QUIET! Just you and Mother Nature. And Mother Nature is both friend and foe. She can turn on you in an instant. Those have been the scariest moments of my life, when I realized this could be the end.

Obviously it wasn’t.

But how close to the line do you want to get? The thrills are on the edge, but you don’t want to fall over.

Now everything’s completely different. As a result of global warming oftentimes there is no snow, or little of it, like in the west this year, one of the worst three snowpacks of all time. And people think nothing of getting on a plane for a vacation, even for the afternoon, whereas we used to be locked to our landscape and dream about faraway destinations, if only… And skiing was a middle class sport.

It was 1964. I was up at the schoolyard, partaking of the snow. I’m not sure which device I had from the garage, the Flexible Flyer or the dreaded flying saucer or the mini-toboggan, but Bobby Hickey had skis. With bear trap bindings, which means they didn’t release. His dad had bought them for him from the hardware store, for under ten bucks.

He let me try them.

And I was THRILLED!

Skiing is all about the sensation, the thrill, the freedom. I don’t know anything else that requires complete concentration other than orgasm. And you can ski for a lot longer.

And then my sixth grade teacher showed us a promotional movie about Mt. Snow and I convinced my parents to go. We all stayed in one room at the Novice Inn. We took lessons at Carinthia. We got hooked.

Three years later we rented a house in East Jamaica with our dentist. People would ask us where we got our tans, JAMAICA! But the truth is it’s barely a waystation before Stratton and Bromley. Where I know every inch of the terrain. Because on a below zero day my dad bought a house in Manchester. For the grand sum of $14,000. In 1968. He loved that house, he could try out all of his experiments, most of which failed, but the house could handle it.

Anyway, my life became about skiing.

That’s why I went to college in Vermont. Sans ski area, I wouldn’t have gone to Middlebury. And for the two years after I graduated I lived in Utah, back before the tech boom, before Park City was a reasonable place. But we pooh-poohed that area, we only skied at Alta and Snowbird, before they were connected. It truly is the Greatest Snow On Earth.

And now.

And now…

If I tell someone I ski they pooh-pooh me. It’s too dangerous, I’m too old, I’ve got to think about my safety. But then is life worth living?

Because I’m never happier than when I’m cruising down a mountain, singing Bad Company’s “Simple Man” at the top of my lungs.

Freedom is the only thing, means a damn to me

You see I’m a square peg in a round hole society. But on the mountain I can be free, I can do what I like.

But what has this got to do with Warren Miller?

You see he was the progenitor. God’s first ski bum.

And he was the cheerleader.

And ultimately he was the through thread.

You see when you ski, all you think about is how you can ski more. I know people who’ve sacrificed their entire lives to the sport. On minimum wage jobs. Chasing the feeling.

Warren got the bug and lived in a trailer in Sun Valley and slowly made a life. Befriended some wealthy people who gave him a camera and he was off to the races.

Well, the truth is back then that was a business, travel movies, he didn’t invent that paradigm, he just peppered it with skiing. And dialogue. That was part of Warren’s routine, the jokes, bad and off color, but of the times.

So you’d go to the theatre in October or November, before the snow started to fly, before the lifts started to turn, and Warren would take you to ski places around the world. And you’d sit there and wonder if you still had it, if you could still turn ’em. That’s a funny thing about the sport, you doubt your ability, you don’t think you can do it, unless you’re on the hill.

And to be on the hill there’s got to be snow and proximity and you can’t do it every day, but every day counts.

Now as time went by I was in the film of a progenitor, John Jay.

And Dick Barrymore made one of the best ski films, “The Last of the Ski Bums.”

But the only man who prevailed, who stuck with it, was Warren Miller.

I was filmed for him too, but I was left on the cutting room floor, after doing a spread eagle into Wipeout at Mammoth. Off the cornice. I didn’t. People were impressed.

I still remember that feeling.

I still remember talking to Warren at the Santa Monica preview back in ’98, they served pizza after the show.

I still have the one piece Helly-Hansen Lewi gifted me from the Warren Miller closet.

Mostly I still have my memories.

But like Warren I still hit it. I just can’t get enough.

I’ve watched his movies far from snow country, once they were available on video, once they started to play them in marathons over Christmas.

I read his autobiography.

I wanted to understand him.

Because deep down inside I know he’s just like me. Money is important, but not as much as the experience, as living a full life, as refusing to sacrifice your dream of the sensation, of sliding down the hill fully alive.

Warren isn’t, alive anymore. He died on Wednesday. At age 93. I like to believe the skiing and outdoor lifestyle kept him young. Who knows. But one thing I do know is he affected people, he made our lives more rich, even if you’ve got no idea who he is, millions do, I’m stunned at the tributes in not only the ski world, but the straight press.

So let Warren be a beacon to you.

There’s more than one way to live your dream, to cobble together a life based on your passion.

And the truth is we all want to live life to the fullest.

Warren Miller did.

May you have as much fun and as much impact as he did. Knowing that you’ve got to seize the moment now, because as Warren always said…

“If you don’t do it this year, you will be one year older when you do.”

That was the name of the NAMM panel I was on this morning.

I thought it was referencing how to make a record a hit. But everybody else thought it was about creating a hit. And they all had.

I ran into Jack Douglas outside. He told me he’d been working with Joe Perry. Great to see people still excited about music. Hell, that’s the thing about NAMM itself, it’s an alternative universe. Ostensibly an insider merchandiser meeting, everybody can get a pass if they want one, and they get one, and they make the pilgrimage. Even at 9 AM you could see the throngs marching towards the Convention Center. You can tell by the look. Musicians and music fans just appear a bit different. They’re scruffy. Longer hair. Not completely put together. It’s what inside that counts.

So then Bob Clearmountain arrives and this foreign guy starts pitching gear. Everybody’s into the gear, Jack testified this was good stuff. I don’t know who’s buying and who’s being comped, but you get to check it out on their dime first. Can I say I’m into gear, I LOVE IT!

And then when we’re ascending the stage, Tony Brown gets my ear.

What everybody forgets about Nashville is it’s the south. These people have an accent. For someone brought up in New England and living in Los Angeles it’s still a shock, even though I lived for years with a woman from Tallahassee, which is more like Georgia than Miami in case you didn’t know, she had an accent. And the truth is we northerners judge the southerners, it’s in our roots. And the culture is different and they do speak differently. They’re not direct like New Yorkers, while riding in the car with you they don’t say to roll up the window, but that they’re a little bit cold, you have to interpret, they don’t want to offend you, took me years to catch on.

So Tony’s whispering to me that the last panel he was on they didn’t let him speak. And I’ve been on panels like this, someone hogs the mic, and is oftentimes boring to boot, so I make a mental note to let him get his turn.

Meanwhile, he’s got a look.

It’s 10:15 in the morning and Tony’s got the full-on rooster hairdo and the jewelry and the leather wrap around his wrist and I’m both cracking up and smiling. I don’t know whether the bear ate him or he ate the bear. Whether he was a unique guy to begin with or whether the success and the fame made him this way.

So the first question is what record you’re most proud of. Jack Douglas says “Walk This Way” and “Starting Over.” Then he tells the inspiration for the former. They were hung up in the studio and the band took a break and went to see “Young Frankenstein” and when they heard those words in the movie, Marty Feldman imploring Gene Wilder to WALK THIS WAY, they were inspired and VOILA!

Tony talked about Reba. And then Vince Gill and George Strait and the funniest thing was for a guy who was worried about getting a word in edgewise, you couldn’t shut him up! I heard later that he was all fired up for the panel the night before, he certainly behaved like it.

And Clearmountain’s going on about the Stones and to tell you the truth I’m a bit intimidated, everybody’s got one helluva CV, including Nashville songwriter Dale Dodson.

But it’s Tony that’s cracking me up.

He and Dale start laying out the Nashville system. They rail on about radio and gatekeepers and streaming and Tony says he loves Miranda Lambert’s “The House That Built Me,” but there’s no room for women on country radio and Dale doubles down and that’s when I drop the nuclear bomb, how that’s the past and streaming is the future. That we must follow the hip-hop paradigm. It’s all about reaction, whether you get one or not, and radio is last. Every format is migrating to streaming, radio means less and less, and we’ve got winners and losers and the data will tell you which one you are right away.

But then it became about music you’d worked on that you never thought would become a hit and…

Clearmountain mentions “Avalon,” he mixed it. I about swooned. You know when someone touches your heart… Clearmountain says he still plays the album today, so do I, so do so many people, that’s a true hit.

And then Tony gets on a rant and I can’t stop listening to him, I’m eating it up, he’s talking about what defines a hit and then I ask him…IS THE NEW JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE/CHRIS STAPLETON SONG A HIT?

And Tony says NO!

Whew! That’s what’s valuable about the aged and experienced, they KNOW! And that’s worth something. I’m watching the video last night thinking whether I’m the only guy who thinks this track isn’t good enough. Isn’t it obvious? Didn’t we learn this with Taylor Swift? Can’t anybody say no? Is this the best they can do?

Maybe. U2’s been trying to have a hit for eons and has been unsuccessful, maybe they just can’t do it anymore.

And then Jack changes the conversation to hobbyism, saying that every song can’t hit and you’ve got to own who you are and have fun.

Which is when Tony starts testifying about Americana music. Going on how these acts gross $10 million without any hits.

So I interrupt him, which ain’t easy, he’s into his flow…

IF JASON ISBELL WAS SPUN ON COUNTRY RADIO WOULD HIS SONGS HIT?

And Tony says NO!

Thank god! That’s what I like about professionals, they know the score.

He lauded Isbell for selling seven nights at the Ryman, for having a passionate fan base, for writing good songs, BUT THEY’RE NOT HITS!

And then, of course, during the Q&A we got statements instead of questions, which drives me nuts.

But after it was all over, I had to talk to Tony, to make nice, to connect.

Turns out he’s 71. He looks nearly a decade younger, I’ll let you decide why.

And he starts telling me about working with Elvis. How he’s playing keyboards for the opening act and Elvis’s piano player moves on to Emmylou and Tony steps up and says I CAN DO THIS! And they give him the job and it’s all groovy until Elvis dies and he’s out of luck, but the same dude he replaced with Elvis leaves Emmylou and he gets that gig and ultimately becomes a producer. Not that anybody wants to give him that job, he’s got to fight for it, but he delivers and…

Every word coming from his mouth is gold. How some of his greatest productions were never even RELEASED!

How he’s putting out a coffee table book of country star photos because nobody would want to buy his autobiography. How he paid five hundred bucks to see Van Morrison at the Ryman and the Man didn’t play a single song he knew, although he dug it, even though the three friends with him were pissed.

And he reminded me he cut Rosanne Cash’s “Seven Year Ache,” and the hook was the intro.

And Tony’s so old school. Talking about sales. But if every one of his words didn’t ring true, the stories, the presence…

Once upon a time that was the goal, to get inside, the club, the studio, and everybody on the panel had been there. It got the blood flowing in a jaded jerk like me. Not in some basement room, some home studio, but in the big space where the time is tripping by in triple dollar digits and it’s all important and you’re there to make money and change the world.

That’s what it’s all about, changing the world.

AND THESE GUYS CHANGED MINE!

How to Make a Hit Record

If you build it they will not come.

Your challenge is getting noticed.

So you may be sitting at home, in your beautiful house, with your beautiful wife, asking me…DIDN’T YOU SAY JUST THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE?

Yes, in the last decade. Things changed. Bob Dylan sang about that, but no one seems to realize the puck keeps moving, and media ain’t hockey, the rules change too.

In a world where people are overwhelmed by content, they don’t want to hear about yours. And the problem is great content gets cast aside as well as horrible content. You did the work and nothing is happening, what’s up?

It’s not your fault. You just have to find a way to run the gauntlet.

If you’re a musician your greatest asset is your friends, your fellow musicians. You can trade favors and trade secrets. They’ve been there before you, they can recommend others, they can give you a leg up. How hip-hop has figured this all out and other genres have not is beyond me. Feature an up and comer on your track and suddenly they’re known too. Great managers realize this. Used to be you let the agent and promoter decide on the opening act. Now you manage the act, give the headliner a piece of the action and build this new act underneath them. This is how Five Seconds Of Summer was built under One Direction and Hey Violet! under Five Seconds Of Summer. Opening for other acts in stadia and arenas pays dividends, because they get to SEE YOU!

Assuming you have a manager to put this all together.

You need a representative. Without one you can’t get ahead.

If you’re a live act, maybe you focus on an agent first. One who gets you gigs.

But you only sign with those who are passionate. Better to be with the second-tier rep who cares than the first-tier one who doesn’t. It’s gonna be a lot of work no matter who’s involved, who is going to really do it, not give up when the going gets hard.

But once you’ve got your team, the hard work really begins.

First and foremost, you must be great where and whenever the rubber meets the road, you must deliver, but so many concepts pooh-poohed the last decade…are not so onerous today.

Credibility…

It only matters once you’ve flown above the fray. If you can only say no, you won’t get ahead. Seemingly every classic rock band who said no said yes to endorsements/promotions before they hit it big, just check YouTube for the adverts. If no one knows who you are, it doesn’t matter what you believe.

A story… Once you’ve got people’s attention, you must have one. Willing to do anything to make it from a broken home is not one. You must evidence an identity, that’s what the social networking era has taught us. But Instagram is lowest common denominator, it’s just how you look, whereas an artist wins by evidencing how they THINK! And don’t be afraid to offend, unless you’ve got a strong point of view, chances are the passionate early adopters will not, adopt you that is.

Meanwhile, you need a steady stream of product. In this fast-moving world you never want to abandon your hard core, satiate them as you continue to troll for new fans, otherwise they’ll move on to something else.

Next comes streaming services. It’s where it happens first, and where you find out if you win or lose. You must be with handlers who have relationships, who can get you on playlists, where the streaming companies can find out if you react. Radio is way down the line. If your handler/representative talks about radio first, abandon them, they’re built for the past, not the future. Sure, radio can reach mass, but long after streaming services, it’s for the least interested, you’re looking for the hard core to make you happen and stay with you. Furthermore, many radio formats are nearly meaningless. You can be on AAA or Active Rock and be number one and play clubs, and that just sucks. You’re a second-rate character in a third-rate world and life is too hard to end up in a backwater, you’ve got to shoot higher. You want to be on the Spotify Top 50. If you’re not playing for all the marbles you’re gonna get almost none, that’s the world we live in. Set your sights high, better to fail in the center ring than succeed outside the building.

As for newspapers and TV…

The newspaper is for other business people, not to make fans. The goal there is to get others in the business of bartering, booking and selling talent interested. Which is why all press must not be standard who, what, why, where and when. There has to be an angle, without one no one is hooked. And statistics about how far you’ve already come. Everybody lies, you should too, entertainment is built on falsehood, either your project will succeed or be forgotten about.

And television is way overrated, there’s just too much of it. Unless you get lucky and have the theme song for a hit cable drama that’s played every week it’s a long shot. As for appearing on late night shows, there’s no buzz, a video at best.

And meanwhile you should be making them, YouTube is your friend. If you say otherwise none of the above applies, you’ve already made it.

Sure, the work is most important.

But that’s when the job is just beginning.

There’s endless product and ever more gatekeepers, how do you break through? Just putting your stuff up on the internet is not enough. Just spamming everybody you know is not enough. Building success is a job and a science unto itself.

Think about it.

P.S. Social networking is for satiating your fans, it’s not where you break your career. Sure, there are exceptions, like Khaled, but just like with Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” or PSY’s “Gangnam Style” once people have seen the trick it can never be replicated. As for promotional stunts, rarely do they succeed, it’s more about hard work.