Improvement: A Novel

This book is about nobodies.

I listened to Scott Galloway on Barry Ritholtz’s podcast “Masters In Business.” You should too, Galloway’s got his finger on the tech issues, the Frightful Four and how they impact our lives. Furthermore, he admits early in the podcast he was wrong about one of his predictions, no one ever does that, forget D.C., you’re not running for election, want to endear yourself to people, admit your faults, nothing brings them closer to you. But Galloway’s podcast is better than his book, where he doesn’t shoot high enough, we want to know what we do not know and the truth is we all know so much and those who don’t know anything should not be addressed, because they don’t care, the world is no longer one of generalists, but those with deep knowledge in specific verticals, appeal to them.

And when Galloway’s appearance was done I was at loose ends, I wanted more business, but no podcast appealed to me, so I pulled up Patti Smith on Alec Baldwin’s “Here’s The Thing.” And Patti’s got a terrible accent. And although I’m a fan of the initial Arista LP, I think the veneration of her musical output and impact is overrated, but damn if she didn’t close me here, because brains are God-given, and she’s got them, she’s not just babbling like an idiotic star, she’s got insight, and she too is honest, she’s not concerned with looking good, which is a revelation. And she said she was never interested in a career, she just wanted to do something great.

Joan Silber’s “Improvement” is great.

Prior to reading it I read a genre book, highly reviewed in the WSJ. That’s about giving people what they want, mysteries, thrillers. They’re all plotted out, the writing is secondary. But there’s always an unacceptable twist, something that doesn’t ring true. When it happens I wince, and I no longer want to read genre fiction again.

And Galloway recommended non-fiction in the podcast. Enough with the faux self-improvement. Last time I checked you were a human being. Best to improve your humanity rather than your checkbook. That’s what’s wrong with society, our values are all screwed up. Money is not the devil, and having little makes you think about it all the time, but there’s no tally at the end of your life, no cashier in the check-out line in heaven determining your worth by your bank account. The truth is we’re all just people, how do we get along, how do we survive, what are our lives about?

That’s what “Improvement” is concerned with.

But first and foremost it is readable. That’s one thing that’s been cast aside. I have a steady inflow of new books at my house, people looking for a ride to riches and fame. And almost none of the authors can write. They think an idea is a book. They think if it’s got covers they’ve made an achievement. Writing is an ability you hone, it’s more than words, it’s a feeling, a vibe, it’s truth.

Joan Silber can write. She inhabits these characters, makes them real.

You spend your life in your head. At best you can connect with others occasionally. More often you’re at skew lines. What goes on in your head? That’s what I’m interested in. That’s what Silber nails.

How do you feel? What choices did you make? How do you deal with conundrums?

Not everybody is a winner. Not everybody is on their way up. Some people fall through life. Some people have dead end jobs. Some people live to get high. Some are dreamers. Some are losers. It’s a vast panoply of humanity, but it’s rarely seen today. It’s almost like we’re hiding who we are, because if we find out we’re meaningless, destined to be forgotten, we’ll collapse.

Only we don’t.

I’m loath to give you any details, but if I don’t, you probably won’t read the book.

Can you dump the father of your child before it is born?

Can you believe someone in prison may not be innocent, but is good?

Can you go leave the beaten path and find love, peace and happiness as an ex-pat?

Is there something that bonds you to all your exes such that if they track you down you’re inexorably drawn to them, like an animal… And will it last?

Can you make the right choice, the one that’s good for you intellectually as opposed to emotionally?

Can you make good choices at all? That’s what life is about, jumping through the hoops and making good choices. I hope your parents taught you well, because that’s the best way to learn. Friends will take you from the path. As for making your own mistakes, you’ll make too many. When do you say no instead of yes? When do you excuse yourself from the group? One bad decision can foul your entire life, can end your life. And only those surrounding you will care. You won’t be written up in the newspaper, you’ll just fade away.

“Improvement” cuts like butter. It draws you in. You don’t identify with the characters’ lives, but you do with their emotions, their feelings, and that’s the goal of art, not to put money in the coffers but to make the audience identify, feel less alone.

Don’t pay $19.24 for a hardcover, that’s way too much.

But right now the Kindle iteration is less than ten bucks, the way it should be.

I doubt Oprah will talk about “Improvement.” It won’t be on the tip of the tongue of everybody you meet. It’s a personal thing. But when you read it, you’ll be all-in, your mind won’t drift, you’ll think not only about the characters, but yourself. What would you do?

You want to improve yourself, those around you, but at what cost?

That’s the question.

Scott Galloway on “Masters In Business”

Patti Smith on “Here’s The Thing”

Mick Jones & Lou Gramm Do “Urgent” With Billy Joel

Mick looks like a dentist after a bad night, Lou looks like a retired butcher, but when the former picks the notes on that Les Paul and the latter opens his pipes…

It’s 1981 all over again. AND IT FEELS SO GOOD!

Foreigner never had cred. They burst out of the gate with one of the best rock tracks of all time. I heard it on the radio and drove directly to Music Odyssey on Wilshire, I had to hear it again, and again, and again… I LOVED “Feels Like The First Time,” but even though I played the rest of the LP trying to get my money’s worth, I never cottoned to it. But there were two more hits on the LP, “Cold As Ice” and “Long, Long Way From Home,” the latter of which I enjoyed, as well as “Headknocker,” but I did not buy the follow-up LP, which shot lower, right to the groin, with “Hot Blooded.” The band was an FM staple, while the format was on its Lee Abrams codified victory lap, before disco came along to muddy the water and it all imploded.

There was a third LP. And to be honest, I love “Head Games” now, it’s the holding back, the hesitation, but “Dirty White Boy” shot as low as “Hot Blooded” and the band was positively “B” material, fodder for the uneducated flyover people who never got to hear free-format programming on KROQ, when they still joked they had a helicopter and I was turned on to Deaf School.

But KLOS played “Head Games.” But that was when KLOS was the least credible rock station in Los Angeles, funny how it’s the last one standing.

But then, after putting out an album a year, the band took time off, took two years, to release an LP with the hitmaker of the day, the best in the business, the titan from “Back In Black,” Robert John “Mutt” Lange. We knew who he was, this was a weird twist. Was Foreigner buying insurance, what would the record sound like?

Now on that LP, ultimately entitled “4,” there is one of the best rock ballads extant, “Waiting For A Girl Like You,” meaningful lyrics with a vast sonic palette behind exquisite changes, ultimately “I Want To Know What Love Is” was bigger, but that was generic, “Waiting For A Girl Like You” was straight from the heart.

And I love “Juke Box Hero.” The best Bad Company song Paul Rodgers and Mick Ralphs never wrote.

But the track that was released first, to drum up excitement for the LP, was…

“Urgent.”

And Mutt’s a master of sound, I’m listening on headphones right now and it’s amazing how much is going on, but most people were still listening on the one speaker in the dash of their automobile and what put the track over the top was the sax solo by one Junior Walker, whom every baby boomer knew from his blast from the past, “Shotgun.”

And the amazing thing about “Urgent” was its…urgency. These people were not just going through the motions, this was important, they had something to say, a tone lacking from the television singing shows, never there with the shoegazing rock acts, this was a band firing on all cylinders, this was INDELIBLE and UNDENIABLE! It dominated the airwaves, the band went from a second tier ensemble to the main event, they grabbed the brass ring, it all worked.

And then it faded away. Lou went solo, had a couple of hits, Mick produced some records and the tracks of their past faded into the classic rock format.

And then Billy Joel, the ever more rotund fireplug who refuses to put out new music yet has more cred and veritas with every passing year brings this estranged duo onstage at Madison Square Garden…

What inspired him? Sure, there was history from some awards show… Then again, Billy’s been prone to this stunting, these shenanigans, he’s keeping it interesting, for himself and his audience.

But everybody’s too old and over the hill. It’s cool in theory, but almost no one delivers. They can’t hit the high notes, there’s some thirtysomething no-name musician playing the licks offstage and…

This is an audience video, nothing professional, nothing hyped by those involved, there’s nothing official. And the sound is imperfect, as is the picture, and Billy starts to talk and you can barely make out what he’s got to say and… This is the kind of thing that kids will sit through, but not aged fans and then…

The two of them are wandering on stage, not strutting like they did in the old days, and then Mick Jones starts to pick and…

HOLY SHIT! There’s the sound! The one that emanated from the speaker, the one you thought impossible to reproduce. Keith Richards can’t reproduce the simple sound and rhythm of “Satisfaction” but this guy who most audience members shrug off, this is not a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame act, after all, they’re not as good as Joan Jett, starts picking, he’s got the sound, the rhythm, the groove, and you start to smile and tingle, you can’t believe it, this magic moment, that roots you, connects you with who you once were and still are and then…

Lou Gramm puts the mic to his lips and it’s like he’s barely lost a step. He may be peacocking at the speed of molasses, but his voice is high and rich and it’s HIM!

And Billy’s longtime accompanist Mark Rivera blows his horn and it’s like you’re looking through a window with your only desire to be closer. It’s got more energy than any twenty first century act, and it’s just a lark. All you can think is I WANT TO BE THERE, I WANT TO SEE THIS ACT LIVE!

Haven’t we burned out on this paradigm? Hasn’t every band gotten back together and dashed for cash? And they may look young but their voices and licks are positively torn and frayed.

But not these guys.

And when Gramm and Rivera trade vocal riffs they’re having more fun than anybody in the audience, isn’t that why everybody got into this way back when, other than the girls, weren’t you supposed to enjoy playing, weren’t the trappings just that, the penumbra as opposed to the real thing?

You say it’s urgent
So urgent, so oh oh urgent
Just wait and see
How urgent my love can be
It’s urgent

They were wiped away by grunge and pop, classic rock, especially from the corporate era, was to be derided and discarded. Then a septuagenarian songwriter and a sexagenarian singer take the stage and blow everybody else off it, sans production, sans dance steps, sans hard drives, only ability and personality, what a concept.

But sometimes I wonder as I look in your eyes
Maybe you’re thinking of some other guy

Frustration, the human condition. When songs cut to your soul as opposed to making you feel inadequate.

But I know, yes I know, how to treat you right
That’s why you call me in the middle of the night

The music makes you powerful. You turn it up and think YOU can win.

And Mick and Lou won Thursday night. Because they know the power of a song, the power of playing, the power of rock and roll.

You see it’s URGENT!

In case you missed it, I thought you might dig this. I helped put together the segment for the Kennedy Center Honors last month honoring LL Cool J. It was the 1st time a Hip Hop artist has ever been recognized there. Thought you might dig the power of real DJing and MCing, live with no overdubs, like it was meant to be done.

LL Cool J At The Kennedy Center Honors

Heal up, my brother.

Peace,

DJ Z-Trip

Now I know Z-Trip. We’ve hung in Vail. He does gigs and rides, what could be better? He’s enthusiastic without airs and he told me all about his collaboration with LL Cool J and I figured I’d better watch this clip before I get back to him and…

WHEW! Where was the press on this?

It starts off with Questlove. I love Ahmir as much as the next guy, but he’s become the black Dave Grohl, the one the media continually trot out when the scope needs to be broadened, when there are other deserving individuals involved. Questlove’s got cred, this is no diss on him personally, it’s just that when I see him my eyes start to glaze over.

Although in this case, he seems to be testifying from his heart, saying important things, but it is an awards show, we’re used to superlatives.

And then…

My ears bug out when Z-Trip is introduced by the man at 1:45 and an energy starts exploding from the stage like a late night party and he implores the audience to put their hands in the air and every one of the honorees other than nonagenarian Norman Lear does so and Busta Rhymes and Spliff Star hit the stage and…

You shouldn’t call it a comeback.

We’ve got rhythm, we’ve got power, we’ve got Babyface nodding his head, all the people of color in the audience are in the groove, evidencing soul, locked in.

Meanwhile, the people down front are too startled to even rattle their jewelry. It’s like “Springtime For Hitler” in “The Producers.”

Meanwhile, Gloria Estefan falls right in.

There’s dancing in the aisle, there are eyes closed in reverie and it ain’t radically different from the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Decades of hip-hop compressed into one triumphant victory lap that got no press because we live in a delusional racist country where the whites control the media but the blacks control the culture.

I don’t care if you hate hip-hop, I don’t care if you’ve never heard the songs, there’s a palpable energy that cannot be denied. You’re not repelled, you just want to get CLOSER!

Now you get the memo. While you’re home watching Netflix there’s an entire generation that needs to leave to go party, to be with their brethren, to feel the vibe. They’re drawn to the sound, the tribal drum, to the truth evidenced in the lyrics, you realize immediately why rock is dead and hip-hop dominates, it’s hot, it’s alive, and it’s about the MOMENT!

That’s what this clip is, a moment.

And by time Black Thought finishes so many in attendance have been infected, the aged white people are putting their hands in the air. You see you get carried along, as the entire younger generation has been with hip-hop.

And then DMC hits the state and you’re swirling your head to the music, you can’t help it, even Caroline Kennedy.

Meanwhile, LL is rapping in his box, he’s in his moment, whereas most honorees are usually passive, taking it all in, but he’s ENJOYING HIMSELF!

Ain’t that what it’s all about, ain’t that how hip-hop started? With parties in the neighborhood?

And isn’t that Lesley Stahl at the end totally down?

And speaking of up, the believers stand in an ovation and then the minions rise along, because they don’t want to be left behind, never mind pass judgment, the train has left the station and they realize they’ve got to get on.

Do you?

That’s the interesting thing about music. It keeps going forward. Hip-hop has infected country. It used to be in rock, before that format imploded. You see it’s about energy and creativity and…

The sound of the streets.

You remember the streets, don’t you? Where you’re a nobody other than your personality and your clothes? Where you laugh and struggle to get ahead, knowing it’s a long way to where you want to go?

These deejays and MCs didn’t know they were gonna be superstars. They did it for the love. Meanwhile, the white people, or most of them, isn’t it fascinating that DMC is wearing a Beastie Boys t-shirt, are so busy jumping through rote hoops that they miss the memo. The best and the brightest are pushing paper at Goldman Sachs, all the creativity has been beaten out of them, but these people married to the beat, they’re triumphing.

All these people who cannot get a break. Who are put down constantly. The true “deplorables” of society. The ones winked at on Fox and in Charlottesville. The ones whose lives are constantly criticized as we lock ’em up in jail for drug offenses… They’re the ones driving our culture, just ask your kids.

This video is 9 minutes of pleasure.

But you don’t know what to do with it. It’s easier just to dismiss it.

But no longer.

Z-Trip and his crew rocked the bells.

And these same people are gonna rock your house.

Including the one in D.C. with the representatives.

That’s the power of hip-hop!

Ray Thomas – Spotify

We listened to “Days Of Future Passed” on the drive to college. It was one of, if not the only, albums my father could tolerate, a man who was a huge music fan who never cottoned to rock and roll.

It was not like today, when hip-hop bears little resemblance to what came before, other than the borrowing of a riff, although that era is past, we all grew up with classical music and show tunes and had a soft spot in our heart for them.

And speaking of that soft spot, I don’t think the Moody Blues could make it today. Because they filled a niche that no longer exists. One wherein you sat in your bedroom alone, disconnected from a world that was oftentimes unsatisfying, and basked in this mellifluous sound. Now everybody’s networked and connected, no one is really that out there, and if you are, you’re put down, whereas that was our link back then, we were alienated outsiders, now everybody wants to be an insider and even nerds are trumpeted, but not back then.

We all knew “Go Now,” the Denny Laine-sung song that flew up the chart that still works today.

We’ve already said goodbye

Sounds so quaint now, but it wasn’t back then, then it was dark and meaningful, like life. The truth is people haven’t changed, despite protestations by so-called winners and social networking preeners, people have no clue, they’re feeling it out as they go along, faking it until they make it. And this experimentation and ethos used to be embodied in music, which is why rock became so big, but Reagan legitimized greed and MTV made everybody a visual star and…

It was never quite the same again.

There was no London Festival Orchestra, just a made-up name, but that does not mean people did not embrace “Days Of Future Passed,” it featured two instant smashes, even though it took years for “Nights In White Satin” to become ubiquitous, but I always preferred “Tuesday Afternoon,” speaking of haunting, this is why I lay on my bed and listened to music incessantly, the sound was rich, a magic carpet that carried you away to a better place, if people could make this music I wanted to get on board.

And on that album, two songs were written and sung by Ray Thomas, “Another Morning” and “Twilight Time.” “Another Time” was straight out of “Peter and the Wolf,” we knew this sound, now it was filtered into a new generation. My father would sit in the front seat as the sound emanated from the Norelco cassette deck, the one in my hand, not in the dash, and nod his head and sing along, what more could you ask for, that was nearly the entire extent of our father/son bonding.

And Thomas’s “Twilight Time” represented the magic hour well, it was after the brightness of the day.

But the next Moodys album I purchased was “On The Threshold Of A Dream.”

After breaking through the Moody Blues went on their own hejira, in their own direction, there were opuses with no singles and you either were a member of the club or you were not, and in that era if you didn’t buy the albums you were not, you just heard about them via clued-in friends.

“On The Threshold Of A Dream” had a gatefold cover and a lyric sheet and I’d lie on the floor and listen and read and the track I liked most was “Send Me No Wine,” and “Never Comes The Day” almost as much, but the song that creeped me out, that affected me the most, was “Dear Diary.” This was before blogs, when people still did that, write in diaries. And the track was melancholy and weird and all together different from the rest of the record. I had to know more, that’s when I read about Ray Thomas, with his moustache and flute, was he really in this band? Yes, he was, FROM THE VERY BEGINNING!

And there was an almost equally bizarre song on the second side by Thomas, “Lazy Day.” This music was made in a vacuum, sans influences, it cared not a whit whether you were involved or not, you could open the door and enter its universe or not.

But if you did…

And just before I went to college for the very first time, the Moodys released their breakthrough LP, “A Question Of Balance.” In retrospect, it was the weakest of the Hayward/Lodge era to that point, but the title cut was a radio smash, finally. But its best song was a Thomas composition, “And The Tide Rushes In.” He was a master of this meaningful mood, this was less strange than his compositions on “On The Threshold Of A Dream,” but still maintained that mood.

You keep looking for someone
To tell your troubles to

Isn’t that what we’re all looking for? So simple, yet so right.

And now I was in college, ensconced on the third floor of Hepburn Hall, all boys, just before the advent of coed dorms. And during winter term, right now, January of ’71, I made friends with the stoner crowd, when that was people who imbibed instead of talked slowly and were out of it, and we’d meet every evening in Dave McCormick’s room on the second floor and…

Dave had the missing albums, “In Search of the Lost Chord’ and “To Our Children’s Children’s Children.”

In retrospect, it’s all about “In Search of the Lost Chord.” It had little traction upon its release in ’68, but it was a whole concept that once hooked you were completely engrossed by. Ultimately, John Lodge’s “Ride My See-Saw” gained ubiquity, upon which Thomas contributed vocals, all members of the group but the drummer, Graeme Edge, did, but the key cut on the entire LP was something entitled “Legend of a Mind.”

Timothy Leary’s dead
No, no, he’s outside looking in

Now you’ve got to picture it. We’re a group of teenagers sitting in an overheated room in sub-freezing weather high on dope with the zilch dripping down and this six and a half minute opus was the soundtrack. The threshold to acceptance was barely there, and once you were enraptured you were taken away via the movements, singing “Timothy Leary,” drifting along with the music when dope was still used mostly to aid your understanding and appreciation of the music. This is one of those cuts I think the younger generation would cotton to if they just heard it. It makes no reference to the top forty, it’s in its own world, and when it hits the instrumental and surfs the zeitgeist you’re flying above the earth, twisting and turning along with it, back when music wasn’t in your face but in your pocket, a magical elixir that could change your life, no wonder we all followed it into this business.

Thomas also had another winner on “In Search of the Lost Chord,” fans all know “Dr. Livingstone, I Presume.”

We’re all looking for someone

Now everybody tells us they have the answers, but back then the musicians did not, which drew us ever closer to them. They understood the game better than we did, we were jumping through the hoops of school, they’d jettisoned the system for an alternative world, the idea of selling out to the corporation was anathema, after all…

I’ve still not found what I’m looking for

“To Our Children’s Children’s Children” is a forgotten masterpiece, incredibly solid, sans hits, but you can play it from beginning to end without lifting the needle and when you do it’s a revelation. I love “Candle Of Life,” it’s probably my favorite on the LP, no one does this anymore, meaningful without being sappy, especially a song that’s not a single.

Something you can’t hide
Says you’re lonely

And we were. There was no Tinder, no dating apps, we went out to bars and clubs and were ignored, all we had to get us through were our records.

But the song that I think of when I think of “To Our Children’s Children’s Children” is Thomas’s “Eternity Road.”

Traveling eternity road
What will you find there
Carrying your heavy load
Searching to find a piece of mind

We were searching, that was what the sixties and seventies were all about. Today life is too harsh, people play it safe, otherwise you can’t make it.

Thomas also wrote and sang “Floating” on “To Our Children’s Children’s Children,” another solid track on a solid album.

Ultimately, Thomas wrote and sang “Our Guessing Game” and “Nice To Be Here” on 71’s “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour,” but the bloom was off the rose, they were completely serviceable, the latter better than that, but now it wasn’t so much about the albums but the hits, and Justin Hayward had one in “The Story In Your Eyes,” it eclipsed the rest of the record.

And “Seventh Sojourn” continued this paradigm. There was a modest hit, “Isn’t Life Strange” and an even bigger one, “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band),” which the Moody Blues really were not, they were their own paradigm, and not exactly filler, but nothing as magical as what had come before. Thomas’s “For My Lady” was one of the strongest tracks on the LP, but I can’t say that I played it incessantly.

And then I stopped, just as they did. They realized it was over, the well had run dry, and the band broke up and didn’t reunite until ’78 with “Octave.” I was done, but I still listened to the old records, they were burned into my brain.

And now Ray Thomas is dead.

Pinder left the band long ago.

Thomas stopped touring around the millennium. And Hayward and Lodge needed the name to continue, so they did, along with Edge, and there’s a band plying the boards but somehow the magic’s been lost, if only the Moody Blues had all died in a plane crash, they’d be legendary today, living kills your career. Look at John Sebastian, who’s also lost his voice, when are we gonna acknowledge the greatness of his work?

But the Moodys not only had a long run, but they started their own genre, which I’m hesitant to label, “symphonic rock,” “art rock,” “classical rock”? Who cares, but they were not limited by trends, they went their own way, and won.

And Thomas was and is overshadowed by the giants Hayward and Lodge became. The dignified guy who played the flute… But in hindsight, he was an integral member of the Moody Blues, and provided leavening no other member could, his compositions were not only for royalties, they added flavor.

But now he’s gone.

But he was 76. That seems young today, when people regularly live into their nineties. But not everybody. Forget those who die via misadventure, the Big C is always lurking, the older you live the greater the odds something’s gonna get you.

And it got Ray Thomas, mere months before the Moodys’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But that institution does not matter, it’s the music that does. But having said that, so many undeserving acts got inducted before they did, thank god this wrong has been righted.

You see when you break the mold people don’t like it. What category do you put the band in? You can’t see Ray Thomas destroying hotel rooms. There was little personal mystery, few shenanigans, only music.

But that was enough.

I’m not sure if the Moody Blues will ever have a renaissance, they really haven’t even gotten their victory lap, but if you were a fan, and they were legion, the band holds a special place in your heart, there was no competition, they set your mind free, took you on an adventure, AND IT ALL SOUNDED SO GOOD!

Ray Thomas was not a footnote.

The Moody Blues were not an also-ran.

They were part of the fabric when music drove the culture and ruled the world.

And in the eyes and ears of those who were there…

THEY STILL DO!