I learned to buy my records in a bunch, at a discount, at E.J. Korvette or Sam Goody in the city rather than overpay at the Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury, Vermont. And one of the LPs I bought at the end of my initial Christmas vacation was Bob Dylan’s “New Morning,” and at the time I didn’t own a single LP by the man, wasn’t even that big a fan, but there was something about the reviews.

You see Dylan had released a dud only months before, “Self Portrait” was excoriated, so he blasted back with this more traditional LP and declared victory, and the press assented, so I bought it.

Dylan is an acquired taste. We used to have tons of these back when. Bands you hated and then came to love, when being unique was a badge of honor, when the audience didn’t feel superior to the acts, but vice versa.

And this was long past Dylan’s political period. He’d escaped to Woodstock and said he did not know best, but he did.

My favorite song on “New Morning” is “Sign On The Window”

Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me ‘pa’
That must be what it’s all about
That must be what it’s all about

We’re just animals, here to reproduce. If you’re lucky you’ll have kids and watch them grow up and mature, change, have identities. I’m waiting for my next lifetime for this, it’s not my greatest regret, but it is a path I did not take with rewards, as precious as any of those in the Fortune 500 or fame game.

But the song that’s been going through my head recently is “Time Passes Slowly.” I thought about it when I wrote that previous missive “Change Happens Slowly,” it’s just that the words didn’t fit, so I’m writing about it now.

Time passes slowly up here in the mountains

I used to live up there, in the mountains, before cable, never mind cell service, when people didn’t take plane trips on a whim, when you were off the grid, the city moved fast, but not the country, you had time to contemplate.

We sit beside bridges and walk beside fountains

Nobody’s in a rush. You can feel yourself living. Today we’re all so busy going somewhere that we’ve lost touch with our feelings, our emotions, they scare us.

Time passes slowly when you’re lost in a dream

You think you know where you’re going but the amazing thing about life is you’re not in control, you can turn the steering wheel, but oftentimes it’s not connected to the chassis, life is an endless series of wake-up moments, where if you’re smart you readjust.

Time passes slowly when you’re searchin’ for love

There’s a fifteen year stretch I want back, between my ex and Felice, all the blind alleys. I don’t understand the people who jump from relationship to relationship, I think they’re just afraid of being alone. I don’t want to settle, good enough doesn’t work for me, I need someone to get me, I need someone I can connect with, but the search is endless. You’re judged by your exterior, you don’t even get a chance to come up to bat. You’re dismissed until you accumulate the chips that deliver attention. Or you just take what you think you’re entitled to, that’s the essence of this sexual harassment brouhaha, who are these people, I was never like that, never forget you cannot short circuit life without consequences.

Ain’t no reason to go anywhere

The internet put a huge dent in boredom. There are so many options. But there used to be this sense of ennui, you’d worked so hard to get ahead, put on your look, went to the bar, you just burned out and stared at the four walls, I don’t want to go back to that time but I remember it so well.

Time passes slowly and fades away

You’re not gonna get it back, that time you wasted waiting for the good times to come. Your hair turned gray, your body got creaky, you can see the sand draining out of the hourglass, you want to stop the march of time but it’s impossible.

And then you’re done and gone.

But you’ve got to experience it for yourself, you’ve got to make your own mistakes, but one day you wake up and want to go back and you can’t, you want more time but they’re not making any more of it. And this wisdom comes with age but old people are considered irrelevant. You know more than you ever did but no one wants to hear it.

So I got up to Middlebury and played my Elton John records. And this one too. Which was singular, unlike anything else, it stuck to my bones. You can hear an old song and remember when and then there are some that not only feel good upon hearing, but continue to deliver insight, that change with you even though they’ve never changed at all.

New Morning – Spotify

That’s what Obama said on WTF, when Marc Maron asked him about health care, single-payer, Barack said it would take decades to get to the destination, just like it did with gay marriage and legal pot, and I added those last two, but I never thought they’d happen in my lifetime, but they did.

One of our clearest thinkers on political matters is Frank Rich. And he can write too, what a package. Rich used to be the NYT theatre critic and the producers hated him, because he wasn’t always positive, we live in a country where if you put in the effort you believe you’re entitled to the prize, but this is not true, the public knows better, it doesn’t care that you spent a million on your record, just whether they like it, and critics used to point the way but now those who are left are have soft voices so we go to aggregator sites like Rotten Tomatoes to find out what the public thinks and the producers hate us for that, you see they love that steel wool in between them and us, that sausage factory that can create a turntable hit, that can manipulate results, but those days are through. And Frank Rich’s days at the NYT are done too, because he just couldn’t fit in with their restrictions. He wanted to write longer less frequently and they said no. That’s the problem with organizations, you’re just a worker bee, no matter how talented, so Rich left so he could work on “Veep” and he writes for “New York,” which I get, but has much less prominence than the NYT but when he appears Frank is still just as brilliant, as he was back in June, when he talked about the theoretical end of Trump’s presidency in this article:

“Just Wait, Watergate didn’t become Watergate overnight, either”

It took decades for the Republicans to gain control. The pushback is not gonna deliver results overnight. And spare me the vitriol, don’t give me the knee-jerk response, if you think the proletariat is gonna put up with givebacks to rich donors while their coffers are drained you’re delusional, you’ve got a short term perspective. When you push too far, you get results in the other direction.

But it takes time.

No one wants to wait. Everybody wants it now. Especially in an era of on demand entertainment. Delayed gratification is anathema.

But, as horrible as it might seem, things might work out.

How many more natural disasters will we endure before we take action on climate change? Hell, California is still burning and it’s lights out in Puerto Rico, which was part of the United States last time I checked. And I wouldn’t be surprised if California makes an effort to secede. Want to eliminate the right to write off state income taxes and we’ll prevent you from having the benefits of our products, virtual or real.

Leverage. Talk to anybody in business, that’s what it’s all about. And you get that via hearts and minds. It’s the essence of entertainment, do you have fans or not. And you can try and gang up against the masses but that didn’t work too well with Napster.

But the acts are ignorant and greedy and no change will come from them, they don’t have the mindshare of television, never mind the politicians.

So stay the course.

If you’re a Republican and you believe in no safety net and no regulations I hope you don’t get sick and become bankrupted when your apartment grows mold and collapses. You’ll be just like Puerto Rico, waiting for help that doesn’t come.

And with such a corrupt government, are your interests really protected?

And what I’m saying here is you can’t take your eyes off the front page, you can’t stop following the narrative, but we’ve got people on this. These news organizations. Why do you think Trump, et al, are so busy denigrating them? The story of the internet is consolidation, and payment, and if you think all these diverse voices spreading disinformation are gonna continue to dominate you’re delusional, if anything there are gonna be fewer choices.

Fox News may have a hold on TV, but TV is dying, as are films, which is why Murdoch sold most of his TV and movie company to Disney. Like I said, things change. Barry Diller did the undoable, building a fourth TV network a few decades back, now networks are verging on irrelevancy.

But the point is there’s a backlash. Facts are coming back. It’s just happening slowly.

So pay attention, work for change.

But know it’s coming.

I’m eating fruitcake.

I know, I know, it’s supposed to be inedible, you’re supposed to pass it on to some out of the loop friend as a gift, there are fruitcakes from the 1800s still circulating, but this one is pretty damn good, it came from Whole Foods with a gingerbread base and nothing involved speaks to my holiday memories since I’m Jewish, but I’m all up for new traditions, as long as you don’t put a Christmas tree up in the house, who knows what’s next, a cross?

So I’ve spent the last three days getting IVIG at home. Funny how the medical establishment and the insurance companies are on their game when you’re testing the health limits. They immediately called me from the pharmacy, they messengered over the supplies and the nurse phoned in that she was ready to go.

So, I’ve spent the last three days sitting in a chair for four and a half hours having fluid dripped into my arm and you steel yourself and get through it but when you’re done you’re frustrated and angry but now I’m done completely which is a relief except that the house is empty and quiet and that’s so disconcerting. I told Felice to go to Vail without me and now I’m spending the holiday alone and that’s kind of creepy. In the seventies you went to the movies. But it’s a dead time, if you’re not on vacation you’re killing time, which is why I’m writing this to you, I’ve got to communicate.

And a lot of thoughts have been going through my brain, but they all require separate e-mails to get their full point across, but then I’ll get people bitching I’m sending too much and don’t I respect the holidays and welcome to the twenty first century wherein everybody’s got an opinion and there’s no context. Used to be few were famous, there were few media outlets and we all knew what everybody else was talking about. That era is through, along with facts. Did you see Margaret Sullivan is now calling the WaPo and the NYT the “fact-based” media? Because too much of the mainstream media is biased and fake. And reading the newspapers is the highlight of my day, they appear on the doorstep every twenty four hours and even though I’ve read so many of the stories already on the app it’s good to be able to depend upon something in this era where you can’t depend on anyone or anything, we’re all on our own. Kinda like the experience I just had with the Sonos One.

Do they have tech help on Christmas? Can I bug someone at the company on Christmas?

This is the world we live in, one where you’re your own tech help.

And we create our own problems. You see I’m in one house utilizing two Alexa accounts. Let’s make it more complicated. The Sonos One hooked into Felice’s Sonos system but I used my Alexa app and my Amazon Music account so I could pull up what I wanted on demand.

And now you’ve got no idea what I’m talking about.

I use ’em all, every one but Tidal that is. Although I can still port over to it from its initial incarnation known as WIMP. So if I want to listen in CD quality, I use Deezer. And I hate to say it, but Apple Music does sound better than Spotify, Spotify’s got to dump their codec. And then there’s Amazon Music. Amazon has got the best voice controlled playlists. You can be pretty specific, I just asked Alexa to play “Rock hits from 1965” and she did. It’s pretty cool. And on the Echo Show you can see the lyrics, but…

I wanted to use MY Amazon Music account on Felice’s Sonos which I was running via MY Alexa app on my phone, since Felice has her iPhone and iPad with her in Colorado.

And oftentimes no music comes out.

Why am I doing this? Because the Amazon Music account they gave me for Felice’s house randomly crapped out, and I can’t just call out the tracks I want. And that’s a huge pain in the ass. Which is why using the free tier of Spotify is such an incentive to pay. Because it’s so FRUSTRATING! As it is using the free tier of Amazon Music on the Echo Show and the Sonos One.

And I got it all to work, except sometimes it doesn’t, and there’s nothing worse than an intermittent problem, but there’s such a sense of satisfaction when you figure things out.

And the first song I wanted to hear was Terry Stafford’s “Suspicion.” I know, I know, it was originally cut by Elvis, but Stafford had the hit. I must have heard it on Sirius the other day, because I can’t get it out of my head.

And then “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” because that’s the right song for a cold winter night. Assuming you consider forties cold, which if you live long enough in Los Angeles it is.

And I’m wondering what to do with myself. Read a book, watch TV, god forbid not leave the house.

Which is why I decided to write.

But I was worried about tonality. It is Christmas. Not my holiday, but others respect it. But now they’ve got two football games and NBA all day and sometimes I like to be light and disrespectful and sometimes heavy and damned if I know what will resonate, especially when I’m not white hot. Like I said, I’ve got a bunch of topics in my head. I actually stopped this in the middle and wrote about iPhone sales. And I realized while writing that if you don’t agree with me you hate me and that’s a problem I’ve had my whole life, I cannot tolerate misinformation and stupidity, which there’s more of than ever before. The more news we’ve got, the less truth we’ve got. People recite falsehoods like they’re commandments, and if you contradict them you’re the jerk. Wanna make it worse, just send them documentation of their mistake, they’ll hate you for all time.

And then after finishing the Apple missive I decided to write about Christmas songs, didn’t finish that one either, and normally I finish everything, but I’m gonna append it here, it’s good as far as it goes.

It’s just that… At this time of year you’re with your family and out of the maelstrom, or you’re wondering where you fit in. That’s life, there are rules in school and then you graduate and you’re on your own, you’ve got to make sense of it yourself. And the older I’ve gotten the harder this has been to do. I’m about ready to write a whole piece about the death of the influence of the baby boomers, they’re the last to know, but they’re over. That’s what hip-hop has taught us, the old rock farts are pushing seventy and they’re never gonna have another hit, and you’re not gonna start a breakthrough company and…

These are the kinda thoughts I have when I’ve got too much time and not enough to do. Oh, there’s always tons to do, but when your time is free you’re looking for that which rings your bell and…

CHRISTMAS SONGS

They play in my head. I never ever pull up a Sirius station, never mind terrestrial radio, I don’t need to get into the Christmas spirit, after all, I’m Jewish, but I do have my own private tape loop.

But before I go there, I’ve got to point you to a Steve Knopper article in today’s “New York Times.” Knopper was “Rolling Stone”‘s music business guy, and quite good at it, but everybody’s on contract at that rag these days, if they’re still there at all, and I don’t see how it can be resuscitated, some things cannot, like MySpace, anyway, Knopper’s article points out the fact that in a world of on demand streaming it makes no sense to load up your fourth quarter releases because they get squeezed out by holiday music:

“Taylor Swift’s Rivals This Holiday: Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole”

Money changes everything, but so does streaming.

You want to launch your music when you can get the most mindshare. And it’s all about longevity, not the initial pop. Makes no sense to put your tracks out during the month of clutter, especially if you’re not releasing new music on a regular basis.

But back to those holiday songs.

The one I’ve been singing to myself most this season is “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” by the Royal Guardsmen. Our society is too coarse to have novelty hits like this anymore. But during Christmas 1966 this dominated the airwaves.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more!

Yup, that bloody Red Baron was rolling up the score. We sang along to this story song every time it came on the AM radio we commandeered as our parents drove us around the neighborhood, up to Bromley to ski. This was when Charles Schulz was still alive, before Snoopy got so whored out he lost all credibility, when you could still love “MAD” and “Peanuts” and feel good about yourself.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Snoopy’s competition on the chart at that time, the irrepressible, indomitable, all time classic “I’m A Believer.” Yes, the Monkees were an ersatz group. Yes, the song was written by Neil Diamond, but Micky Dolenz’s vocal alone not only makes this track one of the best of all time, but deserving of ushering the entire group into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Come on, with so many lame acts in there why not the Monkees? They were bigger than any act working today and they had numerous hits of which this was the apotheosis.

But the track that goes through my head every time at this year is Laura Nyro’s “Christmas In My Soul”…

Christmas Songs – Spotify

But you’re not gonna buy one.

Talk about a tempest in a teapot, Apple tries to save your ass and you’re up in arms about it. That’s right, in order to prevent your old phone from shutting down because of its lame battery Apple is slowing down the OS. If they didn’t do this, you’d be bitching the phone was broken, which way do you want it?

Oh, you want a user-replaceable battery, but you want a sleek device to show your friends. This is kinda like the electronics repair conundrum. You complain you can’t get anything fixed while not realizing that a new CD or DVD player is cheaper than the cost of a repair, which was often done so poorly anyway.

That’s the uninformed public for you.

But the public is cheap.

In case you’ve missed the memo, iPhone sales are stalling. You can walk in and buy an X. Certainly an 8. There is no backlog.

All the analysts were wrong about this. Except me! I’m gonna take my victory lap right now. Because this is important. It’s not only about income inequality, it’s about intelligence disparity. The analysts and the media have no idea how people live their lives. They said we were at the advent of the mother of all iPhone upgrade cycles. And now that proves to be untrue. Proving once again these people can tell you where we’ve been, but not where we’re going. It’s positively scary. They were wrong about the election, they’re wrong about almost everything.

They’re too expensive. And they’re no longer subsidized.

The new phones used to FEEL free! Because the cost was baked into your plan. But when John Legere at T-Mobile got rid of these subsidies and you realized you were paying full price for these handheld devices you didn’t want to.

The 5 was the breakthrough, because of LTE. But that was hard to explain, especially if you were on anything but Verizon, with poor coverage and bad data. Verizon is the only carrier that just works, and even sometimes it does not. But people are afraid of switching providers for fear of…god knows what, you can take your number with you. And they’re cheap. So they’re going with T-Mobile, which works where it does, and nowhere else, which is a lot of places, especially when it comes to LTE, or Sprint, which should be out of business, or AT&T which is just lame. If it didn’t have that moniker it would have a lot fewer subscribers, never underestimate the power of a name.

So the 5 gave you LTE, i.e. high speed connection. You needed that. Even so, people stayed with their 4.

And then came the 6. With its larger form factors. This was the breakthrough, the public was hungering for larger phones. And…YOU SHOULD BUY THE BIGGEST PHONE YOU CAN!!! That’s right, if you settle for the small one you’re an idiot. You heard me, I’m insulting you. It’s not a phone, it’s a COMPUTER! Honestly, you can live without a desktop machine, you just need a phone. Where you’ve got enough screen real estate to function. You buy stuff on it, you research on it, would you go to Best Buy and say SELL ME THE SMALLEST FLAT SCREEN? You want a 65″ TV but a small iPhone, think about it.

So people bought the 6 in droves. There was pent-up demand for a larger screen.

And then came the 7. A me-too device. We were told a breakthrough was around the corner but I bit the bullet because…

They gave me $650 off. That’s right, you always want to buy your phone at the beginning of the cycle. The fall. That’s when the best offers are. Because the providers are afraid you’ll jump ship! You may be paying full price for the device, but it’s spread over 24 months, so you’re locked in until you’re not. And to tell you the truth, this fall’s offers were not as generous, but they were there. If you’re a nincompoop who’s waiting until spring or summer to upgrade… You’re probably the kind of person who pays nearly full price for the outgoing automobile that’s gonna be upgraded. You’re buying a gasoline engine when electrics rule. You’ve already got a year-old device and you don’t want this.

And a 7 looks almost identical to a 6 but I love my 7 Plus…BECAUSE OF THE CHIP!

You can’t see it, but that’s not only the heart of the device, but the matter. Usually every year speed is increased by 50%. This won’t last forever, but we’re here now, it’s kind of like the nineties when as soon as you brought your Packard Bell home from the store it was obsolete. Just try surfing on your 6 next to a 7 or 8 or X. You’ll be stunned how slow your 6 is. This is not Apple messing with you, it’s the old chip you’ve got inside and the lame battery to boot. Apple can’t change science. Everybody’s trying to increase battery capacity, no competitor is doing much better. But you think since you bought an iPhone it should keep a charge forever. You’re dreaming. Just pay them $80 for a new battery. But that’s stupid, because you’re better off just upgrading.

And here’s the dirty little secret. iPhones have value. Yup, the one you used for two years is still worth $200. So trade it in now, before it loses value. So, you’ve got the $200 plus the $80, which is basically $300 towards a new phone, with a better chip, battery, camera, everything, but you’d rather bitch and complain while you use your old device which doesn’t hold a charge and is so slow to boot.

So now we’re at the latest iteration of the upgrade cycle.

You can buy an 8 Plus. Once again, don’t be stupid and buy a small 8. But only get this device if you’re gonna flip it in two years. Because facial recognition is gonna be a big thing by then. You’ll want that feature to get into the show, it’s gonna be your ticket and so much more.

Or go straight to the X, which has almost the same size screen as the 8 Plus but in a smaller form factor.

But WHATEVER you do go buy a new iPhone IMMEDIATELY!

But people aren’t doing this. They’re uneducated, they think their old phone is good enough. And the new devices cannot be identified at a distance, so there’s no status involved. Remember almost twenty years ago when everybody bought that tiny Nokia to look cool? And then came the RAZR. Hell, even if you’ve got an X most people are not gonna know.

But you get functionality.

But that doesn’t resonate with people, not when they’ve got to pay a grand.

And if you’re not in the iPhone camp, you’re…

An Apple hater with an almost as expensive Samsung. You’re losing out financially, because that trade-in premium is nonexistent, but I’m not gonna argue with you, not gonna go on about features, you’re happy, o.k.

Or you’re truly cheap and utilizing a whack Android.

That’s okay. It’s just that you’re hurting yourself. Because you need a fast, full-action phone to compete. Kinda like needing a car in L.A. to be a person.

But everybody’s scared away by the thousand bucks.

Flat screens keep coming down in price. Chromebooks go for nothing. Yet mobile phone prices keep going up? MAKES NO SENSE!

This is psychology, not reality. If iPhones were still subsidized they’d be flying off the shelves. But they’re not.

But the analysts missed the memo. They couldn’t see the landscape through the customer’s eyes.

And the truth is gadgets no longer titillate us. A phone is a functional device. Lusting over hardware is so last decade. Now it’s all about software.

So, once again, if you’re in the iPhone ecosystem, repeat after me, you get the largest screen size of the latest phone every two years.

But I can hear you arguing with me right now.

Which is why the numbers are going in the wrong direction.

But I’m right.

“Apple’s New Phones Notch Modest Start — WSJ”

“Analysts Cut iPhone X Shipment Forecasts, Citing Lukewarm Demand”