How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore
And a Scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgotten
Spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor
Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

It might have been “We Will Rock You.” Or “Rolling In The Deep.” Or any hit of today.

Only bigger.

And it’s not about one track but the whole damn album, the whole damn show.

Go to a concert and you get a segmented audience, never all kinds, all types, all ages.

But at “Hamilton” at the Pantages it was a cross-section of America. Everybody with a smile on their face, anticipating the event of the year.

It didn’t start out this way. “Hamilton” premiered at the Public Theatre, after taking years to write. The inspiration came from Ron Chernow’s biography and some of the biggest hip-hop hits of all time. That’s right, Lin-Manuel Miranda had influences, he paid dues, and the New York cognoscenti got a whiff and they were sold. But how does a local production become a national phenomenon?

For the past few decades musicals have been a joke. Dumbed-down for tourists. Of course there are exceptions, especially “The Book of Mormon,” but that was more about the show than the music, you had to go to hear them say the unsayable, but you didn’t sing the songs at home, but “Hamilton” was on everybody’s lips.

The hype/industrial complex was not prepared for this. The system anoints stars. And hit and Broadway have not crossed paths since “Hair.” Sure, some songs from “A Chorus Line” permeated the culture, but they were not everywhere, not on the hit parade.

But now the paradigm has shifted and there is no hit parade. Radio is so far behind the times it’s a joke, and it only plays one narrow genre of music.

Spotify is much more au courant, but it’s dominated by hip-hop, a younger generation.

Then again, the sweet spot for “Hamilton” is these same kids.

That’s right, the rich are overpaying to see “Hamilton,” but the little girls understand. They sign up for the lottery. Funny how Lin-Manuel Miranda can give back and the popsters are all about themselves, all the time. The economics of Broadway suck. But if you have a big enough hit…

So we expect everything to blow up in plain sight, we expect to see trends, but now the media is out of touch, if they can’t quantify it it doesn’t exist.

“Hamilton” is bigger than any act on the road. Commands a higher ticket price for more shows. But it’s ignored in the pop firmament.
But not by the audience.

Alexander Hamilton
My name is Alexander Hamilton

I’m tingling while I write these words. And after being uttered Saturday the audience whooped it up like it was Prince singing “1999.” They were here, they’d planned, they’d waited, and now they were ready to EXPLODE!

Time and again the actors had to wait for the applause to die down.

You see the audience knew every word. They’d studied the soundtrack for months. All two hours and twenty two minutes of it. This is not a one hit wonder, this is not a single. I’m all for albums if there’s a story, if there’s a theme, and there’s certainly one in “Hamilton.”

And every time you see it you gain new insights. It’s the musical that keeps on paying dividends. Full of lyrics, full of nuance. The first time I focused on the relationships. The second on the scandal. This time on the war.

And every cast is a bit different. Joshua Henry was arguably better than the original actor. And Jordan Donica played Lafayette with a heavy French accent, so when he said that immigrants get the job done there was not as effusive a response as there was in New York.

But not everyone can go to New York.

So you have these road shows.

And the tiny, rickety New York theatre is superior. The stage is smaller, it’s more intimate, the seats are tiered, you hover over the performance.

Then again, every time you saw your favorite rock act it was different.

So you can’t get a ticket. Very few acts today go clean. But “Hamilton”? Fughetaboutit.

“Hamilton” is the story of us. Of the melting pot. Of America. You can make it if you really try. You don’t want to give up your shot. But the truth is these concepts are fading. Statistically there’s more upward mobility in Western Europe, but you don’t want socialism, right? You want the right to starve with no safety net, just as long as there are no takers, right?

But the funny thing is both left and right go to see “Hamilton.”

And are influenced by it.

Every day I see blowhards advocating their positions in the media.

But they’re no match for “Hamilton.”

“Hamilton” is the sixties reincarnated. When art could move mountains. When you didn’t play to the audience, but led it. Don’t give them what they want, but what they need.

The people know. They got the message. They were not sold, it’s not about marketing but content. This is not a movie that lives and dies on a weekend and is gone shortly thereafter, this is a living, breathing enterprise taking the world by storm, affecting those who hate it in principle. People of color playing whites. Hip-hop the dominant soundtrack. It should be a failure.

But the audience ROARED!

This is incredible.

My problem is I have too many Echos and too small a house. I set up the Sonos One but it was getting confused with the Echo nearby. So I decided to do some surgery and screwed it up completely. Then Thomas Meyer hooked me up with Sonos support and not only did Adrian fix the problem, he made me aware of all these capabilities I had no idea of.

So here’s the story, you can buy a Sonos One and have all the capabilities of an Echo. It’s got the equivalent of a Dot built in. So, what this means is you can get all the skills, all your questions answered, and FAR SUPERIOR SOUND!

This is the way to go. The Sonos One sounds like MUSIC!

But it gets better, if you already have an Echo or an Echo Show, you can control ALL your Sonos zones by voice, RIGHT NOW!

As long as you use one of the suggested names, if you customize your zone names you might have a problem, but that’s gonna be worked out, and chances are you’re not that deep into this stuff anyway.

So, let’s start over. Voice control is it in music. The only problem is right now, the devices have lousy sound. But now you can buy a Sonos One and have GOOD sound! Especially compared to the lousy computer speakers and earbuds most people are presently using.

But if you’ve got an Echo already, and Sonos already, you can control your already existing zones via voice.

But right now Spotify doesn’t work, so I connected Amazon Music Unlimited.

And the thing with Amazon Music Unlimited is you can see the lyrics in your Amazon Echo Show, which is very cool.

And if this all sounds like gobbledygook to you, it won’t be soon. This will be de rigueur overnight. This Christmas is the tipping point, when Apple introduces its smart speaker, the HomePod, but if you expect Apple to dominate…

You’re still living in the Steve Jobs era.

You see Jobs won via monopolies. The funny thing is copy protection aided Apple, it kept people locked into the iPod. And then the iPod gained momentum and killed all comers.

And then the iPhone ruled until Android, no wonder Jobs was suing about that, because he realized you didn’t want to be a player, you wanted to be the ONLY player!

So, one voice-controlled service will dominate. And right now it looks to be Amazon. The only thing keeping people locked into Apple is branding. But, with Sonos you can employ much better speakers than both the HomePod and Sonos One, you can play music through your own stereo via voice via Sonos, you can’t do this with HomePod/Apple. It’s the Wintel wars all over again. Apple is a closed system, Amazon is not.

And Google is an entrant too, and is also an open system, and has the Android advantage, but right now Amazon has a huge head start, and there’s a first mover advantage as long as you continue to innovate.

It’s here right now. Voice control of your favorite music.

And Amazon Music Unlimited is a sleeper of a service. Forget Apple Music, it’s already trolled every credit card on file, whereas Amazon is selling every day and if Amazon purchased Spotify it would be game over, but still, keep your eye on the Bezos company.

So…

It’s all about streaming services. CDs and files are dead, because they don’t offer the same possibilities.

And there’s free and paid, and you don’t have to pay to get the equivalent of Spotify’s free tier on Amazon, you just can’t pick and choose the songs. But if you want to pay the freight, you get the right to hear exactly what you want when you want.

But Spotify’s advantage is being the first mover, and its playlists and audience…

For the first ten years of this century it was all about gadgets.

Now it’s all about software.

But the Echo is a gateway gadget, kind of like an iPhone, it’s not a standalone item like an iPod, it opens the door to so much more.

Like integration with Sonos.

Dip your toe, you’re gonna dig this.

And I’m not happy about it.

Took forty years, but I’m finally a Dodgers fan. Because it’s not the Dodgers of old, holier-than-thou, all pitching and little hitting, self-satisfied even when they lost. Today’s team, and it is certainly a team, is a ragtag bunch of scrappers, a group of individuals who don’t look like they could win independently, but collectively? They continue to pull it out.

It’s all about the ninth inning comeback.

Are you a believer? I can’t say that I am. When the chips are down, I don’t think it’s gonna work out. I’m not sure whether it’s my personality, being Jewish or the attrition of time. Yup, Jews have been persecuted for 5,000 years, we’re privileged just to exist, we’re the glass half-empty tribe. As for my personality, something switched off about thirty years ago, before that I believed if I just put my nose to the grindstone, tried hard enough, things would work out. I don’t believe that anymore. I’m kinda like that guy in the Paul Simon song, when something goes wrong, I’m the first to admit it, the last one to know, but when something goes right, it’s apt to confuse me, it’s such an unusual sight, can’t get used to something so right.

Truly. I work on this with the shrink. Something great happens and I expect the sky to fall. Best to be on high alert. The world is gunning for me. And the good feeling never lasts. Maybe it’s easier to believe you’re not a winner, then you’re not disappointed.

Looked like it was gonna be a lame game. We scored three immediate runs and we had our ace on the mound. But just when we were settling in, the gods went crazy, the Astros came back. And that’s how it ensued for the rest of the game, topsy-turvy, just when you started to relax, the other team rallied.

But there were a lot of human errors, most off the field as opposed to on.

You see the managers have too much data. They no longer run on instinct. This is the scourge of moneyball. But they’re ultimately human, not computers, and they screw up. I could have managed the Dodgers’ bullpen better than Dave Roberts. As for the coach who held the runner on third, anybody who golfs knows you play to win, otherwise you lose. Take your chance, don’t expect the universe to align and come through for you later, in this case it didn’t. Never seems to.

So what we have here is probably the best World Series game of the modern era, since the sixties, when I started paying attention, and half the country didn’t see it.

The competition?

That Red Sox/Reds contest back in ’75. It’s remembered for Carlton Fisk’s home run, but really the high point was Bernie Carbo’s grand slam, to tie it up, but history is rewritten and it’s easier to give credit to the lovable Pudge.

But the game sticks out. Even more than the seventh where the Pirates beat the Yankees back in 1960.

But this was different. Because most people don’t care. The game is for oldsters and acolytes, the word is it’s too slow, and it used to be the players were denigrated for being overpaid, but now everybody focuses on the NBA, which is a much more fluid game where the stars make bank for playing but that’s oftentimes half of their overall compensation, you can end up making enough to own a team.

But I don’t want to complain about basketball. You see basketball is on the upswing. Sure, we marveled over Jordan, before that Bird and Magic, but no one thought it was the national pastime. Basketball rules today because it’s the same game all over the world and everybody plays it.

And the players are in control.

I won’t say the same thing about baseball, but you cannot help cracking up when you see the players with their funky beards. Amazing Trump hasn’t come down on them. Once upon a time baseball players were straight, now they’re outlaws, kinda like that T-Bone Burnett song “The Sixties” (from 1983):

Baseball players aren’t so square
They’ve got beards and stringy hair

I think of that every time I see Justin Turner. These Dodgers are not the jocks of other sports, oh, of course they work out, unlike the sixties players, but you feel you could really have a drink and connect, whereas you’d be dwarfed by the tall and big of the NBA and NFL.

And once upon a time, music was like baseball. Actually, it was the NEW baseball. That’s right, you put the transistor under your pillow to listen to the game and then in 1964 you started listening to music.

But then both music and baseball put money first and it decimated both.

How do you expect to grow the sport, gain new fans, when your loyalty is to advertisers as opposed to fans? It’s not illegal to start the games earlier, especially on the weekend. You had to sit through this game tonight, it was better than any roller coaster.

Yes, it’s slow. But you’ve got to sit through the contest to get the vibe, you’ve got to pay attention, sans desert, you’re not shocked by the oasis. When the hits come out of the blue, you’re elated.

And once again, in this digitized world, it comes down to humanity. You can’t even figure out what’s going on in football, it’s too sophisticated, ask any pro, you sit at home and think you know, but you don’t. As for basketball, you failed the genetic test. But baseball??

You could do it.

And at the risk of copping George Carlin baseball is not defined, you never know when it’s gonna end, kinda like the jamming of yore, “Super Session” and then “Grape Jam” and the third disc of “All Things Must Pass.” You went to the Fillmore to hear what you didn’t know more than what you did. Hell, the Allman Brothers perfected this paradigm and became the biggest band in the land and the Dead survived on it.

But lessons go unheeded.

So it’s the top of the ninth and the Dodgers are behind by three. All they’ve got is three outs. Do you believe?

It doesn’t matter who you know, what your bank account is, you cannot fix the outcome. All you can do is sit and watch, on pins and needles.

And you’re aware of the stress. You know you’d crack under the pressure. You wonder what’s going through the minds of the players. And the ‘Stros’ pitchers have been better than the Dodgers’. And the game has been going on for five hours. Are there really gonna be extra innings?

You either watched or you didn’t, you either were there or you weren’t.

Sure, you can read about it, get the results, see a replay, but it’s nothing like waiting, eyes glued to the set, wondering what is gonna happen.

Kinda like real life.

Baseball is an antiquated sport. It’s had a good run, but really soccer and basketball, maybe even e-sports, are better for the modern era. Used to be we’d be bored, we looked for diversion, we were willing to hang in there. Now you keep searching for something better, John Mayer was excoriated for his “Playboy” interview but he had it right, he couldn’t orgasm to the porn he was watching because his mind kept telling him there was better porn just a click away.

That’s how we live our lives. Inundated with FOMO. Always believing we’re in the wrong place.

But then we slow down and endure the baseball game and are reminded this is what real life looks like. The ups and downs. The dreams and the stamina.

It’s not about blind belief. You or me couldn’t stand in the box and get a hit, we’d be too frightened to even swing. But these are trained professionals, who’ve paid their dues over decades.

Paying your dues is out of style. Everybody’s got a megaphone and is asking for attention. Used to be you had to do the work first.

But it’s always about the work. That’s what’s screwed up music and baseball, they put the work last, and the money first. A great song will triumph. Sure, it might need a push, but once you hear it it doesn’t matter who did it, what genre it’s in, you can’t get enough of it, it makes you feel good. And the same thing with a great baseball game…you tolerate the commercials for the nougat, the essence of life.

It was all on display tonight. Didn’t matter what the commentators said, it was all there on the field. After 162 games and multiple playoffs this was it, a contest between the best, so well-matched that you never thought you had it in the bag, could never become complacent.

Memories are made of this.

That’s right, all this emphasis on new and different is overdone. And it didn’t matter whether you were rich or poor you saw the same game. It’s all about experiences.

And tonight’s was life-affirming and unforgettable.

But you probably missed it.

“The Sixties”:

Spotify

YouTube

It ain’t over til it’s over.

That’s the defining characteristic of baseball. There’s no garbage time, no running out of the clock. Until the final out is made, the other team can always win.

There was football when I grew up. I remember listening to the championship game in my mother’s Ford Falcon, where you could play the radio without the key (and also run down the battery!), on a frigid December day while my father did business in Bridgeport.

The Giants lost.

Did you see Y.A. Tittle passed? He was a star before the perks, when in the off-season you sold cars or insurance. He was not for everybody, just those paying attention. He was not Mickey Mantle.

But Mantle was our hero.

With the backstory of osteomyelitis, the knee injury sustained on a drain in the outfield. He hit from both sides and smiled and might strike out vociferously and valiantly, but oftentimes he connected, and what a sweet sound and sight that was.

Back when you knew all the players. Yogi behind the plate. Moose on first. Bobby Richardson, the choirboy, on second. Roger Maris in right. Whitey on the mound. It was an all star team. Before free agency.

And you counted on them making the World Series.

Expansion was new. Ten teams per division? Sure, we went to the Mets games, but that was just for fun, to see them lose. When they got Seaver and succeeded in ’69 it truly was a miracle, unbelievable, a sports story that left New York gobsmacked.

And this was when the Yankees had faded.

But I was still a fan.

Hell, I live in Los Angeles and I’m still partial to the Angels, because they’re in the American League. As for the Astros switching from the National, that’s sacrilegious.

The Dodgers were the enemy. With Koufax and Drysdale they were weak at the plate but their arms were overwhelming. They silenced us for the entire winter. Back before we even knew there was no winter in Los Angeles. Back before global warming and the World Series being played in hundred degree heat. Back before playoffs, back before they played the games at night.

Playoffs, shmayoffs. You either win or you don’t. There’s no bonus round. I mean you play for 162 games and you’re not entitled to go to the World Series? Utter hogwash.

As for the night games…

Baseball didn’t used to be beholden to television. Oh, the games were on, but only in your local market, you couldn’t see other teams, but that just built loyalty. And sure, only the Cubs refused to play at night, but there were plenty of day games. And only in an exceptional case did the contest go on after bedtime.

Now they rarely end by midnight.

Last night’s game started at five in L.A. Because it had to be prime time on the east coast, eight. Why couldn’t it start at three out here and six back there? Because then it wouldn’t be prime time and the station would make less money on advertising and the rights would be worth much less. Sports is big business. They brag about the dollars. I went to a Chargers game a few weeks back and it was exciting to be in a stadium of only 25,000 but there were these constant lulls in play, when the teams just milled around the field for minutes, these breaks were for advertising. Good for the league, bad for the game. Used to be a baseball game was ninety minutes. Now you’ve got to dedicate your life to the sport.

And no one’s got that kind of time.

Due to the magic of high definition television we can now see the fans in the stands. And behind home plate, last night it didn’t appear anybody was under fifty. A fading audience for the most exquisite of games.

That’s what last night’s contest was, the best baseball has to offer. Multiple comebacks upon the threat of death, you couldn’t stop watching while you wondered how the players endured the pressure and you were alternately elated or deflated, depending upon whether your chosen team was winning or losing.

Now the World Series used to be the first week of October. When the leaves started to change, when it was still warm out. The season wound to a close and then the contest began. There was no buildup, the whole season was the buildup. The boys of summer were now in fall and it was about wrapping the whole thing up before it got cold.

But now the season oftentimes opens in March and closes in November. Why? If they want more drama, shorten the season. But that’s one great thing about baseball, the slog, although every game counts it is not terminal, you can even go on a losing streak and survive, like the Dodgers. But now we’ve got to endure multiple layers of playoffs before the World Series begins.

And most don’t pay attention. These playoffs have made baseball just like other sports, when it used to be different.

So, we’d be in class, sitting at our desks, watching the clock. If the teacher was nice, maybe they’d let us listen on the radio. And when the bell struck at 2:20 we’d run to our bicycles and ride home to watch the end of the game. The season ended on Sunday, the Series started during the week, you missed most of the game, and that was not good, but better than having them play into darkness.

But when the weekend came…

You were glued to the set. Chips in a bowl to your left, Pepsi or Coke to your right. And if you had a color set you were the hero of your neighborhood, all your friends came over to see the game.

Everybody knew the players, the statistics, it was religion.

But it was based upon a game.

And the thing is, despite all the efforts to kill it, the game survives.

African-Americans now play football, there are not enough opportunities for them before the Majors, it costs cash to play on traveling teams and too many talents don’t have it.

Latinos now own baseball. It’s religion in not only Cuba, but Central America and Japan and the best yearn to play in the big leagues, where careers can be long and compensation considerable. Concussions happen in baseball, but they’re rare. You can pull a muscle, but other than a slide, chances are you’re never gonna make contact with another player.

So last night, nearly sixty years after I first got bitten by the bug, when I’d long ago sworn off, saying I’ll catch up when I’m in the old folks home, baseball came back and bit me in the ass once again, got me hooked. The guys with beards and stringy hair, all younger than me and my contemporaries, fought it out.

Just a couple of outs. Just get through the top of the ninth and it’s all over.

But this couldn’t be done.

The Astros tied it up.

Extra innings ensued.

The Astros went ahead. Miraculously the Dodgers caught up!

And the bullpens were emptying and strategy was key and god if I wasn’t riveted to the set.

I didn’t know all the players. I wasn’t invested in the teams. But the game had me hooked. Because it’s just like life, you never know what will happen, you can always come back.

You can always come back.