This is a classic case of disruption. And until the Democrats recognize this, change their strategy, they’re doomed. Talking about the popular vote is no different from record labels saying customers preferred CDs in the era of Napster. Trump won with a new playbook appealing to a broad swath of the public and until the left wing wakes up and adjusts its plan it will not succeed.

Then there are those who think it’s the same as it ever was. That shenanigans were employed and all the markers pointing to a sea change don’t apply, because politics never changes, wrong. First we had Brexit, then we had Trump, now people are laughing at the World Economic Forum, the elites lost control, and now they keep circling the wagons whilst telling us they’re right and one would laugh if it weren’t so scary.

Clayton Christensen tells one to beware of servicing the same old audience.

The Democrats decided to appeal to Wall Street and Silicon Valley and took for granted that minorities would vote for them, believing the disadvantaged had no other choice.

Christensen also says the disruptor is laughable at first, inadequate, but it keeps getting better until it triumphs. Donald Trump is laughable, and he continues to be, but he appealed to people who felt they were not being listened to and they voted him into office.

Who were these people?

The left-behinds. The ones who used to have high-paying blue collar jobs, the ones who used to be in unions. And you can say a vote for Trump is worse for them, but they were ready to upend the table to get attention, because no one was listening to them.

And the response from the left wing elite?

They’re idiots! The left wing cannot stop denigrating the Trump voter, at the same time blaming it all on someone else. All those stories about the advantaged voting for Trump… The Donald won because of Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, where jobs are scarce and there’s economic depression, not that this was unknown, for years touring acts have avoided the Ohio Valley, because people don’t have enough money, they just went where the bucks were.

The left wing went where the bucks were.

And ran the wrong candidate.

The establishment is always blindsided. Blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Blame the entire Democratic Party apparatus. They couldn’t see the disaffection with Hillary, they couldn’t see the Bernie Sanders groundswell. People wanted anybody but her, and they didn’t want Joe Biden, they wanted an outsider. To this date the Dems can’t admit they’ve lost touch with their base. Once again, the disruptor is imperfect at the advent, Bernie was too old and a socialist and…that didn’t stop him from almost getting the nomination.

And then Trump kept rolling over his competitors. How come no Democrat got scared, why did they think this could never happen to them?

And in the general election, the Democrats played by the old rules. It’s all about the ground game, which Trump didn’t have. You play civilly, while Trump is bloviating everywhere. It didn’t work, now what?

The news…

You can print the truth in the “New York Times” all day long, it won’t make a difference. It’s not that people didn’t know about Trump’s faux pas, they didn’t care! The right wing has decimated the reputation of the “Times,” however unfairly. But to think it can be resuscitated…

The move to make MSNBC a left wing outlet, to compete with Fox, was a masterstroke. The only problem is television does not control the debate. The internet has been here for decades, and the left wing, although it features numerous blogs, has been left behind.

Did you read any of Hillary’s tweets? Spoken like a robot from “Westworld,” only with less personality. Everybody’s addicted to their phones and the left is oblivious.

The Donald knew it was all about immediacy. With his Twitter account. Direct access to millions. And what do the Democrats do? Laugh and complain!

He’s on to something here folks. Where is the left wing Twitter account everybody is talking about? It doesn’t exist. The Democrats are like a rock band in the age of hip-hop. Remember Geffen Records? Toast of the town and then death when it wasn’t in black music.

And the left is just waiting for the musicians to wake up. But Trump knows they never will, that they do not matter, that they’re business people, with less acumen than he has. Today’s artists color inside the lines while he’s all over the place, kinda like Van Halen with the brown M&M’s. You want a story that can spread, even if the truth is contrary to what the public believes.

And Trump knows it’s about star power. Anybody in the music business will tell you it’s less about talent than star power. But the Democrats ran Hillary Clinton because it was her turn? It’s like trying to get Donnie Wahlberg to number one today, it just can’t happen. Times change.

So how did the music industry reverse its fortunes?

First of all, it denied there was a problem for a decade, blamed piracy on its audience, unaware of the perspective of consumers.

Consumers were sick and tired of overpaying for one good track on a CD, when they got an alternative, they employed it. But the fat cats in the industry thought they were entitled to the CD paradigm forever. They didn’t even use Napster, they didn’t understand its advantages. The left wing refuses to walk in the Trump voter’s shoes. All the Democrats can do is cross their arms and say Trump voters are idiots, not understanding that they’re worried about their jobs and sick and tired of the left wing playing to special interests that don’t include them. And this applies to all of Washington, the average person thinks the government is both corrupt and ineffective, that’s why they went for an outsider, why Trump overran all his competition. Where is the outsider on the left? Well, there’s kinda one, Elizabeth Warren, who is not afraid to bark back and takes no prisoners, but just like the Republicans, the Democrats are scared of her, do not rally around her, they let her stand on her own. And she’s 67. Who is next?

And then Steve Jobs got the music industry to take a risk, with the iTunes Store.

No one is making the Democrats take a risk, they continue to live in an echo chamber.

And then came Daniel Ek and Spotify. Illustrating that disruption always comes from the outside.

The young Democratic voter demonstrated this, by supporting Bernie, but he was ignored. But he will rise again. In a party that does not want to hear his message.

And, of course, it could be a she too. But there you go again, Democrats. So busy playing by rules most don’t care about that you’re marginalized.

Human rights are important. As are gender rights. Everybody should be protected. But if this is your main message, you’re screwed. Everybody was lining up with hosannas that we would finally have a woman President. Sometime, we will. But Hillary was a bad candidate. The public had no problem electing a black man, it’s the person, not the color or the gender. But it’s easier to blame it on sex than look at the real issues.

The Democrats are a rearguard party that have lost touch with their principles. They used to be for the working man, the downtrodden, their goal was to lift everybody up. Now they’ve left these same people behind, and they turned on them.

This is not about fake news. This is not about the Russians. Why the left refuses to look at itself, I do not know. Instead of reading the “New York Times” they should be studying business, the aforementioned Clayton Christensen, then again, the “New Yorker” famously printed an article saying disruption does not exist.

Hogwash.

The truth is the rich have gotten richer and jobs are disappearing and it’s only getting worse. And the disaffected are not looking for platitudes, but solutions. And the left wing is proffering few.

Yes, Obama passed health care. Yes, if it disappears it will be to the detriment of millions. But the person working for a living just can’t make it here anymore. Kinda like that James McMurtry song, wherein he catalogued the travails of the working class. Once upon a time that was a left wing number, but now “We Can’t Make It Here” is the story of the right. How they’re working at Wal-Mart without any upward mobility. Meanwhile, the elite Democrats are laughing at them.

But the people who elected Trump do not see him as an elite. They know he’s flawed, but they’re counting on him to make change. Look at the voters, not the man they put in office. And know that there’s nothing wrong with protests, stand up for your rights, but you’ve got to admit you played it wrong and start over employing today’s tools, getting ahead of the populace.

But the Democrats refuse to do this.

I used to live at the movie theatre.

One of the greatest thrills of my life was moving to Los Angeles. Back in the days of platforming, when it could take months for a flick to make it to the hinterlands, if it ever got there at all, every single movie opened in Los Angeles. I went every night. I couldn’t believe it. And when there was a gap, for this was when you could literally see everything, when there were about 115 movies a year, not counting foreign, I went to the revival house, the Nuart in West L.A., the Rialto in the Valley. Ultimately the Beverly… I’d scour the L.A. “Times” and pick out what I was going to see that night. On a day off, I might see two, maybe even three or four movies. Nowhere was too far to go, back when traffic was bad but not this bad, I’d drive out to Valley Circle. To that dump on Van Nuys Boulevard where during a showing of “Carrie” my girlfriend shushed the girl sitting in front of us and the young woman turned around and said “Shut up bitch.” She did, we did.

And go to the movies we did. That was our very first date.

Actually, I asked her to see “Rocky,” but she was busy. Not that I was absolutely sure I believed that, and I didn’t have any plans to ask her out again, but then she called me up on a Monday night and asked me what I was up to and we ended up going to that revival house in Beverly Hills, that ultimately turned into a Fiorucci, then a bank and then god knows what and saw two Cary Grant movies. And I didn’t think she was into it, but the next day at school…

She learned to shush people from me. Because, you see, I consider movies to be a religious experience. A journey to an alternative land where I’m safe from intrusions and am my best self. I think the first time I realized this was when I saw that Glenda Jackson movie in New Haven, I think it was “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” could have been “A Touch Of Class.” You see I fell in love with Ms. Jackson.

Now I’m in love with Sarah Lancashire.

Neither is classically beautiful, but in their roles, and I’m savvy enough at this age to realize they’re rarely like the people they play, they both exude strength, I’m drawn to them, I can’t get enough of them.

And I ultimately sought out every Glenda Jackson flick, another great is “Women In Love,” but until the other week I had no idea who Sarah Lancashire was, until Jay recommended “Happy Valley.”

That’s all anybody wants to talk about, television. As my friend George Drakoulias says, he used to fight over records. Now nobody even talks about them. But they do tell you about their favorite series.

I’ve given up on a lot of the HBO and Showtime programs, maybe it’s the memory of “The Sopranos,” I’m not sure. But I’m constantly searching for a new Netflix series to sink my teeth into. Maybe it’s because Netflix is breaking the paradigm, making all episodes available instantly, but one thing’s for sure, when I pull up the stream I’m in my own little cocoon, with me and nothing but the show. It’s kind of like discovering an act back in the seventies, when they’d made a few albums but hadn’t broken through. In your heart you knew they had other fans, but when you were listening to an LP that no one was talking about you smiled and felt special, it was soul-fulfilling.

Watching “Happy Valley” is soul-fulfilling.

Actually, it should be called “Unhappy Valley.” But Jay testified about it at Casa Vega and I decided to fire it up and…

I became instantly hooked.

Everybody’s flawed, nobody’s beautiful and the landscape…IT’S SO GREEN!

I’m struggling trying to figure out what’s important to me, what I care about, but when I watch “Happy Valley”…I want to go there, to this lush landscape where it’s not about being famous or getting ahead so much as putting one foot in front of the other and living.

I grew up in Connecticut, I didn’t think twice about the greenery. But when you move to L.A., which is dry and drab, you kinda understand the fascination with New England.

But Happy Valley is New England on steroids, because it rains all the time. And maybe it’s the way it’s shot, but there’s this gravitas. Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s England, where the buildings are old and the people are just passing through, showing us how insignificant we truly are.

Or maybe it’s the accents.

But it’s foreign and familiar at the same time.

But I’m savvy enough to know that it’s not real. I mean the images are, but the people and the story are not. But I had to pinch myself a few times, tell myself to realize this.

So, the set-up is…

No, I’m not gonna ruin it. Because oftentimes you’re not exactly sure what is going on. In today’s big screen opuses they spell it all out. That’s the essence of a comic book. But “Happy Valley” is no comic. It’s real life. What drew me to the movies way back when. I think I originally got hooked when my mother dragged me to Fairfield University to see Frank and Eleanor Perry talk about “Last Summer.” Have you seen that movie? One of the few that is better than the book, which I had to read after seeing it. Barbara Hershey is beautiful and bad, which is something we rarely see. And Frank said all the music in the movie only played when there was a radio on or…it was source music. And…

“Happy Valley” is about imperfect people, like you and me. Drug addicts and alcoholics and grudge-holders. And some of the plot twists happen too fast and are less than believable, but then you realize they’re just set-up for the actors to do their stuff.

Turns out Sarah Lancashire is a big star, who knew, she’s supposedly the highest paid actress in the U.K., she starred in “Last Tango In Halifax,” but…

Can you have sex with your ex?

Do feelings ever die?

How come some people categorically can’t do the right thing?

How come we need others to keep us on the right path?

Watching “Happy Valley” is like going down a rabbit hole where there’s no internet, where none of the rest of life matters. It’s complete unto itself. It’s not American, where you can see the stars doing their work, people better-looking and richer than us performing for us. Rather, everybody looks like a normal person. AND EVERYBODY CAN ACT! It seems that acting is a profession over there, whereas here it’s an avenue to stardom.

And there are only two seasons of six episodes each. So, you want to eat it up at the same time you want to slow it down and savor it.

But when the Jake Bugg song comes on, you know you’re ready to be dragged away once again, to a world that isn’t real but seems like it is.

This is entertainment.

No, compared to what’s playing in the movie houses…

THIS IS ART!

Happy Valley – Netflix

Happy Valley – wikipedia

1. Solve a problem.

The world does not need more me-too music, it needs a different sound that enraptures people. The problem we have in the music industry is we’re playing to niches, not everybody, and music when done right is for everybody, or almost everybody, there will always be naysayers.

2. Appeal to the people.

They are your greatest strength. And the internet allows you to go straight to them. If you’re appealing to middlemen, you’re positively old school.

3. Mass is everything.

The reason Uber could break regulations was by rallying its user base, which loved the service. Once the Uber leaders impressed upon lawmakers that their choice was between satiating entrenched interests, the taxi industry, and the public, and that their duty was to the latter, the lawmakers always backed down. If you want to change the course of music history you must have the users on your side. This was first demonstrated with Napster. The public LOVED it! The labels and acts kept pooh-poohing it, not acknowledging who their true customer was. You need to get people on your side and you need to do it yourself to control your messaging.

4. Ignore the rules.

This is a tough one. They teach you to obey, that’s the message taught in school, and in most homes to boot. But as Yvon Chouinard says in the “How I Built This” podcast, if you want to be successful study juvenile delinquents, who reject the system and do it their way. Hell, that podcast is littered with people who own 100% of their business, like Sara Blakely of Spanx, disobeying the supposed rule that you’ve got to sell out to make it, when the truth is those who are in control continue to triumph. And they abhor MBAs. There are two strains of people in this world, those who jump through hoops and those who ignore the hoops. Most of the innovation comes from the latter.

5. Accelerators work.

That’s Y Combinator in tech, in music…
Actually, we have songwriter camps, there are competitions to place songs on albums by stars. But we could mentor and encourage talent with the hopes that they would create breakthroughs, but really we just want the same damn thing over and over again. Have you noticed there hasn’t been a new sound in fifteen years? Used to be hair bands were killed by grunge and…this doesn’t happen anymore. People clamor for the new, and they would in music too, if they just got the option.

6. Disruption works.

Not only with Napster, but “American Idol.” And the reason “The Voice” has minted no stars is because it’s a me-too product. “American Idol” built stars, name recognition, and then these “talents” were married to A level songwriters. Applaud the success of AI, see it as a beacon, its creators thought outside the box. The spoils always go to those who think different.

7. Rising prices inspire creators.

More Uber drivers hit the road when there is surge pricing. The more concert ticket prices go up, the more talented people will want to become musicians. Think about that, it’s basic economics. Until we can inspire the best and the brightest to become performers, we will be in a backwater.

8. Advice, not control.

This is what has screwed up music for twenty five years, the execs think that they are the stars, they are the talent, when the truth is they should aid the performers in midwifing their music, but that’s it. The more execs say no to talent the worse the music gets. Talent is in charge of its career, not the handlers. Only talent knows what truly resonates.

9. Mistakes are gonna be made.

When did the music industry become so safe? You have to take risks, take chances, then you might stumble upon a breakthrough. People forget your mistakes these days…

10. Not everybody is paying attention.

A woman died from carbon monoxide poisoning in an Airbnb in Asia. Most people in America didn’t know. That’s tragic, but the point is when you’re at the center of the storm you lose perspective, you think everybody sees that tweet, everybody knows what happens to you 24/7, this is patently untrue.

11. You can recover.

One false move and…
You apologize and change direction.

12. The pivot.

If people aren’t buying what you’re doing, change it. Don’t get married to the sound you’re making, be willing to turn on a dime. Kinda like Uber. Which was in the black car business but only switched to citizen drivers after Lyft and Sidecar opened the door.

13. Go through the holes.

That’s right, Uber was against citizen drivers until the company was for it, after Lyft and Sidecar proved its legality.

14. Success is followed by imitators.

KaZaA after Napster, you’ve got to keep improving your product.

15. It’s a worldwide business.

America is a small piece of the pie, if you’re not thinking globally you’re not only missing out on revenue, you will be eclipsed by those who are.

“The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World”

“Ringling Bros. circus to close after 146 years”

I went at the old Madison Square Garden. Twice, maybe three times, the last time when I finally put my foot down and told my mother I didn’t actually like ballet and wasn’t going to go anymore.

Then my father took me to Madison Square Garden.

They used to have a sideshow. Well, not really, as in freaks and geeks, but in the low-ceilinged basement you could walk by the chained elephants and gawk at the giant and I’d never been so scared in my life. Because this was 60 years ago, when safety laws were not as strict, when the only thing separating me from the animals was a couple of feet of air.

And I took a ring off the finger of the giant, I think the fee was fifty cents, I kept that gold plastic circle forever, at least until my mother turned my bedroom into her office and threw out not only that ring, but my World’s Fair hat and my baseball glove and…

I just heard it was the fiftieth anniversary of the first Super Bowl. That it happened today. I remember it vividly, it was a curio not a must-see, I was at my friend Marc’s house, with him and his father and a buddy, that father and the buddy are gone, but it seems like it was yesterday, no one expected the AFL to win, but then only a couple of years later Broadway Joe showed us who’s boss and football eclipsed baseball and the Yankees sucked and it seemed like everything I knew was changing.

Then free agency came and Steinbrenner with his deep pockets and suddenly everybody was a Yankees fan, because America loves a winner. But most of us are losers. Then again, my contemporaries solved that by giving everybody a trophy. And their kids played soccer, football was for the underclass. Unless you lived in the south, but northeasterners could never get over the accent, never mind the beliefs. Friday Night Lights? Who’d pay for them? Money was for academics, back when public schools ruled and you felt you could stay in the middle or move up a notch, before we found out the joke was on us, when an even younger generation got rich and then those people we decried elected Trump and now even the circus has bitten the dust.

Many will say good riddance. That the animals were mistreated.

They probably were. But these same proprietors you’re putting out of business, the circus, the Sea Worlds, they’re just a harbinger for the rest of America, whose future was stolen when the elites decided they were in control of what’s right and wrong and…

I didn’t mean for this to become a political screed. It’s just that Bridgeport, Connecticut, the metropolis next to where I grew up, was the home of P.T. Barnum, there was a museum, I remember going there and seeing the mummy, I don’t think they let you see mummies anymore.

And they don’t let you do so much stuff, because you might get hurt, whether it be physically or emotionally. And I’d be lying if I told you I had any desire to go to the circus today, not having been in eons, but it used to be a rite of passage for young ‘uns, to not only be wowed, but to be ripped-off, to learn the ways of the world. I remember bugging my dad to buy me one of those flashlights everybody was twirling during the show and finally he did and it burned out before we got home.

That’s a lesson in America. Everything’s a con. It’s a giant magic show. And those in control are laughing all the while.

But we’re pushing back a bit, we’re refusing to pay for billionaires’ stadiums.

But, I have to admit I’m no longer in control. I could be like the rest of my brethren, embracing vinyl records and physical books and trying to keep my head in the past, but the truth is the future is inevitable, as is change, and the circus outlived not only its utility, but its audience, because you know for sure, if they were still making money they’d find a way to continue.

But they aren’t. People have stopped going.

They stopped watching football. They’ve stopped doing so much we used to.

But man, when the circus goes, I know it’s just a matter of time before I do too, that I’m in the rearview mirror, that my memories are only that, it won’t be long before people will marvel that we had circuses at all.

Of course, the young disruptors will find a substitute. Kinda like Cirque du Soleil, which is now hurting too, which I never liked, because the truth is some things just can’t go upscale. The circus was blue collar entertainment in a world where working with your hands earned you not only an honest living, but respect.

But now you’re a chump.

Like I said, I have no desire to go to the show, but I wish it was still there. I remember reading about the Flying Wallendas in “Reader’s Digest,” then again, that’s gone too, at least I think it is, the magazine went in and out of bankruptcy and the pastime of sitting at home reading in silence, that’s passe too.

The Big Top, with three rings, as American as apple pie.

Before everybody went gluten-free, sugar became anathema and people were proud to be vegan.

I no longer recognize the country I grew up in. And maybe that’s the way it’s always been. You grow older and…

I didn’t expect it to happen to me.