Disney cut ties with PewDiePie. Fox News is about to dismiss Bill O’Reilly. Weren’t they supposed to be able to harness the power of the internet to supersede their corporate overlords?

Wrong.

The internet is controlled by a small cabal of companies. You can utilize their tools to get ahead, but only if you play by their rules, which they might change at any time. But without the corporate behemoths on your side, you’re positively moribund.

Of course there are exceptions, like Chance the Rapper, then again, he got 500k for a two week exclusive at Apple.

So let’s drill down. We’ve been hearing for six months that fake news is rampant and the press is impotent. Yet the “Wall Street Journal” took down PewDiePie and the “New York Times” tackled Bill 0’Reilly. Just because Hillary lost that does not mean the mainstream media always gets it wrong. Furthermore, the recently published book “Shattered” delineates how Hillary herself decimated her campaign, maybe it wasn’t just that the takedowns in the media were ignored.

So Bill O’Reilly is making beaucoup bucks for Fox. Only problem is he’s a serial harasser. Sexual harassment, anti-Semitism, these are third rail behaviors that cannot be outrun in corporate America. Advertisers flee. No Fortune 500 company wants to be the new United Airlines. Customers start agitating and companies pull sponsorship and the purveyor pulls the plug. Money only goes so far when you’re a public company. They love their profits, but they can be shamed into doing the right thing. Kinda like that company that raised the price of EpiPens…

You see if the light is shined upon bad behavior, if you’re in the media crosshairs, you’re doomed, just ask Theranos. And Theranos was brought down by the WSJ, it’s not only the NYT that can decimate your career. And sure, a news item can get started on a blog, most of which are now monetized, the boy in his basement pontificating and having impact is passe, but it’s only when the big boys glom on that there are consequences.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The internet was supposed to level the playing field, give us all a chance.

But you can’t get on Top Forty radio if you’re not signed to a major label, or aligned with one, that’s right, gain any traction and the major will come up with an offer. You can’t go it alone. Everybody online keeps telling you you can, but that’s an empty echo chamber.

So the internet is run by four companies, Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook. Go into competition with them and they’ll imitate you, are you seeing what Instagram is doing with Snapchat? And Instagram is an interesting story, it was sold to Facebook. Now the goal is to sell out to one of the big four, and they’ll threaten you if you won’t. Amazon went to war with Diapers.com, which they bought and recently shut down, and Amazon gave an ultimatum to Zappos, saying it would go into competition with the shoe company, and Zappos made a deal with the retail behemoth too.

So Glenn Beck gets canned and goes independent and has almost no impact, he’s no longer part of the national discussion.

Bill O’Reilly loses his perch and…

No one else will hire him. Hell, even Dan Rather couldn’t get another big gig with a much less heinous faux pas. Will Bill’s books continue to top the best seller list? Will he lecture to his minions and be heard?

On a fraction of the level he is now, because he’s losing his microphone.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are irrelevant and there is no middle class. Meanwhile, you keep thinking you have a chance when you don’t, the game is rigged.

You’re sitting at home making music on Pro Tools. Putting it out on Spotify via CD Baby, spamming everyone you know via social media and ending up nowhere. You just can’t get heard, you need to be aligned with one of the big boys to do that.

And if you’re building your own business via YouTube advertising you might get killed when the video giant changes its algorithm. David Pakman used to survive on YouTube ad payments, now he’s on Patreon begging for donorship. As for Patreon, it’s where niche players go to survive. Not bad if you can make a living, but you’ve got no social impact, no footprint, you’re a footnote.

For the past fifteen years we’ve seen internet phenomena which give the sole proprietor/artist hope. There was Radiohead with “In Rainbows,” Amanda Palmer on Kickstarter, PSY on YouTube, but none of them were replicable, they ended up stunts, footnotes in internet history.

So what we’ve learned here is you live and die by the sword of the big boys. And you can even vote for the renegade, but he’ll turn his back on you when he gets in office.

And nobody is bigger than the institution.

And the institution can fathom no hits to its reputation. Roger Ailes had to go. When star Megyn Kelly leaves because of sexual harassment, Fox wakes up and realizes it must protect itself, comes to the conclusion that Bloviating Bill is expendable.

And without the imprimatur of the major, O’Reilly is toast. Just like Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, which left oppressor Interscope to ultimately sign with Sony after testing the independent waters.

Everything we were told was wrong. That the internet would topple the old, slow, ignorant players.

No, they just became more powerful.

Broken Halos – Spotify

Broken Halos – YouTube

I could listen to this guy sing the phone book.

Assuming they still delivered those tomes to my doorstep.

We live in a distraction economy. If Jesus came back, there’s no doubt most in attendance would be glued to their mobile phones, checking up on what was happening in their personal lives. No matter how riveting what’s happening on stage might be, the audience can’t peel its eyes away from their screens. But then there are acts so riveting you don’t want to look down, you don’t want to miss a moment, not because there’s dancing or projection but because you feel you’re in the presence of genius, a musician channeling truth from the heavens. You don’t want to miss a note, because before long the act will leave the stage and you’ll be left all alone, empty.

This is the way it used to be. When music drove the culture and the best and the brightest picked up an instrument, or became A&R people, promoters or agents, just to get closer to the sound, the magic. How come Chris Stapleton can tread this path when seemingly no one else can? How can this aged overweight bearded denizen be our savior in a nation of false prophets?

It’s not like he’s been hidden. He wrote songs, he had bands, and then he hooked up with Dave Cobb and the zeitgeist was captured. Suddenly, we were all clued in. Never underestimate the power of a producer. Not someone who writes the songs, but someone who can get the act’s best self down on wax.

I’m not sure what kind of music this is. Because it sounds like nothing else, on the radio or off. What they call rock today is noisy and aggressive, it’s not so much in the pocket as an assault on your being, its purveyors caught up in the trappings, the tattoos and the leather, as opposed to the music. And the country hit parade is peopled with those stuck in the seventies, with a sound that’s a retread of that era’s AOR. And hip-hop is the sound of the street, but it’s sans melody, it’s less soulful than intellectual, sure, you feel the beat, but it appeals more to your head than the heart.
And then we’ve got Chris Stapleton.

“Broken Halos” is like Skynyrd, if that band slowed down and was more Nashville than Florida.

“Broken Halos” has got the outsider vibe of Steve Earle, but it’s closer to rock than country, it’s less something you play in a bar drinking beer than play as you’re rolling down the highway, with the windows down, nodding your head as the song provides the soundtrack to what you see through the windshield.

“Broken Halos” sounds like nothing on the hit parade, in any format, but it’s somehow more immediate and soulful and touching than any of those cuts.

What is music? Is it passive? That’s what drove Pandora, people listening in the background. Me, I want my tunes more foreground, I want them to be my life, I’m looking for life rings to grab onto as they pull me to a better land where I’m understood and happy, an alternative universe where all the b.s. of everyday life, the duplicity, the getting ahead, is nonexistent. A land where the front rows are not peopled by hedge funders because they’re out of the loop. That’s right, when music moved from AM to FM, most were out of the loop. And then MTV united us in song and now the commentators say we should love the pop, but unlike the music of yore it’s a sideshow that requires little attention.

And then you hear something like “Broken Halos.”

It’s slight. Absent the twists and turns and explosions that Max Martin employs. The song is simple. But the delivery is over the top, without trying to be so. Chris Stapleton opens his mouth and truth comes out, he’s not trying to impress us, he’s just doing what he’s supposed to. It’s the antidote to the manipulated music of today, with its multiple writers and remixes. It feels like there’s a band in the studio and they just rolled tape.

I’ve seen my share of broken halos, bands that I used to live for that sold out to the man, signed up for the sponsorships, live for the privates.

Angels came down and delivered me and then they disappeared, not only Jimi and Janis, but so many more.

And Chris Stapleton is resonating. It’s not like he’s a sideshow, he’s become the main show, he’s the most revered man in Music City, and you don’t have to live in Nashville to like him.

Is this a harbinger of what’s to come or a one-off?

I’m not sure.

But in an era where no one can follow up the hit, Stapleton is not scared by his success, he’s continuing to plow the path, going where his instincts tell us as opposed to the social media/mainstream grinder, which demands you give it what it wants, even though no one really wants that.

I can’t turn “Broken Halos” off. Not because it’s such a good song, but because it makes me feel good, alive, reminds me of what once and hopefully can be once more.

Maybe that’s why J. Cole is so successful.

Newspapers are functioning on an old paradigm. Wherein PR people pitch stories and what ends up appearing in the arts section is hype. There’s no news there. It’s all in the other sections, National, Business and Sports. If I want the facts, I can go to the internet. I’m looking for the spin, someone to ferret through the detritus and come up with the jewels.

But racing through today’s NYT Arts section quickly so Felice could do the puzzle, her weekend addiction, I got hooked on a story about J. Cole. Which is hype for his HBO special.

I read it because I know Cole’s success more than his music, I thought there might be some nuggets there.

And there were. How he retreated from fame to North Carolina, tried to become the opposite of the character so many desire, with wine, women, song and automobiles.

And they talk about him playing hoops uninterrupted.

But the cops raided his abode. Cole posits looking for drugs. He believes a neighbor tipped them. Even though essentially nothing was found.

That’s when Cole wrote the six songs.

All of Cole’s albums have gone platinum, maybe this is why.

Art is best when based upon inspiration. Talk to anybody who creates. It’s when the heavens open, the lightning bolt comes down and you’re zapped, you’ve got something to say.

But that’s not the way it’s been for oh-so-long. All the music today is massaged. That’s what made music a hotter medium that movies or TV, it’s why Warner Records built HBO, never mind the Warner cable system. Because when done right music captures the zeitgeist.

Keith Richards conjured the riff to “Satisfaction” in a dream.

Some of the greatest songs in history were written in fifteen minutes.

And the people can tell, listeners know, there’s some indescribable nugget encased that they just can’t resist, that they must get closer to.

Which the digital/internet age should foster. Not only are the means of production cheap, they’re at your fingertips 24/7, as is distribution. There are no hurdles, it’s only our minds that our restricting us.

So get out and live, raise your antenna. When you least expect it, when you think you’re just going about your business, you will be inspired.

And it’s a solo event. Kinda like the Beatles, most of their songs were not joint affairs, McCartney or Lennon just tweaked what their partner came up with.

And there’s nothing wrong with tweaks, just don’t smooth the rough edges, don’t eliminate what hooks people to begin with.

And we are just people. We’re in search of humanity. When you channel truth we resonate and feel connected in a lonely world. That’s why we love our musical stars, their ability to do this.

Do it.

“That lack of representation, Mr. Cole said, can lead to potentially catastrophic misunderstandings. In March of last year, police raided the Sheltuh; Mr. Cole believes a neighbor was fearful it was a drug den. Security footage that captures the raid is used in the HBO special, showing dozens of heavily armed men forcibly entering the building only to find, well, nothing. (A ticket was issued for a small amount of marijuana found on the premises, he said.)

‘I wrote six songs that weekend,’ Mr. Cole noted wryly – they included the powerful “Neighbors,” from the new album.’

“J. Cole, the Platinum Rap Dissident, Steps Back From the Spotlight”

P.S. This article is hype, but it’s so much more. Proving that I’m still looking, wading through the junk looking for the essence. People are still looking to be touched by greatness, inspiration, we never give up hope, we never stop turning the corner, we’re waiting for you to deliver for us.

Am I the only one freaked out about this?

I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was only nine years old, but I was plenty scared. I remember visiting my grandparents in Peabody, Mass., lying on the sloping porch of their three story abode, asking my mother what was gonna happen.

She said if they dropped the bomb we’d all die, and not to worry about it.

Is that the genesis of all my problems right there? Because this only made me more afraid.

And I haven’t been so afraid this century. Haven’t been afraid for decades. Yes, 9/11 happened, but that was in New York, first stop for Europeans, a bit more of a hop, skip and a jump from the Middle East, but the centralized city, Manhattan, makes a perfect target.

But if they’re lobbing bombs from North Korea, L.A.’s the place.

Don’t tell me to be unafraid. It doesn’t work. Just like in the instance of my mom above.

I laugh when I hear people in the heartland give up their rights in the name of protection from terrorism, the assailants are gonna go there last. They’re gonna start in the big cities, where they have the most impact.

So I’m driving on the freeway this morning and they’re going on about the Mother Of All Bombs. ISIS is comprised of bad guys, I get it. But aren’t we pissing them off by doing this, the ones who survive? Aren’t we imploring them to commit acts of terrorism, poison our water, kill our children? That’s the first thing that went through my mind, revenge. Some of these people have been pissed for centuries, they can hold a grudge. And the truth is no one can keep America safe, it just can’t be done.

And now comes this brinksmanship with North Korea. Just six months ago they were debating whether Trump should be trusted with the button and it seemed a distant question, we’ve had Glasnost, ABM treaties, no one’s gonna drop a bomb. But then Putin acted with impunity, annexing Crimea after an Olympics only one step away from Hitler’s 1936 edition, and then Trump fires Tomahawk missiles into Syria and all I can think of is Naomi Klein and “The Shock Doctrine.” When there’s war, the character of the country changes, the administration enacts restrictions, rams through an agenda they would not be able to do in peacetime. This is what the U.S. does around the world, Democrats and Republicans, it’s just that most Americans are so busy celebrating their belief they live in the greatest country in the world that they’ve got no idea what is happening outside our borders, what heinous acts are being committed.

And then there’s the involvement of Russia in our elections, and irrelevant of whether Trump’s election is valid or not, it makes you wonder who is in control.

As for Trump’s supporters, the Republican voters, I’m coming to believe the rank and file’s defense of him has little to do with policy and everything to do with hatred of Hillary. Give the right wing credit, they’ve spent decades denigrating Clinton and the “New York Times” and the end result is both have been neutralized, they’re holding the losing end of the stick. And I don’t care whether you’re a lefty or a righty, but the issue isn’t fake news, but the fact that we can’t agree on the facts, whatever they might be. We’ve all got different news sources, that’s the story of the election, which also taught us not to trust the techies, who got it all wrong, their statistical modeling told us Hillary would win and she didn’t. So it’s every man for himself in America these days, and that’s positively scary.

For years I avoided television news. For years I skimmed through the international section of the newspaper. Now it’s like a wreck on the highway, I can’t peel my eyes away. And I wonder if the attention is warranted. And I wonder what impact I can have. Are we in a national crisis and it’s all hands on deck, fighting the administration’s takeover? Or is it worse than that, and we’re skewing towards military rule? After all, Trump defers to his Generals.

And don’t get your knickers in a twist, don’t make this us versus them, right versus left, we’re all people and we’ve got more in common than that which separates us. We all want opportunity and community, we all want the pursuit of happiness. But we’ve been so busy looking for points of difference that we are divided and no longer communicating while a Washington, D.C. that was out of touch to begin with is now circling the wagons and taking over.

Or is it?

My grandfather came from Russia. He escaped the czar. Some of his brothers and sisters went to Palestine, one left behind ended up in the Russian army.

He got a job in a tannery. He joined the Workmen’s Circle, because he believed in the power of the laborer, the power of the people, he believed the average working Joe should be heard and understood.

And with the money he saved he purchased two three story apartment buildings that his son ultimately labeled slums. But he and his wife continued to live there. They put a son and a daughter through college. Another son O.D.’ed after getting hurt in the factory and never recovering from back pain, he overmedicated himself.

And my father’s father lost a hand in a railroad accident. And one of my dad’s brothers got run over in the driveway, a sister committed suicide. And the truth is we’ve all got potholes in our stories, twists and turns that we’d rather forget but bond us. We’re imperfect people with checkered histories. All we want is to be able to survive and live in peace.

But suddenly that’s challenged. Suddenly the Chinese say they find Kim Jong-un uncontrollable. We pushed Saddam Hussein, who refused to back down even though he had no nukes. These are not rational people, they’re power-hungry overlords, who are more worried about their image than safety. That’s what we’re up against.

We’re privileged, we’ve grown up in the relative safety of the United States.

But now opportunity has faded here too. Desperation is rampant. You may not experience it, but if you open your eyes you can see it. We thought we were above the fray, that we were a better people with answers, living behind an invisible curtain of impenetrability. But the last few months have shown we’re no better and no different from everybody else. The pedestal has been torn down. Our leader is just as unpredictable as theirs. We too are driven by religion.

But even more we’re driven by ignorance and power.

And that’s just positively scary.

I know, I know, I should relax. Just dial up Netflix. Zone out.

But I can’t.