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.

He was reluctant.

The Stern show is the go-to place to hawk your wares. Obviously someone told Plant this, but he didn’t really get the memo, that you were supposed to disgorge your history and inner feelings in an expurgation of your life.

Robert was just there to promote his album.

He wasn’t sure what day it was what time it was or how long he’d been in the States, for him it was just another promotional opportunity.

And he was having nothing of the shenanigans.

You see all species of stardom have merged. It’s one giant club, throwing an endless party where everybody is equal. And to get ahead you post on social media and reveal your foibles and mystery is history…

But not with Robert Plant.

He said he wasn’t dating anyone.

But then he revealed he had a girlfriend in an aside.

He was pissed that Howard was taking so long to get to the new album, and was exasperated when Howard wanted history. For Robert Plant is living in the now.

This made for a less than satisfying interview, but it was a great insight into stardom, one we haven’t seen since the likes of Henley on Stern a year ago.

But Henley’s notoriously difficult, whereas…does anybody truly know who Plant is?

He brushed off criticism. He didn’t care that “Rolling Stone” panned the first Zep album (that’s what he calls the band, not “Zeppelin” or “Led Zeppelin” just “Zep”).

He brushed off the privilege of stardom. It was no big deal meeting Elvis, he expected it. Most musicians rub their hands and tell their blue chip stories…

But Robert just recited the facts.

He psshawed Howard’s theory that Jimmy Page was the love of his life. You could hear the resentment in the mind of the man from the Midlands. (Although when he mentioned the “Misty Mountains,” an actual location, your hair stood up on your arm.)

He wouldn’t get into his process. Where the lyrics came from. He said it was all easy, he just went with the flow.

He wouldn’t even bother addressing getting the band back together.

It was all about being a musician, making music and…

This was a revelation, because it’s so different from everybody else.

Everybody else wants the money. They go on the road to play the hits so those who remember will overpay for the experience. They don’t even want to risk new music.

Everybody else will tell you everything.

The first rule of interacting with a star is not to acknowledge they are a star. As soon as you break this rule, they either pull away or treat you like dirt, at arm’s length. Plant kept calling Howard “Dad,” and kept asking where they got this guy and was always threatening to leave, not because he had anything pressing on the schedule, but because his work was done and he was worn out.

And every legendary, gossipy story he denied. As for writing “The Rain Song” to satiate another star’s urging for a ballad, Robert didn’t remember it that way. It was like Robert was living in an unpierceable bubble, that you couldn’t stop marveling at, wanting to get inside.

Of course you heard a few new nuggets. Like his inability to remember the order of the verses in “Stairway To Heaven,” but he refuses to use a Teleprompter, that would kill the experience, and Robert’s all about the experience.

So you go back to way back when and you remember…

Zep were stars. Huge. But there was no context. Sure, they grew out of the Yardbirds, but this was something new, they didn’t sound like anybody else, they didn’t hang with anybody else, they just played their music to their adoring throng and lived the life of rock stars on the road.

You remember rock stars, don’t you? People who were first and foremost musicians, who were mysterious, the other, who hooked you with their magic yet were untouchable and unknowable despite you owning all the albums and going to all the shows. They had enough money to do what they wanted. They had all the perks of life, the women, the wine, the houses, the cars…

But you knew they were different. That you could never be one.

This is not rich financiers and techies, labeled by the media “rock stars.”

Nor is it those “stars” on television competition shows not hunting for talent but banking the bucks, losing what credibility they might have ever had in the process.

You can listen to the Zeppelin catalog and continue to get new insights. Every listen is not the same, despite the underlying song remaining so.

You remember the act being dark, all the stuff about Aleister Crowley.

You remember them having no opening act, before that was a thing.

You remember them having a wrestler as a manager, who single-handedly changed the touring formula, opening the door for everybody else. Why should you pay for ads, why should the promoter get a huge tranche of cash when as soon as the public was aware the show was gonna play it would instantly sell out?

Robert Plant was on Howard Stern for ninety minutes and the end result was we knew little more than we did before.

He brushed away Howard. He brushed away Robin. He was there, but he refused to get off his throne, while he was mostly affable and available. It was like a hologram appeared, and then it was gone. He left before the show was done and when implored to come back he got no rise from Howard’s accolades. The best have heard it all before, they know the context, they never came down from their perch, they could see it when they were young, they ascended the stairway and became…

Rock stars.

That’s what is.

And what should never be is a Zep reunion. You want it, Robert Plant does not. He’s got all the money and the fame but he refuses to rest on his laurels, he’s still in the darkest depths of Mordor, rambling on, WHEW!

Robert Plant On Howard Stern

‘Bang! The Bert Berns Story’

There’s a moment in this movie, when Solomon Burke is sitting on his throne, telling the story of “Cry To Me,” when he opens his pipes and starts to sing a cappella, that your heart will melt and your body will tingle because you know you’re in the presence of talent.

It’s hard to quantify, but you know it when you experience it.

A lot of the people in this flick are dead, not only Berns himself, but Burke and Joel Dorn and Berns’s wife Ilene. Yet some of the people are still alive, like Richard Gottehrer, never mind Paul McCartney, Keith Richards and Van Morrison. And there you have life itself. You start off energetic, you think you know everything, you’ve got nothing but dreams, but then life takes over, with its twists and turns, and although nobody survives, sometimes the records do.

And a lot of Bert Berns’s records are part of the culture.

But most people have no idea who Bert Berns is.

Joel Selvin wrote a book, a passion project that got good reviews but that’s a hurdle for most fans, turning the pages. And there was a musical, which was close but not quite there, and on Broadway it’s got to be there to make it. And now there’s this film. Imperfect, but oftentimes riveting. It’s a telescope into a past we know that no one talks about anymore. We’re concerned with today’s transitions, from analog to digital, coughing up all our privacy to corporations that control our fate. But way back in the fifties and sixties there was little light shined upon the entertainment business, all we saw was the end product.

But this product blew our mind.

Dropping the needle on “Piece Of My Heart,” hearing “Brown Eyed Girl”… This was when records were the essence of the culture, two and a half minutes of pure soul. And a lot has been forgotten since the advent of the Beatles, but there was a scene before the British Invasion, and even the Beatles covered Berns’s “Twist and Shout.”

So he’s a fan. He’s a hanger-on. He’s got a girlfriend but she leaves him because he makes no money. His mother thinks he’s lazy. This is what it is to be an artist. There are defined steps in business, but not in artistry, you’ve got to believe in yourself and continue to pursue your dream, even though you might be laughable to those around you.

Bert loved the Cuban sound. Even went to the island. Started a company with Sid Bernstein, ultimately the legendary promoter of the Beatles, but it failed.

And it’s not like he had a college degree, there was no fallback position, it was only forward.

And then he started writing and producing hits.

And when you have hits, the doors open, everybody wants a piece of you.

But that does not mean they’ll pay you.

The villain in this story is Jerry Wexler. Who knows what the truth is, but he’s portrayed as a conniving gonif here.

You see in music everybody’s untrustworthy, because they came from nothing, and you need an enforcer to get what you want, and it’s still the same, although not as much, because the business has been corporatized, not only the major labels, but Live Nation and AEG too. Used to be a promoter ripped you off, Live Nation can’t stiff you, it’s a public company. But getting all you deserve is still a chore in the music business.

Is that what killed Bert Berns?

I don’t know. Just like I don’t know his exact relationship with the Mafia. To a great extent this film is hagiography, and everybody’s got a dark side, but it’s glossed over here.

Still…

You see 1650 Broadway. The newly-christened Strangeloves discover Rick Zehringer and his band on the road and cut “Hang On Sloopy,” one of Berns’s s compositions, and then they drive to Grossinger’s on the high holidays to play the acetate for Bert, who says it’s a number one smash, and then it is.

Back when a number one was known by everyone.

You know these tracks. There’s little footage of Berns in the studio, little audio, but so many of the survivors and newly-dead are there to testify, to tell the story, and oftentimes this was the height of their career, they’ve been running on fumes for decades, but these peaks sustain them.

That’s the music business. It churns you up. It ain’t a job, one that you do for decades wherein you climb the ladder. It’s hard to get in and it’s hard to stay in, but if you ring the bell everybody knows you’re name.

Except for Bert Berns.

But maybe they’ll know him now.

NO ONE KNOWS EVERYTHING

If your goal is world-domination, give up. Hell, people don’t even know about shootings these days. You’ve got to operate in your niche and hope to cross over but don’t expect everybody to know you or your work, it’s utterly impossible, the only one with 24/7 attention is Trump.

POLITICS RULES

It drives the culture. It’s more important than entertainment and sports. Entertainment can INFLUENCE politics, but so far this has not happened. Entertainment has power, but it has been abdicated.

GETTING A TV SHOW IS NO LONGER THE HOLY GRAIL

And you don’t even get rich. Getting a TV show is like getting a Grammy, if you haven’t got one, you’re not in the industry. It won’t be this way forever, at least on television. There will be a separation between winners and losers, HBO/Netflix/Amazon and everybody else, budgets will sink and outlets will fail but right now distribution is fighting for the ultimate prize of dominance, and in this case distribution also owns content, so it’s a double-whammy. Distribution is king, but without content you’re screwed. Which is why Spotify is beholden to the labels, but Netflix is ultimately beholden to no one.

HIP IS NOT

There’s no such thing as hip anymore. Hip requires a cohesive society wherein those non-hip can be branded so and feel bad about it. Now everybody’s fighting just to be a member of any group, everybody’s overloaded with input, they don’t care if they’ve missed out on this or that, they’re willing to be hipped.

BEING FIRST IS NO LONGER A BADGE OF HONOR

Of course there are exceptions, buying the first Tesla S, the new iPhone X, but the truth is today’s world is social and it all does not matter until everybody else is involved. So, your goal is to bring others into your group, not to be self-satisfiedly superior.

COLLEGE DEGREES DON’T MATTER TO ENTREPRENEURS

In the old days, of the boomer, getting an education was a prerequisite to middle management. Today’s world is ruled by entrepreneurs, a skill innate more than taught. If you’re gonna use your education to get ahead you’re probably gonna work for somebody else, they’re the only ones who will be impressed.

INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN DEVALUED

In an era of haves and have-nots, no one likes to be told how it is or what to do unless it agrees with their preconception. So we’re totally tribal. It used to be we all paid fealty to a layer of unified society sitting atop us, now it’s only the members of that society who believe they rule, they don’t.

BOOMERS ARE TOAST

They don’t set trends. They spend money. But usually not on the new, but the old.

POWERLESSNESS RULES

You can protest all day long online, but you don’t seem to be getting anywhere, you always feel a party of one broken down by the system.

BINARY IS KING

Haves and have-nots. Stars and proletariat. There is no middle. Not in anything. The Asians can manufacture more cheaply and the behemoths have scale which allows them to not only lower prices, but make better products. If you’re coasting, you’re heading towards the bottom. America is one big race, whether you know it or not.

PEOPLE HATE CHANGE

Sure, there are early-adopters, but most are convinced they’ll lose something in the transition. But the new always happens, embrace it. You may laugh at AI, but you’re gonna be using it.

FOOD IS ENTERTAINMENT

And it’s bigger than movies and music, and quite possibly TV. Funny how people will bitch about the price of concert tickets, but they’ll drop a hundred bucks for dinner no problem, never mind fight for a reservation long in advance. Food is like art used to be, it doesn’t scale, it’s totally unique. And, once again, there’s an underclass, those who go to chain restaurants.

DOUBLE DOWN IN TIMES OF CHANGE

He who cuts to balance the books/maintain margins loses in the end. No better example than the L.A. “Times,” there’s little there there. Amazon did it right, ignore the Street.

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM WILL PARALYZE YOU

Don’t pay attention to the blowback, those people are just mad that you’re on the front line and they are not. They want to tear you down and force you to do it their way, even though they’ll jump to the new way overnight, best example being Netflix, the public cried when it went to streaming, angry DVDs by mail were being de-emphasized, and then they all went to streaming.

ASK DON’T TELL

We live in an information society and you don’t know all of it, admit when you’re uninformed.

COLLECT INFORMATION

Winners see all sides. You can only do this by gathering different opinions. He who adheres to only one is ultimately left behind.

KARMA AIN’T INSTANT, BUT IT STILL RULES

Just ask Harvey Weinstein or Bill O’Reilly…they thought they were getting away with it, but they didn’t. It’s the story of all criminals. If you’re crossing the moral line expect to pay for it.