I’m addicted.

We never ate hot sauce when I was a child, it was not a thing, food was bland, vegetables were boiled and my taste buds were fresh. But as I’ve aged I’ve required a little zest to spice up my food. As a matter of fact, I employ Tabasco each and every day, usually with Bob’s Market’s chicken salad.

That’s right, the market is named after me! And before Santa Monica outlawed plastic bags I had a plethora of name brand merchandise! And I never ate chicken salad, hell, it was years before I even ate tuna salad! I’d sneer when my mother made it. I was all about fried bologna, I even ate fried eggs back then, even though I won’t touch the progeny of chickens in any recognizable form these days (unrecognizable is cool, especially in ice cream!) But as I’ve gotten older I’ve become more experimental, hell, there’s little I won’t eat other than eggs and liver, I’ve got to have sea urchin with a quail egg at every sushi bar, the weirder the better, and I’m burning out on so many of my staples, but not Bob’s chicken salad.

Really, what they’re selling is meat. Bob’s is all about the butcher shop. But not only do I not cook, I don’t know how to! I no longer go out for every meal, but I buy prepared stuff. And Whole Foods is expensive but bland. And Gelson’s is expensive and good, but geographically inconvenient. So I’m left with Bob’s.

So I decided to try the chicken salad.

I don’t want too much mayonnaise. But Bob’s is thick, mostly chicken. Bob’s chicken salad is almost like eating a breast. Whereas everybody else’s is some gooey mess and…

The point is I cannot burn out on Bob’s chicken salad.

But I only eat it with hot sauce, without it it’s too bland.

Oh, not too bland for the hoi polloi, but for my aged taste buds, and I’ve come to need that Tabasco zest in order to be satiated, in order to survive.

Yes, Tabasco. Mostly traditional red. Very occasionally green. And I keep a bottle of chipotle around, but I’ve got a love/hate relationship with it. And speaking of Chipotle, you’ve got to listen to Guy Raz’s podcast “How I Built This” with Steve Ellis, the founder of the chain bearing that name. I once got sick from Chipotle, but this makes me want to go back, I like this guy.

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Anyway, out of the blue Jim Guerinot sends me a sampler of Dexter Holland’s hot sauce.

Dexter Holland… I’m not the biggest Offspring fan. But I respect him, for not being a nitwit. He has a Ph.D., right? And I know he flies Guerinot to Telluride in his jet. He’s a renaissance man.

But I’m sick of brand extensions. Just because you’re famous that doesn’t mean I should be interested in, never mind buy, the products outside your vertical.

But in this case, I LOVE hot sauce, I’m gonna try it out!

Right now the benchmark is Cholula, it’s everywhere, it’s the standard at Two Elk in Vail, where I pour it all over my chili, like I said, I need to spice up EVERYTHING! And basic Cholula is good, and the brand extensions are fascinating, but they don’t wear well, Tabasco does. You never burn out on Tabasco. You check into a hotel, they deliver those breakfast sausages with those tiny little Tabasco bottles, MMM! Although I will say opening those little bottles is damn near impossible. It’s the seal. And once you do, you have to shake them violently to get any out. Which makes no sense, since you’re gonna toss the bottle anyway, why not let it all come out, or hang out, like that great song by the Hombres…

So there are three models of Dexter’s Gringo Bandito hot sauce.

There’s the traditional red, which is satisfying, but I still prefer Tabasco.

And then there’s the hot stuff, and once again, Tabasco is preferable.

But then there’s the green stuff…

Now I’m looking for things I can eat so I can use it.

No, hot sauce does not go well with yogurt. But with tuna salad??

I was hungry last night, I was reading Jennifer Egan’s “Manhattan Beach” and I realized I could not go to bed without a few bites of something. And my nutritionist says the Balance bars I devour are like candy bars, so I’m trying to cut down, but I’m not really interested in real food, but then I see some tuna fish in the fridge and a lightbulb goes off, I CAN EAT IT WITH DEXTER’S HOT SAUCE!

So I break out all three flavors. Testing them once again. But it’s the green I cannot get enough of.

And I’m thinking of other greens. That one at Campos, it’s pretty spectacular, but it’s much more spicy, that zest is not for every day.

And they don’t have a good green at Poquito Mas.

And I’m wondering where Dexter’s green is on the spectrum…

But then I don’t care. I’m convinced. This is great stuff!

So I go online and Google, and it turns out I’m not the only one. This stuff IS pretty fly for a white guy, someone not from south of the border.

And salsa has eclipsed ketchup. Our entire nation is one of gourmands. So I know many people don’t care, then again many do.

And in Southern California, the shelves are littered with hot sauce brands.

And to tell you the truth, I have not tasted them all. But I have tasted a lot. But most are one and done, I don’t need any more.

But I’m already worrying about Dexter’s Gringo Bandito green running out. And there’s nothing worse than having chicken or tuna salad without hot sauce. I’ve literally gotten up from the table and run out to buy some, because every meal must resonate.

And every life must have some spice.

TRY IT!

Dexter Holland’s Hot Sauce

“JAY-Z Struggling To Sell Seats On ‘4:44’ Tour”

This is all over social media. Because hip-hop is a culture of informed fans. This is akin to the early days of file-trading, when albums leaked, were determined to be substandard and tanked upon release, can you say Lenny Kravitz?

The fans have been abused by the promoters and acts for decades.

Now the fans are fighting back.

I’m not saying every show is gonna stiff, I’m just saying duplicitous sales techniques are going to backfire.

As it is, many of the initial sales are to brokers anyway, despite Ticketmaster’s hoopla about Verified Fans, it doesn’t work, but don’t expect the media to divine that, no the solution is dynamic pricing, otherwise brokers would be scalping airline tickets.

Stones tickets don’t get scalped, and they’ve got the highest grosses around. Because they sell the tickets for what they are worth, and they flex price them accordingly, if demand is low, they drop the price.

Maybe Jay Z’s nosebleed seats should have been ten bucks to begin with. No one wants to sit in the upper deck. Sure, with some hot acts it’s enough just to be in the building. But if it’s a legacy act…

That’s right, Jay Z is a heritage artist. Once again, don’t judge heat by the manipulated mainstream press, go to the Spotify Top 50 to see what people are really listening to. Jay Z was so busy propping up his lame gonna die Tidal that he held the album back from Spotify, but it never really penetrated anyway, because the audience has turned over, it is young.

This is the biggest story in music and one the old farts want to deny. They’ve been so busy bitching about streaming they missed the memo. Streaming is saving the business, did you see Sony’s numbers? But it’s saving a whole different set of acts, mostly hip-hop, who got on the streaming bandwagon early.

This even seems to be biting Taylor Swift in the ass. Her new track “Gorgeous” is not in the Spotify Top Fifty. And she may still do good business, but those multiples…

You see you live and die on the hit. Unless you’re not playing the hit game at all, like the classic rockers. But if you’re Katy Perry…

Whose tour is also soft. And there has been publicity about it. But the pop network is not as good as the hip-hop one.

So people will rush to buy tickets…

Then again, that’s been stopped to a degree. Because many people don’t want to pay in advance, they don’t want to sit in their underwear on Saturday morning, they’d rather overpay a week before when they know they want to go and can choose their seat. Kinda like the World Series. You could get a ticket right before the game. But those tickets were expensive, and owned by brokers.

So the brokers are taking a hit on bad seats at concerts. But they cover the spread with good ones. Yet acts play to arenas with thousands of empty seats and it ruins their image, and next time around people don’t rush to buy so fast.

And could it be that Jay Z has gone to the well too many times? This is happening in the country world, acts are touring endlessly, to diminishing returns.

So what we have is an information war. Once fans see that often the on sale is fictitious hoopla, they’ll hold back.

We need a better system.

The fans are revolting the same way they did with Napster, when they refused to overpay for an album with one good track. Everybody said the fans were thieves but the truth is they were sophisticated and portending the future. Same deal here, the future is more information, not less, obfuscation is gonna fade. We need a better pricing model.

As for getting fans in cheaply, go paperless or forget it.

You either love him or hate him.

But Bob is standing up for much of what you believe. This is the only promo he’s doing, this and Megyn Kelly, he’s had it with the music industry, kissing ass, playing the game, it’s just him and his music, his show and his personality, isn’t that enough, hasn’t he earned it?

That’s right, the man you hate is on your side.

Now he tried for a long time before Andy Karp rescued him from obscurity for his release on Jason Flom’s Lava Records. The beneficiary of MTV, this cowboy became a giant just before the end of the century, when you lived and died on the video, when you could go diamond and be ubiquitous, but that paradigm is dead, everybody’s niche, the only difference is Kid Rock admits it.

Great to hear someone with a sense of humor about himself and the game. Someone who’s not so busy playing to a theoretical king, but rather tearing the kingdom down.

Rock admits he’s shared the stage with musicians far better than he is. Humility? Haven’t heard that in eons, certainly not from someone rooted in hip-hop.

But Bob has left that aside. First he went rock and straddled the country world, now he’s more of an outlaw, in his own sphere, playing to his own audience, that’s right, he’s more twenty first century than most major acts out there.

And he knows he’s selling not only music, but religion, a whole experience, the Kid Rock lifestyle, where the downtrodden come together to party, and this is where I get off the train, when there’s too much of this redneck us vs. them propaganda. Then again, Rock’s playing rock music, and…

It’s taken him a while to find his voice. He sang too high. The tracks were too dense. But now, it’s as if Bob Seger were sitting on a porch in Tennessee with his homies, drinking a few and playing up a storm. And if you don’t want to get in on that, you’re no friend of mine.

As for going to the White House…

Rock played for Obama too. And he’s not about to turn down an invitation. He’s played for five Presidents. Hell, it’s hard to argue with an American on that.

As for all that hunting and fishing b.s., he told Howard that he’d missed out by not eating freshly killed deer, a delicacy. And I’d be fine if they banned all guns, although bows and arrows would be cool, and the truth is someone has to prevent overpopulation. And the point is if you’re not willing to look at all sides, I don’t want to hear your opinion. I may not hunt, but I will say a fish never tastes as good as the one you’ve caught yourself and fresh meat is exquisite and now you’re wincing but I’m just saying it’s complicated, life is so complicated.

As for the Senate thing, it was a joke, it was always a joke, Rock said yes to another’s bandwagon, he picked up the cause, and on Howard’s show he said he wouldn’t run, not that he doesn’t have opinions.

Gay marriage fine. Then again, he said some lame stuff about transgender people. Although what he primarily said was he couldn’t understand it, which is different from accepting it. Hell, Rock seemed more open-minded than most left wingers.

I’d be all for Rock being in the Senate. He’d bring some sense to the right wing cabal, assuming he wasn’t co-opted. Then again, I don’t believe in everyday people being in government, it’s a profession, leave it to the professionals, we don’t want to see elected officials on stage singing and strumming guitars.

And Rock admitted being brought up in an upper middle class household and having to wrestle with admitting it. That’s one thing I hate about America. Everybody grew up poor. They did poorly in school. Then they say they went to Harvard and you’re scratching your head saying HUH?

But that’s Hollywood for you, everybody lies.

But Rock has left Hollywood behind.

But the funniest thing he said was his jet was better than sex, that he’d give up sex rather than his plane. It represented the essence of America, FREEDOM! He could go where he wanted to go, with whomever… AND HE DID! People talk about freedom, but just like Sally in that movie, they don’t go anywhere, they don’t have sex on the kitchen floor.

You’d want to hang with Rock because he’s FUN!

I hear from him late at night. Always giving me shit. Always in my face. But if you don’t take offense, if you give it back and play along he calms down and becomes real and it’s like some guy you went to high school with, who you sat in the back of class with and connected.

Rock is not Plant. First and foremost he doesn’t believe he’s that good! And he doesn’t take it that seriously, although he does love music.

And why is it Rock tackled ticket prices and nobody else did. Why is it Rock gives so much to charity and others don’t. As for money, Rock kept saying he was loaded, had so much, didn’t need more, which is funny, since the techies and the financiers are never satisfied.

As for the perks of the road…

Rock is faithful to his fiancee. After all, he’s forty six!

Rock was refreshing. He had a sense of humor. He got excited. He expressed vulnerability. He rolled with the changes, he was a good hang.

But what has got me writing this is when they got to the new album and Howard played a few tunes…I LIKED THEM! I GOT THEM IMMEDIATELY!

You won’t listen. But the truth is you won’t listen to so much of today’s music, everybody’s in their own hole. And Rock realizes this. He’s feeding his own frenzy, those already addicted, who bring their friends to his balls-out show.

So you may not care, but Kid Rock is a modern rock star in an era where that no longer exists.

Do you call someone who whores himself out to the corporation a rock star?

Do you call someone who’s so busy working they’ve got no life a rock star?

Do you call someone who’s so busy boasting they’ve lost touch with reality a rock star?

No, a rock star is someone who’s made it who does it his way. Who doesn’t hew to the corporate line, who doesn’t care what society says, who plays to himself and has a bunch of acolytes who help him survive.

That’s Kid Rock.

He’s a rock star. A modern day cowboy. Someone who knows you don’t have to be master of the entire range, just your own domain. That if you’re true to yourself, the audience senses it and bonds to you.

So this is a great experiment. Sans hype will Rock’s tickets sell?

And that’s all that matters these days.

I’m thinking yes.

I’m hoping yes.

Kid Rock On Howard Stern

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!