My car stereo broke.<\/p>\n
I was eating dinner at Lisa’s, and when I emerged from her abode I turned on the defroster and I got a readout, both Sirius and XM, but no sound.\u00c2\u00a0 As I drove home in the intermittent rain I ran through the possibilities, after stopping and turning both the Alpine and the Saab off and on endlessly, fruitlessly. This had to be the amplifier.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than settle for an Alpine, I’d popped for the exotic Italian amp no one but car stereo geeks had even heard of, the manufacturer of which had probably gone out of business.<\/p>\n
After driving home in silence, I pored the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 And found out my Audison’s warranty had expired.\u00c2\u00a0 I could barely sleep.\u00c2\u00a0 My schedule precluded me from showing up at the car stereo shop before early afternoon the following day, would my installer be there, if he removed the amp today would it come back before March?<\/p>\n
I parked on the street, the lot being full of machines, and as Robert, my installer, fixed the Sirius in an old school Mercedes-Benz, I fingered the convertible Lamborghini gathering dust.\u00c2\u00a0 There may be a recession, but it’s not affecting this emporium, the last of its kind extant in Santa Monica.\u00c2\u00a0 With factory-installed stereos so much better than they were in the seventies, the aftermarket has shrunk, all the money for manufacturers is in being the authorized provider.<\/p>\n
Turned out I’d blown a fuse.\u00c2\u00a0 Hearing this was like getting a birthday present.\u00c2\u00a0 Music in my car would continue.\u00c2\u00a0 My machine may be cheap, but it’s got a mellifluous sound permeating its tiny environs.\u00c2\u00a0 I drive in my cocoon and feel safe from the world.\u00c2\u00a0 As I navigate through the hundred plus satellite channels.<\/p>\n
And it was only days before that I’d driven to Larry’s Shaver Shop to get new shaving lotion.\u00c2\u00a0 My father used an electric razor and he presented me with a Remington as soon as I started to sprout whiskers, I’ve still never used a straight edge.\u00c2\u00a0 But without lubrication my skin is strafed like the epidermis of a skateboarder who’s lost his balance and scraped the asphalt.\u00c2\u00a0 I used Lectric Shave until the guru at Larry’s told me it was shit and that I needed to use Parks Prep, which wouldn’t clog up my shaver.\u00c2\u00a0 He was right.<\/p>\n
I’d gone to Larry’s because I needed new blades.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll never do that again.\u00c2\u00a0 Only in Santa Monica can you find a retailer who charges more than list price.\u00c2\u00a0 I now purchase new cutters via Amazon.\u00c2\u00a0 But I still go back to Larry’s for this exotic lotion.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ve learned to pay cash, it earns you a twenty percent discount.<\/p>\n
And on this day it’s raining.\u00c2\u00a0 And even though I’ve got an umbrella, I want to park close to the shop, so I don’t soak my Nikes in the plethora of puddles which form so rapidly when it rains in SoCal.\u00c2\u00a0 And I didn’t find a meter, but around the corner from the Coffee Bean I saw a woman opening the passenger door of her mini-SUV.\u00c2\u00a0 Not seeing a driver inside, I decided to wait.\u00c2\u00a0 And I was lucky, this caffeinated citizen got behind the wheel and pulled away from the curb. And as I navigated my machine into the spot she’d vacated, I heard a lyric: I liked Taylor Swift until her handlers convinced themselves that she was a superstar who was innately-talented and had earned her place atop the hit parade.\u00c2\u00a0 The ability of handlers to drink their own kool-aid knows no limits in this business.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d think they’d be happy knowing they’re raking in the bucks, but they’ve got to go further than that, they need to convince themselves and everybody they encounter that their charge is the new Beatles, the new Joni Mitchell.<\/p>\n I found Ms. Swift charming at first.\u00c2\u00a0 But when they crossed her over to Top Forty and didn’t stop flogging her album, I tuned out.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t even play her new album.\u00c2\u00a0 Her single slid by me, I often punched the button on my radio when it came on.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t want to encourage them, I didn’t want to help them justify their cause.\u00c2\u00a0 Believing their over the top TV productions, with dress changes and waterfalls all in the same song, were cute and acceptable because Taylor was under twenty.\u00c2\u00a0 Dignity, hubris, they’ve got no place in teen pop.<\/p>\n But is Taylor Swift really teen pop?\u00c2\u00a0 Teen pop is supposed to be laughable and evanescent, easily-dismissed by anybody whose balls have descended or tits have sprouted.\u00c2\u00a0 But "Teardrops On My Guitar" was only teenage in its subject matter.\u00c2\u00a0 It had the changes and the heart and emotion of a radio staple.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the best of both worlds, it was simultaneously catchy and touching.<\/p>\n But the rest of the album was not as listenable.\u00c2\u00a0 And usually the rushed out follow-up is substandard, all about paying the executives’ overhead as opposed to satiating the core.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s what the core wants.\u00c2\u00a0 Satiation.\u00c2\u00a0 The core wants to feel the identification, fans want something that will make them feel included rather than excluded in a nation where no one is ever good-looking or rich enough.\u00c2\u00a0 Perez Hilton stands up for the outcasts and then suddenly he switches teams, he’s co-opted by those he’s commenting upon, working for Britney, believing he’s on a par with those he’s disparaging.\u00c2\u00a0 We lose our connection with him.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s just another tot in Tinseltown trying to make it.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas most of those in the heartland, Hollywood too, are never going to make it.\u00c2\u00a0 This is not a dress rehearsal, there is no close-up, this is their life.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re looking to make their lives easier, they’re looking to make sense of the morass.<\/p>\n I opened the door of my car, and then shut it, to prevent the rain from entering.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to hear this record, which was quite obviously Taylor Swift, but which I’d never heard before.\u00c2\u00a0 On one hand the lyric is cheesy, but we’re all from a small town, where too many people have categorized and classified us, where we’re stuck in a rut of someone else’s device.\u00c2\u00a0 And we’re all dreamers.\u00c2\u00a0 We believe if we just get our chance we can charm that cutie on the sitcom and our life will work.\u00c2\u00a0 And our fan letters never get through, thank god, because if we ever met our heroes we’d find out they’re just as fucked up as we are.<\/p>\n But the actors are empty vessels.<\/p>\n The musicians are their songs.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve had these experiences.\u00c2\u00a0 We may not be able to have sex with them, but we feel if we could just talk to them, they’d UNDERSTAND us!<\/p>\n If you’re singing about banging this one and kicking that one to the curb, if you’re exhibiting your glitzy lifestyle and strutting your stuff, we can’t relate, we’re not that fortunate.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you tell us you’re confused, if you tell us something about ourselves, we’re enraptured.<\/p>\n I came home and fired up Spotify and listened to "White Horse".\u00c2\u00a0 Which, astoundingly, sounded just as good as it did in the car.\u00c2\u00a0 And the rest of "Fearless" was a cut above the debut album.\u00c2\u00a0 And rather than needing to shut it off, I played it over and over again, even dialing it up in Rhapsody so I could listen via my Sonos system in the kitchen.<\/p>\n And I’ve been chalking up Ms. Swift’s tenure at number one as the last gasp of teen stardom.\u00c2\u00a0 But now I’ve changed my opinion.\u00c2\u00a0 This is closer to Carole King than Kanye.\u00c2\u00a0 This is more like "Tapestry" than not only hip-hop, but "Working On A Dream".<\/p>\n The superstars, Bruce and U2, they’ve lost touch with themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re playing to the last row.\u00c2\u00a0 And we can’t even get a seat in the building.\u00c2\u00a0 We want something we can play over and over on our iPods, we don’t care if it’s played on the radio, it’s only important that it touch our hearts.<\/p>\n How come Nashville can get it so right and the rest of the business so wrong?\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not sure exactly who composes Ms. Swift’s material, I hear she doesn’t write alone, but the result is songs, with melodies and changes that you can sing along with.\u00c2\u00a0 This is not rocket science.\u00c2\u00a0 While the household name purveyors are trying to create dazzling extravaganzas, while the alternative rockers are concocting screechy tracks with lame vocals that are barely more than demos, Taylor Swift concocts a very basic record that is burning up the chart, that has already sold 2,600,000 copies even though it’s only been in release for 14 weeks.<\/p>\n Cause I’m not your princess<\/span> We’re dreamers.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite being bruised and battered, we do our best to rekindle hope.\u00c2\u00a0 We believe we can escape to a better life.\u00c2\u00a0 Not one where we drive a Bentley and party with Paris, but where we have a roof over our heads and have the mutual respect of a loved one, all the while able to pay our bills.<\/p>\n Now, more than ever in our lives, the underpinnings are shaky.\u00c2\u00a0 There might not be a job to work hard in, keeping what money you’ve got in the bank is a losing proposition, but putting it in the market is too big a risk.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, if someone with heart and desire can break through, we’re encouraged.\u00c2\u00a0 We want to hear that person’s story, unfiltered.\u00c2\u00a0 We want the unvarnished truth, we’ve been sold bullshit for too long, we want warmth, but not darkness.<\/p>\n I left the east coast and everything it stands for.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m living in a place where no one ever asks what college I went to, never mind my SAT scores.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t consciously want to reinvent myself, but I liked the opportunity to start over, sans the burden of the preconceptions of those I went to school with.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t struck it rich and famous.\u00c2\u00a0 And now I’m wavering, the economic chaos impacting my ability to have hope.\u00c2\u00a0 But when I’m driving in my car and the right record comes pouring out of the speakers, I feel confident, I believe I can make it.<\/p>\n And too often it’s an oldie, reminding me of what once was as opposed to what still can be.\u00c2\u00a0 But when I heard the production of this adolescent, I was touched the same way I was in my dorm room back in Middlebury, when those Wendy Waldman and Jackson Browne records gave me the strength to pack up and drive across this great country of ours to start over.<\/p>\n There is no princess, there is no white horse, fame doesn’t equate with riches and the mainstream media can get it just as wrong as the titans of Wall Street who wrecked our financial system.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no short cuts, only hard work and perseverance.\u00c2\u00a0 And what allows us to keep on keepin’ on, what soothes us and prepares us for battle, is almost always music.\u00c2\u00a0 Listening to Taylor Swift’s "White Horse" I’m reminded of this, I’ve got hope.<\/p>\n 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I’m not a princess<\/span>
This ain’t a fairy tale<\/span>
I’m not the one you’ll sweep off her feet<\/span>
Lead her up the stairwell<\/span>
This ain’t Hollywood<\/span>
This is a small town<\/span>
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down<\/span>
Now it’s too late for you and your white horse<\/span>
To come around<\/span><\/p>\n
This ain’t a fairy tale<\/span>
I’m gonna find someone, someday<\/span>
Who might actually treat me well<\/span>
This is a big world<\/span>
That was a small town<\/span>
There in my rearview mirror<\/span>
Disappearing now<\/span>
And it’s too late for you and your white horse<\/span>
Now its too late for you and your white horse<\/span>
To catch me now<\/span><\/p>\n