Concert Tickets Get Set Aside, Marked Up by Artists, Managers<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nFlight was uneventful, except for the woman dressed in a religious get-up who stuck her smelly feet right up next to me.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember my father putting on a shirt and tie to fly, I’m stunned people today even wear shoes on the plane!\u00c2\u00a0 And when this woman got up, there were enough crumbs on the carpet to provide evidence a three year old had been present.\u00c2\u00a0 But she was not, the babies were in the row in front.<\/p>\n
And rushing to immigration, I wasn’t stopped by the officer after stating I was going to Canadian Music Week.\u00c2\u00a0 Last year, they took me into a special room and investigated further.\u00c2\u00a0 But when I was just about to be set free, into the great wide open to be whisked away by my buddy Jake Gold, at the final collection depot, where they stack the immigration cards, I was directed to the Group W bench.<\/p>\n
Do you remember the Group W bench?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s where Arlo Guthrie had to go for littering.\u00c2\u00a0 My crime?\u00c2\u00a0 I brought food to Canada.\u00c2\u00a0 Jerky and trail mix in case I needed sustenance for a day of panels.\u00c2\u00a0 I even checked online to see if it was legal.\u00c2\u00a0 Stunningly, it was.\u00c2\u00a0 But then I made the mistake of noting on the immigration card that I was importing this food.\u00c2\u00a0 Which the first level of security said was fine.\u00c2\u00a0 But now I was shuttled to a dark hall, full of human beings that God-fearing people in the U.S.A. could only see as terrorists.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, I was the only white person in the bunch.\u00c2\u00a0 Talk about racial profiling…\u00c2\u00a0 The gestapo were ripping apart suitcases.\u00c2\u00a0 Each interview was not perfunctory.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m stunned I’m still not in line.<\/p>\n
And I’m getting nervous, even though I think I’ve done nothing wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m on their turf now.\u00c2\u00a0 Is anybody truly innocent?\u00c2\u00a0 Would they find…soap in my baggage?\u00c2\u00a0 I must be breaking the law somehow!<\/p>\n
And I’m getting more nervous.\u00c2\u00a0 And I decide to be proactive.\u00c2\u00a0 Which goes against my father’s policy, wherein you lay down and let yourself get stomped by authority.\u00c2\u00a0 I told the customs officer I was there for jerky and trail mix.\u00c2\u00a0 I showed it to her before she could even ask me about it.\u00c2\u00a0 And I sailed right through.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt like I’d been sprung from Rikers, I had a newfound sense of freedom as I entered the great hall of human beings looking for their loved ones.<\/p>\n
But my plane had been early and Jake was circling.\u00c2\u00a0 Where to meet him?<\/p>\n
He told me to tell him what POLE I was at!\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, they number the poles outside the terminal, so people know where to pick you up.\u00c2\u00a0 They say the United States is the greatest country in the world, but if people just left it, they’d realize it isn’t perfect, that the rest of the world isn’t an envious backwater.\u00c2\u00a0 Genius idea.\u00c2\u00a0 Cost?\u00c2\u00a0 A few buckets of paint.<\/p>\n
We eventually ended up at the Manager’s Forum dinner honoring Ray Danniels, who guides the career of Rush.\u00c2\u00a0 They say Rush gets no respect, that the mainstream press doesn’t cover the threesome and it’s not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.\u00c2\u00a0 IT DOESN’T MATTER!\u00c2\u00a0 I get more e-mail about Rush than almost any other act.\u00c2\u00a0 People telling me about their exploits, how Neil Peart is the best drummer in the world. It’s all about fans, and Rush has them.\u00c2\u00a0 And Geddy was there, about seven feet away.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you still get a rush when you’re in the vicinity of rock stars?\u00c2\u00a0 I do.\u00c2\u00a0 With his granny glasses, wisp of hair on his chin and that seen it all, but humorous expression, it was unmistakably the guy who knows today’s Tom Sawyer.\u00c2\u00a0 Cool!<\/p>\n
And Ray financed the act’s first album, which got picked up by WMMS in Cleveland.\u00c2\u00a0 And then the band broke.\u00c2\u00a0 Randy Lennox joked that the 5,000 copies sold independently was once again a significant figure.\u00c2\u00a0 Got a laugh.\u00c2\u00a0 But when it was lamented that the old system was broken, I laughed.\u00c2\u00a0 Good riddance!\u00c2\u00a0 To major labels and radio!\u00c2\u00a0 A great band like Rush can break without them.\u00c2\u00a0 But there are very few great bands, and the road is longer, a heavier slog than ever before.<\/p>\n
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It’s snowing! I think they should call it INACCUWEATHER!\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, that’s the weather service that is accessible online, but also feeds the widget on your Mac as well as giving you the weather on your iPhone and iPod Touch.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the Monkees, I used to be a believer, but I’ve now seen Accuweather be inaccurate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-toronto","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1768,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions\/1768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}