You might not understand it.\u00c2\u00a0 You might be well-adjusted, you might fit in, you might be happy where you are.\u00c2\u00a0 But some of us need a fresh start.\u00c2\u00a0 We need to leave, move on, to a place where we can be accepted on our own terms, where we can reinvent ourselves, live the life in our heads, the one in the Beach Boys songs.<\/p>\n
At this late date, California even has natives.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’re unlike the denizens of New York.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got no need to say L.A. is the best, that nothing compares.\u00c2\u00a0 But they don’t want to live anywhere else.\u00c2\u00a0 Because of the lifestyle.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, the weather’s great, but where else can you live where no one else is in your business, where you can strive to be everything you want to be?<\/p>\n
This is the California Dream.<\/p>\n
And we’re all dreamers.<\/p>\n
Glenn Frey’s a dreamer.\u00c2\u00a0 Don Henley and Joe Walsh too.\u00c2\u00a0 From Michigan, Texas and New Jersey respectively.\u00c2\u00a0 They all came to L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 To express themselves, to make it.<\/p>\n
And making it used to be so different.\u00c2\u00a0 The best and the brightest went into music.\u00c2\u00a0 A world where victory meant you were beholden to no one, where you got all the pussy you could handle and had more than enough money to pay for drugs and the whims of your imagination.<\/p>\n
They call those people bankers today.\u00c2\u00a0 Wall Streeters have the money.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, an athlete can make twenty mil a year for a while, but then he flames out.\u00c2\u00a0 A musician?\u00c2\u00a0 He’s making bupkes in comparison.\u00c2\u00a0 And then there’s Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, the Google twins.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re the rock stars of today.\u00c2\u00a0 On sheer wit not only are their enterprises raining coin, they’re in each and every one of our homes, they permeate our lifestyle.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve Jobs says the iPad is the next big thing and everybody checks it out.\u00c2\u00a0 We use Google multiple times a day.\u00c2\u00a0 And Facebook is the new FM radio, a place where the like-minded congregate.<\/p>\n
Yes, that used to be our clubhouse.\u00c2\u00a0 The FM dial.\u00c2\u00a0 Everywhere we went, there was a station just for us.\u00c2\u00a0 But us was each and every baby boomer.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t find a boomer who doesn’t know "Hotel California".\u00c2\u00a0 May hate it, just like people pooh-pooh the iPad, but there’s not a boomer alive who hasn’t heard it.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas a large part of the population hasn’t even heard today’s Top Ten.\u00c2\u00a0 And those making music are sold out whores, tying in with corporations to get their vapid message across.\u00c2\u00a0 And what exactly is the Black Eyed Peas’ message?\u00c2\u00a0 That they know how to make money?\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got a feeling that you want to touch her humps, her lady lumps…welcome to the parade, you’re adding no insight into humanity, this is Life 101.<\/p>\n
But it used to be different.\u00c2\u00a0 We used to listen to what the acts had to say.\u00c2\u00a0 We wanted the insight in addition to feeling good.\u00c2\u00a0 The deejays were our best friends.\u00c2\u00a0 We went to the gig to commune with our brethren.\u00c2\u00a0 And the music played…it was ubiquitous, everywhere you went in the summer of ’72 you heard "Take It Easy".\u00c2\u00a0 "One Of These Nights" in the summer of ’75.\u00c2\u00a0 And the winter of ’77 was filled with "Hotel California".\u00c2\u00a0 And in between them was a plethora of hits, to the point where the Eagles don’t have to dance, no production numbers are necessary, the music is more than enough.<\/p>\n
And we in SoCal go.\u00c2\u00a0 Because when we hear "The Boys Of Summer" we picture PCH, we visualize the sun setting on the beach, we know elation and despair.\u00c2\u00a0 And we know how to keep on keepin’ on.<\/p>\n
And we don’t give a shit what anybody else thinks.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got our own culture.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the Eagles are equivalent to Shakespeare, the bards of our life in the fast lane culture.<\/p>\n
FAST TIMES<\/span><\/p>\n So, halfway through the "Long Run" Solters taps me on the shoulder.\u00c2\u00a0 Are we ready to come backstage?\u00c2\u00a0 After nodding in agreement, he puts us on hold while he retrieves two more members of the posse, Cameron Crowe and Neal Preston.\u00c2\u00a0 And after showing our credentials to the gestapo, we’re in the inner sanctum.\u00c2\u00a0 And when Irving performs the introductions, I’m stunned to find out that Cameron and Neal know who I am.\u00c2\u00a0 But it gets better, because Cameron starts testifying about what I wrote about "Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around", telling me I nailed the essence of being a reluctant male and how he forwarded it to a fellow director and while I’m contemplating how to respond, who comes by, but Neil Diamond, who pronounces the Eagles’ harmonies the best since the Everly Brothers before exiting, since he has to vocalize the following night and I’m standing there thinking it might as well be 1975.<\/p>\n Irving’s cracking up that the newspapers are controlled by old radio guys and he and Cameron are reminiscing about the x-rated version of "Fast Times" and we all feel like veterans of a war.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’re still here.\u00c2\u00a0 A little thicker, with a little less hair, but with our sense of humor still intact.<\/p>\n LONG ROAD OUT OF EDEN<\/span><\/p>\n It got the anticipatory applause, you know, when the riff is played, long before the chorus, people purchased the double album and listened to it.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, "Long Road Out Of Eden" is not "Hotel California", it’s had no cultural impact, not because it’s deficient, but because we live in a different world, where music no longer dominates and neither does the left.<\/p>\n Everybody in this business is waiting for the seventies to return.\u00c2\u00a0 Or at least the eighties, when MTV ruled.\u00c2\u00a0 Bring back the days when ‘N Sync sold two million albums in a week, when Boston’s debut sold far in excess of ten million copies and there wasn’t a soul under twenty who didn’t know Boy George.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s youngsters want the fruits, they want the fame and the attendant riches. But you listen to the Eagles perform hit after hit and you realize how hard the work was, how long and strange the trip.\u00c2\u00a0 Journeying to L.A., backing up Ronstadt, playing in go-nowhere bands, living in the shadow of the Bowl, operating on your wits.\u00c2\u00a0 Climbing the mountain instead of looking for a helicopter to deposit you on top, hell, there were no helicopters.<\/p>\n But there was a mountain.\u00c2\u00a0 One we all knew and paid attention to.\u00c2\u00a0 Now we’re living in the Himalayas, gigantic peaks all around, to the point where even the new Eagles album is niche.<\/p>\n Welcome to the twenty first century.\u00c2\u00a0 Where kids think stardom is fame and graybeards remember when dinosaurs walked the earth, when James Brown was called in to quell riots.\u00c2\u00a0 That was the power of music.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was about the music.\u00c2\u00a0 The rest was just trappings.\u00c2\u00a0 But now, all we’ve got are the trappings.<\/p>\n Maybe they could get "Long Road Out Of Eden" in a movie.\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, who am I kidding.\u00c2\u00a0 "Hurt Locker" wins the Oscar and still no one sees it.\u00c2\u00a0 We see Snooki and Kim Kardashian.\u00c2\u00a0 More people know who Rachel Uchitel is than have heard "Long Road Out Of Eden".\u00c2\u00a0 So, it’s frustrating to be an artist.\u00c2\u00a0 Your canvas is large, but the gallery is small.\u00c2\u00a0 You can go on tour to beaucoup bucks, playing for people who want to relive their memories, still…you remember when what you were doing made a difference.<\/p>\n And so does the audience.<\/p>\n LIFE’S BEEN GOOD<\/span><\/p>\n Sober Joe does turn out to be the linchpin, ripping off the notes that turn the music into rock and roll, and singing his own hits.\u00c2\u00a0 But what made this number so great was the vintage footage on the big screen behind.<\/p>\n Everybody’s got a camera today, everybody makes movies.\u00c2\u00a0 Your life is documented from birth to death.\u00c2\u00a0 But in the seventies making a movie was an enterprise that required money, time and skill, no Flip cameras were extant.\u00c2\u00a0 So, watching the footage on the big screen was like looking into Tutankhamen’s tomb.\u00c2\u00a0 Relics!\u00c2\u00a0 Rock stars on parade.\u00c2\u00a0 Living the lives of stars, in an era when musicians were at the pinnacle of the food chain, when there was no more powerful position.\u00c2\u00a0 In an era when YOU told the record company what to do.<\/p>\n DESPERADO<\/span><\/p>\n Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses<\/span> We spent the sixties exploring the world, protesting inequities.<\/p>\n In the seventies we licked our wounds and looked inward.<\/p>\n And in the eighties, we sold out.\u00c2\u00a0 Became our own worst enemy.\u00c2\u00a0 It was fine to have children, but did we have to rape and pillage financially, did we have to drive SUVs, did we have to be so mine for me?\u00c2\u00a0 But everybody else was doing it, so maybe we should too.<\/p>\n And it’s only gotten worse.\u00c2\u00a0 Why not license your music for that commercial?\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got to get bigger, I’ve got to eat.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody else is doing it.<\/p>\n But isn’t it funny the music everybody wants to hear predates this era?\u00c2\u00a0 Comes from a time when the music was enough, when it was pure and inviolate?<\/p>\n That’s why the classic rock acts can still do boffo at the b.o. and so-called stars of yesterday, and I truly mean yesterday, are working day jobs.\u00c2\u00a0 Because music is no longer soul food, but fast food, made for the here and now, to be denigrated and forgotten.<\/p>\n Things have changed.<\/p>\n But the boomers remember.\u00c2\u00a0 They’d like a do-over, but that’s not how life works.\u00c2\u00a0 So you go to the Eagles show to remember when…you heard "Take It Easy" for the first time, fell in love for the first time, were carefree for the last time.<\/p>\n HEARTACHE TONIGHT<\/span><\/p>\n Some people like to stay out late<\/span> Today there’s truly too much going on, but so much of it is noise.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like we’re living in a Brillo pad, being scratched by shit we don’t care about, looking for clear light.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what music was, clear light.<\/p>\n And the music was enough.\u00c2\u00a0 The Eagles can play for nearly three hours and no song is unknown, there’s no bathroom break. Because that’s the way it was.\u00c2\u00a0 You paid your dues in pursuit of the pulpit, and then you could preach in churches and synagogues around the world, to this day.<\/p>\n You might believe in God.\u00c2\u00a0 I believe in rock and roll.<\/p>\n And I’m not the only one.<\/p>\n We bought the records to keep us alive at night and then went to the gig to ogle the opposite sex, clap our hands and sing along at the top of our lungs.<\/p>\n Last night we took it to the limit one more time.\u00c2\u00a0 In the only way we know how.\u00c2\u00a0 We prayed at the Hollywood Bowl.\u00c2\u00a0 Hoping a day will come when musicians lead us once again, doubting it will happen, but enjoying ourselves in the meantime.<\/p>\n SEVEN BRIDGES ROAD<\/span> It rained all afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 By showtime, it was fifty degrees.\u00c2\u00a0 What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where an outdoor concert is scheduled for April?<\/p>\n Southern California.\u00c2\u00a0 Where it occasionally does rain, but optimism reigns, where water was brought from the mountains and images were manipulated and then projected around the world as reality.<\/p>\n But as powerful as movies can be, they’re no match for music.\u00c2\u00a0 You watch movies, music penetrates your soul.<\/p>\n The Eagles were both sunny and dark, purely human, three-dimensional troubadours commenting on the lifestyle we were living or in pursuit of.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe you’ve got to come to California to understand it, maybe you can close your eyes and visualize it.\u00c2\u00a0 But last night, we lived it.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You might not understand it.\u00c2\u00a0 You might be well-adjusted, you might fit in, you might be happy where you are.\u00c2\u00a0 But some of us need a fresh start.\u00c2\u00a0 We need to leave, move on, to a place where we can be accepted on our own terms, where we can reinvent ourselves, live the life in […]<\/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":[1,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-live-shows"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-JG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832","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=2832"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2834,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions\/2834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
You’ve been out ridin’ fences for so long now<\/span><\/p>\n
Some folks can’t hold out that long<\/span>
But nobody wants to go home now<\/span>
There’s too much goin’ on<\/span><\/p>\n
There are stars in the southern sky<\/span>
And if ever you decide<\/span>
You should go<\/span>
There is a taste of time sweetened honey<\/span>
Down the seven bridges road<\/span><\/p>\n