Everybody knows you’ve got to have an iPad app.<\/p>\n
But the L.A. "Times" doesn’t have one.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what happens when you focus on the bottom line instead of the future, you get left behind.<\/p>\n
Oh, there’s a $1.99 iPhone app, but that’s like watching on a tiny cathode ray TV when there’s HD.\u00c2\u00a0 Something that you only do when necessary, when for some reason the free "Huffington Post" app with its great sliding feature suddenly stops functioning, which it never does.<\/p>\n
You’ve got to have an iPad to appreciate it.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it seems superfluous until you own one.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t your laptop do all this? But your laptop’s got a hard drive (except for the new MacBook Airs, which follow in the iPad’s footsteps) and has to boot up and is fragile.\u00c2\u00a0 You treat an iPad like an expensive phone.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re careful, but not that careful.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll take it to bed, read on it while you eat, you suddenly can surf everywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 Is this a good thing?<\/p>\n
We won’t bother to debate that, the future is here.<\/p>\n
And those companies that realize this are surfing into the future, on the cutting edge.\u00c2\u00a0 Turning the iPad into a giant remote control, like Comcast, like Sonos.<\/p>\n
A Sonos system with a streaming service and iPad control is pure heaven.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, you can listen on headphones with your iPod everywhere, but sometimes you want bigger speakers, a bigger sound.<\/p>\n
Which is how I ended up listening to Don Henley’s "Everybody Knows" while eating dinner.\u00c2\u00a0 Inspired by the Eagles BBC concert of ’73, I wanted to continue to listen to the band.\u00c2\u00a0 But that would require me to stream MP3s from my computer, since the Eagles authorize no streaming services, and my computer was asleep.\u00c2\u00a0 So I did the second best thing, I started streaming Don Henley’s greatest hits from Napster.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s when I heard "Everybody Knows".<\/p>\n
It may be a Don Henley record, but it’s not a Don Henley song, "Everybody Knows" was written by Leonard Cohen.<\/p>\n
Everybody knows the fight was fixed<\/span> But nobody talks about it.\u00c2\u00a0 Politicians paint a rosy future, where if you just buckled down you too could be rich.<\/p>\n Horseshit. Is America going in the right direction?\u00c2\u00a0 Explain to me again how cutting taxes on the rich whittles away the deficit?\u00c2\u00a0 Even Ronald Reagan’s budget director thinks this is bullshit.<\/p>\n And that feeling when you lose a member of the family.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a deep hole of emptiness, people send you condolence cards but this poet nails the feeling better than your friends.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re broken, and only a record can heal you.<\/p>\n Everybody knows that you love me baby<\/span> This is the stuff they make movies of.\u00c2\u00a0 Only in the flicks, the woman is Demi Moore or somebody else naturally beautiful with a surgically-enhanced body.\u00c2\u00a0 What about the imperfect?\u00c2\u00a0 The women with muffintops?\u00c2\u00a0 Those who look closer to the doctors on the "Twilight Zone" as opposed to someone on "Friends"?\u00c2\u00a0 Would they trade up?\u00c2\u00a0 Would they go for a fling with their coworker?\u00c2\u00a0 Can they resist adding a bit of spice to their life? Everybody’s ashamed of their bodies.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’ll take their clothes off to do the dirty.\u00c2\u00a0 Because sex only works when you throw off your inhibitions, you can’t think about your imperfections when you’re trying to achieve orgasm.<\/p>\n Everybody knows that it’s now or never<\/span><\/p>\n That’s what all the business coaches tell us.<\/p>\n What exactly are\u00c2\u00a0 Tony Robbins’s qualifications again?\u00c2\u00a0 All those life coaches, why do they know?<\/p>\n But really it’s less about carpe diem than desperation.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what usually gets us to act. Pity the drug abuser.\u00c2\u00a0 If his life was really that good, he wouldn’t be partaking.\u00c2\u00a0 You do drugs to escape.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, they can kill, but you want to forget for a while that we all end up a corpse and that life is more about drudgery than excitement.<\/p>\n Everybody knows the scene is dead<\/span><\/p>\n This is what hurts the music industry.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody inside wants to believe it’s the same as it ever was.\u00c2\u00a0 That music drives the culture, that it’s more exciting than Angry Birds, more thrilling than the latest product from Apple, but that’s not true.\u00c2\u00a0 Too often it’s just a dash for cash.<\/p>\n Don Henley got away with including a cover on his greatest hits package, why waste an original.\u00c2\u00a0 But give him credit for impeccable taste, because Leonard Cohen’s song is as honest as "Hotel California", containing the same insightful examination of society’s underbelly, but it’s even more eloquent.<\/p>\n Canvass the populace.\u00c2\u00a0 Send Jay out walking.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody does not know who Leonard Cohen is.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, he never even had a hit!<\/p>\n But Leonard Cohen just completed a three year tour.<\/p>\n There were 168 shows.\u00c2\u00a0 And a total gross of 96+ million dollars.<\/p>\n Hell, there were 55 shows in 2010 alone.\u00c2\u00a0 And the average attendance was 8,150.\u00c2\u00a0 And the average ticket price was $104.30. The only acts in the Top 50 with a higher average ticket price were superstars, Bon Jovi, Paul McCartney, the Eagles, Roger Waters, Whitney Houston and Cher.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, Leonard Cohen is number thirty on the chart, higher than Eric Clapton, Carrie Underwood, Elton John and the Jonas Brothers.<\/p>\n Everybody knows that Leonard Cohen is an artist.<\/p>\n Everybody knows that Leonard Cohen is about meaning first.<\/p>\n Sure, everybody knows he’s not going to live forever, that this might be their last chance to see him, but they EMBRACED IT!<\/p>\n Everybody knows what’s got value, what touches their hearts, what lasts.\u00c2\u00a0 Ignore the hypemeisters, because everybody knows.<\/p>\n The truth.<\/p>\n
The poor stay poor and the rich get rich<\/span>
That’s how it goes<\/span>
Everybody knows<\/span><\/p>\n
Everybody knows the boat is leaking<\/span>
Everybody knows the captain lied<\/span>
Everybody got this broken feeling<\/span>
Like their father or their dog just died<\/span><\/p>\n
Everybody knows that you really do<\/span>
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful<\/span>
Give or take a night or two<\/span><\/p>\n
Everybody knows you’ve been discreet<\/span>
But there were so many people you just had to meet<\/span>
Without your clothes<\/span>
And everybody knows<\/span><\/p>\n
Everybody knows that you live forever<\/span>
When you’ve done a line or two<\/span><\/p>\n\n