I hate people.<\/p>\n
Like the PR person who e-mailed to hip me to a story in the "New York Times" reflecting her ethnicity…\u00c2\u00a0 It turned out the act profiled was on her label.<\/p>\n
Like my next door neighbor.\u00c2\u00a0 Who thinks you deserve silence living in the city.<\/p>\n
Like the people who e-mail me to tell me what an asshole I am.\u00c2\u00a0 Does what I do really affect you that much?<\/p>\n
Like the people who call me and won’t let me off the phone.\u00c2\u00a0 As if their lame comings and goings are interesting to me for more than five minutes.<\/p>\n
Like the guy at the car wash I tipped significantly who did such a shitty job there’s still bird and tree shit all over my car.<\/p>\n
I see people walking, driving, sitting at the doctor’s yakking on the cell phone.\u00c2\u00a0 What the hell is so important.\u00c2\u00a0 That you’ve got to have that receiver glued to your ear?<\/p>\n
Seems everybody is trying to get somewhere.\u00c2\u00a0 And unless you push back really hard, they think you’re an integral element in their journey, that you can help them.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the people I don’t know who just e-mail me a link to their music, like it’s my job to listen to their crap.\u00c2\u00a0 And isn’t it funny how the pushiest people are those whose tunes suck the most?<\/p>\n
My only respite is my car.<\/p>\n
It might be cheap, but it’s got the stereo of a king.<\/p>\n
I cruise along the boulevard, with the Alpine cranked and the giant subwoofer taking up a good chunk of the trunk thumping.<\/p>\n
The speakers in the rear doors are just for fill.\u00c2\u00a0 The main units are up front.\u00c2\u00a0 Enough inches in the midranges to give you a full palette of sound, with tweeters adding upper register accents.\u00c2\u00a0 All powered by an amplifier so big, it was hard to find a place for it inside the car.<\/p>\n
I’ve got XM.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got Sirius.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not living in the world of terrestrial.\u00c2\u00a0 I never want to hear another commercial AGAIN!\u00c2\u00a0 I just want music.\u00c2\u00a0 All the time.<\/p>\n
And I don’t want my music.\u00c2\u00a0 I want the deejay’s music.\u00c2\u00a0 I want the person inside the box to take me somewhere new, somewhere special, somewhere so great that I’m ELATED!<\/p>\n
I’ve come to realize I’m living in an alternative universe.\u00c2\u00a0 Far removed from major label land, with its vapid one hit wonders.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s fine with me.\u00c2\u00a0 Life’s too short to play the game.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can’t exist outside of the system, then you can’t make your own choices, you can’t follow your own muse.<\/p>\n
After getting my car less than cleaned I pulled onto Pico Boulevard to the strains of "Fly Like An Eagle".\u00c2\u00a0 The organ resonated in a way it never did before.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like hearing the song for the very first time.<\/p>\n
And I stopped at the post office just as "Bang A Gong (Get It On)" started playing.\u00c2\u00a0 My adrenaline was pumping, I was feeling like a world beater, until after buying stamps I went into Trader Joe’s.<\/p>\n
I avoid Trader Joe’s at all costs.\u00c2\u00a0 And today I was reminded why.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the people.\u00c2\u00a0 All wealthy, all looking for a deal.\u00c2\u00a0 And you know their personalities.\u00c2\u00a0 They think their kids are angels, they think they’re entitled to block the aisle, they think it’s their world and the rest of us just live in it.\u00c2\u00a0 So I threw my trail mix over the cart of a shopper back into the rack, shot past the endless checkout line and got back into my automobile.\u00c2\u00a0 For a run to Bob’s Market.\u00c2\u00a0 To stock up on my number one food resource, Dannon coffee yogurt.<\/p>\n
And it was there, right outside Bob’s Market on Ocean Park Boulevard, as I slid between the lines of a parking spot, that I heard it.<\/p>\n
I’ve had just about enough of the studio concoctions.\u00c2\u00a0 The ones made by beatmasters employing Auto-Tune.\u00c2\u00a0 What comes out is records, but there’s no humanity.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s humanity in an acoustic guitar.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s what started pouring out of the giant speakers in my car.\u00c2\u00a0 The strumming of a professional on his Martin or Gibson.\u00c2\u00a0 A hollow body emanating life.\u00c2\u00a0 And shortly thereafter, Mark Knopfler started to sing.<\/p>\n
The rock you stood upon Hey baby, who’s your baby now?\u00c2\u00a0 That girl you fuck you have no idea the inner workings of?<\/p>\n We’re told that everything new is good.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing’s been lost in the process.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, if you believe that, you probably feel that terrestrial music radio is good!<\/p>\n You’re nothing without your roots.\u00c2\u00a0 Lose them, and you end up where we are now.\u00c2\u00a0 An unfathomable music scene.\u00c2\u00a0 Where what is hyped sucks and what is ancient rules.\u00c2\u00a0 Doubt me?\u00c2\u00a0 Just check the touring grosses.<\/p>\n But it’s not really about business.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about life.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re going through the motions.\u00c2\u00a0 Is it working for you?<\/p>\n Maybe you’ve got a Mercedes.\u00c2\u00a0 A 4,000 square foot house.\u00c2\u00a0 But does your dick get hard, do you have the edge of excitement in your voice?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you feel that you’re alive?<\/p>\n That’s what the music used to provide.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why we were drawn to it.\u00c2\u00a0 Because when we listened we felt more alive than at any other time.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why we shelled out the dough.\u00c2\u00a0 For the discs and the shows.\u00c2\u00a0 We just wanted to feel that way.<\/p>\n Remember how you used to rush home to play your favorite records?\u00c2\u00a0 How you needed nobody else in the room to feel joy?\u00c2\u00a0 How you played the same track for an hour straight?<\/p>\n That’s "Who’s Your Baby Now" by Mark Knopfler.<\/p>\n It’s from his 2000 album, "Sailing To Philadelphia".<\/p>\n Maybe you know it, more power to you.<\/p>\n But where was I supposed to discover it?\u00c2\u00a0 Without a radio station to spin it in Los Angeles?<\/p>\n But now through the power of XM’s Deep Tracks, this deep cut made my day.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I hate people. Like the PR person who e-mailed to hip me to a story in the "New York Times" reflecting her ethnicity…\u00c2\u00a0 It turned out the act profiled was on her label. Like my next door neighbor.\u00c2\u00a0 Who thinks you deserve silence living in the city. Like the people who e-mail me to tell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-7H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Is broken up and gone
Hey baby, who’s your baby now<\/em><\/p>\n