{"id":772,"date":"2007-04-24T12:01:20","date_gmt":"2007-04-24T20:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2007\/04\/24\/the-pretender\/"},"modified":"2007-04-24T12:01:20","modified_gmt":"2007-04-24T20:01:20","slug":"the-pretender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2007\/04\/24\/the-pretender\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pretender"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender<\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t start early.\u00c2\u00a0 Nighttime is too exciting.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s when the phone and e-mail quiet down and the world is my own.\u00c2\u00a0 Obligations are history and I get to choose my course.\u00c2\u00a0 Winding down is almost impossible.\u00c2\u00a0 Do I want to surf the Web, read the newspapers or flip through the hundreds of channels?\u00c2\u00a0 The lack of interruption allows me to mellow out and marinate in my selected activity.\u00c2\u00a0 Pompous assholes say my late night lifestyle leaves me out of the loop, a day behind, but really, I’m a day ahead.\u00c2\u00a0 The "New York Times" goes live at 9 P.M.\u00c2\u00a0 As does the "Wall Street Journal".\u00c2\u00a0 And I can read the L.A. "Times" online at midnight.\u00c2\u00a0 While you’re sleeping, I’m getting a jump on you.\u00c2\u00a0 But the end result is I miss the sunrise, the early morning hours.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, the morning scares me, the hustle and bustle, but today I had to get up to go UCLA Medical Center for a kidney scan.<\/p>\n

The light is different in the morning.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s full of promise.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not fading, but getting brighter, the sun is ascending.\u00c2\u00a0 It gives one hope.\u00c2\u00a0 And as I pulled out of my garage, I heard "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald".<\/p>\n

I’m beginning to believe Sirius sounds better than XM.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s rich in a way that the D.C. service is not.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s bottom, the music breathes.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe that’s why "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" sounded so good.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, everything sounded good on my way to Westwood.<\/p>\n

After entering the Peter Morton building, I was surprised to experience efficiency.\u00c2\u00a0 I was out in twenty minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 And flipping through the Sirius stations as I ascended the ramp I heard James Taylor’s "That’s Why I’m Here".\u00c2\u00a0 Which I don’t think I’ve ever heard on the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 But then came "The Pretender".<\/p>\n

I didn’t want to go to law school.\u00c2\u00a0 But I went for two reasons, my father paid and I was in a bad spot, I needed a change in my life.<\/p>\n

Richard Nixon said the only thing you need to get through law school is a lead butt.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d like to tell you the law is an intellectual pursuit.\u00c2\u00a0 That the cases you read are masterpieces of literature.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, it seems minor minds rule, hashing out the differences.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, a few intellectuals are peppered in.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’re looking to be stimulated, don’t go to law school.<\/p>\n

But contrary to common wisdom, law school wasn’t tough.\u00c2\u00a0 My college education was much more difficult.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, there was the drudgery of the reading, but I was dedicated to something else, music.<\/p>\n

The highlight of my law school experience was driving downtown every day listening to the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 And I remember that first fall of ’76, hearing Hall & Oates’ "Rich Girl", hearing Jackson Browne’s "The Pretender".<\/p>\n

I’m going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I’m going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day<\/em><\/p>\n

L.A.’s an ugly place.\u00c2\u00a0 Without irrigation, it would be a desert.\u00c2\u00a0 And in the harsh sunlight of the morning, you can see its dry dreariness.\u00c2\u00a0 I tend to ignore it.\u00c2\u00a0 By staying home, by leaving town so much.\u00c2\u00a0 But what if you’re stuck here?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s depressing.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sitting on the 405 on-ramp, you’re always stuck in traffic in L.A., thinking how bad it would be to be a happy idiot, getting up each day to drive to a job more about money than fulfillment.<\/p>\n

I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening
I’ve been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it’s the wink of an eye
And when the morning light comes streaming in
You’ll get up and do it again
Amen<\/em><\/p>\n

Sunday was my birthday.\u00c2\u00a0 Thank you.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s weird to get to an age where you want to put on the brakes.\u00c2\u00a0 For so long you’re looking to get older, so you can drive, and drink.\u00c2\u00a0 So you can shave.\u00c2\u00a0 But then your hair starts to fall out, suddenly you’re sliding down instead of climbing up.\u00c2\u00a0 And finally you reach a point where you realize this is your life.\u00c2\u00a0 That all your choices, whether conscious or not, added up to this.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, you can still do a minor amount of steering, but big changes aren’t possible.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re not going to become a doctor.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re not going to be an ingenue.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re just going to be you.<\/p>\n

Everything your parents said is now true.\u00c2\u00a0 That it goes so fast.\u00c2\u00a0 And that education matters.\u00c2\u00a0 And that you can get sidetracked spending time with losers.\u00c2\u00a0 But none of that counts.\u00c2\u00a0 All that counts is love.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you getting any?\u00c2\u00a0 Not sex, but intimacy, companionship?\u00c2\u00a0 And, if not, what are your choices?\u00c2\u00a0 Jettisoning the one you’re with?\u00c2\u00a0 Psychotherapy?\u00c2\u00a0 Crying?<\/p>\n

Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender<\/em><\/p>\n

On the east coast, one pooh-poohed money, even though it was so important.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas in California, the students said they wanted to become lawyers to get rich.\u00c2\u00a0 What is rich?\u00c2\u00a0 Is it money?\u00c2\u00a0 Is it possessions?\u00c2\u00a0 Or is it something inside?<\/p>\n

Now we’ve got Intel inside.\u00c2\u00a0 People go to school to study business.\u00c2\u00a0 We revere hedge funders.\u00c2\u00a0 And our stars rail on how fucking good they have it.\u00c2\u00a0 The bigger questions, they’re not even asked.\u00c2\u00a0 But they were up front and center once.\u00c2\u00a0 In society and music.\u00c2\u00a0 The reason musicians could change the world, could raise money for political candidates and causes, is because their fans believed in them.\u00c2\u00a0 Come on, can you believe in John Mayer?\u00c2\u00a0 And he’s considered one of the good ones!<\/p>\n

Time marches on, but people remain the same.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing really changes.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether you light candles or flick on the fluorescent bulb.\u00c2\u00a0 Inside, you’re still human.\u00c2\u00a0 But how much of your thought process, your natural curiosity, lays dormant, is squeezed out by the community.<\/p>\n

Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy<\/em><\/p>\n

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where corporations are seen as friends.\u00c2\u00a0 The same entities that pollute our air, that headquarter themselves offshore to avoid paying taxes.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they’ve got money to sprinkle over the arts.\u00c2\u00a0 But if we take it, we’re complicit in the conceit.\u00c2\u00a0 That everything can be bought and sold, that personal integrity never enters the equation.\u00c2\u00a0 What did your father tell you?\u00c2\u00a0 Stand for something, or you don’t stand for anything at all?\u00c2\u00a0 What are you standing for?\u00c2\u00a0 Money?\u00c2\u00a0 You want to work at CAA?\u00c2\u00a0 Or be a fat cat at\u00c2\u00a0 the major label?\u00c2\u00a0 At least Google has a mission, to make all the world’s information available at the population’s fingertips.\u00c2\u00a0 What is the mission of MTV, or Live Nation?\u00c2\u00a0 They’re the same corporations we decried back in the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 It is any wonder it’s these same people who say taking the corporate money is a good thing, that it doesn’t hurt your career?\u00c2\u00a0 Music used to be an agent for change.\u00c2\u00a0 Now it’s just the carcass divided by businessmen for profit.<\/p>\n

Say a prayer for the Pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender<\/em><\/p>\n

Get old enough and you lose faith in institutions, in people, you can only believe in yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not only business, but government.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean really, what is Dick Cheney thinking?<\/p>\n

Are you thinking?\u00c2\u00a0 What are your values?\u00c2\u00a0 What do you stand for?\u00c2\u00a0 Can you be sold to the highest bidder?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you ever say no?<\/p>\n

These are the important questions.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got nothing to do with cash.<\/p>\n

I passed the bar exam.\u00c2\u00a0 Even practiced law for a few minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 But it wasn’t for me.\u00c2\u00a0 It was never for me.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t relate to those people.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be, I could relate to you.\u00c2\u00a0 But that was before you stopped being a fan and became interested in getting paid, a lot.\u00c2\u00a0 Before you believed that your riches and power made you as important as the act.<\/p>\n

When did we stop believing?\u00c2\u00a0 Could be in that fall of ’76.\u00c2\u00a0 Could be that "The Pretender" was the last hurrah.\u00c2\u00a0 After that it was all corporate rock and disco.\u00c2\u00a0 And then we were all happy idiots in front of the tube, watching performers in spandex dancing for dollars.<\/p>\n

Are you pretending?\u00c2\u00a0 Do your choices really make you happy?\u00c2\u00a0 All that money, all that groveling to get ahead, has it worked for you?\u00c2\u00a0 When you hear "The Pretender", do you think of yourself?<\/p>\n

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I’m going to be a happy idiotAnd struggle for the legal tender I don’t start early.\u00c2\u00a0 Nighttime is too exciting.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s when the phone and e-mail quiet down and the world is my own.\u00c2\u00a0 Obligations are history and I get to choose my course.\u00c2\u00a0 Winding down is almost impossible.\u00c2\u00a0 Do I want to surf the […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-cs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","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=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}