Bill Maher can’t play arenas.

I’m not sure if you’re listening to Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast. Unfortunately Bill too often makes it about himself, when we’re mostly interested in what the guests have to say, but there are some good episodes. Like the recent one with Jerry Seinfeld. Who was aloof yet analytical, he doesn’t take himself too seriously, and when Bill was stunned that Jerry had a contrary opinion Seinfeld said he just likes to argue. I laughed at that. That’s east coast, that’s Jewish. Let’s lay all the issues out on the table and try to illuminate the situation and come to a conclusion. If everybody agrees there’s nothing learned.

So at one point in the conversation, Bill says he’s retiring from the road. BECAUSE HE CAN’T SELL ENOUGH TICKETS! Bill can’t play arenas like the big comics, he does not sell out everywhere he goes, why do it?

Now Bill has been on TV for three decades. First on Comedy Central and then on ABC four nights a week. And for the last two decades he’s been on HBO. “Real Time” is one of their flagship series, one of the only ones that has sustained.

But people don’t want to leave their houses to see Bill live.

Maybe they don’t realize he’s primarily a comedian. Then again, the same outlet that hosts his show, HBO, has aired a number of Bill’s comedy specials.

Maybe they don’t find Bill that funny. It’s subjective, but Bill thinks he’s one of the best out there, he’s said so multiple times.

But it’s not enough to bring the masses into the building. Bill plays theatres, and doesn’t always sell out.

But it’s even worse. At the end of every “Real Time,” Bill announces where he’ll be appearing next. I always thought this was a cheap shot, that fans would know to go to the show, but it turns out he needs the ad, he needs to tell people, otherwise how many people would show up at all?

Now it’s hard to reach the audience today. To let them know you’re even playing in their town.

But numerous comedians can sell out arenas. Interestingly, for most it’s not a sideline, but the main line. Sure, Chris Rock has worked in film and TV, but no one sees him as an actor. They see Chris as a comedian, and need to go to connect with him live.

This is not the way it used to be. If you were on TV at all it paid dividends. People fought to be on TV. Now it’s nearly meaningless.

Then again, this is not what the mainstream media tells us. They keep repeating the jokes from the previous evening’s late night shows. But the savviest of those on at the midnight hour know that it’s really not even about the show itself anymore, but creating viral moments. That are viewed on YouTube.

So you can appear on a late night TV show but… You’re going to reach almost no one, unless you’re featured in a moment that is clipped and goes viral, and that’s almost never the case with musicians. The shows all reach fewer than two million people nightly, that’s piss-poor in the YouTube world, and YouTube is all pull! If you’re watching, you’re probably a fan. How many people watching an act on late night TV are watching for that act? Very few.

Now in the old days, an appearance on TV translated into instant results. Sales. Of both recordings and tickets. But TV is the new terrestrial radio. Sure, it’s got the largest number of viewers/listeners in one place, but it’s far less than it used to be and the most active fans, the youth, are hardly participating at all.

But it’s easier to be on TV than to figure out how to truly reach the audience. No one knows how anymore. They keep trying the old methods to failing results.

If Bill Maher wants to work live, and it seems that he’s happy just doing his New Rules monologue at the end “Real Time,” he’d have to work more and change his act. He’d have to find a way to connect with the audience that he isn’t doing now. It would require something edgy, something that resonates, it might even require a personality transplant. Yes, Bill is talking down to you, you don’t feel like you’re in it with him, like you do with Hannah Gadsby, who is a gay woman on the autism spectrum, i.e. most people can’t identify with her on the surface, but at the core we’re all people, and she finds a way to connect.

TV is broad. Which is one reason late night talk shows have declined. We don’t want to sit through some celebrity bloviating to get to the musical act, we want the musical act immediately. And we’re certainly not going to tune in just to see an act we’re unfamiliar with.

Too many acts are playing to the Fortune 500. They’ve become brands, they’re not artists. Whereas the best comedians exist outside the law, they say the unsayable, they’re truth-sayers like musicians used to be way back when. Music is too often just entertainment, whereas standup is life itself.

We keep being hammered by the media on Taylor Swift setting records, but for the past two weeks there’s been much more spontaneous conversation in my world over the Tom Brady roast. It was live, on a wire, and you can debate ad infinitum whether lines were crossed.

Then again, the Brady roast was on Netflix, which keeps pushing the envelope.

You can tell everybody about it, they can even be aware of it, but that does not mean they’ll partake. I don’t think there’s anyone who is unaware of “Tortured Poets Department,” but did you listen to it? Were you driven to listen to it?

That’s the challenge.

How do you create work so interesting that those who were not previously interested now are.

It’s about being authentic, taking risk, not trying to hoover up every dollar, not telling us how great you are but just being great.

It’s a buzz in society, it’s bottom-up, not top-down.

Never before have so many been aware of something yet shrugged their shoulders. There are too many options. You can beat me over the head all you want, that doesn’t mean I’ll pay attention.

My attention is the most valuable thing to me. You’ve got to earn it.

And that’s very hard to do.

https://t.ly/rHlWw

This is not a book for those still at their first rodeo. But if you’re a boomer, or a Gen-X’er, and you can’t relate… Then you probably are not in touch with your inner life.

Life doesn’t work out the way you expect it to. Even if you try and jump through the ordained hoops. Never mind waking up and finding out you don’t want to jump through said hoops, that they don’t resonate with you. Life is an ongoing train of experiences. And the older you get, the more you reflect upon them, and then you ultimately realize they are set in amber, there is no next chapter.

Except when there is.

Get old enough and you’ll realize there are places you’ll never go, people you’ll never see again, that you’ll never be in contact with again. Then again, you never know when you’ll be surprised.

So there’s the one who got away. But sometimes you don’t realize they got away until long thereafter.

And they tell you to listen to your heart. But sometimes your heart is undeveloped, it only knows the short term, it is not as wise it ultimately becomes.

And then there are issues of morality and commitment.

Most people cannot commit, cannot follow through. This was driven home to me by Daniel Glass thirty years ago at the initial SBK Records convention. He said you needed a college degree to work at SBK. This confounded me, I was a college graduate, but many of the music business titans were not, why was this a requirement?

And Daniel told me it had nothing to do with what you learned, but finishing college demonstrated that you could complete things. This has stuck in my head forevermore. If you want someone for the long haul, who won’t jump off the ship when the seas are rough, a college degree is ultimately a demonstration of that character.

Kind of like the aphorism that half of the job is just showing up on time. You’d be surprised how many people cannot.

Which brings us to the ultimate commitment, marriage. Can you get divorced?

I once read a book that said the only reasons to get divorced were physical violence and drug abuse. Otherwise, the breakup would result in too many regrets.

The funny thing is it’s today’s college graduates who get married and stay married. Whereas those with less education are more prone to divorce, and have children out of wedlock.

But just because you did what you were told, is that the right thing for you? You wake up too far down the line and realize you’ve done things for others, your parents, your family, and your entire life has not resonated with you.

So there’s this tension. Between doing the right thing and not getting caught up in it to the point where you become lost and unhappy.

That’s what “Leaving” is about.

Well, much more than that. This is your one and only life. What resonates, what rewards? Work or personal relationships? Or are children primary.

And then out of the blue…

You’re surprised. Something happens that makes you question your whole life. Do you have the power to change, is change the right thing?

I’m skirting around the plot of “Leaving” because I want the experience of reading it to be fresh to you, for you to be surprised by the plot. First and foremost a book is about the story. As for the language…

That’s my only complaint with “Leaving.” It aspires to be literary fiction, and therefore there’s a bit too much description, but even worse words are employed that you absolutely will not know the meaning of. For all I know Roxana Robinson does, but I’ve got to believe she used a thesaurus. Ultimately, you just ride over the unknown terms, you get the gist, but I’m not sure who Robinson was trying to impress. Oh, that’s right, the arbiters of literary fiction, where the form often trumps the story.

But the essence of “Leaving” is the inner dialogue. That which will not leave your brain that you cannot share. We live in a society where you’re supposed to get over events instantly. Crawl from the wreckage into a brand new car. But that’s impossible, that’s denial. Personal bonds when broken leave streaks of memory and discontent, that you cannot get out of your mind no matter how hard you try. You may have moved on, be involved with someone else, but you cannot forget what happened with that previous person, questioning your behavior all the while.

Once again, if you’ve had your ups and downs, if you can look back at life and wonder, I highly recommend “Leaving.”

If you are not self-reflective…you’re just denying your feelings, and it’s not for you.

It’s now on Amazon Prime.

But it’s the kind of movie we used to go to the theatre for, when film was still the national religion, when cinema engendered analysis, conversation, before everything became two-dimensional, in-your-face entertainment made to be consumed with popcorn and then forgotten.

Movies had to play around the world, they had to be dumbed-down, if you weren’t shooting for the fences, you weren’t even in the game. Studios even stopped buying art films, never mind closed their divisions in that area down, they limited production to grand slam efforts and in the process not only ceded the visual entertainment field to streaming television, but alienated an entire swath of dedicated moviegoers. Never mind not inculcating the desire, the religion, in young fans. You need to follow the sport, know what is going on, see the players move from flick to flick, so you can be involved. You need to be respected. Funny how food has gone upscale and movies down.

So “The Holdovers” is a flawed film, because the plot is predictable. You’re waiting for a left turn, something surprising, but when it all plays out as you predicted, as you’ve seen before, you’re disappointed.

Having said that, Paul Giamatti is great as usual, however it does take too long for his character to soften. But his ultimate confessional rings true, and is satisfying.

As for Mary, played by Da’Vine Joh Randolph… She evidences a wisdom, sense of humor and a sense of reality that is the heart of the film. The overlooked, those with less upward mobility, those not reaching for the stars, are the heart of our society, and Randolph evidences this. At first you think she’s a caricature, large Black woman who is the school’s cook. Over decades we’ve been exposed to the archetype, a second-class citizen who has been put upon. But Mary is the wisest person in the film. Not only does she have a sense of humor, she’s the truth-teller, she suffers no B.S. She’s attractive, you’re drawn to her. I’m watching this film wondering when Giamatti is going to fall for her, she’s normal but so desirable.

However the star of this movie is the penumbra. The set, the look.

You want to know what it was like going to college in my era? Watch “The Holdovers.”

It’s snowy. At times bleak. And isolated. You’re there with your peers and your overlords, and that’s it. Finito. In the pre-internet era. When we were not connected 24/7, when people could be unreachable, when there was an emphasis on what was in your head as opposed to the image you presented online.

But as much as the snowy weather enticed me, placed this movie, what blew my mind, the absolute peak of connection, was the poster of W.C. Fields on the dorm room wall.

W.C. Fields was an icon in the late sixties. A little more cult than Peter Fonda in “Easy Rider,” but we quoted him all the time, after having seen each and every one of his movies, back before you could pull them up anywhere, instantly. Today there’s a tsunami of information, of entertainment options, but in the pre-internet era not only were there fewer choices, you had to make an effort to consume them. Anybody could watch the three networks and listen to Top Forty radio. But to go see the films, both mainstream and art, to dive into FM and purchase the albums and read all the information you could get your hands on…that required an effort. And when you participated, did the work, you were a member of a club and reveled in it.

W.C. Fields died in 1946, just after the first baby boomers were born. His last great film, “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break,” was released in 1941. Yet we argued what was said on his gravestone, never mind imitating his vocal style.

And I doubt any youngster today even knows who he is.

W.C. Fields was a cult item on the periphery of the mainstream. Just an inch away. Today cult items are far from the mainstream, they almost never break through to ubiquity. But back then we had these mental totems based on our experience that wove us together. That’s how you knew you had found your people, when they could quote the same movies and records as you.

And then there’s the interactions amongst the students. Put males in a group without females and this is how they act, constantly jockeying for position, bullying, ganging up against the weak sheep, making fun of them. Sure, this is prep school, but many never outgrow this behavior.

And there’s the spark of meeting someone of the opposite sex. Potential. And if they too are interested…

And there’s the kid whose father won’t let him come on vacation because he refuses to cut his hair. Amazingly, this was an issue back then. But even better, the ski trip is to Haystack, a ski area in Southern Vermont right next to Mt. Snow that ultimately went bankrupt and after lying dormant for years is now the private Hermitage Club. Skiing was hip back then, as skateboarding ultimately became. People still ski today, but it’s a mature sport. Back then it was a reasonable question to ask, “Do you ski?” And you didn’t have to be upper class to do so.

Then again, the striation of classes was less defined back then. Most people didn’t know anybody who was rich, and wealthy roles on TV were caricatures. And there were no billionaires. And you never boasted about your financial status, the bluebloods kept their wealth close to the vest.

And the wealthy went to prep school. I went to college with a class that was made up of 45% prep school graduates. They knew the ropes, the college environment was not new to them. And they told tales. How at Lawrenceville the walls in the dorm did not go all the way to the ceiling, and after dark people would throw balls from one room to another.

“The Holdovers” captures a bygone era. And if you lived in it, you’ll recognize it.

But there’s nothing like it today. We’re all connected, but less connected. Because we have options. Back then there were limits, not only technological, but you were beholden to the boss, your parents, your teachers, you chafed at the restrictions. Today kids talk back to their parents. Teachers and administrators are afraid of the students.

And I do not want to go back to this bygone era, but I haven’t seen a film that has captured it as well as “The Holdovers” in quite a while.

It’s hard to sustain this mood, this look and feel, throughout a series. This is where film triumphs, in setting a mood and a story upon it. But that power has been abdicated. However Alex Payne is still working in that milieu.

Once again, you’ll ultimately be disappointed by the predictability of the plot. But the rest of the movie, the look, the feel, the mood? A+!

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