Month: March 2019

Joe Jackson Not Going Out in a Blaze of Glory

/ Len Gutman / 2 Comments

And they say it’s a tragic story
He just wasn’t there one day
But he went out in a blaze of glory
And you and I, you and I just fade away

Blaze of Glory by Joe Jackson (1989 Sony Records)
Joe Jackson, circa 1979

It’s hard to witness your heroes fading away. Heroes seem larger than life. Unbreakable. Immortal. But the truth is, they are not immortal — like everyone else they are human and age takes its toll on all of us.

Joe Jackson understood this, as his 1989 song Blaze of Glory articulated. There is a certain mythology that comes with dying young (just ask James Dean or Jimi Hendrix) and old Western films served to ingrain this archetype in the zeitgeist.

I set out on the evening of March 9, 2019 to see my musical hero, who when I think of I still envision as that angry early 80s punk in the pointy shoes. But the truth is, Joe Jackson is 64 years old and from what I could see he isn’t a young 64. Yes, he’s touring the world and making new music at that ripe old age and that’s a hell of a lot more than I could do at 53 let alone 64. But the biggest takeaway I had from the gig was that Joe Jackson is getting old and it’s too late to die young in a blaze of glory. He has already begun to fade away.

This is not to say he didn’t put on a tremendous show at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Phoenix that night. On the contrary, at times he was downright manic, firing off fast pace lyrics and slamming the piano keys on early-career songs like One More Time, Sunday Papers, and especially I’m the Man. But during those same songs he forgot lyrics and repeated the same line more than once instead of singing the correct line. And of course, he stayed seated behind the piano for the entire show, never venturing out to engage the crowd of mostly Baby Boomers and older Gen X fans. Sitting behind the piano is fine for ballads, but you kind of want to see some movement during the fast songs.

You’re probably thinking…Len…give the guy a break…he’s 64. And you’d be right. And I loved the show. But the overwhelming feeling I came away with on this, the fifth time I’ve seen Joe Jackson in concert, was that this may be the last time I see him perform live. And that makes me sad. And nostalgic. And feeling a bit old myself. I didn’t have that feeling when I saw him last just a few years ago in Scottsdale. There was something different about the Joe Jackson I saw on the stage on this night and it was bittersweet.

Joe Jackson, circa 2019

Joe looked all of his 64 years. A lifetime of smoking his beloved cigarettes have taken a toll on his skin and truthfully he looks like he’s maybe had a little work done. That said, his piano skills are still world class and he can still belt out a song, including some with fast-paced lyrics that require at times a scream and at times a falsetto. You can certainly see his inner punk is fighting hard to stay relevant.

So about the music. Joe delivered on his “Four Decades Tour” a magnificent journey across more than 40 years worth of great music. He deftly sprinkled in songs from his new record, Fool, in between classics from the 80s, 90s, and 00s. The set had something for everyone, and while it’s impossible to fit in everyone’s favorites, he knew which hits the fans would respond to most. The aforementioned early songs were met with cheers and standing ovations. During the encore he brought out his original old drum machine from the early 80s and recreated Steppin’ Out just as it sounded back in 1982.

He picked a handful of favorites from the 90s and 00s like Stranger Than Fiction from the underrated Laughter & Lust record, and Citizen Sane and Wasted Time from the Rain album.

Then there were the tracks from his new record Fool. I have been listening to Fool over and over since its release a few weeks back and it is a real throwback to his earlier days. I mean, 40 years on and he can still write amazing songs that would have been well received had they been on Laughter & Lust (1991), Blaze of Glory (1989), or Big World (1986). It’s a beautifully crafted album with ballads and sarcastic anthems and an edge that has been missing on the past few albums.

He opened the show with the luxurious ballad Alchemy, about turning junk into gold.

Thrill, to secrets never told
Taste, the bitter turned to sweet
See, the dross turned into gold
Hear, a B sharp turned to C

Alchemy by Joe Jackson (earMusic 2019)

It set a soft mood but in classic Joe fashion he launched directly into One More Time and Is She Really Going Out With Him? as if to remind us he has not gotten soft. He did Big Black Cloud and Fabulously Absolute from the new record, two songs I really love (the latter he performed on the Tonight Show a few weeks back). Again, he gave us just enough new and old to keep us wanting more.

I will give him credit for delivering a pretty long set. He played for about 90 minutes with no opening act and I came away fulfilled with his song selection. It’s never easy to please a longtime fan like me with deep cut favorites, but he did play a few of mine (including my all-time favorite Joe song Real Men) so it’s hard to argue with that.

I hope I’m wrong and Joe was just experiencing some “senior moments” on stage. But given how long he’s been smoking (he’s a fierce advocate for smoker’s rights) I have to admit when he forget a huge chunk of one song I thought maybe he was having a stroke (that’s a byproduct of working for the American Heart Association).

I should also mention that Joe put together a bang-up band for this album and tour, with the remarkable Graham Maby on bass (he’s been at his side for 40 years), Teddy Kumpel (Rickie Lee Jones, Feist, Janet Jackson, Tower of Power) on lead guitar and the powerhouse Doug Yowell (Suzanne Vega, Duncan Sheik, Judy Collins) on drums.

Overall, it was a great night for nostalgia and Joe Jackson is, and always will be, my favorite musical artist. Not too many musicians have put together a more eclectic and musically gifted discography over a 40-plus year career. And while for the vast majority of music fans he’ll likely be associated as an 80s one-hit wonder for Steppin’ Out, for those of us who knew him before then and followed him after Night & Day we have been treated to a lifetime of a musical genius.

Setlist

  • Alchemy
  • One More Time
  • Is She Really Going Out With Him
  • Another World
  • Big Black Cloud
  • Fabulously Absolute
  • Real Men
  • Stranger Than Fiction
  • Drowning
  • Cancer
  • Citizen Sane
  • Wasted Time
  • Fool
  • Sunday Papers
  • King of the World (Steely Dan cover)
  • You Can’t Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)
  • Ode To Joy
  • I’m the Man
  • Steppin’ Out
  • Got the Time
  • Alchemy (reprise)

Book Review — Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

/ Len Gutman / 1 Comment

The story of Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes is nothing short of infuriating, in part because she led a corporate deception that will go down as one of the worst cases of fraud and mismanagement in history, but also because for me, as a former Theranos client, the story was personal and I feel used and duped.

Holmes represents so much of what’s wrong with the world today. As a child, when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, her answer was “a billionaire.” She reached that goal at a very young age, in large part because of her own hubris but also because her story was as much a product of what we wanted to hear as it was based on reality. Holmes was held up as a visionary, a genius, even the next Steve Jobs, long before she accomplished anything other than creating fake value for an idea that wasn’t real. What’s more American than that?

John Carreyrou’s book about the rise and fall of Theranos reads like a thriller, one that shows how at nearly every turn Holmes and her close advisors chose to do the wrong thing in order to keep the company propped up on a bed of deceit. What’s worse, she did this with literal lives at stake, as the results of her not ready for prime time blood test claims led directly to misinformed patients with real health issues. It’s criminal, and I hope she goes to jail for it (her trial on wire fraud and other fraud begins soon).

The rise of Theranos coincided with my own health issues, issues that required me to get regular blood work to test my cholesterol, blood sugars, and other heart-related measurements. It was and continues to be, inconvenient to go to standard labs like Labcorp and Sonora Quest. Back in the early 2010s, you had to arrive early at these labs and wait with others, sometimes for an hour or more, before having coffee, to get your blood drawn. So it seemed too good to be true that one could simply show up at a nearby Walgreens and get your blood drawn quickly, with just a finger prick, and have results delivered to a mobile phone app in less than 24 hours. With no appointment and no doctor’s order needed.

I started using Theranos as soon as the tests became available in Phoenix, one of the test markets for the Theranos/Walgreens partnership. I was impressed by the initial appointments, and the app, and was thrilled that I could select my own tests without waiting for a doctor’s order. I also bought into the growing myth of Holmes, reading stories about her and seeing her delight the media on news show after news show. I believed she was a visionary, and while I wasn’t one to compare her to Jobs, I did fall for the story that she was changing an industry that needed to be changed and that she was certainly intelligent, and charming (if not a bit odd). I loved that she was the “first female self-made Silicon Valley billionaire.” I mean, she hung out with the Obamas and Chelsea Clinton!

Carreyrou’s book is a devastating investigation of how Holmes built Theranos with no regard for the truth and with no empathy for the people whose lives she was manipulating. She turned out to be a con artist. Perhaps not at first, but certainly soon after she dropped out of Stanford to build Theranos and realized how far her image and charm could take her. She duped a lot of people much smarter than me. From former Secretary of State George Schultz to Henry Kissinger to Mad Dog Mattis, to Rupert Murdoch. You gotta get up pretty early in the morning to con a con artist like Murdoch.

I don’t feel the need to go into every subterfuge she committed, for that, I suggest you read the book or watch the upcoming HBO documentary by Alex Gibney that debuts this month or watch next year’s Hollywood blockbuster starring Jennifer Lawrence as Holmes. It’s a great story that will have you riveted, whichever vehicle you choose to consume. But I do feel the need to comment on how the Theranos story was aided at every turn by a mass media intent on delivering stories with no fact checking. America loves a Horatio Alger rags to riches story and even better if it’s delivered in the package of a not unattractive young blonde woman.

It’s upsetting that Fortune and Forbes and CNN and all the other outlets (even the Wall Street Journal while at the same time its intrepid reporter Carreyrou was uncovering a giant hoax) neglected to do their due diligence on Holmes before propping her up as the next Gates or Jobs.

I’m not suggesting they should have known the full scope of her crimes, but at least get some unbiased background before putting her on such a pedestal. Asking George Schultz about her was not enough — yes he’s reputable but he was on her board. Of course he’s going to sing her praises. Hell, he threw his own grandson under the bus for her as we learn in the book.

Here’s a woman with no scientific background, a Stanford dropout, spinning a yarn so unbelievable that it would embarrass Mark Twain. Looking back, the signs were everywhere that she was a fraud. Many people with lab experience said what she was claiming to have done (test for hundreds of markers with a tiny pinprick of blood) was scientifically impossible. There were also plenty of fired former Theranos employees who knew she was a fraud, and while she threatened them to keep quiet, it wasn’t impossible to find whistleblowers as Carreyrou found out.

It’s infuriating that the media helped build her up or that the culture of Silicon Valley created her myth without much more than insider word of mouth. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” we learned from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). This aphorism is truer today than ever. We don’t want the facts — we want the myth. That’s how Trump got elected. How climate change became a two-sided issue. How dot coms became more valuable than GE and Ford. How Elizabeth Holmes became worth $4.5 billion.

Carreyrou’s book made me mad. But more than that, it made me even more jaded than I already am, which is really saying something.