157 Comments

I am a musician and bandleader for a community choir, secular, not auditioned, inclusive, all ages. Our concerts are growing and growing, we're getting more and more requests to perform live in all kinds of places and at Civic events. I think part of the reason that live music is going to survive and thrive is that sense of community coming together that we desperately need as humans. We are not just a bunch of individuals; we were collective groups sharing resources, sharing thoughts, synced to each other through our nervous systems and our brain waves. Singing together with people in a choir is an unbelievably powerful and healing experience, but sitting in an audience and allowing that to wash over you is absolutely incredible. So is any live music that is emotional and honest and powerful and original and true. Thank you, Ted, for giving me some hope again when gigs for solo musicians are few and far between. I'm so grateful I do what I do, and I'm so grateful that I stumbled across this interesting and happy little place on the web.

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Here in Canada a big problem is the dwindling number of small and medium-sized venues. Live Nation controlling so many venues doesn’t help either. Even academics are noticing:

https://hive.utsc.utoronto.ca/public/sociology/Reimagining%20Music%20Venues_Final%20Report.pdf

New bands and musicians who don’t seek superstar status have a hard time finding a place to play.

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I think that for smaller venues in expensive cities, a membership model might be necessary. People are willing to pay big bucks for famous acts, but for the lesser known artists, it’s hard to build a following without streaming. If you made it about the live music experience, and had people paying for 10 performances a year or something, people might be more eager to check out new or smaller acts. I’ve seen this happen with social spaces in LA - coffee shops and bookstores are closing down but people are signing up for members social clubs and spaces. It doesn’t have to be so elitist when it comes to music venues; it’s the idea of more consistent revenues that seem to be essential to the business of running these places.

Come to think of it, the problem of star writers is an issue with Substack as well. Is there a way for lesser known writers to form a collective “storefront” like the indie magazines of yore?

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I think this is possible even in smaller less expensive cities. But live music has always, in part, been subsidized by drinking and eating. Bars and coffee houses that have free music get business and the band can still get paid or pass around the hat.

As for what you say about big name writers on substack, I agree. I think the problem with having subscriptions to multiple people is you end up paying a lot for articles from just a few different voices. Whereas with the journals and indie magazines of yore you paid for it and got a bunch of different voices and viewpoints and ideas in each issue.

I think analog will exact its revenge in this area as well. Zines and the like still have a following and people still will pay for get printed matter. But they end up being microcultures.

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This is true in UK too. Anecdotally I hear that venues also take a hefty percentage on merch sales - but of course this is not reciprocated for bar sales.

Kind of interesting to see how things have changed over the years. Artists used to tour to sell records, they’d go to small venues and tickets would be cheap. Now the music is practically given away to sell gig tickets.

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That's true in the US too.

From my perspective, it's another facet of the housing problem - real estate (commercial and residential) has been hoovered up by greedy investors seeking to maximize rents, regardless of how it degrades the quality of life in the neighborhood or town.

In New England, walk around any quaint little town center - the music and movie venues are disappearing or gone, sometimes the restaurants are, too. (I see you, Lexington, MA!) They've been replaced by more and more Bank of Americas and CitiBanks, more real estate agents, more CVSs. Just what we need.

I do see private venues and the use of churches popping up locally. It's that or depending on big donors for non-profit arts and performing centers. It's not enough.

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Ted, do you think that gig opportunities in smaller venues are growing? I don't. While large arena/high price concerts may be surging, small venue/low price gigs are shrinking, and perhaps in inverse proportion: it might be the case that someone who pays 1K for a Taylor Swift concert ticket will attend 100 times fewer gigs asking a 10 dollar entrance fee.

Fewer and fewer restaurants hire bands, and small live clubs do not seem to be a growing market sector. And I know from many musicians that payment in real dollars has been nearly stagnant for decades ... or diminishing. These may be the salad days for putatively top tier talent, but not great at all for the majority of working musicians.

I don't dispute there is a live music resurgence, but you could be far more precise about which category of musicians are riding the wave, and which are getting drowned.

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In the UK its such a mix you can hear the same musicians one day in a packed out small venue, or venue a packed huge one and the next in an almost empty small venue. I think its a marketing issue. Also I a lot of small venues never opened after Covid.

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Yeah Covid was a major gig killer and I don’t see much of a bounce back. In NYC, spiraling rent is another challenge.

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I lived in Rutherford, NJ for 4 years, taking the bus under the water. AND NOBODY told me how they pay $3000 a month rent in NYC and precisely HOW MUCH NYC gigs paid. If rent is roughly 25%, one would need $3000 a week gigging money. That's 6 nights @$500 a pop. Somehow I doubt it.......

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Yes, the rent is too damn high, same problem here

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I'm not sure that shrinking of live music is such a bad thing. Room needs to be made for the powerful pieces which have been created in the last 30 years, by unknown composers. We've been burying our talented people in 3 and 4 piece bands where the imagination is stifled by limited melodic instruments, the need to maintain the physical ability to play the pieces night in and out. This is a great cost. In the beginning to 1900 this was the only game, what was done live was all there was. Now we can have deep talent and 100 instruments. Once played, the parts don't have to be maintained, work can be done on newer works. New amazing sound fields and combinations never heard before are at hand. This is a great world we've arrived at.

No need to stay stuck in the past.

Forget about the money, the upper limits of possibility are just plain amazing.

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I play in the street (sidewalk, actually). That's as real as it gets, but the evil credit card companies have replaced cash, so I need a tech solution to that.

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I think there's room for both. I fully agree that the current gamut of technologies and digital distribution strategies provide unprecedented opportunities for realizing and presenting new music to the public at next to no cost (and in most cases zero revenue as well). And I consider that a good thing, but only tangentially related to or circumscribed by live performance. I hope for a future where both avenues flourish. Right now, I observe one doing so, while the other languishes.

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You sound like Ek. "Next to no cost." REALLY? OK:

tenor sax: $10,000 (I paid it)

music school (today; I didn't pay it): $250,000

recording studio etc: $35,000 (minimum)

get it on radio: $5,000

get it HEARD on Spotify: $hundreds per month, recurring

I'll stop there....

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That’s one option. There are far less expensive ones available that didn’t exist a decade ago. Shelling out 35k for a studio to get an acceptable recording seems excessive. I question the effectiveness of radio promotion: I recently released a record that made it into the top 50 of “roots music” Jazz list and have sold next to nothing. Fortunately, the label paid for that. And I think it unreasonable to factor in your tuition feee and instrument cost as part of your project expenses.

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My tuition was quite low; this was in the 1970s. I am a lawyer, and lawyers factor in their educational costs. Why should music be any different? Sorry you think "going rates" are excessive. You can promote how you see fit; I am merely quoting going rates and best practices. You said "here are far less expensive ones available that didn’t exist a decade ago." To what are you referring?

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I agree with you!

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Ted asked Ms. Swift to save the music industry by building a Spotify alternative, but radio silence so far. Your "inverse" point hits the mark - the consumer dollar is being eaten in whole by Ms. Swift. She has her billion; time for her to give back.

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reparations

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Congress might pass the "Taylor Swift Tax." She has made one billion and as Ted says, sucked all the air out of the room; no money left for us. She does NOT need one billion (who does???), so it's FAR past time for her to give back and if not voluntarily, then by force (tax her).

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Hi, Mr. Gioia, you’re not wrong about live music. I had a great time at a concert last night (I saw a great Irish band called Inhaler plus a great opening band called benches). It was such a great experience that I bought some merch (stickers for my guitar case) and went and streamed the artists that I had just seen. Concerts rule!

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And incidentally, I’m under 30, and so were the members of Inhaler, benches, and most of the audience.

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(But Inhaler's singer is U2 Bono's son, easier for them, I guess)

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Live music is the real thing. And why wouldn’t people pay more for the real thing? Three weeks ago I went with a couple of friends to hear Samantha Fish (American blues rock guitarist) and her band at Birmingham UK Town Hall (seats 1100 people and was just about sold out). There’s the planning and anticipation, pre-gig meal, engagement with the performance and post-gig analysis. Tickets were about $45. Streaming is no comparison. I did discover Miss Fish on YouTube, though.

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Even in small venues where you pay very little, or venues the price of a Pizza you can hear some fantastic acts and its so different to a recorded version.

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Samantha is great, and one of the hardest working musicians in the industry.

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And she’s an accomplished guitarist. Part way through a high energy, two hour set she soloed a Charley Patton song on acoustic. Superb performance. Lovely touch on the instrument.

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I will disagree with those who think that listening to music online is the same as listening to music live with friends and an audience who enjoy that music.

Live Music, in reality is a shared experience. A well-built Setlist takes the crowd on a journey, and the band or performers, seeing the crowd joining them on that journey and feeling their response makes the performance that was given on that evening unique. Years later performers will talk about this crowd or that crowd having influenced what happened on that evening and how the band came together.

This is not unlike eating a delicious food. The food is part of a meal, and the meal part of our day, but a communal dining experience with exceptional food goes beyond anything the food being consumer alone can deliver, imo.

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Sorry, dog jumped on me and my half worded reply posted before it was ready. Lets try this again…

My wife and I travel all over the US for live music. Sometimes, we walk away after having experienced something that we will remember the rest of our lives. Brandi Carlile singing to her wife 20 feet in front of us with her daughters watching at her inaugural Mothership Festival, that will be something we instantly smile and feel warmth inside when it comes up. Online music gives us the song and nothing more. The performers emotion means alot to us. And yet - I was in Soldiers Field at 19 years old with 70,000 enjoying Lynyrd Skynyrd, REO Speedwagon, Journey etc at and all day concert and now I’d much rather be at my “Music With Mike” show, watching a guy who drove five hours each way to play for us and do a rendition of Jamey Johnson’s great song “In Color” for folks who had never heard it, and seeing a dozen people moved to tears. My wife and I will warmly smile years later about that as well. And thats a concert we created. We found the performer, we found the venue and we invited the crowd. I saw folks weeks later who stopped and thanked me for putting on that show. So I guess my suggestion would be, if you know the traditional live music venues no longer suit you, try house concerts, try Listening Rooms and see if more intimate live music venues dont give you that extra something-something that goes beyond the music.

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yes listening to music online is almost like looking at people eat food online - good comparison 👍

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That is a well known experience for many, yes. However there are also very many people for whom that live connected experience is a detractor, that a live audience is too distracting for them, and that the quality of the music is by necessity usually somewhat less. It’s like being at a party with strangers listening to inferior versions of songs you already love. Neither my wife or I enjoy music live nearly to the extent that we feel we are “supposed to“. I guess I stand here for the people for whom your claim is not the case

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This is a great interview and Bonnie says what I was trying to say better than I ever could. I love live music because I never know if I might see greatness that night.

https://youtu.be/l0vaGNKPeOI?si=AaK34Hptd-nDnu1z

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I understand your point. And certainly for many, the thrill of going to a packed stadium concert is gYou are not going to the ri

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I guess I’m hitting upon something here that I hadn’t really thought before. I stand for the hordes of music lovers for whom attending live music performance isn’t really part of it - by choice. For this cohort of people the very act of being in the room with the musicians and the audience LESSENS the experience of the music. All the people, the logistics, the venue, everything that is wrapped around the live music experience is enough to make it not worth it as far as enjoying the music is concerned.

My wife and I adore Radiohead and have for 30 years. Yet we finally saw them live and left early. We felt we “had to” to truly experience their music. But for a huge population, that’s simply not the case.

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The Live Nation bubble will burst at some point some point. Bands are having to reschedule and downsize the venues because fans are starting to reject the dynamic ticket pricing and over priced tickets in general.

If more artists, who can afford to, would just listen to Robert Smith’s view on this topic everyone would be better off.

We didn’t allow dynamic pricing because it’s a scam that would disappear if every artist said, ‘I don’t want that,'” Smith told the Times. “But most artists hide behind management. ‘Oh, we didn’t know,’ they say. They all know. If they say they do not, they’re either fucking stupid or lying.”

“I was shocked by how much profit is made. I thought, ‘We don’t need to make all this money.’ My fights with the label have all been about how we can price things lower,” Smith explained. “The only reason you’d charge more for a gig is if you were worried that it was the last time you would be able to sell a T-shirt. But if you had the self-belief that you’re still going to be here in a year’s time, you’d want the show to be great so people come back. You don’t want to charge as much as the market will let you.”

He added: “If people save on the tickets, they buy beer or merch. There is goodwill, they will come back next time. It is a self-fulfilling good vibe and I don’t understand why more people don’t do it.”

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Gigging musician here in southern Cal. Business has been good since the COVID downturn. What we can realistically charge has not adjusted to inflation at all. We all walk away with $100-200 per gig, like we did in 1980, so it really can’t be more than a hobby for most, barely paying for gas sometimes. The pay off is the fun and the audience enjoyment. Great hobby that lets you help a room full of people forget their troubles for an hour or two.

I will say that when I go to see really good touring bands and talk with them, it is really tough out there right now. Great bands playing for 70 people at a local venue, fewer than my cover bands play for. Tours canceled halfway because they can’t move enough tix. And these are really excellent bands you could hear on Spotify or YT right now.

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we've been joking about the 30th anniversary of the 100$ gig now for at least the past 5 or more years... i'm on vancouver island where there are less gigs to be had too..

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I think much of this is on target. While established touring acts can leverage economies of scale and make “generational money,” the grind to make it to as a touring act that can make a livable wage (generously speaking, the 1000+ size clubs/theatres)really takes its toll on some talented, deserving performers, whose passion (literal meaning: suffering) will not be enough to sustain their art.

That said, I hope Ted’s vision comes to fruition.

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Oct 16·edited Oct 16

I think the entire system is in a bubble that is about to pop. It's already starting to happen in the festival scene in the western states like California, where several significant festival companies just failed. Ted is correct that concerts are currently "profitable", but this is a surprisingly unobservant statement. Who profits? The entire concert business is dominated by a powerful set of middleman companies that force the venues to cooperate with them for ticket sales. Shows that once cost you $25-45 a ticket at various venues a few scant years ago suddenly have doubled and tripled in price OR MORE because of the "convenience fees" these rent-seeking middlemen charge. I can't afford most concerts any more. A single ticket to see Dream Theater in Seattle's Moore Theater is over $100 for a nosebleed seat. Several years ago, I was able to buy great seats in the same venue for $35 plus minor fees directly from the Moore Theater ticket office for multiple different acts. Not any longer! The same is true for Al DiMeola's three-night engagement at the Dimitriou's Jazz Alley in ...November? Since I last saw Al there ~3 years ago, ticket prices have tripled. What distinguishes all of this? Those venues started using ticket-reselling middlemen.

This business model has percolated all the way down to local venues which usually don't even have their own ticket offices any more.

I realize my evidence is anecdotal, but I strongly suspect that my experience is the norm. Let's not forget the now-exorbitant ancillary costs of transport and parking, food and drink... merch, which bands depend on to wring ANY income from their work. Last month I was able to buy a $35 ticket to see Tycho at Seattle's Showbox Sodo ($52 after fees!) and the cost for my experience totaled over $120 factoring a few non-alcoholic beers and a hot dog from an outside street vendor. The artists are definitely not seeing the money from those inflated ticket prices! Really, I'm surprised that Ted doesn't understand this. He doesn't even mention it! This is what I've seen in my tiny amount of field research. Why do you think Taylor Swift concert tickets are so prohibitively expensive? It's obviously TicketMaster! I don't think the concert music space is infinitely elastic in terms of what people will pay to see live music. Ted apparently does.

Sorry man, I would put money on a wager about this. The concert business is getting strangled by monopolistic middlemen. Mark my words.

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I doubt you are wrong. Our local bluegrass and old timey music club meets this weekend. I don’t play, but I sure can listen. It does my heart good.

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I've been to 73 live music events so far in 2024. I agree that live music will continue to grow, because it's qualitatively different than streaming.

Those who think the future is streaming are missing that musical experience isn't only about sound: it's the physical venue, the communication between performer and audience, the people you're with and might meet on site, the ritual.

By way of economic analogy, consider food. Remember when organic food was a niche product? Then people started to realize it tasted better, was more healthful, better for the ecosystem, etc. than the supposedly more modern processed food. Now, organic is a huge industry.

As Michael Pollan famously said, processed food came about when science differentiated "food" from "nutrients." And despite its advantages of convenience and long shelf life, it's completely unsatisfying for a lot of people.

The same is true for streaming music. It separates the sound from the venue and social connection, and the felt vibrations aren't the same. I don't think I'm alone in feeling this. There's nothing quite like being at a jazz open mic in NYC when musicians drop in and make unexpected musical connections. Live music is also has an ecosystem, and the audience is part of it.

Streaming music has its place, but it isn't a satisfying substitute for live music.

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You’re a man after the heart of John Phillip Sousa: he mostly refused to record his band on records because he felt that destroyed the musical experience. And he should know after his band becoming the first coast -to-coast touring celebrities, as well as performing for the largest crowds ever in America to date at Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair. With music as well as theatre, a full blood and sweat audience is everything.

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That's interesting. I didn't know that! Thanks for sharing.

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I’ve made my living, consciously choosing tge career of Live Musician for 22+ years, not part of the recording industry. Humanity in the now is infinitely more rewarding than humanity at any other point in the space-time continuum.

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I would love for this to be true, but I'm baffled by the contraindications at least here in California. Just yesterday I read this article with a sadness in my heart:

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/california-music-festival-bubble-bursting-19786530.php

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I read this piece and I think it's the first sign of the bubble popping.

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I think one area that musicians want to play live and have nowhere to play our overlooking is that there are businesses who spend small fortunes on advertising to reach a relatively few amount of people. I have a hearing aid business. I do no advertising at all except for sponsoring a monthly night of music at the upscale Retirement neighborhood where I am most likely to reach my audience. I pay musicians $500 for a 90 min set performing on a Monday evening from 6-9 which is unlikely to conflict with any offers to perform that they might get. We draw 50-100 residents and both the performers and residents love “MUSIC WITH MIKE” Its a labor of love for us, giving performers one additional possible place to perform and reach new fans. One residents father is the talent booker for all the Margaritaville locations and so performers get some exposure as our resident passes along videos when the Music With Mike performer is someone he thinks his son may potentially use.

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Pretty much no one I know playing creative music makes money touring. Bandleaders spend their own money much of the time and hope to break even. So...sure there's plenty of music but the dea that any real profit is generated by most artists in jazz is quite questionable.

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here in canada unless you get a canada council tour grant to pay for it all - you ain't making any money touring..

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Oct 16·edited Oct 17

Hmm... Maybe if your name is "Taylor Swift" (and you get away with charging 5x or 6x the going rate because you're the "anti-Miley" and your tweenie fans' mommies feel good about being fleeced in this fashion, but consider one Barry Manilow. I played pickup basketball at the gym with his long-time tour manager about 15 years ago, and he said the only profit was in merch, due to the high costs of touring. On a more niche level, Paul Winter's merch table lady said that only the tote bags sold well. At a local level for a yeoman cat like myself, I carry the door and must pay out of my pocket if there's no profitable till. Add to that the long list of cats waiting to get in the door (the defunct 55 Bar [yeah, Mike Stern...] had a skeleton doll who was "still waiting for a gig"). Smalls in NYC? $100 bucks, maybe once every 3 months if you're lucky; rent is $3000 a month there unless you want to live with multiple heads. I blame Jazz college and quote Phil Woods: "too much education, not enough Jazz." He bemoaned 13,000 grads per year in 1977 as oversupply; 10x worse now that there's a Jazz college on every corner since older cats like myself like to eat. Here is the REALITY - and you proved it yourself: "this supports that." Self-benefactor. Just like the Classical cats who went to law or med school. Like you, I have a profitable non-music career (law). It costs money to be a musician these days! I just spent $$$ on my first Grammy campaign. If all goes well and I get a nom, maybe I can get some touring gigs that I'm currently shut out of since even though Dizzy said I "play my ass off" (and I'm much better now), I'm unknown with no laurels. That *might* even overcome the current youth / sex bias against us 66 year olds. I will say this about Spotify, etc. for proletariats: it costs money, but it's great exposure (and you know what exposure can do to you...). I will also say that, according to an unnamed constantly working and touring drummer, sideman wages are down and not keeping up with inflation. The stars take the loot.

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so true what you say.. i'm 68 and have been slogging in the trenches for a long time.. you summed it up well.. thanks..

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I think Ted's view on the subject is a bit Panglossian.

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