I'm an old man, but not utterly clueless.

As I hear music come out of the ceiling, I hear rap and hip-hop become monosyllabic,

a string of shouts and macho mumbles with machine-like percussion, a sort of anti-music.

And then along comes a young woman who sings actual stories in whole sentences

to a real melody, and you have Taylor Swift. And she takes over the music business and becomes

the most famous person on earth bigger than Vladimir Putin.

When Putin fills a stadium, you know it was at gunpoint.

Mr. Trump fills small plazas, but it's all the same people, mostly retirees with time on their hands

who love hearing that same speech over and over. Taylor Swift draws huge paying crowds

who are overjoyed from start to finish and also buy the merch and go home happy.

I accept the fact that I am a back issue. I'm a relic and that younger people have taken over.

Eight years ago, I played the Hollywood Bowl a few weeks ago.

I played a 200-seater in Menominee, Wisconsin.

It was fun.

People in the seats talked back to me.

We hung out in the lobby afterward.

I caught influenza from one of them.

Do Taylor's fans get to share their germs with her?

I doubt it very much.

I accept change, even some changes, that cause me pain.

I grew up reading newspapers, and now they're dying by the hundreds. And the reason

is simple. Most of them tend to be solemn, pretentious, humorless, and so people prefer social media.

...