Here is the final program of 2021, which is taped in mid-December. It was Frank Radice’s final performance in New York before returning to London. It was lovely to say our goodbyes to the year, although we did not shout them as loudly as we did in 2020. It was pleasant to feel good about the Zoom-connected friendships we cultivated, and it was nice to appreciate the ease of working from anywhere while remaining productive. The pulse of technology and its impact on so many of the issues we face — politics, streaming, and the media industry. and continues to be apparent. It is possible that crypto will catch on, but I would not bet on it.
The midterm elections are approaching, and social media platforms are becoming topsy-turvy with live audio, but I wouldn’t bet on the kinds of figures that will turn Wall Street on just soon, if at all. Newsletters increasingly resembling publishers and publishers are launching new businesses to combat the trend, but it will require skill, not venture capital, to make it stick.
We have not witnessed such a shift in the stars that define the nightly skies since Bill Gates and the Google twins ruled the world. Dorsey, who started Twitter as a side project, and Andreessen, who accelerated thinking from oneX to at least twoX, is now skating ahead of the curve, more aligned than the media would like. Television has been supplanted by a combination of computer, mobile, and small-screen films that will outlast the 1950s machine cinema behemoths.
The Beatles are now the old guard, dealing with everything from growing up to becoming parents to divorce and rebirth. The more footage we resurrect, the more we realize what an extraordinary brave procedure they embarked on in order to open the doors to our perception. Only they were too large to fail, so they did, and even then, we will see how far teamwork can take us. As James Taylor put it, Frank Radice, Michael Markman, Keith Teare, Denis Pombriant, Brent Leary, and Steve Gillmor are members of the Gillmor Gang. On Friday, December 10, 2021, a live recording made.
