Life Without Amazon

Comedian Mark Maron has a bit on his latest HBO special where he laments how little we as consumers can do to limit the power of big companies like Amazon. In it, he imagines Jeff Bezos cruising on his $100 million yacht, tracking the number of subscribers to Amazon Prime, and saying, “Looks like we lost one.”

It can often feel as if we’re powerless, but as with so many things in life – being kind, giving to charity, supporting local political movements, disposing our toxic waste properly – it’s important to live according to one’s values. It boosts our sense of self, it provides a model for our children, and it potentially moves the needle of society in some small way.

My wife and I had been saying for over a year that we should really ditch our subscription to Amazon Prime, not because it isn’t a good deal – it is – but because we don’t really want to support powerful companies anymore if they can be avoided. After all, I cancelled my Spotify subscription last year without regret, and I wondered if life without Amazon would be equally unproblematic. There are a lot of online articles you can research about how to shop without Amazon, but I decided I wasn’t going to bother – just go in and get ‘er done.

So we pulled the plug to our Prime membership a few months ago, and you know what? So far it hasn’t been a big deal at all. I’ve had to search a little harder for some items, but I ultimately found what I needed, and sometimes at lower costs than I would have paid on Amazon.  Here are a few examples:

Audio cables: I tried Best Buy, Crutchfield and Audio Advisor, but none offered what I was looking for. But then a search led me to Sweetwater, where I’ve often purchased recording equipment. Turns out they provide some home audio accessories for the same cost as Amazon, with free shipping and quick delivery. Perfect.

Soap dispensers: we were unhappy with the ones we purchased at Target a few years back and wanted something that would last a while. We opted to go to a local retail store called Uncharted, which now has around ten stores nationwide. It’s a fun place to browse – exactly the kind of brick-and-mortar store we want to support.

Two healthcare items to help with my arthritis: this was trickier. Ultimately, I saved about $20 by not purchasing them on Amazon and instead ordering from Walmart. Now, Walmart is not exactly a local mom and pop store, but it’s still less than half the size of Amazon. Not a perfect solution, but it got the job done in a pinch. This example shows the limitations of trying to avoid behemoths.

Books: there’s been a lot of buzz about the resurgence of Barnes and Noble, which has reimagined its business philosophy and is adding dozens of physical stores. It’s funny how what was once considered the “Big, Bad Bookstore” is now considered an underdog. Still, I haven’t had a great deal of success finding what I want at Barnes and Nobel. Instead, I’ve went the used route, purchasing second-hand books through eBay, often from charitable organizations. There’s also a great local used bookstore a few miles from my house that I try from time to time. They don’t always have what I’m looking for, but sometimes they come through.

My experiment of life without Amazon has only gone on for a few months so far, but I already think it will last. If needed, I can imagine paying one month of Prime during the holiday season when we’re making a lot of purchases and sending them out of state, but I’m hoping we can even avoid this compromise. Give it a shot! We lived without Amazon before the late 90s, and we can do it again. Maybe when Bezos sees tens of thousands of people unsubscribing from Prime, he’ll start to pay attention.

Sitting, Standing and Aging

It’s come to this:

If I stand too long, I need to sit.

If I sit too long, I need to stand.

This is not the way it used to be. I remember grooving with a gang of friends at a Jimmy Buffet concert back in 1990 and getting barked at by the old fogies behind us who wanted us to sit down. Now I’m one of those old fogies, except that I because I remember youth, I never tell someone to sit down. I just deal with it and wish I was forty years younger.

Last October I attended a Major League Baseball playoff game with an expensive seat that I paid for, and from the opening notes of “The Star Bangled Banner” to the last toss to first base, the crowd stood. Similarly, when I went to a Keane concert at the Chicago Theater in 2024 with an expensive seat that I paid for, from the opening chord to the last note of the encore, the crowd stood. I said not a word at either event, but I sure had to pick my spots to take a little breather and remind my body that it just had to hang in there for a little while longer.

Why? Why do we feel compelled to stand when we can just as easily see the action with our butts on the seats we paid for? There must be something about the act of standing that feels more engaged, more intentional, but man, do I wish it wasn’t so.

At least with a paid seat you can rest from time to time, but after attending an standing-room-only concert in Chicago last fall, I think I’ve sworn off these venues for good. I spent much of the night shifting from side to side and taking stretch breaks and walks to loosen my limbs. I just can’t do it anymore.

“Maybe it’s just standing in place that’s a problem. What if you’re moving around?”

Yeah, well, that can be an issue, too. When I work at the record store, I’m fairly mobile, restocking shelves, retrieving inventory, alphabetizing and helping customers. But after just two or three hours, my back feels like it’s a corkscrew.

“Well then, sitting must surely be okay.”

Oh, if only! I played piano on Christmas Eve at a church service, and I was reminded that extended sessions at a piano bench are no better than standing. After every carol ended in a “Halleluiah” or “Fa La La,” I took an opportunity to stand and stretch.

“So you can’t stand, you can’t walk around and you can’t sit. What can you do?”

Um…honestly, complain. That’s about all I have left.

Rob Reiner

For the second time in three months, I watched a movie at home, only to discover a short time later that a main actor from the film had died. First was Robert Redford, whose film The Natural I likely watched as the actor was taking his final breaths. Then last night I rented Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, and not an hour after completing the movie received word from my daughter that Rob Reiner had been murdered, along with his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.

When I told my daughter about this eerie coincidence, she texted: “Dude stop watching movies!”

It’s terribly upsetting, and the news capped off what had already been a horrific weekend of calamities with mass shootings at Brown University and Sydney, Australia, that latter a hate-based anti-Semitic crime that resonated with my wife and me as we lit Chanukah candles last night. Such madness. So senseless. That the Reiners were murdered hours before they too might have lit their own holiday candles also hit home.

Reiner had been a Hollywood thread for my entire life, beginning with his portrayal of Michael Stivic on All in the Family, which I recall watching on TV with my family when I was 3 or 4 years old. Then came Reiner’s directorial career, with a string of successful movies that few directors have matched in all of film history: This is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, Misery, A Few Good Men, The American President. An amazing run. A few years ago he directed a great documentary on actor and writer Albert Brooks, and his year released the long-awaited sequel, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. This may not have been a masterpiece, but it was a joy to see Reiner return as filmmaker Marti DiBergi, playing straight guy to Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer.

But perhaps more than his contributions to TV and film was his joyful presence and model of sanity in an ever-increasingly angry and insane world. Like his father Carl Reiner before him, he oozed positivity, worked tirelessly in helping others, and just seemed like an all-around good guy. We could use more of those today.

Rest in peace, Rob, and rest in peace, Michele.

Backing Tracks at Live Performances

Prerecorded music at live performances isn’t a new thing: in the 1970s, Queen used a recording of the operatic middle section of “Bohemian Rhapsody” when playing live, The Who played to the sequenced synth tracks for “Baby O’Reilly” and “We Won’t Get Fooled Again” and Rush triggered recordings for the openings of “2112” and “Cygnus X-1.”  But for the most part, the rest of the shows were 100% live.

Today, live performances are often the reverse, with a good chunk of it being played to backing tracks. I’m sure we’ve all been to shows where you heard brass and keyboards, only to find that no one on stage was actually blowing a horn or playing a keyboard.

Last month I attended a concert by the female-fronted New Zealand band, The Beths, and they were terrific. All four band members know their instruments, and they sounded great. Unfortunately, they sang to prerecorded backing vocals and harmony vocals, played to backing keyboard tracks on a few songs, and added massive amounts of reverb and prerecorded ambient noise that filled the performance with a rumbling bed of sound. It was so unnecessary. It’s not like these aren’t great musicians. They could have played everything live and done a terrific show, but something compels The Beths and other bands to have their live performances sound exactly like their studio recordings.

What all this leads to is a lack of spontaneity, preventing something surprising and exciting from happening. Yes, you’ll hear a good reproduction of the music you’ve been accustomed to hearing, but what you won’t hear is a happy accident, a band that extends the jam and spontaneously starts playing a different song. You won’t get Led Zeppelin taking a song like “Dazed and Confused” and turning into a 20-minute venture that leads to…well, to who knows where? And sure, the self-indulgences associated with the 70s sometimes led to laborious performances, but they also led to amazing discoveries. I’m not a Grateful Dead guy, but from what I understand, each of their performances were unique, with songs morphing into others and outros extending into monster jams. The band might not have been my jam, but I appreciate the philosophy of keeping live performances loose and open to discovery rather than highly choreographed, each identical to the next.  

There are still bands that allow for live exploration. Khruangbin did so last month in Chicago, as did Jason Isbell and Molly Tuttle at Red Rocks last spring. Truly live music still exists, but little of it is in the more mainstream pop and rock arena, which is one reason why I’m likely going to be more selective in what I see in the future. I’d rather see a 100% live show that isn’t my favorite music than a show of a band I really dig who’s playing to backing tracks. I just don’t see the point.

So much of our human experience has degraded into something artificial. Give me something authentic, even if imperfect.

Splendid Isolation

At my twentieth high school reunion (nineteen years ago!) I spoke to an old high school classmate who was amazed at how many people I’d kept in touch with over the years, as she had lost contact with most of her old colleagues. I told her, “I tend to judge my day based on who I’ve talked to. If I don’t talk to anyone, I feel depressed.” This was a foreign concept to her; she was happy just doing her thing – in her case, athletics – and she valued her day by what she’d accomplished rather than her social interactions.

Of course it wasn’t all social interactions for me: I wrote and recorded songs, tackled significant home improvement projects, practiced various instruments, etc., but it’s true that among my circle of friends, I’ve often been known as the guy who reaches out and plans things. This has mellowed over time, but for years I was a big event organizer.

Yesterday, I hung out with an old friend who said it took him a long time to come to peace with the fact that he’s happiest when he’s on his own and able to listen to music or watch a concert DVD or play the piano. For so long he’d judged his preferences, like there was something wrong with him, but over time he’s learned to accept that he enjoys solitude and doesn’t necessarily care to associate with people on a regular basis.

His realization reminded me of a blog I wrote last year called Pursuing Happiness, in which I described how so often we judge ourselves based on what others are telling us we should enjoy.

We’re told we should see the world, but I don’t particularly like traveling overseas. We’re told to go on cruises, but I didn’t really dig my cruise experience. We’re told to see the latest ginormous concert event, but I don’t want to see a concert at a stadium at all, much less pay a small fortune to see it. We’re told to modernize our homes to match the latest trends, but I like the old, cozy feeling of my 1928 bungalow.

It can take a while to accept who we are and what our preferences are. And I’m not suggesting that our lives should be static and that we shouldn’t stretch ourselves and grow and discover, but it doesn’t have to be what society is telling us. And in most definitely can include spending a Saturday watching concert DVDs.

My buddy found a degree of validation in an old Warren Zevon song called “Splendid Isolation,” a track I hadn’t heard before, but it’s a perfect example of what Zevon was capable of: communicating the truth comedically:

I wanna live all alone in the desert
I wanna be like Georgia O'Keefe
I wanna live on the Upper East Side
And never go down in the street

Splendid isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid isolation

Michael Jackson in Disneyland
Don't have to share it with nobody else
Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand
And lead me through the world of self

Fun stuff. And look, no one is suggesting that we should live a hermit-like existence. My buddy who likes solitude is also a loving husband and father who has a full-time job that requires constant interaction with others. He’s no J.D. Salinger. And maybe these other responsibilities are what makes alone time so precious to him. Perhaps when he retires he’ll be itching for more communal time.

But whatever. He should do him. I should do me. And you should do you. Yes, I think we all have an obligation to help those around us who are in need. But beyond that, put on that Rush DVD and enjoy!