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It means the human brain is, in effect, a bowl of tapioca pudding that started hallucinating so hard it invented calculus. With billions of cells and trillions of connections, trying to simultaneously control your body, keep track of time, make abstract and creative solutions to complex issues presented to it in the form of thousands of exotic forms of data, remember to fart, and making sure at least 70% of itself is turned off, the human brain can be a little weird at times.Dreams just mean that while you’re sleeping, your subconscious is only capable of creating half of a coherent narrative, and fills in the blanks with things it remembers from last Tuesday, what was on TV when you were nine, and the last three sentences of two different articles you read in your morning paper.For the record, my dream last night involved me trying to convince my dog he is too young to join the navy.

Don’t confuse sucess with genius.I’m going to do a little disclaimer first: The one thing that killed Terence Trent D’Arby’s career (at least by way of urban myth) was the backlash that came after he compared himself to The Beatles. So I don’t want to opine that I know something Paul McCartney doesn’t. Well, OK, I do know one thing he doesn’t know: the names of my kids.That established, I’ve spent my life studying and harnessing creativity. I think the basic tenor of the question is sound. And so, since I don’t want to become the Terence Trent D’Arby of Quora, I’m going to keep this more general. Subject to argument. Fill in the blanks with what you know about Paul, which may be more than I do.Creativity thrives in desperation. They say you have to suffer to be a great artist. I think that’s bullshit—but you do have to be hungry in some way. There’s a huge difference between being a Liverpool docks kid who wants to make it and a zillionaire who has homes all over the world and every material comfort catered to. Paul’s best solo album, “Band on the Run,” had all the hallmarks of that desperation. He was almost killed by Nigerian muggers, and was looking at having all shreds of his credibility vanish if he didn’t turn in an outstanding effort. He had no band, just Linda … and Denny Laine to carry his luggage. (Sorry, I still can’t figure out anything signature Laine played on any McCartney record.)Creativity thrives in community. It’s no mistake that when R.E.M. came up, so did a bunch of great artists from Athens, Ga. (B-52s, Pylon). Ditto for Seattle in the grunge era, and Chicago in the 1990s (Veruca Salt, Urge Overkill, Liz Phair, Smashing Pumpkins). For The Beatles, it was the intense competition they thrived on from other Liverpool acts, many of whom also went to to make it. And once on the international stage, they became part of the British Invasion, and had friendly rivalries with the Beach Boys and Rolling Stones. McCartney has none of that “collective tribe” energy to feed on anymore.He has no one consistent in his musical life to stand up to him. That was John’s role. Result: Iron sharpens iron. Yeah, I know, they teamed him up with Elvis Costello at one point to kick him in the ass—but Costello was way too wordy and smug a songwriter to make it work. If Paul was a “Paperback Writer,” Costello was some sort of wannabe T.S. Eliot-Dylan mashup with a fading sense of punk spark. Since then, what you get are a lot of engineers and producers and studio musicians who are afraid to piss Paul off. I have a better chance of hitting the Powerball—twice—but if I were to work in the studio with him, I’d challenge him at every appropriate turn. The last time I checked, James Paul McCartney takes a shit like everyone else. You could also quote what he said to Chris Thomas when he filled in as a producer on The White Album: “If you want to produce us, produce us. If you don’t you can fuck off.” With firm footing, the person who isn’t afraid to stand up to Paul and make him do the extra round of musical sit ups will get better results.Lost spirit of experimentation combined with generic, modern studio sound. True for all legacy artists. (See The Who’s “You’d Better You Bet” versus “I Can See For Miles.”) Think: What would a classic Motown record sound like if recorded today? Sllllllick. Clean… Dull. … Ever listen to ’50s blues versus recently recorded blues? The advantage of a 1960s studio came from its immense limitations. “Tomorrow Never Knows” was the most unusual Lennon-McCartney collaboration of all time: John’s song, but Paul made all the tape loops, fed through a handful of cassette tape machines into the mix board, with Geoff Emerick working the faders like a proto-synthesizer. George Martin stated later that the mix could never be re-created… and he meant literally. On “Sgt. Pepper,” Paul often played his bass through a Vox UL730 guitar amp. Orchestra musicians were made to wear masks with Paul trying his hand at conducting. Not sure what he’s done lately that comes close of any of that.He’s in his 70s. And I hope we can agree that it’s a hell of a lot to ask any artist to compete with the youthful version of themselves. You go from having a clean slate, nothing to lose and all the energy in the world to adoration, a hopelessly busy schedule, celebrity, riches and the vagaries of getting old. True: I did see McCartney play Wrigley Field not long ago and was exhausted just watching him grind it out for three hours. But asking him to sustain the same sort of all-nighter schedule he used to keep in the studio when he 25 would be, in all likelihood, asking too much.Now, all of that said, only a fool would count McCartney out. I found it sad listening to “Egypt Station,” as his voice is clearly starting to go. But Paul himself once said, “You keep going because you never know where that next great song is going to come from, whether you might top yourself.” Closing in on the Great Cavern Club in the Sky might bring him one step closer to desperation… a damn-it-all willingness to experiment again. Once again, as in his 20s, he will have nothing to lose. If you’ve seen him in concert, you know he still has the fire in his belly. I carry an exquisite sense of hope that someday, Paul McCartney will use it to set the studio, and the dried-up world of recorded pop music, ablaze one more time.

Recently I got a new car. My Chev died. I did not get another US branded car.The car that I got had 3 months of free Sirius satellite radio. I didn’t really feel a need for satellite radio and was going to just let it expire, but the news coming out of the US lately has been almost addictive. So I renewed the satellite radio specifically so I don’t miss out on anything that’s going on down there, like the horrible situation with separating little children from their parents.I don’t listen to music any more - just the news, to find out what new stupidity is coming from the tweeter-in-chief. Usually whenever they play a recording of some Trump making some new faux-pas, some new idiocy, some new lie, some new atrocity, I can’t help it. I almost reflexively shout at the radio, “Fuck you Trump”, “Trump’s a cunt”, or something along those lines.I don’t react nicely to threats. Trump wants to threaten my country, I’ll do what I can to fight back.Don’t get me wrong. I’ve liked almost every American I’ve gotten to know. It is (was) a wonderful country to visit.But as long as that idiot is in charge down there I will not visit the US. If I fly anywhere I will reroute so as not to have to change planes there. And whenever possible, whenever there’s another affordable option, I will not purchase American products.Trump is trying to screw Canada (along with every ally of the US). He’s telling lies about us (just like he lies about almost everything). He’s insulting us personally and insulting the intelligence of anybody who has any concept of right and wrong, fact and fiction, truth and lies. He’s an abomination, a stain on democracy and a blot on the world.The longer he remains in office the worse the reputation of the US becomes and the more difficult it will be for Americans to recover. He is destroying friendships, alliances and trade that has taken 70 years to create.The US may never recover from the harm he is doing because once the world switches to new friendships, new alliances and new trading partners it will be far harder to get those back again than it was to dissolve them in the first place.Anybody who doesn’t see this happening should get their noses out of Fox (news) & ENTERTAINMENT and listen to a real news station for a change. If you don’t trust NBC, CNN or CBS (because you’re too damned partisan) then listen to a foreign news that doesn’t have a US political bias. Try BBC, CBC, or Reuters for instance. There you can hear the truth about what the dumbass is doing to your country. He is not your saviour. He is not ‘mak(ing) America great again’. He’s screwing you over (not royally because that word implies class).“Piss on you Trump”Edited to give an example of the sort of news that’s keeping me tied to satellite radio.Edit 2: It was suggested that I spell out the ‘c’ word describing Trump instead of just leave the reader to fill in the blanks. I don’t usually use that word in public nor do I often write it in full but the one who suggested it has a point - so just because of who we’re talking about there I accepted the suggestion.