1

Sean went from West Hollywood to Malibu for twelve bucks.

I’m on the cusp of being able to drive my own car. The doctor said I’ll be done healing in two weeks, and then the strengthening begins. This has been quite an ordeal. I’m used to surgeries where you start off the worst and then gradually get better. Here, you heal and then… I’m going to physical therapy, we had a breakthrough on Monday, she can lift my arm back a hundred and twenty degrees. But there’s still pain.

So when I can’t get Felice’s car, I’m Ubering.

Now relative to the cost of this ordeal, this operation, any Uber rides I take are de minimis. That’s what they don’t tell you about the health care system, that even if you have insurance it’s expensive. I’ve got a two thousand dollar deductible, I’ve met that…but you get bills from doctors you didn’t even know existed, who helped out in the operating room, inserting the bovine patch, I got a bill for that too and…

All’s to say I guess I shouldn’t worry about the price of Uber.

But I do.

And when Sean told me he uses Uber Pool and not only is it cheap but there’s usually no one else along for the ride…

I decided to take the plunge. Especially now that I don’t have to wear my sling, now that I’m less uptight about sharing the back seat with another person.

Yesterday I rode from Sherman Oaks to Beverly Hills for $6.59.

Even better, I rode back in TRAFFIC, on the freeway, for five bucks.

And there was no one else along.

But today I couldn’t get a pickup. The app kept requesting and twice drivers accepted and then rejected. So, if you’re in a hurry, maybe Uber Pool isn’t the best option. Or maybe, it’s just that you can’t count on it for a pickup.

And like everything else in life, the price will go up.

But right now, it’s a bargain.

2

On the way back from lunch with Craig Kallman, who regaled me with stories of Atlantic breakthroughs, most notably Melanie Martinez, who sold 500,000 copies of her album despite getting no airplay, I got into the Civic of an Indian man and the windows were down, the radio was blasting and the seat was pushed back. Should I say something?

He’s gonna pay in gas if the A/C is on. And he’s been driving all day long, is he really gonna want to listen to me call my mom?

But my mother wasn’t there, so I got this guy’s story.

His wife died of cancer. Three years ago. He was working in the clothing business, but now he’s staying home, he’s looking after his seventeen year old daughter.

Now it’s amazing what people will tell you. He worked for a company and then opened his own. He was grossing 500k and netting 200k. Pretty good money! All his expenses were deductible, mostly going to trade shows and renting booths and paying or hotels. And the billing? Thirty days! Oftentimes people just gave him their credit card and he sat on the number for a month. Had he ever been beaten? A couple of times, but that’s the cost of doing business.

I never did ask him to roll up the windows. I had enough legroom. He turned down the radio when we began to talk. Driving was like the early sixties, when no one had A/C and we’d roll along with the wind in our hair, cooling off, not cocooned but feeling nature. It was a refreshing twist.

3

Today’s driver was from Honduras. He used to work in quality control, but the company was sold and he lost his job and now he’s driving Uber…this was his third day!

And his car was tiny, a Chevy Aveo. I was worried about getting squashed like a bug on the freeway. But Roberto was oh-so-nice.

You see he had bladder cancer. And went to the U.S. for treatment. He was cured, but it cost him a fortune to bring the rest of his family here.

And now, he’s starting a church. He’s been a pastor for ten years.

He wanted to know if I was a Christian.

Oh no, here we go.

I decided to tell him I was Jewish. And he lit up! HE was a quarter Jewish! On his mother’s side. They’d come from Spain to Honduras, he’d done the genealogy, his church had advised it, and when he saw his relatives printed out he cried.

And there began an intertwining of religion and personal traumas.

He peed blood. His wife prayed for him. He believed the cancer had come back, after all, it had once spread throughout his body. But his doctor, a saint, Carmen somebody or other, told him he was cancer free, that it was just an infection, it was a miracle!

But he was supposed to be dead anyway.

You see he’d been in Ecuador on a sales trip, before he moved to the States, and he’d gotten sick and missed his flight and the plane had crashed. Everybody died, I could look it up.

4

And now I was getting wary. After my appointment in Brentwood I didn’t know if Uber Pool would pick me up.

But I got a ride right away.

At least that’s what the app said.

And I’m tracking the car, and it’s a block away, and then it turns away.

Okay. This is why they call it “Pool,” he’s going to pick someone else up. And it was a he, I could see in the app.

And I’m thinking Uber Pool is for people with a lot of time, who favored money over everything else, I figured I was done.

But the car never stopped. It kept twisting and turning down the roads as if in a video game. What was happening?

And then I saw the Civic a block away, with its lights flashing. Obviously it was stopping to pick up someone at the restaurant. I didn’t have to get home right away, but I’m not that cheap, this is ridiculous.

But finally the car pulled up to me.

And there was no one in it.

You see I was traveling with Mister Magoo. A septuagenarian in a ball cap who could barely see over the console.

And he spoke like Gilbert Gottfried when he imitates Groucho Marx. You’ve heard that on Howard, right?

And I’m wondering whether to give him directions or let him go his own way. You see drivers are addicted to Waze, but sometimes the app adds unneeded complication. Meanwhile, re Waze, how come my app doesn’t allow me to eliminate hazardous intersections and everybody else’s does? There’s a choice under “Navigation” in their apps that I don’t see. So when I get to Sunset without a light I don’t have to make a left. The amazing thing about the technology economy is there are no answers, no one to ask for help. You Google and you Google and sometimes…you come up with nothing, no explanation at all.

I decide to let Victor go his own way. And find out he’s been driving for Uber for three years. You see, he needs the money. He retired, but now he’s got grandchildren, and it’s so much harder to make it today, costs are through the roof and you can’t depend on the company and…

Tell me about it.

He’s from Ecuador. Emigrated to the U.S. and then enlisted in the armed forces. Wait a minute, at that age, did he go to Vietnam?

Indeed he did. Was over there for a year. Worked in the medical tent.

But I couldn’t get much more out of him, the degree to which he was affected by the experience. But I did learn he goes back to Ecuador every three years, although so many have moved on. His sister to Venezuela and then to Spain. His friend to Argentina. You go where the money is, everybody’s trying to get along.

Let Me Love You – Spotify

Let Me Love You – YouTube

Maybe this is the song of the summer.

They said EDM was dead, but it’s bigger than ever, it’s taken over the Top Forty, this is a stone cold SMASH!

Prognosticators pointed to the Major Lazer cut, “Cold Water,” and that satisfies but it’s missing that je ne sais quoi, that something extra that puts a track over the top. “Let Me Love You” has it. It’s a one listen get.

We thought Diplo was the genius, but after this we’ve got to re-evaluate, maybe it’s DJ Snake.

I was lamenting the days of coherence, when we were addicted to the radio, when we waited endlessly for our favorites to come on and experienced three minutes of bliss before we began to go through withdrawal, our only savior the track itself, which we waited once again to hear, which we went out and bought, so we could repeat it endlessly until we burned out on it, transferred our loyalty to a new hit.

It was not supposed to be this way.

The popsters bolstered by the Max Martin/Dr. Luke hit machine were supposed to rule, those tracks fronted by women who could appeal to the little girls who sustain careers today, can you say “Taylor Swift”?

But the biggest cut on Spotify last year was the Diplo/DJ Snake concoction “Lean On,” three minutes of sheer magic, something that got you lockin’ and poppin’ instantly, there hasn’t been a song that caused your body to move so fast and rhythmically since the “Twist.”

Well, not sure I’d take that to the bank, it’s just that I’m not a dancer, but every time I heard “Lean On” I couldn’t help but boogie, hiking the Backbone Trail, sitting in front of the computer.

“Let Me Love You” is different. It’s late night, after midnight, whereas “Lean On” was for when the drugs kicked in, it took the party into high gear.

And “Let Me Love You” is not quite as special as the hits from Justin Bieber’s solo record, but DJ Snake said that was the best project of the past year. I learned that via Genius, which is now integrated into Spotify, who knew? I was riding the recumbent bike and I read not only the lyrics, but the whole backstory on the track, it was a mini-Wikipedia page, right there in the app, which was especially good since Wikipedia had BUPKES!

What is that SOUND! The one that resembles a double bass poured through a flanger? That’s the difference between today’s music and the old stuff, it’s all about the sounds, they’re the hooks. And the songs are packed with them.

Oh, we had great sounds in the past. But now they’re all electronic, they all live in the box, and despite being inhuman they enrapture us nonetheless.

And then when Justin Bieber begins to sing…

We used to believe
We were burnin’ on the edge of somethin’ beautiful

We’re all optimistic at heart, we’re all hopeful, we want love, even the guys in all black who believe punk rules… Ever see them with their babies kitted out in Ramones t-shirts?

But it’s the pre-chorus that puts the track over the top.

Say, go through the darkest of days
Heaven’s a heartbreak away
Never let you go, never let me down
Oh, it’s been a hell of a ride
Driving the edge of a knife
Never let you go, never let me down

It’s like you’re driving up PCH and you just downshifted, dropped gears, you can feel the torque.

Don’t you give up, nah-nah-nah
I won’t give up, nah-nah-nah
Let me love you
Let me love you

What a message in these turbulent times, where we’re afraid one candidate will take us on a left turn into oblivion and the other just promises more of the same and terrorists run free… Music is supposed to help us escape, it’s supposed to provide an alternative universe, one in which we’re understood and smile.

That’s right, “Let Me Love You” cocoons you. That’s its magic.

It’s not a novelty track like “Call Me Maybe.” Not a wink of the eye scatological number hearkening back to what once was like “Blurred Lines.” Rather, “Let Me Love You” is positively modern, it’s brand new. And this is what we’re truly looking for. The media follows the horse race, it wants something flashy it can promote, that’s what the song of the summer has become.

But just like every August there’s a sleeper flick that takes over the public consciousness…

Now there’s a track that has snuck up on us as the days are getting shorter and the air is getting cooler that works not only in the summer but the fall, at home and in the club.

Oh, what a strange world we live in. Where a French DJ dominates and a supposedly over the hill adolescent pop star has a second act even better than the first.

I love it!

I’m reading Philip Roth.

I didn’t plan to, I’m not that big a fan. I found “American Pastoral” to be tedious. But I read the reviews of the filmed version of “Indignation” and I became intrigued. I’m a sucker for boy meets goy at small college in the fifties stories, especially when the protagonist is flummoxed and misunderstood.

But “Indignation” was only playing at the Landmark and the screening times were never right and I decided what the hell, I’ll read the book first.

I haven’t read that much Roth. But I loved “Goodbye Columbus.” How can a seminal film be so marginalized? It was Ali MacGraw’s debut. she’s remembered for the execrable “Love Story,” but playing Brenda Patimkin, that’s been forgotten.

But the novella was even better.

Even better than “Indignation.”

But “Indignation” blew my mind.

It started with the blow job.

You’re reading along, to the words of a septuagenarian. You expect dignity. This is not Jennifer Egan testing the limits of noveldom, this is an old hand proceeding forthrightly.

And then Marcus gets an unforeseen blow job and just can’t handle it.

What do they say, you never want your dreams to come true?

Anybody that interested in him, he wants nothing to do with.

So he ignores her and she ignores him and he becomes further infatuated, he can’t do his school work, all he wants to do is see her again, but she refrains.

He sends her letters…

Do you know the torture of being a red-blooded American male? Neither the techno-nerd nor the movie star? The movie star can get laid whenever he wants. The nerd holds his own, until his wealth allows him to penetrate a member of the opposite sex, sometimes the same sex, and be seen all over the media as triumphant. While the rest of us, in the middle…live in our heads.

Oh, if you could see inside. Into the men who never share, because it connotes weakness. You’d see the over-inflation, the feeling that Jennifer Aniston is just an ask away. And the incredible denigration, the belief that we’re not attractive to anyone and we’ll never get laid again.

So we plot. And we write. And we fantasize. And we think. And when someone deigns to actually like us, for us, we can’t believe it. After all, we don’t even like OURSELVES!

And then comes the famous eighteen minute scene. That’s what the reviews have focused on, one extended interaction between student and dean.

Do you fit in?

Maybe you do. But not me. Not only have I often felt to be the outsider, I’ve chafed at the system, I can recite countless times I got in trouble with the authorities.

Like the time I put my feet on the desk in law school. The professor challenged me, believing I was a sleeping doofus who had not done the reading. But when I asked him a question he couldn’t answer he kicked me out of class, told me to never come back.

But that was in L.A.

In Middlebury, Vermont… I was way out of my element. I went to a melting pot high school with plenty of Jews. I ended up at a college where 45% of the students went to prep school and they all thought studying was the highest calling of a student. Give me a break. What about skiing and music? No, got to go to the library.

I’m lucky I escaped. Sometime I’ll tell you the story.

But in “Indignation” the dean criticizes Marcus’s personality. Says there must be something wrong with him because he keeps changing rooms.

Has this ever happened to you? Where your whole being has been brought into question? How you live your life is seen as false, and you must change? They can break you these people, you’re the only one on your own team. And if you screw up and get kicked out what are you gonna tell your parents? Yes, even back then, when college was comparatively cheap, our parents slaved to pay for it. And they didn’t care what grades you got, as long as you stayed in.

In this case Marcus didn’t stay in. Because ultimately he told the dean…FUCK YOU!

Have you done this?

I have.

I don’t anymore. You lose. You have to learn how to play the game. Took me fifty years to realize that. My father never played the game, he taught us to do what was right, not to jump off the bridge just because everybody else did.

And “Indignation” closes with the remark that…

“…and thus have postponed learning what his uneducated father had been trying so hard to teach him all along: of the terrible, incomprehensible way one’s most banal, incidental, even comical choices, achieve the most disproportionate result.”

It’s true. Be yourself all the time, don’t calculate, swing for the fences.

And you’ll find yourself outside the stadium wondering who stole your glove.

Life is about not making mistakes. Ignore the words of the techies, all the hogwash about failure. The truth is America is a game and either you’ve got to stand outside it, which is almost impossible to do, or you’ve got to play it, by its rules. Permanent record indeed. What you’ve done in the past will come back to haunt you.

And I highly recommend “Indignation.” It’s short, not always easy to follow, but you’ll get there.

And I’ve yet to see the movie, it’s so hard to get out of the house, show up at the appointed time and slow down. Yes, even if I make it to the film I might be too antsy, thinking about business, about life, it’s not the seventies anymore, we’ve got the world at our fingertips, with our mobile devices, and it’s so hard to relax.

But I did start another Philip Roth book, “Sabbath’s Theater,” it’s much harder going.

I triangulated, I researched. Although hated as well as loved, people I trusted said this was the best of his late period work.

And Mickey Sabbath is a puppeteer in a bad marriage who can’t stop shtupping and fantasizing about his mistress, who is imperfect but exudes raw sexuality.

Those models, those famous people… They’re two-dimensional, they’re not really who guys have a hard-on for.

Guys go for the chubby ones. The voluptuous ones. The ones who can tie them in a knot, not the ones who haven’t eaten since last Tuesday. Can’t be thin enough? Then chances are you’re not getting laid enough.

Drenka is the wrong side of normal weight. And she’s got a very flat nose. But her curves, Mickey is obsessed.

And neither she nor he likes to screw their spouse.

Extramarital activity… It offends my sense of morality. But the truth is we only live once, and Mickey is over sixty and soon his functionality will decline and…

WHY NOT?

That’s not the school I come from. I come from the school of suffering, of duty. I bitch about the rules but I obey them. Totally messed up, I know, that’s why I go to the shrink. You’d think a rule-breaker like me would fit perfectly into our entrepreneurial society. But no, I want to win in the old world even though I am not fit.

And I’m trying to plow through “Sabbath’s Theater.” I have a pact with my Kindle, if I buy it, I finish it. But the book is hard going, despite the occasional titillation.

And then I read something so poignant, so right on, that I literally slapped my forehead with my palm, I saw myself in the book, my life became clear.

Sabbath and his goyishe wife are arguing, they’re on the verge of breaking up, after decades, and when Mickey’s wife tells him to stop shouting…

“‘Shouting is IRRATIONAL!’ she cried despairingly. ‘You cannot think straight if you’re shouting! Nor can I!'”

“‘Wrong! It’s only when I’m shouting that I BEGIN to think straight! It’s my rationality that makes me shout! Shouting is how a Jew THINKS THINGS THROUGH!'”

Whew!

Have you seen “Hannah and Her Sisters,” where Woody Allen falls in love with the beautiful goy Barbara Hershey (who in real life is Barbara Herzstein and JEWISH, talk about a mindbender…) There’s a dinner scene therein where everybody’s talking over each other.

That’s a Jewish family.

And many Jewish men go for shiksas because they want to avoid that, they want someone to listen to THEM, they want to escape from the craziness, they don’t want an authoritative balabusta to terrorize them.

But these non-Jewish women…

They’re terrorized by us.

Not a single girlfriend, and they’ve all been non-Jews, at least the long term ones, has not accused me of of shouting.

My father shouted. I never thought twice about it.

Now I’ve learned to be calm. But I feel like I’ve adjusted my personality, like the dean wanted Marcus to do. It’s not me.

But then I read this Philip Roth book and he gets it exactly right. The truth is when I am shouting I’M MY BEST SELF! The finest thinker. I don’t shout and stutter, I’m clear as a bell, I’m an orator on the dais, I’m laying it all out in an orderly fashion.

But the shiksas are horrified.

I’m trying to figure it all out.

Indignation

The first person I saw was Arianna Huffington.

On the east coast it’s the Hamptons.

On the west it’s Malibu.

And if you haven’t been to either, you’ve got no idea it’s even further over the top than you think it is, if you think of it at all.

Where I grew up, in Southern Connecticut, there was a ferry to Long Island. I never took it. The Hamptons were only a hop, skip and a jump away, but this is when you yearned to go to the Cape, Cod that is. The hoi polloi went to Hyannis. Yes, where the Kennedys were. I remember going there as a child and then right before I started college, just after I’d purchased the Moody Blues’ “A Question Of Balance.” In reality, this was the turning point, from credible to repetitive, but I didn’t know that yet, I hadn’t fully immersed myself in the LP, which was packed up back in CT, there were no iPods, never mind Walkmen. And I would have liked the record to keep me company, because it rained three and a half of the four days.

But it never rains in Southern California. Certainly not during the summer. Sure, happens every once in a while, but your odds of experiencing it are only slightly better than finding Bigfoot.

Now it used to be that Nobu was in a shopping center. A mess of buildings near the city center. But then it moved to the beach.

But the ocean is not the star.

Right next to the restaurant is a structure that’s been unable to find its way. It recently became a Soho House. Wanna know how someone’s a poseur? They go there. They don’t have their own house at the beach, they think the trappings make them fabulous. But the reason I mention the Soho House at all is now you can’t get into the parking lot. I’m stunned some techie hasn’t disrupted valet parking, the college-aged workers shuffling the Lamborghinis and the Porsches were completely flummoxed, we waited nearly half an hour to get out, and it wasn’t only us, Jeffrey Katzenberg had to wait quite a while for his Tesla.

So the first thing you encounter is the hangers-on. Impossibly thin women, not far beyond puberty, hanging with their scruffy boyfriends. That’s right, the more the women put on their look, the more casual the boys become. Then again, do these women really want to trade up? At Nobu, you go to be seen, your goal is to worm yourself inside. That’s L.A. In New York you cobble together a resume and work your prep school connections to get ahead. In L.A. you spice up your image, practice your line of b.s., and then go on duty.

But you can’t get close to the movers and shakers. Some of whom come with their bodyguards.

We had the best table in the restaurant, even better than Larry Ellison’s, and he owns the place. You see my dinner compatriot had done the manager a few favors, that’s how it works, even still in the music business.

But we were not household names.

Arianna and Larry were at the same table. Two away. And then I realized their dinner companion was David Mamet, he had his back to us, but I recognized his glasses and his square frame. And…I wanted to be there, to get in on that conversation.

I hate Arianna, she’s a tireless self-promoter. And I used to love Mamet, before he skewed to the right politically. Have you seen “House Of Games”? That’s enough to hang a career on. As for Larry? He earned it. That’s right, he started Oracle, hard to argue with that.

But I was becoming deflated.

Now it’s Nobu. Used to be Ma Maison. There have always been places you could see the stars, if not quite rub elbows with them. Which is a thrill if you grew up in the suburbs. The closest I ever came to a star back home is when I saw Bette Davis autographing books in Klein’s on the Westport strip. Nobody I grew up with was famous, and when I first moved to L.A. I’d go up and say hi. Now I know that’s a no-no and I never do.

But when you first get here you have dreams.

Forty years later I was confronted with the fact I’d never be an insider, I’d never get to the right table, I’d never hang with the famous names. Sure, I’ve met a bunch of musicians, but they no longer rule. And to tell you the truth, I always get uptight in the aftermath. They e-mail and they phone, exactly what am I supposed to say to them? It’s like the door has opened but I’m paralyzed, I can’t walk through, I don’t have the skill, to just be one of the guys, to be fabulous and use each other to get ahead, to bask in each other’s glory, I’m still just…nobody from nowhere, a gulf between me and them and wide as the Grand Canyon.

But then Justin Timberlake sat down next to us. With his bride Jessica Biel and the aforementioned Katzenberg and his wife. They could not have been closer, but they were still so far away.

I remember seeing JT when he was still in ‘N Sync. Now he’s a power player. How did he do this? What’s in his DNA, how did he become so comfortable in his own skin?

Michael Milken shuffled by to a seat close to the water but not so desirable. Sam Zell wasn’t quite in Siberia, but he didn’t have an A-table. Taylor Hawkins was behind us, but…I don’t think anybody recognized him.

Not that there were many looky-loos. If you were out on the patio on a Saturday night you were already someone, maybe just not enough of a someone. As for those inside and at the bar…the ones looking for their chance, never mind those on the deck outside, they couldn’t get close. Hell, as we waited for our cars a guy came up to Timberlake and started talking like they were best friends and Justin looked over his shoulder to his bodyguard and…

You don’t want to be this famous, you really don’t. With the paparazzi flashing their cameras at you as you get into your car. Yes, that happened, stardom is an eco-system.

As Arianna, Ellison and Mamet got up to leave I realized it was Rebecca Pidgeon whose back I’d been looking at, David’s wife, she was walking right by me and…

She’s Jasper’s cousin. I could have reached out and made the connection.

But I didn’t. She was in a bubble. Sashaying and smiling and…

I was so close yet so far away.

And Felice wondered why they even came.

To see and be seen.

Used to be different in NYC. The rich stayed separate. Now, despite flying private they like to take their victory laps, they like to strut amongst those less fortunate, to illustrate their power, to survey their domain and their place in it.

And if you live in L.A. or New York you know this.

If you don’t…

You’ve got no idea what’s going on.

Take some Trump and Bernie voters to Nobu on a Saturday night and there’d be spontaneous revolution. If the less than fortunate ever got to see how the other half lives… Not those housewives playacting at being wealthy on national television, but the truly rich movers and shakers… They wouldn’t be able to process it.

I’d like to tell you the food was bad.

That everybody looked worse in person.

That they were all jerks.

But the edibles were stupendous.

And everybody looked like their picture.

And when JT got up to say hi to the newly-arrived Jamie Foxx you told yourself…I wanna get me some of that.

But it kept being reinforced that I was too old, that I’d missed my chance.

P.S. Yes, you can put them down. Criticize their career path. State that you’re just as happy and they’ve got nothing over you. But they do. Celebrities rule. And put a recognizable face together with money and you influence the government, you tilt the playing field. And America is all about the dream, almost all of these people are self-made. So, when you’re confronted with the truth you wonder…what happened to me, how come I didn’t make it?