Me On CNNi

I can’t look at myself on screen and maybe you’ll find it painful too! I swear the hair I’ve got left has gone gray since the surgery and…when did I get so old?

It’ll happen to you, isn’t that what our parents said?

So I don’t believe in self-promotion and if you want to skip this clip it’s fine with me.

But this is me. And people are clamoring to see it, so I’m sending it.

P.S. When you see me reach my right arm behind myself at the beginning of the clip…I’m adjusting the volume, there’s a speaker in my left ear.

P.P.S. And you’ll notice I’m not moving my left arm. That’s right, the doctor says not to let my elbow leave my side.

From: Adam Lewis
Re: CNN

Great job. Love that I am waking up in the Ukraine and am seeing you!

Come a long way from the Xerox mailers.

Best,
A

You’ve got to understand, I’ve been locked inside the house for months, staring at the four walls, there are only so many books you can read and so many movies you can see. Your mood starts to sink and you lose touch with reality and…

They called me to be on CNNi tonight.

Actually, that’s wrong, no one calls anymore, they e-mailed.

And twice in the ensuing recovery I’ve had to say no, after all, I was in a sling. But tonight… At 10:45? To discuss the Ed Sheeran/Marvin Gaye lawsuit?

Why not?

They send a car. Which is important, because driving is an issue.

And the woman had picked me up before. And she’s a bit of a terror on the road. That’s one thing about professional drivers, they want to get you there on time, their gig depends upon it. She asked me who’d set the pickup time, CNNi or me. I said CNNi, so if we were late, which we wouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be on her.

We got there early.

Security is heavy. There are two sets of doors and you can’t break through either without a button being pressed. And when you’re inside… Everything at a TV station is focused on what’s on camera, the rest is pretty basic, everywhere I’ve ever been on. Hell, the desk is on a platform and there’s little else, even on “Weekend Update” on SNL!

So I went to makeup, you always want makeup, otherwise your head is gonna shine, baby boomers all remember Nixon in the Kennedy debates…

So…

You learn to be nice to everybody. And when you are, they’re nice back, and they tell amazing stories.

The makeup person is married to a nurse. And although off at midnight, she’s got to be back at 7:30! And she lives in Long Beach! And she’s got a sleeve tattoo. Her dad had a problem with it but it’s a generational thing, I know that, so I’m not gonna judge.

And then there was a young woman photocopying. I don’t know what got the conversation going but it turns out she goes to USC and she’s an intern. She’s studying journalism. And she turned out to be Jewish. She told me her father was the executive director of the Temple in Atlanta. I had no idea, but then we started to bond. She said she didn’t go to summer camp, a rarity amongst Jews, but she was a member of the youth group, of NFTY, and all these memories came flooding back, I just wrote about that the other day!

And then it was time.

Now the anchors are pros. They walk the line from relaxed to professional, off camera to on, so seamlessly. They make you feel comfortable, they tee it up…

And you go off.

You’ve got to be knowledgeable, but you’ve also got to be good entertainment.

And when we were done they wanted to continue to talk to me, said I was fascinating, and for a boy who’s been locked up inside for months that was music to my ears.

So I was jazzed, got my makeup removed, and got into the limo and got the above e-mail, from the Ukraine, was my driver Ukrainian?

I thought maybe, she was blond, had a heavy accent, so I asked her.

She was Iranian. She got out in 2002. She was only one when the Shah was deposed. Her father was Greek, so the Greek government aided their leaving, they got into Germany as refugees. And then through a religious program, since she was baptized, she got passage to the USA, to Tucson.

SHE DIDN’T SPEAK A WORD OF ENGLISH!

She stayed with a member of the church for a week. Then they got her an apartment and a gig watching children and she enrolled in college.

HOW DID YOU DO THIS, YOU DIDN’T SPEAK ENGLISH!

She shrugged her shoulders and said she picks up languages easily, she learned the game in Germany, the tricks.

And needless to say, after a year or so in Tucson, having switched to a job as a caregiver, she wanted out.

So she went to Houston.

HOW? WITH WHAT MONEY?

The church was long gone, financially anyway. She’d saved. And, oh yeah, a congregant had given her an old Dodge, so she had wheels.

But Houston was disappointing so she moved back to Tucson.

And then she decided to decamp to Los Angeles. She had an aunt there, but she didn’t contact her.

And she had a baby…

Whoa, how did this happen?

From Germany, another Iranian refugee, they were in love, he came over.

And I’m thinking she’s living on the bottom, just driving to make ends meet, but then she tells me…SHE OWNS THE COMPANY!

I figured she’d left college in the dust, a long time ago. But no, she got a business degree from CSUN. Working as a caregiver along the way. And she decided to start her own business with her own car to get ahead. And she took ads everywhere, she gained traction by pricing her services low, after all, she owned the car, and it was a recession, and after a year and a half, it worked!

Now she’s got four cars and multiple drivers and the CNN account…

And the trigger was software, she invested $2500 in software that linked everything, that gave so much information, and then her business burgeoned. Others said she was nuts, but she wanted it.

And now…

Was she a citizen?

Yes.

Who was she gonna vote for?

Well, at first it was Trump, now she’s not so sure. It’s the first time she can vote and…

Trump is a businessman.

And my head is spinning. These are the immigrants Trump’s people want to keep down? These industrious people who are contributing to society? Hell, buying software, aiding the bottom line?

This woman made something out of nothing. She’s an upstanding American citizen.

It was heartwarming.

It was a revelation.

And, oh yeah, where there’s a hit there’s a writ. Since the “Blurred Lines” case everybody’s come out of the woodwork, the line has been moved too far to the right, we’ve got to move it back. I think the “Blurred Lines” case will be overturned on appeal, after all, it’s about the sheet music, the notes on the page, and they’re not the same, and you can’t copyright feel…

And Zeppelin won the “Stairway” case and…

Sometimes there’s blatant infringement. But there are only so many notes, and so many ideas, and ideas have to come from somewhere.

And there’s so little case law, because so few of these cases come to trial.

It’s just that…

Musicians used to let stuff slide.

They don’t let it slide anymore, certainly not the heirs.

It’s a rough and tumble society, money is not free and opportunities in music have evaporated so it’s not hard to see how we’ve gotten to this coarse, litigious point.

But that’s a dead end.

Innovation is the way out.

New stuff constructed on the building blocks of the old.

We don’t want to inhibit forward movement, we want to encourage it, and now too many people are afraid, just ask the major labels.

P.S. Forget the court of public opinion, these cases turn on legal precepts. Furthermore, so many have come out in defense of Ed Sheeran. Will two lawsuits in a year hurt his career? Probably not, because those who want to believe, will, fans are everything, and he’s got ’em. It’s not about haters, but lovers. And if you’re an upstanding, forthright citizen who doesn’t take more than your fair share of the pie…people are with you.

From: Adam Lewis
Re: CNN

The one thing I have learned from travel is that CNN goes everywhere. Luckily Fox has no reach overseas.

All is well. Hope the shoulder gets better.. Best of luck with the rehab..

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!