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!

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