He’s not quite the last of the rock stars, but he’s still a believer, he’s still pursuing his dream, when so many have been lost and forgotten.

It was drizzling today in Paris. And when I sat by the fountain in the Tuileries I felt like I’d come full circle. I remember sitting in the same chairs, singing Todd Rundgren’s “Something/Anything?” to get me through back in ’72.

Unlike in that year, the entrance to the Louvre is now a pyramid designed by I.M. Pei, and despite all the advance word about the crowds, it wasn’t that bad, especially if you were avoiding the greatest hits.

I struck out for early Netherlandish painting. I almost did my thesis on that. But it turns out those galleries are closed on Thursday and I proceeded to wander the halls disappointed and ultimately overwhelmed. If you can’t see what you came for…

You might as well go for the greatest hits.

And the Mona Lisa may as well have been in another time zone, the museum is so vast, but contrary to said advance wisdom, you could get pretty close, once you wove your way through the selfie taking masses. It’s almost laughable, the made up young girls posing in front of possibly the world’s most famous painting. One forever, the other momentary. But that’s life. We’re all important in our own world, even though very few leave their mark.

It’s astounding how many paintings are anonymous. And others died before their fame. But after seeing the Mona Lisa and marveling how she radiates intelligence and beauty without selling it, I decided to pursue further greatest hits. And while on my way to the Venus de Milo I encountered the frieze from the Parthenon. Talk about stopping you in your tracks. If the Mona Lisa is the world’s most famous painting, the Parthenon is its most famous building. To see the marbles was to have the past come alive. Real human beings who did not know they were living in antiquity did this stuff.

And the Venus de Milo was impressive too, but then I had to run, to catch up with Elliott Murphy.

Yes, the bard of the Aquashow. The new Dylan from 1973. The man who made albums for Polydor, RCA and Columbia before he retreated to the Continent to play for those who cared. Elliott was indie before indie was cool.

So he’s living in Garden City. Going to community college to avoid the draft. And when his shrink writes a note and he gets out of going to Vietnam Elliott flies to Europe, in 1971, and lands a small role in Fellini’s “Roma” and with the resulting inspiration starts writing songs.

And then flies back to the U.S. and plays the Mercer Arts Center and ends up with a deal on Polydor. They paid him ten grand cash. He had to go to the bank to cash the check, he didn’t have a checking account.

And they sent him to California to make a record with Thomas Jefferson Kaye, but it didn’t feel right to Elliott so he came home. That’s what mattered back then, what felt right. And if it didn’t, you didn’t play ball, no matter how much cash was involved.

And after that record got notice and flopped, Elliott hooked up with Lou Reed’s manager who made a deal with RCA. The Nipper paid Polydor $150,000 to relinquish its rights, and then paid Elliott 50k an album. But when two of those stiffed and Leber and Krebs came into the picture Elliott jumped to Columbia, which paid off RCA the same $150k and then Elliott’s album failed.

Three strikes and you’re out. Elliott was demoralized, sleeping on his mother’s couch, he got a divorce, and contemplated the future.

That’s when he found out he was a star overseas. Calls came in. he gigged. But no one in America cared. He was tarnished goods.

But then his old bandmate Jerry Harrison implored him to come to Milwaukee to make an LP and Elliott met a woman and she got him to sober up and when that record didn’t make much noise Elliott went back to college and started working as a legal secretary. His father always told him to be a lawyer.

But after getting his degree, the telexes from Europe started coming in, the firm said it was their way or the highway, either give up the dream or get out.

Elliott got out.

And hasn’t looked back since.

He used to play a hundred dates a year. He’s toned it down a bit, but he’s still hungry. His old pals Billy and Bruce broke through. Elliott would like to, in the meantime he’s keeping on.

So he married him a French wife. An actress he met on tour. And had a kid. And put together five working class apartments for his domain and made enough cash to put his son through college in America. There’s money in music, if you’ve got fans.

And Elliott has them.

And I heard great stories of walking around the Eiffel Tower with Bruce Springsteen at midnight, the Boss was wearing a baseball cap, nobody recognized him.

And we cracked up at the people we knew in common.

And it all transpired at the place Jim Morrison hung out at just before he died.

But Elliott Murphy’s still alive.

That’s the challenge.

To find your way.

To soldier on, pursuing your dream, even though the business no longer cares.

Elliott’s not depressed. He’s not complaining (although he can’t get a royalty statement from Sony), he’s just making music, going on the road, cobbling it together. And it gets tougher as you get older, schlepping the equipment, working class musicians don’t fly private.

But oh for that hour on stage.

Elliott Murphy lives for that hour on stage.

Robert Downey, Jr. paid his debt to society and came back as Iron Man. Williams didn’t do drugs, he only lied, he’s been off the air for months, bring him back into his old chair because he’s a movie star and if you don’t think the nightly news is entertainment, you’re not aware of the draconian cuts Larry Tisch made to CBS, forcing news to pay its own way.

The future of news is the irreverent Vice. Maybe even Buzzfeed. Something instantly accessible that lives online. To think a nightly newscast at one appointed time has any future is to believe cable will remain unbundled and movies in theatres will make a comeback. Things change, and only in America do we maintain they haven’t.

Did NBC’s viewers reject Williams? That’d be like teens rejecting Taylor Swift, they love her and the alta kachers who tuned in at 6:30 loved Williams. By taking him off the air NBC did its audience a disservice, playing to an entrenched infrastructure that no one really cares about, the insider media business and Washington, D.C., two entities so out of touch the public has rejected them. And the public runs this world, to believe we live in a top-down society is to reject the entire twenty first century. At least techies know it’s all about adoption and stickiness. Williams made a mistake, so what.

Furthermore, the movie of his decline is better than anything he said on air. It’s a national soap opera, a story the media loves, because after all, that’s what they sell, stories, and the public doesn’t want to delve into the real issues, for fear of further disillusionment.

The vaunted Fox News? The ratings king?

Numbers are anemic but even more importantly the audience is aged. The influence of the station is nearly nil. It’s an echo chamber and Roger Ailes laughs every time the left wing takes the bait.

News is so up for grabs it’s ridiculous.

The papers still think it’s about filling a set amount of space.

And TV believes it’s all about camera appeal.

And the empty calories contribute to America’s obesity problem. We grow fatter and fatter on irrelevant info while those without names pull the strings behind the scenes.

Just like their brethren in Hollywood, Williams and his overpaid ilk love hanging with the heavies, they’ve got no backbone, they think they’re important, and if you believe they’re leaders, you’re watching the parking meters.

So now our long national nightmare is over. We can stop focusing on Brian Williams and get back to pressing issues, like the 2016 Presidential election!

A horse race the media stokes because it’s a long running film they can sell and sell.

Blockbusters exit the multiplex in weeks, but we’ve got to hear the bloviating of political non-winners for years.

Welcome to America, where the sideshow is the real show.

NBC is selling entertainment. They’ve eviscerated reporting down to the bone. Give them their star, let Williams play to the audience who loves him, the same way kids pay fealty to one dimensional pop stars.

The truth is change is happening.

But it’s too rarely on television.

Let Brian Williams have his pomp and circumstance.

And if it’s necessary to bring Andy Lack back to fix NBC News, we might as well bring Strauss Zelnick back to fix Sony Music.

Come on folks. This is much ado about nothing. Overpaid people playacting at importance while the proletariat shoots itself and votes against its interest.

Welcome to America.

You want to take the subway, but Uber is so good the days of the cab are numbered.

Yes, I took the aforementioned subway to Le Marais. The initial train from Place de la Concorde was so sophisticated I was laughing at the U.S. Until further along my journey I found broken escalators and schmutz. But that first ride… So quiet, with the inability to fall into the gap, the barrier between platform and train a wall of plexiglass, that only opened when a car arrived, it was a marvel.

However, on my return trip to the Fondation Louis Vuitton… I was blundering and ultimately jumped the turnstile at the end of my ride, unable to find the correct ticket, if I even still possessed it. I wouldn’t have jumped in this camera-laden world if I hadn’t seen a troupe of young men do it before me without consequence.

My first stop was the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaisme. What impressed me most was the security. They’re taking no chances in this land of Charlie Hebdo. I’d love to tell you the museums is a must-see, but other than the story of Alfred Dreyfus and an exhibit on the Jewish artists of the twentieth century, it was missable.

Unlike the Centre Georges Pompidou.

First I got in the wrong line. I went into the Bibliotheque. One assumes no one speaks English and I’m still inhibited about asking, probably because my father implored me to and had no problem in doing so.

But the museum… Positively staggering.

I wanted to see the Corbu exhibit, but I didn’t have enough time. So I went through the twentieth century survey, and unlike in so many museums the explanations were fluid and understandable. It appears that every ten years artists reacted to what came before, and created something new, oftentimes with references to the past.  And there I could see the connection to the music business.

Seeing the evolution of Cubism, from representational to abstract, was the highlight, they had a sea of Braque and Picasso, and as I moved through the decades I got to see my favorites, Jackson Pollock and Frank Stella.

And then my ride across town to see Ginny and the crew.

I got to Chatelet.

But then I was completely flummoxed. I found the right line, after walking nearly a mile underground, but could not find my stop in either direction. I asked directions, got pointed the right way, but the list of stops was unfamiliar to me. Turns out that the train goes further than the map, the destinations were literally off the map, that’s why I was confused. I got to Charles de Gaulle – Etoile easily ultimately, and then I got in a shuttle bus that fought traffic around a roundabout that was akin to a movie. Scores of cars, few going in the same direction, mere inches away. I couldn’t drive here.

But on the way back we took Uber.

Now I’m categorically against Uber. Because of liability issues. When you get hurt in a car the driver’s insurance is gonna do its best to deny coverage. And now Uber has an umbrella policy, but still… Certainly in America, we have laws in place to make sure passengers don’t fall through the cracks. Furthermore, I read an article in the WSJ stating that most drivers don’t make the vaunted $20+ an hour. And even the right wing paper of record said Uber was perpetuating a two class system, of winners owning the systems and worker bees sans insurance and other corporate perks doing the work.

But oh what a glorious service Uber is.

You’re motivating a work force to do a job better than the usual suspects via technology. That’s the key, the tech. You can’t believe your driver appears on your phone instantly, that you can see his or her car as they approach you. That you don’t have to worry about searching for cash to pay. This is everything the twenty first century promised us.

Kind of like the printing press way back when. It was the internet of its day. Jewish books flourished, I learned that at the museum. In the future the internet will look quaint and be antiquated as our successors push the envelope of feasibility. We did not get flying cars, but we got what we could not conceive of.

So if you’re not employing tech to revolutionize your business…

Someone else will come in and disrupt you.

Happened in the music business and it hasn’t been the same since. Forget the major labels, who are harnessing social media and have righted their boats, despite garnering less revenue… It’s the artists who are lost in the new era. Some take left field risks, like making apps as albums, but most just stunned that the playing field changed. How do you reach people? That’s the next breakthrough in the music business. And it won’t be Apple Music. Some techie, not Jimmy Iovine, will find a way to connect great music with those who want to hear it. It’s coming. And it’s not playlists.

So we got picked up in a brand new Mercedes, where the guy asked us to control the music and offered up candy and water. Every Uber driver is sans a bad attitude. When you get dropped off at your destination you feel happy.

So, the company might be overvalued, but it’s not going extinct.

Because someone decided to mix up the pieces to create a new reality. To utilize the tools to deliver something heretofore unknown that is endlessly enticing.

That’s how you should see it. The internet, your smartphone, they’re just tools. They can get you where you want to go.

If you’re unafraid and know how to use them.

If you can look beyond today and deliver what we want tomorrow.

P.S. On an unrelated note, on the nighttime boat ride down the Seine the soundtrack was “Moon Safari.” Made me smile and marvel how music is a magic elixir that can enhance the experience. Air took the building blocks and created something new that still sounds fresh today, fifteen plus years later. Let this French duo be a beacon to you. And if you haven’t heard it, check it out on Spotify IMMEDIATELY!

Moon Safari – Spotify

 

“How Everyone Gets the ‘Sharing’ Economy Wrong – Uber isnt the Uber for rides – it’s the Uber for low-wage jobs”

I saw Napoleon’s hat. Two of them, in fact. Along with his tomb. And his white horse, it was stuffed!

What can I tell you, it’s all about the LIGHT! The clouds. It’s every painting you’ve ever seen, you know how the artists were inspired.

And the French people? Keeping up their rep as rude. They were even dismissive in the tourist office, where you’d expect they’d tolerate my Americanism.

But they’ve got their style and the city is vibrant and it’s inspirational in a way no other metropolis is.

We started off in search of sunglasses. I lost mine in a black cab in London. I leaned over to pay the bill, to put the money through the window, and after greeting Richard at the River Cafe I noticed they were gone. If I’d taken Uber I’d have been able to retrieve them.

Uber… It’s causing a revolution in Paris. As a matter of fact, tomorrow the cabbies are going on strike. When was the last time anybody in America went on strike? When we still believed in unions, before the rich got all the money and we were lost contemplating our navels. You can understand why there was revolution in France, when you view the palaces. There are palaces in the U.S. too, you just haven’t seen them, they’re behind walls. Friday night I was with a billionaire and a man who makes $50 million a year. At least the former worked hard, or his father did, he started his own business. The latter? America is heading for a dark space. Most people don’t know how bad they’ve got it, because they’re not exposed to the wealthy and all they keep hearing is taxes must be lower and you’ve got to let freedom reign. How much freedom is there when the government is spying on you and you’re so busy working you haven’t got time to think?

Unlike in Val d’Isere, few here speak English. Communicating is difficult. That’s the nature of foreign travel, the wasted time, while you figure out how to get where you want to. The Solaris sunglass store was a two minute walk away, but it took us half an hour to find it.

And after my visit to the tourist office, where I purchased a museum pass, I was off to the Musee d’Orsay, where all the Impressionists reside.

Inspired and depressed me all at the same time. To see Manet’s Dejueuner sur l’herbe in the flesh is positively jaw-dropping. This was the turning point, this was the depiction of modern life that outraged the establishment and paved the way for said Impressionists. I learned that at Middlebury.

But that was so long ago.

Did I live up to my promise?

Or did I get so caught up in tech, in making a living, such that I lost the plot and avoided the destination.

Culture runs the country. And ours is bankrupt. Without artists we’re nowhere, we’ve got nothing to live for. And ours are so busy chasing the buck with their uneducated selves that what we’re served is sans calories.

Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series. Van Gogh’s bedroom. Those paintings of Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Once upon a time, painters and poets ran the world. Or at least inspired it. Or catalogued it.

But now the only artists we’ve got are phony or wannabe. The latter saying their intentions are pure despite their efforts being substandard.

So it was bittersweet seeing the art. It made me want to turn back the hands of time. And chronicle feelings as opposed to transgressions. Emotions as opposed to digits.

And then on to the Army Museum.

I wanted to go to the resistance museum, but it was too far away.

But I was blown away by the history of conflict. How it was constant. How the weaponry was antiquated. How Napoleon Bonaparte conquered the Continent and then lost it.

I’m confused as to the proper path. Is it all about lifestyle and good times or pursuing truth?

Furthermore, in this connected world I’m suddenly fearful. Tweet against the government and they’ve got you on record, you’re a suspect. And you might fall in line, but it’s those pushing the edges who protect your freedom.

So I’m inspired. I want to go to the museum once a week back home. To commune with those who pursued their dream.

And I don’t want to wait forty more years to come back to Paris, like I did this time.

And I don’t want you to think I’m bummed out. It’s just that my head is a ball of confusion. I’m thrilled, but puzzled by the passing of time. More of my life is behind me than ahead. I’ve only got a short time left to make a difference.