It’s still light out!

I don’t know what time it is there, but it’s ten after nine here, eleven now, and the sun still hasn’t set… I don’t know if it’ll ever set, when I slept at Richard’s house three years back during the summer solstice it was like that Al Pacino movie set in Alaska, “Insomnia,” you’re waiting for complete darkness and it never comes!

So what have I observed about Londoners…THEY SMOKE!

Once upon a time smoking was cool, now everybody knows it causes cancer. I can understand doing it for a bit when you’re a teenager, that rebellion thingy, but once you grow up…do you not want to grow old? I know quitting sucks, but so does dying. You realize that when the end is near, like so many other truths your parents told you.

And I realized everybody was smoking because I saw them out last night in Piccadilly Circus. I’m used to L.A., where there is no nightlife, where everything interesting is happening at home, and you’re not invited. But there’s definitely a scene in London, and it’s not only there.

But back to smoking… I did see a woman outside a hospital, in a wheelchair, with the drip bag attached, puffing on a cigarette. And no, it wasn’t a “MAD” magazine photo shoot.

Today we started off with a jaunt around Hyde Park. We saw Kensington Palace. The newlyweds with the soon to be newborn are going to live there, I wouldn’t, maybe because the point was made again and again in the play last night, that it’s actually not good to be the queen. Everybody’s got problems, and we want our privacy to work them through.

And then we strolled down to the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) for the David Bowie exhibition.

I learned plenty.

Just not what they intended.

The exhibit is schizophrenic, it’s needed to be laid out linearly, from yesterday to today. But you keep wondering why they skipped “Ziggy Stardust” when they’re talking about “The Earthling,” and then you go into a further room and there it is. Huh?

And if you’re a big fan, and I was, you know so much.

But not everything.

First and foremost, BOWIE WAS DYING TO MAKE IT!

Yup, it didn’t happen by accident. His father gave him an acrylic saxophone, he played a twelve string because it looked good. He was in numerous bands before going solo and striking it rich. And in each and every one of them, he was focused not only on the music, but the look, both the fashions and the staging.

And he came from a musical family. Not only was his mother a singer, so was his father’s first wife. Yup, Bowie’s dad John blew $400,000 to $600,000 in today’s money, his inheritance, trying to make his first wife famous.

That’s what they don’t tell you about performers, it’s in their blood.

And I didn’t know that Paul Buckmaster did the strings on “Space Oddity” and Rick Wakeman played keyboard.

But what struck me most about the exhibit was…

1. Influences.

You’ve got to soak it up, you’ve got to read, watch and observe. Nobody exists in a vacuum. You need to be inspired, you need to twist and meld these influences into something new.

2. Bowie was a product of his era, when pop stars were king, when television was the best exposure. We don’t live in that era anymore. What I don’t understand is why today’s stars don’t utilize today’s medium, i.e. the Internet. No one wants an album every few years when they’re surfing the Net every minute for new info. Furthermore, when it comes to imaging, everybody’s looking at a mobile handset! Bowie blew it with his new album. He could have taken over the Internet, he could have matched his music to the era, but he didn’t.

You’ve got to:

A. Create and distribute constantly. Perfection is irrelevant. Don’t polish, release. Used to be we had very little music, we saved for albums and played them incessantly, because it’s all we had. Now, we’ve got the history of recorded music at our fingertips, we’re grazers, graze along with us!

B. Mystery is history. We pondered who Bowie truly was, it was part of his magic, now there’s a camera on every corner and everybody’s known. Use this to your advantage! The old pop star is dead, create the new one!

C. Communicate the way your fans do. Tweeting and Instagraming is not marketing or promotion, it’s your art, the same way Bowie’s outfits were.

3. Pop careers are brief. Primarily because radio abandons you. Give Bowie credit, he kept innovating, but radio became static. And without radio, he couldn’t penetrate anybody but his fan base. It’s a harsh reality. Although with the decline of radio, a new reality is being born.

4. They make the point that pop stars used to try and become movie stars, because musical careers were brief and movie stars were kings. But by the late sixties, rock stars were kings. Bowie tried to make the movie/acting thing work for him, it never works for any pop star, not even Justin Timberlake, but it does keep you in the public eye.

I guess what I’m saying is David Bowie was a product of his era.

And his era passed.

So why do you keep playing by his rules? It’d be like trying to dial a push button phone, push the keys hard on a computer, as if it were a manual typewriter…you’ve got to adjust to the new game.

Everything used to be so small, so quaint. You could do a show and build word of mouth slowly. Now, if you’re any good, the highlights of your performance are all over YouTube in minutes. And if you’re not a star, no one cares what you do. Everything’s topsy-turvy, but the business runs like it’s still the same.

And video… Today you make your own. You don’t have to worry about acting. They’re truly advertisements for the rest of your work. And they’re cheap. You can make them for free!

Not that you can’t spend.

But how are you going to spend?

Yes, the biggest disappointment of the Bowie show was it was made for non-fans. You know a fan, he wants to dig deep, he laps up the obscure, he lives for factoids. But there were very few in this exhibit. It was a victory lap for the uninitiated.

Not that that’s Bowie’s fault.

And good for him that he can draw so many people, it was packed.

But we own the music, not the curators or the mainstream reviewers. Music is for fans.

And I can tell you that Ron Davies wrote “It Ain’t Easy” on the “Ziggy Stardust” album, but there was no depth about that production whatsoever. Although I did see some handwritten lyrics, which was so cool.

Remember dropping the needle on “Five Years”?

That’s a feeling not contained in this exhibition.

Then again, that’s music, something you hear, not see.

It all comes down to the music. The imaging is subservient to that.

I would have wanted to hear more from Tony Visconti, more from Ken Scott, more studio pictures, more context of what was and was not successful at the time.

But instead we get costumes from SNL.

Oh, I don’t want to bitch, I just want to give you some perspective.

Let go! Be inspired! Create! Blow our minds!

Human nature has not changed. We want to be intrigued, we want to be titillated, and now, like never before, you can go straight to your audience, there are no restrictions. So I just can’t understand why you’re doing it the same old way.

That’s why music is unhealthy. Because there are no David Bowies.

Mr. Jones had one helluva long ride. You wanna know why? Because he kept adjusting. He kept looking at the landscape and cogitating his place in it. And when he got on top, he went into hyperdrive, he was anything but safe, that’s when he accelerated change, that’s when he truly began to lead.

See anybody doing that today?

The challenge is set. The gauntlet is thrown down.

Your move.

David Bowie is

Test limits. They do the unexpected. They make our jaws drop.

Have you seen “Book Of Mormon”? There’s a tribal chief with a name so OUT THERE, so OFFENSIVE, so SWEAR WORD, that I cannot use it in this e-mail, or you won’t get it.

Yup, I love to use the F-word. But I can’t. Because too many of you work for uptight corporations with spam filters that won’t let that word through. Yup, you think you’re so hip, that you’re not like your parents, that you’re open-minded and accepting. But the truth is so many are still on the treadmill of life, working for the man, and we depend upon artists to show us the light, to question convention, to stretch our minds, to show us the POSSIBILITIES!

In other words, there’s a market for imitation, but what we’re truly interested in, what truly lasts, is ORIGINALITY!

Where is it in music, come on, all you tattooed and pierced knee-jerkers, point out all those acts doing the unexpected, wowing us.

No, we’ve got a veritable plethora of me-toos.

And for those who are different, they’re too often not good. The trick is to be different and mainstream, whether it be the Beatles, with “Sgt. Pepper,” or the “South Park” boys, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, with “Book Of Mormon.”

A Broadway play? It doesn’t SCALE!

That’s the first thing a wannabe rock star tells you, he’s going for world domination, he’s the next Madonna. Well I hate to tell you, but the reason you know Madonna’s name is because there’s only one. Forget the lost, dieted-down-to-nothing woman parading on stages today, once upon a time Madonna was a head-twisting paragon of the new, whose flock was developed by not only excellent music, but a belt that said “Boy Toy” and a song about being a virgin. If you don’t think that shook up the establishment, you never saw the video for “Like A Prayer.” This wasn’t manufactured controversy, it was the real thing!

And where do we see it today?

Maybe with Amy Winehouse. She tragically died, too many of the greats just weren’t made for this world, but her music didn’t sound quite like anything that came before, never mind since. Sure, she had influences, but she took them and concocted something new.

Bruno Mars?

Where’s the originality?

And I’m saying that because he’s talented, he’s vaunted, he’s one of the good ones!

As for rock acts, it seems they’re all stuck in the seventies or eighties, whether they be metal acts imitating Zeppelin and Metallica, or rock bands in jeans and hats who seem to be nothing but Ronnie Van Zant’s children.

And rock stars are always resisted at first. I didn’t watch “South Park,” it was a cartoon! A herky-jerky concoction with high-pitched voices. But word of mouth became deafening, over years! And they never backed down, they’d skewer someone, never the safe target, and never apologize.

And they did a successful movie.

So did they repeat the formula?

NO!

They moved on, to Broadway.

Want to be inspired? Want to see the real deal? Want to see what it’s all about?

Go see “Book Of Mormon.”

Sitting in the audience for that play is like watching “Springtime For Hitler” in “The Producers.” You’re shocked, you just sit there with your mouth agape.

It’s a long hard path to stardom. But it’s on the road not taken. And the reason we’ve got such a mediocre music scene is because nobody wants to do something different, they just want to go on a TV show or imitate someone who’s already made it, thinking if they do a good job singing someone else’s hit on YouTube, they’re entitled to worldwide notoriety.

NO!

Write your own damn song. Make it completely different.

There was no Talking Heads before the band emerged. And there’s been none since.

And in the classic rock era, the greats all sounded different.

And that’s why it was classic. It was a hotbed of innovation. Everybody inspired each other to innovate.

Today artists just inspire each other to sell out. Have a clothing line. A perfume with their name on it.

And if you don’t think I’m speaking the truth, you can’t handle the truth!

Peace out.

Did you catch the Beatles reference? It was intentional! Hang on and I’ll get to it, I’ll make the circle complete.

1. Everybody parks their expensive cars on the street. Maseratis, Ferraris, Bentleys…all of their paint jobs fading in the acid rain. In L.A. the most important thing is what kind of car you drive, people never leave them outside and are regulars at the car wash. It would blow their mind to see these vehicles deteriorating in the elements. Then again, its only a CAR!

2. So we’re riding the tube, and Lisa elbows me, drawing my attention to the Pearly King & Queen.

Pearl King and Queen

Now you know the Traffic song… Is there a connection?

3. Fancy Dress. No, not tuxedos and gowns, but funny outfits, like the ones we saw the college age students wearing, they were playing street Monopoly, don’t ask me to explain, I didn’t understand!

4. I had duck confit for lunch. There was an outdoor market near Sloane Square and the choices represented nationalities from Spain to Peru. The electric burners went on the fritz, but I eventually got my sandwich. Was it the best ever? No, don’t think so, but I’ve never gotten duck from a roadside stand before.

5. Which brings us to the British Library… We went there to see an exhibit on Propaganda, which “Time Out” said was one of the Top Ten things to do in London this week.

Only we didn’t get in…

To the exhibit that is, we made it into the library.

And as a result, I’m a bit down right now. Because I was counting on it. No matter how old you grow, disappointment always sucks.

So the bottom line is we could have gotten in, if we’d bought tickets when we arrived, but on my journey to the loo I got waylaid by the gems of the British Library, its greatest hits, I implored Lisa to go there first.

And what I saw…

Leonardo’s notebooks. Wherein he wrote in mirror script, with his left hand, from right to left.

But even more impressive was Jane Austen’s writing desk. And Mozart’s marriage contract.

Yes, they had the cases broken down by type, and there was a whole one for music. Handel’s original “Messiah.” And…

The Beatles.

It was positively jaw-dropping. They had John Lennon’s original lyrics for “A Hard Day’s Night,” written on the back of Julian’s first birthday card. If it weren’t a museum, I would have thought it was a set-up.

And there was more. McCartney’s “Michelle” lyrics. Unused Harrison lyrics. And I lived through it all, but it was half a century ago, it’s truly history now.

P.S. I saw the Magna Carta and a Gutenberg Bible.

P.P.S. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m getting older, but suddenly I can see these were real people. Although Michelangelo was famous, he was the first person to have his biography written while he was still alive, I’m sure a lot of the other people didn’t realize we’d still be talking about them hundreds of years later. Hell, those who were popular then aren’t necessarily popular now. Ben Jonson was bigger than Shakespeare, but it’s the latter everybody knows today (and both their works were in this exhibit at the British Library.)

P.P.P.S. Being closed out of the Propaganda exhibit, Lisa took me next door to the St. Pancras Hotel, behind which was Eurostar station. From London to Paris…sounds like a Kraftwerk song!

P.P.P.P.S. Frustrated, with time on our hands, we went to the Wellcome Collection. That’s an American, Henry Wellcome, he brought pharmaceuticals in pill form to the U.K., his foundation is the second biggest in the world, just behind Bill Gates’s, according to the guy at the information desk. But not everybody who’s rich collects stuff worth seeing. Most of it was medical, but there was a chastity belt and anti-masturbation rings and glass eyeballs and other artifacts that will haunt me in the middle of the night.

P.P.P.P.P.S. The sun came out! Very briefly. I grew up in New England, I know from gray, but I’m not sure I could handle it anymore, not after living in L.A.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. We started off at the farmer’s market. Remember when England had a reputation for bad food? From vegetables to bread, the attractions were mouth-watering. A bread that looked like it’d been kicked around like a ball evidenced the crust my father endeared me to. Lisa bought a fish with orange spots for dinner tomorrow night.  Here’s pics!

Bread

Fish

We’re off to see Helen Mirren in “The Audience,” gotta go!

The Audience

Note: I love the Internet, here’s the backstory on Pearly Kings and Queens, who knew?

Pearly Kings and Queens

Second note: This is a bad pic, but the only one I could find online of the original lyrics of “A Hard Day’s Night.” It’s the fact that they’re written on the back of this children’s birthday card that makes them so great!

original lyrics of “A Hard Day’s Night”

Lisa’s on the phone with Corinne, so I’m gonna take this moment to check in with you.

1. I miss the 4G in the United States. Never mind the better data plan. I almost switched to my BlackBerry just for this trip, because iPhone e-mail is prohibitively expensive in the U.K. and Europe, especially if you get as much as I do. Anybody got any tips? Of course I turned off cellular data, but when I turn it on, when I can log in, which is rare, I eat up 3 MB every time, and it’s $25 per 100 MB, which means I definitely can’t leave it on all the time…

2. They were playing Damien Rice’s “Cannonball” on the way in. How come the U.S. always has generic Muzak in public spaces, but in the U.K. they can own their heritage?

3. The chips! I can’t even remember the flavor they served on the plane, it was a combination of cream and cheddar and vinegar and despite calling them crisps, the variety’s better than in the U.S.

4. Oh, back to the 3G. I don’t know how you people tolerate it on your iPhone 4 and 4s’s. Here comes the hate mail! You get used to high speed. And they just don’t have it over here.

5. The flight wasn’t long enough. Not long enough to read my book, catch up on the newspapers and sleep too. That’s what’s better about flying to Asia, the time! There was no wi-fi on the plane, but I don’t like to work in flight, I consider it a respite, me time.

6. I’m reading the VJ book. Positively riveting, because we lived through it, great to hear about it from the other side of the fence, even though I don’t trust everything everybody says, especially Martha Quinn, who says she got an “F” in high school but still got into Vassar and Colgate…

7. It’s cold here! I mean not rattle your teeth cold, but fifties. Spring has not sprung in the U.K.

8. I came through Dusseldorf. Bottom line, by doing this I only have to take two flights on the way back, I’m not gonna do twenty two hours and three. Couldn’t see much in Germany, but I wanted to stay, wanted to investigate it, I’ve only passed through on the train previously. I think it’s safe now. Although the in-flight magazine had me researching and I found out about this East German shot-putter who took so many steroids she decided to become a man… Man’s inhumanity to man, all in the name of…sports victories?

9. In customs in Dusseldorf they wanted to know what I was doing in Germany. I said flying to London! The guy was nonplussed.

10. Speaking of customs, they grilled me in Stansted, where I had to land. And I had to wait half an hour just to answer questions.

11. How come the cabs are so much bigger and cleaner in the U.K? You’re always worried about bodily fluids in the cabs in NYC, and you never even ride a cab in L.A.

12. The flight attendants on Air Berlin didn’t know how to use the gizmos, didn’t know how to turn the monitor off and lower the arm rest… A little more training is in order, but it was a good flight, despite taking off an hour late.

13. I feel inadequate not knowing the language. A woman was sitting across from me in the lounge in L.A., speaking English to her kids, and suddenly she burst into German to interact with an elderly gentleman nearby. Reminded me of how many languages Jackie O. spoke. She was my mother’s hero, for being a worldly culture vulture, before she became an Andy Warhol and jet-setting staple. We all need someone to look up to, we all need aspirations.

14. Everybody on the plane from Dusseldorf to London was reading! Physical books, but they also gave away newspapers for free. Furthermore, so many had an element of style, the hairdos, the clothing… American culture is different. We don’t embrace our outcasts, not until everybody else does and they become anointed. And if you’re different in the U.S., you’re doing it to be noticed, to become famous, whereas in the U.K. it’s just part of your personal style.

Lisa’s off, gotta go!