Dear Friends and Fans,
To state the obvious, many people these days do not appear to love their fellow Man. Well ... I do! ... and I am sooooo pained by the state of insanity we are seeing these days.
When I finished University (Queens College, CUNY - that's all I could afford ... $0.00 per year back then), I put on a back pack and found myself living with newly-made friends in Central Paris. The 'hang-out' spot was the Latin Quarter ... as it is today ... just like Greenwich Village was in NYC.
Every evening, I noticed that a group of migrant workers would assemble on the quai of the Seine in Paris and play their music ... from North Africa, the Middle East, et al. I was dying to play with them and one evening, I actually brought my guitar and kind of hung around them, waiting to be invited to join in. Well - that didn't happen! These guys were tough, suspicious and angry (as you would expect) and armed. I did the same thing every evening for about a week and eventually, someone made a gesture to join in.
I can only play by 'ear', since I never studied music, so I was able to join in pretty easily. This went on for quite a while. The longer it did, the less 'odd' it seemed and the more they trusted me and allowed me into the 'band'.
This experience made an indelible impression on me and certainly laid the groundwork for my 4 'World Fusion' CDs. With a little work and persistence (and personal Risk, I suppose) , I broke through a seemingly impermeable cultural barrier.
That the world is such a mess today really hurts me! I am not simply a naive musician! I spent most of my adult life working in the world of large-scale international business ... and I assure you, I know 'the deal'. I also know that we all love our wives, children, grandchildren, homelands and cultures. We all want to be respected and treated with dignity!
Our leaders are letting us down IMHO! ... and they will continue to let us down until we, the People, demand better!
I wonder how you feel about this?
Eric