Joe Start

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About Joe Start
After graduating with a journalism degree, Joe Start jumped over to the advertising and marketing side of communications. His day job has been selling media and technology in the US and Europe for more than a dozen years, lately with startups. Tragicomedy travel memoir French License is his return to writing, with his first book.
His second book, The Chairfather, was released in 2018. The book is an irreverent series of brief encounters over lunch with 50 departed divas decomposing at the cemetery of Père Lachaise. Candid photos. Spicy interviews. Luminaries who haven’t spoken for hundreds of years. You’ll never believe what they say!
To keep track of Joe Start's creations, please drive over to StartGoingPlaces.com to add your name to his newsletter. You'll learn about what's next, his upcoming appearances and check out bonus material from this book. Please let him know what you thought, and help guide others in their deliberations by reviewing on the usual marketplaces, Goodreads, Colibris, Book Riot, or your own blog.
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Walk with 'The Chairfather' on his VoiceMap tours: https://voicemap.me/authors/joe-start
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Author Updates
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Blog postThis week I appeared on a talk show on the TV78 channel broadcast to the Yvelines region where my Versailles tour takes place!
Author Joe Start on panel of TV talk show They also showed a teaser about my Père Lachaise tours on @VoiceMap and allowed me to speak about my book French License.
Fellow expats @Paula Branco and @Tony de Souza shared their creative activities and adaptation stories. Paula runs a very active Internations group with events for expats, and she’s b2 months ago Read more -
Blog postJubilee The Figaro sets the record straight: “God Save the Queen” (or King) was written and composed by the French, when another hole was found in the anus of Louis the 14th. Here’s the back story…
They operated on the fistula in Louis’ derrière, butt it wasn’t clear the king would survive. Worried courtiers, including Fanny, wrote a ‘get well, soon’ poem, and Lully put it to music. The requiem to a rectum worked, and the monarch’s plumbing problems were behind him!
An2 months ago Read more -
Blog postWhen you do something well, or you make a salient comment in the US, where I’m from, you can hear all sorts of positive feedback. From “well said” to “atta-boy” to “great job,” and so on.
Not in France. You may be wondering, ‘how do you know when you’ve earned esteem in the eyes of a French person?’ This list aims to help. It goes from neutral (#10), to exceptional effusive and hearty approval (#1)
Hierarchy of Compliments in France:
10)”bof-bof”
1 year ago Read more -
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Blog postI wrote in French License that the automobile is the Number One source of income for the French state. Many of the figures I cited have now been updated in a comprehensive article by Erwan Benezet et Aurélie Lebelle in today’s Parisien https://articles.cafeyn.co/61ccea/le-parisien-paris/2020-08-17/letat-accro-aux-taxes-automobiles clearly demonstrating that the situation has worsened for car owners. A sample:
-Fully 36% of all revenues to the government in France come from taxe2 years ago Read more -
Blog postMusée national de l’automobile
In my book, French License, I detailed in the chapter on Car Culture how little France cared about the automobile. I contrasted French attitudes toward motorised vehicles with those of their neighbours and the USA, where I come from. The differences are stark and plentiful.
So, on a trip to Alsace this week, I was stunned to learn that France claimed the world’s largest, most prestigious and valuable car museum, the ‘Musée nati2 years ago Read more -
Blog postAlbum #10: Ivo Papasov and Yuri Yunakov Together Again
I was introduced to Bulgarian Wedding music by Eddie Current through an article in Bass Player magazine when I was in my late 20s. The fusion between jazz and folk and progressive rock was bewildering and enticing at the same time. Even Frank Zappa thought the sound was ‘way out there.’ The musicianship is phenomenal. Radomirska Kopanica will forever be the song that I’m unable to clap to for the life of me. It switches time signa2 years ago Read more -
Blog postAlbum #9: Joni Mitchell Blue 1971
What? A GIRL on this list? I was surprised as well, in my mid-20s, when a male friend turned me on to her. He said her early albums were the equal of her all-male counterparts. I was incredulous. How could that be? But as I listened, I agreed with him. I couldn’t believe my ears. Here was musicianship, and songwriting, and complex melodies that were rich and intelligent and generous. And she sang with such feeling, and soul, in a way I’d never heard b2 years ago Read more -
Blog postThis is in response to a challenge from Alain Cournoyer of the Homebuddies to post 10 albums which marked my life in ten days.
I challenge Dan Vuletich, not only because he has a vast knowledge of music, and a degree to prove it, but today’s his birthday. Also, it was his brother, Tom, who introduced me to jazz, pointing me to the all-time great recordings.
Album #8: Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out 1959
I grew up thinking nothing good ever came out of my hometown.2 years ago Read more -
Blog postAlbum #7: Rush Moving Pictures 1981
Neil Peart was everyone’s favorite drummer, so he couldn’t be mine. But boy did I admire that guy. He could hit it as hard and fast as anyone. But what set him apart was how crisp his fills were. Here was a perfectionist who practiced endlessly to get it just right. He put so much emphasis on sound, from his set, to tuning, to mic’ing, to selecting which drum or cymbal he’d hit at a given moment. His set was so big, not to show off, but to accommoda2 years ago Read more -
Blog postAlbum #6: The Clash, Sandinista 1980
I was late to the punk scene. Most likely because I was too young, and a freckle-faced kid who believed in the inherent goodness of the world. Why spoil it with a bunch of self-absorbed whining and screaming and lack of musical talent? (insert picture of Sex Pistols here)
Then came the Clash. They were some guys who could really play with fantastic thoughtful lyrics, and melodies in tune. They definitely had something to say, and an origina2 years ago Read more
Titles By Joe Start
There are impossible situations, 'only in France' characters and cautionary tales from the bumbling of an average Joe. Read until the end to see if he beat the odds and made it or not.
It's an easy, entertaining and quick read. Although it's not a how-to, you'll be informed with many surprising bits that even most locals don't know. Many facts are published here for the first time in English. The author intertwines facts & figures inside 40 comical stories. Chapters may be read as standalone tales, or as a chronology of mishaps on the road to the pink permit prize.
This book would appeal to anyone with a sense of black humor, an interest in cross-cultural relations, French culture, or a wonder for what happens when a naïve soul rides into the intersection of technology, globalization, tradition and local government.
Today's celebrities won't give you the time of day. Yesterday's stars are much more accommodating.
Your intrepid reporter visited 50 prostrate personalities over lunch. Let me be your guide to our reservations at the most exclusive hideaway: Père Lachaise cemetery.
Call me The Chairfather. This writer specializes in one-way interviews, and capturing the intimate moments of subjects unaware of my camera eye. In this book, I take you supping with the sleeping stars. Lunching with the late litterati. Gnoshing with the gone glitterati. Honestly, they have no choice in the matter.
See candid photos and read spicy transcripts from our exchanges. Some of these luminaries haven’t spoken for hundreds of years. You’ll never believe what they say, and what I have to say about them.
These pages reveal fascinating facts, scandalous stories and gossip. Posterity has never been so present. The passed have never been more alive!
Mysteries are uncovered, like which piece from composer Chopin is missing? How did they sneak in Edith Piaf clandestinely? What did Abélard lose by loving Héloïse? Which vegetable did I eat with Parmentier? OK, you could probably guess that last one.
Book your own lunch date with the fallen famous NOW. Or later. Really, it doesn't matter. Their agendas are quite open.
This is a companion photo book to The Chairfather tours on VoiceMap. Here’s who we’ll meet: Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Alice B Toklas, Amadeo Modigliani, Edith Piaf, Henri Salvador, Beaumarchais, Anna de Noailles, the Carton family, Quintin Craufurd, Victor Noir, Sarah Bernhardt, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Isadora Duncan, Stéphane Grappelli, Camille Corot, Molière, Jean de La Fontaine, Antoine Parmentier, Jean Anthelme Brillat de Savarin, the Tissandier family, Ferdinand de Lesseps, Jim Morrison, Héloïse and Abélard, Camille Pissarro, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Chabrol, Marcel Marceau, Jacques-Louis David, Félix Faure, Georges Eugène Haussmann, Gioachino Rossini, Colette, Jean-Charles Alphand, Georges Seurat, Georges Méliès, Georges Bizet, Gustave Caillebotte, Honoré de Balzac, Eugène Delacroix, Fulgence Bienvenüe, Marcel Proust, Allan Kardec, a Dragon and some guy called Félix de Beaujour.
Print version has five bonus babies: Ettore Bugatti, Joseph Hugo (father of Victor), Michel Petrucciani, Luigi Cherubini and Louis Visconti.