Today
It should have felt odd, I suppose, to be standing in Rockefeller Center with a Today Show laniard around my neck, watching my cousin rock Matt Lauer’s socks off. But it didn’t.
Funny thing about life these days: nothing’s shocking. It’s not that I think I’m all that, or am impressing myself with anything. It’s just, well, it’s just my life. I feel blessed, fortunate, excited. I built it like this: relentless, ambitious, hopeful, seeking. And here it is.
Like last night. I was sitting behind Michael Musto at the “The Squid & The Whale.” In my early years in New York, his “La Dolce Musto” was my favorite column. I waited on Wednesdays. Last night, there he was plain as day, and regular as pie.
And today I spoke with “The Squid & The Whale” standout Jesse Eisenberg. He was calling from the Greenway Court Theatre in L.A. where he’s starring with Al Pacino in “Orphans.” Nice kid: real soft, real bright, real modest. Kinda’ sweet.
Yesterday, I stood on the sidewalk in front of 30 Rock — a few feet from one of my first job interviews at NBC News, and just down the street from my first job at Rolling Stone — MTV News microphone in hand, interviewing World Leader Pretend. It was difficult to focus amidst the rubbernecking tourists, honking cabs, and falling rain, but there it was. I was nervous, and distracted, but settled into the job. I reminded myself, ‘This is what you do,” and did it.
This morning I raced to catch Andrew’s Today Show performance. I stepped behind the barricades just as Katie said the band’s name. I stood behind the throngs of wide-eyed, screaming midwesterners starved for a Matt and Katie sighting. I smiled at Andrew, thre the devil horns high, and snapped photos like a tourist. It didn’t occur to me to wish that it was me in those shoes. It only occurred to me to be glad he was in his.
Afterwards, Andrew shuffled me inside. I milled about with the band, and revelled in the afterglow. They signed autographs, and generally tried to recover from the adrenaline rush of twenty million eyeballs.
Andrew said to me, “Dude, who would have guessed this one, huh?”
I took off my sunglasses and looked into his sparkling, youthful eyes and said, “You just have to keep imagining, man. You just have to believe that you can, and you will.”
New Orleans Rockers World Leader Pretend Soldier On After Hurricane
NEW YORK — “Rain seems to follow us wherever we go,” World Leader Pretend’s Matt Martin joked with the drizzle-soaked crowd at Rockefeller Center on Thursday.
The guitarist had good reason to joke. Humor — and music — may be about all the New Orleans band has left.
The quintet was celebrating its first day off in over a year of touring behind its album Punches when Hurricane Katrina devastated its hometown.
“I woke up late the morning it hit,” drummer Arthur Mintz said. “I had like 40 messages on my answering machine. People were like, ‘Dude, just leave town right now. Don’t bother boarding up; your house is not gonna be there when this is all over.’ So we drove to Baton Rouge and stayed with my mom.”
The resulting floods most likely swept away WLP’s tour van and trailer and choked their rehearsal space with mold and mildew. Not that they know for sure — they haven’t been able to go home.
“We tried to go back last week,” Martin said. “But then Hurricane Rita came through.”
The spotty damage assessments the band’s received thus far have been from friends. For Mintz, who grew up in Slidell, Louisiana, the outlook isn’t good.
“One buddy of mine went home in a boat. His bedroom — which is on the second story — was still underwater. Furniture was floating,” he said. “It’s been really emotional.”
“Fortunately I don’t think we lost much of anything other than musical equipment and some cars,” singer/guitarist Keith Ferguson said. “But we’ll see.”
The band was in New York to contribute to the Make a Difference Today hurricane-relief initiative forged by NBC, Warner Music and Habitat for Humanity. In addition to Thursday’s lunchtime performance, the band lent a hand with Habitat’s homebuilding efforts, also at Rockefeller Plaza.
The coup de grâce of the band’s visit, though, was the performance of its forthcoming single “Tit for Tat” on the “Today” show Friday morning (September 30). The rain had stopped, the sky had cleared. And just as Katie Couric and Matt Lauer signed off, they presented the band with new equipment, courtesy of Gibson.
“We never expected to be in this situation,” Ferguson said. “It’s the kind of thing you see on TV, but never expect to experience.”
The band performs in St. Louis on Saturday before returning to New Orleans on Sunday.
This article first appeared on MTVNews.com.
The Squid & The Whale
Nearly twenty-four years to the day that my parents sat Chris and me down to announce their separation, I am still seeking catharsis.
It was an afternoon not unlike this. The air was cool. Daylight was scarce. We gathered in the living room — a space reserved solely for guests and holidays. Chris and mom sat on the brown plaid couch. I sat in my father’s lap on a narrow, high-backed orange chair. And they said it: divorce. My father pronounced the word like it was two separate ones: div oerss.
The days and months that followed were a radical departure from any that had come prior. There were foundation-rattling arguments, missed spelling assignments, and tears.
Daylight was scarce.
On Christmas day, 1980, my father drove us from Waterloo to Vinton where my Uncle Jack met us at a gas station. The shook hands sullenly, and made the switch. Chris and I loaded ourselves into Uncle Jacks car, and he drove wordlessly to Cedar Rapids where my mother was waiting with a brand-new Atari 2600.
My parents were the same age then as I am now.
When I saw the trailer for Noah Baumbach’s “The Squid & The Whale” last week, all those memories came flooding back. In it, Jeff Daniel and Laura Linney sit their two adolescent sons down in their Brooklyn living room and discuss the custody agreement.
“Your mother will get you Mondays, Tuesdays, Saturdays, and every other Thursday,” Daniels says.
“But what about the cat?” Owen Kline asks.
As the family divides in geography and allegiance, triangles form. The oldest gravitates towards his father, the youngest to his mother. Secrets are revealed. Ten-year-olds are faced with thirty-year-old’s subject matter: affairs, sex, and rage.
Divorce, like death (I imagine), leaves behind a terrible gaping wound. Barbara Streisand, in a recent interview with Diane Sawyer, called it a “void.” Bono calls it a “God-shaped hole.” It’s tempting to try and fill that space with drugs, or booze, or rock ‘n roll, or someone else. But it’s futile. It can’t be filled. It can only be lived with.
Walking back to The MTV from my first on camera interview with my cousin’s band, World Leader Pretend, in Rockefeller Center, I called my parents: dad in Indiana, mom in Pennsylvania. I was proud. I wanted to share the success. I left two messages, and kept walking.
In the film’s conclusion, Jesse Eisenberg steals away to the Natural History Museum — just across the street from my apartment — to stare into the face of his greatest childhood fear: a life-sized squid and whale locked in a permanent struggle to the death.
When the credits had rolled, I walked out of the screening onto the street, put my earphones on and pressed play. REM’s “Sweetness Follows” was in queue.
It’s these little things they can pull you under
Live your life filled with joy and thunder
Yeah, yeah we were altogether
Lost in our own lives
Oh, oh, Oh, oh, sweetness follows
Oh, oh, Oh, oh, sweetness follows
Sometimes iPod’s shuffle feature gets it just right.
The Tide Is Turning
Andrew and I stood on the roof watching planes fly through the clouds overhead like something out of a Tarantino film. “Man, what an amazing, relentless city,” he said.
I woke before the alarm this morning, slipped into my running clothes, strapped my iPod to my bicep, and ran for the gym. This morning was my first of six pre-marathon personal training sessions. How Yuppy, right? How New York City, hmmm?
I have run five New York City Marathons, five New York City Triathlons, four dozen half-marathons, and as many smaller races, with nary an iota of sensible training. I simply pointed myself forward, told myself (like “The Little Engine That Could”) that I could do it, and kept doing it until I was done. But as I passed my thirty-fourth birthday a few weeks ago, it was apparent to me that my stubbornness in the face of endurance did not scale. I have been sore. I have been injury prone. And I have loathed my workouts.
I have played guitar for fifteen years. Perhaps not surprisingly, I have never had a lesson. I’ve simply strummed the familiar chords, told myself (like “The Little Engine That Could”) that I could do it. Ten records later, I have. I’ve sung my heart out.
But. But, but, but. But I have hit a plateau. I have run my best marathon. I have made my best record. (You haven’t heard it yet, but trust me.) And nothing will help me grow stronger like saying, “I need help.”
I need help.
The trainer was great. I learned a lot, like how to breath properly, how to stand properly, how to run properly, and how to stretch properly.
I went for a quick run afterwards. The sky was deep blue. The air was clear. Turning north on Central Park West, Bono sang to me:
You can stash
And you can seize
In dreams begin responsibilities
And I can love
And I can love
And I know that the tide is turning ’round
So don’t let the bastards grind you down”
Right there and then, passing commuters and tourists, bankers and dog walkers, I nearly cried when he sang, “I know that the tide is turning ’round.” I’d never felt so alive. And I’d never felt so Hell-bent on growing stronger.
Andrew is in town to rock Katie Curic’s socks off. He plays keyboards in World Leader Pretend. The band is performing on The Today Show Friday morning. But first, later today, MTV News — aka yours truly is interviewing the band.
First, though, I interviewed my cousin. We’ve been talking music ever since I gave him his first guitar in 1990. So we repaired to my favorite UWS pub, The Dead Poet after work (MTV for me, rehearsal for him). There, bathed in neon and bad jukebox music, we discussed the art, the show, and the business with unparalleled fervor. Having been on the road with a Major Label Act for nearly six months, Andrew is witnessing the tension between art and commerce first hand.
“All of my friends have lost their imagination,” he said. “I don’t want to lose mine. I don’t want to stop imagining that we’re rock stars.”
“Remember, dude,” I said, putting my hands together like a closed book, “Imagination doesn’t have to be limited to one vision. It takes a lot of imagination,” I said, opening them slowly until they were wide open, “That it takes a lot of imagination to hold on to hyphenates: rock star, writer, film director, dude who video tapes depositions, husband, father, friend. That’s it, I think. That’s growing up.”
He looked at me a little puzzled, took a long pull on his Harp, and looked out the window at the young blonde that had captured his attention moments prior.
“Yeah, I hear ya’,” he said.
It hurts a little bit, all of this growing. I’m sore. I get teary-eyed. But I know that the tide is turning around. The growing pains are evidence.
I Must Be An Acrobat
A few weeks ago at the “Elizabethtown” premiere party, a woman from UPI asked me, “So, are you a critic?” I answered quickly enough to offend every critic within ear shot, “Oh no, no, no, no. I’d never be a critic.”
True, I was on the job for MTV News, so she’s to be forgiven for asking. But being a rock or movie critic was never something I aspired to. What do critics know? What has a critic made? At the end of their days, what do they have to show for themselves?
Frank Zappa famously said, “Most rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.” Hyperbole, to be sure. And back when I wrote on the regular (as opposed to coming out of retirement to interview my heroes), I took umbrage with Mr. Zappa’s statement. I’m still not sure I agree. But rock criticism? Complete bullshit.
Here’s what got my goat. Today I stumbled onto an interview Chicago Tribune Music Critic Greg Kot conducted a few months ago with Bono. Ends up Kot had written a piece declaring “U2′s March of the Tired Warhorses Hamstrings Fine Ensemble Effort.” Now, I’ve read enough post modern language theory and penny ante psychology to know that every author writes himself into his work. Feeling like a tired warhorse, Mr. Kot? Cranking out lame rock criticism for a second rate newspaper got you down? But I’m not going to go there. Instead, I’d like to simply ask: what good has ever come of criticism?
Kot calls out Bono for selling out to Apple. He suggests that licensing “Vertigo” to an iPod commercial cheapened the song. He has the stones to tell Bono what good for his art! Bono replies:
I hear so many songwriters describe their songs as their children, that they have to look after them. Bullshit! They’re your parents, they tell you what to do. They tell you how to dress, how to behave when you’re playing them. They tell you what the video looks like. If you listen to them, they manage you. And if you get it right, they pay for your retirement [laughs]. Because songs demand to be heard!
I started my career at a tiny paper in Saratoga Springs, New York, called The Saratogian. I had a column called “B-Side” (I wanted to call it “The Electric Banana” but they wouldn’t let me). My objective was to celebrate the vibrancy, immediacy, and unadulterated (check out the root of that word: un-adult, as in “child like”) joy of the 45. Too young to remember the 45? Nowadays we’d call it a single, or a download. Used to be it was a slab of vinyl with a hit on one side, and some experimental, live or album also-ran on the other. And I loved both sides! The radio hit and the weird flipside where the artist stretched out just a little bit. Check out the root of that word: art. Know what that is, Mr. Kot? Ever made any? Ever made anything?
Obviously, the subject of criticism gets my goat. Probably because I hear tons of it around the office. “This sucks” or “That’s lame.” And this from a bunch of people who wouldn’t know how to pour their hearts out into a microphone if they took classes! This from a bunch of people who have never made anything original or heartfelt.
Make no mistake: doing so — creating something original and heartfelt — doesn’t entitle one to be critical of other people’s art. Instead, I believe, it enables one to be empathic of the artist’s way. It enables one to appreciate the process, if not the outcome. And in doing so — win or lose, thumbs up or down — it makes all art that much more meaningful.
Or you can just sit at your desk, stare at a computer and say, “This sucks, that’s lame.” Whatever. Artists go to the grave with a body of work. Critics go to the grave with a bunch of press clippings about someone else’s work. Who’s Saint Peter’s gonna be most psyched to see?
Start It Again
For the first time since I don’t know when I have absolutely, positively nothing to do.
I have no travel on my itinerary. Nothing. October is scott free. I’m all about getting ready for the marathon, the cd release, and the tour. That’s it. R ‘n R. Chillin’ like Bob Dylan. Watchin’ TV and reading magazines. Sweet Jimminy Cricket, I love it!
So, my first night off. What’d I do? I wrote and recorded a crappy song! Nah, that’s terrible. It’s not so crappy, really. Just nothing you’ll ever hear live or on a cd. Just something that came and went and was probably a good palette cleanser. Something to shake the dust out. Something to distract me from my primary worry. Which is, how the hell am I gonna pay for my new record? How the hell am I gonna pay the band? How the hell is the tour gonna’ come together? That’s three worries: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
You probably already received my Team Heartland email. So you know how I hope to pay for the new cd. With your help! I set up a few tiers of support, one of which entitles the patron to a living room show of their own anywhere in the continental United States (you listening Bakersfield? Portland? Baltimore? Denver?). Maybe kinda’ shameless, I suppose. Worked for Beethoven. And Michelangelo. And, well, fact is, Mastercard’s pretty much laughin’ out loud these days.
It probably looks like I have some kind of successful business going on here. But by my calculations, I’ve spent two dollars for every one I’ve earned in the last twelve years. Probably should’ve just socked it all away in mutual funds or something. I could own a record label by now. But then I think I would have also slit my wrists years ago.
(And listen, I acknowledge how it must sound to be all “Whoa is me I have no money” given what’s going on all of the world, if not in our own backyards. I’m empathic to the loss and suffering. But I can’t be anywhere that I’m not. That is, I can’t get outside my own experience. None of us can. So, my worry is my worry. No matter where I go, here I am. This is what it is.)
ANYWAY, Kevin’s mixing it as we speak, er, type. I’ll owe him. Mastering is scheduled for October 15 at Engine Room (where sweet, sweet Amy Hills works). That’s gonna’ set me back $500. Duplication — full color art with six panel folding insert — is gonna’ cost at least $1500. All after spending who knows how much on getting back and forth to Iowa a few times to work with Jon Locker. Fortunately, The Nadas are saints and pitched in gratis. Then they invited me to release “Heartland” on their label. God bless ‘em.
And the tour. Well, the tour’s in Wes’ hands at this point. I sent press kits from Portsmouth, NH, to Charlotte, NC. He’s doing the follow up. Hope it comes together. And hope to make it to Iowa in December. We’ll see, we’ll see, we’ll see.
Oh, and the band. I have four shows this month, three of which are a Monday night residency at Rockwood Music Hall. If you’re a New Yorker, I hope you’ll come down (or up, or over). I’m gonna do some solo acoustic, some full-band. Should be fun. I just hope ya’ll come out.
All of this rambling is just me worrying out loud. I’m worried that maybe I’ve overextended myself, maybe this album will blow, or maybe no one really cares any more, or maybe I’ve released too much material in the last few years. But I can’t help it, releasing records, that is. It’s a sickness. A healthy one. Like worrying. Which is what I do when I have down time. Which may explain why I avoid down time. But maybe it’ll do me some good. I dunno’.
We’ll see.
To Be Continued
I had a beer with Cameron Crowe tonight.
I listened to “Same In Any Language” (from the “Elizabethtown” soundtrack) five times between Jamaica and Penn stations. My skin was still warm from the Montauk sun. My eyes still burned from the brightness of it all. I was smiling inside. I was quiet with my thoughts. I was happy.
Back to my apartment, I dropped my bags, and picked up my guitar. I tried to write a song. I had the kernal of an idea. One line really. A phrase. A wish.
Don’t break my heart.
The song didn’t come. The words weren’t there. The music sounded trite. I will find it again.
I haven’t felt this vulnerable in a while. Funny what a little companionship will do. Suddenly, every word I speak is dangerous. Suddenly, every sentence I mumble is supect. Suddenly, the clean slate feels messy. What am I saying? What does it mean? Where am I headed? It feels a little bit scary. But so… alive.
Cameron called around nine. I was sitting in my office, feet up, Sam Adams in hand. The “Elizabethtown” soundtrack was playing on my computer. The snapshot I’d taken of us lay propped on my desk.
“Mmmmm-TV News.”
He laughed.
“Mr. Benjamin Wagner!?!”
“Mr. Cameron Crowe,” I said in my deepest, coolest voice. “How are you, my friend?”
“How are you?”
We talked about movies and music for nineteen minutes and fifty-one seconds, at which point I pressed pause.
“Off the record,” I said. “Your films are personal. One of the themes of ‘Elizabethtown’ is dealing with fiasco. So I’m wondering, what was yours?”
He answered. I understood. And our time was up.
“To be continued, brutha’.”
Indeed.
Square One
Thirty-six pairs of boxer shorts, twenty-three flights of stairs, three beers and one DVD later, my life is beginning to approach normal.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a full-fledged procrastinator, but I’m not very good at maintenance.
Example: I pay my bills when I have to. When, for example, I turn on the television and see a black screen with white letters that reads “Please Call Your Cable Provider To Restore Service.”
Example: I do laundry when I have to. When, for example, my closet won’t shut for the piles upon piles of jeans, t-shirts, and boxers.
Example: I go to the doctor when I have to. When, for example, the pain in my back is so intense that I can barely stand.
I call it triage. I deal with what I need to when I need to. I fit myself in between the work, the travel, the rock, the running, the relationship… the real world.
The downside to this strategy (or lack there of) is that things can turn ugly fast. My cable bill was $306. My laundry took four hours. My back… well, my back’s fine. For now. But what happens when I’m sixty-years-old?
When I grow up, I want to be better at maintenance. I want to take better care the basics. I can pull a record together — recording, mixing, mastering, artwork, duplication, marketing, t-shirts, tour — but I can’t keep my cable service online, my clothes clean, or my body in check.
I’ll get around to it one of these days.
Celebrate
Somewhere in Des Moines, Mike Butterworth is going in circles on wobbly roller skates.
My friends The Nadas celebrate the release of their fifth studio album, “Listen Through The Static,” today. They’re celebrating with a roller skating listening party at in West Des Moines. I told them I’d love nothing more than to be there, but with my recent travels to Nashville, Louisville, Nantucket, Miami, Des Moines, Omaha, and Kansas City, well, I gotta’ stay put a minute. I don’t have enough miles, vacation, or Xanax. Still, I promised I’d pour one out and crank the CD. I’m doing so now.
There’s a great article on uber-producer Rock Rubin in the recent issue of Rolling Stone. In case you don’t know, he formed Def Jam Records with Russell Simmons, launched the careers of LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, and Run DMC, resuscitated the careers of Johnny Cash and The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and is poised to do so again with Neil Diamond.
“I was friends with The Beastie Boys,” he says. “They grew up in Manhattan, and their tastes were much more sensitive to what was cool, and they tended not to like anything mainstream or popular. I had a very mainstream diet.”
My first record was The Beach Boys “Surfin’ Safari.” The first concert I saw was John Denver. The first single I bought with my own money was Hall & Oats “Kiss On Your List.” The first song I performed in public was “Theme From The Greatest American Hero.” I used to rock out to Styx “Paradise Theater” and Neil Diamond’s “the Jazz Singer” on my parent’s Magnavox stereo cabinet. Cool? What the heck is that?
It wasn’t ’til I moved to Vallery Forge, Pennsylvania, that I began to gather just how uncool I was. The other kids were listening to their elder sibling’s copies of The Who’s “Tommy” while I was listening to Kim Wilde’s “Kids In America” and Matthew Wilder’s “Break My Stride.” And it only got worse in college.
It took me a long time — until now, really — to be ok with uncool. Heck, just today a colleague mocked my affection for “Elizabethtown.”
“Yunno, Ben,” he said, “I wasn’t the only one to dislike it. What do you think of that?”
“I think you’re all heartless, soulless, cynical New Yorkers,” I said.
A bit harsh, maybe (sorry, Ryan). Or maybe not.
In Cameron Crowe’s fictional memoire, “Untitled” (aka “Almost Famous”), rock critic Lester Bangs tells young William Miller, “We’re uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don’t have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we’re smarter.”
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world,” he says, “is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool.”
If that’s true, then I’m a wealthy, wealthy man. And I’m sharing The Nadas with you. Listen through the static. Sing along. Relish the mainstream. What the heck.
Long Ride Home
Kentucky straight bourbon is not to be trifled with. And yet, here I am, trifling.
15-year-old, 107 proof Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve is aged in “deep-charred heavy oak” barrels in Frankfurt, Kentucky. It is “untouched by human hands.” It is “unhurried by time.” And it is caustic stuff.
Joseph and I sprinted to the liquor store across Bardstown Road from Ear X-Tacy at the height of Orlando gridlock to do some quick shopping. “What do you all drink?” he asked. “Van Winkle, for sure,” the clerk responded. And so each of us made off with a bottle.
Back in my Nashville hotel some three hours later, I poured myself a glass. The smell alone gave me goose bumps. Still, I choked it down, and relishing the resulting warmth that spread through me. Then I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Waking up in another town often feels like a dream. Running full on into one’s heroes only exacerbates that feeling. And so when I saw Cameron enter the record shop on Saturday, I reminded myself, ‘This is real. This is what you do.’
It’s difficult to meet one’s heroes. I don’t have many: Fred Rogers, Michael Stipe, and Cameron Crowe. I’ve met them all. And I’ve told them all how much they’ve meant to me. But I’m always left wanting more. Aren’t we all? Don’t we all want to be friends? Or worse, don’t we all want to be their children?
I do. I admit it.
I’ve had some terrific parenting. My mother carried a heavy load. And my father remained absolutely present despite the thousand miles between us. But it doesn’t quell this unexplainable urge to be schooled, guided, nurtured — cuddled even — by these great figures of the heart. ‘Cuz that’s it, really, isn’t it? Mr. Rogers, Michael Stipe, and Cameron Crowe share one thing in common: heart, and lots of it.
So much of our culture is governed by the head, or worse, the crotch. Not these guys. They tell simple stories. They remind us how to feel. They’re not afraid to be uncool, or unpopular.
I’ve had some time to think about you
And watch the sun set like a stone
I’ve had some time to think about you
On the long ride home
I’ve had some time to think about meeting Cameron. I watched the sun fall over the rolling hills of Kentucky Saturday night, the moonrise over Tennessee Sunday night, and the sun set again as I flew in over Manhattan tonight. Each time I thought, ‘What does it all mean? Why are you here? Why did you go there?’
Per usual, I’m not quite sure. I think Cameron’s galvanized my confidence in my heart. He’s demonstrated, time and again, warmth beats cold, engaged trumps detached, hope succeeds cynicism, and openness beats closure. It is a more difficult path, to be sure.
Is there any other way?
