Deep Down In Our Hearts
Every performance is unique. Living room concerts, though, are a breed apart.
The concept of a living room concert isn’t new. Organizations like House Concerts and local public radio stations across the country host events all the time. Musicians as far flung as Janis Ian, Nerissa & Katryna Nields, and Smithereen Pat DiNizio make careers of these intimate performances. And it’s not just a washed-up folkie thing: On October 6, Decemberists’ front man, Colin Meloy, will performa living room concert in Portland, Oregon, to benefit the Oregon League of Conservation Voters.
In November, 2003, tired and jaded from ten years of scheduling shows with apathetic, twentysomething bookers, and inspired by conceptual relatedness, I decided to support the release of my sixth album, “Almost Home,” with a living room tour. I played a dozen dates from New York to Chapel Hill, Princeton to Cleveland, and back, in just under two weeks. It was exhausting, but rewarding, and possibly my single-most successful tour in terms of spreading the word, and selling the merch.
What distinguishes living room shows from standard performances, of course, is intimacy. The audience is smaller and closer to the performer. There’s rarely a stage, microphone, amplification or lights. In short, living room performances lack all of the artifice that insulates the performer and the audience from one another. Which is a good thing. There’s a back and forth. We can talk. But it also creates unusual challenges.
For starters, people aren’t used to sitting three feet away from someone singing his heart out. They’re not used to eye contact, or engagement. Typical roles are turned on their heads. The gaze, as postmodernists refer to it, ceases to be one way; it’s returned with enthusiasm. Which, of course, is part of what makes the whole thing special, but also what makes it a bit awkward.
Of course, every performance, whether Mercury Lounge of Madison Square Garden, is subject to chatter. There are always a few people more interested in catching up with one another than participating in the performance itself (begging the question: why did they come to the show in the first place?). In my experience, chatter bugs are usually a) fraternity brothers or b) teenage girls (if not literally, then behaviorally). They’re either uncomfortable with the guy singing about mushy stuff, or they’re so excited to see one another that they’re oblivious to the special circumstance unfolding before them. Of course, they usually amplify their conversation during the quiet parts. Which, with my music — especially when I’m unplugged — is most of the time. The good news is that every performer, from Michael Stipe to Michael Penn to Michael Jackson deals with the same phenomena.
Last night’s living room performance featured all of the above. Contributing to the already challenging situation was the fact that I didn’t know either of my hostesses, nor any of their friends. The initial request, though, was impossible to refuse. It was well timed, and well intentioned. I love to perform (duh), and hadn’t since May. More importantly, the show was in support of a first-time marathoner’s Team In Training fundraising. Oh, and the request came from Syracuse alumni.
So there I was, eight o’clock on a Thursday night, knocking on a stranger’s door.
Of course, Denae (the first-time marathoner and fundraiser) and Lesley (her public relations friend) were delightful, as were most of her friends. With the exception of a coupla’ suits hiding in the hallway (literally), everyone was enthusiastic and engaged — especially during my covers of “Leaving On A Jet Plane” and “Brown Eyed Girl.” In fact, a few of them were even singing along with some of my originals (most notably “Harder To Believe” and “Promise”), which is really great, really appreciated, and really challenging (given that I forget my own lyrics all the time).
Lesley asked me to play for two hours, so I prepped two ten-song sets. The set was long, and ebbed and flowed a bit. It became pretty clear to me, though, that two hours of attentive listening to mostly-unknown, mostly-original songs was a bit more than the audience (most audiences, to be fair) could endure. I’d written a set with a story arch, and there were songs I really wanted to play, though. So I skipped my intended set break, stuck to the plan, and dragged the dozen or so late night remainders all the way to the end.
As the final chord of “Heroes” (an amazing song from David+David’s “Boomtown” which was released in 1986 when, by my calculations, most of last night’s audience was five-years-old), I was feeling slightly lukewarm about the whole thing. Maybe I felt like the set rambled on too much. Maybe I felt like I didn’t put on a good enough show. Maybe the suits were bothering me. I dunno.
Just after that final E chord faded, Denae stood and made a sweet little speech. She said she’d recently hit “the wall” with her marathon training, that, with just six weeks to go, she was fatigued, and wasn’t sure she could make the finish line.
“I’m not sure I’m a hero,” Denae said, “But you guys are. And thanks to you here tonight, and all of my friends and my family supporting me, I know I can do it now.”
Sitting there next to her, the 59th Street Bridge (location of the marathon’s seventeenth mile and gateway to Manhattan) just out the window, I swear to God — as hokey as it sounds — I could feel Mister Rogers smiling over my shoulder. At which point nothing else mattered. We’d done a small, good thing. And that was enough.
Constellations Turned To Polaroids In A Cardboard Box
The sky over Central Park looked like a bruise this morning, all deep gray, purple, and blue. It reminded me of the sky over Telluride before a summer storm.
I first visted Telluride in July, 1990. I spent a few days in the San Juan mountain, there in the southwest corner of Colorado, in my 8553 mile road trip from Philadelphia to San Diego and back. I fell fast in love with the jagged, snow-capped peaks, the broad meadows below, and their stands of whispering aspen trees. I swore I would return.
One year later, I pointed my rusty-red Nissan Sentra into that great box canyon with a K-Mart pup tent, a North Face sleeping bag, and Takamine acoustic guitar in the trunk, an aqua Cannondale mountain bike on a rack, and $700 in cash in my pocket. I was twenty-years-old.
The first night in Town Camp, a small patch of pine needles just east of Main Street, passed uneventfully. On the second, I woke to the steady drum of raindrops on canvas. Soon enough, the waterproofing failed, and I climbed into the Sentra’s cramped backseat.
I pounded the pavement with vigor in the morning, shaking hands and knocking on doors in an effort to find a warm, dry place to stay for the summer. My best lead came from a house full of twenty-something, bong-ripping, frat-boy ski-bums who offered a small closet with musty carpetting for a thousand bucks a month. It was precisely the environment I sought to escape.
Crestfallen, I walked to a phone booth on the edge of town as the sun began falling towards Utah. Thick gray clouds were gathering. Lightening was flashing on the mountains. Thunder echoed through the canyon. I dialed my mother, and cried.
“I’m cold, I’m tired, I’m sore, I have no job, no friends, and nowhere to stay tonight… and a storm’s about to break!”
That night, I spent fifty bucks on a hotel room, ten bucks on a pizza, and watched “Cheers” as lightening lit the night, thunder shook the mountains, and the San Miguel River rushed outside my window. The next morning, I met Suzi Goeller, and moved my tent, sleeping bag, and guitar into a loft above her apartment. I spent the summer pumping gas at the local Texaco, reporting local news on KOTO-FM, and studying creative writing at the Telluride A-Ha Institute.
On the afternoon of my first day in Telluride, I decided to hike to Bridal Vail Falls, a 385 foot waterfall east of town. Telluride, for starters, sits 8750 above sea level. The falls — Colorado’s longest free falling waterfall — are some five hundred feet higher. Within just a few hundred yards, I was doubled over by a racing heart and a pounding head. A few weeks later — acclimated, I figured — I tried to jog to the top of Bear Creek, another beautiful waterfall south of town. Again, I found myself stopped dead in my tracks from exhaustion.
I ran into a friend last night who had just ended a three-month relationship — her first in nearly ten years — with a married man. She was beside herself with sadness, rage, and hopelessness. “What difference does it make?” she asked, over and over and over through tears.
You know that my favorite, most-often repeated quote is Tobias Wolff’s: “We are made to persist, to finish the tour. That’s how we found out who we really are.” Still, I couldn’t share that with her. She wouldn’t have heard it anyway.
One of my favorite books as a kid was “The Little Engine That Could.” Sure, it’s right up there with Annie’s “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” for hokum, but it’s good stuff. Like Annie, it’s stayed with me. Last night, as I listened to her, I felt so grateful for that it had. So grateful that, even in my darkest moments, even when I’m cold, tired, ore, jobless, friendless, and homeless; even on the 24th mile of the NYC Marathon; on every worst-day-ever, I have thought to myself, “I think I can.” I have thought to myself, “The sun’ll come out tomorrow.” I have thought to myself, “Persist.”
In the school year between visiting and then living in Telluride, I taped an 8 1/2 x 11 photo of Mount Ajax, the 11, 212 foot peak above town, just over my desk. I spent an entire year pledging to myself that I would stand on top of that mountain.
In the waning days of summer, Suzi, her dog Heidi and I slowly and steadily climbed to the summit of Mount Ajax. In the photo that’s survived the intervening fifteen years, there is a thunderstorm gathering just over my shoulder. I know this from the clouds, the streaks of rain, and the fact that my hair is on end from static electricity.
The best part is that, standing there two miles in the sky, I didn’t even notice.
Just One Thing
Listen, I don’t have a ton to say. And if I start spouting, I’ll just sound like complaining. Which it would be, cuz I’m grouchy and tired and feel like complaining. But I won’t. So, just one thing…
I was wondering yesterday morning, ‘Who are these people?’
There are some four hundred of you who check in on the daily. Which is really cool, and really sweet, and I’m really grateful. But who the heck are you? I mean, at best, I have fifty relatives. So that leaves at least a few other readers (and, hopefully, listeners).
I’m not putting the aegis on you to cheer me up, or asking for money, or any leftover hope you may have to share. I’m just askin’ for a little love in the inbox.
C’mon, reach out.
Update: As of 3:44 pm ET, I’ve received exactly eight emails (including one from my mother — thanks mom), all of which are from readers with whom I’ve corresponded (and, in some cases, shared beers) before. Of course, I’m grateful to all of them. But c’mon people! Raise the veil of anonymity!
Update: As of 12:34 pm ET on Wednesday, I’ve received 35 emails, many of which are from new friends. Thanks! It’s really nice meeting you all. I owe you each a note. Meanwhile, if you haven’t emailed, please do!
Glass, Concrete, And Stone
My new favorite marathon training run is the perimeter of Manhattan.
Typically, we set out from the East 70s. There’s no promenade between 70th and 34th, so we run south on First. It’s all downhill to the United Nations.
I like running past the UN. It may not be the perfect institution, but they’ve got the right idea. I like that big old aqua blue and white tower; so Jetsons. I always feel like a citizen of the world there. Like I’m a part of something. Like maybe it’s not the end of the world quite yet.
There’s a gigantic construction site at East 40th Street. Week by week, iron workers and demolitionists have been tearing a full city block down to its foundations. By the spring of 2008, hundreds of no doubt luxurious condos will stand in its place.
The East River opens up at Kips Bay just above Stuyvesant Town. We pass a few fishermen. We pass the Con Ed station, pumping frothy effluent into the cool water. And soon enough, the three bridges come into view: Williamsburg (1600 feet, constructed 1896-1903), Manhattan (1470 feet, constructed 1901-1909), and Brooklyn (1595 feet, constructed 1870-83).
We run through East River Park, past little leaguers and pick-up soccer players. The park ends just below the Williamsburg Bridge, all rusted and blue. We continue onto a wide widewalk below the FDR in a neighborhood called Two Bridges. In the 18th Century, this area was known as Corlears Hook, a rough and tumble neighborhood where the term “hooker” was coined.
The mile or so north of the South Street Seaport is dotted with elderly Asian men and women fishing, walking, and stretching. We pass the Paris Cafe (founded 1873), below the great Brooklyn Bridge, past the abandoned Fulton Fish Market (named for Robert Fulton, proprieter of the Clermont steamship which revolutionized the young port town by slashing the trip up the Hudson to just 32 hours), and finally the Seaport. Sure, it’s got an Abercrombie and Fitch, and a Sunglass Hut. But at 170 feet, the masts of The Peking — launched in Hamburg, Germany, in 1911 and used to carry manufactured goods to South America and back via Cape Horn — is still a sight.
Invariably, though, there below the great glass skyscrapers, there as New York Harbor comes opens up — Brooklyn Naval Yards, Governer’s Island, the Statue of Liberty, the Verenzano Bridge, the great orange ferry lumbering towards Staten Island — I turn to Abbi and say, “Yunno, it is a pretty great city.”
Most days find me struggling to retain my sense of humor, optimism, and hope. There’s the noise, the garbage, and the stink. There’s the rudeness, the rush, and the rage. And there’s the ruble: the giant hole where those towers once stood.
Still, every time Abbi and I find ourselves on that thin strip of real estate between the Seaport and the Staten Island Ferry, the sky gets a little bit brighter, and the water grows a little bit wider, and I think maybe, just maybe I can make it a few more miles. And, I think, maybe I can make it just a few more days.
Fun With Dick And Jane
Jane Magazine has an FOB (“front of book,” for you non-journalism types) feature called “The Same Five Questions We Always Ask.” The questions are definately tailored to rock stars, but in the absence of inspiration or time, I’ve decided to play along at home (or, truth be told, work).
Jane: When was the last time you pulled an all-nighter?
Benjamin Wagner: I ve come close a few times in the last few years, but don’t think I’ve made it to sunrise. So I’d have to say (somewhat reluctantly) October, 1999. I was partying after an Arlene Grocery show when an old friend showed up and kind of re-invigorated the madness. The sun was rising and birds were chirping when we finally stumbled out of Kennedy’s Pub. I caught a train to a show in Boston a few hours later.
Jane: Where’s the craziest place you’ve ever had sex?
BW: Outdoors, cars, public restrooms — pretty standard.
Jane: What word makes you cringe when you hear it?
BW: Tripe.
Jane: If you were invisible for one day and could spy on a famous person, who would it be?
BW: My substantive answer is Al Gore. My vacuous answer is Jennifer Connelly.
Jane: What do you think happens when you die?
BW: I’m not sure. I’m betting nothing, but I’m hoping Heaven.
Autumnal
There was a cool, steady breeze blowing through my window this morning. Despite nearly ten hours of sleep, I wanted to stay underneath the covers.
I love this time of year: the crisp, dry days, the quality of light. But it’s impossible to ignore that winter’s creeping in. And in winter I cannot abide.
For now, though, autumn’s arrival is fine.
I’ve been running like crazy. Training has passed from difficult to impossible. Every morning begins with a run (except the one morning I ride my bike, and the one morning I take off). Despite my best efforts, there are very few Manhattan jogging routes I haven’t run: every permeation of Central Park (The Loop, The Ramble, The Reservoir), Riverside Park, East Side, West Side, Downtown. We ran twenty miles on Saturday. That’s like running from Times Square to the Short Hills Mall. So I’m constantly hungry, constantly sore, and constantly stretching.
I’ve been rehearsing for next Thursday’s show. Playing two sets (or one longer one; I haven’t decided yet) presents an opportunity to really tell a story. And when I looked down last night at the songs I plan on playing, a narrative really did present itself. I’m not sure whether I’d call it “20s & 30s,” “Before & After,” or “With & Without,” or “Hate & Love,” but there’s a story there. Come by Thursday night, see what you think.
I’ve been blogging like a fiend over at “Making ‘Mister Rogers & Me.’ Check it out if you haven’t caught up lately.
And work? Well. There’s lots to do.
What I really want to do, though, is play hooky. I want to sleep in, eat a big brunch, visit a museum, see a movie. A think I’ll get that chance. I typicaslly take off the day after The Marathon. Problem is, I have to run 26 miles to get there.
Message In A Bottle
I was more than a little bit disappointed when the news broke last week that You Tube sensation Lonelygirl15 was a hoax.
It’s not so much that I found her on camera mini-drama that compelling. In fact, I’m not sure I even sat through an entire episode. I did appreciate, though, that her story was unique, compelling, and genuine. Here, it appeared, was a case where — as Smokey Junglefrog bassist Paul Perreault often preached — great art found an audience.
Cut to the final chapter: the admission that it was all staged; written, produced, and acted by a quartet of Hollywood also rans. And, of course, it’s now for sale on Revver.
“Nothing is real,” I said to anyone who’d listen. “And everything is for sale.”
Maybe it’s “Rock Star: Supernova,” “Survivor: Cook Island,” or even that old whipping boy, “The Real World” (now casting its 19th season in Tuscon, Arizona). Maybe it’s Ashlee Simpson, Dannity Kane, or My Chemical Romance, all perfectly coifed and coached for maximum market penetration.
Maybe it’s the cans of Coca Cola so deliberately placed on Paul, Randy, and Simon’s “American Idol” desks. Maybe it’s the “Akeelah and the Bee” heat sleeves wrapped around my Starbucks veinte mild. Maybe it’s the sensory overload of Times Square, or the chyron on the Yankees game brought to me by Budweiser, or the Lexus ad at the end of “The News Hour With Jim Lehrer.”
Whatever it is, I can’t escape the feeling that nothing is real, and everything is for sale. So much so that I emailed my friend, “I’m Proud Of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers” author, Tim Madigan, for advice.
How do you manage all of the cultural imperatives towards shallow and complex? How do you keep your life meaningful when it feels like everything is conspiring against it?
Tim wrote back this morning, kindly resisting the urge to call me crazy.
I know how you feel. But I tend to fall back on something a black man, a dean at the Harvard Business School, told me when we were discussing the racism that is still so rampant in this country. How did he keep from giving in to despair, wondered. He said, something to the effect of, “You just have to look around you and see all the good people who are trying to make a difference.” I think that’s true. They’re not hard to find. They are everywhere, the helpers, as Fred would say. You’re one of them. So feel good about that, and keep the faith.
After work, I printed out the transcript from my interview with activist, mystic, and author, Bo Lozoff, and read it on the subway. Each elapsed word took me back to that sunny June day in North Carolina…
I was sitting in Fred Rogers’ office talking with the staff of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” about children and violence on that Tuesday, [the exact] moment that the shootings were happening at Columbine. We finished that conversation, we went out to our car, we turned on the radio, we heard about this thing that had just happened in Columbine. And it’s exactly what we were just talking about that children seem to be losing all hope. And what I said was, “You know, there’s three simple words or ideas that you could apply to a rich life. You say that there’s something beautiful, something noble, and something sacred. And just brief examples of what I mean by that: the sun set If we allow it to touch us. You know, do you and I take time in our daily lives — I’m talking about seconds — to consciously be moved or touched by something we consider beautiful? All I have to do is pick up my guitar and I’m in beauty. The Arts are a link between the temporal, the mundane world, and the eternal, the mystical. It gets us a little bit out of our mind. Something beautiful is something that touches us. Something you say, “Oh, my. Oh, my.” Something noble, by that I mean, like that second principle of all the great spiritual traditions, something we believe in is larger than us, something we look up to: a cause, an idea, a person, an elder, a bird, nature. But something that we consider is worth sacrificing for, or worth taking a risk for. Something sacred, do we have those moments when our heads are truly bowed in humility at the grandeur, the greatness and the vastness, the incompressibility of what this human life is everyday. And when I said it on that Tuesday, the day of Columbine was, “If either of those two kids, thought there was a single thing in the world — a word, an idea, a song, a rock group, a movie, a bird, a person, a religion — if there was a single thing in the world that either of those kids thought was beautiful, noble or sacred, they never could have done what they did.” And then I just realized with a shudder, “Oh my God! Is it possible that tens of millions of Americans, don’t feel they have any time for beautiful, noble or sacred?” It’s the vicious crushing pace of this life about wanting stuff and getting stuff and having stuff and using stuff and buying stuff and then of course replacing stuff, repairing stuff, protecting stuff defending stuff, you know, that it’s so vicious, it’s anti-life.
Back home, tonight, I watched “Mister Rogers: Americas favorite Neighbor” on DVD. In one of the interviews, there was an oil painting of his Crooked House in Nantucket just over his shoulder in his office. I went there for a moment in my mind, and quietly imagined the sun setting over the whisper of the wind through the high, dune grass. And when I looked around for helpers, I saw them everywhere around me.
Rock ‘n Roll Training
I’ve long wondered how to combine my love for running with my love for rocking. I’ve thought about running the New York City Marathon with a guitar, or small speakers blasting my tunes. The most I’ve managed thus far, though, was last year’s Benjamin Wagner Dot Com T-shirt. This year, an idea was delivered straight to my inbox.
Here’s the skinny, courtesy of said email’s author, Lesley Weiner:
You are invited to a private concert! Please come to Denae’s Living Room, an extremely exclusive venue (with ridiculous views of the 59th Street Bridge), for a live, acoustic performance by Benjamin Wagner. A marathon-runner (and Orangeman!) himself, Benjamin is currently training for his seventh NYC Marathon. He also happens to be an amazing singer/songwriter, and has agreed to perform to help Denae raise her last chunk of money needed for Team in Training.
In under 60 days, Denae will embark on her journey, running BOTH the San Francisco Half and the New York City Marathon. I have been unbelievably overwhelmed and impressed by her determination in training these past months, and inspired by her seemingly endless pursuit. Team in Training has clearly been a huge driving force in Denae’s accomplishments, and continues to be what pushes her further and further.
As Denae reaches the final stretch in her training, she is also reaching the end of her fundraising. The $20 admission will be going directly into Denae’s Team in Training fund, and will get you a BYOB night of songs and light snacks (sorry, this is not the usual Bard-alicious food/wine/sangria/cerveza event — the goal here is to make money not spend it, people!).
Thursday, September 28th @ 7:30
Denae Bard’s Apartment
RSVP + Details: mtvitamin@aol.com
Smokey Junglefrog used to play house parties all the time in college. Some of our best shows were beer-soaked dance-fests complete with shaking rafters, tequila shots, and bandmates falling down stairs. I’m not sure this show’s going to have quite that tenor, but it’ll be a good one. And given how often I play shows these days, you might wanna’ get it while the gettin’s good.
P.S. I’ll be recording the show for potential iTunes release. So if you come and clap real loud, you’ll be on the record.
P.P.S. Got a request? Email me. I’ll play it.
Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’?
The first thing I saw when I stepped out of the office tonight was a two hundred pound man jogging through Times Square in nothing but panties, a camisole, and a pair of Nikes.
‘Eh,’ I thought. ‘That’s just about par for the course.’
I was torqued about work from the moment my sneakers first hit the pavement this morning. It was a little thing, really, but I vented to Abbi for six miles: up Central Park West, through Morningside Heights, and back down Riverside Park.
Once I got in, that which torqued was resoved (mostly) soon enough. The day moved along nicely. I began getting some traction. I began moving forward. Then Kurt burst into my office and said, “I saw the worst movie ever last night!” Then we begin emailing each other rediculous news articles (like “George Clooney Will Speak To UN Security Council Thursday About Darfur”) and pithy remarks (like, “I’m sure he’ll be most successful in persuading the monstrous Islamic regime in Khartoum to be nicer from now on. Look how well the Europeans’ three years of talks with Iran worked out.”). Crazy. And cool.
‘Par for the course,’ I thought.
Meanwhile, Wes and I are IMing about The Heavyweights. And Chris and I are emailing about Buckeye. And I’m working. Hard. Really.
Around 3:45, my boss popped his head into my office and said, “You ready?” And we headed to AMC 25 for an advance screening of “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
On the way to the theater, I pass Travis Barker on the street. Waiting for the light at 42d Street, “Real World: Season One” and “Grind” phenom Eric Neis pulls up on a pink beach bike.
I can’t make this shit up, people.
So there I am sitting between the VP of my department, and the SVP of the entire Network of Fun, in amovie theater full of college students in the middle of the afternoon. Sacha Baron Cohen comes on screen, and the place erupts. The film’s premise in thin, but priceless: Kazakh television reporter visits America, watches “Baywatch,” falls in love with Pamlea Anderson, treks cross country to marry her, hilarity ensues. Actually, hilarity ensues from the first frame, and doesn’t relent until the lights come up. That said, it’s the worse kind of hilarity: anti-Semitic, racist, sexist, and scatological. Oddly, though (and in contrast to The Network of Fun’s forthcoming cinematic foray into potty humor), there’s something redemptive about it. Instead of just embarassing people and bashing them over the head with rotten fruit (or, in addition to), Borat holds a mirror to America culture. The portrait isn’t flattering, but it is real. Nonetheless, twenty minutes in (twenty-five minutes after the number three executive at The Network of Fun asked me what I though about aformentioned forthcoming cinematic foray into potty humor), I thought to myself, ‘I just wasn’t made for these times.’
Par for the course.
Back at the office, the rumor mill is spinning. Six months ago, The Network of Fun’s Chief Digital Office resigned. Six weeks ago, the VP of Digital resigned. Six days ago, the CEO and founder of The Network of Fun was ousted. Today, a fellow EP of Digital resigned.
I think you know what I thought.
So then I find myself on the phone with a gaggle of ad sales types quoting Bill Gates and explaining the value of online editorial in relation on-air advertising. Worse, I’m doing a bang-up job of it.
And then I find that my suggestion to cover the outing of Lonelygirl15 has come to pass; we’re interviewing her in the morning.
Which brings us back to the hairy guy in running shoes.
The ground below me — below us — is shifting all the time. Now more than ever, the view changes every second. I have no idea what’ll happen next. I may not have been made for these times, but they sure are interesting. And sometimes kinda’ energizing.
Heck, walking up 80th Street just now with The Rolling Stones full-blast in my headphones, I think I may have detected a just a smidge of swagger in my step.
Shipbuilding
I like to joke that my buddy Ron picked me up online.
I had a party on my roof deck a few summer’s ago to which I invited my mom, on account of her moving into a piet de terre a few blocks away. Yunno, the older one gets, the less one is averse to partying with parental units. The next afternoon, she called to thank me for all the wine and crackers and such, and said, “You know, I do worry about all those Internet friends of yours. They could be creeps or criminals, and you’re inviting them to your home!”
It’s true: there’s sufficient evidence to suggest that all kinds of weirdness lurks on the edge of Cyberspace. By and large, though, 99% of the folks I’ve befriended online have turned out to be good people.
Take Ron Lieber, who really did pick me up online.
Long story short, I received a random email from him. He told me that he was a reporter, and that he’d traipsed across my site via someone else’s blog (probably Stephanie or Heather’s), and that he might like to use me for story ideas. And I wrote something back. Probably along the lines of, “Press!?! I love press!?!” (Just kidding.) And come to find out he’s almost exactly my age, and he’s from Chicago (where I lived from 5 to 10-years-old), and he’s a guitar player too. He must have disarmed me early — or I Googled him and saw his byline at WSJ.com — that he was neither an ax murderer, nor hot for me, because I wasn’t crept out at all when we agreed to meet downtown for dinner.
Come to think of it, Ron may be the first and only guy I’ve ever met randomly online, and had dinner with.
At the end of the day, he’s just a super nice guy with whom I have a lot in common and enjoy hanging out. Which in itself my not be worthy of a Daily Journal entry. But his 35th birthday celebration at Righteous Urban Barbeque the other night is worthy. And here’s why.
If you’ve read more than a handful of posts, then you know I’m, at best, dubious about playing grown up. Much as I appreciate the concept of getting married and having babies, it typically makes me pretty nervous. What, after all, could be less rock ‘n roll? For some reason (Hollywood? Dan Zanes?), I’ve always had the distinct sense that a) rock stars never married and b) no one interesting has kids. This, oddly enough, in contrast to my interest in both endeavors: husbandry, and parenthood.
This year, as you know, Dear Reader, has been something of an experiment. What would happen, I asked myself, if I played less shows? What would happen, I asked myself, if I recorded fewer songs? What would happen, I asked myself, if I spent less time Downtown?
The answer, alas, remains pending further research.
This much, though, I do know. Ron’s life isn’t exactly what I dreamt about when I was a teenager, but it’s something to dream about: the lovely and successful wife, the adorable baby daughter, the Park Slope loft, the used Pathfinder. And I’m not talking material, or aesthetics; I’m talking Gestalt, I’m talking heart. Sure, it’s a little less “Rolling Stone,” and a little more “Real Simple.” But there’s not too much to be said about a teenager’s dreams. Like my Union Bay painter’s pants, they don’t really fit anymore at thirty-five. By thirty-five, it’s not about the plumes, it’s about the pacifier. And thanks to Ron, as Rob Gordon says in “High Fidelity,” I can sort of see how that’s done.
