Definitely Maybe
I woke this morning around seven. The sky outside my window was foggy and gray. I hit the snooze bar, rolled over, and caught a few more winks.
Milling about my bedroom prior to my shower, I discovered that I was fresh out of clean undershirts. I remembered that thirty-seven pounds of clean darks and whites were waiting for me on Columbus Avenue’s Chesterfield Cleaners. I pulled on some sweats, and made the trek.
80th Street was car-less, and strewn with orange cones. A craft services truck was unpacking boxes of cereal onto a long, wooden table. Yellow signs on light posts indicated that Universal Pictures was shooting the feature film, “Definitely Maybe.” (The film, according to IMDB, stars Ryan Reynolds and Elizabeth Banks, and tells the story of “a political consultant’s attempt to explain his impending divorce and past relationships to his 11-year-old daughter.”)
I picked up my navy blue Ralph Lauren sport coat along with my laundry, grabbed a medium mild from Starbucks (I vehemently resist using Starbucks Speak), and struggled back up five flights. Back in my apartment, I toasted some whole wheat bread, and sat on the couch watching the final fifteen minutes of the documentary, “Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room.”
It’s an astonishing doc. Even to a guy who is a bit of a news junky (I listen to NPR every morning, I read the Times every day, etc etc) the Enron fiasco was a bit tough to wrap around. I knew Ken Lay and Jeff Skillings’ names. And I knew the company went bankrupt overnight. But the details were vague. The film, then, is a clear, simple, and somewhat witty digest version of the case. In short, the company was practicing creative bookkeeping. Initially, they were treating potential earnings — that is, the money they stood to make — as actual earning. In the end, they were creating markets for abstractions that couldn’t even be quantified, like Internet bandwidth and weather. In the end, they were a company hell bent on making money by any means necessary, including cutting California’s power supply in an effort to inflate prices (remember those rolling black outs?) In the end, the company’s collapse wiped out thousands of jobs, more than $60 billion in market value and more than $2 billion in pension plans. Lay had a heart attack a few weeks prior to his sentencing in January. Skllings is currently serving a twenty-four year prison term.
New Yorker magazine’s cover story this week is about corporate burnout (see “Can’t Get No Satisfaction”. “Burnout,” the article purports, “isn’t necessarily a result of overwork. Ayala Pines, a researcher in Israel who’s looked at burnout in all sorts of inspired contexts (including marriage), rather heartbreakingly sums up the problem as ‘the failure of the existential quest’ that moment when we wake up one morning and realize that what we’re doing has appallingly little value.”
I’ve been thinking about corporations, and values, since Mister Rogers asked me about working for MTV News then said, “I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.” (Actually, I was thinking about these sorts of things well prior, like when I announced to my father that I was going to drop out of college and “read a lot of books instead.”) And I thought a lot about burnout last week as I lay in my bed coughing and wheezing and trying to choke down a tablespoon of Tylenol Cold.
These are challenging times for Big Media. Newspapers, magazines and television are dying. Old school executives don’t know what to make of digital. Blogs, user generation, viral video, the landscape is changing all the time. All the while, advertisers are looking to exploit every available tabla rasa. Here at The Network Of Fun, we just launched the most monolithic, old school, slow behemoth ever. Critics hate it, our audience hates it, and most of us hate it. Which doesn’t bode well for ‘the existential quest,’ or for return on investment. This month marks ten years since I joined The Network Of Fun. To feel like a) one’s day job is vacuous (“shallow and complex”) and b) that which was once providing value (my colleagues, our respect of the audience and love of the job) is no longer, well, it’s a tough spot. Mix in a bit of illness, fourth quarter malaise, gray skies, and a general lack of humor and, well…
So I pulled on my dry-cleaned and pressed sport coat, my new boots, and walked downstairs. 80th Street was beginning to bustle. Light grips were standing, pointing, and making plans. The crew was milling around craft services. I crossed Columbus, turned left on Broadway, and descended into 79th Street Station, refilled my Metrocard, and stepped into the station. I walked all the way down the platform (as always), reading an article on Henry Kissinger, while listening to Death Cab For Cutie’s “Brothers On A Hotel Bed” (“Now he lives inside someone he does not recognize / When he catches his reflection on accident ” — appropriate). At the end of the platform, I paused, looked down the tracks, then leaned on support beam. In a flash I realized that beam was covered in fresh paint. I inspected my jacket. The right arm was covered in thick, red, oil-based paint. I mouthed an expletive, looked around to confirm that there were no “Wet Paint” signs, walked out of the station, and straight back to Chesterfield Cleaners.
“MTA paint very good paint,” the woman behind the counter said. “Very difficult to remove. But we will try. And if we cannot, we will make you nice vest.”
She smiled, and handed me a receipt.
“Thanks,” I said. And walked back onto the Hollywood set that is my neighborhood, wondering just what surprises the script held next in store.
Life In Slow Motion
Today was a little weird, like the morning my jaw was unwired.
I was sucker punched by the captain of the football team on the last day of my junior year. I was sixteen-years-old. My jaw was dislocated in both joints and fractured in two places. I spent six weeks with thick wire locking my teeth together, sipping every meal through a straw. The morning it was finally unwired, my mom took me to Dennys for breakfast. But my muscles had atrophied. I could barely slip a spoon between my teeth, and I couldn’t chew, not even scrambled eggs.
The last time I rode the subway to Times Square, walked to 1515, rode the escalator to the mezzanine and the elevator to the 29th floor and into my office was eight days ago. Eight days. One hundred and ninety-two hours. 11,520 minutes. Roughly enough time to watch 96 movies, or listen to 3840 pop songs. Or, in my case, sleep a lot.
I didn’t last long at the office. My boss, God bless him, asked me what I was doing there. “What did the doctor say?” he asked. Truth is, I felt ok when I woke up, so I blew off the doctor — despite the fact that my sore throat hadn’t abated in over a week. For get my parents, or Abbi; even the fine print in the Tylenol Cold bottle says you should seek medical attention after seven days.
After an hour in the waiting room (reading Phillip Lapote’s “Waterfront,” a slightly meandering but satisfying history of New York City’s, well, waterfront), Dr. Lai saw me. “It’s probably just a tough virus,” I said. “But I’ve never been sick this long, and my boss really thought I ought to come to see you.”
My chest sounded fine. My blood pressure was fine. My glands weren’t swollen. And I wasn’t running a fever. But Dr. Lai didn’t like the fact that (brace yourself) my expectorate was, um, discolored (aka puke green). Moments later I was stumbling down Madison Avenue towards Duane Reade where I stocked up on Halls, Excedrin, Tylenol Cold, and five 800mg doses of some oddly named antibiotic.
Anti. Biotic. Seems like I should be taking something probiotic, right? Something more Steve Austen, not less.
Anyway, that’s just the facts. The feelings were this: weird, out of body, slow, slightly stupid. One colleague, who innocently asked me a question early on in the day, was surprised by my response. “Dude, I’m sorry. I have no idea. I’m not even sure if I can complete a sentence yet.”
After a week of sitting in my apartment all but alone (Abbi doesn’t quite count; she’s used to my incoherent, nonsensical ramblings) for a week, I’d lost some basic skills. True, I’d thought about work, and my friends, and family and stuff. But generally, I hadn’t thought of much more than, ‘Wow, it sure would be nice to breath without coughing.’
So crowds, and conversations, and meetings were something else entirely.
The weird thing is — and maybe this is why God (or whomever or whatever) throws adversity our way — that work didn’t seem so important. I mean, it did in so much that I like what I do, and with whom I do it, and I realize the import of getting paid and all. But whether or not the kids get the latest news on, say, Axl Rose, or whether Kurt interviews David Lynch or not, well, in a way, wasn’t exactly burning me up inside. I just wanted to be able to get a spoon of scrambled eggs into my mouth, yunno? I just wanted to feel normal again. Whatever that feels like.
Sick Of Myself, Part 3
I’ve woken up to a throat full of cotton balls and thumbtacks every morning for a week now. To say that the sensation of choking on my own tongue is getting old is, well, the understatement of the year.
Yes, it’s true, I’m still sick. I’ve have spent six days trapped in my apartment, escaping only twice for family dinners (Thanksgiving turkey is outstanding when you can’t swallow). I walk upstairs and check email, then walk downstairs to watch TV. I walk upstairs to gargle with salt water, then walk downstairs to force down two tablespoons of Tylenol Cold. I boil water to keep the air humid, then drink Gatorade to keep hydrated. I eat can after can of soup, take vitamins and aspirin and ibuprofin, and run a dishwasher full of bowls and spoons every night.
I’m over it. My body, however, is apprently not.
I have watched two movies (“The Sting,” “The Lords Of Discipline”), both great. I have read two books (“Chuck Klosterman’s “IV” and Phillip Lopate’s “Waterfront”), both ok. And I have recorded two songs (“How To Be Alone” and “Wonderwall”), both of which should probably never have seen the light of day.
Otherwise, I have paced around and around this cell block of an apartment and waited for a sign that I am feeling better. Judging by the fever I’m currently running (despite the screen door being wide open), that sign remains elusive.
“Why then,” you ask, “Don’t you go to the doctor?”
In short, I will on Monday. Last week, though, it seemed like I was getting better — in small incriments, but still. Tuesday morning was the worst. I sat in the steamy shower before sunrise wishing I were dead. So Wednesday was an improvement. Of course, Thursday was out of the question (being a holiday and all). Ditto Friday. So here I am.
This very week for the last four years, I have been on tour. This year? I’m stuck in my apartment, feeling crappy, and going crazy. Taken with my bum knee, I’m beginning to wonder if this is how it all starts to fall apart.
Obviously, I’m not very happy. I’d really like to go for a run, or go to a movie, or go to the park with my nephews. Heck, I’d rather go grocery shopping. Anything. But here I am, sitting, resting, waiting. I’m not sure what it all means, or why on earth I’ve been stuck here for almost a week. I’m not sure I’m getting anything out of it, or getting stronger, or anything. Just crankier, and crazier.
Time for my medicine.
Sigh.
Sick Of Myself, Part 2
When I was a kid, my mother claimed to be able to look me in the eyes and know whether I was sick or not. Today, I’ve been stealing glances in the mirror, and searching my eyes for a diagnosis.
I have a tendency to run myself ragged, especially this time of year. It is what I call the “late November mind.” Maybe it’s something way back in my gray matter that triggers some sort of primitive harvest mentality. Maybe it’s an awareness that hibernation season is approaching. Maybe it’s just the way the calendar unspools.
Either way, I am sick. And the timing is not that unusual.
I felt a tickle in my throat weeks ago as I steeled myself against the coming marathon. I felt it last Monday, as I snuck away to dreams as Chris shot gunned us home from our Washington, DC, interviews. I felt it walking home in the rain Thursday night. And I felt it again Saturday, as I waited through a 36-hour weekend of Jay-Z coverage at work. Even as I rode downtown for the Buckeye show, I knew it was coming. I held it off, though, until crossing the finish line Sunday night. As soon as Chris and I loaded out of Marc Brown’s Tribeca loft, I let myself feel sick.
So here I am, upstairs in my sweat lodge of a bedroom. It feels quarantined. The air is sticky and sweet from water boiling on the stove. Everything is dusty and dirty, but I don’t have the energy to clean. I just sit, and write, and read, and watch “Superman” (of all things), and force Gatorade and chicken soup down my burning, bone-dry throat.
There is a lesson in all of this, I’m sure. There are surely some prophylactic measures to be taken. Less activity, more vitamins — something. I don’t have the wherewithal to discern any of that today, though. Columbus Avenue is closing. Macy’s is coming. There are balloons to inflate, pies to bake, and thanks to be had.
How To Be Alone – MP3
Probably fifty percent of rock songs are about being alone, or feeling alone, or being left by someone you love and thus, well, you the idea. I think about aloneness all the time. One’s thoughts are different in isolation. Everything is.
Anyway, I was home sick today. I’ve been sleeping, mostly, and reading Chuck Kloserman’s “IV.” He has an essay (about Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, I think) in which he mentions Jonathan Franzen’s “How To Be Alone,” a book I own but haven’t managed to really penetrate. But I love the title, much as I love Jeff Tweedy’s “How To Fight Loneliness.”
So, I sat down and started playing, and this is what came of it. I had a scenario in mind, a character of a specific sort, but I don’t wanna’ ruin all that for you. Just listen, and enjoy (yunno, in so much that it’s a sad sounding song).
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The Light That Leads Us There
The night began with half a Xanax and a shot of vodka, and concluded with a beautiful blonde passed out in the back of a cab.
It’s been thirteen years since we broke up, but when the original lineup of Buckeye reunited on stage at New York’s famed Knitting Factory last night to launch our “European Thunder” Tour, it was all water under the bridge. (You can click here to see photos from the show, or check out Gawker, The Voice, The Times — whichever, they were all there).
It’s been a long time coming. Many predicted it would never happen. Shucks, just three years ago, Ryan Vaughn was living on an ashram in Northern India. And Jason was hooked on Robitussin. And I never thought I’d leave Maine (lobestering had long since replaced rock ‘n roll for me).
All credit goes to Deke, really. Flaming Cochlea’s sole intern is the one who walked the length of the planet to find us, and talk us all into it. Not that it took much discussion, really. When I heard how much we stood to make on merchandising alone (forget that Wendy’s commercial we just landed), well, I hung up my lobster pots.
It all came together last night, though. Sure, we had that one gig in August, but that was just to see if we could stand each other. And we still hadn’t tracked Jason down. (Robitussin had taken him to some dark places, like that stint he pulled in a Pella, Iowa sweatshop testing Serta mattresses for eighteen hours a day — brutal.) And yes, we’ve been recording in Edison, New Jersey (Alexander Graham Bell’s old house — holla!).
But it all came together last night, really. I mean, you can’t even count that side project of Chris and Ryan’s. Jazz standards on sitar and tabla? That’s not Buckeye. Not without Jason and me, anyway.
So it all came together last night. We tore up The Knitting Factory. The place will never be the same. You know: figuratively.
The venue was throbbing with excitement by the time our limo pulled up. It was one of those stretch Hummers with neon green running lights and a hot tub. It wasn’t much of a hot tub, really. And the water swished out of it every time our friver, Kirby, hit a red light. But I was impressed with the ice machine. And the XM satellite radio. Have you heard that XM channel, Lucy? We wrote, like, half of that shit.
Anyway, we pulled up, and it all came rushing back to me: the groupies, the crowds, the surge, the flashbulbs, the bodyguards. In my head, I mean. Cuz it was pretty empty outside. We did oblige a few young fans waiting outside the back door. Jason autographed some fifteen-year-old’s hip. She swore up and down she was going to get it tattooed after the show. (We figure she was about four months old when we started playing together at SUNY Purchase, but whatever.)
I gotta’ say, though, that The Knitting Factory’s catering really leaves something to be desired. My rider is simple: a six pack of Harp in an aluminum basin filled with chipped ice (for Heaven’s sake: not ice cubes!), two bags of Happy Herbert Oat Bran Pretzels, one box of Fruit Roll-Ups, two eighteen-year-old college co-eds, and a can of castor oil. Suzie and Janette were nice enough, and the Fruit Roll-Ups were right on (variety pack — score!), but the castor oil was generic (not my preferred brand, Technocolor Yawn), and the beer was a six pack of Bass and stuck it in a refrigerator. Amateurs.
The show, well, showed no sign of our aging. (Ryan did throw out his back, but that was much later and involved strange yoga positions and an NYU student named Pat.) I don’t think any of the hundreds in attendance would have known that it’s been over thirteen years since our last show. Nah, it came right back to us.
Oddly enough, so did the anger. It’s a well known fact that Buckeye wrote, like, half of the Nineties best pop hits only to be ripped off by everyone from Evan Dando to Dave Pirner to Jesse Valenzuela. But the four of us have had plenty of therapy to get over all of that. You’d never have guessed it last night. Nichols got a little delusional, all night pointing into the lights and whispering, “Is that Grant Lee Buffalo up there? Is that him? Is it?” Chris reminded us all for the six thousandth time that he dated Winona first. What. Ever.
I wasn’t much better, though. We’re playing the Hammerstein Odeon in Manchester on New Year’s Eve, and — like I said last night — if I see either of those Gallagher brothers, well, teeth will be knocked out, or at least chipped a little bit.
But the show sounded good. I think. Our longtime sound guy, Jimmy “The Pits” Steven, quit on us. Again. Last time he quit on us was during a torrential downpour on the Isle of White. We insisted on playing despite the threat of sixteen thousand gigawatts popping us like corn. So he left. This time he got an offer he couldn’t refuse: Heather Nova’s hitting the road, and asked him to man the monitors. So Deke manned the board. I think the last time he had his hand on a mixer he was DJing an Alpha Tau Omega kegger at Dickenson College.
The kids were eatin’ ‘em up like it was 1993. Though by kids I mean our thirty-year-old friends, most of who were there in 1993 and have had so much Boone’s Farm Strawberry in the interim that it still hasn’t registered that a decade has passed.
I know everyone keeps talking about hip hop culture and all that, but I still think this alternative rock music has a chance. And judging by how the audience responded to “Girlfriend In A Coma” (written by Chris in 1989 for his then-girfriend, Francine, who wasn’t so much in a coma but had just had too much to eat one night and wasn’t talking so much), and “Wonderwall” (written by me backstage at Glastonbury in 1992, the year we co-headlined with Oasis who later ripped me off and made it a worldwide smash hit), well, this “European Thunder” Tour might just get off the ground.
Flaming Cochlea CEO, Sir Dennis Eaton Hogg, wasn’t as optimistic, though. He reports that ticket sales have been soft, especially in Europe. But we’re hopeful. We have to be. It’s this or lobstering. And now that I’m back onto the Fruit Roll-Ups, well, it’s a hard habit to shake.
Big Pimpin’
I left the country for a few hours tonight.
I was in international territory as a guest of the United Nations.
The occasion was the premiere of MTV’s “Diary Of Jay-Z: Water For Life.” The half-hour special (which premieres this Sunday on MTV2 and MTV.com) follows Jay’s African travels among the one billion worldwide who lack access to safe drinking water. The project was a joint partnership between MTV, The UN, and Def Jam.
My role was oversight of the project’s digital corollary. My boss, Michael, and colleagues, Owen and Rahman, did most of the heavy lifting, but I was there through it all (which pretty much sums up an Executive Producer’s roll. And yes, grandma, my name is in the credits.)
But that’s just set up. The experience was, well, right on par with the rest of my crazy, weird week.
Getting into the UN is, not surprisingly, like getting on a plane. At the security gate on First and 46th, guards confirmed our identity, and that we were invited. A few hundred yards later, in a makeshift tent to the south of the General Assembly building, we emptied our pockets and passed through metal detectors. The tone of the proceedings, though, was much less severe. Everyone in line, from teenagers to diplomats to media executives to socialites, was excited and smiling. For many of us, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. MTV and the UN? Jay-Z and Kofi Annan? Who’d have thought.
The interior of the United Nations is straight out the 50s. (In fact, Swiss architect Le Corbusier and Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer designed the headquarters shortly after WWII.) It looked quite a bit like Lincoln Center, or the Des Moines airport, or a large high school. The color palette is cream and aqua. The primary building materials are white brick and linoleum. The hallways are wide, and long, and circuitous, and populated by young pages whi kept us on course. They’re lined with stately oil paintings of past secretaries. There are dusty display cases with various national treasures: a Balinese headdress here, an Ghanese ivory carving there.
Still, entering the Trusteeship Council Chamber was impressive. There in the cavernous auditorium with rows of wood paneled desks (complete with microphones and translator headsets) and their orange and aqua leather chairs, it wasn’t difficult to imagine Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe. Or Nicole Kidman looking all spooked out at Sean Penn.
I didn’t bang my shoe (in fact, I tried to conceal the fact that my soles were held together with duct tape), nor did I look spooked out. But I was. There were 700 people in one room. I was surrounded by executives (second time this week). And everyone was dressed to the nines. (I was dressed to the six and a halfs.)
Kofi, as it ends up, was not in the house. His spokesman, who led the proceedings, announced that the secretary general was in Addis Ababa where he had just exited a meeting between the EU, Arab League, and the African Union at which Khartoum had agreed “in principal,” he said (“And I underscore, ‘in principal’”) to allow UN peacekeeping troops into Darfur.
Which underscores (and I underscore my use of the word “underscore”) my appreciation of and belief in the United Nation, if not in outcome (see also: Palestine, Lebanon, Kashmir, or Kosovo), but in principal. On paper, and in concept, the UN stands for everything I believe in: addressing and even pre-empting international disputes, while championing social equity through dialogue.
After brief addresses from UNICEF Director, Ann Veneman, and MTV President, Christina Normal, our show premiered. The 22-minute doc was brief, but powerful. We catch up with Jay, who has gone from Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects to CEO/President of Def Jam, in Angola. We learn that 1.1 billion people have no access to clean drinking water, and more than 4,000 children die every day from diseases related to the problem. We watch children walk miles for water, laboring to shuttle heavy buckets up mountainsides. We learn that these children have cell phones, but lack a clean source of drinking water, or a sanitary environment in which to shower or use the restroom.
One billion.
“In my business, we like to say we’re from the hood,” Jay says, settling into the leather seats of his SUV on his way out of the shantytown. “We’re not in the hood. By no means. Not even close.”
Afterwards, MTV News correspondent Sway Calloway introduced Jay (bucking the seasonal color palette in a tan cashmere hair coat) and his travel partner, United Nations Development Programm scientist Arinaba Gosh. The kids were beside themselves with excitement, pointing and snapping photos. Sway and Jay were jubilant. “Hip hop at the UN?” Sway joked. “My grandmother would be proud.”
The Obvious Child
Ok, I’ll admit that I’m just a little bit drunk.
Chris and I got home from Washington, D.C. around ten o’clock last night. I blogged, passed out, slept five hours, then woke up, took off my documentary filmmaker hat, and put on my media executive hat. Thirty minutes later, I was seated amongst senior management — including three of the five network heads — at a digital offsite at the Soho Grand. I chose my seating wisely.
“Benjamin Wagner,” a colleague said. “I might have guessed you’d be in the front row.”
“You know me, David,” I replied. “If I’m not on stage, I’m in the first row.”
The details of the offsite are, not surprisingly, off the record. But I’ll tell you this: at the conclusion of a thirty minute, group brainstorm on “innovation,” my team nominated me to represent. My heart raced, the room turned dim, and my vision became tunnelled in the moments prior to my presentation. As I stood to address my colleagues and supervisors, I reminded myself that, just twenty-four hours prior, I’d interviwed one of America’s finest interviewers. ‘I can do this,’ I told myself.
I stood, represented our politically unpopular points, sat, and breathed.
“Good job,” our HR rep said.
‘Phew,’ I thought (though that’s propbably what they told Ken Lay before indicting him).
Afterwards, we struck out to Savoy on Prince and Crosby. The network’s numbers one and two spoke. Some continued to talk work. My table, though, talked about their first band (well, I did), or their first rock show (which ranged from The Pretenders to Black Sabbath to REM). Those early experiences are, after all, why we were there in the first place.
Motivated by yesterday’s exposure to South African music, I cranked Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambaza’s “The Obvious Child” on the walk home. The polyrhthms resonated with the choas of the city, while the dense harmonies and lyrics struck a quiet, inspired place inside.
These songs are true
These days are ours
These tears are free
I smiled as I stumbed (just a little bit) along Soho’s cobblestone streets. It had been quite the two days: Tim Russert, Susan Stamberg, and senior executives, colleagues, hopes, fears and and dreams. And it promises to stay exciting. Thursday night I have a reception at the UN, Saturday night I have a rock show, and Sunday night I interview Marc Brown. Stressful. And exciting. It’s what I came here for, though. It’s student government plus rock ‘n roll plus academia. It’s crosses in the ballpark.
Why deny the obvious child?
The Blessings
Chris and I were standing outside of NPR’s Studio 3A listening to South-African singer-songwriter Vusi Mahlasela perform on “Talk of the Nation.” Moments prior, we had interviewed the incomparable Susan Stamberg, and hours before that, “Meet The Press” host, Tim Russert.
As Vusi, to whom we had just been introduced by our gracious NPR hostess Gemma Hooley, broke into the plaintive, spine-tingling chorus of “Silang Mabele” (“The Beauty of Our Land”), I steadied myself against the glass and thought, “Mine is a blessed life.”
Our day of “Mister Rogers & Me” interviews was long, but so meaningful. It began with with a six o’clock wake up call. Of course, I had been lying in bed for hours, rolling questions over and over in my head. For me, the questions were all about connections. How did they come to know Fred Rogers? How did they their life work overlapped?
As an interviewer, one’s job is to establish rapport, contextualize the interview, and demonstrate that you’ve done your homework, all while keeping the conversation on target. Fortunately, with pros like Tim Russert and Susan Stamberg, it’s an easy job.
Kind of. Collectively, Tim and Susan have interviewed thousands of the world’s most influential, creative, and important people: Rosa Parks, Bill Clinton, Hamid Karzai, Condoleezza Rice, Dave Brubeck, Pervez Musharraf, and Luciano Pavarotti to name just a few. The pressure motivates a guy to do his homework, and (as one Newhouse professor used to say upon handing out blank blue books), dazzle.
We interviewed Tim in a generic conference room at NBC’s Washington bureau. Chris scrambled to light it, and create a compelling shot, while I paced the room read my questions over and over. Five minutes before Tim was scheduled to join us, Chris hadn’t gotten the mics to work. “Dude, run out to the truck and get me the shotgun mic, will ya’?” By the time I returned from my brisk, anxious walk through the damp morning, he’d remedied the problem. Tim walked in a few minutes later.
“When I told friends and colleagues that I would be interviewing you,” I said, “They all suggested I impress you with some Buffalo Bills trivia.”
“Go Bills!” he replied, almost Pavlovianly.
“But since I know nothing about football, I brought you some H & H bagels from your old neighborhood.”
Rapport: established.
The interview breezed by. I drew connections between his father (about whom, Tim’s written the memoir, “Big Russ & Me”) and Fred Rogers, as well as “Meet The Press” (American’s longest running network program) and “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” (America’s longest running public television program). Like I said, he’s a pro. Ask the question, and you get a perfectly formed sound bite in return. (As Chris said later, “Everything Tim said is usable.”) I expected him to be articulate, though. What I didn’t expect was his warmth, and his authenticity. What I didn’t expect was that his eyes would absolutely sparkle.
Afterwards, after we’d established that we were his colleagues nephews (“Oh, so your Iowa boys, huh? Corn fed and cow licked!”), after we’d snapped a quick photo, and agreed to send him a copy of the film, and invite him to the premiere, Chris and I just looked at each other, smiled, then began packing for the next shoot.
I have long been a fan and supporter of National Public Radio. On long stretches of interstate, and lonesome nights alike, Susan Stamberg, Noah Adams, and Bob Edwards have been constant, steadfast companions. To tour their facilities, then, is a fan boy thrill. To interview “The Founding Mother of Public Radio” was better still.
The organizations mission is painted in silver letters on an ivory wall just inside the front door of NPR’s Massachusetts Avenue lobby.
The mission of NPR is to work in partnership with member stations to create a more informed public — one challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of events, ideas and cultures. To accomplish our mission, we produce, acquire, and distribute programming that meets the highest standards of public service in journalism and cultural expression; we represent our members in matters of their mutual interest; and we provide satellite interconnection for the entire public radio system.
I was barely inside the door, and already Mister Rogers’ “deep and simple” ethos was affirmed. I was barely inside the door, and already Mister Rogers challenge to me had born fruit.
A half an hour later, as Chris and I set up Studio 5C under the watchful eye of Press Relations Intern Kyle Loden, Ms. Stamberg swooped gracefully through the door.
“Hello, gentleman,” she said her familiar, raspy voice.
Ms. Stamberg was gracious, humble, warm, and lit from within. She smiled the whole time (as any longtime listener might imagine by the sound of her voice). She was engaged, and engaging, and patiently regaled us with stories about the two PBS programs she hosted with Fred, as well as the numerous times she called on him on air to contextualize world events for children. She even brought a photo of she and Fred. “I always love to look at his hands,” she said. “He told me that ‘Television is a medium of small gestures,’ and I always remembered that.”
Afterwards, Gemma joined us as we broke down our equipment. Then she gave us the grand a tour (Corey Flintoff in the elevator! David Kestenbaum in the newsroom!), introduced us to Vusi, and sat us down just outside the control room.
“The world is shrinking now,” Vusi told Lynn Neary. “Your neighbor’s problem is also your problem.”
I smiled, and felt a rush of warmth inside. The hours of driving, the lack of sleep, the anxiety and uncertainty and ambiguity of it all slipped away as I realized how fortunate I am to have this inheritance, to have these friends, these experiences, and these opportunities. Then Vusi finished his thought.
“How much do you want to belong?”
Degrees
Greetings from Georgetown.
My brother and I visited my mother here when my mother moved her in the summer of 1981. Our parents divorce that fall. Neither of us recal much of that time, though we both remember playing video games at the local drug store while she worked. Tonight, twenty-five years later, we drove past that same CVS.
Everything comes full circle.
We’re in Washington, D.C., to shoot interviews with Tim Russert and Susan Stamberg for our documantary, “Mister Rogers & Me.” Tim, his wife, Vanity Fair contributing writer Maureen Orth, and son, Luke, spent time with The Rogers in their Nantucket home. I discovered this fact this summer when I read Ms. Orth’s remembrance of Mister Rogers alongside mine in the Nantucket Inquirer-Mirror.
Everything connects.
Ms. Stamberg, often considered “The Founding Mother Of Public Radio,” hosted three live televisions shows with Mister Rogers in the early ’80s, one of which was called “Speaking With Children About Divorce.”
Everything comes full circle.
We just got in from Martin’s Tavern, a Washington, DC, landmark since 1933. Every president from Harry S. Truman to Geaorge W. Bush has dined there (we don’t hold the former against them). We had a few beers and a burger and watched some football. The Chicago Bears (the team we rooted for as kids) were playing The Giants (the team we root for now, assuming, that is, that we followed such things as sports).
Everything is related, and cyclical, and meaningful. And it all comes around to make sense if you can just wait long enough for it to become apparent.
I’ll be waiting…
