Sending Out An S.O.S.
The Interweb is such a strange and wonderful thing.
I have three Google News Alerts: Bono, Mister Rogers, and myself. I suppose the company in which I keep myself says something, but that’s not my point here.
“Bono” Google News Alerts tend to return two types of information: articles on my much admired musical, philosophical and philanthropic hero, as well as free lawyering ads.
“Mister Rogers” Google News Alerts return all sorts of information: articles about his legacy and forthcoming 80th birthday celebration, episodic and airtime information, and blog entries from his many admirers.
“Benjamin Wagner” Google News Alerts tend to return content I’ve created on this blog, my “Making ‘Mister Rogers & Me’” blog, or MTV News. Occassionally — and we’re talking very, very rarely here — someone writes something about me, my music, or my documentary-in-progress.
This morning, my Google News Alert returned the following cryptic description:
Gio’s Message In A Bottle Benjamin Wagner (BLYTHE)
By Pligg Beta 9 / Published News / Seattle
Opening scenes: Bainbridge Island, Washington Sunsets Hawaii: Kauai 2004 All photographs and art by Sandra Riffero Original music “Message In A Bottle” written by Sting and covered by Benjamin Wagner.
So I followed said cryptic link, found this, and clicked…
It’s kind of perfect, isn’t it?
I originally recorded “Message In A Bottle” for a cassette-only EP, “Seven Songs,” in 1994. I re-released it on my two-CD “Besides” compilation last summer. As one of my most-downloaded recordings, it’s no doubt making its rounds on The Interwebs. And here it pops up again like a bottle on a digital shore.
It’s really all one can ask for one’s songs, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, the mystery remains: Who’s Exoticat? Who’s Gio? Who’s Riffy? And what does it all mean?
Stay tuned…
‘Cuz When The Feeling’s Right
I ran a half marathon yesterday. Abbigail, wisely, sat it out.
Chris and I had returned from our whirlwind trip to Nantucket just twelve-hours prior when we met at the start of the Manhattan Half Marathon behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He, Jen and I were quickly seperated in the 5000+ runner start, so I settled in, reminding myself over and over that this was a long, long run — a distance I hadn’t travelled since the New York City Marathon.
I ran track for exactly one year in high school: eighth grade. I rather unimpressively attempted to compete in the 400, never beating my try-out time of 1:04:00 (Michael Johnson’s current world record, by contrast, stands at 43:18).
I often listened to Bryan Adams “Run To You” on my Walkman cassette player as I stretched (or attempted to stretch; I’m not sure I had any idea what I was doing) before races. Even then (perhaps more so, even) music motivated me. It never added up to any trophies or ribbons, as it were, but it provided a soundtrack and a narrative arch for my runs.
Yesterday’s race was, in fact, soundtrackless save for my attempt to re-write the lyrics to a song of mine called “Here She Comes.”
Abbi finds the lyric “Here she comes / She’s all dressed up / She’s all messed up / I think she’s had enough” a bit depressing. I find them a bit trite, not to mention in unfortunate opposition to the song’s uptempo, almost cheery melody. So, as I ran, I cycled through possible alternatives…
By mile eleven, though, there were neither notes nor lyrics left in my head. I had taken to counting my footfalls in an effort to mask the pain and fatigue. I tallied roughly two thousand, re-zeroed, and did it again.
Afterwards, I hailed a cab home, showered, and collapsed on the couch. My objective was to sit on the couch, read the paper, and listen to NPR. And I did. For a few minutes. Abbi, who is — appropriately — in full-on nesting mode, was hanging frames, arranging flowers, and cleaning out closets. There were dishes to do, clean clothes to be out away, and windows to wash, so I rose, changed “A Prarie Home Companion” to “The Joshua Tree,” and pitched in.
As I washed our big, picture window, looked in on out increasingly warm and welcoming home, and Abbi there snapping a photo of me, I thought of the final steps of my half-marathon. At the end, as I slid towards the outside, digging deep and pushing past slower runners, I imagined Abbi waiting for me at the finish line.
I’m gonna run to you
I’m gonna run to you
‘Cuz when the feeling’s right
I’m gonna run all night
I’m gonna run to you
When I was fifteen-year-old, I’m sure I never imagined the finish line looking like this. If you told me I was racing to a bottle of Windex, or a tape measure and dry wall screw, or a petty argument over how to deal with the unwelcome surprise of a metal stud, I’m not even sure I would have understood well-enough to laugh.
One thousand and one races and 1:56:15 later, though, I think I may be beginning to get it.
Given To Fly
There are three major flight paths outside my window: Newark, LaGuardia, and JFK. With the frequent buzz of tourist helicopters and Hudson River air traffic, the skies above me are constantly crowded with jet engines, propellers, and blinking red lights.
It’s an apt metaphor for New York City, really. Or, for that matter, my brain.
Friday night, though, found Chris and I wandering an empty Nantucket wharf. The water was still. The Steamship Authority’s klieg lights illuminated empty docks. Slips were barren. Cottages were vacant. And nary a dog stirred on the island.
For many, Nantucket conjures images of trophy homes and whale print pants. For me, though, it is this: modest, gray clapboard houses; narrow, sandy roads; and silence: yawning, effortless, limitless silence.
Chris and I were on Nantucket shooting our documentary, “Mister Rogers & Me,” from Friday at ten o’clock to Saturday at two o’clock.
Sixteen hours.
That brief instant in time afforded us a substantive and inspirational morning with Beverly Hall, the photographer who captured one of the island’s most beloved images of local icons Fred Rogers and Millie Jewett, and one other thing: silence.
It wasn’t until our time with Beverly, there in her hand-built home overlooking Hither Creek, that I began to realize just how quiet it was. Sitting there, pouring over photos of her real neighbor, I heard the buzz of an approaching Cape Air Cessna 402.
It was soothing like a distant rush of waves, or a breeze through the branches.
I felt right at home, but more so.
Nantucket, Massachusetts (Winter 2008)
January 27th, 2008
Quietly Pass Me By
I walked out of the office with a few colleagues tonight.
“If I don’t leave with you guys, I’ll be stuck here another hour.”
Downstairs, Times Square was bustling with scarves, hats and parkas. We walked a few blocks together, pausing to say goodnight at every intersection.
“Where are you going, anyway?”
“Psychopharmacologist,” I replied. “I have three flights in the next thirty-six hours.”
“Aha,” he replied. “Where?”
“Central Park South.”
“You could take the NR.”
“Nah, I’d rather walk,” I said. “I’m still young.”
“Not really,” he replied.
* * *
I’m not sure where the day goes.
Mornings begin with a fresh white sheet of 8×10 paper. I start the page with the date on the top right (ex: 1.24.08). Below the date, I list a column of personal assignments (ex: ACK Hotel, Billy Re: LLC, Rx), each denoted with a star. Likewise the left column, though it’s reserved for work assignments (ex: Finish Objective, HP QA, Multiplatform List, Metrics).
I’ve been known to start the whole thing over if I bungle a digit or letter, and I often write over certain words to highlight them, and circle certain assignments to signify major import.
Like, “Call Katia” today.
Didn’t happen. (Sorry Katia.)
Or, “Call Lynn Johnson.”
Didn’t happen.
Or, “Email FCI.”
You get the idea.
Every morning, I transfer incomplete items from yesterday’s list (often well-scribbled upon by that point) to today’s. Increasingly, I’m transfering the bulk of the previous day’s list.
* * *
The first paragraph on the first page of the first chapter of Douglas Coupland’s new novel, “The Gum Thief,” begins thusly:
A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age — regardless of how they look on the outside — pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. They don’t want to be who they are anymore. They want out. This list includes Thurston Howell, Ann-Margaret, the cast members of Rent, Vaclav Havel, space shuttle astronauts and Snuffleupagus. It’s universal.
I like my life. I like my job. I love my wife. But I think Coupland — who’s grandstanding, to be sure — is onto something. It’s what I was writing about yesterday. It’s ambivalence. I think it’s natural. I think it’s ok.
I released my first CD, Bloom, in 1994. The last track is unlisted, but I’ve always called it “Snapshot Summertime.”
And I wonder if I will ever be the type of man
Stand above ourselves outside
Replace the ever after, even if it only exists
In snapshot summertimes gone by
Granted, I was twentythree-years-old when I wrote that lyric, but still, there’s a universal, existential quandry wrapped up in those sophomoric lyrics: How will I ever really know? How will I every truly see?
I’ll never forget getting a card in the mail from a friend of my mother’s after I released the record. It was from her friend Suzanne, a former nun whose spiritual judgement I valued a great deal.
“Trust me, honey,” she wrote, “You don’t want to stand outside yourself.”
I do. We all do, don’t we? Isn’t that what prayer, meditation, and reflection are all about?
Tough to do in Times Square.
If I could only get away a minute…
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
I lead a double life.
My Blackberry lit up with the news of Heath Ledger’s death as my driver pointed his Town Car towards the Lincoln Tunnel. After all these years of covering random news at The MTV, I can’t say that I was surprised. I was sad, though; the guys had a kid.
Anyway, a major news event like a young Hollywood star’s passing usually means a busy day at the office. Add in an afternoon spent in the air, plus the usual day-to-day, awards season (Grammys, Oscars), and an election cycle, and you’ll understand why I didn’t leave the office until just before eight o’clock.
Now, I have a Blackberry Pearl, the kind with a stereo headset that pretty much looks like headphones. So when I walk down, say, Tenth Avenue with my Blackberry tucked in my pocket, well, I pretty much look like I’m talking to myself.
I wasn’t.
I was talking with my dad.
So I tell my dad about Sundance, coming home, my annual appraisal (which went quite well), and how a few people emailed to tell me I should stop blogging about my job because I’m pretty lucky. And he tells me what he’s eating for dinner, the plans he’s making for his 25th anniversary, and then he strongly encourages me to stop blogging about my, ahem, occupational ambivalence.
“Dad, if a caterpillar was conscious and could write, he too would blog about becoming a butterfly.”
“Or,” he replied, “he’d blog about how grateful he was to be a caterpillar because it enabled him to become a butterfly.”
Point taken.
Obviously, where one’s been and where one is contributes to where one’s going. But here’s the thing. I have a blog. Newly renovated at that. It’s my job to write something daily (more or less). And as fabulous as my life is (that’s a joke), the general story line doesn’t change much. I might summarize it thusly: Dude Trying To Evolve.
Meanwhile (and this is where the “double life” lead comes in), it’s tough to come home after a day like today, and a weekend like this weekend, and then sit down and start transcribing interviews or writing voice over scripts for “Mister Rogers & Me.”
The really weird part about marriage, or, at least, the really part about how I feel now that I’m married — is that all I want to do after work is come home and hang out with Abbi. That may mean dinner at a local restaurant, sushi in front of the flat screen, or something fancier at our dining room table (now with real, live, grown up chairs!).
So really it’s a triple life: work, movie, wife (not in that order, honey, I promise!). Even as I type, I should be scripting the Davy Rothbart segment. But I’m not; I’m blogging. Which means I live a quadruple life. And what happens if you factor in the music!?! And the running!?!?!
I dunno’. Whatever. I’m rambling. This has become one of those posts.
Here’s my point: I really should be working on the film now. Because, in less than 48 hours Chris and I will be in Nantucket. We fly home Saturday night, just in time for a half-marathon Sunday morning. And then back to work. So…
So what’s that whole thing about the butterfly affect anyway?
Sundance 2008: Get Yourself Together
I finally had my Sundance Moment.
The long threatened “severe winter event” for which I adjusted my travel plans finally materialized overnight. I woke to the sound of snowplows in reverse, and walked to the window. Everything was brushed white. Six inches of it, and still falling.
I went for what may constitute the shortest, slowest, most labor-intensive jog of my brief career, slogging through thigh-high snow. At its best, it felt like water skiing; at worst, walking.
Back at the condo, I washed down a Cliff Bar with a cup of coffee, showered and headed to Main Street.
The Sundance Documentary Lab provides support to directors through the life of their documentary, from research to production and post-production, through to distribution and audience engagement. This year, the Lab’s efforts constitute 9 of the 16 docs in competition, including the much ballyhooed “Trouble The Water” and “The Recruiter.”
All six directors were participating in a panel led by Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Director Cara Mertes at the Filmmaker’s Lodge, a great, hardwood-floored space adorned with poster-laden pipe and drape.
The discussion was inspiring from the moment Ms. Mertes inquired of all the filmmaker’s, “Describe the moment when you first though your movie would never get made.”
Ellen Kuras, whose “Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)” was just hours away from its premier, said she’d been working on the film for twenty-three years.
“Secrecy” director Robb Moss said he knew he was screwed from the outset.
“It was the most God-awful idea on Earth for a movie because there’s nothing to film but paper and it’s all redacted.”
Later, Ms. Mertes asked the filmmakers what they’d learned over the course of their respective projects.
“The Recruiter” director Edet Belzberg (who was endearingly shy) said she learned to let go of what she thought her film would be about and let it evolve.
Kuras said, “I learned that it doesn’t have to be perfect.”
Moss said, “Working on these films you feel so alone, and feel like no one will ever see it. I learned that I’m really not alone, and that there are a lot of like-minded people out there.”
For the first time since landing on Saturday, I exhaled.
“I am amongst my people,” I thought as I shuffled for the door.
As I stepped into the cool afternoon air, Paul Rachman texted me.
“I’m at 545 Main.”
Across the street — score!
Paul was leaning on a door frame in front of the New York Lounge, smiling broadly. He shook my hand an introduced me to his longtime friend, director Marina Zenovich. Her “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired” had bowed to much adoration on Friday and been snapped up by HBO Films Sunday morning.
Snow was falling between us, backlit like glitter by a sun increasingly insistent on breaking through the clouds. Just then, Alan Alda and Virginia Madsen stepped out of an idling SUV and walked inside.
“This,” I said to myself, “is the Sundance Film Festival.”
Sundance 2008: The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh
On Line: I am surrounded by dudes with beards typing into their iPhones and Blackberries. I am one of them. As a huge Michael Chabon fan, my hopes are high. As a huge Michael Chabon fan who hasn’t cracked the novel since its 1989 release, though, I have no idea what I’m in for. I’m hoping for a “Wonder Boys” prequel.
In The Theater: Ten minutes in and I’m crystal clear on the plot. It’s a coming-of-age story about a petty gangster’s son stuck in a bizarre love triangle. Witty diner banter, slow-motion sex scenes, and car chases ensue. Sienna Miller is so gorgeous, and so likeable, I immediately forget all about her and what’s-his-name. Peter Sarsgaard is dashing too, but he’s no Mark the troubled “Garden State” sidekick here; his Cleveland Arning is darker. Newcomer Jon Foster is capable enough, but seems stunned most of the time.
The Verdict: I want to like “Mysteries,” really I do. It’s beautifully shot, and aspires to a real cinematic lyricism. But the comedy is far between, the sex is cliche and kind of embarrassing, the drama is heavy-handed, and Rawson Marshall Thurber’s (do you really need all three names, dude?) direction is ham fisted. Oh well, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” is due in ‘09.
Sundance 2008: What Just Happened?
On Line: I’m surrounded by olds. This fact — coupled with one-two punch from the dude who whispered under his breath, “I heard it’s not that good,” and my esteemed colleague Larry Carroll’s minimalist review (”It starts like ‘The Player’ but ends like ‘Simone’”) — does not bode well for the film. Sometimes, though, one’s schedule picks one’s screenings here, not the other way around.
In The Theater: It does not begin well. I’m sandwiched between one guy spooning repulsive smelling soup into his face and another whose parka spills well into my personal space. When the lights go down, though, I’m fascinated by where the guy who brought us “Diner,” “Rain Man” and “Wag The Dog” is taking me, because it doesn’t feel like anywhere he’s been before. Sure, it’s a well-polished Hollywood flick, but it’s punctuated by some sort of reckless, furiously fast-forward abandon.
The Verdict: I like the film. It left me sort of upset (Spoiler Alert: The film repeatedly breaks Hollywood’s cardinal rule by killing the dog — twice!), but in a good way. I have no idea what a Barry Levinson-helmed, inside-baseball black comedy about producers, agents and runaway egos featuring Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, and Bruce Willis is doing at Sundance (though I guess Catherine Keener, John Turturro and Stanley Tucci used to be pretty indie). I’m not really sure whether Levinson’s really taking the piss or just goofing around. And I have no idea if it’ll play to anyone under fifty who lives outside of the 90777 area code. But it’s a fine use of 107 minutes, and a heck of an odd ride.
Sundance 2008: Slammed
I made any important discovery about myself walking into town just now.
I want to be on the guest list, I just don’t want to have to ask to be on the guest list.
* * *
I’m standing on the patio of Treasure Mountain Inn, home base of the anti-Sundance, Slamdance.
The steps of the Inn, here high atop Main Street but within eyesight of The Egyptian Theater (where Sundance was born in 1978) are crowded with what passes in Brooklyn for hipster: bookworm glasses, buffalo plaid flannel, tight sweater, military cap. The crisp mountain air is rife with cigarette smoke.
I am definitely not on the list here.
A few feet away, any IFC camera crew is shooting a standup, one of the hundreds of media outlets beaming these proceedings to the far corners of the Earth. (Do the Maasai know that the buzz on “American Teen” is up to $3M? Feels like it.)
“My ass is wet” the correspondent complains. “And my feet are frozen. Let’s go already!”
Across Main Street, one of Park City’s few kiosks is choked with posters. Young filmmakers armed with staple guns and glossy fliers pin their hopes to the wall.
I’ve come here to find my brother’s former colleague, “American Hardcore” director and Slamdance co-founder, Paul Rachman.
At the moment, he’s the only person I know — or sort of know — who’s actually premiered a film here. He’s on the list. Hell, he wrote it.
Unfortunately, though, he’s currently scarce. The cold, however, is not.
***
This morning, I set out to conquer Main before the sun broke the ridgeline. It’s a steep, steady climb, one that even U2’s “Elevation” could scarcely ease. I made it as far as the Kimball Arts Center, about halfway up the hill; my calves were burning, my lungs on fire. I jogged around town, then back towards Eccles Center. Passing an old graveyard just off of Kearns Avenue, I spotted a snow-covered gravel road winding around a tailing hill that I’d spied from the condo. I set out through knee-deep snow.
Atop the hill, I knelt a while and imagined the mountains without the city. For a second, I forgot about guest lists altogether.
Kneeling there in the snow, I remembered a weekend I spent in the San Juan Mountains above Ridgeway, Colorado. I’d retreated into the wild to consider a job offer… from MTV News.
“What if it’s like high school?” I worried.
(It is.)
The mountains, it occurred to me then, and again this morning, are for lift lines, at most. At their best, they’re for stillness, and remembering life before cities, high schools, and lists.
