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.
Sundance Film Festival 2008
January 20th, 2008
Bono & The Edge: U2 3D
Benjamin Wagner: What do you notice in yourselves and each other in 3D that you didn’t before?
The Edge: I was struck by the separateness really yunno we’re up there quite individual and quite separate something about the 3D the depth of field you really feel that
Bono: Are you saying you felt lonely up there, The Edge?
The Edge: Nah, I felt lonely for Larry.
Bono: He likes being by himself.
The Edge: I was moved.
Bono: Did you go and bring him a bottle of water?
The Edge: I would go visit him.
BW: I’m surprised to hear you say that. I was struck by your proximity. And by your smiles. There’s a lot of joy up there that I don’t see from the nosebleeds.
Bono: You gotta get better seats from MTV. You deserve better seats.
The Edge: Definitely.
BW: So why 3D? And why now?
The Edge: Well because the technology is only become available now. 3D is just about gone digital and that means you can use high definition cameras that are that size instead of film cameras that are that size. So you could actually do it for the first time. And as all our people will tell you, we always ask the same question when we’re thinking of something to do and its, “What has never been done?” And this was another thing that’s never been done. So we were immediately up for it.
Bono: Also U2 tickets are a bit expensive. And hopefully this’ll be a cheaper ticket. I’m just thinking people who are going to high school or going to college and don’t have the cash. We fight to have the tickets that are reasonably priced, at least 50-60% of them, but you know how it goes; tickets get sold and so on, and there’s not enough of them. So my hope for people who are thinking, “Well, I’m kind of into that band,” is that they’ll give us a shot and see what we’ve got.
BW: So you’ve reteamed with Joshua Tree co-producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno again. What do you guys have up your sleeve for the next record?
Bono: A reason to be still here is the only reason to play for now. If U2 doesn’t make a truly great rock ‘n roll album, somebody should come after us.
The Edge: Danny’s playing a lot of banjo on this one. Banjo! He won’t give it up.
Bono: Are you taking banjo lessons behind my back?
The Edge: The didjereedoo as well.
BW: He recently said he’s been listening to a lot of Jimmi Hendrix with you guys.
The Edge: When we’re with Brian and Danny it’s such a thrill because we have a very special rapport, and they bring out the best in us. And one of the fun things to do is to listen to other people’s music. And we all have our particular bent. Like we’re going to be playing them some new stuff they’ve probably never heard. But Danny is always going to play us something that we may have heard, but maybe haven’t fully appreciated. He’s always got a different thing for us.
Bono: Daniel Lanois in a certain sense is about the ancient. And Brian Eno is about the modern, the future, the things that haven’t happened. And where they join, where somethign feels like it’s always existed but you’ve never heard before? That’s what those two seem to bring out in us. Daniel Lanois has this tradition and respect for folk music and respect for black music and gospel and blues. And brian is still trying to make music for if the band had formed on Venus. Somewhere between that is our next album.
BW: Well, I for one can’t wait.
Bono: Thanks.
BW: Thank you.
Sundance 2008: Faraway (So Close)
There was nothing between The Edge, Bono and me except Jerry Penacoli.
Incidentally, the Xtra correspondent is not a small man. I’m gonna’ wager 6′ 4″, 225. Nor was he very happy with me at the moment.
The “U23D” red carpet was the single most crowded press line I’ve seen in the last four years of an ever-escalating Sundance Film Festival. And not surprisingly: The World’s Best Band was running it through. This place (heck, this planet) craves celebrity, but this was something else. It was the most-talked about event of the weekend. The paparazzi and television crews were stacked four deep, all jostling and jockeying for position.
Mr. Penacoli spied my mic flag (aka The MTV News Cube), then expressed his displeasure with our proximity to his operation.
“I don’t mean to be a dick,” he said (often an indication to the contrary), “but this just isn’t going to work.”
U2′s publicist, sensing the potential conflagration, bumped WireImage, then placed us fourth in the queue: CNN, E!, Xtra, and me.
Take that, Mr. PM Philadelphia! (Afterwards, when he cordially apologized, I had to resist saying, “I grew up watching you!” instead opting for “No problem; I’m a big fan.”)
Bono and The Edge stepped in front of me. I reintroduced myself to Edge (I’m sure he distinctly recalls the scintillating conversation we shared here in 2006), then shook Bono’s hand.
The proceeding four minutes did, in fact, unfold in some sort of strange, slow motion time warp. I managed to string together a few cohesive questions about the film, stammering through just one fumbled inquiry about the band’s bold stage graphics. Bono and The Edge, though, were unflappable. They offered their sound bites in numerous flavors, sometimes answering the question they knew I meant to ask. They were silly but evasive, substantive but broad, faraway but so close.
The most meaningful exchange, I think, came when I asked them about comments their producers, Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, had made regarding their forthcoming album.
“Danny is really something of an ancient,” Bono said, launching into an awesome explanation of the virtues of both collaborators.
I felt the corners of my mouth slip into a smile, and — triggered, I think, by his choice of the word “ancients,” and all of the semiotic associations it connotes — thought about the conversation I’d really like to be having with him: God, life, music, meaning. Cameras, microphones, publicists, paparazzi and bodyguards were swirling on the edge of my vision. I stared though his purple Lennon glasses, deep into his gray eyes, and thought to myself, “This man has brought you immeasurable peace and joy.” For a moment, it dawned on me that I was talking with my hero, and the moment was slipping away.
Now, I’ve had the good fortune and luck to interview a fair share of my heroes. Michael Stipe, Aimee Mann, Cameron Crowe, Douglas Coupland. And now Bono and The Edge.
Red carpets, press junkets and even the increasingly rare sit-down interview are really just simple transactions. There is no time for life, truth or beauty. There is no time to connect. We’re not friends. We’re simply executing the business at hand: a new album, a new movie, or a new book.
When I was younger, I promised myself that my heroes would know me as a peer and a contemporary. I would sing with Michael, diagram sentences with Douglas, and talk film with Cameron.
Moments like these, then — no matter how magical — beg the same questions. Who am I? What do I do? What am I here for? Because I’m pretty sure God didn’t put me on this Earth to be a media executive.
Before the flashbulb frenzy of the band’s arrival, the film’s producers walked the carpet. Years ago, I had dinner with one of them, Peter Shapiro, who’s wife, Rebecca, was best friends with an ex-girlfriend of mine. He spotted me tonight and walked over.
“Benjamin Wagner,” I said. “I used to date Gigi.”
“Right!” he replied. “The musician!”
In some ways, Peter’s choice of words was the highlight of my night.
Sundance 2008: Bullet The Blue Sky
Park City sprawls out below The Lodge At Mountain Village at the base of Park City Mountain Resort. Looking east from Room 270, the sun is crowns the Wasatch in cool pink. Below, steady streams of red brake lights flow towards the highway.
Following a largely uneventful (though painfully early) flight, and an equally chill commute from Salt Lake to Park City, I have arrived.
I’ve been at Sundance about five hours, three of which I spent sleeping, the remainder of which I spent eating, drinking, and planning.
See, it’s all about the planning here. If you’re gonna see movies, you gotta plan em out. It takes time to get around here (it’s a small town, but it’s loaded with people). And I’m here for less than 72 hours. Here’s how they’re shaping up:
Sat 700 – Depart JFK
Sat 1200 – Arrive SLC
Sat 1330 – Arrive Park City
Sat 1930- U23D Red Carpet
Sat 2200 – U23D Screening
Sun 1130 – American Teen
Sun 1600 – What Just Happened?
Sun 2130 – Gonzo: The Life & Work of Hunter S. Thompson
Mon 1030 – Work-in-Process Documentary Panel
Mon 1400 – Depart Park City
Mon 1730 – Depart SLC
Tue 0000 – Arrive JFK
Toss a good run or two in there, and factor in the need to turn these interviews and screenings into content for MTV News and, well, my Sundance is as good as over already.
Window In The Skies
There may be no more awful sound than Delta Airlines’ on-hold music as heard through the tiny, tinny, mono speakers of my Blackberry at 5:36 in the morning with a soul-crushing, Harp-fueled headache.
Abbi woke me up.
“What time is it?”
For a second, I wondered why we were awake, why she was asking, and why she even cared. Everything was warm and dark and wonderful. And then I looked at the clock, and remembered that I had a flight to catch at JFK in… 64 minutes.
“Oh shit.”
I tumbled out of bed, scrambled for my travel packet, and dialed Delta.
“Hi!” a robotic female voice intones. “Welcome to Delta. From here you can say, ‘Check arrivals or departures,’ ‘Access my Sky Miles account’ using our automated system, or, to speak with someone say, ‘Representative.’”
“Representative.”
Three minutes later, having navigated an automated labyrint, I was put on hold.
Enter the awful music. (Actually, I think it was The Shins’ “New Slang,” which isn’t an awful song, it just sounds awful through the tiny, tinny, mono speakers of my Blackberry at 5:36 in the morning with a soul-crushing, Harp-fueled headache.)
Two seconds into holding, my cell connection dropped.
* * *
Eleven excruciatingly painful minutes later, Maria (who sounded far more Indian than Italian) had re-booked me on a new flight. I will arrive in Salt Lake City and be whisked to the Sundance Film Festival exactly 24 hours later than planned. With any luck, I’ll be interviewing Bono by nightfall.
And with any luck, I’ll have shaken this headache.
Believe In The Great Sound
I haven’t been listening to much music lately. As someone who is defined by my love of both making my own and listening to other’s, this is somewhat disconcerting.
Years ago I lost my voice for no reason whatsoever. I wasn’t neither sick, not had I been talking too much. It just disappeared.
Now, I was puzzled by this phenomena, but chose to view it as an opportunity. Apparently, I thought, I’m supposed to be listening more. So I did.
I’m approaching the loss of my musical appetite similarly, though it is a dual loss.
See, other people’s music provides me with inspiration. The Hold Steady’s “Stuck between Stations” inspires me to run faster. Paloalto’s “Breath In” inspires me to look around appreciatively. “Rhinemaidens” inspires me to persist.
My own music — or the creation thereof, anyway — inspires understanding. Songwriting is like lucid dreaming. At its most beautiful, it’s like opening a tap on all of the things just below the surface of every day, pouring them out on the floor, ordering them by color and shape and texture, and making sense from the mess.
The absence of those two things, then, is major. Moreover, the silence is deafening.
Of course, this lack of inspiration and understanding comes at a precipitous time. I am surrounded by uncertainty: a new marriage, a new job, a half-finished film and dubious singer/songwriter career.
Sunday afternoon, then, found me at my desk. The blinds were thrown wide, revealing a broad swath of troubled sky. I was doing some “Mister Rogers & Me” research while listening to assorted podcasts: All Things Considered, This American Life, Bob Edwards’ Weekend, and Bill Moyers’ Journal.
One of Moyers’ guests was American poet Robert Bly. A Fullbright scholar and Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate, Bly was an outspoken detractor of the Vietnam war, and staunch advocate for what came to be known as “The Men’s Movement” in the 1980s. He’s long been a hero of mine. To me he represents a full spectrum of values: he is strong but not silent, articulate but not unapproachable, philosophical but not abstract.
Moyers began by reading one of Bly’s poems.
I live my life in growing orbits which move out over the things of the world. I have wandered into space for hours, passing through dark fires. And I have gone to the deserts of the hottest places, to the landscape of zeroes. And I can’t tell if this joy is from the body or the soul or a third place.
“When you say, ‘What is the divine?’” Bly said, “It’s much simpler to say, ‘There is the body, there is the soul, and there is a third space.’ It’s a place where the geniuses and the lovely people and the brilliant women — they all go there and they watch over us a little bit. But we dont’go there very often. I suppose it’s because we think too much about houses, and our places.”
Bly then began reading a poem by the 13th Century Indian mystic, Kabir.
Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive.
Think… and think… while you are alive.If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
Do you think ghosts will do it after?The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
Just because the body is rotten
That is all fantasy.What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
You will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now,
In the next life, you will have the face of satisfied desire.So plunge into the truth, find out who the teacher is
Believe in the great sound.Kabir says this, When the Guest is being searched for,
It is the intensity of the longing for the Guest
That does all the work
The final passage, in particular, has offered great solace in these few intervening days.
In this time of great, gray, silent uncertainty, the intensity with which I seek answers will have to be answer enough.
Bushwacking
All weekend long, my Blackberry was abuzz with Breaking News Alerts from President Bush’s Middle East Trip.
Friday, January 11, 2008, 11:18 PM PST
CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait — (AP) President Bush says no decision yet on sending more troops home from Iraq, and reduced force levels will depend on conditions on the ground.
Saturday, January 12, 2008, 10:28 PM PST
MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — A naval commander told President Bush on Sunday that he is taking the recent confrontation between Iranian and U.S. navy forces in the Persian Gulf “deadly seriously.”
Sunday, January 13, 2008, 3:55 AM PST
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Bush declares Iran is “the world’s leading state sponsor of terror.”
I mentioned this at Monday morning’s news meeting.
“If I were a sixteen-year-old member of our audience, I think I’d want to know that, not only is our president — one who’s left the country about three times in seven years — clinging tenanciously to his war in Iraq, he appears to be escalating on in Iran.”
Now, this is a somewhat difficult story to tell kids. It’s complex. And it’s not exactly in our wheelhouse to begin with. We published 228 Britney Spears articles last year, but only a dozen on Iraq, and one on Iran. Thing is, overwhelming evidence supports that, if they don’t get it from us (or The Daily Show or Onion), they’re not getting it.
You might think that I have the prerogative to just mandate that story. And, come to think of it, I might. But given a lineup full of Ms. Spears, Panic At The Disco, Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, 50 Cent, plus limted resources (our writer staff is small, specialized, and over-taxed), the complexity of the story, and the clock ticking on the time element (it’s no mistake that Bush traveled and made those speeches on the weekend) well, the story fell by the wayside. As it probably did at hundreds of other news outlets.
Maybe I’ll be wrong. Maybe Bush’s clock has run out (I count 359 days left, but I was never much for math). Maybe our citizenry has had it with unjust wars. Maybe we all see right through that ridiculous episode with thosy tiny blue speed boats and that gigantic, gray destroyer.
It’s not like any other wars have begun in some meaningless body of water, like, say, the Gulf of Tonkin.
Hell’s Kitchen Confidential
I tell her she doesn’t know how good she’s got it, but she’s not having any of it.
See, I’m a neat guy, but I’m not a clean guy. I figure most guys are neither, and worse are beer-swillin’, couch-squattin’ channel surfers. So, if nothing else, I should be gettin’ some points for neatness. But it doesn’t really work that way. (Anyway, we have different criteria for neatness, but that’s another post.)
Were you to have visited either of my bachelor pads, you’d have observed order on the surface: white walls, right-angled frames, books arranged by height. Open a cupboard, peer under a rug, or pull back a curtain, though, and your senses would be assaulted by dust, lint, and grime.
Now, I’d like to state that, generally, guys don’t mind a little dirt. But I won’t speak for all of us. I’ll speak for me. I don’t mind a little dirt. As long as we’re not talking about streptococcus, I’m good. Which explains how I eat yogurt at my office with the same spoon every morning, then jam it back in a mug that holds my pens. So far, so good.
These sorts of things, not entirely surprisingly, gall my wife. Abbi is both neat and clean.
Before I met Abbi (the first woman, it should be noted, with whom I’ve shared a roof), I did laundry only when I ran out of underwear. Before I met Abbi, I did the dishes only when I ran out of pint glasses. Before I met Abbi, I swept the floor only when I could see the crumbs.
It’s an interesting thing to be changing my behavior in an effort to be a better teammate. Given my druthers, I’d watch Nova or Frontline on DVR. Left to my own devices, I listening to NPR and blog.
But this marriage thing is my new reality, and calls upon me to step up my game. Accordingly, today I unloaded the dishwasher, took out the trash, ran three loads of laundry and washed the windows (and watched Frontline, and blogged). I don’t relish this new, hyper-vigilance. But I relish being considered a good partner, even if I do mope about it in only half-jest.
Though I must admit, the carpet sure does look nice. And it’s a real treat to be able to get into bed without wiping my feet.
Trying To Tell Me All Along
There are a few authors whose books, based on their bibliography alone, I buy as soon as they hit shelves.
Tobias Wolff is one. He was my creative writing professor at Syracuse. His PEN/Faulkner Award-winning memoir, “This Boy’s Life,” came out my freshman year there, and premiered on the big screen (starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio) my senior year. It’s a template for what I hope to finish someday. He peers through the fog of memory with clarity and efficiency while retaining some patina of what was lost in the passage of time.
Douglas Coupland is another. “Generation X”, which was also released while I was in college, not only defined my generation, it fused pop culture, advertising, and coming-of-age in a way I’d never experiences. Likewise everything he’s done since: “Microserfs,” “Shampoo Planet,” “JPod.” It’s his lesser known, though, that I’ve liked best: “Girlfriend In A Coma,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Miss Wyoming.” They’re breezy reads, chocked full of magical thinking: plane crashes, meteorites, aliens in suburbia, and pot growing septuagenarians. I’m always left considering what’s below the surface of things, there in the shadowy underbelly where the mystery slithers.
Then there’s Nick Hornby.
Back in 1996, just a few months after moving to New York City, a Men’s Journal’s literary editor handed me a galley proof of Hornby’s “High Fidelity.” That book — which features the classic opening line, “My desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups in chronological order” — struck me then as a Gen-X, post-adolescent “Catcher In The Rye” with a great soundtrack. As some sort of Gen-X, post-adolescent Holden Caulfield with a halfway decent early-Nineties soundtrack, it was the right book at the right time. Hornby wrote it like he knew it; like he was living it. It was comic, but poignant. It felt real; like I knew the guy (or was the guy).
(Years later, I was first in line at Stephen Frears’ film adaptation. As a fan of John Cusack — especially his seminal Cameron Crowe collaboration, “Say Anything” — I was eager to make allowances for their decision to relocate to Chicago. The film ends up uneven. Cusack’s on-screen girlfriends, Iben Hjejle and Lisa Bonet, are woefully miscast. Jack Black and Todd Louiso, in contrast, are genius. But that’s another post altogether.)
Hornby’s most recent novel, “Slam,” finds us accompanying another Rob Gordon-like character through another “High Fidelity”-esque situation. Putnam’s website summarizes the book thusly:
“Just when everything is coming together for Sam, his girlfriend Alicia drops a bombshell. Make that ex-girlfriend–because by the time she tells him she’s pregnant, they’ve already called it quits. Sam does not want to be a teenage dad. His mom had him at sixteen and has made it very clear how having a baby so young interrupted her life. There’s only one person Sam can turn to–his hero, skating legend Tony Hawk.”
Hornby nails Sam’s voice, especially in his terse, smart alec responses and inability to say the right thing — especially when he means to. His words and actions both seems just beyond his control, as most fifteen-year-olds (and, perhaps, beyond).
The author utilizes a dash of Coupland’s magic realism to boot, flashing our protagonist back and forth through time, and writing for him dialogues with his Tony Hawk poster.
The story, though, lacks the necessary weight, I think, given its subject matter. With a semi-neat, “Broadcast News” ending (yunno, the one where the couple breaks up, then meets up years later with their respective spouses and everyone gets along just fine) wrapped up in just over 300 pages, it all feels a little too tidy.
“Slam” resonated with me though, even with its “Movie Of The Week” arc. There’s a fifteen-year-old in me still, trying to figure out what I just said, what I just did, and make the next moment better despite those mistakes.
