Self Cleaning
I walk in the door, put down my keys, and start flipping through the mail: New York, New Yorker, Con Ed. Abbi emerges from the kitchen, kisses me, and collapses into my arms.
“The first day back from vacation always sucks,” I whisper into her ear.
“It’s not that,” she says looking up at me and grinning. “I’m starving, and I don’t know what to cook.”
She pauses.
“So we’re having chicken.”
I follow her into the kitchen where two breasts lay marinating in a shallow bowl.
“It smells weird in here,” I say. “Is there a gas leak?”
“I’m pre-heating the oven,” she responds.
Her eyes widen. She opens the oven door, looks inside, and points at a shallow, congealed and slowly smoldering pool of white liquid.
“I don’t know how that got there,” she says, insinuating with her expression that my poor cheffing played a role.
Just then, the fire alarm screams a piercing, three-bar tone. I race down the hallway to silence it. Seconds later, it goes off again. I grab a chair from the bedroom, climb atop it, and silence it again. Before I can descend, it goes off again. And again. The air is growing thick with gray, acrid smoke. I stay atop the chair, my finger on the reset button.
Abbi opens the back door, then props the front with a shoe. Soon, a howling, 30° gale is blowing through our living room. The alarms sounds. I climb atop the chair a third time, and remove the battery. The alarm continues to chirp and squeal. I remove it from the wall, and discover a tangle of wires connected to the building’s fire system. It screams in my ears, which have begun to go deaf from the almost percussive assault of the alarm. Abbi waves a towel. I blow and blow and blow. Finally, the alarm falls silent….mostly.
Twenty minutes later, Abbi sits at the dining room table in a down jacket. The doorbell rings. Dinner arrives: sushi.
The oven is nineteen minutes into a three-hour self cleaning cycle when the smell begins to creep through the apartment, like burning plastic, only worse. Intermittently, a brief, clipped chirp flies from the alarm.
We sit shivering on the couch watching The Closer.
We laugh when the alarm sounds.
We eat our sushi.
All the while, the oven cleans itself. The marinated chicken waits for another evening. And all is well in our frigid, wind-buffeted New York City apartment.
Benjamin Braddock, Holden Caulfield & Me
There’s a great article in Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue on the making of one of my all-time favorite film’s, The Graduate.
Of course, the film, released in 1967, somehow captured the zeitgeist of the late ’60s, especially the generation gap between parents weened on Eisenhower-era prosperity and optimism, and their increasingly disillusioned kids; Kennedy had been assassinated, MLK, RFK would soon follow, and Vietnam and Nixon were all just getting good (which is to say, bad).
And of course, the film, an adaptation of Charles Webb’s novel penned by Buck Henry and directed by Mike Nichols, is hilarious. Whether laughing at Dustin Hoffman’s awkward Benjamin, Norman Fell’s suspicious landlord (“You aren’t one of those agitators, are you?”), or Richard Dryfuss’ uptight flatmate (“Want me to call the cops?”), we’re always aware of a certain darkness. Something is always amiss.
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Just how do you mean that, sir?
What always appealed to me about the film, though, is how uncomfortable, unmotivated, and uncertain Benjamin feels. From the first frame to the last, Hoffman seems out of place — and keenly aware of it.
Mr. Braddock: Ben, what are you doing?
Benjamin: Well, I would say that I’m just drifting. Here in the pool.
Mr. Braddock: Why?
Benjamin: Well, it’s very comfortable just to drift here.
Mr. Braddock: Have you thought about graduate school?
Benjamin: No.
Mr. Braddock: Would you mind telling me then what those four years of college were for? What was the point of all that hard work?
Benjamin: You got me.
Nichols, it ends up, hired Hoffman for his ability to manifest this outsider status. In the Southern Californian landscape of blond-haired, blue-eyed suburbanites that Webb had constructed (or, more likely, reflected), Hoffman’s brooding ethnicity had to be a red herring.
“I had come all the way from seeing the character as a super goy to… the dark, ungainly artist,” Nichols explains. “He couldn’t be a blond, blue-eyed person, because then why is he having trouble in the world of blond, blue-eyed people.”
There is a quality to Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock that reminds me of another of my favorite fictional characters, Holden Caulfield. Like he tells ole’ Mr. Spencer, he feels trapped on “the other side” of life, continually attempting to find his way in a world in which he feels he doesn’t belong.
That alienation — more than his angst or sarcasm — resonated with me when I first read the novel during my sophomore year in high school. I felt a spiritual kinship to his lonesome, aimless wanderings through a cold, hostile and phony New York. High school felt the same way to me. Often times, adult life does too.
“I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall… The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with… So they gave up looking.”
What’s odd, now, is just how long I’ve identified with Holden’s world view. There’s still a very real, very vocal Holden Caulfield in my head. On blustery, snowy nights, he pops his collar, hangs his head, and hides behind his stocking cap. He gets angry when a gaggle of shouting kids crowd the sidewalk, or a maitre d’ ignores him. He loathes vacuous small talk and longs for meaningful connection.
Both characters, though, are little more than teenagers. Their field of vision is narrow, their grand theories untested. They haven’t been forced to persist, to endure, to make due.
Throughout The Catcher In The Rye, Holden wonders where Central Park’s ducks go when the pond freezes. How, he wonders, do they endure constant, relentless change. Where do they go? And why do they return?
I ran past that pond, there below The Plaza, this morning. The air was cold there in the shadows of Central Park South. The pond itself was half frozen. But there they were, floating in a small pool of green water, illuminated by a shaft of sunlight that had snuck through the pesky, concrete skyline.
Apparently, it occurred to me today, they were there all along.
Less Than You Need – MP3
This weekend, I spent nearly eight hours on one song. This is not that song.
That song is called, “For You,” a simple crescendo in D. It began a few weeks ago as I sat and reacquainted myself with my guitar. A simple D pattern and a few lyrics emerged. And so, with some time on my hands Saturday night, I invested in the idea. By the time it was too late to keep my eyes open, I had eighteen tracks (mostly guitars, but also one suitcase standing in as a bass drum).
Sunday night, then, found me watching my new favorite show, 60 Minutes Classic on VH1 Classic (all my favorite things: rigorous reportage, and rock ‘n roll!). After an hour of Elton John interviews, I had the inspiration I needed. I walked into the bedroom with some sort of a melody and something of a rhythm in my head, then spent a few minutes finding it all on the fretboard.
It wasn’t until the section that later emerged as the chorus, though, that I thought I had something even a little bit different.
See, there are two primary criteria for what sort of thing generates excitement after twenty years of songwriting: 1) a new lyrical idea (“Haven’t you already used the word “atmosphere” Abbi asked the other night) and 2) a new musical idea (which, given my limited palette, means a new groove or new progression). It was the falsetto that excited me and made me think, “Huh, you might have something there.”
So I jammed myself into my walk-in closet turned recording studio, and began recording what I now call, “Less Than You Need.”
And what you hear here is pretty much that. The lyrics are scratch. I basically turned out the lights and started singing. In fact, I sang with such enthusiasm (at well after midnight!) that my forehead hurt at the end of the take. I’ve since gone and fleshed out the lyrics a bit more (see below). But you get the idea. Maybe you’ll hear why I got just a little bit excited.
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.
Less Than You Need
Take me down the river road
Show me where the river flows
Lay me down inside the waves
Make me young again
Take me down to the sea
Let the ocean swallow me
Let me sink beneath the waves
Make me young again
If I should be less than you want me, less than you need
Fall to my knees, and pray that you want me, pray that you need
Take me to the mountain high
Let me stand below the sky
Let me sleep inside the rain
Make me young again
If I should be less than you want me, less than you need
Fall to my knees, and pray that you want me, pray that you need
I fall to my knees (I’m callin)
I fall to my knees (I’m callin)
I fall to my knees
Take me down the river road
Wake me up before you go
Wash my wounds and leave me be
If I should be less than you want me, less than you need
Fall to my knees, and pray that you want me, pray that you need
Words Like Silent Raindrops
There’s not a ton of evidence around the apartment to indicate Abbi’s absence.
I haven’t been sitting around in my boxers watching TV, eaten frozen pizza, and tossing empties into a pile in the corner.
Nah, to the contrary, I’ve been dressed almost the entire weekend. The sink’s empty, the dishwaher’s full of clean dishes, the garbage is out, the plants are watered, there are three loads of laundry in the wash and not one empty anywhere.
My primary indulgence has been an almost non-stop PBS and NPR soundtrack. In thirty-six hours, I’ve watched two Novas (Astrospies, Secrets of the Parthenon), one Frontlines (Return of the Taliban), one American Experience (The Lobotomist), one episode of Nature (on the symbiotic relationship between horshoe crabs and red knot birds) plus CBS Sunday Morning. 60 Minutes is on deck in the DVR.
In between, I’ve listened to NPR’s On The Media, plus PRI’s Studio 360 and Marketplace like sonic grout.
I also spent a fair portion of yesterday afternoon in our walk-in closet, otherwise known as my recording studio, where I’d laid down eighteen tracks of the same three chords (A, D and G, if you were curious).
In between it all, I’ve been transcribing “Mister Rogers & Me” interviews. I finished Davy Rothbart’s this afternoon, did a pass on our tour of the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, and am now re-visiting 826NYC.
In fact, I haven’t been this alone or had this much free time on my hands in months, maybe even since before I got married. It’s kind of odd. The silence is sort of unsettling. There’s no laughter, just white walls and a cold, steady rain outside.
Luckily, there’s plenty to do, like putting the clothes in the dryer.
And luckily, Abbi comes home tomorrow.
Run To You
At its best, running is free and unfettered. It doesn’t take much: a good jog on the beach really only calls for a pair of shorts. Often, though — especially these 27° February mornings — gearing up to run feels like suiting up for battle.
Here’s a breakdown of my armour, from head to toe:
Turtle Fur Fleece Beanie, Black: The head loses a lot of heat. Especially my head. Even so, this doesn’t stay on long, even on days like today. I like fleece, though; yunno: wicking and all.
Ray Ban RB4075 Sunglasses, Tortoise Frame, Brown Polarized Lens: They’re not those aweful, angular, bright-plastic Oakleys you see other runners wear. These are hip — but not too — dark, wrap-arounds that I wear for everything. If its not raining, you’ll find me in these.
Asics NYC Marathon Technical Shirt: This is just one of any number of similar, interchangeable shirts. All that matters is that it’s long sleeve and a non-abrasive technical fabric.
Nike Pro DriFit Short Tights, Black: Some dudes wear tighty whiteys under their tights. I think it looks weird, and feels uncomfortable. Plus I don’t own any. So I wear these. Better insulation, less abrassion, and less, um, impact.
Marmot Polartech Fleece Tights, Black: These are basic black tights with fleece lining. Super warm.
EMS Power Strecth Half-Zip Jacket, Black: The extra length kills eliminates some draft. Likewise the half-zip collar. Nothing fancy. It wicks, and kills a fair portion of the wind. It’s heavy, but not too.
Manzella Fleece Gloves, Black: Nothing fancy. And they’re really only necessary for the first fifteen minutes of any given run, unless it’s in the teens. I usually ditch em and tuck em into my wasteband.
Amphipod Micro Pouch: This things genius. It’s a small Neoprene pouch that snaps onto my wasteband at the small of my back. For the marathon, I jam keys, cash, a credit card, Metrocard, two Advil, a few pieces of gum and two PowerGels in this sucker — and then forget its even there. Most mornings, though, it’s just keys.
Asics Gel Kayano XIII: I have strange, uneven, tough-to-fit arches. These are the only running shoes that have ever felt good. So I buy two pair a year. Same ones.
Thorlo Micro Mini Rolltop Socks: These are great for wicking, minimizing abrasion. And their thick so they actually diminish the impact of each footfall (which, after a few hours, is a real bonus).
Garmin Forerunner 305: I just got this baby for Christmas. It’s a bit clunky, but totally badass. It’s basically a wrist-mounted GPS device. It guages course, distance, pace, elevation, and heartrate (amongst other things) in realtime. Used to be I was forced to guestimate distances all the time. Now I know with rediculous precision. (Today, for example, I ran 5.21 miles in 45:16:66 minutes. Best of all, I can jack it into my laptop, note my exact course, as well as the relationship between, say, a particularly steepincline, my heart rate and pace. And, of course, I save all that stuff to my hard drive.
Apple iPod Shuffle: This thing is so small, it disappears as soon as I turn it on. Luckily, my music doesn’t. Today’s playlist: Baba O’Riley (The Who), Supernatural Superserious (REM), World Wide Suicide (Pearl Jam), Have You Seen Me Lately? (Counting Crows), Stuck Between Stations (The Hold Steady), Breathe In (Paloalto), Dare You to Move (Switchfoot), Radio Nowhere (Bruce Springsteen), Mofo (U2), Is It Any Wonder? (Keane).
It’s not a fashion show out there. I’ll be honest, though: I do feel like I’m more than protected from the elements, I’m some kind of stealthy superhero in training striding quickly through the city. I’m sure I look more like a thirtysomething dude in all black running eight and half minute miles, though. Which is fine too, I guess.
Exhale
“Oh shit!”
It’s been one helluva Friday. The clock on my computer reads 6:16 pm.
“I’m supposed to meet my wife at Exhale in fourteen minutes!”
I pack my bag, grab my hat, and dash for the elevators. I stride down the escalator and dial up Counting Crows “Daylight Fading” as I rush through the revolving doors.
Times Square is crowded with flashing lights and bumper-to-bumper cabs. I step off of the sidewalk into the street and accelerate.
Walking up Seventh Avenue, I pass a mother and daughter. The mother carries a big, red American Girl bag. Her daughter clutches a doll with blonde ringlettes in one hand, a hot dog — her first New York hot dog, I imagine — in the other. I smile, realize that I’m listening to Counting Crows “American Girls,” and smile some more.
My pocket vibrates.
“C U in Relaxation Room!” Abbi texts.
I tap my response with my thumb, stealing glanses at the street in front of me.
“Half-way there!”
I turn east on Central Park South, and look up over the park. The skyline is crowded with the light of a thousand windows shining like stars. The air is crisp and cool. I am staring down the barrel of a three-day weekend.
A few feet from my 6:45 massage, I think, “Man, you got it good.”
Shaking All The Nonsense Out
It took some convincing to get noted author, activist, singer/songwriter and mystic Bo Lozoff to preside over Abbigail and my wedding ceremony.
In addition to his 200+ days on the road speaking in prisons, schools and churches on behalf of his Human Kindness Organizations’ Prison-Ashram Project, Bo co-manages the affairs of his organization with his wife, corresponds with hundreds of prisoners and scholars alike, publishes a monthly newsletter, writes songs and releases records, and somehow finds the time to meditate twice daily and otherwise be one of the wisest, deepest, most spiritual people I know.
Worse, the weekend of our wedding was to be just days after he wrapped a particularly grueling leg of his tour, and a few days prior to moving off of his 75-acre communal farm in Durham, North Carolina.
But Bo was reticent for another reason.
“Are you sure you want me to preside?” he asked.
Bo explained how his spiritual seeking and months on the road had him feeling rootless, child-like, and unpredictable.
“I’m not sure anymore what I’m going to say next.”
Not surprisingly, Bo knew precisely what to say, and presided over our ceremony with grace, patience, substance and even levity. When it came time for the section Abbi and I left blank for him (the program identified it simply as “On Marriage,” but, being a musician, I thought of it as the bridge), he reciting from memory verse from the 14th Century Persian poet, Hafez:
Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.
If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room by your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truthThat make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,
Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:
Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.
We’e all poets at weddings (and on Valentine’s Day). There is a place for poetry there. But in choosing to share Fahez with all of us, Bo tempered our idealized, golden-hour, white-chiffon fantasies with reasoned, practical wisdom.
Love is more than flowers, chocolates, and platitudes.
Love is work.
It was one of the most meaningful wedding gifts Abbi and I received.
What’s more, it was the most romantic.
Reclining On An Ocean Swell
Dude, I know it bums you out that everyone but you is taking sea-kissed, sun-baked vacations right now.
Mom’s in Egypt. Dad’s in South Carolina. Chris and Jen are heading to Barbados in the morning. And Abbi’s going to West Palm on Saturday.
You?
You’ll be spending your three-day weekend alone in New York City where the forecast calls for a 41° high, and a 70% chance of precipitation.
Sweet!
But dude, dry your tears. Less than four months ago, you were sitting on a deserted beach in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Less than four months ago, you were sitting in a ratan chair, drinking Tiger Beer and playing cards with your brand-new wife. Less than four months ago, you were dozing at high noon by your private pool, a little drunk on the residual nitrogen in your blood stream after your morning dive.
Remember that? Remember watching the sunrise with a freshly-brewed espresso in hand? Remember the leopard eel peaking out of the coral just off the beach? Remember the sound of the wind through the thatched roof at sunset?
Listen, man, some people don’t experience beauty like that their whole lives. You’ve been to Aruba, Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Guatamala, Honduras, Mexico, Turk & Caicos — and you’ve got a few years left in ya’ yet!
So, suck it up!
Close your eyes.
Take a deep breath.
Relax.
The War Of Independence: A Family Snapshot
I was a sixth grader at Holmes Elementary in Oak Park, IL, when my parents divorced, and my mother moved my brother and I to Berwyn, PA. I began sixth grade at Devon Elementary there. I was eleven-years-old.
My father (who, it’s worth noting, was exactly my age now) remained in Chicago where he worked for the Environmental Protections Agency. On Friday nights, he poured himself into a deep cerulean blue Pontiac Firebird, and point east. Twelve hours and 747 miles later, he pulled into out driveway and honked his horn.
I can only imagine how difficult it was to entertain an eleven and fourteen-year-old (especially the latter, but that’s for Chris to tell you), especially in a new town so far from home, and especially given the circumstances.
I don’t remember much of those weekends, just snapshots, really: Little League baseball, King of Prussia Mall, Pizza Hut, Friendly’s.
Overwhelmingly, I remember spending time together in Valley Forge Park, the 3500-acre Revolutionary War encampment just down the hill from our house where George Washington and his ragged army spent a brutal winter in retreat from the looming British forces.
We spent hours watching radio control plane hobbyists take off and land from a broad, flat, grassy field on the edge of the park. The rest of the time, we hiked the short trails along Valley Stream, scrambled the scree-covered hills of Mount Misery, and wandered the historic buildings.
My father had a 35mm camera, a Canon AE1 as I recall — pretty fancy stuff in the pre-digital era. As eleven-year-olds are want to do, I pawed at it eagerly, learning a little about light, lenses, and aperture while taking some fairly rudimentary photos of the cabins, hills, and trees around us.
I don’t remember how I came to know of or enter in the Valley Forge Park Interpretive Association’s annual photo contest, but I do remember taking the winning photo. It was a sunny but cold spring afternoon. The Park was staffed with costumed volunteers. One, dressed in authentic Continental Army uniform, stood framed in the doorway of George Washington’s Headquarters, there along the Schuylkill River. No doubt spotting us approaching — an eager, excited eleven-year-old, his apathetic fourteen-year-old brother, and their mustachioed father — he snapped to attention and smiled. I raised the camera clumsily, and took a photo.
The following fall, it took first place in the the contest. Looking back now, I’m not even sure that everything unfolded as I remember. I have a sneaking suspicion that my father took a few snaps as well. Maybe his won, maybe mine did.
I’m not sure it really matters, though. Winning that little photo contest amidst that season anger, discord, and sadness was some sort of victory for all of us. Best of all, that blue ribbon was afforded an image upon whose values we could all agree: order, simplicity, and resilience amidst the ruins of a bitter, difficult war.
Twenty-five years later, I fancy myself something of a photographer. Remarkably, I find myself taking photos of flower petals and blades of grass, not too unlike my father. Moreover, those basic aesthetic rules — geometry, framing, context, depth of field — inform some portion of my day job.
When I go home to Pennsylvania, I never fail to take a long run there, often slowing as I pass that same doorway and remembering that moment when — if only for an instant — we were all winners.
Let’s Go Somewhere Else
My first inclination was to hail a cab.
According to my Apple Dashboard weather widget, it was fourteen degrees when I stepped through the revolving doors of 1515 Broadway into Times Square.
I live just over a mile from my office. It takes me roughly twenty minutes to walk west on 45th, then north on Tenth to 56th Street. Most evenings, it’s a welcome respite. Tonight, though, it was a trek worthy of Sir Edmund Hillary.
February in New York City, you see, is positively hostile.
The wind is bone dry, and tears through layers. The streets are bleached gray, headlights are relentless and blinding. Debris is strewn and matted in place. Sewer grates billow steam. Dog urine freezes in place. Trees are gnarled, shadowy skeletons. The sky is black and starless.
I pop my collar, lock my jaw, lean in to the wind, and walk quickly.
Even my iPod fails to entertain. “Studio 360″ annoys me. “On The Media” annoys me. And every time I have to pull off my leather glove to spin the flywheel for something new, it annoys me.
I pass a throng of students — tourists, judging from the handful of boys in sunglasses despite the dark winter night (and judging by the mediocre restauraunt in front of which they’re queued).
I stumble into my building, peel off my hat and gloves, and wait on the elevator. When I finally make it to my door, I add insult to injury by clumsily dropping my keys at my feet.
Inside, there air smells sweet and spicy. Abbi stands at the stove, knit cap still on her head.
“Smells good,” I say.
“Hope you like stir fry,” she replies.
I pour a beer, repair to the couch and read a while. Nothing sticks. None of it matters.
When I step into the kitchen for a refill, though, I nuzzle my wife and make a comment about her caboose. She steps on my toe, and we laugh until we cry.
Suddenly, I am somewhere else: somewhere warm, forgiving, and good; somewhere silly, serious, and stupid in all the right ways.
Suddenly, I am home.
