Learning To Fly, Part III
My brother, Christofer, willed me two things when he went off to college: a periodically empty house with an immediately unsuspicious mother (and, ergo, the license to throw frequent though reasonably-sized parties; there were no pizzas on the turntable at my house), and a handmade wooden lock box.
Chris built the simple, stained-pine rectangle in wood shop. It was roughly the size of a shoe box, had a single shelf, a simple brass closure, and a small Master lock. The mechanism was easily jimmied, and the box itself would likely have shattered were it thrown to the ground, but still retained an aura or security.
I don’t know what Chris stored in it, but as soon as I gained possession of the box, I packed it with semi-precious coins, discarded watch faces, polished stones, and scraps of paper with my secret dreams.
Years later, well after college, I found the box in the basement. It was packed in one of two large cardboard boxes labeled, “Ben’s Room.” All of my yearbooks were there, an envelope full of photographs, a bulletin board shaped like the letter B, a stuffed monster from “Where The Wild Things Are” (my favorite: the blue one with a gray beard and horns), and the box.
I pried it open, sorted through the artifacts, and read the dreams. Of the dozen or scraps of paper scribbled in the sloppy, sleepy cursive of a high school student, more than half were nightmares about plane crashes.
Now, I was 27-years-old at the time. I’d been here in Hell’s Kitchen for a few years at that point, possibly in my third or fourth year at MTV News. The not-so-gentle nudging of my then-girlfriend partnered with my own machinations on the subject had recently prompted me to quit smoking pot, a once-recreational pass time that had turned insidiously frequent (as in, multiple time a day). The primary result (in addition to vastly improved mental and respiratory clarity) was a torrent of nightmares, almost all about plane crashes.
I have no doubt, Dear Reader, that you know the rest of that back story well. My parents divorced when I was ten-years-old, and I spent a lot of time shuttling between them often unaccompanied always very sad in airplanes. (In fact, they didn’t have those pesky “No Electronics During Takeoff” rules back then, so I’d listen to the saddest song I owned — The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” — every time I flew away from my dad.) Years later, and iota of psychological archeology led me to conclude that I’d grafted the traumas of my parent’s divorce (and its ancillary fallout) onto those heartbreaking flights. Mixed up in the unconscious of a teenager along with these frequently-televised images of catastrophe (one of my earliest memories of Chicago was local coverage of the 1979 crash of American Airlines #91 at O’Hare), I was left with these terrific, horrific dreams.
Pretty simply, in Sigmund Freud-like terms, the random, violent catastrophe of air disaster was replaced by the seemingly-random, emotionally violent catastrophe of my parent’s divorce. To take it one step further, I unconsciously assumed that every marriage (or commitment of any sort,for that matter) would result in disaster.
Of course, like any other artist, I endeavored to work out those demons on vinyl, which is why I wrote the song “Crash Site,” which later went on to be the title track of my 2001 release, Crash Site which, of course, was scheduled to be released two weeks after September 11 which rendered “Crash Site” a pretty terrible title for an album and, worse, “Leave my body where it was found” a pretty poorly timed lyric.
Fast forward a few years. Armed with all of this knowledge, the dreams have mostly subsided. I never actually fly without taking a tiny dose of Xanax, just enough to make takeoffs (the instant when the plane defies gravity itself by pulling away from the runway is always the worst) tolerable. I’m married myself. Recently, though, the dreams have returned en force.
This morning, the plane crash theme manifested in two scenes both with a subtle, hopeful twist. In the first, I am a news reporter pacing the crumpled ruins of a downed flight on a dark, rain-slick tarmac. Next, I am watching a news piece in which much of the process and personnel around flight have been replaced by automation and robots. As I watch a jet being assembled in automated, huge, Transformer-like pieces, though, I wonder (in my dream), “Does the absence of human intervention increase or decrease the likelihood of disaster?” I wake just as I conclude the former.
Of course, there are all sorts of reason’s for the dream’s recurrence in recent weeks.
Sure, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III averted disaster when he piloted US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson, but the he landed the thing just a few hundred feet from my patio. A little too close (psychologically, anyway) for comfort.
These days, my life continues to pass through plains (pun intended) not dissimilar from my parents. And these days, Abbi and I are discussing the timeline around becoming parents, and owning our own home. I expect that Abbi and I will hit turbulence, but we’re committed to landing this baby (again, pun intended) together. What’s more, in December, with the assumption of leadership for the entire news department, my responsibility — and, ergo the likelihood of disaster — grew.
Still, the dreams persist. And they probably will.
In “Cedars Of Lebanon,”Bono sings, “Choose your enemies carefully ‘cuz they will define you / Make them interesting ‘cuz in some ways they will mind you.”
I’m not sure I had a choice in this one. But I am sure of one thing: the lock box is open. It’s darkness may haunt me still, but the specter of its contents will not stop me from soaring.
What’s So Funny About Peace, Love & Citibank?
My college band, Smokey Junglefrog, performed its first show in the fall of 1991 at a shady rock venue on Erie Boulevard in Syracuse called The Lost Horizon (don’t look for it, it’s not there; the venue closed in 2005, then re-opened elsewhere this year).
Though The Lost Horizon was home to touring metal bands like Guns ‘n Roses, Earth Crisis and Godsmack (to say nothing of local metalheads like Masters Of Reality, Aftermath or Cursed From Birth), all sorts of bands played there: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (for whom Smokey Junglefrog later opened), The Samples (ditto), The Dead Milkmen and Husker Du.
College was, of course, an exciting time for discovering all sorts of new music: The dBs, The Innocence Mission, Luka Bloom, Uncle Tupelo and Toad The Wet Sprocket (sorry, I was that guy). But I give Jamie, Pete and Fish tons of credit for turning me onto all sorts of bands I’d never heard before: Buffalo Tom, Social Distortion, The Pixies, The Breeders, The Specials, Bim Skala Bim, Chucklehead.
We had a few original tunes under our belts for the first show (most highly derivative of all of the aforementioned) at the time, but rounded out the set with cover tunes. In addition to a searing renditions of The Beatles’ (via The Breeders) “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” and The Replacements’ “I’ll Be You,” we knocked out The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” (later to appear on our debut release, “Crumble”), and Elvis Costello’s “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love & Understanding?”
I don’t remember thinking much of the Elvis Costello tune, save for the facts that I could play it on my guitar (my library of chords was even smaller than it is today) and that it seemed to fit into my general aesthetic at the time (Guatemalan pants, dancing bears, beads).
Of course, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love & Understanding?” has a far richer, far more complex history.
For starters, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love & Understanding?” isn’t an Elvis Costello tune, at least it wasn’t at first. The song was written by Nick Lowe, and released in 1974 on the album, “The New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz,” by his band Brinsley Schwarz.
The Elvis Costello & The Attractions version was first issued as the B-side of Lowe’s 1979 album, “American Squirm.” When the song became a hit, it was quickly added as the last track to the U.S. edition of Costello’s album “Armed Forces.”
Nico Lowe may have been actually singing about peace, love, and understanding, but Costello was taking the piss. There’s a thick, acidic thread of cynicism there. Which is why Rolling Stone Magazine called Costello’s version 284th Best Song Of All Time.
The original… was mellow and cute, but Costello snarls the song intensely enough to make the title question seem brand-new, with thundering drums and droning piano. It’s like Abba playing punk rock.
It’s been covered by The Wallflowers, Midnight Oil, The Flaming Lips, Chris Cornell, Pearl Jam, Steve Earl… and Smokey Junglefrog.
All of which made hearing it in the Citibank this afternoon all the more jarring.
Used to be, a guy could count on walking into his local bank and hearing some high-quality Muzak, or, at worse, some Perry Como or Neil Sadaka. But… Elvis Costello!?!
I mean, I realize that it’s not like Mr. Costello (born Declan Patrick MacManus) offered the tune up for a, I dunno, Visa commercial (ahem, Mr. Corgan), it just happened to be playing at the time. Still, the cognitive dissonance was just too much for me.
Here’s The King of Integrity (or at least some kind of nobility, his Sundance Channel show, “Spectacle” notwithstanding) snarling about some legitimate values as I whip a Franklin out of an ATM.
Or maybe it was the perfect soundtrack for my transaction. “And as I walked on through troubled times,” Mr. Costello sang as I waited for my receipt. “My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes.”
So where are the strong
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony
Anyway, I guess this sorta’ thing’s bound to happen; times change: today’s Elvis Costello is tomorrow’s Muzak. Next come The Pixies, The Flaming Lips, The Smashing Pumpkins, and so on, and so on, and so on. I guess it’s the natural course of things.
Still each time I feel it slippin’ away, it just makes me wanna cry.
Infinity Is A Great Place To Start
Thirteen years at MTV News, and finally I get my close up!
Ok, so it was a two-shot, but still.
I knew today was special from the moment I forced myself from my warm sheets: my pre-order of U2′s “No Line On The Horizon” was waiting on iTunes.
I spent the few minutes it took to download the album to bang out a post (“Will U2’s New Album Live Up To Bono’s Promise?”) for MTV’s Newsroom blog. Then I walked into work, relishing the band’s latest effort — their twelfth — along the cold and snowy (and fairly miserable) way.
With barely two listens under my belt, I can tell you this much: I don’t know if “No Line On The Horizon” is an album for the ages, but it hits all the marks: shimmering guitars, deep grooves, anthemic refrains.
And yes, after just two listens, I’d say it makes good on Bono’s promise to me at the premiere of “U23D” at last year’s Sundance; it bridges the intersection of past and future.
So anyway, we recently started doing this thing we call Headlines Of The Day. It’s a no-nonsense, rapid-response, lo-fi news recap often featuring a member of the news team alongside one of our on-air correspondents. Today, someone nominated me (though it wasn’t immediately apparent who).
First, I got an email from MTV News Correspondent Tim Kash (“Do you need makeup before your standup?”). Then my assistant, Nicole, said (giggling), “They want you to make a cameo on Headlines Of The Day!”
I initially blushed at the suggestion; the last thing any teenager wants to watch is a wrinkly, bald, old middle manager talking about U2. But then I thought it might be good for the team to see that, Hey, even the old guy it pitching in. So I said yes.
Five minutes later, with just twelve minutes to spare before a remote production technologies meeting with three SVPs, I walked into the newsroom for my big moment. The teleprompter read, simple, “Ben Ad Lib.” And so I did (after asking my newsroom colleagues to strap on their headphones).
Never have I appreciated Tim’s ease on camera like this morning; ad libbing ain’t easy. My first take ran long: too much detail. I flubbed my second. And, excepting a few stutters, my third was just right. (Or, right enough.)
So, Mom and Dad, take a look. And then you can stop asking, “When are you going to be on-air?” Because the answer, I think, is “Never again.”
MegaFest!
When it comes to inspired festivity, Chris and Megan Abad don’t mess around.
Chris’ thirtieth birthday celebration, AbadFest ’08, put me in the hospital (well, kinda’).
A casual afternoon football game at Chris and Meg’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment once turned to a wildly-competitive beer pong tournament in a heartbeat. They’ve even make presidential debates fun.
So it was with equal parts exhilaration and trepidation that I RSVP’d in the affirmative for Meg’s big birthday bash, MegaFest.
And so it was that — at the end of a week that included the Oscar Red Carpet in Los Angeles, the Reality Digital Social Media Conference in San Francisco and three cross-country flights — Abbi and I met Chris and Meg at the top of 55th Street, hailed a cab, and headed downtown.
MegaFest did not disappoint. Creek Bar, a modest little basement on Mulberry, was thumpin’ in no time There were cupcakes and pints, dancing and dumb jokes (mine), hip-hop hugs and Happy Birthdays. I fought back red eye-inspired yawns despite the great company and general tomfoolery. In the end, though, there was just one thing I wanted Meg to know.
“I was picking up my Oscar credential last week thinking, ‘This is such a hassle: all the people, and parking, and production schedules,’” I told her, “When I remembered feeling the same way the night before I left for the inauguration. And I remembered you telling me to be enthused and appreciative and because I was lucky be witness those sorts of things first-hand and I just wanted you to know that you were right.”
Say what you want about beer pong and cupcakes; that’s the kind of inspiration that makes a friendship worth celebrating.
