The Ironman
“I’m crazy,” Dr. Klion says. “I jogged in from West Chester this morning.”
“What!?!”
“Yeah, I’m doing the Grand Canyon Rim To Rim in five weeks. 46-miles, five-thousand feet up and down, then back again.”
Now, the whole reason I go Dr. Mark Klion is because he’s the best kind of crazy. The walls of his Upper East Side office make it plain. There are just two frames on the wall: one of the Good Doctor crossing the Ironman Kona finish line in 11:12:51 with his daughter on his shoulders, and a smile ear-to-ear; and a D.C. Marathon plaque with his time: 3:05:07.
By way of context, my all-time best marathon was a 3:56:24.
And by way of context, this is the guy who told me days after I injured my knee in a freak slide accident one-week before the NYC Marathon, “I’m not going to tell you not to run, but I will tell you it’s gonna’ hurt.”
I’d originally scheduled my appointment during last Monday’s DoctorFest, and all-day affair that included the dermatologist, dentist, audiologist and g.p. (really, a desperate attempt to justify a personal day), then Klion bumped me for a hip replacement surgery.
Which is ironic, given that, these days, I wouldn’t mind a new hip myself. In fact, most days, the pain extends from my lower back, through my right hip and down to that aforementioned knee. It comes and goes, and has for years. It’s worse the less I run or stretch, and better the more I run and stretch (which seems counter-intuitive, but there it is).
So I took of my jeans, put on some silly gown, and explained.
“I’m going for my eighth NYC Tri and tenth NYC Marathon this summer,” I said. “I wanna’ do better on both.”
Then I did as I was told: tip-toes, heels, one leg, the other, jump, kneel, balance.
“Bursitis,” he said. “Have you ever had an x-ray?”
Ten minutes later, I was staring at an x-ray of my junk. Klion pointed out a thick white line in my femur.
“That’s called a bone island,” he said. “It’s a build up of calcium in your bone. Unrelated. No big deal. Probably had it since you were a kid.”
“And there’s a fleck of calcium here in this fibrous tissue,” he continued. “Also no big deal.”
“Yup,” he said closing my file. “Chronic bursitis. Chronic tendonitis. You need PT. Three times a week for four weeks.”
We talked workouts (CrossFit), gear (Vasa Ergometer), and shook hand.
“See you at the finish.”
“I doubt that,” I said. “You’ll be long gone by then.”
“No, no” Dr, Klion said laughing. “I’m course medical director ofr NYC Tri.”
“Got it,” I said. “I’ll stop by and say hi.”
The Death Of The Hero
The first time I played a proper rock ‘n roll venue was in the fall of 1991. Before the audience, the amps, the lights — before anything, really — the first thing I noticed stepping onto that dismal, sticky, black-box Lost Horizon stage (don’t look for it; it’s not there) was a hand-made sign reading “No Smells Like Teen Spirit!”
Nirvana’s “Nevermind” was in the process of wrestling the airwaves from Michael Jackson and Guns ‘n Roses that fall, a battle first-evident on rock venue stages across the country. Where “Stairway To Heaven” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” had once dominated cover band set lists, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” now ruled the day. Hence The Lost Horizon’s prohibition.
It’s difficult to characterize how radically new, different, and dangerous “Smells Like Teen Spirit” sounded then (especially for a kid reared on REM and U2). Yeah, Butch Vig polished the hell out of it, but it was still plenty tough: loud and dissonant with throat-searing vocals, crashing cymbals, rumbling bass, and a sloppy, serpentine solo. It was everything Michael Jackson, Brett Michaels and — by 1991, anyway — Axl Rose wasn’t.
Little wonder your average basement band wanted to cover it, then. Canonized, lionized and fetishized as the songs been in the intervening eighteen years, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” remains a powerful, compelling, catchy song. It’s simple enough to play: four chords, loud/quiet/loud. And it sounds dangerous and unhinged — as rock ‘n roll should.
Likewise, canonized, lionized and fetishized as Kurt Cobain has been in the intervening fifteen years (to the day) since his body was discovered in the greenhouse above his Seattle home, his presence — and legacy — remains powerful. Part of the problem (for Kurt, anyway) is that he remains a compelling presence (or absence) for the same reasons: he seemed dangerous and unhinged — as rock ‘n roll should.
For me, though, what made Kurt so compelling was neither the danger, nor the defiance. Sure, it was the music. The whisper/scream/whisper dynamics and simple, poetic even disturbing lyrics enabled introspection and rage in equal turn. Melodically, Kurt’s songs were as beautiful as they were discordant.
For me, anyway, what made Kurt heroic was his raw, unbridled, unvarnished emotional integrity. He was guileless, an open wound bleeding for all to see. There’s a disturbing, exhibitionist quality to that, sure. But in a world of posturing, extreme makeover, deceit, secrecy, spin, and corruption, Kurt’s was a lone voice, warts and all. These days, I find nothing more heroic than honesty and sincerity.
In his column today, my colleague James Montgomery (a tenth grader when Cobain died) wrote eloquently, “He was hope, he was heft. He was the everyman, the end of the rock star, the punk dream realized.”
He concludes, “I lost the idealism of youth [that day]. And the idealism that comes with plugging in a guitar and playing it very loudly (and very badly). That’s never going to come back, either. Probably for any of us.”
I had just arrived at Uncommon Ground, the Saratoga Springs coffee shop at which I worked after college, when a co-worker blurted out, “Didja’ hear? Kurt Cobain killed himself.” It hung in the air a second before she blurted out, “Coward,” and walked away.
Whether or not Cobain was a coward didn’t strike me as the point then, and still doesn’t. He was dead. He would never write another song. It was over.
To James’ point, though, it’s been difficult to be idealistic ever since. Maybe it’s just retrospect; Cobain’s ascent was prior to the Internet-fueled, “Celebrities Are Just Like Us,” paparazzi feeding frenzy, before Michael Jordan gambled, Bill Clinton lied, Michael Phelps inhaled and Bernie Madoff stole. Our heart have been broken a thousand times since. Cobain, then, was a hero before the death of the hero, before every bit of shining armor came with chinks and cracks.
Maybe it’s for the best that heroism has reached such implausibility that only Hollywood’s CGI, collagen and makeup machine can sell the mystery (and then, only on the big screen; on the sidewalks of L.A. we see witness narrative entirely). Our expectations may be forever tempered, our sense of the thing relegated to dusty history books.
Or maybe not.
Maybe it just takes a gentle wind to whip those embers into a blazing fire. Maybe the hero’s in all of us, just waiting for us to take a leap of faith and believe in the sound all over again.
Do Or Do Not (It Wasn’t A Tri)
Ah, the coveted sixty-fourth percentile.
Let me be frank: I was neither properly prepared, nor properly trained for Sunday morning’s race. Heck, I wasn’t even properly rested. I’ll chalk some of it to the length of the event (a 2.1M run, 10M ride, and 2.1M run don’t quite constitute The New York City Marathon type preparation), and some to hubris.
Whatever the case, I was out ’til nearly midnight the night before during which time — yes — I had at least one (possibly three) Brooklyn Lagers; all the better (I reasoned) to complete the Brooklyn Duathlon.
Still, Times Square was soothing as I drifted down the center of Broadway at six o’clock this morning. The streets were empty. The sirens were muted. The sky was waking up. I coasted into the subway station, tossed my bike on my shoulder, and descended to the platform where I met Chris.
We rode the Two Train (a local, sigh) in silence, standing the whole ride. When we emerged Grand Army Plaza, the sun was peaking over the Brooklyn Museum of Art. By 7:08, we were registered, racked, and ready to go. Unfortunately, the race wouldn’t begin for another 52 minutes.
The Brooklyn Duathlon is an intimate affair with less than three hundred racers (in contrast with the Marathon’s 30,000). The start/finish line in a rinky dink banner over just one lane of parkway. The transition is marked off with neon-pink tape.
None of which, apparently, diminishes the intensity of the racers. Sure, there were a few more soccer moms and mountain bikes (including mine) than usual, but there were plenty of d-bags with five thousand dollar tri bikes with all the attendent bells and whistles.
Like the dude racked next to me. He was riding a four thousand dollar Litespeed Saber. He had the shoes, and the tri-suit. And, yeah, everything matched. Well, I ran into the first transition with Douchey McDouches Alot, but — as I didn’t have to change into my bike shoes — blew straight out past him. I saw him later on the course wrestling to get his water bottle into its seat rack. Which is when I lapped him.
Anyway, Prospect Park was beautiful. The dogwoods were in bloom. The lake was sparkling in the sun. And were it not for the constant headwind, that darned East Drive hill, and my utter lack of training that left me sucking wind on said uphills, the race would have been a breeze.
I finished in 1:06:59.90. I knocked out the bike in 34:20 (averaging 17.5 mph on my $900, 1995 Cannondale M900 with 1.5″ slicks), and averaged 7:30 minute miles on the runs. I finished 99th of 263 competitors (though seven of the top ten finishers were West Point cadets on the Army Triathlon Team; I don’t think they should count). The coveted sixty-fourth percentile.
In college, that would have been a B+, easy.
I Waited Up
It was somewhere around Forteenth Street on the Downtown F that it dawned on me that maybe I’d been too ambitious with my first rock show in nearly six months.
A collection of greatest hits, the ones that come naturally from years of playing? Reasonable. But not the plan.
Set lists are like AAA Trip Ticks, except you draft your own highways. Sure, the trip should be scenic and diverse. And hopefully there’s a payoff: a mountain vista or the sparkling sea, perhaps. Either way, the road — gravel, pavement, freeway — is of your making.
For some reason, then, my six months of sporadic practice, songwriting and recording partnered with just one, two-hour rehearsal with the band inspired a rambling route full of tricky moutain passes, inner-city detours, and travel companions who may or may not know the map.
“Hey guys,” I emailed Monday morning. “Don’t kill me, but I wrote a new one yesterday that I think we should add.”
All of which seemed superfluous when, at 7:23 p.m. Thursday night, I stepped into a nearly-empty Rockwood Music Club and had my Murtaugh moment.
“Maybe I am too old for this shit.”
If no one showed, I reasoned, it was a sign: no one wants to watch a 37-year-old singer songwriter perform. (Or this one, anyway.) Ordered a beer, settled into my bar stool, and resigned myself to a quiet night. (Heck, I reckoned, Springsteen played for two people in a Boston bar once, and one of ‘em was John Landau).
Chris showed first (of course, he had to). Then Tony (of Who’s The Bass fame) and Jamie. And then it really began: Nicole, Vanessa, Rachel, Nick, Christofer, Patrick, Ryan and Adam, Pembry and Pedro, Jamie, Meg and Abbie. What with various plus ones and all, we had a rock show on our hands.
Now, I may have been knuckleheaded enough to toss a few potholes into our set, but I was wide enough to pave us some on ramps too. We can play “Giving Up The Ghost” in our sleep. Which is why we typically open with it. Which is a good thing, because scrambling onto a tiny stage in a crowded room, setting up, line-checking is no easy task in five or so minutes. So Chris’ eight bars of shimmering, arpegiated guitar afford me a few seconds to look around the room, feel my feet beneath me, and take a deep breath. And then it’s on.
The wrenches in Thursday night’s works turned out (as always) not to be. Jamie Leonhart joined us for “Someday, Baby, ” and song the band learned Monday night. We held it together (though the chorus has one heck of a high note in it). Then we did “Killing The Blues,” which — on account of the implicit pressure of not sucking next to one of New York City’s most-luminous voices — never sucks. And then we turned it up: “The Rest Of My Life” (for which I dropped the guitar in favor of the tambourine), “Dear Elizabeth” (during which I stared longingly into the lights, attempting to relish the inevitably-fleeting moment).
Then (after a tiny conference on how to start it) we dove into “Waited Up.” Now, at this point it’s 8:46 on a Thursday night. I wrote the song Saturday afternoon, recorded it Sunday night, and rehearsed it with the band Monday night. It’s 96-hours-old. Still, it totally rocked. (Afterwards, Megan — who’s seen enough rock shows to know, and wouldn’t waste her breath if she didn’t mean it — gave me some pretty major props: “That could easily be a Kelly Clarkson song!”).
And then, as soon as we’d begun, we were exiting our Rock ‘n Roll Superhighway. Chris gave us two more measures of G (in this permeation, the intro to “Live Forever”), and we piled on. I strummed. I jumped. I scissor kicked. And we pulled away waving…
Rockwood Music Hall (New York, New York)
Giving Up The Ghost
St. Anne
The Last Time
Someday, Baby
Killing The Blues
The Rest Of My Life
Dear Elizabeth
Waited Up
Live Forever
House Call
The city never seemed more hostile.
My office phone rang at 5:47. Caller ID indicated it was my wife calling from her cell phone, unusual for that time of day. I was knee-deep into a twice-delayed annual appraisal, but begged off to answer.
“Hi honey,” I said, noting the sound of the street in the background. “You ok?”
“No,” she said stuttering. “I’m on the corner with a policeman. I feel dizzy… I…”
“Where are you? I’ll be right there.”
I was in Times Square within two minutes, power walking uptown to 56th and Fifth Avenue to where, apparently, Abbi had nearly collapsed in front of Abercrombie & Fitch.
The cold mist turned to drizzle almost immediately. I scanned the horizon for available cab lights, foiled twice by upstream commuters. All sorts of worst case scenarios ran through my head as I strode uptown, cutting off tourists, bumping into businessmen, and generally sprinting to my wife’s side.
Abbi was kneeling half-dazed in the rain, one hand on her head, one the sidewalk. I crouched alongside her. She was white as a sheet, and shivering. “I’m so nauseous.”
In my fourteen years in New York, I’ve seen and heard plenty: piss-drunk gutterhounds, fist fighting cabbies, sidewalk defecators, scrappy toddlers egged on by their respective parents, sirens, screams and screeching breaks of every ear-shattering permeation.
It was in the intervening five blocks that New York’s abject hostility became terribly apparent. In my heightened state of concern for Abbi, everything was amplified: the cluster of construction works hollering at one another, the gaggle of Japanese tourists crowding us off the sidewalk, the businesswoman screaming into her BlueTooth. It was all bone-jarringly cloying, and I wasn’t the one throwing up.
Back home, I helped Abbi into her pajamas, tucked her under the covers, and took her temperature. I was at something of a loss. I didn’t know if we should head to the ER, or just stay put. A tidal wave of realizations rushed over me as I plied her with saltines and Gatorade. I thought about how infrequently I’d seen her unwell, and how much I hated it. I flashed forward to visions of rushing our sick babies to the doctor, of growing old, of dying. I stood over her as the color returned to her cheeks thinking, “I don’t want anything bad to happen to her ever.”
The first challenge of growing up is learning to take care of yourself. The second is learning to take care of someone you love. I’m not sure I’m ready, but not because it’s difficult. The stakes are high; it breaks my heart to see Abbi hurting. But there’s no better motivation than making someone you love feel better.
Abbi’s sleeping soundly now. She’s going to fine.
