It Might Get Loud
Director Davis Guggenheim’s new documentary love letter to the electric guitar, “It Might Get Loud,” is loaded with unbelievable moments.
First, he manages to shoot Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page’s visit to Headley Grange, the East Hampshire, England, home studio where the band recorded “Led Zeppelin IV.” Page is regal in his puffy, white shirt and black duster, gliding over the grounds, strumming his mandolin in the garden, and recounting tales of recording John Bonham’s legendary, massive backbeat on “When The Levee Breaks.” He relaxes and opens up for Guggenheim in an unprecedented manner (explained, perhaps, by his Associate Producer credit, but still).
Next, Guggenheim joins U2 guitarist, The Edge, as he retraces his childhood steps through Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin where the fledgling guitarist pulled Larry Mullen, Jr’s “Seeking Musicians” notice off of a school board thereby delivering U2 unto the world. Then he and The Edge pour over early “Joshua Tree” demos in the guitarist’s home studio.
There’s even a cool scene where White Stripe Jack White builds a diddley bow, rudimentary, single-stringed instrument that birthed the slide guitar and figures prominently into the blues. “Who says you need a guitar,” he says, exhaling acrid cigarette smoke.
Guggenheim’s coup de grâce, though, is a moment in the film’s contrived-but-compelling through line: a guitar “summit” featuring Page, Edge and White on a Warner Bros. backlot soundstage. The three disparate players spend some time feeling one another out in conversation, before finally grabbing their guitars and swapping tricks, tips and tunes. In one goose bump-inspiring moment, Page shows Edge and White his “Whole Lotta Love” riff. The corners of White’s mouth — typically reserved for frowns and scowles — turn upward into a wistful, childish grin, while Edge squints his eyes in apparent disbelief, then leans in closer before seconding the progression.
I conducted a brief phone interview with Davis Guggenheim when he premiered his “An Inconvenient Truth” at Sundance. Months later, I called him on his cell phone seconds after he accepted his Oscar for the film. I didn’t mention either today as I ushered him from the Paramount Screening Room to the MTV Newsroom. (Or that I too interviewed The Edge a few years ago, and thought he had small, soft hands.) I did, however, spend our twenty-six floor elevator ride discussing the thread that starts with Led Zeppelin, U2, White Stripes, Green Day and Silversun Pickups: distortion, swagger, and commitment.
And as we stood in the MTV newsroom, though, I couldn’t resist mentioning my own singer/songwriter career, and the resonance I felt hearing one of The Edge’s high school remembrances. Walking through those locker-lined hallways, he says, “One day it dawned on me that it didn’t matter whether we were good with our instruments or not, it just mattered if we believed completely in what we were doing. It was about a total commitment.”
In a post-screening Q&A, Davis suggested that the film, to him, was about exploring the “creative spark.”
“How do you write a song?” he asked. “How do you create something from nothing?”
I may know the answer to those questions, but I may never know what would have happened had I totally committed (or “sold my soul,” as Robert Johnson might say) to rock ‘n roll. Instead, I’ll have to settle for also ran status, an asterisk on an asterisk with a footnote.
Home Is Where Your Friends Are
God bless The Nadas.
First they ask me to contribute a song to their “Crystalline” project, a compilation of Authentic Records’ artists covering The Nadas in honor of the band’s fifteenth anniversary.
So I recorded a bang-up version of “Feel Like Home” with Chris, Jamie and Tony a few weeks ago which Jon Locker (sustaining emails like, “In the breakdown section, can you compress the drums like in original or breakdown in “trying to tell you” to provide more dramatic change?”) mixed last week.
Then they ask me to play the Authentic Records Stage at the Iowa State Fair on Sunday, August 16th. So I’ve drafted a bad ass set list, and roped in all kinds of cameos: singer/songwriter (and cousin) Andy Wagner, funky chanteuse Bonne Finken, cellist Patrick Riley and (of course) Nadas frontmen Jason Walsmith and Mike Butterworth.
Then I hear that Alex Dezen of The Damnwells is playing Nada Nother Sunday Night afterwards. Two of my favorite bands in as many days! Amazing!
On Sunday, word leaked (via Twitter) that Nadas frontman Jason Walsmith is playing is prisoner in an honest-to-goodness Hollywood film, “The Experiment” (starring Forest Whitaker, Adrien Brody, Elijah Wood) shooting in Iowa. Very impressive.
The capper came today, though, when my friend Tricia tipped me off the Jason’s star turn is going to preclude his Iowa State Fair performance, and the Alex is standing in. So I email Mike.
“Word on the street is that Jason’s burgeoning movie career precludes his Saturday State Fair appearance. And that my (other Iowa) hero, Damnwells’ frontman Alex Dezen, is filling in?”
“Actually,” Mike responded, “Mike from Hello Dave is filling in. What do you want to sing? Let me know and it’s yours!”
My mind melts as I respond.
“HOLY MOLY… REALLY!?!?! Wow. Well, if you wanna do ‘Listen Through The Static,’ ‘Blue Lights,’ ‘Templeton Rye,’ ‘The River’ or ‘Octane,’ lemme know — I’d love to cameo on just ONE of them. Just lemme’ know so I can be uber-ready!”
Slightly opportunist? Maybe. I don’t Jason or Mike would expect any less from me.
It’s been four years since The Nadas first invited me to my first State Fair homecoming, though. Anxious as I am to knock my Sunday set out of the park (er, fairgrounds), nothing beats a full-on, standing room-only, corn-fed, beer-fueled Saturday night Nadas crowd. F’ing awesome.
Thanks guys! Feels like home to me.
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The 2009 Brickyard 400 (Or, Speedway Nights: The Ballad Of Jimmie Johnson)
First rule of Nascar is you don’t talk about Nascar.
It’s not that facts, statistics, cultural judgments, stereotypes or general biographical data aren’t valuable. They are.
Of course (like you), I knew nothing of Nascar until last year’s Brickyard 400. This (now seasonal) confab was born of a conversation at my bachelor party and the desire to a) in Indianapolis (a city, sorry dad, with few other event-oriented justifications for visitation) and b) spend more time with dudes.
Before last year, I couldn’t fathom why someone would sit in the sun for six hours watching brightly-painted cars blow by. And then, with the waving of the green flag, I was a convert.
Because the thing is, words fail the visceral impact of the sport. It’s all about the racket.
And I’m not talking about that haggard cliche, “The roar of the engines.” Nah ah. You don’t know Nascar until you’ve felt it in your solar plexus.
Nascar is a living lesson in The Doppler Effect. Cars pass in a blur and a whir and whine straight out of Star Wars — but faster and louder. The pitch it somewhere between a Japanese crotch rocket and a F15 — but faster and louder and multiplied by 42 cars and 240 laps.
As I write this, I’m 62 laps (and three Foster’s oil cans) into my second Brickyard 400. It’s a father and son weekend in Indianapolis. It’s my pops and me, my Uncle Stan and cousin Andrew, plus high school buddy Jimmy and his dad Don. Raising the stakes? Jimmy works with #99 (currently #23 up from 41st start position). Raising them further? We’re in the fourteenth row just a hundred feet off the start.
There is some sense of cliche here, of course: too-short cutoff jeans, families decked out in their racers colors and logos, missing teeth, mullets, chewing tabacco and cigarettes. But, for a few hundred thousand people baking in the sun and basting their livers on Budweiser, the crowd’s enthusiastic and civilized.
Just a second ago, Andy and I spotted a six-years-old kid and his father. The kid’s not wearing earplugs, but is rockin’ camouflage shorts, blond hair, and #24 Jeff Gordon baseball cap. They’re eating eating ice cream cones and smiling.
“If he goes to one race for the next thirty years he’s good for $30, 000,” Andy says.
“Add in three beers, a turkey drumstick and a t-shirt and you’re talkin’ at least another another three grand.”
Aaah, capitalism.
Which is the thing. Here I am watching 42 cars (38, actually; four have dropped out) whizz around a track at 150mph (after, of course, a five fighter jet flyover) — we’re talking thousands of gallons of Middle Eastern crud, huge carbon footprints, garbage, sewage, spectacle and waste — and I’m loving it.
***
6:24. The race is over. Jimmie Johnson won in a surprise upset over Juan Pablo Montoya who was penalized for — get this — speeding in the pits. The sun’s setting on thousands race fans crawling through bumper-to-bumper traffic — a stark contrast to the 158mph speed junkies we’ve been watching for the last four hours.
I’m dizzy, exhausted, hoarse and a little bit nauseous from the fumes. But I’m happy: bone-tired, liver-worn, tummy-busted happy.
See you next year, race fans!
The Space Between Apollo And The Great Beyond
There’s been a lot of talk about space in the news lately.
Monday marked the fortieth anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 11 lunar landing.
On Sunday, an amateur Australian astronomer discovered a fresh hole in Jupiter’s atmosphere the size of the Pacific Ocean.
And this afternoon, residents from the Ganges River in India to remote islands of the Pacific witnessed the longest total solar eclipse of the century: six minutes.
My family lived outside of Washington, D.C., in the ’70s. We visited the capitol frequently enough, but what I remember is The National Air & Space Museum: Kitty Hawk, Spirit of St. Louis, Bell X1.
One of my earliest and favorite Christmas gifts was a telescope. Sure, I used it to spy on the neighbors — until I discovered that it horizontally flipped my vision. So I looked at the moon. I learned to spot Venus and Mars. I spent hours searching the inky black night sky for specks of light.
When I was ten, and my parents were separating, my mom moved back to Washington, D.C. Her office was next door to NASA headquarters. I begged her for weeks to get me photos of the brand-new Space Shuttle. Eventually, a manilla envelope arrived on our Chicago doorstep, return address: 300 E Street S.W. Washington, D.C. 20001.
The Space Shuttle will stop flying in 2010. Until 2015, the Russians will transport American astronauts into space. Meanwhile, 3800 NASA employees will rally around the now fifty-year-old government agencies Constellation Project. It’s goal? To return man to the moon by 2020 powered 11.8 million pounds of Ares V thrust.
Wow.
As one-time NASA Artist-In-Residence Laurie Anderson once said, “I keep thinking what it would be like to be a kid in this country. I think it would be really depressing, except for NASA.”
Sure, NASA was a product of the Cold War, a component of the military industrial complex fueled by over 4% of the federal budget. But the pursuit of the moon and beyond was something else, something greater, more abstract, almost religious. Space is the ultimate Great Beyond. Less than 5% of it is even perceived by humanity. The rest is just dark matter.
September 12, 1962, the-President John F. Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
What could be more courageous — whether in 1962 or 2009 — then, than gathering all of our faculties, all of our better selves, working together, and charging head-first into the unknown? What could be more meaningful than looking for answers from the Great Beyond?
Rock ‘N Roll Reconsidered
For years now, I’ve tossed around “rock ‘n roll” as an adjective.
Sure, it’s a popular musical genre that evolved in the United States after World War II that combines African American rhythms and blues culture, country and gospel. And yeah, its instrumentation is typically guitars, bass and drums (typically a boogie woogie blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat). But that’s just academic.
I’m talkin’ loud, fast and out of control; unshaven, unshorn and uninvited; wrecked hotel rooms, Lamborghinis and lives. I’m talkin’ out all night, awake for sunrise with shots for breakfast. Rock ‘n roll is rebellion, indecision, and contradiction. It’s black and white and gray streaked blood red.
Rock ‘n roll is a beautiful mess.
I’m not sure I’ve ever really been very rock ‘n roll, though I’ve certainly endeavored towards it. I’ve been electrocuted by beer-soaked microphones. I’ve done bong hits out of contraptions nearly my height. I’ve taken anonymous horse pills from a nefarious studio engineer. And I’ve tried to live a semi-unconventional life, neither buying selling, nor processing anything bought, sold or processed — or repairing anything bought, sold or processed. You know, as a career. And I wear jeans and Chuck Taylors lot.
No definition is etched in stone, though. Times change. Perceptions shift. Context is everything. So before I knew it, rock ‘n roll wasn’t just Boone’s Farm Strawberry between sets, bottomless two-dollar pitchers and knock down, fall down finales.
It’s my allowance (or acceptance) of this evolution (or eventuality) that found me ordering two dozen, egg-shaped shakers from Musician’s Friend last week, and hand-crafting a Benjamin Wagner Songbook — part sing-a-long, part set list, part clip-art coloring book — in anticipation of Saturday night’s all-ages, sippy cup and pint glass-fueled Rockwood Music Hall performance.
And it’s my allowance (or acceptance) of this evolution (or eventuality) that found me laughing my way through my own lyrics as my nephew, Ethan, intently colored a smiling dragon on the pages between “I Can See Clearly Now” and “Radio” bright green while his brother, Edward, gazed wide-eyed towards Chris Abad and Ryan Vaughn. Over Edward’s shoulder, their sister, Ella, projectile vomited a few ounces of fresh-brewed breast milk.
Later, as food-stained children, hipster friends and gray-haired parents alike joined guest star Casey Shea in his rousing cover of “Twist & Shout,” I thought, ‘If this ain’t rock ‘n roll, I’m just not that interested.”
Rockwood Music Hall (New York, New York)
Milk & Honey
The Last Time
I Can See Clearly
Radio
Leaving On A Jet Plane
The Boys Of Summer
Wonderwall
You Are My Sunshine
Twist & Shout
St. Anne (Of The Silence)
Dear Elizabeth
Read all about the show here.
Walter Cronkite (1916–2009)
In the fall if 1989, I sat deep within the blue light of Conestoga High School’s dusty, off-white library single-finger typing my Northwestern University application into one of the school’s ten, well-worn IBM PCs.
I don’t remember much about the assignment, or my thesis, or even what made me think I should be a journalism student there to begin with (neither a) “I like to write” b) “I like Chicago” nor c) “My brother wanted to go there but didn’t get in” seemed like reasonable responses), I only remember one thing: Twenty years later, I wish I’d run spellcheck (or invented it so I could have run it).
I do remember writing of Walter Cronkite’s journalistic integrity, his connection with his audience, and understanding of substance over form. I wrote that, as Managing Editor of The Conestoga Spoke, I too aspired to those ideals. My first action as Managing Editor, I explained, had been to change the youthful, hand-penned masthead, to a more stately Old English font, a la The New York Times. My second move was to commission more coverage of international news (despite the fact that the paper was a monthly).
Problem was, I spelled Cronkite with a K, as in “Walter Kronkite.”
As a result (presumably, though my SATs couldn’t have helped), I attended to Syracuse University (everyone’s second choice) and found my way — gratefully, in retrospect — into a dual newspaper/creative writing major. I kept my integrity, my values of substance over form, formed a rock band, toured the Northeast, began making records, graduated, moved to New York City and — eventually — took at job at MTV News.
A dozen or so years later, I met Mr. Cronkite there. He was in his late eighties at the time, moving slowly, but still sharp and spry and quick with a warm smile. I was on hand to snap a few photos, but found a moment to introduce myself and thank him.
“Mr. Cronkite,” I said, “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. My name is Benjamin Wagner. I am the Director of Production for MTV News, and I must tell you that you are the reason that I am here today. You are the reason I am a journalist.”
He held my handshake firm, and fixed his eyes on mine.
“Well, thank you, Benjamin,” he said in That Voice. “Director of Production, huh? At least some good’s come of all this.”
The news of his passing on Friday, then, brought sadness. Cronkite was one of the good ones, delivering the news of the day in simple language and reasoned tones for twenty years from his CBS Evening News anchor chair. But Cronkite also delivered his humanity when necessary: tears for JFK, outrage for LBJ, jubilation for Apollo.
In the hours following his death, Tweets and Status Updates buzzed with snark about “The Death Of Journalism.” True, we lost a bellwether, beacon, and guidepost. And true, the business of news is corrupted by celebrity, sales, and ratings. Let’s not forget, though, Uncle Walter’s turn as host of “You Are There,” “The Twentieth Century” or “It’s News to Me.” Cronkite understood the medium, and strove for it to be its best: compelling, substantive, engaging, connecting and entertaining.
In the end, I imagine, Walter Cronkite appreciated television news as a medium of constant evolution. “That’s the way it is,” as he famously ended every newscast, may well have been, “That’s the way it is for now… Stay tuned.”
Either way, good night, Mr. Cronkite. And good luck.
Panic At Funland
There is no panic for a seventeen-year-old like the panic incurred by hoisting and spinning a dozen toddlers eight feet in the air, then leaving them there for so long that they began to cry for their parents and attempt to leap from their seats.
That seventeen-year-old was me twenty years ago this month.
I was mere moments into my first day at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware’s famed family amusement park, Funland. I’d been issued my official uniform (white and green t-shirt for the week, red polo shirt for the weekends), instructed that all game money was to be returned to the office front-faced (that is, in sequential order and facing the same direction), and pointed towards the the northeast corner of the park.
“Please go relieve Dave McCubbin,” Mrs. Fasnacht said. “He’s running The Sky Fighters over in The Kiddie Rowe, and will instruct you how to do the same.”
Only Dave didn’t instruct me, perhaps because he figured I knew, or because I didn’t ask. And so I loaded a fresh batch of toddlers into their cast-iron rocket ships, announced, “3… 2… 1… blast off!” to eager kids and scared parents alike, and set the thing in motion. After a few seconds of clockwise rotation, I flipped the lever and began liftoff. The rockets rose some eight feet off the concrete. The children laughed and waved their arms. The parents smiled and took photos. And I leaned on the controller, confident in my Funlander Authority. After two minutes, I flicked the lever, shut down the motot, and watched a dozen three-year-olds come to a slow stop eight feet in the air.
Panic.
Funland was born in 1962 when brothers Allen and Don Fasnacht purchased what was then called The Sport Center from Jack Dentino. Dentino began the park, there on the southern end of the boardwalk, in 1939 with a single concession: a game called Spill the Milk in which players attempted to topple a pyramid of wooden milk bottles with a special ball. Three tosses cost five cents.
By the time I go to Funland, it was a vast complex of aluminum sheds packed the the corners with rides and games. Upwards of one hundreds of fresh-faced high school and college students worked six days a week for room, board, and minimum wage. My brother, Chris, had spent three summers there, developing a rebellious, Milwaukee’s Best-fueled swagger that nearly had him fired more than once. Of course, I couldn’t wait to work there, so moved into the dorms above the park straight from Senior Week.
It was a celebrated summer, one filled with firsts: my first summer away from home, my first pair of Guatemalan pants, my first line of coke, and my first all-nighter (presumably on the same night), and my first misdemeanor theft (or it would have been had I gotten caught).
Which is not to say the Fasnacht’s didn’t run a tight, family-oriented ship. They did a terrific job with the crew. True, we didn’t have a full day off all summer (instead, we would work a morning shift then break until the following evening). Still, there was Pizza Night at Grotto, Sub Night, and Ride Night when, after closing, the park was ours.
Though I spent most of my free time racing my silver, two-door, 1980 Volkswagen Rabbit back and forth to Philadelphia to be with my recently-graduated friends, I made friends fast (thanks, in no small part, to being “Chris’ Little Brother”), and was invited to every beer blast and clothesline shopping spree.
By 1989, Jack Dentino’s Spill the Milk had been augmented by games like Ring Toss, Cups, and Derby (a skee ball horse race that drove thousands of dollars of revenue on weekends). Out back, the ageless Paratrooper (whose lumbering motor could be heard for blocks around), Gravitron, and, of course, Haunted Mansion held sway. Those rides were the domain of veteran’s like my brother, guy who squinted through hung-over eyelids. Newbies like me began their tenure on The Kiddie Rowe, which remained largely unchanged from the ’40s and ’50s: Boats, Helicopters, Fire Engines and, of course, The Sky Fighter — where we left a dozen frightened toddlers, some twenty-four scared, annoyed, and increasingly angry parents, and me.
I waved down assistance from one of Al Fasnacht’s brothers who immediately assumed the ride was broken. (And why wouldn’t he? Only a dolt would be confused by the ride’s simple operation). He knelt below the wooden walkway, and yanked on a cable until the rocket’s descended. Parent’s hastily removed their sobbing children, and hurried them all away.
Moments later, a dozen new, blissfully unaware parent’s were queued with their squealing, delighted children. I loaded them into their rocket ships, strapped them in and announced “3… 2… 1… blast off!”
And away we went, around and around, up and down, together.
Woodgrain
Master Luthier Carlo Greco’s dusty workshop sits two stories and two thousand miles above 48th Street through an unmarked, glass door, one flight up a rickety staircase from an accordion maker.
Carlo was the General Foreman of Guild Guitars from 1959-1977. A classical guitar builder from Italy by way of Argentina, he traveled to South American to select hard woods for Guild, and hand-built guitars for John Denver, Paul Simon, Eric Clapton, Jerry Garcia, and Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler.
Stepping into his shop is like stepping back in time. Four gentlemen in their seventies move slowly and patiently behind the counter, sanding, filing and carving to the the delicate strains of an accordian through a tiny single speaker.
Three times, now, Carlo Greco has repaired my battered Martin DXE15,: painstakingly steaming the top from the sides, patching, bonding and sanding the cracks, then bracing and regluing the seems. Three times, now, the guitar has been reborn in his steady, knowing hands.
There are tiny cracks and bruises, sure, but I like it that way; my guitar looks worn, used, and loved.
“How much you pay last time?” Carlo asks in a thick accent.
“I don’t remember,” I admit. “One hundred? One-fifty?”
Carlo scribbles detailed notes on my receipt:
Martin Acoustic
Fix Top Crack
Put Support Under
And Set Up
$100
I am effusive in my gratitude. He smiles, and sends me on my way.
“Go play, Benny. Go play!”
A Life Less Ordinary
I’m not sure whether my life is more moving, or that I’m more open to being moved. Either way, I choke up pretty easily these days.
A few weeks ago, for example, Abbi and I bought Ethan a grab bag of magic tricks for his sixth birthday. He and Edward sat transfixed, wide-eyed and amazed as I showed them each of the simple slights-of-hand. It was difficult enough to hold back tears of joy as I watched them each pull the new, black-felt top hat over their big, bright eyes, and more so as I walked home with Abbi.
“What could be more important to a kid than magic?” I asked, my voice cracking below the strain of traffic. “I mean, magic is everything! Magic is imagination. Magic is shooting stars and finger paints and fireflies! Magic is believing in the invisible! It’s, like, the most important thing there is!”
My life seems to be full of small, simple moments lately: floating in the river, swimming in the ocean, brunch with friends and laughter with the nephews.
Moreover, these moments occur at the most-unexpected times: on the couch, on the street, in a restaurant.
Which is interesting because, growing up, I would have expected differently.
I’ve written more than once about the play, “Pippin,” in which I played the lead roll way back in 1986. Pippin’s a naive, slightly-spoiled, recently-graduated prince who doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life, but knows it’s gotta be good. “I’ve got to be someone who lives all of his life in superlatives,” he sings. “When you’re extraordinary you gotta do extraordinary things.”
The fact that I’m different is easy to see
So why doesn’t anybody know it but me?
I’m extraordinary
I need to do extraordinary thingsEvery so often a man has a day
He truly can call his
Well, here I am to seize my day
If someone could just tell where the hell it isOh give me my chance, and give me my wings
And don’t make me think about everyday things
They’re unnecessary, to someone who is very
Extraordinary like me
He tries to be a soldier, painter, priest, farmer, and king, but fails, and in the end, he finds himself in love with a widower with a young child. “How do you feel?” she asks at the end of the play. “Trapped, but happy,” he answers.
Try as I might twenty-six later, I can’t help but continue to draw parallels with that darned play. I don’t quite understand what drives it (I suspect it’s more hypomania than hubris), but I can’t help but aspire to, wish for and work towards big things. Like running ten New York City Marathons in a row, or self-producing a documentary, or self-releasing twelve albums. And yet, the moments that bring me the greatest joy, insight are the smallest one. Which brings me to yesterday.
Abbi and I sat through a brief, DVR-fueled American Masters film festival that included three separate documentaries on the lives of Walter Cronkite, Marvin Gaye, Annie Liebowitz, and Garrison Keillor.
Garrison Keillor is one of my deep and simple heros. He’s a terrific storyteller with solid, Midwestern values. I’ve been listening to “A Prairie Home Companion” since I was a kid, and saw him perform live a few years ago. I even asked him to appear in my documentary, “Mister Rogers & Me.” Sadly, he declined.
The film recounts Keillor’s slow rise to Public Broadcasting prominence, including his virgin foray into radio when, after a semester broadcasting on his university station, he discovered that the station’s transmitter had been long-since powered down. Some thirty years, hundreds of broadcasts, a few novels, one Hollywood motion picture later, and — perhaps most importantly — one eight-year-old daughter later, he admits, “I was afraid of living an ordinary life.”
“And then I realized that’s what we all get: an ordinary life. And it’s good enough, it’s good enough.”
