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Hollywood feeds on its young. To celebrate the thirty-seventh anniversary of my birth here, then, is not without irony. To be away from home and enduring what is typically the most challenging week of the year only added insult to injury.
I woke, fittingly, to AT&T's oft-heard ringtone, a sound that prompts dozens of my colleagues to reach for their hips simultaneously. It was the first of what would tally to well over one hundred hugely-appreciated email, Facebook and cell phone birthday wishes.
I was groggy and tense from another ...
Happy Birthday Edward!
My nephew, Edward Isaac, turned two on Thursday. We celebrated Sunday morning.
Two short weeks ago, Edward was wrestling with just a few new words: blue, mama, dadda.
Yesterday, though, he was forming complete sentences like, "I got it."
It's an amazing, exciting process to watch.
As is the dynamic between he and his older brother. Edward's a happy kid: following Ethan, copying his every move, and grinning the whole time. Ethan adores and protects him, bristling when the limits of his authority are breached (like when his ...
The Brickyard 400 (Or, My Days Of Thunder)
This is it: The Fall of Rome.
And this is how it goes: blue sky, 85 degrees, 300,000 people, 42 modified stock cars hurtling around a two and a half mile track at 170 mile per hour, and lots and lots of beer.
This is the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, aka The Brickyard 400.
It's Death Race, Gladiator, and The Running Man. The MPHs and RPMs are impressive, but we're here for the five-car pile up: crushed steel, shattered plastic, frayed rubber.
We hatched the plan at my bachelor party. Ten months later, here we care: high school ...
Glazed
I'm not thrilled to be the guy who taught Ethan how to use a Blackberry (though he used it constructively to take photos and email them to his grandparents).
I like to think that what came next made up for the his early introduction to corporate handcuffs.
In celebration of Ethan's fifth birthday, Abbi and I took him to lunch at our favorite diner (EJ's on Amsterdam where he had pancakes "with extra butter"), then across the street to paint-your-own-pottery purveyors, Make.
The storefront was relatively quiet for a sunny, Saturday ...
Bouncing Over A White Cloud - Video
Rockwood was rowdy. I was anxious. And then it all turned.
Chris was on at 8. I was on at 9.
So I left the office at seven o'clock and struck out through a sweltering Times Square with my guitar, computer, camera and a bag of CDs strapped to my back. I jammed onto a crowded F, turned up my iPod, and began worrying.
Suddenly, all of my own songs sounded foreign. Suddenly, rushing through rehearsal seemed imprudent. Worse, I was suddenly at Delancey Street -- one stop too far.
I hopped off the subway, and headed for the ...
The Boys Of Summer
Ah, to be a kid in the summertime.
Remember?
Kick the can. The ice cream man. Wiffle Ball. Zinc oxide. Fireflies.
I have nothing but golden memories of summer vacation.
When I was really young, family loaded into the brown, wood-panelled Cutlass Cruiser station wagon, and travelled 561 miles to Lake Vermillion, Minnesota where we would fish, water ski, swim, and picnic.
Later, as a teenager, summer vacation came to mean Rehoboth Beach, Delaware: boogie boarding, body surfing, and endless hours at the arcade.
Good ...
Into The Arms Of America
Ok, so here's the quandary.
I love New York City, but thirteen years later, the place is killin' me.
I don't just mean the fumes, shadows or concrete. And it's more than the pace, noise, and frenzy. I'm talkin' about politics, aspiration -- the whole ladder climbing thing.
A few weeks ago, a younger friend and I were sipping homemade margaritas from the thirtieth floor sun terrace of Abbi and my building. All of Midtown was splayed out below us. We were a little buzzed.
"Man," he said, "You've made it."
"I dunno' about ...
The Apostle Of Uncool
A recent Rolling Stone cover story characterized Coldplay's Chris Martin as "The Jesus of Uncool." And while I can't relate to the Jesus part, I can the "uncool."
See, I have a long history of uncool. I wasn't in the "cool" crowd in high school, wasn't in the "cool" band in college, and -- while I am surrounded by entire industries that arbitrate (and buy, process, and repair) "cool" here in New York -- I've always been outside of it.
Even at work. Heck, especially at work. I've taken plenty of guff for my taste since stepping ...
Burger, Shot, Beer (Repeat)
Rare is the rehearsal when the band doesn't spend as much time hanging out, drinking beers and talking for as long (or usually longer) than we do playing music. Which, at this point in my musical career, is alright by me.
Thursday night, however, was one for the record books.
Singer/songwriter/guitarist Chris Abad, bassist Tony Maceli, drummer Jamie Alegre and I were, of course, rehearsing for the big "The Invention Of Everything Else" CD release on Wednesday, June 18th at Rockwood Music Hall.
Rehearsal went well enough. I was ...
