Archive for September 2009
I Heart Pop Candy Because Pop Candy Hearts Mister Rogers (And R.E.M.!)
In December, I travelled to Washington, D.C., to cover President Obama’s Inauguration for MTV News. I was managing the operation, for the most part, but broke ranks one afternoon to interview one of my artistic heroes, Shepard Fairey. USA Today’s Pop Candy Blog linked to the resulting article. So I sent its editor, Whitney Matheson,…
Read MoreThirty-Eight Songs
Sometime after midnight thirty-eight years ago today in a sterile-white, fluorescent-lit University of Iowa hospital room, my parents welcomed me into the world just a few weeks shy of my due date. My mother was studying classical guitar that summer. Moreover, the acoustic balladeer — James Taylor, Carol King, Jim Croce, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Brown,…
Read MoreThe Miracle Of Showing Up, Part II
Yesterday afternoon, I raced uptown to a doctor’s appointment on West 96th Street, tripping out of the cab some fifteen minutes late. It took me at least thirty seconds to realize the appointment was on 86th Street. Just seventy-two hours shy of leaving Nantucket, then, I was plunged back into my nuance-free life: rush rush,…
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