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Do, Or Do Not
“Hello this is an automated message from the Accenture Triathlon Alerting System. Your athlete Benjamin Wagner has finished the race at 2 hours 43 minutes 27 seconds.”
Read MoreTry
In exactly forty-eight hours, I’m diving into the Hudson River, and paddling like hell. Sunday morning is my sixth Nautica New York City Triathlon. My wave — the most sizeable demographic, 35-40 males, and hence the last — begins the 1500 meter (about one mile) swim at 98th Street at 8:15. From the transition on…
Read MoreRising Like A Discotheque
Rolling Stone Editor Sid Holt broke my heart. I was twenty-four-years-old. I’d moved to New York City just a few months prior with two goals: to snag a record deal, and write for Rolling Stone magazine. I wasn’t much for networking. Still, I knew well enough to canvas the Syracuse University Alumni Center for names.…
Read MoreCharles In Charge
My first pair was purple. I purchased my first pair of Converse All Stars for twenty bucks at Connelly’s Discount Clothes in Wayne, Pennsylvania. I was fifteen-years-old, and had recently formed my first band, Neoteric Youth. The fact that my father had played three years of high school basketball in the exact same archless, black…
Read MoreSummer Song
Amtrak 2295 is running fifteen minutes late. Outside, the sun is dipping behind a bank of billowing storm clouds. Inside, the air is cool and dry. I lean back in my seat, rapping my arms around my t-shirted chest to keep warm. All around me, passengers prattle into their cell phones, revealing slivers of their…
Read MoreSugar, Baby
Authenticity and enthusiasm comes at a premium in New York City. It figures, then, that I had to go to Brooklyn to see a brand-new Philly band to get my dose of both. I was pretty short on moxie on Sunday afternoon. My fifteen hour Saturday in East Rutherford was punctuated by a three hour…
Read MoreHead In Heaven / Fingers In The Mire
What would you do if, in the middle of a perfectly normal day, your hero walked into the room? I’ve read some 1182 pages about the man in the last three months alone. I watched “Live From Sydney,” “Live From Chicago,” “Rattle & Hum,” “Classic Albums: Joshua Tree,” and “Under Review: Achtung Baby,” all in…
Read MoreSweet Honey From A Honey Bee
I owe you the end of the story. Fact is, our twenty-four hours in Des Moines constitute a long, wonderful story. We had a ball, and — from the Arts Festival to KFMG to People’s to the Walsmith’s to the Authentic Records brunch — wrung out every last bit of awesomeness the city had to…
Read More(Kinda) Being There
For some fifteen hours yesterday, I was at — well, near, actually — Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, covering Al Gore’s globalwarmingapalooza, Live Earth. As always, I didn’t see the show. I mean, I could hear it playing on the flat screens down the hall, but from the one-on-one interview rooms backstage —…
Read MoreEnds Meet
I boycotted the fireworks tonight. They couldn’t possibly have been more excellent than Saturday’s. It takes a certain amount of masochism, a three a.m. wake up call, great weather, seemless airline connections, an hour of time zone savings, and about 15 milligrams of Xanax to make it to Eastern Iowa Airport before nine a.m., but…
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