Posts by admin
Plane touched down at midnight. Was in Hell’s Kitchen by 1, asleep by 2. Snoozed and snoozed and snoozed the clock radio — NPR couldn’t stir me from my time zone-less sleep. I finally woke an hour shy of our morning news meeting, and raced in, pausing en route only long enough to buy a…
Read MoreFrom 37,000 feet, American Airlines #164 is closing in on Newark Airport, and I’m closing in on home. I’m eating Red Vines, L.A.’s finest export, and thinking through the week… My time in California was, as always, transformative. I like to think of it as a view of things to come, as a volley across…
Read MoreThe beach was wide this morning, waves rolling slowly across the cool, flat sand. The marine layer was thick and low, but the sun fought its way through, throwing beams of warm morning light through the mist… Now, the weekend is dawning on Southern California. It’s all blues and greens and golden hour light. And…
Read MoreThe Summer Air
I’ve been writing this song all week. Every morning when I run, every moment I have to myself, I hear this chorus in my head. It strikes me a “Summer’s Gone” part two. That is, it has a similar temperment: open, bright, uptempo, but tinged with loss and some strange sense of impending apocalypse. The…
Read More36 hours in L.A., and I’m ready to quit working forever. I’ve been putting in long days that start with conference calls at 6:30, require meeting and greetings lots of new people, generally acting vaguely authoratative, working amidst the dull buzz of air conditioning, and… well, you get the idea. But it’s not the long…
Read MoreI Heart Aimee Mann
I’m about two hours away from LAX still, somewhere around 36,000 feet. I’m thinking we’re somewhere over Arkansas. It barren and dusty below, save for these huge green irrigation circles. After passing through some towering, billowing, pure-white thundercloads, we’ve settled into quieter skies. The interior of the plane, however, is not so quiet, as a…
Read MoreHeart Shape Box
I interviewed Aimee Mann yesterday. She and her husband Michael Penn are my songwriting heroes, so it was a thrill. Of course, I like to think that we connected over my insightful questions, but I was probably just another press outlet. Her new CD, “Lost In Space”, is another terribly accomplished piece of work, equally…
Read MoreJust rode my bike up from Control One Studios on 23d Street. Kevin and I got even more done than we planned, so the “Summer’s Gone” remix CD’s gonna’ have even more goodies on it than expected. That is, assuming it sounds as good sober as it did when we recorded it all… I tracked…
Read MoreOn The Lone Balladeer
Avalon, NJ, was locked in a thick fog when I looked out my window this morning. I could hear the waves crashing across the street, but couldn’t see a thing. I decided to get out of bed — I could always sleep on the bus ride from Atlantic City to New York — and get…
Read MoreRecording “Take Me Home”
Just in from the Control One Studios. Just in from a drunken cab ride through the heart of midtown: past drag queens crossing 23d Street (as “American Girls” played on my minidisc), past the Empire State building (white tonight), up 10th Avenue and the Lincoln Tunnel — my favorite view of Time’s Square — through…
Read More