Posts by Benjamin
Golf In The Kingdom
Say what you will about what Justin Timberlake’s done for the sport, golf still isn’t very rock ‘n roll. I play once a year nonetheless, always with my father. Perhaps its the long walk, or the inherent futility of knocking that tiny ball all that way into that tiny hole, but the sport is rife…
Read MoreMay Your Song Always Be Sung
It was a strange rehearsal. But then, it’s been a strange gig from he outset. I booked this Thursday’s Rockwood Music Hall performance months ago, but didn’t mention it to the guy’s until a few weeks ago; I wasn’t sure how to approach it (solo, acoustic, electric, etc), I just knew I wanted to get…
Read MoreIt’s All Right
Saturday morning’s slate-gray, wind-whipped bluster was an angry, Joycean tempest fit solely for hours indoors with tea and sympathy. Abbi and I braved the elements nonetheless, striking out through the icey, soggy streets to yoga at Exhale on Central Park South. Arriving waterlogged was rich irony, as our instructor, Kirtan, and I had conspired to…
Read MoreThe Bump
These days, it takes me about one minute to tell people that Abbi and I are expecting. Take last night for example. I walked out of my office around nine o’clock. The building was nearly empty, so my elevator went express. When the doors opened 29 floors below, I bumped into a familiar colleague. I…
Read MoreCrazy Nephews
My brother, Christofer, called Sunday morning. “Dude, is there any way you can watch the boys this afternoon?” he asked breathlessly. Jen took Ella to the hospital. I’m running up there to meet her.” My pointer finger was on their Upper West Side buzzer fifteen minutes later. I could hear Ethan and Edward’s tiny feet…
Read MoreGolden Slumbers
Last night, just before her eyes turned heavy after her traditional page and a half of reading, I slipped a pair of Sony headphones onto Abbi’s belly, and pushed play. I was running two hours behind my “Forever Young” recording schedule when singer/songwriter Misty Boyce finally took her seat at the piano. She banged out…
Read More… But Now I See
Jamie Leonhart and I arrived to our “Forever Young” recording session a few minutes early, so set out for a cup of coffee. The sun was broken free of the weekend’s snow-choked clouds. The trickle of melting snow hummed beneath the rumble of passing subways, far off-music and a faint inkling that birds were beginning…
Read More“Forever Young” LP Due This Fall
I began recording my eighth studio LP (and sixteenth solo album overall), “Forever Young,” Saturday night in Brooklyn. The ten-song LP is scheduled for a fall release. Though the idea behind this new record gestated slowly, it ultimately came together pretty quickly. It starts, I guess, with Ethan. My brother’s first son, Ethan, was born…
Read MoreKeep Breathing
Abbi and I went to our first birthing class the other night, a three-trimesters in three-hours mini-marathon spanning everything from reflexology to relaxin. The class was held at Real Birth, a pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and new parent community center born of the Elizabeth Seton Childbearing Center (where Ethan was born). It’s a brick-walled, hard wood-floored…
Read MoreBaba O’Riley
“It’s not about us anymore.” Tarrytown, New York, is a quaint little village tucked into the eastern bank of the ice-choked Hudson River, some 25 miles north of midtown Manhattan. One of my earliest NYC-pals, John Rosenblatt (he of SNL Shorts fame) his wife, Marnie, and son, Wylie, hosted Abbi and me for brunch. There,…
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