Posts by Benjamin
“A Holiday Benefit, Vol. 3” Single & Track List Revealed
One Indian summer afternoon a few weeks ago, singer/songwriters Casey Shea, Paula Valstein, Emily Easterly, Andy Mac, Martin Rivas, Ruby Rivers, Amber Rubarth, Chris Abad, plus bassist Tony Maceli, drummer Jamie Alegre and I converged on Chris Cubeta’s Galuminum Foil Studios in Brooklyn to conjure up a little bit of Christmas in October. Our cover…
Read MoreMy First Yoga Class
For months now, Abbi’s been asking me to join her Saturday morning yoga practice. And for months, I’d put it off… until yesterday. It only stands to reason that stretching, strengthening and meditating will go a long way to remedy a frenetic life punctuated by frequent, joint-pounding runs. As my marathon finishes have increased (eleven…
Read MoreSerious (Christmas) Business, Baby
There’s a chance I may be getting overly confident in our collective abilities, but we always seem to pull it off. I’ve only been in the studio twice this year, in both cases recording cover songs for compilations albums. In May, the guys and I covered The Nadas’ “Feel Like Home” for the band’s fifteenth…
Read MoreOk
Last Monday afternoon, some 24 hours after my record-setting (well, my record, anyway) New York City Marathon finish, I settled into the massage table for my annual deep-tissue rub down. My masseuse, Elana, was strong, driving her elbows deep into my hamstrings and calves. Somewhere between my shoulder blades, just before gingerly flipping me over,…
Read MoreMy Actual 3:51:05* New York City Marathon Playlist
A friend of mine emailed me a page from The New Yorker yesterday. The black-and-white cartoon showed two PacMan-like faces staring at one another. The face on the left’s speech bubble said “Marathon, Marathon, Marathon, Marathon, Marathon.” On the right, it simply said, “Zzzzzzz.” That pretty much sums up the days following any marathon, let…
Read MoreThe 3:51:05 New York City Marathon Playlist
With over 40,000 runners making individual Odysseys across 26.1 rust and wind-swept miles, the New York City Marathon is nothing if not cinematic. Add some stakes (like shattering an eight-year-old personal best) and a throbbing soundtrack, and the race is truly epic. I’ve run to the music of this city for years. The rush of…
Read MoreRun This Town
If I could run the marathon right this second, I would. Sunday marks my tenth New York City Marathon in a row (and my eleventh overall). For the last four years, I’ve run with Abbi. I love running with her (though I’m not sure she’d always say the same about me). Our pace is governed…
Read MoreThis Is It (This Is Really Happening)
All the way from JFK to LAX (the part I was awake, anyway), all I could hear was the voice of Ryan Adams screaming in my ears. “Don’t waste my time; this is it! This is really happening!!! This is really happening!!!” My brain was on the right lyric, but the alt-country singer/songwriter’s seminal 2003…
Read MoreC’Mon C’Mon, Gather Round
I won’t front; I was nervous. Thursday was a difficult enough right from the start. Rapper Lil Wayne pleaded guilty to gun possession less than an hour after I stepped into the office. For the bulk of the afternoon, then, the news team piled on the story and began crashing a half-hour show. All day…
Read MoreTimes Are Hard (But No One Seems To Care)
Christmas can demand a lot of a man, even in October. I swore up and down to Chris, Jamie and Tony that I’d meet them at Galuminum Foil Studios at exactly nine o’clock. At 8:34, I hailed a cab from West 86th Street to 14th and First. At 8:47, I hopped the L to Lorimer…
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