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The subway platform is crowded three deep. ‘This,’ I think, ‘is gonna’ be good.’ I lean on an iron support beam deep in the 79th Street station below Broadway. All around me, straphangers crane their necks uptown to catch a glimpse of the oncoming train. My gaze is locked on an article on Tibet in…

This morning’s wake up call, effectively rendering two thirds of my life’s pursuits (rock ‘n roll, and MTV) over the hill and obsolete, came courtesy of New York Magazine. “Consider big media,” columnist Kurt Anderson wrote. “CDs seem so antique,” my 17-year-old daughter remarked the other day. Again and again these days, the record-setting CD…

I wondered this morning, with all of the news, blogs, books, and magazines I read every day, just how many words pass through my eyes and into my brain? And what happens to them when they get there? I hit at least ten news sites a day, everything from The Times to CNN to The…

I grew up in Chicago. I remember rooting for Walter Payton, Will “The Refrigerator” Perry, Jim McMahon, and the rest of the 1986 Bears. And I lived in Indianapolis, Indiana, for a year (my father still does). Still, once the beer pong competition turned heated, even Super Bowl XLI couldn’t command my attention. Sure, I…

It’s barely February, and it’s was barely ten o’clock in the morning, but already my head was spinning with the question, “How am I going to get it all done?” Abbi and I were discussing it all over coffee: the live album, the “from the vaults” album, the documentary. It was beginning to feel like…

“My name is Benjamin Wagner,” I said, firmly shaking Bill Moyers’ hand. “I am the young man with the fire in his belly who has been doggedly pursuing you for my deep and simple documentary about my relationship with Mister Rogers.” “Oh yes,” he said, looking up from under his glasses. “Oh yes.” * *…