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I hear laughter as I climb the stairs. I knock loudly, inhale deeply, and wait. The door opens quickly. A reddish-blonde rock star stands before me and says in an Aussie accent, “You must be Benjamin, eh?” I am two hours late for Neil and Aaron’s dinner party. I have an excuse, but it’s not…

I’ve never really been one for games. Just ask my brother. He spent a childhood wrestling with my apathy. I grew bored with jigsaw puzzles, lost interest in Monopoly, and walked away from pick-up flag football. Not surprisingly, when he and his bespectacled friends began playing all-night sessions of Dungeons & Dragons, I was not…

NPR’s Carl Kasell just delivered the good news. “The extensive heat wave across the eastern third of the country is expected to break tonight.” Cool. Where I’m goin’, I don’t need any more heat. It’s Video Music Awards season at The MTV. It’s all hands on deck. It’s full court press. It’s all kinds of…

When I was seven-years-old, my parents took Chris and me to “Annie” at Chicago’s Schubert Theatre. Two things stuck: Annie’s “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” (reprised in every song I’ve written since), and Miss Hannigan. Miss Hannigan scared the living shit out of seven-year-old me. (My mother loves to remind me of this.) Heck,…

I checked my last Xanax through to Logan before I could choke it down. I’m in seat 3A of an eight-seat Cessna 402, a plane only slightly larger than a station wagon. I’m not quite white knuckling this puddle jump between Nantucket and Boston, but I am uncomfortable. I am remarkably lucid. Too lucid. There…

Best. Ride. Ever. I was grilling a piece of freshly caught tuna when it rolled in. The sun faded. The bay disappeared. The air cooled. Tiny droplets of fog clung to my eyelashes. After dinner, I rode my bike out across the Smith Point Bridge. The night was silent. Everything was pale blue. I couldn’t…