Posts Tagged ‘Work’
This Is What Growing Up Feels Like (And Why It Kinda’ Sucks)
I’ve spent a fair dose of my twenties and thirties clinging to adolescent joys like making records, playing rock shows, and drinking beer, all while holding down a semi-respectable day job. For a while there, I had a pretty decent balance. Between October 2003 – December 2005, I released three LPs and two EPs, and…
Read MoreTwenty-four Hours Of “Twilight”
The red eye may be as close as we get to time travel. Without it, there’s far less of a chance that I would have volunteered to fly to Los Angeles for twenty-four hours (well, 12 in the air, and 12 in L.A., anyway). What would motivate such a trip at the end of a…
Read MoreSometimes I Wish I Was An Academic
Just days after graduating from Syracuse, I took two of my most beloved professors, Bob Gates and Tobias Wolff, to lunch to quiz them on the pros and cons of academia. I loved college. I loved the lectures, the discussions, the reading and writing. I loved all the newness, excitement of ideas, and that sometimes…
Read MoreNext News Now: New Business Model for News
Left to my own devices, I would have fled the scene. In fact, if transparency is the hallmark of blogging, than I’ll be honest: I did flee the scene. Instead of networking over lunch at the City University of New York’s New Business Model for News Conference last week, I took my salad at my…
Read MoreThe Next Big Thing
I knew I was in the right place when, ten paces into the student center, I found myself engaged in a conversation about personal responsibility and morality. Aaaah, academia. I sat on the steps of NYU’s Judson Memorial Church, CMJ Music Marathon registration headquarters, there in the shadow of Washington Square Park, for a few…
Read MoreGoodnight Two Timing Blues
You’re sitting in a windowless, fluorescent-lit conference room on the seventeenth floor of a Midtown corporate headquarters reviewing the network’s Q4 Programming Calendar when it dawns on you. You’ve promised your best friend, a guy you’ve known since you were ten-years-old, that you’d meet him in back home for his induction into your high school’s…
Read MoreThe Lost Weekend (Or, Entropy 101)
I called my sister-in-law from the lobby. My nephew answered. “Where are you?” he asked in his hushed, adorable phone voice. “I’m on my way to the park to meet Aunt Abbi,” I replied. “So are we!” he said, only slightly-more enthused. “See you at the finish line!” I said. I called my dad from…
Read MoreDischarged
When I woke, my wife, mother, and doctor stood over me like a Holy Trinity. I tried to speak, but could only gesture to Abbi for a kiss. I didn’t remember anything prior, or have any idea where I was. Through the fog, I heard Dr. Dawson report that the surgery went by the book.…
Read MorePatience
The Lenox Hill’s ER was manned by a slight, Russian-speaking security guard. “Name, age, and ailment,” he said handing me a pink slip of paper. Benjamin Wagner. 37. I paused at “ailment,” puzzling over how detailed I should be. I wrote, simply, “APPENDIX,” then took my seat in the dank, crowded waiting room. An elderly…
Read MorePatient
In some strange way, I felt relieved as I strode towards Lenox Hill Hospital’s Emergency Room with my plastic bag full of still-wet CAT scans; at least I knew what was wrong, and what had to be done. It was a strange day from the start. I’d slept scarcely a wink the night before, dragging…
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