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You know that wonderful, fresh, after-the-rain scent? That crystal-clean-air smell? The one that Glade and Lysol and their ilk try to capture in their little aerosol cans? It's a nice smell, that. Makes you want to go outside, stroll around, splash in puddles, that sort of thing.
Yeah. New York sooo doesn't have that. It's a major pisser.
TOWSON, Md., Aug. 10 -- A rock concert.
I remember it was hot. I remember being warned, "It's going to be loud."
I remember protesting, "What's the point of playing the music so loud?" That's why I usually don't like rock concerts: rarely can I hear the music. Can't understand the words, can't distinguish the notes, can't tell one song from the next. Can't hear for 24 hours after the thing is done. (Do I sound like an old fogey yet? Great.)
We were in the second row. I remember bumping into the beanpole of a teenage kid next to me, then saying, "Apologies in advance, because I'm probably going to be doing that for the rest of the night."
I remember him looking down at me, blushing, a sheepish grin on his face. "That's O.K.," he murmured.
I remember thinking that his embarrassed awkwardness was sweet. And next: Yikes. This guy is so young. We're bordering on a serious Mrs. Robinson moment.
Then I felt creepy.
But then the noodling started -- the low drumming and the increasingly urgent strumming, the band warming up somewhere offstage -- and the beanpole faded away. I remember a jolt of anticipation passing through the crowd. Their idols were up next. The boys of the tight pants and the shaggy hair. People made eye contact, a gleam in those eyes, a kind of wildness. Intense fandom. Or maybe it was just the drugs.
I remember gripping the plastic cup that held my second whiskey of the night. Lifting its icy coolness to my head, to my neck, to my chest, trying to stave off the sweat. Drinking it down quickly, since in the heat it tasted as fresh as spring water. Saying "yes" one, two more times as friends offered to make a run for a refresh.
The music started. I remember blinding, flashing lights. I remember that my clothes started to vibrate, just as my girlfriend told me they would.
I remember grabbing her partially smoked cigarette. Being drunk enough to take a few puffs. Being drunk enough to become mesmerized by the burning end, tracing words in the air with the orange ember, watching flecks of ash flutter into the darkness at my feet.
I remember it all starting to blur together: the lights, the smoke, the loud sounds. I closed my eyes and let the bass and guitar have their way with me, the manic strings threatening to knock me over, the thump-thump-thumping holding me up.
Overwhelmed by the sensations, I remember thinking, So this is why people like rock concerts.
By the time the house lights came up, I had three plastic cups, stacked one inside the other. Six skinny blue-and-white straws swirled in the watery ice. That made three drinks, plus the one (or was it two?) I had slurped down before the headliners even took the stage.
We went backstage. Hung out with the band. I remember watching my friend play a sloppy round of pool and give a rock star a back rub. I remember scarfing down the most delicious blueberries ever, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in less than a minute, and inhaling my half of it in about the same amount of time.
The next day, true to form, there was just one thing I couldn't remember: the music.
My friend Paul Berger got his first article published in The New York Times this past weekend (go here). By the time you're done reading it, don't be surprised if you feel like blogging, or stripping, or both (or, I suppose, going out to patronize your local "gentlemen's club" to scope out blogging strippers). Also don't be surprised if you find yourself scanning the paper each weekend in hopes of seeing Paul's byline again. It's a goodly one.
When people ask me where I work, and I tell them, the next question is usually something like, "Oh, so what do you write about?" And I tell them, "Well, I don't typically write, because I'm an editor." And they look at me, and they mull over their memories of Lou Grant and Perry White and J. Jonah Jameson, and they go, "You are?"
So many people think of editors as middle-aged white men of varying belly size, hair loss and facial garnishment that they can't quite square those impressions with the sight they're confronted with: that of a relatively young, multiethnic chick in a halter top.
Once they get over that, they say one of two things:
1. "Wow, you must be pretty smart, huh."
2. "So how come you want to do that instead of being a reporter?"
The first statement I usually duck, to let them try to figure out for themselves through further observation. The second, though, I answer in a variety of ways:
1. I just had something of an affinity for it.
2. I was too shy to be a reporter when I was younger, so I stayed indoors and edited, and then I fell in love with it.
3. I'm not cut out for it; I wouldn't want to be married to my job like that. So many reporters are on call 24/7.
4. People think editors are smart. (Suckahs!)
But one reason I don't often cite, one that I should probably use more often, is that I'm not mobile enough to be a reporter.
In the moments I look at my life and think, Hm, it could be fun to put on the reporter's cap for a while, the one thing that stops me is the realization that oops -- I'd probably need a car.
Reporters have to be able to zip off to a scene at a moment's notice, and unless those reporters ply their trade in Manhattan, where the subway or taxicabs are more expedient, they require a reliable set of wheels. Some would say, "So, learn to drive, if that's the only thing holding you back." But the thing is, I don't want it that bad. I've gotten to enjoy being the rogue elephant of the roadways.
Think of all the benefits. I don't have to pay for a car. Or insurance. Or maintenance. Or gas. Or parking tickets and towing fees. I don't have to worry about getting up at 7 a.m. on a Tuesday to move my car to the opposite side of the road on street-cleaning days. By taking public transportation, I don't have to sit white-knuckled in traffic. I can read a book and listen to music and let the stressed-out road warriors do their stressing out many miles away (or many hundreds of feet above my head). I am single-handedly reducing the pollution problem by one-zillionth of a whatever. I can play DJ on road trips and treat the driver to snacks or smooches or sing-alongs, and for all that, I am loved.
Sure, there are the drawbacks. I have to wait for buses and trains at odd hours of the night in freezing or sweltering conditions. I can't shop in bulk without the help of a vehicularly-endowed friend (but hey, that's what my buddy the Internet is for!). If I were in a car and an emergency situation were to arise with the driver, I could find myself in a fix. But these days I'm in a friend's car about as often as I'm in an airplane, and I'm certainly not being goaded into learning how to fly a jumbo passenger jet "just in case," so...
I am not interested in learning to drive. I didn't like it the few times I tried it. And no one else on the road wants me behind the wheel, freaking out. Trust me. The day I start planning, on paper, my Great Cross-Country Adventure, then I'll seriously sit down and start going over the driver's manual.
Until then, fear not, brave drivers -- and reporters -- of the world. I have no desire to invade your domain. For now, you can find me on a train. Or clicking through my Internet thesaurus, hunting for happy headline words.
Yesterday I had an idea for a book. And then I thought it might be better as a short story. But then I thought, no, provided I could churn out enough words, there's totally enough for a book there. So I wrote an outline.
Then, hours later, I started thinking about it again, and my conclusion was: What a stupid idea for a book. What were you thinking, you numbskull? (Yes, I do say words like "numbskull" in my head. Call it my Clark Kent-ish alter ego.) And I spent the next few minutes mentally beating on myself to talk myself out of starting the project.
This is a problem.
See, I do this all the time -- have ideas, that is. Lots and lots and lots of brilliant, magnificent, bombs-bursting-in-air ideas. Not that you could tell by, say, looking at this space. Or trying to find my name on Amazon. (Wow, that'd be the day.)
This is probably the umpteenth time I've written an outline, only to talk myself out of it hours later, without getting past a page or two of actual written material. No deep psychoanalysis required here: I'm afraid of failing. And afraid of writing something and having people hate it, of being the laughingstock of some nonexistent reading public. I'm creating the vicious reviews in my head before I've even set pen to page. I must be stopped!
Last night I was considering all this, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Essentially, I'm acting like an editor before I've even begun, and a bad editor at that: I'm not being one of those collaborative, nurturing, cheerleader types of editors, there to pull the writer from the quicksand. No, when it comes to myself, I'm more like an evil drill sergeant: You are worthless, soldier! You make me sick! You're lower than the parasites that live off the mites infesting my area rug!
This is, to say the least, hardly conducive to productivity.
That's why I tend to do better while writing at night, or while intoxicated, or both. That is when the foggy veil of disorientation starts to work in my favor, acting as a filter to more lucid thought. Only then can the messy creative parts truly surface.
So, note to self: No serious fleshing out of ideas until after midnight. And best keep the hip flask of Jameson close.
