Ned Hepburn

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High-res We Interviewed the Music Supervisor for Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead | VICE. Hey guys! I spent a lot of time on this article for Vice Magazine… I interviewed Thomas Golubic, the music supervisor for Breaking Bad, The Killing, and The Walking Dead. He was truly one of the best interviews I’ve conducted. Extremely knowledgeable, affable, and an all-around great person to talk to about music. Anyway, please give this a read and a Facebook-like and a Tumbl if you feel so inclined. I’m really proud of how this turned out and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks!!!

We Interviewed the Music Supervisor for Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead | VICE.

Hey guys! I spent a lot of time on this article for Vice Magazine… I interviewed Thomas Golubic, the music supervisor for Breaking Bad, The Killing, and The Walking Dead.

He was truly one of the best interviews I’ve conducted. Extremely knowledgeable, affable, and an all-around great person to talk to about music.

Anyway, please give this a read and a Facebook-like and a Tumbl if you feel so inclined. I’m really proud of how this turned out and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks!!!

High-res So, I grew up in a vaguely suburban / largely rural part of England. That doesn’t really matter. It does matter that the nearest TGI Fridays was about 20 miles away and was a “special treat” kind of a restaurant. If I did well at school, it usually meant a trip to TGI Fridays. I swear I’m not getting paid to say “TGI Fridays” over and over, it’s just that this was 1992 and there wasn’t much to do in rural Berkshire, and burgers and chicken wings weren’t exactly commonplace yet. I really liked it there. I’d climb all over the phone booth. It was a lot of fun. So I’d go with my Dad and we’d eat wings if I did well at school, or sports or whatever. To be honest I can’t remember a fucking thing about what I did well at in school – it’s weird that, isn’t it? You’d think I’d remember a science fair prize but instead I just remember the chicken wings part. And we’d sit there and ask the waiter to bring us the “spiciest they have” and make a bet to see how many baskets we could get through. So there’s a 7 year old kid and a 36 year old man chowing down on baskets of chicken wings. I think we got up to 6 baskets one time. That’s 72 wings. The best part was that the whole joke was that we couldn’t wipe our hands or faces the entire time, so by the end of it we’d be covered in red chicken wing gunk. So there’s a 7 year old kid and a 36 year old man covered in red sauce and laughing about it, with 6 empty baskets of chicken wings around them on the table. Other tables would look on and give us dirty looks. After all, it was a pretty disgusting sight. But it was OUR disgusting. The manager used to think it was hysterical. I have a pretty clear memory of the three of us laughing – me, my Dad, and this roly-poly TGI Fridays manager laughing at how ridiculous me and Dad looked – the big fat manager laughing to the point of dabbing himself with a handkerchief, how do I remember that detail? I don’t remember a thing about what I did to deserve those trips but I remember the chicken wings and the laughing. The weird part is, even now that he’s gone, I still do that – still totally refuse to wipe my hands or face until I’m done. There just isn’t any other way to eat them, at least for me. You’ve gotta keep a few of these things, these early rituals, my friend. Don’t lose them. 

So, I grew up in a vaguely suburban / largely rural part of England. That doesn’t really matter. It does matter that the nearest TGI Fridays was about 20 miles away and was a “special treat” kind of a restaurant.

If I did well at school, it usually meant a trip to TGI Fridays. I swear I’m not getting paid to say “TGI Fridays” over and over, it’s just that this was 1992 and there wasn’t much to do in rural Berkshire, and burgers and chicken wings weren’t exactly commonplace yet. I really liked it there. I’d climb all over the phone booth. It was a lot of fun.

So I’d go with my Dad and we’d eat wings if I did well at school, or sports or whatever. To be honest I can’t remember a fucking thing about what I did well at in school – it’s weird that, isn’t it? You’d think I’d remember a science fair prize but instead I just remember the chicken wings part.

And we’d sit there and ask the waiter to bring us the “spiciest they have” and make a bet to see how many baskets we could get through. So there’s a 7 year old kid and a 36 year old man chowing down on baskets of chicken wings. I think we got up to 6 baskets one time. That’s 72 wings.

The best part was that the whole joke was that we couldn’t wipe our hands or faces the entire time, so by the end of it we’d be covered in red chicken wing gunk. So there’s a 7 year old kid and a 36 year old man covered in red sauce and laughing about it, with 6 empty baskets of chicken wings around them on the table. Other tables would look on and give us dirty looks. After all, it was a pretty disgusting sight. But it was OUR disgusting. The manager used to think it was hysterical. I have a pretty clear memory of the three of us laughing – me, my Dad, and this roly-poly TGI Fridays manager laughing at how ridiculous me and Dad looked – the big fat manager laughing to the point of dabbing himself with a handkerchief, how do I remember that detail? I don’t remember a thing about what I did to deserve those trips but I remember the chicken wings and the laughing.

The weird part is, even now that he’s gone, I still do that – still totally refuse to wipe my hands or face until I’m done. There just isn’t any other way to eat them, at least for me. You’ve gotta keep a few of these things, these early rituals, my friend. Don’t lose them. 

This one time Double Dare came to town. It was the Oscars of childhood. Everyone in 5th grade was going to go, and it was to be a social event. Lisa went with Kevin, and Jessica and her friends were going, and of course we all knew what that meant: this was less a Nickelodeon television game show and more a portal into the next social stratosphere. If things went smoothly for you and you rubbed all the the right shoulders in the room – really worked that room – this could take you from nerddom straight up to the cool kids. It was deadly serious. It took place at the local hockey arena and was jam packed with children. All of the heavy hitters from all of the other schools were there. The Christian kids from Valley Christian were there, so were the rich fucks from Harker Academy. Fuck those kids, I thought, or would have done, had I held any true command of the word “fuck” back then. The show started. We were all enraptured. Our gaze was on the mighty Marc Summers – the host of Double Dare – and he held court over us the magnificence that was Double Dare. There were to be trivia, and games! Some would be slimed! Others would brave a test of fitness and agility to win the grand prize! It all seemed too unreal. It was a sheer gladiator spectacle. One of us would win above all. Everything was on the line. We roared with bloodlust, our little throats rattling with contempt for humanity and our triumph over the illusion of community. Give us our fucking place in this world, we seemed to scream! Rise us one to exhalt! Show us our leader, Marc Summers! We will kill for you, Marc Summers. There were games, merriment, and festivities. Marc took us on an emotional roller-coaster journey deep and throughout of childlike physches. What did it all mean, we asked ourselves? It was as if an entire arena of children had simultaneously taken acid… we held a mirror to our souls and Marc was the bus driver to another dimension that lacked sense of self. In this “New Utopia” one would survive on trivia, sliming, and the Ayn Raynd-ian principles of the individual triumphing above all. Then, it happened. The trivia round was announced. TRIVIA. Knowledge. Surely, this would produce the brains of our new society. Surely, this would be the be-all end-all of school altogether… we would no longer be needed at these brick and mortar institutions that we called “grade school”. Pah! We were better, stronger, more feral than that – we children in that arena. Pretty soon, three children were to go up on stage and answer questions that would potentially change the course of their entire lives. Marc Summers weaved through the crowd, deftly, like an ambulance driver. He shoved his microphone in childrens faces. “WHO WAS PRESIDENT DURING THE CIVIL WAR” he screamed into the face of a person a third of his height and a quarter of his age. “LIN-COLNNN!” squealed the boy with the vitriol of a starving dog being let out of a cage to a pile of marrowed bones. The boy was whisked up on stage. Marc prowled through the teeming crowd of pre-teens. Who would be next. Who could stand to the challenge? Who could hold their steely gaze to the fire of Marc Summer’s mental gymnastics? A young girl was selected perhaps by Marc Summers, perhaps by the Oracles, who is to say. “WHAT WAS THE FIFTIETH STATE” shouted Summers – as if her life could be felled like a tree just by the words coming from his mouth. “HAWA-IIIIIII!” hollered the little girl as if her life depended on the sheer volume of her answer, and she too was to go up on stage. Who would be the next. Who would be the Chosen one? Which mortal could potentially become a demigod today? I saw MarcfuckingSummers(holy shit)walk towardsME. At once, I aged fifty years. My entire life flashed before my eyes. There I was: eating a sandwich, at age four. There I was: eating a sandwich, at age seven. I was only ten at the time, so my life hadn’t consisted of much by that point. It was a brief recollection. Then - SUDDENLY - Marc was in front of me. It was if there was nothing else in the world but me and him in an empty arena, a spotlight above us, pinpointing this moment for not just the present but the rest of my life. Everything would be defined by this moment. “WHAT - IS DENNIS THE MENACES -NEIGHBOR’S NAME?” I knew this. It was so easy. It was - it was - I knew this, I read it every morning. Dennis the Menace. Blond kid. Runs around in dungarees like a Janes Addiction fan. My mouth opened. Perhaps if I just gave it the benefit of the doubt, perhaps if I just said whatever was on my mind – perhaps then: “Blugh” Marc recoiled as if my skin were made of shit and hatred. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking at me with eyes of contempt - RAGINGLY SORRY, LITTLE BOY - and he slunk away to ask another child the same question. But it was too late for me. The thrill was gone. I saw the others, having their fun, and being chosen to go up on stage and become The Coolest Kids In The Entire World, and I wasn’t envious of them: I had missed my shot to be cool. Ever. The rest of my life would take a new course thanks to that flubbed line. Had children been able to drink, I would have been able to drink, and would have gone to a children’s bar and spent an entire week’s allowance entirely on children’s whiskey, blacking out and passing out in the tiny children’s gutter, eventually becoming a child hobo, hopping from boxcar to boxcar and town to town – all because of Double Dare. I was the Willy Loman of childhood. I was broken. I was a broken child. The next day at school, Lisa said “It was Mister Wilson, you fucking retard.”I told her to “Fuck off,” because, now jaded, the ‘F’ word was in my grasp, and I didn’t care about life or the caste system of grade school social hierarchy anymore. I dropped out of ever caring about popularity ever again. It was fucking 1969 all over again. Just all out war between the freaks like me – like Fat Steve (who was fat), Crying Jeff (who cried a lot), and the kid who sang songs from The Lion King during gym class (who was me) – against the squares and the norms, man. Tune in. Drop out. Fuck the system. It had failed me. You can’t expect me to answer your damn tests, man. I ain’t no fucking number.  There is no end to this story. No happy ending. I did not learn anything other than the dream is dead.

This one time Double Dare came to town.

It was the Oscars of childhood. Everyone in 5th grade was going to go, and it was to be a social event. Lisa went with Kevin, and Jessica and her friends were going, and of course we all knew what that meant: this was less a Nickelodeon television game show and more a portal into the next social stratosphere. If things went smoothly for you and you rubbed all the the right shoulders in the room – really worked that room – this could take you from nerddom straight up to the cool kids. It was deadly serious.

It took place at the local hockey arena and was jam packed with children. All of the heavy hitters from all of the other schools were there. The Christian kids from Valley Christian were there, so were the rich fucks from Harker Academy. Fuck those kids, I thought, or would have done, had I held any true command of the word “fuck” back then.

The show started. We were all enraptured. Our gaze was on the mighty Marc Summers – the host of Double Dare – and he held court over us the magnificence that was Double Dare. There were to be trivia, and games! Some would be slimed! Others would brave a test of fitness and agility to win the grand prize! It all seemed too unreal. It was a sheer gladiator spectacle. One of us would win above all. Everything was on the line. We roared with bloodlust, our little throats rattling with contempt for humanity and our triumph over the illusion of community. Give us our fucking place in this world, we seemed to scream! Rise us one to exhalt! Show us our leader, Marc Summers! We will kill for you, Marc Summers.

There were games, merriment, and festivities. Marc took us on an emotional roller-coaster journey deep and throughout of childlike physches. What did it all mean, we asked ourselves? It was as if an entire arena of children had simultaneously taken acid… we held a mirror to our souls and Marc was the bus driver to another dimension that lacked sense of self. In this “New Utopia” one would survive on trivia, sliming, and the Ayn Raynd-ian principles of the individual triumphing above all.

Then, it happened.

The trivia round was announced. TRIVIA. Knowledge. Surely, this would produce the brains of our new society. Surely, this would be the be-all end-all of school altogether… we would no longer be needed at these brick and mortar institutions that we called “grade school”. Pah! We were better, stronger, more feral than that – we children in that arena. Pretty soon, three children were to go up on stage and answer questions that would potentially change the course of their entire lives.

Marc Summers weaved through the crowd, deftly, like an ambulance driver. He shoved his microphone in childrens faces. “WHO WAS PRESIDENT DURING THE CIVIL WAR” he screamed into the face of a person a third of his height and a quarter of his age. “LIN-COLNNN!” squealed the boy with the vitriol of a starving dog being let out of a cage to a pile of marrowed bones. The boy was whisked up on stage. Marc prowled through the teeming crowd of pre-teens. Who would be next. Who could stand to the challenge? Who could hold their steely gaze to the fire of Marc Summer’s mental gymnastics? A young girl was selected perhaps by Marc Summers, perhaps by the Oracles, who is to say. “WHAT WAS THE FIFTIETH STATE” shouted Summers – as if her life could be felled like a tree just by the words coming from his mouth. “HAWA-IIIIIII!” hollered the little girl as if her life depended on the sheer volume of her answer, and she too was to go up on stage. Who would be the next. Who would be the Chosen one? Which mortal could potentially become a demigod today?

I saw Marc
fucking
Summers
(holy shit)
walk
towards
ME. At once, I aged fifty years. My entire life flashed before my eyes. There I was: eating a sandwich, at age four. There I was: eating a sandwich, at age seven. I was only ten at the time, so my life hadn’t consisted of much by that point. It was a brief recollection. Then - SUDDENLY - Marc was in front of me.

It was if there was nothing else in the world but me and him in an empty arena, a spotlight above us, pinpointing this moment for not just the present but the rest of my life. Everything would be defined by this moment.

“WHAT -

IS DENNIS THE MENACES -

NEIGHBOR’S NAME?”

I knew this. It was so easy. It was - it was - I knew this, I read it every morning. Dennis the Menace. Blond kid. Runs around in dungarees like a Janes Addiction fan. My mouth opened. Perhaps if I just gave it the benefit of the doubt, perhaps if I just said whatever was on my mind – perhaps then:

“Blugh”

Marc recoiled as if my skin were made of shit and hatred. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking at me with eyes of contempt - RAGINGLY SORRY, LITTLE BOY - and he slunk away to ask another child the same question.

But it was too late for me. The thrill was gone. I saw the others, having their fun, and being chosen to go up on stage and become The Coolest Kids In The Entire World, and I wasn’t envious of them: I had missed my shot to be cool. Ever. The rest of my life would take a new course thanks to that flubbed line. Had children been able to drink, I would have been able to drink, and would have gone to a children’s bar and spent an entire week’s allowance entirely on children’s whiskey, blacking out and passing out in the tiny children’s gutter, eventually becoming a child hobo, hopping from boxcar to boxcar and town to town – all because of Double Dare. I was the Willy Loman of childhood. I was broken. I was a broken child.

The next day at school, Lisa said “It was Mister Wilson, you fucking retard.”
I told her to “Fuck off,” because, now jaded, the ‘F’ word was in my grasp, and I didn’t care about life or the caste system of grade school social hierarchy anymore. I dropped out of ever caring about popularity ever again. It was fucking 1969 all over again. Just all out war between the freaks like me – like Fat Steve (who was fat), Crying Jeff (who cried a lot), and the kid who sang songs from The Lion King during gym class (who was me) – against the squares and the norms, man. Tune in. Drop out. Fuck the system. It had failed me. You can’t expect me to answer your damn tests, man. I ain’t no fucking number. 

There is no end to this story. No happy ending. I did not learn anything other than the dream is dead.

High-res Dating in New York.  Dating in New York is extremely difficult.  Dating in New York is extremely difficult because women get hit on all of the time, in every way imaginable.  Men are inherently lonely people because our defaults are either fucking or fighting related (not counting sleep; eating, obviously), and the New York City default is all about ‘survival’. Combine the two previous bullet points and you have a recipe for disaster; a city full of angry dudes at half staff trying harder and harder at a game that women become increasingly bitter at ever being involved in it in the first place.  I don’t know what it must be like to be a woman in New York. It must be really difficult / freeing / one or the other, but not both.  Last night I was outside of a bar, and this woman dropped something from her purse and kept walking. It was one of those “buy 9 get the 10th free” things and I figured she’d want it back so I tapped her on the arm and tried to hand it back to her. “You dropped this”, I said, and she gave me a look as if I had just vomited shit out of my eyes. She didn’t take the damn card. This was in front of five people.  Her friend saw it and whispered “Don’t worry, I’ll take that”, but holy shit, how bitter can someone be when they drop something and someone tries to hand it back to them?  Perhaps its got to do more with the human condition.  Perhaps we are all just very, very lonely and defensive. We are all just monkeys still with money and guns.  That’s what I initially thought.  But then I saw a guy fingerbang his girlfriend over her skirt while at the bar, and it made me think.  Perhaps there are two types of men in this world:1. Guys that fingerbang people at bars, and2. Guys that don’t.  I looked around the bar and saw everyone else just stand around, waiting and wanting to be looked at. Men, women, everyone.  Perhaps we’re just looking for a hole to fill. I mean that metaphorically.  Or I guess the other way, too.  The human heart doesn’t want to be bitter. The brain does not want to be angry. These are not our default settings. These are switches and dials in our heads that have taken years, sometimes decades to change that way. It’s easier not to remember those original settings. It’s a lot easier to become what the world wants you to be, instead of making the world become what you want it to, which takes years, years, years.  Positivity is a marathon, not a sprint.  It’s just that these people have made many smaller decisions, split second ones, hundreds of them, to ignore that and turn the other way.  It’s a lot easier to focus on your own problems and project them.  Which is why I think she didn’t want to take her card back, because she thought I was trying some sort of maneuver.  Which is worrying in and of itself, because it’s just a card, lady. It’s not a proposal nor am I trying to fuck you.  Which, I guess, made me feel kinda sad for her And people like her Who look at an exchange like that and their take home is “Stacey, this guy outside the club tried to hand me something!” “Oh my god!” “I knooooow!”  And they don’t look at it any other way and chalk it up to their “Well I Never!” category in their head And that whole cycle just breeds loneliness.  And you see people walking down the street hand in hand, and you wonder how they did it.  I guess through just ignoring everything I’ve just said, right?  It’s like that Bret Easton Ellis line “People are afraid to merge”, except he was talking about people on the freeway, really.  And I’m just talking about a lady dropping something on the sidewalk. 

Dating in New York. 

  • Dating in New York is extremely difficult. 
  • Dating in New York is extremely difficult because women get hit on all of the time, in every way imaginable. 
  • Men are inherently lonely people because our defaults are either fucking or fighting related (not counting sleep; eating, obviously), and the New York City default is all about ‘survival’.
  • Combine the two previous bullet points and you have a recipe for disaster; a city full of angry dudes at half staff trying harder and harder at a game that women become increasingly bitter at ever being involved in it in the first place. 
  • I don’t know what it must be like to be a woman in New York. It must be really difficult / freeing / one or the other, but not both. 
  • Last night I was outside of a bar, and this woman dropped something from her purse and kept walking. It was one of those “buy 9 get the 10th free” things and I figured she’d want it back so I tapped her on the arm and tried to hand it back to her. “You dropped this”, I said, and she gave me a look as if I had just vomited shit out of my eyes. She didn’t take the damn card. This was in front of five people. 
  • Her friend saw it and whispered “Don’t worry, I’ll take that”, but holy shit, how bitter can someone be when they drop something and someone tries to hand it back to them? 
  • Perhaps its got to do more with the human condition. 
  • Perhaps we are all just very, very lonely and defensive. We are all just monkeys still with money and guns. 
  • That’s what I initially thought. 
  • But then I saw a guy fingerbang his girlfriend over her skirt while at the bar, and it made me think. 
  • Perhaps there are two types of men in this world:
    1. Guys that fingerbang people at bars, and
    2. Guys that don’t. 
  • I looked around the bar and saw everyone else just stand around, waiting and wanting to be looked at. Men, women, everyone. 
  • Perhaps we’re just looking for a hole to fill. I mean that metaphorically. 
  • Or I guess the other way, too. 
  • The human heart doesn’t want to be bitter. The brain does not want to be angry. These are not our default settings. These are switches and dials in our heads that have taken years, sometimes decades to change that way. It’s easier not to remember those original settings. It’s a lot easier to become what the world wants you to be, instead of making the world become what you want it to, which takes years, years, years. 
  • Positivity is a marathon, not a sprint. 
  • It’s just that these people have made many smaller decisions, split second ones, hundreds of them, to ignore that and turn the other way. 
  • It’s a lot easier to focus on your own problems and project them. 
  • Which is why I think she didn’t want to take her card back, because she thought I was trying some sort of maneuver. 
  • Which is worrying in and of itself, because it’s just a card, lady. It’s not a proposal nor am I trying to fuck you. 
  • Which, I guess, made me feel kinda sad for her
  • And people like her
  • Who look at an exchange like that and their take home is “Stacey, this guy outside the club tried to hand me something!” “Oh my god!” “I knooooow!” 
  • And they don’t look at it any other way and chalk it up to their “Well I Never!” category in their head
  • And that whole cycle just breeds loneliness. 
  • And you see people walking down the street hand in hand, and you wonder how they did it. 
  • I guess through just ignoring everything I’ve just said, right? 
  • It’s like that Bret Easton Ellis line “People are afraid to merge”, except he was talking about people on the freeway, really. 
  • And I’m just talking about a lady dropping something on the sidewalk. 
High-res This one time I was on a bus, a bus going from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Chicago, Illinois. This is a true story, too, and one of my favorites.  I had the seat open next to me for the first couple of hours and watched the bus fill up more and more at each stop. Finally, I had the last free seat, and we only had one more stop to go before the big long stretch of highway that took us through to Madison, Wisconsin – the first big city and only real major hub until we got back to Chicago.  We had one more stop and I had the only open seat and it was starting to rain. We pull up in front of the last stop, this desolate little awning in the middle of nowhere, and this big looking thing steps onto the bus, hair in its face, carrying one lone white plastic bag filled with what looked like an apple, a foil wrapped sandwich (I’m guessing), and a razor and a toothbrush. It was a dirty looking bag, too. It brushes its hair from its eyes and it reveals itself to be a woman, not much older than me, maybe 23 at the time. She was wearing a pea-green ill-fitting shirt that fell down to almost her knees, which gave her a boxy appearance. She looked for all the world like a lost slice of toast. She waddled down the aisle with her bag in hand and finally to my precious open seat. I had by that point pretended to sleep. I looked at her with one eye open, reluctantly moving my bag from the seat with a heavy sigh. She sat down, placed her bag on her lap, and stared ahead for around twenty minutes or so.  I was writing a god-awful short story about Hollywood or something terrible like that – just a really terrible premise, I can’t remember what it was about, something about an actor drowning – the point being is that it really was fucking terrible. Like, god awful. But I was hammering away at it, typing loudly and furiously as writers do when they want to be noticed writing.  “You spelled ‘has-been’ wrong,” said a voice next to me. “Did I?”“Well, yeah. Sorry. I have a terrible habit of reading over people’s shoulders. I shouldn’t have said anything.” I looked at her for the first time, mostly just to size her up, see who I was dealing with. She was big alright, but upon closer inspection she had the most amazing cheekbones, eyes, and lips. Her hair was matted and flat and greasy but you could tell that once it had been styled; she looked not unlike Farrah Fawcett if Farrah Fawcett had been raised by wolves. We talked about books. Rather, I talked about how great I was under the guise that I was talking about literature, and she listened patiently, peppering my volley with an “Uh huh” and a “Wow” occasionally. I was 23, an asshole, and knew nothing of the world that my cock wasn’t pointed at. All I really cared about was getting famous and getting laid. My conversation cum monologue directed at this girl was pure, undiluted, sap-like ego. And she listened. And finally I wound down.  “And what about you,” I asked, “What’s your story?” She took a deep breath. She told me about her family at first, some fucked up reverse Norman Rockwell painting involving a belt used as a weapon. I won’t get into that; it’s not my place. But she blew my mind with the second half of the story:“I used to be a model. Nothing big, mostly local shit, but I made good enough money doing runway and some print to be able to live on my own. I was dating an older guy, and he was nice, I guess, you know? But he’d leave me alone at parties and everything. Don’t you just hate that?” “So I was at this party, this really fucking terrible gathering, and I went outside to smoke a cigarette. I don’t mind the rain so I didn’t mind getting a little wet. It was at this fucking golf course. So anyway. I got struck by lightning.”“You what?”“I got struck by lightning.”She took the apple out of her bag and took a big crisp bite of it.“Anyway. So I’m at the hospital. And the older guy isn’t there. He just split - couldn’t deal with it. Never saw him again, really, other than to pick up some shit of mine a little later but that was fleeting. So anyway. So I’m laying there and it made me think: why am I doing this? Why am I doing this to my body, the not eating, day after day, not having fun, right? So I just stopped.” “So I stopped doing it. And I’ve never been happier. And I’ve been staying at my aunts place out in the sticks, and now I’m going to my other aunt’s property, there’s a cabin there on her property, a mile or two down a path, y’know, and I’m going to live off the land for a while. Just to see if I can do it. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I want to see if I can survive out there. Maybe I’ll run back home after a week, a month, but I’m going to do it. Pretty much everything -” she patted the dirty little plastic white bag – “… Is in this bag here”. We talked for the remainder of the ride as if we’d known each other for years, and finally, after I’d let my wall of ego down, I could finally fucking be myself. I gushed, overflowed with stories, real ones, too, without ego nor compromise. And she told me stories, more stories, happy ones, too, she’d lived a charmed life. And we talked, and talked, and talked the entire ride. We pulled into Madison, and I hugged her goodbye and almost cried when we pulled away, because she was waving, standing there in the mist rain in the pea green shirt, matted hair, and the most piercing green eyes that I can still see, now, years later, years fucking later I remember that girl, wherever she went, I don’t know, and all she was was the girl in the seat next to me. On a bus. In Wisconsin, of all the fucking places in the world.  She changed me. That experience changed me. You never have any idea when this sort of thing will happen, when a former model who let herself go – with a Frida Kahlo unibrow and a dirty white plastic bag – will completely rearrange everything you thought you knew about the world – that it is, after all, just a numbers game, and all you have to do is keep watch. Those numbers are running so fast you forget the magic they can bring sometimes – you forget that everyone has a story to tell if you’ll just let them fucking tell it.  The odds of getting struck by lightning according to the National Weather Service are 1 in 1,000,000. Yet the odds of sitting next to someone like her, with a story like hers, changing your whole fucking outlook on “books” by “covers” or what have you, is a once in a lifetime occurrence.   I think about her often. I hope she found what she was looking for, out there in the woods in Wisconsin. I really do. I hope she’s well. 

This one time I was on a bus, a bus going from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Chicago, Illinois. This is a true story, too, and one of my favorites. 

I had the seat open next to me for the first couple of hours and watched the bus fill up more and more at each stop. Finally, I had the last free seat, and we only had one more stop to go before the big long stretch of highway that took us through to Madison, Wisconsin – the first big city and only real major hub until we got back to Chicago. 

We had one more stop and I had the only open seat and it was starting to rain. We pull up in front of the last stop, this desolate little awning in the middle of nowhere, and this big looking thing steps onto the bus, hair in its face, carrying one lone white plastic bag filled with what looked like an apple, a foil wrapped sandwich (I’m guessing), and a razor and a toothbrush. It was a dirty looking bag, too.

It brushes its hair from its eyes and it reveals itself to be a woman, not much older than me, maybe 23 at the time. She was wearing a pea-green ill-fitting shirt that fell down to almost her knees, which gave her a boxy appearance. She looked for all the world like a lost slice of toast. She waddled down the aisle with her bag in hand and finally to my precious open seat. I had by that point pretended to sleep. I looked at her with one eye open, reluctantly moving my bag from the seat with a heavy sigh. She sat down, placed her bag on her lap, and stared ahead for around twenty minutes or so. 

I was writing a god-awful short story about Hollywood or something terrible like that – just a really terrible premise, I can’t remember what it was about, something about an actor drowning – the point being is that it really was fucking terrible. Like, god awful. But I was hammering away at it, typing loudly and furiously as writers do when they want to be noticed writing. 

“You spelled ‘has-been’ wrong,” said a voice next to me. 
“Did I?”
“Well, yeah. Sorry. I have a terrible habit of reading over people’s shoulders. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

I looked at her for the first time, mostly just to size her up, see who I was dealing with. She was big alright, but upon closer inspection she had the most amazing cheekbones, eyes, and lips. Her hair was matted and flat and greasy but you could tell that once it had been styled; she looked not unlike Farrah Fawcett if Farrah Fawcett had been raised by wolves.

We talked about books. Rather, I talked about how great I was under the guise that I was talking about literature, and she listened patiently, peppering my volley with an “Uh huh” and a “Wow” occasionally. I was 23, an asshole, and knew nothing of the world that my cock wasn’t pointed at. All I really cared about was getting famous and getting laid. My conversation cum monologue directed at this girl was pure, undiluted, sap-like ego. And she listened. And finally I wound down. 

“And what about you,” I asked, “What’s your story?”

She took a deep breath. She told me about her family at first, some fucked up reverse Norman Rockwell painting involving a belt used as a weapon. I won’t get into that; it’s not my place. But she blew my mind with the second half of the story:
“I used to be a model. Nothing big, mostly local shit, but I made good enough money doing runway and some print to be able to live on my own. I was dating an older guy, and he was nice, I guess, you know? But he’d leave me alone at parties and everything. Don’t you just hate that?”

“So I was at this party, this really fucking terrible gathering, and I went outside to smoke a cigarette. I don’t mind the rain so I didn’t mind getting a little wet. It was at this fucking golf course. So anyway. I got struck by lightning.”
“You what?”
“I got struck by lightning.”
She took the apple out of her bag and took a big crisp bite of it.
“Anyway. So I’m at the hospital. And the older guy isn’t there. He just split - couldn’t deal with it. Never saw him again, really, other than to pick up some shit of mine a little later but that was fleeting. So anyway. So I’m laying there and it made me think: why am I doing this? Why am I doing this to my body, the not eating, day after day, not having fun, right? So I just stopped.”

“So I stopped doing it. And I’ve never been happier. And I’ve been staying at my aunts place out in the sticks, and now I’m going to my other aunt’s property, there’s a cabin there on her property, a mile or two down a path, y’know, and I’m going to live off the land for a while. Just to see if I can do it. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I want to see if I can survive out there. Maybe I’ll run back home after a week, a month, but I’m going to do it. Pretty much everything -” she patted the dirty little plastic white bag – “… Is in this bag here”.

We talked for the remainder of the ride as if we’d known each other for years, and finally, after I’d let my wall of ego down, I could finally fucking be myself. I gushed, overflowed with stories, real ones, too, without ego nor compromise. And she told me stories, more stories, happy ones, too, she’d lived a charmed life. And we talked, and talked, and talked the entire ride.

We pulled into Madison, and I hugged her goodbye and almost cried when we pulled away, because she was waving, standing there in the mist rain in the pea green shirt, matted hair, and the most piercing green eyes that I can still see, now, years later, years fucking later I remember that girl, wherever she went, I don’t know, and all she was was the girl in the seat next to me. On a bus. In Wisconsin, of all the fucking places in the world. 

She changed me. That experience changed me. You never have any idea when this sort of thing will happen, when a former model who let herself go – with a Frida Kahlo unibrow and a dirty white plastic bag – will completely rearrange everything you thought you knew about the world – that it is, after all, just a numbers game, and all you have to do is keep watch. Those numbers are running so fast you forget the magic they can bring sometimes – you forget that everyone has a story to tell if you’ll just let them fucking tell it. 

The odds of getting struck by lightning according to the National Weather Service are 1 in 1,000,000. Yet the odds of sitting next to someone like her, with a story like hers, changing your whole fucking outlook on “books” by “covers” or what have you, is a once in a lifetime occurrence.  

I think about her often. I hope she found what she was looking for, out there in the woods in Wisconsin. I really do. I hope she’s well. 

High-res There was an odd moment last night at the bar – the same bar I went to almost every night – where the bartender with the lilting voice smiled nonchalantly at me as she was pouring a drink and said “I think you found a home here”, and I sat there for a few minutes unable to think of the next words to say - the right words, anyway - and for a moment I forgot I was even in a bar at all, even drinking, even sitting next to friendly people who didn’t mind if you dipped in and out of conversations hummingbird-like. For a while I had no idea what ‘home’ meant. I knew what it meant to other people, and I knew what home FELT like – there was just no way to quantify MY home. Was she right? Was it here? Did she mean the bar… or did she mean the moment? Nostalgia, when viewed from afar, seems like nothing more than memories of failed attempts to capitalize on the present. But up close nostalgia is almost overwhelming.  Almost. That’s what the beer is for, really, if you think about it. 

There was an odd moment last night at the bar – the same bar I went to almost every night – where the bartender with the lilting voice smiled nonchalantly at me as she was pouring a drink and said “I think you found a home here”, and I sat there for a few minutes unable to think of the next words to say - the right words, anyway - and for a moment I forgot I was even in a bar at all, even drinking, even sitting next to friendly people who didn’t mind if you dipped in and out of conversations hummingbird-like. For a while I had no idea what ‘home’ meant. I knew what it meant to other people, and I knew what home FELT like – there was just no way to quantify MY home. Was she right? Was it here? Did she mean the bar… or did she mean the moment?

Nostalgia, when viewed from afar, seems like nothing more than memories of failed attempts to capitalize on the present. But up close nostalgia is almost overwhelming. 

Almost. That’s what the beer is for, really, if you think about it. 

High-res The end of the summer of 1996 was a bizarre, freakishly perfect shitstorm for a number of reasons. I was 12 years old, had recently purchased a Sex Pistols album over a Snoop Dogg album, read Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas for the first time, and my best friend died of an aneurysm.  Heading into 7th grade I was lost, fucked, weird in the head from Geoff dying. The school was small and they held a memorial service where everyone mostly cracked jokes the entire time, despite it being a somber affair, after all, what else are you going to do at twelve other than crack jokes?  It’s strange to be able to pin your development down to a single summer and a single book but the timing of Geoff’s passing seemed almost unreal – less than a week to go before school started, and less than a week after I’d finished Fear & Loathing. I can picture now my Mom and I at the now thoroughly extinct Crown Books, her lifting it off the shelf and handing it to me, muttering something about how “the cover looked interesting” and “druggy”, the point being she did not know what the fuck at all was in that book, which to read at the age of twelve – when it’s said that your brain hardwires your personality for the rest of your life – that book both terrified and thrilled me.  And then Geoff died out of nowhere. Just like that. He’d spent most of the day before playing at my house, on the trampoline, talking about girls at school. And then that night - he’s gone. So I went back to school that year completely changed by the course of events of the last couple of weeks of summer. Completely changed. I don’t remember much else about those two weeks other than finishing Fear & Loathing and Geoff dying, but I remember heading into school, thinking “Fuck it”, and understanding that the do-gooder child who asked the teachers for more homework wasn’t there anymore – that I was simply another person entirely. Which is why you should pick your reading material more carefully. A good book is enjoyable. A great book sets off a bomb inside of you.

The end of the summer of 1996 was a bizarre, freakishly perfect shitstorm for a number of reasons. I was 12 years old, had recently purchased a Sex Pistols album over a Snoop Dogg album, read Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas for the first time, and my best friend died of an aneurysm. 

Heading into 7th grade I was lost, fucked, weird in the head from Geoff dying. The school was small and they held a memorial service where everyone mostly cracked jokes the entire time, despite it being a somber affair, after all, what else are you going to do at twelve other than crack jokes? 

It’s strange to be able to pin your development down to a single summer and a single book but the timing of Geoff’s passing seemed almost unreal – less than a week to go before school started, and less than a week after I’d finished Fear & Loathing. I can picture now my Mom and I at the now thoroughly extinct Crown Books, her lifting it off the shelf and handing it to me, muttering something about how “the cover looked interesting” and “druggy”, the point being she did not know what the fuck at all was in that book, which to read at the age of twelve – when it’s said that your brain hardwires your personality for the rest of your life – that book both terrified and thrilled me. 

And then Geoff died out of nowhere. Just like that. He’d spent most of the day before playing at my house, on the trampoline, talking about girls at school. And then that night - he’s gone. So I went back to school that year completely changed by the course of events of the last couple of weeks of summer. Completely changed. I don’t remember much else about those two weeks other than finishing Fear & Loathing and Geoff dying, but I remember heading into school, thinking “Fuck it”, and understanding that the do-gooder child who asked the teachers for more homework wasn’t there anymore – that I was simply another person entirely. Which is why you should pick your reading material more carefully. A good book is enjoyable. A great book sets off a bomb inside of you.

Despite the face he had decided to kill himself, Mister Snuggles decided to still read the morning newspaper that day. He was hemorrhaging money between his mortgage, his estranged wife’s frivolous plastic surgery sprees, and the various credit card bills that kept piling up, and there was no way left to pay them, as Mister Snuggles had been fired a month ago and had neglected to tell the family, acting as if all was well. He breathed a heavy sigh and his mouth tasted like the fish he had had for dinner the night before and the stray raisin he had found by the refrigerator that dawn.  The sun was coming up, and Mister Snuggles knew what he had to do. It would be easier now, before everyone awoke. He looked at the newspaper one last time – perhaps to see if there was some good in the world, some glimmer of hope – and happened to notice that his favorite childhood sports team had lost, and Mister Snuggles decided that that was an apt metaphor for his life.

Despite the face he had decided to kill himself, Mister Snuggles decided to still read the morning newspaper that day.

He was hemorrhaging money between his mortgage, his estranged wife’s frivolous plastic surgery sprees, and the various credit card bills that kept piling up, and there was no way left to pay them, as Mister Snuggles had been fired a month ago and had neglected to tell the family, acting as if all was well. He breathed a heavy sigh and his mouth tasted like the fish he had had for dinner the night before and the stray raisin he had found by the refrigerator that dawn. 

The sun was coming up, and Mister Snuggles knew what he had to do. It would be easier now, before everyone awoke. He looked at the newspaper one last time – perhaps to see if there was some good in the world, some glimmer of hope – and happened to notice that his favorite childhood sports team had lost, and Mister Snuggles decided that that was an apt metaphor for his life.

High-res There was this crust punk dude I knew in my early 20’s who died a couple of years ago after getting really drunk one night - alone - and punching a window for reasons, I suppose, none of us will ever know. He bled to death alone in that room. He was a really cool guy. Like, one of the most affable (if not agreeable) people I’ve ever met on this planet.  There was this other guy I knew, a crust punk dude from Minneapolis, a friend of my girlfriend’s brother who was more or less her second younger brother, who killed himself. He was so fucking charming. I remember walking with him to buy beer one night. It was one of those random conversations where, you know, your brain presses record the entire time and you remember everything in crystal clear clarity. What I wore, what he wore, how cold it was walking to that store, but that it didn’t matter because he was making me laugh all the way there and all the way back, smoking Parliament Lights and lighting them with a Zippo.  I knew this one crust punk kid from San Jose, this guy Jon. He wore a snapback hat with a picture of a yellow bear on it for the entire time I knew the guy. He’d ride the city bus with me when we were too bored to go to class and tell me what bands were “up”. I gleamed a few things off of him: I believe he was the first person to get me to listen to Bad Brains, things like that. He was always kind of an asshole, but the kind of asshole that you don’t mind being friends with when you’re 18.  I ran into him a couple years ago, randomly, at Westgate Mall. He was near unrecognizable in a gray sweater and slacks, wearing basketball shoes and a Livestrong bracelet. He was the one to recognize me. I didn’t believe it was him. He was with two girls, one in a spaghetti strap camisole, the other in a Nautica polo of some kind. They both looked like the kind of person who’s password for everything on their computer was indeed “password”. You changed, I said.Yeah, for the better, he said. Really? was what came out of my mouth. Yeah, I’m not wasting my life chasing shitty bands anymore, he said.Was it the bands? I asked.He took his arm off of the shoulder of the girl in Nautica and scratched his head.I mean, he said, I don’t know, they’re just bands. But! I said, Dude! You used to talk for hours about music!  He shook his head.That was then, he said, putting his arm around the girl in Nautica.  We talked for a little more and then parted ways. My mouth started to taste like copper and I couldn’t figure out why. I thought about the other two crust punk kids, how happy they were when they talked about the music. It was as if they were babies again, staring at a mobile turning, turning, turning. But then something inside of them gave up. Something inside of Jon had given up, too, but it was different, something uglier.  Everything tasted like copper that day. 

There was this crust punk dude I knew in my early 20’s who died a couple of years ago after getting really drunk one night - alone - and punching a window for reasons, I suppose, none of us will ever know. He bled to death alone in that room. He was a really cool guy. Like, one of the most affable (if not agreeable) people I’ve ever met on this planet. 

There was this other guy I knew, a crust punk dude from Minneapolis, a friend of my girlfriend’s brother who was more or less her second younger brother, who killed himself. He was so fucking charming. I remember walking with him to buy beer one night. It was one of those random conversations where, you know, your brain presses record the entire time and you remember everything in crystal clear clarity. What I wore, what he wore, how cold it was walking to that store, but that it didn’t matter because he was making me laugh all the way there and all the way back, smoking Parliament Lights and lighting them with a Zippo. 

I knew this one crust punk kid from San Jose, this guy Jon. He wore a snapback hat with a picture of a yellow bear on it for the entire time I knew the guy. He’d ride the city bus with me when we were too bored to go to class and tell me what bands were “up”. I gleamed a few things off of him: I believe he was the first person to get me to listen to Bad Brains, things like that. He was always kind of an asshole, but the kind of asshole that you don’t mind being friends with when you’re 18. 

I ran into him a couple years ago, randomly, at Westgate Mall. He was near unrecognizable in a gray sweater and slacks, wearing basketball shoes and a Livestrong bracelet. He was the one to recognize me. I didn’t believe it was him. He was with two girls, one in a spaghetti strap camisole, the other in a Nautica polo of some kind. They both looked like the kind of person who’s password for everything on their computer was indeed “password”. 
You changed, I said.
Yeah, for the better, he said.
Really? was what came out of my mouth.
Yeah, I’m not wasting my life chasing shitty bands anymore, he said.
Was it the bands? I asked.
He took his arm off of the shoulder of the girl in Nautica and scratched his head.
I mean, he said, I don’t know, they’re just bands.
But! I said, Dude! You used to talk for hours about music!  
He shook his head.
That was then, he said, putting his arm around the girl in Nautica. 

We talked for a little more and then parted ways. My mouth started to taste like copper and I couldn’t figure out why. I thought about the other two crust punk kids, how happy they were when they talked about the music. It was as if they were babies again, staring at a mobile turning, turning, turning. But then something inside of them gave up. Something inside of Jon had given up, too, but it was different, something uglier. 

Everything tasted like copper that day. 

How To Write A Cover Letter.

I met with someone a few days ago who asked me “how do you get writing jobs?”. I said “have a cover letter that stands out”. This is an email that I just sent to a magazine. This kind of approach may mean I’m going to be a hobo later in life, but I had a lot of fun, so at least I’ll have good stories to tell all the other hobos on the boxcar. Anyway. Without further ado: 

It has come to my attention that since ______’s departure there may or may not be an opening in editorial. Well, look no further (I am assuming that prior to this email you were wringing your hands, asking aloud “where oh where can I find a person with the right editorial vision to drive ______ magazine to the next level”).

I can promise you that my Garfield-esque (cat, not former President) demeanor belies a strong work ethic and comfort in making important decisions. I can manage freelancers with chef-like confidence and dexterity. I can even use the word ‘dexterity’ correctly. All this and more, ______. I’ve been an editor before, and was amazing at it. I would love the chance to do it again.

If you are around at all this week we should discuss this, perhaps over drinks and a large yellow notepad on which you will be writing down my many qualifications and various exclamations of joy (“magnificent!” “bravo!”) that you have found the right person for the job. And now, like a Mormon at a door, I shall leave you alone to think about everything I have said and then make the correct decision.

Best,

N

High-res I hated school dances.  The grade school hierarchy meant that Bellarmine, the all boys high school, kind of had a pick of the 7th and 8th grade girls, which is kind of gross and clandestine the more I think about it, that they could “take our women”, like we were a small village on the Scottish coast during the Viking era. It meant that whatever dance we had at our school was fundamentally hosed from the beginning. I remember holding Erin Simmons like a foot apart, rocking side to side and around in a small circle, listening to Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love To You”, wondering what ‘making love’ would ever feel like, and trying to kiss Erin before the song ended. This was all while wearing ill-fitting formal wear.  And then the DJ would play Smashmouth. I think people forget Smashmouth was ever a thing. They were from our hometown, in San Jose. As far as we knew, Smashmouth was this new crazy cool surf-rock band when in actuality they had been a local punk band that had been given the offer to sell out, massively, and have all the songs written for them so long as they played along with the cuddly surf-rock schtick. Of course, we were too young to understand scene politics like “selling out”.  I remember wearing cologne to a school dance. At 14. Thinking that I might get laid while not even knowing what getting laid really was. What’s weird is that sex is ultimately about forwarding the race – the human race – and so there I was, standing at the edge of a gym with kind of a hard-on, wanting desperately to take a mate at this bastardized ritual and to procreate. Of course, when you’ve got Lisa From English Class’s breasts smooshed up against you during the first chorus of The Wallflower’s “One Headlight”, you don’t really think about forwarding the human race. You know you want something. But you’re not sure what it is. Centuries before, you would’ve actually taken a wife at a ceremony not entirely unlike this. But now all that’s left is a flag-at-half-staff pitching the pup tent of your pleated khakis, hanging awkwardly like a rhetorical question as Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose” fades out over the school gym’s rented speakers. Then your Mom picks you up. 

I hated school dances. 

The grade school hierarchy meant that Bellarmine, the all boys high school, kind of had a pick of the 7th and 8th grade girls, which is kind of gross and clandestine the more I think about it, that they could “take our women”, like we were a small village on the Scottish coast during the Viking era. It meant that whatever dance we had at our school was fundamentally hosed from the beginning. I remember holding Erin Simmons like a foot apart, rocking side to side and around in a small circle, listening to Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love To You”, wondering what ‘making love’ would ever feel like, and trying to kiss Erin before the song ended. This was all while wearing ill-fitting formal wear. 

And then the DJ would play Smashmouth. I think people forget Smashmouth was ever a thing. They were from our hometown, in San Jose. As far as we knew, Smashmouth was this new crazy cool surf-rock band when in actuality they had been a local punk band that had been given the offer to sell out, massively, and have all the songs written for them so long as they played along with the cuddly surf-rock schtick. Of course, we were too young to understand scene politics like “selling out”. 

I remember wearing cologne to a school dance. At 14. Thinking that I might get laid while not even knowing what getting laid really was. What’s weird is that sex is ultimately about forwarding the race – the human race – and so there I was, standing at the edge of a gym with kind of a hard-on, wanting desperately to take a mate at this bastardized ritual and to procreate. Of course, when you’ve got Lisa From English Class’s breasts smooshed up against you during the first chorus of The Wallflower’s “One Headlight”, you don’t really think about forwarding the human race. You know you want something. But you’re not sure what it is. Centuries before, you would’ve actually taken a wife at a ceremony not entirely unlike this. But now all that’s left is a flag-at-half-staff pitching the pup tent of your pleated khakis, hanging awkwardly like a rhetorical question as Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose” fades out over the school gym’s rented speakers. Then your Mom picks you up. 

I used to know a blind kid. He was around seven when I knew him; his name was something very adult sounding, Steven, which made me wonder what it must have been like to be called ‘Baby Steven’. His family had moved into the neighborhood and there wasn’t much for him to do. The neighborhood kids had hung out with him once or twice a person and then within two or three months they had all moved on; the blindness testing the patience of most any seven year old. Childhood is a visceral experience full of bright colors and loud noises, and Steven fell shy of the other kids expectations; often relegated to a lonely corner of a sandbox while the other children played on the swing sets or pretended eachother with their fingers pointed as guns. You could tell by Steven’s face, should you have been watching, that this all registered with him, that they were having fun without him, and that he was ostracized, not out of any ill will from the children, but simply by circumstance.  My mom suggested that I play with him. I was thirteen and twice the size and age of Steven. What I first noticed was that he did look at you when you talked, something I found pretty uncanny. He wanted to go to the park, and he wanted to ride the train that circled the park, in Los Gatos. He’d heard a lot about trains. He had a toy one he played with constantly, a wooden one with wooden wheels. His fingers raced through every side and corner of the damn thing and it appeared worn from his constant use. He wore sunglasses that June day and had extremely sharp nails, gripping my hand tightly as we walked over to the train. “Oh boy,” he said over and over, “Oh boy. Oh boy.”“Are you excited?” I said.“You bet! I love trains,” he said. He sat on the train and it took a little while for the conductor person to realize he was blind, shrugging at me and nodding his way through a one-sided “Blind kid? Your brother? No? Still wanna ride? Well OK then” kind of conversation. Steven rocked back and forth in anticipation, gripping the front of the little cart we were sitting in the way one would grab that of a traveled loved one, muttering to himself about ‘Trains!’ and giggling slightly with a giddy nervousness. The conductor pulled the whistle, whooow-whooo, and Steven made the sound back. And we were off. He was still smiling as we walked back to his parents car, still laughing about how much fun it was on the drive home, and still thankful for it that night when I got a phone call from him, his mother saying that he’d requested a phone call to say thank you, and all he did was laugh about much fun it was. I don’t remember much else about Steven after that. His parents moved away, something about a job offer somewhere. But he was a riot, and despite his condition he taught me a lesson that day in appreciation. Sometimes when you’re in your mid-to-late 20’s you forget what ‘joy’ actually is after having your soul raked through the sands of societal indifference, working for a paycheck, and layers of insecurity brought on by a myriad of reasons. You forget all about sand pits, skateboards, and summer, and what it feels like to ride at the front of the train. You forget to appreciate the comfort of simply not knowing,  not through naivety, but through untangling your own knot to appreciate the simpler things. To some, their knots are their comfort. And that’s a good thing. To others, it’s not.

I used to know a blind kid. He was around seven when I knew him; his name was something very adult sounding, Steven, which made me wonder what it must have been like to be called ‘Baby Steven’. His family had moved into the neighborhood and there wasn’t much for him to do.

The neighborhood kids had hung out with him once or twice a person and then within two or three months they had all moved on; the blindness testing the patience of most any seven year old. Childhood is a visceral experience full of bright colors and loud noises, and Steven fell shy of the other kids expectations; often relegated to a lonely corner of a sandbox while the other children played on the swing sets or pretended eachother with their fingers pointed as guns. You could tell by Steven’s face, should you have been watching, that this all registered with him, that they were having fun without him, and that he was ostracized, not out of any ill will from the children, but simply by circumstance. 

My mom suggested that I play with him. I was thirteen and twice the size and age of Steven. What I first noticed was that he did look at you when you talked, something I found pretty uncanny. He wanted to go to the park, and he wanted to ride the train that circled the park, in Los Gatos. He’d heard a lot about trains. He had a toy one he played with constantly, a wooden one with wooden wheels. His fingers raced through every side and corner of the damn thing and it appeared worn from his constant use.

He wore sunglasses that June day and had extremely sharp nails, gripping my hand tightly as we walked over to the train.
“Oh boy,” he said over and over, “Oh boy. Oh boy.”
“Are you excited?” I said.
“You bet! I love trains,” he said.

He sat on the train and it took a little while for the conductor person to realize he was blind, shrugging at me and nodding his way through a one-sided “Blind kid? Your brother? No? Still wanna ride? Well OK then” kind of conversation. Steven rocked back and forth in anticipation, gripping the front of the little cart we were sitting in the way one would grab that of a traveled loved one, muttering to himself about ‘Trains!’ and giggling slightly with a giddy nervousness. The conductor pulled the whistle, whooow-whooo, and Steven made the sound back. And we were off. He was still smiling as we walked back to his parents car, still laughing about how much fun it was on the drive home, and still thankful for it that night when I got a phone call from him, his mother saying that he’d requested a phone call to say thank you, and all he did was laugh about much fun it was.

I don’t remember much else about Steven after that. His parents moved away, something about a job offer somewhere. But he was a riot, and despite his condition he taught me a lesson that day in appreciation. Sometimes when you’re in your mid-to-late 20’s you forget what ‘joy’ actually is after having your soul raked through the sands of societal indifference, working for a paycheck, and layers of insecurity brought on by a myriad of reasons. You forget all about sand pits, skateboards, and summer, and what it feels like to ride at the front of the train. You forget to appreciate the comfort of simply not knowing,  not through naivety, but through untangling your own knot to appreciate the simpler things. To some, their knots are their comfort. And that’s a good thing.

To others, it’s not.