midsummer dispatch: July 24, 2022

Our air conditioner broke precisely at the onset of this seventh-level-of-hell heatwave. The repair guys told us it would take 2-3 weeks and at least $600 to repair it—in their diagnostic efforts, they also broke the on/off switch, so all in all I’d rate their visit a bust. And so I am presently sitting directly in front of a fan at its highest setting, blowing warm air on me as I type. The condensation from my water glass, the ice having long since melted, is leaving watery rings on the table.

I’m having a hard time loving summer this year. I want to be charmed by late July: the musky, floral melons and jewel-bright cherry tomatoes at the farmers’ market; the scents of sunscreen and barbecue on the breeze; the slower pace that borders on torpor. But I am too attuned to the smells of urine on hot sidewalks and weed and cigarette smoke hanging heavy in the air around every corner to find romance in the New York City summer the way I used to.

I reread Frank O’Hara’s The Day Lady Died, as I do every summer, and felt a keen sense of affinity with his description of the stifling, sleepy business of running errands on a weekday when the city is a concrete convection oven and one is overdressed for the heat. O’Hara doesn’t say anything about wearing a business suit in his poem; there is no discussion of the loosening of a tie or fanning himself with his hat, but he does mention a shoeshine and a rush hour train ride to the Hamptons, so I am reading between the lines. Or maybe I’m simply projecting.

You see, I am wearing sensible shoes and office attire these days, sweating on the subway platform as I head to and from a Real Job and asking myself, à la David Byrne, “How did I get here?” (Other recurring questions that pingpong around my heat-addled brain lately: “Am I still a musician? Was I ever really a musician? Have I sold out my dream for affordable health insurance? What was my dream, anyway? Do I still have a dream? Did I really not want to do certain kinds of gigs anymore or did I just get tired of constantly worrying that I wasn’t good enough?”) When I do get out to hear music, it seems like everyone is twenty years my junior (spoiler: they are) and I feel out of touch with the scene, as though I’m a former regular showing up at a once-familiar restaurant after a long absence, only to discover that it’s become a trendy nightclub with overpriced drinks and a strong social media presence.

Earlier this month I visited my family in the Midwest, staying at my grandmother’s house, which overlooks rolling green Iowa farmland as far as the eye can see. For the second summer in a row, my trip was cut short due to the (everlasting, goddamned) pandemic. But before Covid struck (not me, this time around, so there’s that) and the proverbial wheels came off, we enjoyed a few days of mustardy potato salad and firefly-dotted twilights. One evening, I sat in a cool basement bedroom and took a battered but indestructible 1980s tape deck off the dresser. I plugged it in and switched on the radio, turning the dial past present-day Top 40 hits and a live chanting of the Rosary (!) until I heard Bob Seger’s “Night Moves.” I listened to “I’m Gonna Keep On Lovin’ You” and commercials for discounted steaks and “When Doves Cry.” I remembered the feeling of giving myself over to the whims of the airwaves, tolerating tunes I don’t care for and feeling the thrill of recognition when a beloved song, pulsating with nostalgia, finds its way into the rotation. (I also remembered how much better pop music was when songs had bridges.)

Listen, it’s all FINE, I’m fine, everything’s fine. These sea changes in the music business, in New York City, in being a middle-aged human, are a lot to take, is all. And even as I turn over all those navel-gazing, self-indulgent, angsty questions in my mind, I am also preparing to make a recording next month, an optimistic, hopeful endeavor if ever there was one. Gigs are beginning to pepper my calendar in the fall and winter. And you know what else? Pop songs should still have bridges and it’s really nice, actually, to have affordable health insurance.