the maldon salt of peril

good morning ~

(click the link / table of bad behavior to listen)

My Big Breakthe maldon salt of peril

I recorded today’s track long before the experience of riding on the back of a Ski Doo but wow, it feels appropriate, doesn’t it?

We are one day into tour! I’m scheduling this in advance so I hope that we had an excellent show in Philadelphia last night and are about to have an amazing show in Cleveland. Chicago! We’ve got a big one tomorrow - come on out, here’s the flyer, click for tickets:

For the second time in my long and storied history as a guitar ripper I played so hard I broke the guitar apart. Not that I smashed the guitar to bits on purpose, I actually just drug the pick across the strings with enough force to eject an essential component of the instrument away from its being. I knew I was really on one at the Rockaways - I had stood on the picnic benches, I had bled all over the place, but it wasn't until we got to rehearsal that I realized that the bridge had been destroyed, too. Saddle, gone, ejected, slowly turning back into sand somewhere on the boardwalk. An inconvenient trophy, I do need the guitar to work, but we got through practice with a loaner.

We sounded great, we really earned our 6pm beer, but then when we went to go get in the Subarau Nico noticed that the front right tire was flat. Action, we launched into it, and both Léna and Nico delighted in the orange safety vests and pop-up traffic cones that sit above the spare in the trunk. Manual consulted, car jacked up, a stranger from the rehearsal studios showed us the proper way to stand on the tire iron to get the lug nuts to spin - "god bless you," he said as he walked down the street. Mercury retrograde, you are saying to me, shaking your head, okay sure, but even if the mechanical components break down the hearts and minds are strong and brave. We stood squirting hand sanitizer into our palms, the soot of the sidewalk streaking our cheeks. And then the dude around the corner fixed my flat and got me rolling again in under ten minutes, all was restored.

Later that night I revisited an old pastime of mine - we went and got drunk on pint glass margaritas at International Bar. What is it about the meeting of friends from disparate parts of your life that feels so nourishing and true? Already two of my favorite buddies were working on a project together, and then Caleb happened to be one block away. We re-litigated and told tale of parties of yore, of cigarettes covered in Cool Ranch Dorito dust, the legend of sunrise at the after-hours Chinatown senior center. Then we slammed pizza on 8th street and hopped in a cab, I looked tenderly over at my friend snoring with his head against the window. The next day I drove him to a barbecue and he kept introducing me to esteemed journalist colleagues as a guy with an amazing newsletter. On the way home on the side of a mountain my wife had sculptures on view - we crushed a million seltzers and ate special hundred-dollar cakes, a local library fundraiser. Word around town was when they cracked open the anniversary time capsule, it had all turned to mud.

And then we were on our way to Vermont, hurtling towards our friend's effortful birthday party at the family lake house on Lake Champlain. Perfect day, screensaver clouds, a gently flirtatious breeze on our faces before we had even finished getting out of the car, hugs of introduction in the driveway. You know that thing people say, I went to the sweetie convention and everybody knew you? Close but maybe more accurate to say "being sweet is a contact sport" - though the others may not admit it I did sense a current of competition for who could most thoroughly trip the delight fantastic. Special crowns, special poems, special food, a balcony serenade at dusk, a very thoughtful and expertly delivered "My Heart Will Go On." But the fun needs a shake of danger in it, too, just a little finishing pinch, the Maldon salt of peril. So we hopped on the Sea-Doo.

I am about to say something profound: it had been far too long since I have last ridden a personal watercraft. Fifteen years, maybe? And wouldn't you know it, they've gotten really good in the interim. Like, the Jet Ski tech has advanced remarkably, and now they haul ass more stably and seamlessly than ever before. And though some credit must be given to the mesodose of psilocybin and the catalyst of hanging out with 20 other people on a dock, I think I would have laughed until my face, stomach, and ass hurt regardless. Gracelee drove - this is a tradition between us going back to the Revel days - and I held on to her thighs, giggling in the too-small life vest as we shot across the top of the water, the shore of the lake zooming past us at what felt like utterly remarkable speed. The sun rolled toward the horizon and as it did its reflected sword reached out to touch us, its light glinting off the vessel's wake (Matt called that pre-sunset reflection "the sword of the sun" once and it always stuck with me, isn't that nice?). We hoisted the Sea Doos back into their cradles on the dock - which felt remarkably like taking a horse to the stable - and walked back into the house. Many hours of chatting, many mutual internet follows, many bites of treats and sweets and the deepest, darkest sleep awaited us. And in the morning we all made coffee for each other, and when Katie dropped her glasses in the Lake there was a mad rush to find them - who could be the biggest help of all? In a game of all helping, everyone's a winner.

Yet to be seen how the flat tire outside of practice augers, for well or for ill? But you are honored by the opportunity to fix something, to right something, to help, and the leaping in is the joy of it. And the guitar? I have honored another, and my buddy says that he can fix it. In fact he will upgrade the part, and it will be better for the fixing.

But what about you? If you were riding on a Jet Ski on a perfect day on Lake Champlain, what one song would you play on the built-in bluetooth speakers? Are you capable of having fun without a little bit of danger in it?