Meeting Rick - October 19, 2002

There are very few things in life with which I would dare to speak of with anything remotely resembling authority, but I feel fairly confident in saying that for those of us like myself who see life as an exercise in contemplation and introspection, there really is no such thing as being bored.  There is quietude, there is silence, there is relative inactivity and, often, there is often a lull between events of heightened excitement, but, really, down time is nothing more than and opportunity to think about what you stopped thinking about long enough to stop and take in the world around you.  Bearing this in mind, the idea of there being no such concept as waiting to people such as myself becomes somewhat understandable.  Although there are pre-arranged events that are ideally supposed to occur at a particular time and place, there is so much in the interim period that one can choose to occupy their attention with at any given moment that time is really something that looses all appreciable meaning, and as such, ones perceived connection to it is happily lost.  (The inherent irony to all this that in losing touch with my sense of time has resulted in my being late for any of the aforementioned pre-arranged events a rarity to the extreme.  Indeed, I invariably arrive at my intended locations about fifteen minutes early.) Add to this, in my particular case, a propensity towards being mildly obsessive in regards to books, as I tend to have one with me at all times, anything that one might categorize as a delay of any sort goes largely unnoticed. 

Of course, as with most things in life, there is a downside, and the downside in this particular case is that I tend to forget that most others are disproportionately aware of time and schedules and the like, and tend to be reticent to be late to any meeting or event. Many go to great pains to make their apologies should the occasion arise, especially if ones lateness is a direct result of absentmindedness or miscalculation of time rather than the proverbial circumstances beyond their control. For my own part, I often find myself greatly unsettled by this practice. By way of thinking it has all the potential to become a mountain where there was nary a molehill to be found, and I feel as if an unnecessary effort is being made to a correct a slight that, to me, was nonexistent.    

As one might well imagine, this unsettling becomes much more profound when the person or persons that I have agreed to meet phones to apologize for running late prior to their arrival.  Couple to this the fact that on this particular occasion the person that I was set to meet enjoys a good deal more notoriety of sorts than most, and far more than I am likely to ever allow myself to achieve, (being the generally shy and reserved type that I am) and the awareness of time and its value hits with near-irresistible force impacting the generally-immovable object of perception, creating something of mild yet oddly exhilarating panic.  It is a strange sort of compliment that someone perceives something that you were barely aware that you possessed, (in this case, my time), as having worth.  Perhaps it is simple courtesy, social convention or learned politesse, but, still, it is often said that the simple things in life are its greatest pleasure.  The little things, the minutia and the investment of attention to detail invariably often yield a sort of excitement as its return. And so, this simple act of a phone ahead apology had abruptly dislodged me from the relative serenity of oblivion and landed me square in the lap of acute awareness of a world of which I had been otherwise ignorant of; a world where, evidently, someone else is acutely aware of me.

Now, bear in mind that it is not as if I hadnt taken action that made my existence somewhat known. Between the series of emails touching on various topics and questions posed on The Rick Emerson Show, a previous attempt at a coffee klatch and a visit to the studios of KOTK, Rick Emerson knows exactly who I am.  I am one of the many, many loyal listeners of his fine radio program.  With the possible exception of the bizarre anxiety that overcomes me every time I pick up the phone to call in, (I have always had an aversion to the sound of my own voice. Answering machines and voice mail are the bane to my existence, and the idea of hearing my own voice broadcast over the airwaves is almost too much to bear.  I called in once on the third day that I ever listened to him, but never since.  Granted, it makes winning tickets to events and what not far more difficult, but I hold out the vague hope that he might take pity on we of the emailing sector of his listening audience and send swag our way.), there is really nothing that I can see that would distinguish me from anyone else who tunes in from 12:00 to 3:00.  I am, for the most part, any one of a number of the faceless, voiceless smattering of random electrons peeking out from the digital void long enough to lend Rick my ears for 15 hours a week.  So how is it that I find myself seated here a coffee shop looking out onto Sixth Avenue awaiting the eminent arrival of Rick Emerson?

I wish I knew.

Arrive he does, however, tossed through the door of Coffee People by the autumn winds, looking harried, hurried and worried by the weather.  He has this odd air youthful maturity about him that is immediately striking.  It brings to mind a Puck, a Robin Goodfellow grown into his mischievousness rather than out of it.    It is an air that would belie the curmudgeonly outlook on life that professes over the afternoon airwaves, except for the fact that talking to him for a few minutes one cant help but notice that a smile rarely spreads across his face.  Not that he seems ill tempered far from it, actually - it is simply that his whole person is animated. Difficult to define in any fixed or realistic set of terms, he is an amalgamation of twenty-nine some odd years of American pop culture; movies, music, TV and all things decidedly kitschy coalescing to produce this bespectacled, bipedal caricature of the twentieth century. He is, in some strange inverse Cool World way a living, breathing, flesh and blood cartoon dropped unceremoniously into a reality much less colorful than he is himself. As much as I would like to lay claim to the fact that this assessment is the product of deep introspection, the truth is that all of this becomes embarrassingly obvious in the first five minutes of sitting across the table from him. 

The intended topic of conversation of this meeting was the proposal to build a fan site dedicated to him.  It was an idea that entered my mind less out of an interest in him and more out of a general curiosity about his fans. I found in myself a profound interest in knowing exactly WHO was listening to Rick and, more importantly, why.  I wanted to know what stood out about him to other people to see if maybe I was seeing something that they werent, and vice versa.  In all honesty, though, I had been on the fence about the idea ever since I had proposed it, as it occurred to me that all I could probably find out all I wanted to know by listening to show.  There is always that chaos factor, though. Those, who, like myself, are somewhat on the fringes of the mainstream who are less interactive than many of his other fans; those of us somewhat in the shadows who are content just to sit back and enjoy the ride, perhaps a bit smug in the perception that we may be catching things here and there that those not in the know might be missing.  It is the chaotics that I tend to like crawling into the heads of.  However, as Rick pointed out, fan forums have this way of bringing out the underlying nastiness in people, and although a monitored forum is a possible solution, it seems a little hypocritical to restrict freedom of speech in a venue dedicated to someone that is a vehement advocate of the first amendment. 

The fan forum idea was touched on only briefly, though, as it soon became obvious over the course of the evolving conversation that Ricks mind seems to be primarily composed of an endless series of tangents.  A conclusion that one would easily arrive at in giving his show a listen to be sure, but to witness it in real life is beyond fascinating.  The conversation ran the gamut between politics, to the indispensability of his cohorts on the show, to the relative funkiness of Peter Gabriel and Mick Jagger, to the complete inefficacy of the FCC. (About which the less said, by the way, the better.  It is enough to know that the FCC exists. Understanding what they do would only result in a flat refusal to allocate one single tax dollar to support a branch of the federal government that serves absolutely no useful purpose.  It is the bureaucratic equivalent of the hot dog.  If you knew exactly what was in it, you are unlikely to ever eat one.)  Strangely enough, there is actually an odd flow, a sort of quirky rhythm to his manner of speech. Each topic has a genuine, unforced connection to the of the one preceding it, even if that connection is nothing more than a bridge between the most obscure element of one topic and the most obscure element of the next. Talking to Rick has an intrinsic element of surreality. It was the verbal equivalent of a painting by Salvador Dali, or a David Lynch film.  Rick seems to have some awareness of this, as he tries to clarify many of his thoughts with elaborate analogies, which, often turn out to be at least as confusing as the idea that he was originally trying to convey, if not more so.

If there was any element of the time that passed between us that was noteworthy by virtue of being somewhat unnerving, it was the lack of silence. In talking to Rick for any length of time, it becomes increasingly apparent that he is always on, never missing a beat. Whether in the studio or over a cup a coffee, it is almost as if he cant help but be entertaining, discharging rapid-fire repartee like a sapient machine gun.  A quality that is, all told, not without its problematic attributes.  First and foremost is the fact that it lends to him a quality that can too easily be misinterpreted as intellectual intimidation bordering on being arrogant and overbearing, an assessment quickly dispelled by the humility with which he speaks of show staff and his repeated affirmations of his dullness.   Still, there is an enormous, albeit self-imposed pressure to be equally as witty and entertaining to someone who is decidedly much better at it than I felt I was. (Probably due to the fact that radio seems to require that he be far more engaging and charismatic than I, as a rule, have to be.)  He is a more-than-passable personification of charming, a fact which only served to reinforce my perception that being charming might be something beyond my capability.  There seemed to be moments prolonged awkwardness, although in reality those moments probably only existed in my own mind, (as is the case with most of my quiet insecurities.)  He gave no indication that he found me in any way dull or uninteresting, and I am oddly comforted by the fact that he seems to be unwilling or unable to hide any distain he may harbor in the cockles of his heart for anyone.  A fact that, I would suspect, has contributed to rather than detracted from his popularity. 

More than all of that, though, just by virtue of being entertaining, Rick seems to have a better understanding of his audience than any fan forum could ever produce, for to be entertaining one must have a keen awareness of those who they seek to entertain.  If nothing else, Rick Emerson is very good at catching and keeping ones attention.  At some point during the hour or so that I was afforded the pleasure of his company, I found that I had once again returned the blissful oblivion to time that I had enjoyed prior to his arrival, only this time, I was focused not on the inner workings of my own mind, but on the outward projection of his. I was a captive audience of one, and, it must be said, Rick Emerson, Live and Uncut is probably one of the best shows in town.  Although I have to admit that part of me was expecting to see something completely different than what is broadcast to the masses five days a week, I was in many ways, glad that I didnt.  Rick is Rick twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year.  Its a tough job, but somebody has to do it and he, it seems, is a lot better at it than anyone else.

Under the dusky orange of the evening sky, Rick was kind enough to escort me to the Light Rail stop just up the street from the coffee shop.  I didnt ask if he was going that way anyway, because, in truth, I didnt really want to know.  It was nice to think that maybe beneath the twenty-first century pop-cultured curmudgeonly cartoon exterior that some form of old fashioned chivalry still had a few last gasps left in it before the death rattle sounds, regardless of what the reality of the truth may have actually been.  The truth about me is that I will jump headlong toward any opportunity to think of people in the best possible way, even if it means maybe not so much giving into a potential illusion, but not trying to dispel it, either. 

At the corner he shakes my hand and for the second time in one evening I am startled by him as he adds in parting that should I ever want to do this again, to get a hold of him.  Standing on the platform awaiting the train, I smile, partly at myself but mostly at the genuine strangeness of the idea that one would not want to repeat this experience of being kept on ones intellectual toes.  How could I possibly refuse the opportunity to be coaxed out of my head and into Ricks, even if it means that my blissful oblivion must be sacrificed for a time?  It is, by my way of thinking, a small price to pay, and, I might add, well worth it.