The Luckiest
Fans of Cheez-Its may know they were invented right here in Dayton, OH. Some other Dayton trivia: home of the cash register, the Wright brothers, and Wright-Patterson Air Force base where, allegedly, we’ve got a bunch of UFOs. Also, apparently the “Doomsday Plane” flies out of Wright-Patterson, which is a modified 747 designed to be used by the president and cabinet in the event of national conflict, including nuclear war. I don’t know why they’ve got the Doomsday plane so far away from DC when a nuclear missile only takes half an hour to reach us, but who am I to question?
Anyway, it’s my first time here and likely to be my last. Not because there’s anything wrong with good ol’ Dayton but because it took me 54 years to get here the first time and I doubt I’ll have much reason to return in the next 54.
Seeing as it’s likely to be my only time in Dayton, I thought I should take advantage and so I took a stroll around downtown this morning to get a sense of the city. I’ll be honest - it was weird. Granted it’s a Sunday but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more deserted city center that wasn’t under threat of zombies. Look at this!
The only people I saw on my little jaunt appeared to be homeless. One of them asked for, and received, all of the money I had on my person, which amounted to about eighty-five cents. (To be clear, he didn’t ask for “all the money on my person.” He asked for some money and that was all the money I had on me.)
While strolling, I happened to see a big white tour bus. I’ve undoubtedly mentioned before my obsession with high-end RVs, and so when I see a tour bus, I’m 100% going out of my way to check it out. While inspecting the tour bus, which looked to be a fairly run-of-the-mill, recent vintage H3 Prevost conversion, I thought to myself, I wonder whose bus this is. As it happened, directly across the street from the bus was a marquee advertising Ben Folds playing tonight at Dayton Live!
A-ha!
I’m in. I ordered up some tickets – loge level, because I like Ben Folds but not enough to drop over a hundred bucks on tickets – and trundled myself over to the lovely Schuster Center not even a thousand feet from my hotel. The show was scheduled to begin at 7:30; I showed up at 7:35 and I was, somehow, STILL the only person on the street. How is that possible? How did a couple thousand people sneak into a giant theater without me seeing any of them? I suspect magic.
Anyway, I took my seat and listened to the opening act, a songwriter named Lindsey Kraft, which I found odd because I know an actress named Lindsey Kraft who is not, to my knowledge, a singer-songwriter. We were in a little TV show together called Backwash and I hadn’t seen her in several years so I thought, I guess it’s possible it’s the same person, but because I was so high up (and because I’m old), I couldn’t see whether the woman at the piano was the same Lindsey Kraft.
Turns out, I did a quick lil’ Google and it turns out - same person! As she finished her set, she told people she’d be selling merch afterwards so after the show I went over to the Lindsey Kraft merch table and waited to say hi. I’ll be honest, as much as I wanted to give her a hug and tell her how terrific she was – and she really was terrific – I was also hoping that she would invite me onto the tour bus so I could inspect the thing up close. And if I got to meet Ben Folds, that would have been cool, too, but honestly I would have been more starstruck by the RV.
“What are you doing in Dayton?” she asked. Which I imagine is a question even residents of Dayton ask themselves. Sadly, we could only talk for a few minutes because they were about to depart for Pittsburgh and, even more sadly, she did not invite me to accompany them.
Ben Folds, of course, was also terrific. One of the things I’ve always liked about his music is that he follows the “toss me a cigarette/I think there’s one in my raincoat” school of songwriting, which is how I refer to lyrics about everyday things that take on a magical quality when set to music. Look at these lyrics from The Luckiest, the song with which he ended the show:
What if I’d been born fifty years before you
In a house on the street where you live?
Maybe I’d be outside as you passed on your bike
Would I know?
And in a wide sea of eyes
I see one pair that I recognize
And I know that I am,
I am, the luckiest.
Ugh – it just breaks my goddamned heart, which is the kind of music I love most. It’s something I try to do with my writing. Not necessarily break hearts, although with a face as gorgeous as mine, you have to expect that’s going to happen, but to somehow figure out a way to put life’s heaving churns into words. See? “Life’s heaving churns” is such a stupid way to put it, which is why Ben Folds can get several thousand people together on a Sunday night in Dayton, OH and I cannot.
This is a tough world even for all of us lucky folk – and, like Ben Folds, I consider myself to be among the luckiest. Until we figure out telepathy, music is the closest thing we have, the most direct tool we’ve ever invented to communicate the human experience. It’s why we included a recording of music from all over the world on the Voyager I and II spacecraft. Somewhere out there, almost a full light day from Earth is a “golden disc,” featuring music by Chuck Berry and Mozart and Mahi musicians of Benin and Bach, among others. Music is how we chose to tell the galaxy who we are. Thanks to Ben Folds and Lindsey Kraft for a great night of humanity.
Dayton, also the home of The Breeders and Guided by Voices.
I was going to be all cool and say, "The Pixies are from Dayton Ohio!" But they are not. I don't know what gave me that idea. Apparently though, the Breeders were "based" in Dayton, whatever that means. Close enough? Regardless, the photo of deserted downtown reminded me of my hometown of St. Cloud, MN. Every time I visit there, I wonder where the heck all the people are. When I was a kid, downtown was crawling with people, and often the site of the Mountain Dew BMX and Breakdancing Team events. There just isn't enough downtown BMX stunting/break-dancing these days.
Additionally, you mentioned the "toss me a cigarette," song-writing style that made me smile, as Simon and Garfunkel's "America" is such a quintessentially great example of American song-writing, along with "At the Zoo" and "The Only Living Boy in New York." All great songs for a car trip across our country. I mean, they're no "Porcupine Racetrack," but...