Acoustic Sweet Spot

Having those actors in our house last week got me to thinking (again) about celebrity and the difference between knowing someone as a public figure versus having some kind of personal exchange. I'm glad that I didn't accost Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, or Hugh Jackman when they were in our house even though part of me longs to bond with artists that I admire. But isn't that better done by enjoying their work rather than in some awkward encounter?

We attended my brother-in-law’s solo show last night at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. I never feel qualified to discuss Jeff’s music but his from-the-gut performance was extraordinary—insightful, heartfelt, and extremely moving. I thought about how much he gives of himself in those moments and realized that on many levels I learn so much more about what makes him tick when I see him on a stage than I do having a conversation with him over breakfast. Some of the diehard fans travel from city to city to see Jeff perform and I’m sure they enjoy the personal contact they often have with Jeff after the show. But I hope they also recognize that what they are getting when Jeff is on stage is just as “real” and intimate (more so?) as those brief meet n'greets outside the dressing room or in front of the tour bus.

You could hear a pin drop during many parts of the show last night. What a powerful dynamic is created when a group of people gather with a common purpose. Glen Kotche, the brilliant Wilco drummer, opened for Jeff and then played with him at the end of the show. Apart from their musical talents, it’s a pleasure to watch the two of them together because of how much they clearly enjoy each other as musicians and as people. Jeff joked about their rapport, wondering whether people were getting sick of their mutual admiration society. But the fans love it—there’s never anything boring about artists who respect each other and help each other reach new heights.

As great as Jeff and Glen were, my favorite part of the show was when my ten-year-old nephew Spencer got up on stage and played the drums while Jeff sang “I’m the Man Who Loves You.” Spencer is so damn good on those drums and getting better every day. I tried to snap a photo but it barely came out so I’m also posting a photo of the two of them performing a song for me and Kendall at our wedding. That was so much more meaningful than anything Jeff could have said to us personally about our getting married.

Six-year-old Sammy spent the entire show sleeping on the floor at our feet but Jeff told the crowd one of Sam's brilliant jokes. Excuse my stage directions but it's so deep I want to make sure that I don't ruin it:

[Excited voice] Hey, look! A losers' contest!
[Dejected voice] Oh...I won.

Jeff also told the crowd the last words Sammy told him as he was going to bed the night before. Half asleep, he said, "Dad, you know what you should call your next CD?" "What, Sam?" Jeff asked. Sammy paused for dramatic effect before responding. "The Nazi Website." OY. All of us are trying to figure that one out but I'm taking partial credit. Three days in my presence and even six-year-olds have Nazis on the brain. (Will someone please call Children's Social Services?)

I was sitting next to Academy Award nominee Catherine Keener at the show but let me tell you what an idiot I am. When we got to our seats I saw that there were two blocked off in our row for C. Keener. I assumed they were probably for Catherine Keener since I’d heard she was a fan but someone else was sitting there. When I took my seat, the woman next to me kept asking if it was okay for her to sit there or did she need to move to make more room for our family. No, stay right there, I said, marveling at how much the woman looked like Catherine Keener. For some reason, since she wasn’t sitting in the C. Keener seats and was acting so deferentially, it didn’t occur to me that the Keener clone was the actress until after the show when she was talking to Jeff. Was that God’s way of protecting me from making a fool of myself? Wasn’t it better that I interacted with her during the show as “regular person” instead of tensing up and blurting out an ill-timed “Oh, Miss Keener, I so enjoyed your performance in Capote!” or “Hey, Cathy, good luck at the Oscars next month! You rock!” I think of the Retropolitan’s recent post called “The Case for Not Letting Me Talk to Celebrities” and I can so relate to that. I’d hate to think that had I been fully aware that I was talking to Catherine Keener I would've acted differently but I’m sorry to say that I probably would have especially since my sister and I were both wondering who she was and why she had an all-access pass so we were probably giving her weird vibes. I have always been a huge fan of Keener’s work and I can usually recognize any actor within a 10-mile radius so I have to ask myself whether my disconnect occurred because she was being so nice to me. Am I so neurotic that I can’t believe a real celebrity would ever give me the time of day? Jeff joked that as much as he enjoys spotting celebrities when he’s in L.A. (he was very excited yesterday to run into Peter Bonerz, Jerry the Dentist from old “Bob Newhart Show”), as soon as a celebrity attends one of his shows he loses all respect for them (“They’re dead to me!”). He was kidding, of course, but I understood exactly what he was saying. We know a fair number of recognizable folks but once they’re friends the mystique is gone (thank God) and it’s hard to remember that they’re famous. After the show my sister and I tortured ourselves about whether we were “nice enough” to Catherine Keener. Oy.

Jeff told us a story the other day about his Saturday night gig in San Diego where he had to stop the show and ask someone to quiet down. Unlike Wilco shows, his solo gigs are pretty quiet affairs so when people talk loud during the songs it is very noticeable and distracting. When the incident was discussed on the Wilco chat boards, as these things often are, people said that they actually couldn’t hear the woman talking—that she must have been in an “acoustic sweet spot” that projected straight up to the stage. I had never heard that term but I love it—all night long, whenever my sister and I were whispering anything to each other about people in the theatre, be it Jeff, James Spader, or my mystery date Catherine Keener, we panicked that our voices were being projected all around us in a series of acoustic sweet spots. Now I’m thinking that my blog is like one giant acoustic sweet spot with my private and often embarrassing ramblings projected to specific parts of the room. I’m always shocked when people refer to something I’ve written in here. “How do you know that?” I ask incredulously, even though I remember writing about what they’ve mentioned.

My sister’s friend Fred Armisen, who used to work with her at her Chicago club Lounge Ax and is now on “Saturday Night Live,” came over to say hello during the show but it must have also been an act of God that kept me from meeting his girlfriend Martha Plimpton who was there with him. I am such a huge fan of Plimpton’s that I know I would have blathered on like a lunatic and made her inch back in fear, eyes darting as they tried to spot the nearest exit sign. Kendall and I saw Plimpton in her wonderful cabaret act with Julian Fleisher last year and thought she was extraordinary. Fred (usually as his character Fericito) has appeared on stage with Jeff lots of times (including in the documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart) so I kept fantasizing during the show that he’d go up there and bring Martha with him to sing a few numbers with Jeff. I wish Plimpton made more films. What is it about her acting style that I find so incredibly genuine, whether it’s her performances in The Mosquito Coast, Running on Empty, and Parenthood or her later work in films like I Shot Andy Warhol (with music by Wilco), Pecker, or 200 Cigarettes? You also need to hear what she has to say in the documentary about women working in Hollywood called Searching for Debra Winger. She’s a member of Chicago’s great Steppenwolf Theatre and will open on Broadway in April in Colin McPherson’s “Shining City” which I want to see. As I said when I was boarding a plane with her uncle David Carradine a year ago, I would go out of my way to see anything Martha Plimpton was appearing in. Oy, I’m fawning again—see what happens? I can’t be trusted around famous people unless I know them and have seen their warts.

We’re about to leave for Jeff’s second show tonight. Yikes, more celebrities to seek out and avoid. In an L.A. Times interview this week, Jeff summed up what is so great about the dynamic that occurs when people listen to good music:

“All the best parts of people coming together can be found in music — rock concerts, and the experience of listening to records with your friends, and becoming more human by being reminded of your feelings through a great record. I believe in all of that stuff.”

Comments

[Vicki Forman]

Great post, Danny. I wanted to look for YOU at the show last night but decided that would be just too weird. Talk about celebrity fawning.

[The Retropolitan]

You know, I've never met another blogger, although I almost did once. On the other hand, I HAVE met Martha Plimpton. ;)

[Rurality]

It really strikes me as funny that you, who seem to know so many, would get nervous around celebrities! (I've always thought it odd to hear a celebrity say that they were nervous to meet someone too.)

I haven't run into many celebrities. The few that I have, I guess I've just ignored... didn't really have anything to say!

I wonder why people are this way around the famous... what's the psychology behind it? If you figure it out, let me know!

[Randi(cruisin-mom)]

“All the best parts of people coming together can be found in music"
Wow, I love that quote and so true.
I love your honesty, as usual Danny.

[Rosie]

Celebrity is a funny thing, isn't it?

My boyfriend gets all excited when I get an e-mail from Kelly Hogan or Paul Burch or one of the guys from the Old 97's, or the night I got to talk to Jeff on the phone a couple weeks ago. ("Oh my gosh! I can't believe I just said hi to Sue Miller!!!")

But what I've learned over the past few years is that we're all just people...yeah, some people may be more recognizable than others, but we're still all on the same level, pretty much. And those who really think they're higher than the rest of us probably aren't worth talking to anyway because of their egos.

The delightful irony of this is that before my epiphany of humanity and celebrity (which happened about a year ago, I believe,) I actually found it easier to talk to 'famous' people than to talk to my peers. Social anxiety disorder is a funny thing, isn't it?

[Leemore]

hi danny -

i am such a huge fan of jeff's and of wilco in general... as is my best friend sofia and she actually knows paul karoll, as he was her dad's best friend in college but anyway. she linked me to this entry, telling me that she was sure i'd appreciate it and i just wanted to... i guess thank you for writing it? i always get marble mouthed when it comes to articulating how i feel about jeff, wilco and his music... but the things that you described, about how much he gives of himself and the quietness he possesses when he's onstage... i won't lie to you, those very things are what had me crying the whole time in the front row when he played new york in november. it was just nice to hear it from someone who's close to him. so thank you. haha and you should tell him that i say hi. i'm pretty starstruck myself. ;o)

[Heather]

Danny, I think that fans who feel a deep connection to a celebrity are often just as eager for the opportunity to have their idol meet them as vice versa. "How could Jeff not realize that I really get him?" they might think, "I am sure that the moment he looks into my eyes he will see that I truly am his biggest fan. I am more worthy than the other 1198 people in this room tonight, and he will remember me forever." I have no such delusions -- I am much too shy to make an impression on anyone in person!

Sam's joke cracked me up. What a deep little kid!

[Heidi]

Yow, I'm feeling highly celebretorial (uhm?) myself, being as I'm the poster of the Acoustic Sweet Spot message, AND I'm one of the "travel from city to city" weirdos. Thank you for giving me a moment in the sun.

If you ever find yourself in DC, Danny, let me know and I'll take you to the Takoma Theater, which has the most freakish acoustics you could ever imagine. You have to hear it to believe it.

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

Hi Danny...GREAT Post as usual...Years and Years ago when the Music Centedr was newer and younger they had a Buffet dinner thingy upstairs ob the top of the Dorothy Chandler which was delicious and BG and I used to go AL the time before an Opening...And There in that place they had an'acoustic sweet spot'...which was very disconcerting...if you were sitting in a certain place, you could hear the people waaaay across the room talking in regular volume as if they were sitting right at your table...it took us a while to realize, if we could here them this way...they no doubt could hear us in the same way....Very Embarassing!!!
I agree with the quote about music, 150%!

[Shannon]

Danny, you drove me to it. Check out my blog. I'd have no problem talking to Catherine Keener, it's Jeff I'd have a problem with!

[shannon]

I heard that Jeff stopped the crowd in Portland too and asked them to quiet down. I tried to get tickets but it was sold out and it was even on my birthday :(

[justin kreutzmann]

Glad to hear Jeff's doing well.