By Bill Sommer
The blog is by its nature an extremely ego-driven endeavor. The things written in a blog are to be seen by others. And hopefully, whether the blogger admits it or not, the blog will be adored by its readers; or more exactly, the blogger will be adored by its readers. So as I proceed with this blog (let it be known that will be the last time the fucking word ‘blog’ — somehow made pretentious for this writer ((by this writer)) will be used). This writer admits that this writing is being done for both private and public reasons.
Though probably unremarkable to those accustomed to it, if such folks exist, writing on a laptop on the sidewalk in the East Village on a chilly spring night after seeing mediocre jazz and watching the brand new fresh out of the editing suite “trailer” for a friend’s reality TV series about himself is novel to me.
Allow me to explain. Today I had the opportunity to hang out with Ed Hale, lead singer and songwriter for a rock band I play in called Transcendence – though we are more a collective of many revolving around our shared love of certain musical styles and our excitement about what we create when we jam together. I am the drummer in aforementioned group. We have been together for six years. Though ever since his move to the Big Apple and my move to Atlanta, we don’t get to see each other as often as we used to. Pretty much only in the studio when we are tracking a new album that may or may never be “officially released” or when we tour, which as of late as been infrequent at best. Ed Hale is in his early 30′s. He recently returned from Biloxi, Mississippi, where he and a church group were helping to rebuild homes devastated by something known now as Hurricane Katrina – as if it were a living breathing entity. To the victims it certainly was I am sure.
Ed was a team leader because of “a basic knowledge of carpentry” acquired in his youth. This is strange. One doesn’t think of Ed Hale as a “team leader” on a christian mission trip to rebuild home. Nor does one consider him a person who “acquired basic carpentry skills in his youth.” In his ”unofficial” online blog The Transcendence Diaries, at last count over fifteen-hundred pages – of which he makes no apologies – he dedicates countless entries vehemently asserting “humanity’s need to free itself from an unhealthy addiction to the belief in Gods and Goddesses,” and yet he attends this church that he is a loyal member of religiously, forgive or admire the pun. In this, as in so many other examples, Ed Hale is a walking contradiction; except for the fact that it is entirely in line with his nature, so much so that one gets accustomed to it rather quickly. And therefore his contradictory nature can actually quite quickly seem normal – which is a frightening thought.
He smokes cigars. He is in his early thirties, sings in a rock band, dresses and looks like he sings in a rock band, but smokes cigars This makes no sense. Before concerts or recording sessions, he can be found in cigar lounges around Manhattan with the usual assortment of cigar chomping old men discussing of all things real estate and the stock market, subjects he is obsessed with; but he punctuates his impassioned discussions about these topics with equally passionate diatribes about his love for the newest Strokes or Rufus Wainwright albums coming out. A fact that certainly must confound the other patrons at these cigar lounges who are usually well past age fifty and spend most of their time talking about sports or something called “the markets.” This is very strange.
He is a guy who quotes Ron Burgundy from the Anchorman movie to the server at the restaurant at lunch and who will then turn around and want to talk to you dead-on seriously about the Gnostic Gospels or quantum physics or “super-string theory;” all in one breath. He will then end the discussion by casually mentioning that he believes Wedding Crashers is the best movie of the year. And you get a sneaking suspicion that he just might mean it. This is strange.
He fronts a rock band whose members live in three different cities, and who haven’t played a show together in over a year. Yet he funnels a significant amount of money into making records with this band. He flies from New York to Miami to record with them. He flies from New York to Atlanta to play one show with them simply because I currently reside here. He sees no problem with “taking some time off from touring with the band” so we can “record two or three or more albums.” He has no idea how or when these albums are going to be released. We are offered “record deals” (if you can call them that in this day and age) for each of the albums that we record and it takes Ed years to make up his mind about which deal to choose. This frustrates the other band members. But not Ed. Because by the time we have reached the point of negotiating a record deal for album A, Ed is already hyped up about album B, C, or D that he can’t wait for us to “record” and has forgotten entirely that we have still not released album A. It is strange. Besides the obvious fact that it is also maddeningly frustrating for the rest of the band who wouldn’t mind releasing any album any time in the foreseeable future -Â since after all we are a band. But Ed seems more interested in us recording than he does in anyone ever hearing what we recorded. Or perhaps he simply forgets and gets sidetracked with new inspiration. Either way, it is strange.
He is reasonably competent in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian. I do not know how a person accomplishes such a feat. Especially an American. I have seen him have entire conversations with servers at restaurants in Polish, though he claims not to speak Polish. I find myself wondering why he knows Polish — of all things. He claims he has conversations with God while in the bathtub and he is almost unfailingly kind, a trait not missed by those who are closest to him. And there are many of those. Because of this fact, he is called “the Ambassador” by his friends – an aspect of his life that has taken on such ironic authenticity – though it is in effect still a joke to him and others, that he was recently offered a chance to become a “Civilian Diplomat” and travel to the Axis of Evil world of Iran in order to negotiate peace with their government leaders. Ed Hale is actually seriously thinking of going to Iran and thinking that he will indeed be able to create more “peace.” Despite what most would consider obvious and numerous reasons to turn down such an offer. This might be mentioned or it might not be in between casual conversation with Ed revolving around various other topics that he might find more inspiring in that moment. He often refers to himself in the third person. Strangest of all perhaps, he has spent the past year and a half filming a reality show — mostly about himself, which is called “Transcendent Television.”
During our time together in New York, we stopped in a restaurant on 5th Avenue the other day for me to pee. After the beautiful French hostess informed me where the bathrooms were and I headed towards them, he casually told her, “I’m his gay lover by the way. I have to wait for him while he pees.” There is no discernable reason why he said this. It is strange.
He wears black jeans or black leather pants most days of the week. In fact, he is almost always dressed in black. Even in summer. It is strange. Ed Hale has built and sold three successful businesses “as a hobby” he says in the last ten years in between recording and releasing six moderately successful albums. He claims to be “flat broke” and yet he appears by all accounts to live like a millionaire. Unlike the rest of us who actually are flat broke, I have come to believe that Ed Hale doesn’t know what “flat broke” really means. It is strange.
He often switches topics in the middle of a sentence, unable to defer a new thought that has popped into his head. One often feels as though they are having ten conversations at once with him. From what we know he is not “on drugs.” This is actually how he is. And yes it is strange.
Now bear in mind two things: one — Ed Hale is not the strangest person I know. But he comes damn close. Perhaps because I consider him a friend it is the only reason that I do not classify him as the strangest person I know, because he certainly comes close. Number two: I only point these various and admittedly trivial characteristics of his out to prove a point in a grander scheme of things. That point to follow here now.
Ed Hale would be considered by almost anyone from anywhere a strange individual – “eclectic” or “quirky” or “eccentric” come to mind. So do “odd” “weird” and “out there.” These words usually have a negative, or at most, a guardedly positive connotation. Guarded because we are all afraid of people different from us. Probably necessary for some evolutionary purpose, our distaste of those who are different kind of sucks when it comes to loving our fellow humans. It is hard to love that which makes us uncomfortable.
Every characteristic or action of a person falls into one but no more than two of the following categories: good, bad, and meaningless. Each of these traits come alone or can be combined with the independent element of “weird.”
As a quick illustration:
Cheating on your spouse, beating your children, being a Cubs fan – bad.
Giving money to the poor, being diligent – good.
Preferring iceberg lettuce over romaine, using a PC instead of a Mac – meaningless.
Certain actions like the ones above fall neatly into one category. But others add “weird” as a qualifier. (Note: Things that are good or bad can’t be meaningless, and good and bad at the same time is also impossible (in real life—no “you must kill the president or the terrorists will kill your family” scenarios, thank you)).
For example:
Jogging while listening to the same Gloria Estefan song on repeat — weird-meaningless.
Giving a homeless guy some money and letting him use your shower — weird-good.
Killing kittens and throwing them out a window at schoolchildren (weird-bad).
Dipping donuts in iced coffee, sitting down in the shower — habitual activities by the aforementioned subject of this article, Ed Hale – weird-meaningless. But weird nonetheless.
It is late now and the streets of the east Village are getting quieter. I am reflecting back on my friend and fellow bandmate and the things I shared about him and about how one might react to them at first glance. My point in all this is to suggest that when we look at a person, let us try to redefine where some of the “weird” things go, and to see more and more of those things as “weird-good” instead of in the other two categories. See if we can forgive their strangeness. Embrace their strangeness. There is a certain “morality” to strangeness. We can attempt to see the beauty in imperfection. So I end with this: Treat the weird as good until proven otherwise.
In regards to whether or not our band will actually release the two new albums that we finished recording over a year ago, I would be remiss to not at least admit to sympathizing with fans and friends who want to hear them as badly as we do. All we CAN say is that we have two new albums coming out this year. But life itself is strange. We said those same exact words last year from what I remember. Stranger still, Ed is now in the recording studio recording two new solo albums, though why they are called “solo” albums since the same band members are playing on the album as on all previous Transcendence albums is beyond me. One being the 24 song long ”girls” album that is comprised entirely of songs with girls names in the titles. And another one that is “just noise and nothing but noise — no music or anything resembling music allowed.” Yes, this too is strange. But in its own special way, it is a good strange if one chooses to view it that way.
Bill Sommer
Originally published February 18th, 2007 here
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