today’s audio is an outtake from my 2006 standards album “sing you sinners”. a few episodes ago, the writer and podcaster sam dingman told me how the album version of the song had captivated him while he was driving his taxi around new york city.
in the studio, the outstanding band for that session, sam kassirer on keys, todd sickafoose on bass, allison miller on drums, experimented on several versions of the song as we figured out how we’d put our singular stamp on a song recorded many many times over the last 75+ years. we did a waltz version; we did a standard swing version; we did a calypso version, which is what ended up on the album. this version we called “game show”. something about the deep swing and swell of it reminded me of a 60’s TV show.
when we tracked the session, it was april 2006, and i was deep in the throes of my annual spring sinus infection. what awful, inopportune timing for a record i intended to track live. instead, a few weeks later when my airways had cleared, i re-recorded all the vocals.
usually, i try to pair the song in an episode with the essay topic, but really there’s no connection here. the topic of today’s essay is a tough one for me. i have never written a song about it or even tried. so i decided to just toss in a weird morsel from the vault and move on.
thus with no elegant segue, i’m just going to jump right in.
in the middle of august, carl was hit by a car.
for those of you not following closely, carl is my dog. my delightful and much loved 85lb sidekick, whom i have written about often on Fax Of Life.
we had just turned off a quiet road onto a trail we have walked hundreds of times. about 30 yards in, inexplicably, carl did a 180 and bolted for the road. at that moment, on that usually empty road, a car was passing quickly.
the sound of a car hitting an animal or a human is heart wrenching. i had never heard it before, but it sounded to me like a mix of a thwack and smack and phoonk. i heard carl yowl in surprise and pain.
the next seconds were some of the longest of my life. as i waited for the car to pass by, i didn’t know if i would find carl in a heap, dead and lifeless, squished and unrecognizable, or any of a million other horrific visions.
as the car immediately pulled over, i saw that carl was up and about, hopping on three legs, clearly in shock and bewildered. so was i.
everything was happening so quickly and so slowly at once. i was both devastated and insanely calm and rational. i was holding carl close to my legs, trying to see if he was visibly hurt. meantime, the driver of the car was understandably upset and at a loss of how to help.
i had a tough and independent childhood, much of which i figured out how to manage on my own, so i am very good in a crisis. scarily good, actually. one of many examples: a few years ago i was driving the 16 passenger Welcome To Nightvale tour van on a mountainous stretch of I-5 in southern oregon. i was in the left lane, about to pass a semi, when a pick-up truck came speeding up on my right and tried to pass me in the dwindling space between the semi and our van. it was a crazy-ass move, and it didn’t work. the pick-up clipped the front of our van hard, while we were all going 75 miles an hour. everyone in the van screamed, but i did not. i calmly straightened out the van, signaled into the right lane and pulled over. the truck that hit us did as well and we worked it out on the side of the road. everyone was shaken. i was “meh”.
so this is the part of me that kicked in when carl got smacked by the car. i began giving instructions. i asked the man that hit carl to drive us home, just around the corner. i deadlifted 85lb carl into my arms and into the front seat of the car, where he sat on my lap bewildered. when we got to my house, i barked instructions to get carl easily into the back of my van. with a few short words, i let the man know it wasn’t his fault, traded numbers, and sped off to get carl to the emergency vet.
it was still unclear how hurt, or not, he was. when we got to the vet, they did the thing you see on medical TV where someone announced a trauma arrival stat and a swarm of people came outside to bring carl in. they wanted him to try to walk in under his own power, so i watched helplessly as a crew of folks led carl into the building. he was swerving, and staggering, and clearly upset, but walk he did.
and then i didn’t see him or hear anything about his condition for an hour. this is par for the course for this vet, a notoriously slow, crowded facility in an area that has too many pets that need care. thankfully, the staff gave me a room to sit in, instead of the depressing waiting area.
but then. there i was. alone in a cold, bright exam room just waiting and waiting. i began to text friends. messages of support began to pour in. a friend called and asked if i wanted him to come sit with me.
of all the things i am good at: music, tennis, friendship, i am very bad at asking for and accepting help. even though i was crying on the phone with my friend, i was all, like - naw i don’t need anything. i needed plenty but couldn’t ask for it.
i felt embarrassed to be so upset. its more emotion than i usually show. i am someone who takes myself to the emergency room. who once walked 8 miles on blistered, bleeding feet rather than accept help from the support staff at a charity walk.
5 minutes later, my friend called again and said he was coming and bringing dinner. and then he was there, with some of his own dinner on a plate, with real cutlery and a napkin. it was the right thing to do. both of us were flying blind, but somehow we ended up in the right place.
still no word from the vet, but i felt calmer with the text support from friends and the company in the exam room. and then came a knock on the door and it was a set of my neighbors who stopped by to bring me dessert and water and a juice box. i let them give me these things. i didn’t tell them to go or that they shouldn’t have. progress!
after about an hour, the vet came in and gave me the good news that carl seemed fine in the first round of preliminary tests.
“he’s a very lucky boy,” she said.
my friends had to leave, but folks kept checking on me via text for the next several hours as we waited for xrays and scans. carl was indeed fine. he had some cuts from skidding across the road, but nothing major. he’d need to rest for a few days, but all in all a narrow and indeed lucky escape.
over the next few days, neighbors continued to stop by my house to leave us treats. the man who hit carl brought amazing flowers. and on brand with the town we live in, he turns out to be a professional actor of some renown. classic.
i had lots of facetimes with friends. they told me how much they loved carl and were so glad he was ok. they were so glad i was ok. many of them had the same story - when they got my text about carl being hurt, they stopped in their tracks, they started to cry, they pulled over their cars.
it means the world to me that carl means so much to other people. i know people love him because they love me, but i’ve made a point of having friends take him on their own for walks or playdates so they can get to know his energetic, loving, endlessly playful self.
my point is people want to love your people, and they want to love you, so let them. its new to me to be able to accept this care, concern, and love as easily as i have been in this incident. and if it has to come via carl for me to be more comfortable with it, then count that as one of the many gifts that he has given me.
hey yall - popping in with our usual news break. i feel bad that i complained about subscription numbers on the last pod. not only was it ungrateful, it didn’t result in more subscriptions. lesson learned. positivity only from now on!
my next tour is coming up soon. i’ll be joining my podcast pals Welcome To Nightvale for a tour across the american south. i still need merch help in charleston SC and jacksonville FL. its super low key, fun, and you get 2 great seats to the show as a thank you.
thank you so much for listening! please rate, review, subscribe on your platform of choice and tell a friend. i’m so grateful. and positive!! so positive! very very positive!
and now back to the episode…
in less than two weeks, carl turns two. by the most amazing miracle, we have the same birthday. can you believe that? the same day. it is because of this i know exactly where i was and what i was doing the day he was born, though i didn’t find out this amazing coincidence until he was about 8 weeks old.
on october 15, 2021, i was in a hotel in northern virginia on a day off from the KISS OFF KISS tour. this was exactly what i wanted. i was exhausted by the tour and the run-up to the record release. in the morning i taped an interview for the awesome basic folk pod, and afterward i was headed for some restorative down time that involved hours of watching football, a peanut-butter ice cream cake, and no one else.
the night before, my friends the band SPOUSE and i had played a show in philadelphia, once my biggest draw in the US, where i used to play to many hundreds of folks in beautiful large venues and fancy festivals. that night, we played to about 20 people in small side room of a terrible corporate venue. maybe it was the fact that the pandemic was still happening in the fall of 2021, despite our wishful thinking. maybe it was just the reality of where my career was at that moment, virus or not. but it was deeply disappointing.
i remember sitting in the green room before the gig, contemplating the awaiting drudgery of trying to generate excitement and energy to too few people in too big a room. in those moments, it doesn’t matter how much you love the music, or your compatriots, or how appreciative you are of the audience who has come, it’s just depressing.
i knew i needed something in my life that i cared about more than my career. i no longer wanted my mental health to depend on something so capricious and mysterious as the music industry. i knew i needed something in my life that i would have to plan around. an impediment to my decisions and whims. i did not want a partner or a child. too much responsibility, and frankly, too much talking. i like my silences.
on my phone was an application for a puppy. i had asked my landlady for permission to get a dog often over the previous 17 years. for various reasons, the answer was always no. but in the fall of 2021, faced with a hard tour and mediocre response to an album i really put my soul into, an album i felt was a return to form and what people were always asking me to make, i knew i had to take matters into my own hands.
i would get a dog no matter what. and if i had to move, then so be it.
the application was straightforward and basic, but i approached it like the SATs, considering each question carefully and thoughtfully. frankly, thinking about anything else than the barren venue was a relief. carl had already started to work his total perspective miracle before i even knew him.
the application asked me about my home - did i live with anyone? what was my daily schedule like? how often would the pup be alone? it was thrilling to think of my home life and how someone new could fit in. or i could fit to them. we would walk a lot. we would run a lot and have lots of dog friends. the pup wouldn’t be left alone for 40hrs a week, but also wouldn’t be velcro-ed to me 24/7. i would be responsible for the training. i would be responsible for setting boundaries. there would be no confusion, the dog would be mine.
i sent the application in and went off to play our depressing show. all i could think about was that i had taken the first step. the next day, i got an email that my application was accepted. i put down a deposit and called my landlady. to my shock we had an easy and positive conversation, resulting in her support for a new pup. the timing must have been just right for everyone.
no application or manual could have prepared me for the adventure of raising carl by myself. my first dog has tested my sleep schedule, my patience, my wallet, and more. and the sickness i felt waiting for that car to pull by, waiting to see if my dog was dead is a feeling i would not wish on my greatest enemy. the bleakness of sitting in the emergency vet, even though i was surrounded with food, and friends, and support, i will never forget. while i never want carl to be hurt like that again, i also know that the pain i felt was exactly what i wanted when i applied for him. real feeling and something to build my life around.
as i recall, the final question on carl’s application asked if i had anything else i wanted to add. i typed the most true thing i have ever written:
“i have a lot of love to give.”
thank goodness carl lets me give it to him. and we let our people give it to us.
x erin.
ps - carl is obviously totally fine
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
peaky blinders meets babylon berlin?? SIGN ME UP
oh man do i love kelly clarkson. here she is on the new yorker radio hour (!) talking with legend hanif abdurraqib about writing divorce songs
RIP to one of my childhood heroes. and to this magnificent, unique man. curt schilling remains an A1, first class tool
speaking of RIP, i think this will be the last ME GUSTA… substack tells me that < 4% of you open up these links and i *labor* over finding enough things (and saving their links) to fill this section. RIP ME GUSTA 👻
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Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
people want to love your people