Take This Joy Wherever You Go
When The Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie died in October 2017, my former editor Simon Vozick-Levinson memorialized him in The New York Times writing that as Americans, it’s hard to quantify just how massive a figure Downie was in his home country of Canada.
“The place of honor that Mr. Downie occupies in Canada’s national imagination has no parallel in the United States,” he wrote, and continued: “Imagine Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Michael Stipe combined into one sensitive, oblique poet-philosopher, and you’re getting close.”
Dylan and Springsteen. For as long as I’ve been paying attention, it’s been Dylan and Springsteen as America’s de facto musical poet laureates. That’s what rockist Boomer lore has handed down, anyway, though we have to leave some room for their new incarnations John Darnielle and Craig Finn, as the rules stipulate. Bob and Bruce have long been established as literary, narrative juggernauts whose impact on culture transcends their music. They’re characters. They’re vessels onto which we project our own notions of romantic Americana.
I like the music both make very much, and I’ve seen Springsteen once, in Buffalo, at the last show that beloved E Street saxophonist “Big Man” Clarence Clemons played before his death in 2011. And I have plenty of friends who’ve witnessed the bizarre onstage deconstructionism that’s been Dylan’s primary hallmark in the 2010s besides the occasional left-turn covers album. They’ll be two minutes into watching him play a particular song, they’ll report to me, and only then realize, oh, I guess this is “The Times They Are a-Changin’”? (Bruce, meanwhile, still boasts muscular, three-hour, full-album concert setlists, and has, intermittently since 2009.)
Maybe it’s an age thing, but Springsteen and Dylan are not to me what they are to so many Americans. And that’s fine! That’s kind of the whole deal of generation-appropriate fandom, in fact. But Michael Stipe? The third figure singled out in Simon’s comparative triptych? Yeah, now that’s a dude I adore.
I realize my comment about an “age thing” doesn’t make much sense given my Stipe adoration. But Michael Stipe! Now there’s the American experience I know and cherish. At the risk of making a sweeping statement prematurely, Michael Stipe is to me personally what Gord Downie was to the entirety of Canada.
This is why, last October, coincidentally just a few days before Downie passed on, I asked Michael Stipe if he would immortalize that connection by writing his initials on my left forearm. He obliged.
But let’s back up for a moment. Let’s rewind to sometime in late 2016, when I began carrying a Sharpie around in my winter coat pocket. I did this for two reasons: One, you really never know when a writing instrument is gonna come in handy, and Sharpies are bold and easy to write with and, frankly, they just feel good in the hand. But a much more specific reason was that I had decided, likely while riding the subway one day and listening to Lifes Rich Pageant for the hundred-ninety-second time, that if I ever saw Michael Stipe out in the wild here in New York, I would ask him to write his name on my arm. And then I would go get it tattooed.
This may seem rash, especially since I don’t have any tattoos. In fact, the only time I ever considered it was about three years ago. I contemplated something thoughtful and meaningful, like the Flying Hellfish logo from The Simpsons, before realizing my heart wasn’t in it. But if my arm read “Michael Stipe” in the man’s own script, now that would be meaningful. My thought process was pretty simple: He lives here in New York and is often found taking selfies at art installations and posting them to Instagram. So, I decided the best way to increase the odds of a “chance encounter” would be to turn on alerts for his page and wait until we were generally in the same area. Then, and only then, would I approach.
But what would I even say?
I’m a fan, yes. But I’m also a journalist and a professional, and if someday R.E.M. get back together (which they won’t), I need to be there on the front lines at Madison Square Garden for their three-week residency, reporting and synthesizing the scene — except for when they play “Fall On Me.” Those three minutes are mine.
So I’d have to say something evocative of my fandom but that also lets me preserve some dignity before devolving into hero worship. Clearly, I never mastered the right words. But it didn’t matter, because I kinda forgot about those alerts on my phone once I realized they never yielded a discernible location, probably because the dude doesn’t wanna be hounded at all turns by wild fans. And I get that! I wouldn’t want that, either, if I was in his position. As a result, I continued my R.E.M. fandom in the typical fashion of listening to Monster on an old warped cassette I found about five years ago, writing about the Murmur songs on my Medium page as if they weren’t 35 years old, and regularly texting my friend Nick, with whom I’d briefly played in an R.E.M. cover band in Rochester.
And then, one fateful night, Michael Stipe and I ended up in the same place at the same time. No Instagram alerts necessary.
In retrospect, I probably should’ve seen it coming, at least a little bit. A coworker got invited to an immersive new listening party for Automatic For The People’s 25th anniversary release, but she couldn’t go because she had out-of-town plans. She graciously forwarded the invite to me, and because that was the first R.E.M. album I ever loved, I, of course, accepted, and on the scheduled night, headed up to the Dolby Theater and Screening Room in midtown Manhattan. It was basically a very small movie theater where the screen is almost an afterthought — it’s the sound and the speakers that matter.
You’re in a three-dimensional box and sounds are flying at you depending on where you’re positioned. I remember, just before they started the brief retrospective film that preceded the album, I saw R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills come in and sit down somewhere in the center, and my face turned completely red thinking about how he’d be hearing his own harmony vocals on “Find the River” from a prime spot. And he did! A moment before the album kicked on, all the lights shut completely off, which was nice because no one could see my eyes welling up as the watery keyboards of “New Orleans Instrumental №1” filled the pockets of the room like pool balls after a thunderous shot.
It took nearly half the album for me to get used to hearing any kind of music that way, which was weird and a little unsettling. The experiment was downright Cubist: You heard the song all at once and yet, simultaneously, heard every individual piece as it fled from its prearranged position and fluttered to a new location around the room, like a butterfly. I can only hope at least one person in the room had enjoyed an edible earlier in the evening before they sat down for the show, although I don’t know… maybe “Ignoreland” would simply be too much in that condition?
I enjoyed it anyway. And when it was over and the lights came back up, I wiped the lingering moistness from my face, reapplied my glasses and decided I’d say hello to Mike Mills outside in the lobby area. It simply had to be done. But when I walked out, my plan changed completely, nearly automatically, at the sight of the figure standing in front of me, luminous in a short white jacket and holding a sparkling water carefully in one hand. It was Michael Stipe.
He was holding court at a cozy cocktail table, graciously saying hello and enduring the stream of well-wishers who came to him in packs of three or four. My phone had died, you see, so I just positioned myself nearby in a corner, watching and waiting for my chance, simultaneously fake texting on the useless brick in my hands. Rob Sheffield was there too, and it was a weird, almost fizzy feeling to be double star-struck at the same time — triple if you count Mike Mills, who’d gotten a drink at the other end of the long room.
I watched men in their 40s wearing blazers wait their turn, then approach Michael Stipe with posters, vinyl records, headshots, and various R.E.M. ephemera. And because he, too, is a professional, Michael Stipe smiled and signed them all, posing for photos and making pleasant conversation throughout. He wasn’t overly warm the way celebrities can be after years of training and pure routine, but he had kind eyes, and his beard was pretty in-check, far shorter than he’d kept it in his freewheeling Allen Ginsberg-and-septum-piercing days over the past few years.
After about 15 minutes up against the wall, pressing invisible buttons on a cold black screen, I decided to go for it. I approached Michael Stipe, the man who sang “Driver 8” and “Perfect Circle” and “These Days” and “You Are the Everything,” for fuck’s sake, and introduced myself. I thanked him. I said I got into music and music writing partly because of R.E.M., which is true, but what I didn’t say (and what’s more accurate) is that I’ve stayed in music writing because of R.E.M., too. They’re just good. They keep me reaching.
He politely listened to my spiel, nodding and giving audible confirmation at the appropriate points, and then — a lull. A dreaded lull! With Michael Stipe in front of me! If my phone had any battery life left, I would’ve asked for a selfie and gotten the hell out of there. But instead, realizing time was running out, I withdrew a ballpoint Bic pen from my backpack and said pretty much this exactly: “So, I always said that if I ever ran into you, I’d ask you to write your initials on my arm and then get it tattooed. And if you wouldn’t mind — and you can totally say no! — but if you’re not against it, would you do that?”
(I changed full name to initials because in that moment, it felt impossible enough to be standing there with him that I didn’t want to tempt fate with my greed. Same with swapping out a Sharpie for a pen.)
And Michael Stipe, without hesitation, looked directly into my eyes and replied, “Are you sure that’s what you really want to do?”
He wasn’t trying to get out of doing it or stall. It was a genuine question! Tattoos are a big commitment, clearly. But I said yes, and he clarified: “OK. My initials are weird though, because they’re J-M-S.” In my head, I’m like, hell yeah! My left forearm is about to become a living (John) Michael Stipe trivia document! But the pen didn’t work right away. He gave it a few quick scribbles on a cocktail napkin, then went in for the kill.
It only took about 10 seconds — he wanted to trace the letters carefully — but it obviously felt like an eternity. I could feel the hot eyes of everyone in the room staring, even though most people had fled with their autographed loot by this point. I think Rob Sheffield saw it though, and that made me extra stoked during those 10 seconds.
After, I looked down to discover a dainty J without a top on it, a misshapen M that looked more like a crude stick figure with ski poles, and a standard S. (Those are hard to mess up.) It was perfect.
To make sure Michael Stipe didn’t change his mind, lick his fingers and rub the ink off my arm because he wanted to preserve the mystery of his actual first name, I thanked him and then immediately booked it out of there. For a moment, I considered getting Mike Mills to do the same, but I couldn’t locate him. That’s just as well — how much good fortune could one man fall into in a single evening?
Now this is the part where I’d end the story by dramatically rolling up my sleeve to proudly show off my J-M-S left forearm tattoo. But folks, I didn’t go through with it. I did keep a Band-Aid on it for a few days, just so I could preserve it for as long as possible. And I even took a picture once my phone life restored itself, thinking maybe I’d bring it into a parlor one day and tell them to recreate it. But the truth is that I’m just not a tattoo guy. And I know that. If I’m not gonna get Michael Stipe’s handwritten, half dollar-sized initials on in an easily coverable spot on my forearm, I’m not gonna get anything. And that’s cool too.
On the top-tier R.E.M. song “These Days,” Michael Stipe urgently instructs the listener to “take this joy wherever you go,” as Mike Mills backs him up on harmony. There are a lot of ways to do that. A tattoo is one. Sometimes a good story will do the trick.
