Why I should be the next Foundry Cycles Ambassador...

I've been called many things in my life: Ben, Mo, Levine, Levone, Baldy, Slowpoke, Genius, Professor, F*&%head, Darling, and the list goes on. The one thing that people should be calling me is "Enthusiast". As in "Bicycle Enthusiast". In 2009 I purchased a used GT Palomar Mountain Bike (ca. 1998) and rejoined the cycling community. In regards to the dozen or so years I spent without a bike, let me just say, "What was I thinking?" My status as a "bicycle enthusiast" is the chief reason that I should be one of the next Foundry Cycles Brand Ambassadors.

In his book "Bike Snob" the blogger known as "BikeSnobNYC" says that a cyclist is someone who rides a bicycle even when they don't have to. Well, I'm squarely in that category. Wether I'm rushing through my work to squeeze out a couple of afternoon hours for a mountain bike ride in the hills around Oakland, California, or grabbing my bike off the bus trailer (I'm the touring bassist for country star Neal McCoy) and going for a 30+ mile roll around the Michigan countryside, I'm always looking for an excuse (and some time) to go and ride.

Occasionally, my enthusiasm for biking has disastrous results. This Superbowl Sunday, I took my wife on a short mountain bike ride. She had complained that she didn't feel comfortable on trails but I assured her that this was going to be a relatively flat, easy trail to ride. And it was. For about 75% of the ride. Then she hit her brakes while going over a rocky patch. This sent her over the handlebars and slammed her into the ground which promptly broke her shoulder. After a quick 5 hour trip to the emergency room my only selfish thought was, "Great. Now I have one less biking buddy." (6 weeks later now and my wife is almost all better - phew. But I'm still not asking her to go biking with me!)

Generally, however, my biking enthusiasm has excellent results - fitness increase, that calm feeling you get from being outdoors, satisfaction at climbing a hill that I couldn't before, and the fact that spandex is once again in my fashion repertoire.

But to be a true "biking enthusiast" you have to do more than just ride your bike. You need to spend hours and hours pouring over craigslist for the ultimate bike deal, staring at youtube videos of free ride mountain bikers defying physics, and drinking lots of Fat Tire Ale. You should also be a fearless advocate for biking in general - thus my wife's new mountain bike and subsequent broken shoulder. I do meet these criteria and feel strongly that I deserve the title of "biking enthusiast".

The real reason that I would make a fantastic Brand Ambassador for Foundry Cycles is that because of my job as a touring musician, I get to ride my bike all over the country and meet tons of new people everyday. Check out nealmccoy.com for our tour schedule and you will see that we have stops this summer from Oregon to Mississippi. Just give me the chance to go riding on a Foundry cycle and I'll turn more than a few heads.

And if all that isn't enough, check out the video productions that you be getting from me once I get a new Foundry bike!

One Small Claims Success at a Time...

Last Tuesday was going to be my day in court. I had waited more than three months, but had still not been paid for the time and work I put in producing "Permanent Detour". The girl who had hired me was missing. She wouldn't return calls, or texts, or emails, or Facebook messages, and I was feeling royally screwed.

I left for Europe and when I returned to Nashville, there was a FedEx letter waiting for me. It had come from Los Angeles. Some producer for the Judge Joe Brown show had seen my court filing and evidently they thought that this case would make for some great, trashy, television. I called the number and left a message with the producers telling them that I would be happy to make my case in front of Judge Joe Brown and the American people. (I also relished the idea of a free trip to LA to see my friends and the sunshine.)

Monday morning, the day before the court date. As I stepped out of my morning shower, I was running over the details of the case in my mind. Trying to piece together the chronology of when I was first approached about producing, how we designed the budget, what was said, what was emailed, etc. As I toweled off, I noticed that I had a missed call and voicemail on my cellphone. After pulling on some jeans and a t-shirt, I dialed my voicemail and hear a long lost voice. The girl who I was suing had, in the 11th hour, decided to call me.

"Hi Ben. It's me. Listen, I'm really sorry... about everything. I have a check for you and you can come pick it up. That's *sob* all that I *sob sob* wanted to *sob* say. So... if you call me *sob* back, you can come by and get your *sob* check."

I called her back, informed her that she now owed me not only for the production fee, but also for my court filing costs. Provided that she agreed to pay me that I would be happy to collect my money and drop the case. Two hours later, I picked up my check, went straight to the bank to deposit it and then went to the courthouse and dropped the charges.

So I got what I wanted, more or less. It would have been much better to have had all this handled without losing a friend, without having to witness the incredible flaky-ness that this girl exhibited, and without having had to wait for 3 plus months to get it all handled. So next time I produce something, even if it's for a friend, even if it's for a family member, there's gonna be a contract that gets signed and the customer won't get a copy of any of the music until I get paid.

Lesson learned.

Switzerland Video...

...is up at

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=645943922

Check it out!

Following the rules.

Ahhh, the joys of being a world-traveling musician. The weeks of telling our friends that ourn ext ‘big’ gig involves a passport and a flight across an ocean, the actual experience of foreign cultures, food, and languages, the shows in front of legions of adoring fans who are thrilled to be seeing actual AMERICAN musicians. And after the gig si done, taking to the streets with the other guys in the band, going from restaurant to bar to club like a dangerously cool human wolf pack, people staring and pointing and wishing that they too could be as free and as bad ass as we are.

But every coin has two sides. Feeling about as sharp as a pile of bricks because jet-lag always gets the upper hand, schlepping and schlepping, to and fro, back and forth, hotel to gig and back, having to play an extra set that you just didn’t have quite enough material for because even though the contract only called for three sets, the promoter (who until this moment had been the most up-tight, officious, rule-following, bureaucratic person ever) told you that he needed you to be ‘flexible’. Finally, and most annoyingly, being charged a baggage overage fee to bring your instrument on the plane.

The entirety of the scenarios outlined above has been my life for the past three days, and as I sit in the Zurich airport waiting to board my plane to Amsterdam (where I am thrilled to be spending some time with a dear friend and his family), I feel compelled to rant about the overage fee that I narrowly avoided.

To properly understand the miracle that I was just made a party to, you first have to understand one thing about Swiss culture: more than anything else, the Swiss people are driven by rules. This means that their watches are the most precise I the world, that their trains run on time, and that you will buy a tram ticket to go downtown, even if there is no one to check it. This nearly-manical adherence to rulesalso means that you won’t get a breat. Our driver, Ernie- poor guy – lived in a mild state of terror, because as he put it, “My boss will kill me if I’m a minute late.” So, here in Switzerland, there is a way things are and that’s it. It’s simply not possible to change things once the rules have been set.

The band I was with in Zurich all flew back to Nashville today on a flight that left about five hours before my flight to Amsterdam. So, this morning, I remained at the hotel for an extra couple hours of sleep, then I got up and took the extremely efficient public transportation system to the airport with my suitcase, my backpack, and my electric bass. I’ve flown extensively with my bass and in the years that I’ve been traveling with it have only been forced to check it one time. (Delta airlines forced me to gate-check it like a baby stroller, and it was returned to me unscathed when we landed. But, I still won’t fly on Delta.)

When I arrived at the airport, everything went smoothly until the girl at the check-in counter saw my bass. She immediately became flustered and got very tight lipped and asked me to place all my luggage (including my backpack and bass) on the scale. When she read the weight, she asked me to come with her to the end of the counter where we needed to talk to the manager. The manager (actually there were two of them, ostensibly to make double-sure that all the rules were followed) informed me that I was overweight. I let that comment go and assumed that as a non-native English speaker what she meant to say was that my luggage was overweight. She also informed me that I had to pay some overage fees and that I would have to check my instrument. I managed to make an argument based on the fact that as a professional musician I had rules too and that my rules were to never check my instrument, she agreed to give me a gate-check ticket for the bass. But she still wanted to charge me an overage of 9 kilograms. I was fully prepared to part with an additional $25 or even maybe $50 for the right to carry my bass with me and that’s when she said that my overage fee would be 180 Swiss Francs (or approximately $200)! I told her that this was more than my plane ticket had cost (true) and that I had never had to pay such a fee (true) and furthermore that in all my years of travel I had never had to check my bass (almost true - except for that Delta thing). “Well,” she said, “we allow you 20 Kilos of luggage and 8 Kilos of carryon and you are 10 Kilos over that, but I’m only charging you for 9 extra Kilos.” “Yes, yes.” said the second manager. Shocked, and more than a little furious, I attempted to reason with her. But as I’ve mentioned, here in Switzerland rules are rules and she sent me further down the counter to the cashier.

When I got my turn with the cashier, she asked me how I was doing and I told her that I was not doing well. I went on to explain my luggage situation and that I was being charged more than the cost of my plane ticket to bring my bass with me. She told me something about how plane ticket prices are dropping and that the airlines are doing what they can to stay aloft. I told her that I didn’t care, I felt screwed, and could I please have the address where I could send a complaint letter, which she promptly produced for me.

This is where the miracle started to happen. With a deep breath, and a long look at my face, the cashier told me that she could try one thing, that it usually didn’t work, but that she understood my pain and would try to help me out. I followed her back to the managers and stood there, with as polite of a facial expression as I could muster while she rattled on to the managers in Swiss-German. Perhaps it was an alignment of the planets, perhaps the managers had just received some good news, or perhaps my polite facial expression had the desired effect. Whatever it was, the cashier managed to convince the managers to give me an upgrade to a business class ticket which comes with an extra 10 kilos of luggage allowance. They promptly printed my boarding pass and sent me on my way.

“Thank you so much.” I said.

“You’re welcome,” said the cashier and manager number one.

“Yes, yes,” said manager number two.

And off I walked to find a place to sit and write the words you have just read.

Switzerland, where the hills are alive...

Today/Yesterday I traveled to Europe for the first time in years. The plane trip was comfortable enough, but a red-eye is a red-eye and even though I got a 4 hour nap I'm still just a bit out of it.

Probably the most incredible thing about the trip to me was getting served a hot meal on the airplane. Back in the day, on a simple cross country flight the airlines had *menus* from which you got to choose your meal. Once or twice I even found the airline food to be palatable. That was not the case on today/yesterday's United flight from Washington, DC to Zurich. When asked if I wanted 'chicken' or 'pasta', I innocently replied 'chicken'. Which is technically what they served me. In actuality it was about one mouthful of overcooked chicken pieces swimming in a sweet-curryish sauce, surrounded by yellow rice that had amazingly attained the consistency of Play-Dough.

Since 9/11 we've borne witness to some dramatic cutbacks in air travel: luggage fees, paying for pretzels, no movies, fewer flight attendants. I've done my share of complaining about these 'austerity measures'. But on my flight today I realized that one thing I simply don't miss on flights is that uniquely awful cuisine that can only be properly prepared above 30,000 feet. Next time I'm bringing a power bar and an apple.

Audition results are in...

For the past several weeks, I've been sleeping the fitful sleep of someone who doesn't know their own future. Of course none of us actually knows what the future will hold for us, but I was dealing with the specific question of 'Did I get the Billy Currington gig?'. Well, yesterday, two weeks after auditioning I finally got the call. I'm happy to report that Billy Currington does have a new bass player, but I'm sad to report that it's not me. The band leader called me with the news that I had been in the top 2, but that Billy had, for whatever reason, decided to go with the other guy.

It would be easy in this situation to hyper-analyze every little thing that I did during the audition, what I wore, how much I smiled, what jokes I told, what I ate for breakfast that day, how much coffee I drank before the audition (3 cups minimum), etc. etc. But every audition is different and every job is different and if you spend all your time thinking about what you could have done differently you'll never find yourself. What I do know is that I did a great job in the audition and that whatever the factor was that caused Billy to pick the other guy it certainly wasn't my playing or my singing. The next time I'm lucky enough to get another high-profile audition I'm not going to change a drop. I'm gonna do just what I did for this audition, learn the tunes, show up on time, tune my bass, and rock their faces off. Eventually, that's bound to land me a gig!

For now, I can finally get some long overdue sleep!

This one's kind of long and preachy. Apologies in advance...

Driving home from a night out with friends tonight, I thought for a moment about how much time we spend surrounded by machines. Never mind the fact that so many of us spend so much of our time in our cars, driving on roads surrounded by thousands of other cars, trucks, motorcycles, hybrids, dualies, 18 wheelers, smart cars, gas guzzlers, convertibles, sports cars, luxury cars, sport utility vehicles, sport luxury sedans, coupes, Beemers, Caddys, recalled Toyota Highlanders, junkers, low-riders, vans, Fords with owners who hate the dudes who drive Chevys for no reason other than that they drive a Chevy, even rare breeds like Bentleys, Maseratis, Maybachs, and the once common but now endangered species known as the Yugo. Don’t even think about all that time and all those machines.

Think about the thing in your pocket. No, not the button that automatically unlocks your car door, or trunk, or if you press the ‘panic’ function flashes the lights and honks the horn so you can find your car in the shopping mall parking lot evidently saving you from ‘panic’. That button counts too, but I’m talking about your cellphone. I don’t know about you, but the only time that I’m away from my phone for more than 10 minutes in a row is when I’m at the gym, using some other machines to make my heart and body stronger, and if I had the right kind of arm band, I’d take my phone with me there too.

Or what about the thing that I’m writing this little rant on? The computer. They are everywhere. Not just for work, not just for play, not just for home videos, and emails. They define our very existence. My computerized calendar tells me what to do and when to do it, my email tells me how much money is in my bank account and when my next bill is due, my recording software lets me give voice to the music in my mind, this word processing program gives voice to the fleeting and murky thoughts that flash through my grey matter.

Look, I know I’m not saying anything new here, but I want to remind anyone who reads these few words that there was a time, not so long ago, when there were no machines. When computers didn’t exist and the only voices heard by humankind were voices that were actually coming from other humans who were within earshot. I’m sure that there were some mouthy fools back then who got pretty annoying with their constant yammering, but still, I often wonder what it must’ve been like with no radios, no TVs, no loudspeakers, not to mention no cars, no airplanes, no cellphones and no computers. The sad thing, sort of, is that we will never be back in that time and that every passing second causes that life to fade one shade closer to white.

I have spent years and years driving around this country. Whenever I passed through the great plain states, I thought about the Native people who were here before us whiteys came over and unleashed small pox, gunpowder, lead, and alcohol on them. What was that life like? The most complicated machine they had was a bow and arrow. They had no need for psychiatrists, no need for youtube, or on-line pizza delivery ordering, no need for cellphones, or automatic shoe polishers. They did just fine without genetically modified corn and soybeans. They didn’t even have cancer. I mean, people got tumors and stuff, I’m sure, but it wasn’t something to end your life over with chemotherapy and radiation. You kept on going as long as you could and then you didn’t. Their simple, earthy existence kept them grounded, connected both to the land the lived on and lived off of, and to the people who shared that life with them. Consider for a moment the difference between connecting with someone via text message (omg, lol, cu l8r) and connecting with someone by sharing the spoils of the day’s hunt with them (take this meat and sustain yourself for tomorrow’s hunt, brother). In my mind at least, there is no comparison between the two. One is an abbreviated semi-speak translated through a machine, and one is genuine, necessary, and full of life.

There’s a lot of talk about being ‘connected’ these days. We have Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn,Twitter, Texting, instant messaging, chatrooms, Skype, and countless other connectivity tools. But just how connected are we? Many of us, myself included, live hundreds or even thousands of miles away from our families, the towns we grew up in, the people we grew up with. Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook for it’s pictures and the snippets of life that it offers and the fact that it does offer some contact with the people in my life. I just have a hard time calling this type of interaction ‘being connected’. Back in the day, if you wanted to talk to someone, you walked over to their teepee, or met them in the sweat lodge, or went to their house and connected with the actual person, not some disembodied, dithered-down, digitally sampled voice, or collection of profile photos with comments attached.

We can’t go back to this simpler time. We can’t destroy society and devolve into hunter-gatherers again. Our time is now and it’s here to stay. What we can do is to try to see the people that we do encounter throughout our lives as they are. Give them the gift of your attention. See them with your own eyes, and then imagine their eyes seeing you. Take every moment spent with an actual person and rejoice in it. Share yourself with the people around you, be a friend to your friends, be a lover to your lover, be a fighter to your rivals, be a sister to your sisters, and a brother to your brothers. Then, when you get in your four-wheeled machine to drive with the rest of ‘em, you will know that inside your car, with the radio on and the cellphone glued to your ear your humanity is a little bit more intact.