They show up one at a time. Like the members of a gang in The Warriors or something. First, you see (well, hear) one, then the next, and then the camera pans over and there they are. And that’s when you realize: Oh shit, we’re in trouble. Slowly though, you realize it’s good trouble.

:00 Off in the distance, Tom Verlaine plucks just two strings. You have to imagine the rest of the B minor chord. Then, keeping the same rhythm, he adds on a finger, turning it into a (hint of) D5.

:08 Enter the counterpoint of Richard Lloyd’s guitar, a hammered-on, rapid-fire, double-stopped melody that zags where Verlaine zigs. It’s louder and with much less reverb. You can hear his fingertips evaporating and returning to the strings.

:15 Fred Smith enters with a simple bass line. But wait a minute, what you thought was the 1 is actually the 2. The accent is actually the downbeat. Things are not what they seem.

:21 Billy Ficca arrives with a rumbling drum fill a la Keith Moon if he was on Adderall instead of horse tranquilizers. It’s one of those great fills for a drum sound check since each snare/tom is introduced in order.

:25 It all snaps into place like a jigsaw puzzle. The hi-hat cooks, the guitars chug like the subway, and the bass/kick melt into each other. When they talk about the pocket, this is what they mean. You’re so deep in it, you can feel the lint and loose change.

:30 Jesus, what a great set-the-table intro. Even if it was just this first half-minute, it’d be glorious. But no, there’s so much more to come.

:31 “I remember how the darkness doubled / I recall, lightning struck itself,” sings/screams Verlaine, stretching the “mem” in remember like Dylan on a bender. He’s wild yet in control, like a preppy schoolboy playing hooky who can’t keep his shirt tucked in. It’s punk yet somehow he seems so classy, almost like that mid-Atlantic accent that Cary Grant used to pull off during movies. It’s from neither here nor there, yet somehow it sounds like he’s from everywhere.

:39 “I was listening, listening to the rain / I was hearing, hearing something else” This is not your normal punk. Dude’s out here spitting poetry that feels like it’s coming from a film noir detective on acid. No wonder he changed his name from Miller to Verlaine.

1:05 We get our first change. We are released from the lockjaw and it’s a relief as we enter into a flowing river of cymbals, chord changes, and a dancing guitar melody that takes over for the vocals.

1:21 Then they all attack at once, finally on the same page. The toms are beaten like the Velvets. The bass and rhythm guitar unite as piercing high notes come from the other amp. “Life in the hive puckered up my night / The kiss of death, the embrace of life / There I stand 'neath the marquee moon.” It keeps rising and rising until it falls off a cliff into a jazzy chord that rings out into silence. And in the quiet, he pleads: “Just waiting.“ That’s it, that’s how the chorus resolves, into a sea of waiting.

1:37 And voila, we’re back where we started. But now we know what’s up. The hi-hat keeps winking at you, as if to say, “Stick with me, listener. We’re going somewhere.” And those fingertips. You keep hearing fingertips. It’s like the strings are in your brain.

1:52 Now he paints a movie scene, complete with dialogue. “I spoke to a man down at the tracks / And I asked him how he don't go mad.” How the hell do you stay sane in a world like this? “He said, ‘Look here junior, don't you be so happy / And for Heaven's sake, don't you be so sad.’” You’re not as good as your highs or as bad as your lows. Lesson learned: Sometimes you meet the Buddha down by the tracks.

2:26 The change returns. Listen to the drum fills. Rock ‘n roll isn’t supposed to be all of this. It’s not supposed to be punk and rhythmic and literary and meticulous and symphonic and catchy and elongated all at the same time. I always thought you had to choose. And yet here is Television, showing, not telling, that yes, you can have it all if you want it bad enough.

2:56 We do the chorus (or whatever that is) all over again except this time the final lyric changes from “just waiting” to “hesitating.” We are on the verge, always on the verge. Tension that just lingers.

2:59 Virtuosic guitar licks spill all over until…

3:15 We’re back in that damn pocket. “Well a Cadillac, it pulled out of the graveyard /
Pulled up to me, oh they said, ‘Get in’ / Then the Cadillac, it puttered back into the graveyard / Me, I got out again.” It’s so cinematic. I picture Scorcese directing a very special episode of Happy Days involving cartoonish mobsters, tombstones, and some haunted medallion.

4:22 This time: “I ain’t waiting, uh huh.” He went from waiting to hesitating to refusing to wait. Uh huh! He’s growing up and becoming a man right in front of our eyes.

4:27 It all goes back to naked. We’re reborn and the groove slowly returns.

4:51 We go from Verlaine’s voice to his fingers as he begins the greatest solo in rock history. Does it begin with a flashy lick or pyrotechnics? Nah, it just sidles up to you like a lounge lizard taking the stool next to you at the bar. “What a day. Pour me a bourbon on the rocks,” it seems to say. It’s merely the same note plucked many times in a row and then he takes a breath. And then he does the exact same thing again. This is how a child plays guitar.

5:08 And then he goes up an octave and brings in a simple melody. Strangled yet pretty. Nothing fancy, but something you can hum along to.

5:23 Back to the low end of the neck. He begins searching, playing notes from a scale (mixolydian?), eeking out a melody while the drums start pushing and prodding him along, sticks dancing along the hi-hat like spider legs. Verlaine keeps repeating variations on a theme. Each riff sounds like the one before it, but like it’s advanced just a little bit further than last time. It’s like the soundtrack to a baby bird emerging from its shell.

5:36 The drums start flexing, indicating they are part of the solo. The guitar and the fills dance with each other. Is this how jazz cats do it? They listen and play simultaneously, speaking to each other subtly, the way a married couple can communicate exclusively through raised eyebrows.

5:47 Encouraged, Verlaine keeps climbing higher. We veer into typical solo wankery yet never quite cross over that threshold. It all feels improvised yet it must be scripted.

6:03 The bass and rhythm guitar are holding it all down. Now, Verlaine is repeating the same lick but ending it in a different place each time. Waiting, hesitating, refusing to wait. It’s as if he’s strangling his own guitar and nourishing it at the same time.

6:31 Together, they build in intensity. Slowly, like a frog getting boiled. There is no knob for this. You can’t do this on a drum machine or with synthesizers. These are men in a room pushing air around, breathing it in together, and operating as a living unit. Metal is clanging, plastic is plucking, and amp cones are vibrating. This is life before digital.

6:51 Ficca starts banging away at the bell of the ride cymbal. Instead of splashing, it pierces. Lloyd is full on power chording now while Verlaine is repeating a pattern forming a hypnotic groove. It’s almost R&B in a way, like Booker T. meets Jerry Garcia or something. The guitar keeps climbing higher and higher, pleading for release. It all feels tantric.

7:21 And then he gives you this strange double-stringed riff that keeps sliding up the neck. It’s rhythmic yet also melodic. It keeps repeating yet varies, the context keeps shifting. How is he constantly climbing? It’s like he’s on a mission to use every single fret. If the guitar neck was a buffalo, he’d be the Chief who shows you how to use it all.

7:51 The riddle has been solved. The equation has been completed. The guitar is no longer hesitating. It knows exactly where it wants to be – as does the rest of the band. There’s no turning back now. Verlaine is playing both chords and a melody at the same, a la Hendrix. This is the final climb, we near the peak.

8:14 Cut the BS. This is a machine. All forces go. We are all on the same page. Lock it in. Mail the check. Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. With the others locked in formation, Ficca is a glorious mess, a tiger released from his cage. Higher. I legitimately don’t understand: How are they all constantly going higher? Smith hangs on a single bass note, building the tension. We are all on edge and then…

8:42 Release. The wad is shot. We have been left in the dust to clean up the mess. And yet, are we really done? The bass starts playing a melody. And there are weird guitar scrapes that sound like a flock of squawking birds circling a crime scene.

9:10 A (final?) chord chimes and fades. Surely, we’re done now, right? And yet, the ride cymbal is alive. A few stray hits are keeping the time going. Is it– no it couldn’t be. Wait, it is. That’s a 1-2-3-4.

9:19 And the drums kick in again. 9 (!) minutes in and we’re doing more!? We’ve returned to the beginning of our journey except this time the instruments all enter backwards. First, it’s the drums. Then, the bass. And finally, the guitars.

9:38 The vocals return, repeating the first verse. “I remember how the darkness doubled / I recall, lightning struck itself / I was listening, listening to the rain / I was hearing, hearing something else.” It’s the same, yet now it feels so different, like we all listened to the rain and heard something else.

10:11 The final change. Ficca is just sprawling on drums now. They’re all spent. They’ve done what they can do.

10:28 The final chord rings out. Fade to black.

RIP Tom Verlaine. Thank you for your kiss of death and embrace of life.

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Quickies

🎯 Social media is just the Burn Book from Mean Girls gone digital.

🎯 Can't believe they ever expected us to wash our hands for 30 (!) seconds. Um, I'm not going to spend more time washing my hands than I do having sex.

🎯 It's never too late to find your beginner's mind.

🎯 "Elect me to Congress. Why? I hate Congress and I'll block any legislation." It's CRAZY this works. Imagine: "Hire me as your babysitter. Why? I hate children and can't wait to choke 'em."

🎯 You know what I really love? Those hooks to hang your coat they have under bars. Such a perfect design solution.

🎯 The tech world: “Can you build us rockets that go to Mars?” “Can do!” “Cool! Also, can you help figure out how to create affordable housing in SF?” “Um, sorry...moving to Texas.”

🎯 There’s too much emphasis on productivity and not enough on "What the hell are we producing and why?"

🎯 Dating should work like Instagram DMs: "Look, am I your PRIMARY partner, are we just dating in GENERAL, or am I only in your REQUESTS tab?"

🎯 Politicians should have to try to get rich. And rich dudes should have to try to get people's votes.

🎯 "ChatGPT Is the future!" "Cool, here's a bunch of stuff it wrote. Do you want to read it?" "Oh god no."

🎯 And then Jesus said, "Let he who is without followers cast the first angry tweet."

Podcast

On the latest episode of Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby: My journey from hardcore atheist to torah-studying Jew and how my career in comedy helped get me there.

Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby Stereoactive Media Podcast

Comedy

😈 I post clips of my standup at Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

😈 Lately on my other newsletter, “Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian”…

😈 Great feedback on my special. Just went over 10K views. Give it a watch.

😈 Upcoming shows:
1/31 Comedy Cellar (Hot Soup) | Weekly on Tuesdays (tickets)
2/1 NY Comedy Club 4th St (Good Eggs) | Weekly on Wednesdays (tickets)
2/2 Worcester, MA on 2/2 (tickets)
2/24 Arlington, VA (tickets)
2/26 Frederick, MD (tickets)

Hire me to perform at your city, conference, or random other event: mattruby@hey.com.

Spotted

🗯 Colin Quinn on how small talk requires effort.

Quinn makes wry observations from an enthusiast’s perspective and offers tips, of a sort (“Well, folks, whoop! Wednesday night. That’s how you small talk—you just state facts. Wednesday night. Middle of the week, aaggh. New York City”); philosophizes (“We’re not robots yet, but we’re halfway there. Between phones, AirPods, and self-checkout, small talk is down eighty-seven per cent”); and encourages widespread education. Before preschool, teach your kid, “ ‘Wait—before you go in there. It’s not your family in there. This is the big leagues. This is society. . . . Walk in with a little something.’ ” One of the show’s points, obvious but necessary, is that the social world requires effort—dressing up, pretending to be in a good mood, laughing at co-workers’ jokes—and most likely involves rising above one’s authentic self, “mildly depressed and emotionally withholding,” in sweatpants.

🗯 Misunderstanding Musk and Midas.

Luke Simon, a senior engineering director at Twitter, was ecstatic. “Elon Musk is a brilliant engineer and scientist, and he has a track record of having a Midas touch, when it comes to growing the companies he’s helped lead,” he wrote in Slack.

On Slack, a product manager responded to Simon’s enthusiasm for Musk with skepticism: “I take your point, but as a childhood Greek mythology nerd, I feel it is important to point out that story behind the idea of the Midas touch is not a positive one. It’s a cautionary tale about what is lost when you only focus on wealth.”

Up ahead for paying subscribers: Elizabeth Gilbert tells a story about Tom Waits talking about Leonard Cohen, Daniel Kahneman on hindsight, David Duchovny, creatives, male desire, Venmo, and more...