Mistaken for Strangers Jonathan Ames Meets The National’s

By Kevin Friedman Illustration by

“Showered and blue-blazered, we left the apartment as we headed down the stairs,” says humor and pain to trace the tragic foibles of confused young men—often with a fondness narrator Louis Ives in Jonathan Ames’ novel, The Extra Man. for transsexuals, blazers and seersucker— searching for identity and struggling with issues “Showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters,” sings Matt Berninger of The of sexuality, desire and addiction. His characters often make the same mistakes more National in the song, “Mistaken for Strangers.” than twice, fully aware of the consequences, somehow unable to resist the temptations This is not a common phrase, so why is it appearing in both places? Perhaps it that go against their better judgments. But in the end, they’re always sorry, so sorry, for references a certain preparedness to take on the world, the night, the moment. Clean, fresh everything. and dressed for success, our respective protagonists are heading out for an evening without These subjects are no stranger to Berninger’s work. Well, who’s to say about limitations, looking good and feeling—at least for the moment—positive about themselves. transsexuals, but literature, excessive drink, sex and sorrow are topics known to fill Optimism may not be the most common sentiment in the collected works of either Ames or The National’s songbook. His characters’ struggles, like Ames’, are presented not in Berninger, but the hopeful enthusiasm is an important element just the same. condescension or judgment but under an emotionally sympathetic light. Any cynicism or Here is another shared line that encompasses a different but equally important venom shown is self-directed and delivered, as always, in Berninger’s deep, disconsolate sentiment: “That Tennessee Williams click arrived almost immediately. The click that says: baritone. The heavy-lidded anthems on The National’s new , , convey Everything is going to be alright,” writes Ames in Wake Up, Sir! oceans of emotion; initially, the songs come off as languorously understated, but like giant “I think I’m like Tennessee Williams, I wait for the click/I wait, but it doesn’t kick in,” swells of water, they have an almost unyielding power and weight. Berninger sings in “City Middle” from The National’s album Alligator. Despite having only met once, briefly, at a party, there is an affinity between Ames and Both are references to Tennessee Williams’ play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in which the Berninger. Blue-blazered musings and Tennessee Williams clicks only serve to accentuate husband, Brick, describes the sought-after oblivion of his drinking habit. This darker the respect that flows here in both directions. Once you start looking for clues and perspective, one that implies substance abuse and self-flagellation, is also consistent in connections, it can become confusing as to who is influencing whom—with their shared Ames’ and Berninger’s work. affection for the charms of blue-blooded culture, boxing, the city of and all its sex Ames, in his novels, story collections and HBO series [created by and alcohol—but taking up the case is to make a rewarding caper for a literary sleuth. What Ames and starring as a character named “Jonathan Ames”], combines follows just may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. A conversation with Jonathan Ames and Matt Berninger AMES: The thing that I like is that Matt sings and speaks to emotions. Another song I remember listening to over and over in summer of 2006 before I knew I had How were you first introduced to each other? a connection to you was “I’m So Sorry for Everything” [“Baby, We’ll Be Fine”]. I had hurt a girl and I listened to that song over and over again, crying, and I just BERNINGER: I was first introduced to Jonathan’s writing a long time ago and wanted her to know that I was so sorry for everything. So sometimes I feel a sort three or four years ago, I sent him a letter and a CD in the mail. I heard they were of emotional connection that I really love and there’s also poignancy to the music. making a movie of Wake Up, Sir! and I wanted to do the music, so I put together a There’s a lot of melancholy and depression but there’s always a pressing-on. It’s like compilation of songs I thought would be good for the movie. But it was two years confessing these things and trying to figure them out and move on. later till we actually met for the first time. Do you remember that, Jonathan? Can you discuss the influence of alcohol or intoxication on your creative AMES: Here’s what I remember: I was at a friend’s apartment and she gave me process and how much the need for subject matter influences your behavior? a CD of [The National’s] Alligator. I love music but I don’t listen to it enough, so I think I took the CD and didn’t play it for a while. But at some point I started playing BERNINGER: I’ll drink on average about a half bottle of wine a day. It’s one of the it and just loved it. My apartment is a deep, strange mess and I came across, in a things about life I love. I drink wine while I write and drink while we perform and pile of things, the CD with a letter that said, “Soundtrack to Wake Up, Sir! from Matt while I socialize… I write about it a lot just because it’s one of my favorite things. It’s Berninger from The National” and I said, “The National? This is the album I’ve been kind of a simple relationship. I have a lot of friends that have an allergy to it; it turns listening to! Have I met this person? How did they get this into my apartment?” And them into a sort of Jekyll and Hyde thing. I luckily don’t have that. I listened to that and I loved it. Then I happened to be walking along the street and some girl knew me and asked me if I wanted to come to her party and I went and Do you drink until you get the Tennessee Williams click? met Matt in person. This was probably two years ago. It’s been a long courtship. BERNINGER: There was a phase six or seven years ago when I was working a BERNINGER: This might be the longest conversation we’ve ever had. day job and I was depressed. I was self-medicating, definitely drinking to feel better because, when I wasn’t, I didn’t like the way I felt. That ship has really gone away. Matt, how did you come across Jonathan’s work? You quote him in several Performing live is difficult but I enjoy it, so I drink a little bit before we go onstage of your songs. and onstage to numb whatever type of self-consciousness I fear I have.

BERNINGER: A friend of mine gave me What’s Not to Love and I read that and AMES: My relationship with substances over the years has changed. I never make then I read the next collection, and then Wake Up, Sir! In the time we were writing art under the influence. I need intense focus and concentration to write. But in terms Alligator I was just deep into a Jonathan Ames phase. I write down little bits and of material, earlier in my life all the events sort of went into a juicer trying to make pieces of stuff, turns of phrase in books, and one of them was “showered and blue- stories. Certainly when I had columns in the late ’90s and early 2000s I was writing blazered” that I had stolen from Wake Up, Sir! It kept appearing in my scrapbook about myself a lot. I couldn’t tell the full story in the column so I had to make myself with underlines. That came into the song “Mistaken for Strangers.” something of a caricature. I’ve become more fictional in the stuff I write. I read once that Tennessee Williams said all his work is emotionally autobiographical. With the AMES: It was actually from The Extra Man. TV show I do [Bored to Death], all the characters—women and men—think and say things that I felt under totally different circumstances. I’ve become more fictional in BERNINGER: Oh, it was. I keep messing that up. What appealed to me was creating fictional scenarios, but what the characters say is emotionally true. the fearlessness of his writing, the cathartic exposure that he was doing. I didn’t exactly think it was all autobiographical. I assumed it was a way of talking BERNINGER: When I’m writing, I’m pouring out not details, but what’s personal, about things and exposing your own weaknesses and fears and insecurities and and the scenes and the moments and the interactions between people are very shining the light into the ugly-looking nooks and crannies of your own brain and personal but the details aren’t always autobiographical. I’m not a very good experiences. Jonathan does that a lot and makes you feel better about your own conversationalist at parties or public speaker or even talking with my wife. I have a life. It’s how he embraces people’s weaknesses with tenderness, that’s really what hard time saying the things I feel. For me the music is a place where I can say all the rung loud about his work. things I should’ve said in real life.

Matt Berninger JONATHAN AMES FILTER . 79 You’re both successful artists who combine elements you are; that cloud can just hang over you. There’s gotta be AMES: One always has fear of failure. My first novel of sadness and humor in your work. Can you discuss something to it that is healthy, so I think it will always be came out in 1989 and it was nine years before a second the relationship between the two involving your there. There’s a song on the new record called “Sorrow,” it’s novel. And a lot of those years were very dark because I personal experience? about someone’s relationship to their own sadness; in the didn’t know if I could follow up; not that the world was way that they are attached to it, they don’t want to lose it, really looking, but my little world was like, “Are you AMES: You said, “You’re both successful artists.” It’s it’s something they know about themselves and it’s a place working on a new book?” and it was very scary because I interesting because I just saw a friend of mine—someone of comfort. Our band has been described as miserable. I wasn’t really fit for the world in any way. Matt had a job, who I perceive as sort of a mentor, an older writer—I have understand why that is but I’ve also thought of our music as but the only job I ever had was driving a taxi and teaching; a TV show and a movie coming out and he said, “Are you being just as funny and happy and just as stupid and kooky I never really had a means to survive. I was in debt, living happy now?” I was so shocked by the question because I felt, as the average life is. below the poverty line for months of my adulthood into “Don’t you know me?” I’m not going to be happy because my early 40s. Once in a while I’d have a good year— I’m having success. I was almost hurt by the question, not AMES: After my first bookI [ Pass Like Night] came out, something might get optioned and I got to write a script that I put on a pedestal being unhappy, but it’s just so hard which was kind of dark, when I was 22 or 24, my mom said, once or twice, and one time I won a Guggenheim, but I to be alive even in an upper-middle-class way that I’m lucky “You should be more funny in your writing because you are was always just barely getting by. to exist in. so funny in person.” I took that to heart because I’m trying With the TV show now there’s a massive fear of failure to entertain or amuse and to give what I received from art, because so much money is being invested in me and I really Why is it so hard to be alive? which was to feel a little bit less alone in the world. I shift my don’t want to let everyone down. Now it’s not just me that ship towards comedy because I want to please people. could be hurt by failing. At the same time, you have to be AMES: Because the people you love are going to die and intrepid and if your heart’s in the right place and you are you are going to die and the world is completely mad and What anxieties have you both had relating to being doing this to give people some entertainment, that can help it’s hard to be known and it’s hard to know someone else accepted and succeeding as artists, and do they still and protect you. and it’s hard to not feel ashamed and it’s hard to not feel like remain? a sociopathic monster. Like when Matt sings, “I’m evil” [on BERNINGER: It can go away so fast—whether you’re in High Violet’s “Conversation 16”]. We’re tormented, not fully- BERNINGER: I never thought I’d be an artist, at least the business of writing books or Hollywood or the music formed creatures and in a way we are deeply flawed and we not a singer in a rock band. I never learned how to play industry. You are lucky to have people paying attention for a are trying to self-correct because there is a huge destructive guitar or piano so I lucked into it. When we first started little while and most people never get that. When things are impulse there, personally and as a whole species. making these records 10 or 11 years ago, I had a good job as starting to go well, you realize that you have to work really, Matt and I are able to indulge in depression. When a creative director at a successful company, which wasn’t really hard to put something out there. When you’ve gotten you’re starving, you really don’t have time to think about really an artistic job; it was more like plumbing. But it was to the place where people are waiting to hear what you other things. It’s a luxury to be depressed and the best thing a nice career and the band was sort of like a hobby and for are going to do, it’s such a rare thing that you gotta deliver to do is to laugh or to not take it too seriously. I’ve always a long time I didn’t worry about being accepted. But slowly, something great and that’s hard. It may not be great, but it is seen myself as a clown so I’m here to try to amuse middle- it became something I fell more and more in love with and the best we can do because I don’t want it to go away at all. class Americans. I started working harder and harder and the records got better because we were working harder. And then there was AMES: It’s fun to be on the phone with Matt, and I would like BERNINGER: Jonathan describes himself as a clown, but a desire to prove ourselves, and we were chasing something someday to do something together. Matt’s ability really appeals as far as speaking about sadness, and this idea of playing to to prove something to ourselves and to the world that we to me and I don’t listen to a lot of music but I’ve listened to The success, I would say to Jonathan that your sadness and fear were good. I think we realized early on that the only way National quite a lot and it’s given me a lot of pleasure. and depression are sort of hard-wired into all of us. It comes to do that is to try and make something that the five of us and goes and whether it’s chemical—whether we’re talking as a band loved; worrying about whether it was accepted BERNINGER: Next time we should try to get Tennessee about serotonin or just the way our brains work as human or whether people would respond to it is impossible to Williams on the phone and have all three of us talk. beings—it’s just sometimes the clouds roll in and don’t go forecast. You follow your own heart and make little songs away no matter how much you are loved or how comfortable you want to listen to over and over again. AMES: We’ll have to get a Ouija board though. F

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