Genghis Blues, the Gobi Desert, and the sound I missed

This morning I put on the Genghis Blues soundtrack as I cooled down after my run on the treadmill and leaned into stretching. Two notes came out of one human throat at once, a low drone and a thin whistle floating above it, Tuvan throat singing. Then Paul Pena’s voice came in, bluesy and warm, with a touch of jazz, and I was gone. Not on the Upper West Side anymore but back in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia.

Like a whoosh of time travel. Music can do that.

The documentary Genghis Blues tells the story of Paul Pena, a blind blues musician from San Francisco who heard Tuvan throat singing on shortwave radio and taught himself to sing it. He listened, and kept listening, until the sound lived inside of him. Then he traveled to Tuva, the small republic tucked against Mongolia’s northern border, sang it back to the people whose music it was, and found himself fully embraced.

A man who could not see found his way across the world by ear.

I went to Mongolia in June 2024 for my fourth 4 Deserts ultramarathon with Racing the Planet. 155 miles, seven days, self supported with everything on my back I would need (food, water, clothes, sleeping bag and so on). Twenty four pounds, the lightest pack I had ever carried. I thought light meant ready.

The Gobi had other ideas. On Day 1, a mountain stood in front of me, and I renamed it on the spot. I will save the name for the book. (Ahem, expletive, it is not printable.) On Day 2, my engine conked out. No twisted ankle, no heroic injury, just my whole machine quietly deciding to stop cooperating.

So I stopped. DNF. Three letters I had spent years outrunning. “Did Not Finish.”

What I did not expect was the calm.

I spent the rest of the week behind the curtain, as I normally do in my real life as a classical concert producer in NYC. But this time in the desert I was volunteering and watching the race from the other side. I joined the most amazing people, the ones who refused to give up and solved problems that should have sunk the whole operation. At the end, the organizers handed me back the final 10K to sum up the week on a high and I ran it all the way to the finish line, with the drums welcoming me in with celebration.

Days later, before returning to NYC, alone in a tattoo shop in Ulaanbaatar, I had an Eternal Knot inked on my forearm. I could not have explained why. It just needed to be, a symbol that was recurring and relentless in my path. I think about this more than I care to admit.

Listening to Pena this morning, I finally heard something. I understand now that my body was singing two notes at once out there: the drone of “keep going” and, underneath it, the thin, high whistle saying “enough.” I only heard the drone. Pena could not see Tuva yet found it anyway, following his heart and the music. I could see every inch of the Gobi and missed the most important sound in it.

Some of the best listening happens in the dark.

Pena followed a sound across the globe. I follow mine back. Music has been my compass, out to the deserts and home again. Every place in this book has a song, and every song still knows the way.

This is the first in a short series from Mental Laundry: Notes from the Back of the Pack. Mongolia, then the Atacama (Chile), Lapland (Finland), Patagonia (Argentina), and home to New York City, each one through the music that takes me back. Four ultramarathon races, almost a decade of NYC Marathons, and endless miles and walkabouts, all turning into notes I want to share with you, from the back of the pack.

The book is still on its way. I have a few more trolls to battle and a path to find through agents and publishers before it finally lands in your hands. But we can still have fun in the meantime and I am sharing the journey here as it unfolds, soundtrack included. (A must, for those of you who know me.)

This blog is bigger than one book. It is where I write from wherever I happen to be: a desert trail, a concert stage, backstage at Carnegie Hall, wandering the Ramble (I call it the Bramble; I like to rename things) in Central Park, a crosswalk on the Upper West Side. I do pop up in the most interesting of places, NYC makes sure of that. Follow along here, or on Camera Dark Notes, my Substack, and you’ll get all of it, the book news and the notes from the back of the pack, wherever they come from.

♫ HAVE A LISTEN Genghis Blues: One of my favorite albums that supports several chapters in Mental Laundry. Let me know what you think in the comments, is this something new or familiar?

If you want to know more about the documentary, here you go, it is one not to miss.

And here’s a rabbit hole to the Mental Laundry website with further details about the book. Thanks for being curious.

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This essay first appeared on Camera Dark Notes at Substack.