I arrive in Union Station, Chicago a little after two in the afternoon. The air is surprisingly warm for February, but as I walk toward Lake Michigan I am folded into the shadows of the skyscrapers and the wind, as if sensing an opportunity to strike, adds a vicious bite to the chill of the shade. I regulate my pace with the punch of the bass drum kick in my headphones. Though I have been here many times, the city always stirs a sense of wonderment - the panorama of human diversity, the manifestations of man's inspiring potential, the feeling of being both extremely important and dauntingly insignificant - so different, such a stark contrast from the small towns and little cities where I spent most of my childhood and adolescence.
After walking around for a few hours, Chris meets me after work and we take the train to his apartment in Wicker Park, where we catch up over cheap vodka mixers. As always, there is an effortlessness between us, and we allow the conversation to ebb and flow organically. Yeah, yeah, things are great. Yeah, me too, me too. Aw, Cherie is good, yeah. I'm glad you came up man. I can tell we are beginning to move in different directions, his path diverging from mine slightly, the legitimacy of his career and the seriousness of his love interest putting some space between our respective points. But with Chris, this does not worry me. Our friendship does not rely on the congruency of our life decisions, but solely on a foundation of shared memories and the knowledge that he actually knows me - knows the most awful, terrible shit about me, has known me at my most absolutely brilliant (is that now?); I am completely unguarded, flayed, exposed...unapologetic.
We get drunk that night even though Chris has to work in the morning, and when I wake up he is already gone. I shower and dress, stumbling down the stairs into a chilly and dreary morning, the cold amplified by the wetness in the air. On the train back downtown, I text Carly to make sure she hasn't forgotten about me. I am already feeling a little nervous about everything: about seeing her for the first time in four years (what if it is weird/awkward?) and about being around for her shoot ("okay, who let this dumbfuck in here?!?") and about other things I can't define or am too embarrassed to admit (what if I get on T.V.? Jesus, my hair looks so stupid right now...). Why the hell am I nervous? This is going to be fun, right? Right. (Right?)
I arrive at the Riviera Theater under a steady drizzle, ducking as I run across the street (as if lowering my head will keep me from getting soaked, which I already am by the time I reach the venue doors). Of course, they are locked. "Doors ain't open yet," says a grungy-looking man changing the marquee in the rain and wearing a t-shirt despite the frigid temperatures. "I know, I'm just..." Oh shit, what do I say? I'm not really with MTV...I don't want to lie and misrepresent myself. Does this man know who Carly is? If I say her name will he be like, "well, hail, h'why didn'ya say so?!" and let me in?
"I'm...uh...waiting for somebody," I stutter, looking guilty though having no real reason to be. I realize now, being drenched and disheveled and bleary-eyed, that I probably look like a drug dealer, someone here to supply a band member with his fix. The cops will surely be here any minute to take me away...
Carly comes to the door just as my imagination is whipping up the sound of approaching sirens. "Tom Tom!" she says, and gives me a hug that feels like coming home after being gone for a long time. She is exactly how I remember her, but also so different somehow. Her smile is the same, the way she tilts her head back when she laughs, her eyes are still bright even in the darkened foyer... Is it the way she moves, more gracefully, more fluidly? Is she taller? I can't...quite...figure...it...out...
I follow her upstairs to the balcony where she will be shooting her segment. The theater is amazing, everything is old and wooden, colorful and slightly decaying. We - me and Carly, another MTV veejay named Erinn, the camera crew, the production assistants, and the producer - are the only ones in the balcony, and over the chipped metal railing I watch the roadies and techies assembling the stage for tonight's performance. Though now on a much grander scale, the feeling of being "behind the scenes" or "somebody cool enough to be around for sound-checks" reminds me of playing in shitty punk bands in high school and college, of taking shots in parking lots before going on-stage, of dirty rooms crammed with instruments, of asshole club owners and "x"s on our hands and the feeling that we were invincible when we were up on the stage.
After a few minutes, the camera begins rolling and I try to shrink myself to nothing so as not to be in the way. (I picture the producer yelling, "Damnit! Carly, your idiot friend is in the shot again!" and then Carly yelling "Damnit! Tommy, inviting you [or letting you invite yourself, whatever] was the worst idea ever!" and then me casting myself out into the rain, sleeping in an alley, catching diphtheria and dying a slow, agonizing, and deserving death.) I have never been part of, or even really witnessed, any sort of production, and the process amazes me. I begin to see why Carly was chosen for this job over, most likely, hundreds of other applicants; she is magnetic and vibrant, sucking in all the light and energy from the room and exploding it back out like a dying star. I imagine that there are probably dorm-room fan clubs for her in Universities all over the country, girls talking about her hair and her clothes, guys talking about her...everything else...
I think I figured it out. What? The things that's different about her...the different thing. And...? Well, it like watching fireworks. They are always beautiful and colorful and you are like "ohmygod this is awesome" when you are laying in the summer grass on a blanket, looking up at them. Yes... But then, at the end, they always do the "finale" and it just blows your mind, ya know? The lights just take up your whole field of vision and the endless BOOMS from the explosions and it's like a sensory overload. So, what you're trying to say is...? What I'm saying is, when I knew her before, Carly was like fireworks. But now...now she is like the finale. She is herself x100. She is brighter than you thought you could handle...
[I wonder if I will ever find my "finale"?]
The rest of the afternoon is uneventful though anything but dull, and we spend quite a bit of time in the small, basement room that serves as "backstage" for the bands. I don't say much, just listening to the stories being told, the names being dropped, the places that everyone has been and the places that everyone is going. I feel like a foreigner with only a tentative grasp of the native language. The lives led by Carly, Erinn, and many of the MTV personnel are fascinating, completely out of my depth; they are swimming in oceans while I fumble around in kiddie pools. I am both inspired and ashamed, both motivated and humbled. This is the cool kids table. This is the jet set life that I have always wanted to kill me. This is "IT".
Hours (and a few more shoots) later, the show begins. As kids stream in out of the cold, dripping and exuberant, Carly disappears upstairs to film from the private balcony box, leaving me alone to watch the first band, Walk The Moon. God they are good, rock n' roll with just a hint of a Souther accent, well-dressed in Pop sensibility. They put on a helluva show too, and I question the headliner, Young The Giant's ability to upstage them. Before the end of Walk The Moon's set, Carly comes to take me back up to the box with her, warding off the bouncer who is guarding the entrance with a smile and a nod. Did he recognize her? Probably. But who could've said no to a smile like that, anyway?
And suddenly, here I was, in arguably the best seat in the house, overlooking a sea of eager faces and a mere 20 feet from the stage. How did this happen? I leaned in close to Carly's ear to shout over the noise. "You know how its really easy to look back on things and realize how cool they were, but sometimes it's hard to recognize just how incredible your life is in the moment, you know, when it's all happening?" I yelled as the stage lights reflected in her eyes. "This is not one of those times."
photo courtesy of Carly
Sometimes it just hits me, all at once, and I can't hardly stand it. This life is just too much to bear.
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