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thehefnerAfter the extremely encouraging responses for the first attempt at a written Hefner Monologue, MY GRANDFATHER'S LAST WORDS, I decided to bite the bullet and keep going with them. Furthermore, I decided to take the risk and write a more personal one. Someone else's amazing life is one thing, but my own somewhat less glamorous life is something else entirely, and since the majority of the book/play/movie/comic/mime performance of The Hefner Monologues would be about John Hefner, well, one would hope they would at the very least be interesting.
The whole project would be several essays in a particular order, following my growth and understanding as shaped by my friends, family, loves, and losses. The particular one which I present to you today, the second finished rough draft of a Hefner Monologue, would probably appear more toward the end, I'd think. Not the end, as I'm not entirely certain how it would end, but around the general area. As this story begins, I had just had the now-infamous last IM conversation with Misty, and I was not in the best of places, emotionally. It was time to take action, I decided.
Again, this is a rough first draft which I have deemed suitable enough to put up here, though it's still a bit more uneven than I'd really like. Until I can figure out a title I prefer, we shall tentatively call this Hefner Monologue...
The conversation with Misty left me angry and miserable, to say the very least. It furthermore left me determined now more than ever to finally do what many of my friends had insisted I do in the first place: regain my independence and learn to enjoy my solitude. To stop relying on others to validate my tastes, my love, and my life. So when I heard that Emm Gryner was coming to town, I realized now was my chance.
I first discovered Emm through the magic of the Internet Movie Database. For those not in the know, imdb.com is a magical search engine, almost certainly run by mythical creatures one step higher than the Keebler Elves on the Elvin hierarchy. It catalogues virtually every single movie ever made and anyone who’s ever worked in film, from the biggest star to the lowliest anonymous key grip. If even a single geek enters a film into their registry, it can be found and preserved for posterity, just in case anyone wanted more information on Heartbeeps. The site is an invaluable source for all stripes of geeks, buffs, connoisseurs, and people who want to cheat with the Kevin Bacon game. For us college students and people bored at work, it’s also a great way to kill a few hours on the internet in between all the porn surfing.
One day, I decided to search for the films of Richard E. Grant, the star of the British cult classic Withnail and I as well as a character actor in many, many American and British films. One of those “oh, that guy” actors. Trust me, you’ve seen him in something. When I searched under his biography, one of the more curious items listed there read: “Had a piano suite composed for him by Canadian artist Emm Gryner.”
What an odd thing, I thought, that this cult icon so entranced a musician that she wrote a whole piece solely dedicated to him. And not just any person. Emm Gryner! Not that I had any idea who Emm Gryner was, but from the sound of the blurb, this gal sure seemed to be a composer of some repute! If she was at all famous in those musical circles, I certainly wouldn’t have know; seeing and hearing such productions like an opera adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale only furthered my distaste for anything that had the combined words “classical” and “modern.” But a pretentious pseudo-Orwellian radical feminist atonal piece of performance crap was one thing; this was a musical piece dedicated to Richard E. Fucking Grant! Dude! It’s like a Bruce Campbell sonata. A Christopher Walken piano suite. A David Lynch symphony! Oh, wait, that one actually happened, didn’t it? I think I heard about it on imdb.com.
Intrigued, I began to search for Miss Gryner’s work, but could find nothing that seemed at all related to Richard E. Grant. Furthermore, when I finally downloaded (Legally! Legally, I promise!) one of her more popular songs, “Symphonic,” it didn’t take me long to realize, much to my confusion, that, hey, this wasn’t classical at all. It was… pop! Pop music, god help me. A genre I generally consider to be the enemy of good taste, right alongside Julia Roberts movies and reality TV. I’m talking the kind of music that the rock stations would probably never air, but would be perfectly at home amid the Sarah Maclachlans and the Didos and Tori Amoses and Alanis Morisettes. In fact, I’d especially liken her to those last two, except less meandery as Tori. And less prone to make men reach to protect their testicles from the shears of angry Lilith Fair fans, women whose armpits alone could give a person fatal rugburns.
No, this Emm Gryner was an angel on the keyboard with a voice that never wandered, but soared with effortless control right into the heavens. Her songs were sometimes infectious, sometimes moving, often both, and the accompanying cellist and violinist in her band made me a fan for life within weeks. Not only were her original songs excellent, but she also produced an album of cover songs, giving her distinct spin on such classics as “Crazy Train,” “Big Bang Baby,” and my personal favorite, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Straight to You.” And let me say that her piano-and-cello-driven slow burn rendition of “Pour Some Sugar on Me”… well, it just works entirely too well.
I didn’t know all of the original songs, so some, such as her cover of Fugazi’s “Waiting Room,” affected me on its own merits without any prior knowledge or love of the original. I posted the lyrics up on my away message one day, and Misty responded with a very enthusiastic and rather surprised, “You listen to Fugazi??? How is it all of a sudden you’re posting awesome lyrics from awesome songs?!” as if in just the past couple of days my taste in music improved tenfold.
I simply responded, with a put on smirk and raised eyebrow that was trying to look sly, “Hey, my taste has always been good. You’re just now noticing.”
I knew if I told her the truth, that I had never heard a Fugazi song in my life and I was posting the lyrics based on a piano-ballad-take on a hardcore punk song, that Misty’s respect for me would plummet even further. Never mind that Fugazi personally endorse her music and her cover of "Waiting Room." Dave could barely tolerate this himself; he had still never forgiven Tori Amos for even attempting to cover Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” so I didn’t expect him to much appreciate Emm’s covers. And by that point in my life, I knew, of course, that where goest Dave, there goest Misty. One way or another.
So like that, Emm Gryner became one of those personal little pleasures like The Ninth Configuration or Richard E. Grant, things I could treasure and enjoy alone, simply because no one else had heard of them and maybe never will. Unless, of course, I were to share them with others, show them how great they were. If they liked what I showed them, that would make me happy. It meant that… well, I don’t suppose I need to say what it meant. It just meant a lot to me that people appreciated and loved what I appreciated and loved. If I alone loved something, hell, it might as well not really exist. It might as well be a dream.
Graduation came and went, as did the first month of summer vacation and Misty detoxification. It was July when I discovered to my joy that Emm was coming to perform a concert in D.C. Well, Virginia, at least. Which was conceivably theoretically presumably reachable from where I lived.
My first instinct upon hearing the news was to ask, “Who could I bring along with me?” But I already knew the answer. There was no one. Oh sure, maybe there was someone who might have enjoyed the concert, but nobody was an actual fan of this relatively obscure Canadian-Asian singer-songwriter, or had even heard her name before. Hell, at the time I could have counted all the songs of hers that even I knew on one hand.
But rather than lament this situation, I decided this would be the perfect chance to go have an adventure alone. To force myself to enjoy solitude. I was resolved to go to this concert on my own, and be perfectly happy even if I weren’t experiencing it with anyone else. I would have a memory for myself and only myself, and I didn’t need anyone else to validate it.
And hell, I thought, maybe while I was there I’d hook up with a hot girl.
So I discovered that the concert was going to be at a bar called Iota located in Arlington, Virginia. Now, at the time I had no idea how far away Arlington actually was from D.C., so rather than actually look it up on the map and plan the trip accordingly, I did what any guy would do in that situation: I decided to follow the directions from Iota’s website, leave a good two and a half hours early so I could get there with time to spare and grab a bite to eat.
And, of course, give myself plenty of time to flirt with sexy ladies, oh yeah.
Now, anyone who actually knows where Arlington and Washington D.C. are in conjunction to one another shouldn’t be surprised to discover that the entire trip, from my home to Arlington, took all of twenty minutes. Which meant that once I arrived at Iota, I had little over two hours to kill. But that was fine, because when I got there, the bar was pretty well empty. I scoped out the single booth in the entire establishment, located next to a supporting pillar and facing directly toward the stage; the perfect seat. No, the perfect seats, plural, with enough space for company. If I were to find any.
Being the independent rebel that I was, I sauntered up to the bar, looked the barkeep right in the eyebrow piercing, and ordered a cheeseburger and an amaretto sour. My order placed, my decree decreed, I took my throne that faced the stage where three people were setting up. There is something so lovely, so honest in watching musicians tune up. One moment they’re as normal and shlubby as any person you would see on the street, and next they’re creating sounds that it would seem no mere human could spin. These musicians particularly caught my eye, dressed in the most casual and rudimentary of clothes since there was virtually no one within the establishment for them to make any effort to look pretty. Virtually no one, that is, but a few scattered barflies minding their own business, and me.
The male violinist was tuning up while next to him an attractive crinkly-haired cello player flipped through her sheet music. Practicing at the piano was a small Asian woman with a green t-shirt and converse sneakers, and I wondered, with sudden quiet excitement, if this was Emm Gryner. I’d tried to locate pictures of her on the internet before, but all I could find were made-up computer edited glamour shots and CD covers, pictures that looked great and stylish but somehow never gave any real indication as to how this person actually looked in real life. This young woman before me however was in the raw, naked of makeup, deceptively normal, human, and approachable.
On a whim, I decided I would go up to the stage and introduce myself. But as that voice in my head is so quick to counter whim, it asked, should I? I didn’t want to interrupt anything… but no, she didn’t look busy. She actually looked vaguely bored. Hey, maybe I should go up there! I never did this sort of thing before, but she looked bored and alone, so I figured, what the hell? And hey, another nudging little voice added, maybe I could even flirt with her or something. Work the John Hefner mojo with Emm Gryner herself, could you imagine? Flirting with Emm Gryner, the idea intrigued me more and more. I’d tell her I came her alone just to see her, maybe that’d impress her. And hey, I could finally ask her about that Richard E. Grant song, while I’m at it. You see, John? Now you simply have to do it. No more excuses.
I stood and walked to the stage, her back turned to me. About halfway there, which was about three steps into a journey of all of ten feet, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know for sure if this actually was her or not. All logic dictated it was, but what if it wasn’t? Maybe she was the warm-up act or something. There was only one way to find out, of course. Temporarily abandoning my half-eaten cheeseburger and the drink that tasted like liquid lemon meringue pie, I walked up to the stage. Turned around at her piano, she didn’t notice me at all, her tiny frame inside that frayed green t-shirt.
My mouth was already open to speak when I realized I had no idea how to pronounce her last name.
I uttered, “Uh… Emm?”
She turned around, looking at me with gentle warmth, and said, “Yes?”
Her eyes met mine, and the contents of my brain flushed right down the metaphorical crapper. My face collapsed in on itself, and after a moment of wide-eyed gaping, I managed to say something along the lines of:
“I’m big fan of you music me like good songs love your cover of Nick Cave’s ‘Straight to You’ is good pretty very good moving me like you came here alone I did yes just for you good like music good mm-hmm yes.”
“Oh thank you!” she said, sincerely touched. “And what’s your name?”
After ten seconds of darting my eyes around the bar for clues, it was probably when I spotted the men’s room that I was actually able to respond, “Uh… John?”
“Well it’s wonderful to meet you, John! And where are you from?”
“Oh, I-I-I-I-I came all the way from… from… from…” I swallowed. “Washington D.C.”
“Okay. Well, looks like you got the best seat in the house, there!”
“Uh. Yeah. It’s… big. Figured maybe I could entice some pretty ladies to my table yes.”
“Ha! Well good luck, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
And in a sudden rush of coherence, I said, “Oh! Um, erm, hey, I was actually meaning to ask you about this thing I’d read on imdb.com. It said you’d written a composition for Richard E. Grant, but I couldn’t find anything on it.”
“Oh!” she responded, surprised that I even knew about this factoid. She explained it was a more classical work that wasn’t yet recorded anywhere, but that she was eventually going to do a whole album of compositions one of these days. She added, “But hey, tell you what, send me an e-mail and I’ll send you an mp3 of it!”
Overwhelmed with that all-too-familiar intoxication of joy and humiliation, I thanked her profusely, left her to finish tuning up, and reassumed my throne, the King of Dickweeds, in my huge, lonely booth. Emm and her band retreated to the back just as customers started sidling in through the door, and I decided, alternatively elated and humbled, I would make all the humiliation worthwhile by dedicating the next two hours to that noblest of hunts: the wily and elusive purty girls.
So I’m sitting there, waiting as the minutes fly by and the amaretto buzz to kick in, when right on cue in walks this absolute knockout. Great figure, spiky black hair, sort of the reformed punk that would secretly shop at Hot Topic at the mall behind her friends’ backs. This girl was an absolute winner, let me tell you. In fact, her sexiness was topped only by that of her girlfriend’s who came in right behind her, holding her hand, oh motherfucker.
So I wait a little while longer, accepting my initial thwarting, and in comes another little hottie, a pretty young thing in a pink mini-skirt with a handbag that wanted to be Prada, or at least a second cousin of the Prada family. Admittedly, not the sort of girl I’d normally click with, which was just as well when her butch girlfriend joined her after a minute and struck up a conversation with the other lesbian couple.
And it went on like this, so that after about the fourth or fifth lesbian couple to come into the bar that evening, a pattern was slowly starting to form. It was only afterwards that I learned Emm had made quite a splash at Lilith Fair a couple years back, which was how most of her fans in the U.S. learned of her. Unlike from, say, the Richard E. Grant page on imdb.com.
Honestly, and it’s terribly politically incorrect to say so, but by and large I didn’t think lesbians this attractive existed outside college. There we had a saying, “BBG” or “Bi Before Graduation.” You’ve all known these girls and even some guys like this. They’re the ones who all think they’re lesbians or bisexual when really they’re just young people who want to go totally crazy now that they’re away from home and experiment with all these new sensations and feelings. You know, college students.
Like Misty, Harvey whispered in the back of my head.
And quite frankly, no matter what late-night pay-per-view soft-core pornos and dramadeys would have you believe otherwise, in my experience at least one half of virtually all lesbian-I-mean-for-serious-lesbian-we’re-talking-no-dicks-ever couples are reeeealllly unattractive. But not to other lesbians, I grant, but certainly not to me. I have to wonder why so many “butch” lesbians think that modeling your physical appearance after men who look like truck drivers named “Bubba” is somehow attractive. Honestly, explanation, please? It really is lost on me. Nasty ass jeans, Timberland boots, and a haircut that looks like it was styled by a weed-wacker does not a handsome man or woman make. So many lesbians could really use fashion tips from gay men. Queer Eye for the Queer Girl. But then again, this is me talking, Mister “I’m so straight I once made out with a guy just to turn a girl on,” so feel free discount that however you will.
At least Misty had the fashion sense of a gay man, popped into my thoughts, suddenly followed by a flood of fury as the memory of that fight washed over me. I slammed my fist on the table, the ice cubes shaking in my drained glass of amaretto sour remnants.
“Why the fuck did you do it?” I asked aloud, safe in the assumption that my looking crazy and talking to myself wouldn’t exactly be harming my chances with the lesbians.
I was angry again, more fucking angry than ever, and what’s more, I really didn’t want to be anymore. I was angry because I realized that for the past couple weeks, I was feeling ok again. I was actually fucking content, you know? It’s the kind of thing where you don’t even realize how well you’re doing until it goes to shit again. And then it did go to shit again, then she popped back into my life and wanted to be friends just like old times, and a part of me wanted, so much wanted nothing more than to talk about Batman with her. Because she got it, she understood. She loved it and I loved that in her, and a huge part of me wanted nothing more than to talk to her about it, just like old times.
But it wasn’t old times. It never would, never could be old times ever again.
Val was right. I needed to learn to enjoy my solitude, otherwise the pattern would never be broken. Even if I didn’t date Misty for all those months while I was getting over Tammy, Misty was still there. Physically and emotionally there. She was my back-up girlfriend, god help me, she was. She was my safety net. She was there to love me if Tammy couldn’t. Now with her gone, I had no reassurance, no one waiting for me, no back-up. I was really alone this time, and I realized that’s exactly how it should have been if I were to ever truly heal. Maybe I never did get over Tammy. Maybe I just transferred it all onto Misty. Whatever the case, I needed to be my own validation for once. I needed to do things like go to this concert alone, and have the confidence to enjoy the music and not need anyone else to be there to say, “boy, was that good or what?” to make the experience any more real.
But on the other hand, flirting with pretty girls certainly wouldn’t have hurt the healing process, I reasoned. So just when I was ready to give up all hope, in walked this pretty young redhead in a maroon dress. Followed by her three very, very attractive ladyfriends. No couples this time. A group of friends and not a couple among them. About damn time.
This is my chance, I thought, nearly giddy with excitement but in the slow-burn way that girls find attractive, at least so I desperately hoped. Now where to go from here? There’s four of them. A group. That will be tricky to crack, especially since they’ll probably be backing each other up. It’ll be awkward just to saunter up to one or all of them. God, if only, if ONLY I had an in, just some kind of in…
The redhead turned to me then, sitting alone in the booth that faced the stage, and remarked, “Hey, you have the best seat in the house!”
I blinked.
“Well, why don’t you come join me then!” I said, displaying my booth like some used car salesman or a guy on one of those late-night juice-maker infomercials.
So like that I was instantly surrounded on all sides by four very attractive young ladies, and there I was, King of my Domain, all Hail Lord Dickweed of the Dorkwad Realm, not even caring how terrified I was anymore. I knew the odds were against me, four to one, but I was too surprised by my luck to worry about that, so I sort of flirted with the idea of flirting with each of them for a bit, trying to make some semblance of conversation with one before passing to the other, and then finally hitting a stride with the one right across from me. She wore a tight white T-shirt, her hair cut short and almost punkish, and her manner conveyed a cool cynicism and wit, should the mood ever move her. Her name was Nichole.
We struck up a polite, if not friendly conversation for the next few minutes, and I did my best to keep her interest. It was during our interaction that I had a minor epiphany, that the problem with my flirting techniques is, quite simply, that I don’t have any. I mean, at all. When I talked with Nichole, I was actually listening to her, genuinely interested in what she had to say. I nodded, smiled, and encouraged her to tell me more about what movies she liked and where she came from and how long she was an Emm fan and wow you’re in a band hey that’s cool what kind music oh punk wow that’s awesome tell me more. My eyes stayed ever fixed on hers, never daring to stray to anywhere else away from or on her person, and I smiled not like a wolf seeking out his prey but rather a puppy in a shelter spotting a new potential owner.
Was it sex I was after? I suppose, sure. I was 22, bursting at the hormonal seams, and was anxious to blot out the memories of my only sexual experiences to date. But all the same I was looking for someone that I could at least genuinely like, so that after the theoretical orgasm theoretically occurred I wouldn’t feel guilty or empty. You know, like I normally do when I orgasm, which had always been alone. Unfortunately, after four years of sexual experience, everything I had done and learned went right out the window. There, in a booth surrounded by four lovely young women, I discovered that my flirting techniques had not advanced an inch from my high school days when I had a circle of good female friends who all loved me like a big sister. And so, I began to suspect, it was with this young woman.
When the opening act came onto the stage, I didn’t bother trying to maintain conversation with Nichole. There was no point in being disrespectful to the musician, especially if the young lady and I aren’t hitting it off. If we had, ok, sure, maybe a little disrespect. But no. Nichole was friendly and nice to talk to, but when the music started, I stopped bothering in my feeble pursuit, and just sat back to enjoy the show.
Nichole occasionally glanced back to me and smirked, but the looks never lasted for long. Over the course of the opening act’s performance, I noticed that Nichole and her friends weren’t conversing with each other either, probably because it was too loud more than anything else. However, I noticed a strange blue-white glow emanating from Nichole’s lap underneath the table, and as heavenly as her crotch might well have been, I was fairly certain it was coming from her cell phone.
In fact, I looked at the girls around me to discover that none of them were even paying attention to the music. Rather, their heads were turned face downwards to their laps, tapping the buttons on their phones and sending text messages back and forth to one another. It felt like a young adult hipster variation on grade-school girls passing notes in class, and from the way they were giggling and trading conspiratorial glances with each other, I couldn’t help but feel like the teacher. I wondered if maybe I should have felt more embarrassed or self-conscious, since chances were well in my favor, if only because this was me we’re talking about here, that what they were texting and giggling about was me.
I remembered back to the winter of 2001, back in my high school days, when I went to audition for the Rude Mechanicals’ production of Henry IV, the show that was to be my very first with the troupe. They gave me a signup sheet, a pen, a script and told me to wait somewhere until I was summoned. I scanned around the high school cafeteria where the show would eventually be performed three months later with me in the role of plucky and ill-fated Prince Edward, and I searched out a place to sit so I might look over my script and study my lines. I finally decided that the best place for this work was, of course right next to the pretty and sweet-looking blonde girl sitting alone.
We started up conversation, talked about Shakespeare, about how we both knew pretty much nothing about this play, who we were reading for and so on. She told me her name was Elise. How very nice to meet you, Elise. You’re here alone?
“No, I’m here with my husband.”
Ah. Alrighty then. Scratch that’un right there.
Elise has since become one of my closest friends. She tells me now that she thought that my hitting on her all those years ago was “adorable.” That’s not exactly the reaction one generally wants when it comes to flirting, but that was as apt a way as any to describe John Hefner trying to get some. As such, if these girls were giggling about me, I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least. It didn’t matter. It was old news, a reminder that the more things change, yadda, yadda.
And really, once Emm came out on stage, touched those keys and began to sing, frankly, I didn’t give a damn. She was who was I was there to see. Emm and Emm alone. Alone being the operative word here, the essential word.
She pretty much stuck to new material and stuff from her new album, a second CD of cover songs. This suited me just fine since, as before, I didn’t know any of the source songs save for the Corrs’ “Breathless,” the sad beauty of Emm’s version far surpassing the dorky pop-crap of the original. By the time she wrapped up her final song and took her bows, she hadn’t played a single song I’d recognized, and that was just fine by me. It was a wonderful, beautiful evening, the music granting me a momentary and long-awaited respite from what my life had become all that year. Such is the power of music, capable of doing in its own way what the written or the spoken or the illustrated cannot. My father would have appreciated that. Misty too, for that matter.
The audience applauded, of course, but few were louder than myself as I was attempting to lead a real concert-style rhythm going to call for encore. A handful of others joined in, and soon we were clapping in unison, hoping to stir Emm out for just one more song. Concert theatrics, I thought to myself, gotta love ‘em. Of course she was coming out, oh won’t you stay just a little bit longer. And of course she did come out. It’s the way it all works, this relationship between performer and audience, and it’s a beautiful thing.
Emm returned on stage and reassumed her place at the piano, and we all wondered what she would play next. The applause died down as she leaned forward into the mike and began to speak, that warm smile still on her face.
“I’d like to dedicate this next song to a young man named John,” she said. My mouth dropped as she added, with a sly little smile, “…who came alllll the way from Washington D.C. to be here tonight.”
Yeah, the audience had a hearty laugh at that one. As did I for that matter, especially since neither Nichole nor any of her friends knew that I was the John in question. So I was spared personal humiliation in favor of abstract humiliation, which in the form of a personal dedication from a beloved musician is, I think, perfectly acceptable.
“He came here alone just to see me tonight,” she said. “I know what it can be like to go to a bar all alone, so this song is dedicated to him. He told me it was one of his favorites. This is Nick Cave’s ‘Straight to You.’”
She put her fingers to the keys and the song unfurled before me. If I were a real manly sort of man, I probably would have straightened up, clenched my fist, and said something like, “Yeah! Aw, that’s awesome! You rule, Emm! You rule! Yeah!” and then would have, I dunno, proceeded to smash a beer can into my head. Something like that.
But, of course, instead I just gasped quietly, put my hands to my mouth, and didn’t quite cry the entire song but got pretty damn close. And because I was sitting behind Nichole and her friends and was thus spared such further embarrassment, I saw no good reason to hide how absolutely moved and touched I was. This was my evening, mine alone, and I was going to be as wonderfully sissified as I wanted to be. Damn it. Emm Gryner is up there singing one of my favorite songs, and all is well, all is well, and all manner of things will be well.
When she finished, I stood in my booth, King of the Concert, and applauded. Emm smiled at me from the piano, put her hands together in respect and honor, and bowed. The cellist and violinist returned to the stage, and Emm busted out “Symphonic” for her grand finale.
As soon as she left the stage, this time for real, I made my way out of the booth and through the crowds to thank her profusely, to tell her what an honor this was, and maybe even buy her a drink if she’d let me. However, as she was just within my reach, someone had beaten me to her. It took me a second to realize that my usurper was Nichole, of all people. Emm looked at her with excited recognition and they embraced as old friends.
“Hey, Emm!” Nichole said.
“Nichole! Hey! How’re you?” I stood by their side, not certain what to make of this, when Emm pointed me out and said, “Oh, hey this is John, the guy I dedicated that last song to, remember?”
Nichole blinked a couple of times in bemused amazement and said, “Oh yeah, yeah! We’ve been talking all evening!”
Funny old world, innit?
Emm graciously declined my offer for a drink, as several others were already on their tasks. My suffering pocketbook thanked me for the mercy, then I kicked it in the ‘nads and shelled out 20 bucks to buy her latest CD. More than I’d usually ever dare pay, but that evening, what the hell? Once I got her autograph and thanked her again profusely, it would have seemed that my business that evening was concluded and I could have considered it an adventure well done.
Then I saw Nichole, back with her friends. I wasn’t planning on asking for her number. Our interaction was friendly at best, and I wasn’t about to bother making an ass of myself by trying to hit on her or anything. Now was the time where we’d say it was nice meeting you and see you around, never to see each other at all. But then her eyes met mine, and in them I saw something I hadn’t seen before. A slight but distinct flash of newfound warmth. Thanks to Emm, we now shared this bond. Maybe I wouldn’t get a phone number from this girl, but all the same maybe this didn’t have to end altogether. Maybe there was another way.
I said, “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you.”
“It was great meeting you too,” she said, taking my hand.
A beat later, I asked, “Hey, do you have, like, samples of your music on-line or something? Like, a website, maybe? I’d love to hear your stuff.”
Nichole shook her head, taken aback by this unusual request. I don't imagine she often got requests like that.
“No, no I don’t.”
“Oh. Never mind, then.”
Another beat passed between us. She said, “But… I do have an e-mail address, if you’d like to keep in touch.”
“Yeah! Yeah, sure!”
So we exchanged e-mails, parted ways, and not even the discovery that my car was locked inside the parking garage could bring me back down to earth for the rest of the evening.
I had decided to wait until the next day to e-mail her, since I didn’t want to seem overly anxious or anything. You understand, I fought very hard to keep from doing this. The next morning, I visited my e-mail, ready to write a simple but polite hello how’re you doing, only to discover, waiting for me:
“I just wanted to say Hi and it was nice meeting you. I hope you had fun at the show...I LOVED IT! Anyway, i better get back to work...just wanted to say hi. Take care and have a great day. ~Nichole.”
Hot damn, I thought. Hot diggity goddamn damn! You bet I didn’t take too long to respond this time, no grace period or anything. This was it, time to swoop in for the kill. I got her phone number this time and the next evening we talked. It was a lovely conversation, not just friendly like our first but fueled by excitement, or maybe it was just on my part, who really gave a damn. I asked her when I could see her again.
Was this to be my reward for taking a chance and breaking away, heading out into the wide and crazy world on my lonesome for once? Is this what I had been missing all those nights I sat in my dorm room alone and watched Babylon 5 repeats while everyone else at school, strangers though they might have been, were out doing something with their lives? Now I was conversing with a beautiful, sexy woman after one of the best concerts of my life, a mini-adventure in a lifetime of couch potatoery, and I realized my answer.
Sure, I could have brought anyone to see this show, even those closest to me. Even Misty, once upon a time, sure I could have. And it wouldn’t have improved the experience. It might have been just as good, or their presence might even have adversely affected events. There was no way to say for certain, not of anything. Even Nichole who was right there alongside of me couldn’t understand, couldn’t truly appreciate what happened with me that night. When Emm bowed at me after that song, after everything else that happened, it was for me and me alone. And with a glow of contentment, I realized that I did not need validation for this. I knew it. It was real, it happened, and I didn’t need anyone else to say it was so. It was mine to treasure. Mine to have. That was what really mattered, even more than the potential of yet another girl. Women came and went. But not experiences like this. These were the little moments, the story-worthy adventures, that make it all worthwhile. Even if you never get the chance to tell them.
So when Nichole told me that she couldn’t see me for at least a week because she had to go out of town to see her girlfriend, it really didn’t bother me that much. Yeah, she and her met online a few months back and they had fallen in love. In fact, the girlfriend was in the process of moving up to Maryland to be with Nichole. She told me they were really happy.
“That’s good,” I said, and meant it. “There’s not enough happiness going around in this world.”
“Yeah,” Nichole said, and I swear that I could feel her smile over the phone. “It really was a great concert, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I thought so too.”
The whole project would be several essays in a particular order, following my growth and understanding as shaped by my friends, family, loves, and losses. The particular one which I present to you today, the second finished rough draft of a Hefner Monologue, would probably appear more toward the end, I'd think. Not the end, as I'm not entirely certain how it would end, but around the general area. As this story begins, I had just had the now-infamous last IM conversation with Misty, and I was not in the best of places, emotionally. It was time to take action, I decided.
Again, this is a rough first draft which I have deemed suitable enough to put up here, though it's still a bit more uneven than I'd really like. Until I can figure out a title I prefer, we shall tentatively call this Hefner Monologue...
The conversation with Misty left me angry and miserable, to say the very least. It furthermore left me determined now more than ever to finally do what many of my friends had insisted I do in the first place: regain my independence and learn to enjoy my solitude. To stop relying on others to validate my tastes, my love, and my life. So when I heard that Emm Gryner was coming to town, I realized now was my chance.
I first discovered Emm through the magic of the Internet Movie Database. For those not in the know, imdb.com is a magical search engine, almost certainly run by mythical creatures one step higher than the Keebler Elves on the Elvin hierarchy. It catalogues virtually every single movie ever made and anyone who’s ever worked in film, from the biggest star to the lowliest anonymous key grip. If even a single geek enters a film into their registry, it can be found and preserved for posterity, just in case anyone wanted more information on Heartbeeps. The site is an invaluable source for all stripes of geeks, buffs, connoisseurs, and people who want to cheat with the Kevin Bacon game. For us college students and people bored at work, it’s also a great way to kill a few hours on the internet in between all the porn surfing.
One day, I decided to search for the films of Richard E. Grant, the star of the British cult classic Withnail and I as well as a character actor in many, many American and British films. One of those “oh, that guy” actors. Trust me, you’ve seen him in something. When I searched under his biography, one of the more curious items listed there read: “Had a piano suite composed for him by Canadian artist Emm Gryner.”
What an odd thing, I thought, that this cult icon so entranced a musician that she wrote a whole piece solely dedicated to him. And not just any person. Emm Gryner! Not that I had any idea who Emm Gryner was, but from the sound of the blurb, this gal sure seemed to be a composer of some repute! If she was at all famous in those musical circles, I certainly wouldn’t have know; seeing and hearing such productions like an opera adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale only furthered my distaste for anything that had the combined words “classical” and “modern.” But a pretentious pseudo-Orwellian radical feminist atonal piece of performance crap was one thing; this was a musical piece dedicated to Richard E. Fucking Grant! Dude! It’s like a Bruce Campbell sonata. A Christopher Walken piano suite. A David Lynch symphony! Oh, wait, that one actually happened, didn’t it? I think I heard about it on imdb.com.
Intrigued, I began to search for Miss Gryner’s work, but could find nothing that seemed at all related to Richard E. Grant. Furthermore, when I finally downloaded (Legally! Legally, I promise!) one of her more popular songs, “Symphonic,” it didn’t take me long to realize, much to my confusion, that, hey, this wasn’t classical at all. It was… pop! Pop music, god help me. A genre I generally consider to be the enemy of good taste, right alongside Julia Roberts movies and reality TV. I’m talking the kind of music that the rock stations would probably never air, but would be perfectly at home amid the Sarah Maclachlans and the Didos and Tori Amoses and Alanis Morisettes. In fact, I’d especially liken her to those last two, except less meandery as Tori. And less prone to make men reach to protect their testicles from the shears of angry Lilith Fair fans, women whose armpits alone could give a person fatal rugburns.
No, this Emm Gryner was an angel on the keyboard with a voice that never wandered, but soared with effortless control right into the heavens. Her songs were sometimes infectious, sometimes moving, often both, and the accompanying cellist and violinist in her band made me a fan for life within weeks. Not only were her original songs excellent, but she also produced an album of cover songs, giving her distinct spin on such classics as “Crazy Train,” “Big Bang Baby,” and my personal favorite, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Straight to You.” And let me say that her piano-and-cello-driven slow burn rendition of “Pour Some Sugar on Me”… well, it just works entirely too well.
I didn’t know all of the original songs, so some, such as her cover of Fugazi’s “Waiting Room,” affected me on its own merits without any prior knowledge or love of the original. I posted the lyrics up on my away message one day, and Misty responded with a very enthusiastic and rather surprised, “You listen to Fugazi??? How is it all of a sudden you’re posting awesome lyrics from awesome songs?!” as if in just the past couple of days my taste in music improved tenfold.
I simply responded, with a put on smirk and raised eyebrow that was trying to look sly, “Hey, my taste has always been good. You’re just now noticing.”
I knew if I told her the truth, that I had never heard a Fugazi song in my life and I was posting the lyrics based on a piano-ballad-take on a hardcore punk song, that Misty’s respect for me would plummet even further. Never mind that Fugazi personally endorse her music and her cover of "Waiting Room." Dave could barely tolerate this himself; he had still never forgiven Tori Amos for even attempting to cover Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” so I didn’t expect him to much appreciate Emm’s covers. And by that point in my life, I knew, of course, that where goest Dave, there goest Misty. One way or another.
So like that, Emm Gryner became one of those personal little pleasures like The Ninth Configuration or Richard E. Grant, things I could treasure and enjoy alone, simply because no one else had heard of them and maybe never will. Unless, of course, I were to share them with others, show them how great they were. If they liked what I showed them, that would make me happy. It meant that… well, I don’t suppose I need to say what it meant. It just meant a lot to me that people appreciated and loved what I appreciated and loved. If I alone loved something, hell, it might as well not really exist. It might as well be a dream.
Graduation came and went, as did the first month of summer vacation and Misty detoxification. It was July when I discovered to my joy that Emm was coming to perform a concert in D.C. Well, Virginia, at least. Which was conceivably theoretically presumably reachable from where I lived.
My first instinct upon hearing the news was to ask, “Who could I bring along with me?” But I already knew the answer. There was no one. Oh sure, maybe there was someone who might have enjoyed the concert, but nobody was an actual fan of this relatively obscure Canadian-Asian singer-songwriter, or had even heard her name before. Hell, at the time I could have counted all the songs of hers that even I knew on one hand.
But rather than lament this situation, I decided this would be the perfect chance to go have an adventure alone. To force myself to enjoy solitude. I was resolved to go to this concert on my own, and be perfectly happy even if I weren’t experiencing it with anyone else. I would have a memory for myself and only myself, and I didn’t need anyone else to validate it.
And hell, I thought, maybe while I was there I’d hook up with a hot girl.
So I discovered that the concert was going to be at a bar called Iota located in Arlington, Virginia. Now, at the time I had no idea how far away Arlington actually was from D.C., so rather than actually look it up on the map and plan the trip accordingly, I did what any guy would do in that situation: I decided to follow the directions from Iota’s website, leave a good two and a half hours early so I could get there with time to spare and grab a bite to eat.
And, of course, give myself plenty of time to flirt with sexy ladies, oh yeah.
Now, anyone who actually knows where Arlington and Washington D.C. are in conjunction to one another shouldn’t be surprised to discover that the entire trip, from my home to Arlington, took all of twenty minutes. Which meant that once I arrived at Iota, I had little over two hours to kill. But that was fine, because when I got there, the bar was pretty well empty. I scoped out the single booth in the entire establishment, located next to a supporting pillar and facing directly toward the stage; the perfect seat. No, the perfect seats, plural, with enough space for company. If I were to find any.
Being the independent rebel that I was, I sauntered up to the bar, looked the barkeep right in the eyebrow piercing, and ordered a cheeseburger and an amaretto sour. My order placed, my decree decreed, I took my throne that faced the stage where three people were setting up. There is something so lovely, so honest in watching musicians tune up. One moment they’re as normal and shlubby as any person you would see on the street, and next they’re creating sounds that it would seem no mere human could spin. These musicians particularly caught my eye, dressed in the most casual and rudimentary of clothes since there was virtually no one within the establishment for them to make any effort to look pretty. Virtually no one, that is, but a few scattered barflies minding their own business, and me.
The male violinist was tuning up while next to him an attractive crinkly-haired cello player flipped through her sheet music. Practicing at the piano was a small Asian woman with a green t-shirt and converse sneakers, and I wondered, with sudden quiet excitement, if this was Emm Gryner. I’d tried to locate pictures of her on the internet before, but all I could find were made-up computer edited glamour shots and CD covers, pictures that looked great and stylish but somehow never gave any real indication as to how this person actually looked in real life. This young woman before me however was in the raw, naked of makeup, deceptively normal, human, and approachable.
On a whim, I decided I would go up to the stage and introduce myself. But as that voice in my head is so quick to counter whim, it asked, should I? I didn’t want to interrupt anything… but no, she didn’t look busy. She actually looked vaguely bored. Hey, maybe I should go up there! I never did this sort of thing before, but she looked bored and alone, so I figured, what the hell? And hey, another nudging little voice added, maybe I could even flirt with her or something. Work the John Hefner mojo with Emm Gryner herself, could you imagine? Flirting with Emm Gryner, the idea intrigued me more and more. I’d tell her I came her alone just to see her, maybe that’d impress her. And hey, I could finally ask her about that Richard E. Grant song, while I’m at it. You see, John? Now you simply have to do it. No more excuses.
I stood and walked to the stage, her back turned to me. About halfway there, which was about three steps into a journey of all of ten feet, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know for sure if this actually was her or not. All logic dictated it was, but what if it wasn’t? Maybe she was the warm-up act or something. There was only one way to find out, of course. Temporarily abandoning my half-eaten cheeseburger and the drink that tasted like liquid lemon meringue pie, I walked up to the stage. Turned around at her piano, she didn’t notice me at all, her tiny frame inside that frayed green t-shirt.
My mouth was already open to speak when I realized I had no idea how to pronounce her last name.
I uttered, “Uh… Emm?”
She turned around, looking at me with gentle warmth, and said, “Yes?”
Her eyes met mine, and the contents of my brain flushed right down the metaphorical crapper. My face collapsed in on itself, and after a moment of wide-eyed gaping, I managed to say something along the lines of:
“I’m big fan of you music me like good songs love your cover of Nick Cave’s ‘Straight to You’ is good pretty very good moving me like you came here alone I did yes just for you good like music good mm-hmm yes.”
“Oh thank you!” she said, sincerely touched. “And what’s your name?”
After ten seconds of darting my eyes around the bar for clues, it was probably when I spotted the men’s room that I was actually able to respond, “Uh… John?”
“Well it’s wonderful to meet you, John! And where are you from?”
“Oh, I-I-I-I-I came all the way from… from… from…” I swallowed. “Washington D.C.”
“Okay. Well, looks like you got the best seat in the house, there!”
“Uh. Yeah. It’s… big. Figured maybe I could entice some pretty ladies to my table yes.”
“Ha! Well good luck, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
And in a sudden rush of coherence, I said, “Oh! Um, erm, hey, I was actually meaning to ask you about this thing I’d read on imdb.com. It said you’d written a composition for Richard E. Grant, but I couldn’t find anything on it.”
“Oh!” she responded, surprised that I even knew about this factoid. She explained it was a more classical work that wasn’t yet recorded anywhere, but that she was eventually going to do a whole album of compositions one of these days. She added, “But hey, tell you what, send me an e-mail and I’ll send you an mp3 of it!”
Overwhelmed with that all-too-familiar intoxication of joy and humiliation, I thanked her profusely, left her to finish tuning up, and reassumed my throne, the King of Dickweeds, in my huge, lonely booth. Emm and her band retreated to the back just as customers started sidling in through the door, and I decided, alternatively elated and humbled, I would make all the humiliation worthwhile by dedicating the next two hours to that noblest of hunts: the wily and elusive purty girls.
So I’m sitting there, waiting as the minutes fly by and the amaretto buzz to kick in, when right on cue in walks this absolute knockout. Great figure, spiky black hair, sort of the reformed punk that would secretly shop at Hot Topic at the mall behind her friends’ backs. This girl was an absolute winner, let me tell you. In fact, her sexiness was topped only by that of her girlfriend’s who came in right behind her, holding her hand, oh motherfucker.
So I wait a little while longer, accepting my initial thwarting, and in comes another little hottie, a pretty young thing in a pink mini-skirt with a handbag that wanted to be Prada, or at least a second cousin of the Prada family. Admittedly, not the sort of girl I’d normally click with, which was just as well when her butch girlfriend joined her after a minute and struck up a conversation with the other lesbian couple.
And it went on like this, so that after about the fourth or fifth lesbian couple to come into the bar that evening, a pattern was slowly starting to form. It was only afterwards that I learned Emm had made quite a splash at Lilith Fair a couple years back, which was how most of her fans in the U.S. learned of her. Unlike from, say, the Richard E. Grant page on imdb.com.
Honestly, and it’s terribly politically incorrect to say so, but by and large I didn’t think lesbians this attractive existed outside college. There we had a saying, “BBG” or “Bi Before Graduation.” You’ve all known these girls and even some guys like this. They’re the ones who all think they’re lesbians or bisexual when really they’re just young people who want to go totally crazy now that they’re away from home and experiment with all these new sensations and feelings. You know, college students.
Like Misty, Harvey whispered in the back of my head.
And quite frankly, no matter what late-night pay-per-view soft-core pornos and dramadeys would have you believe otherwise, in my experience at least one half of virtually all lesbian-I-mean-for-serious-lesbian-we’re-talking-no-dicks-ever couples are reeeealllly unattractive. But not to other lesbians, I grant, but certainly not to me. I have to wonder why so many “butch” lesbians think that modeling your physical appearance after men who look like truck drivers named “Bubba” is somehow attractive. Honestly, explanation, please? It really is lost on me. Nasty ass jeans, Timberland boots, and a haircut that looks like it was styled by a weed-wacker does not a handsome man or woman make. So many lesbians could really use fashion tips from gay men. Queer Eye for the Queer Girl. But then again, this is me talking, Mister “I’m so straight I once made out with a guy just to turn a girl on,” so feel free discount that however you will.
At least Misty had the fashion sense of a gay man, popped into my thoughts, suddenly followed by a flood of fury as the memory of that fight washed over me. I slammed my fist on the table, the ice cubes shaking in my drained glass of amaretto sour remnants.
“Why the fuck did you do it?” I asked aloud, safe in the assumption that my looking crazy and talking to myself wouldn’t exactly be harming my chances with the lesbians.
I was angry again, more fucking angry than ever, and what’s more, I really didn’t want to be anymore. I was angry because I realized that for the past couple weeks, I was feeling ok again. I was actually fucking content, you know? It’s the kind of thing where you don’t even realize how well you’re doing until it goes to shit again. And then it did go to shit again, then she popped back into my life and wanted to be friends just like old times, and a part of me wanted, so much wanted nothing more than to talk about Batman with her. Because she got it, she understood. She loved it and I loved that in her, and a huge part of me wanted nothing more than to talk to her about it, just like old times.
But it wasn’t old times. It never would, never could be old times ever again.
Val was right. I needed to learn to enjoy my solitude, otherwise the pattern would never be broken. Even if I didn’t date Misty for all those months while I was getting over Tammy, Misty was still there. Physically and emotionally there. She was my back-up girlfriend, god help me, she was. She was my safety net. She was there to love me if Tammy couldn’t. Now with her gone, I had no reassurance, no one waiting for me, no back-up. I was really alone this time, and I realized that’s exactly how it should have been if I were to ever truly heal. Maybe I never did get over Tammy. Maybe I just transferred it all onto Misty. Whatever the case, I needed to be my own validation for once. I needed to do things like go to this concert alone, and have the confidence to enjoy the music and not need anyone else to be there to say, “boy, was that good or what?” to make the experience any more real.
But on the other hand, flirting with pretty girls certainly wouldn’t have hurt the healing process, I reasoned. So just when I was ready to give up all hope, in walked this pretty young redhead in a maroon dress. Followed by her three very, very attractive ladyfriends. No couples this time. A group of friends and not a couple among them. About damn time.
This is my chance, I thought, nearly giddy with excitement but in the slow-burn way that girls find attractive, at least so I desperately hoped. Now where to go from here? There’s four of them. A group. That will be tricky to crack, especially since they’ll probably be backing each other up. It’ll be awkward just to saunter up to one or all of them. God, if only, if ONLY I had an in, just some kind of in…
The redhead turned to me then, sitting alone in the booth that faced the stage, and remarked, “Hey, you have the best seat in the house!”
I blinked.
“Well, why don’t you come join me then!” I said, displaying my booth like some used car salesman or a guy on one of those late-night juice-maker infomercials.
So like that I was instantly surrounded on all sides by four very attractive young ladies, and there I was, King of my Domain, all Hail Lord Dickweed of the Dorkwad Realm, not even caring how terrified I was anymore. I knew the odds were against me, four to one, but I was too surprised by my luck to worry about that, so I sort of flirted with the idea of flirting with each of them for a bit, trying to make some semblance of conversation with one before passing to the other, and then finally hitting a stride with the one right across from me. She wore a tight white T-shirt, her hair cut short and almost punkish, and her manner conveyed a cool cynicism and wit, should the mood ever move her. Her name was Nichole.
We struck up a polite, if not friendly conversation for the next few minutes, and I did my best to keep her interest. It was during our interaction that I had a minor epiphany, that the problem with my flirting techniques is, quite simply, that I don’t have any. I mean, at all. When I talked with Nichole, I was actually listening to her, genuinely interested in what she had to say. I nodded, smiled, and encouraged her to tell me more about what movies she liked and where she came from and how long she was an Emm fan and wow you’re in a band hey that’s cool what kind music oh punk wow that’s awesome tell me more. My eyes stayed ever fixed on hers, never daring to stray to anywhere else away from or on her person, and I smiled not like a wolf seeking out his prey but rather a puppy in a shelter spotting a new potential owner.
Was it sex I was after? I suppose, sure. I was 22, bursting at the hormonal seams, and was anxious to blot out the memories of my only sexual experiences to date. But all the same I was looking for someone that I could at least genuinely like, so that after the theoretical orgasm theoretically occurred I wouldn’t feel guilty or empty. You know, like I normally do when I orgasm, which had always been alone. Unfortunately, after four years of sexual experience, everything I had done and learned went right out the window. There, in a booth surrounded by four lovely young women, I discovered that my flirting techniques had not advanced an inch from my high school days when I had a circle of good female friends who all loved me like a big sister. And so, I began to suspect, it was with this young woman.
When the opening act came onto the stage, I didn’t bother trying to maintain conversation with Nichole. There was no point in being disrespectful to the musician, especially if the young lady and I aren’t hitting it off. If we had, ok, sure, maybe a little disrespect. But no. Nichole was friendly and nice to talk to, but when the music started, I stopped bothering in my feeble pursuit, and just sat back to enjoy the show.
Nichole occasionally glanced back to me and smirked, but the looks never lasted for long. Over the course of the opening act’s performance, I noticed that Nichole and her friends weren’t conversing with each other either, probably because it was too loud more than anything else. However, I noticed a strange blue-white glow emanating from Nichole’s lap underneath the table, and as heavenly as her crotch might well have been, I was fairly certain it was coming from her cell phone.
In fact, I looked at the girls around me to discover that none of them were even paying attention to the music. Rather, their heads were turned face downwards to their laps, tapping the buttons on their phones and sending text messages back and forth to one another. It felt like a young adult hipster variation on grade-school girls passing notes in class, and from the way they were giggling and trading conspiratorial glances with each other, I couldn’t help but feel like the teacher. I wondered if maybe I should have felt more embarrassed or self-conscious, since chances were well in my favor, if only because this was me we’re talking about here, that what they were texting and giggling about was me.
I remembered back to the winter of 2001, back in my high school days, when I went to audition for the Rude Mechanicals’ production of Henry IV, the show that was to be my very first with the troupe. They gave me a signup sheet, a pen, a script and told me to wait somewhere until I was summoned. I scanned around the high school cafeteria where the show would eventually be performed three months later with me in the role of plucky and ill-fated Prince Edward, and I searched out a place to sit so I might look over my script and study my lines. I finally decided that the best place for this work was, of course right next to the pretty and sweet-looking blonde girl sitting alone.
We started up conversation, talked about Shakespeare, about how we both knew pretty much nothing about this play, who we were reading for and so on. She told me her name was Elise. How very nice to meet you, Elise. You’re here alone?
“No, I’m here with my husband.”
Ah. Alrighty then. Scratch that’un right there.
Elise has since become one of my closest friends. She tells me now that she thought that my hitting on her all those years ago was “adorable.” That’s not exactly the reaction one generally wants when it comes to flirting, but that was as apt a way as any to describe John Hefner trying to get some. As such, if these girls were giggling about me, I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least. It didn’t matter. It was old news, a reminder that the more things change, yadda, yadda.
And really, once Emm came out on stage, touched those keys and began to sing, frankly, I didn’t give a damn. She was who was I was there to see. Emm and Emm alone. Alone being the operative word here, the essential word.
She pretty much stuck to new material and stuff from her new album, a second CD of cover songs. This suited me just fine since, as before, I didn’t know any of the source songs save for the Corrs’ “Breathless,” the sad beauty of Emm’s version far surpassing the dorky pop-crap of the original. By the time she wrapped up her final song and took her bows, she hadn’t played a single song I’d recognized, and that was just fine by me. It was a wonderful, beautiful evening, the music granting me a momentary and long-awaited respite from what my life had become all that year. Such is the power of music, capable of doing in its own way what the written or the spoken or the illustrated cannot. My father would have appreciated that. Misty too, for that matter.
The audience applauded, of course, but few were louder than myself as I was attempting to lead a real concert-style rhythm going to call for encore. A handful of others joined in, and soon we were clapping in unison, hoping to stir Emm out for just one more song. Concert theatrics, I thought to myself, gotta love ‘em. Of course she was coming out, oh won’t you stay just a little bit longer. And of course she did come out. It’s the way it all works, this relationship between performer and audience, and it’s a beautiful thing.
Emm returned on stage and reassumed her place at the piano, and we all wondered what she would play next. The applause died down as she leaned forward into the mike and began to speak, that warm smile still on her face.
“I’d like to dedicate this next song to a young man named John,” she said. My mouth dropped as she added, with a sly little smile, “…who came alllll the way from Washington D.C. to be here tonight.”
Yeah, the audience had a hearty laugh at that one. As did I for that matter, especially since neither Nichole nor any of her friends knew that I was the John in question. So I was spared personal humiliation in favor of abstract humiliation, which in the form of a personal dedication from a beloved musician is, I think, perfectly acceptable.
“He came here alone just to see me tonight,” she said. “I know what it can be like to go to a bar all alone, so this song is dedicated to him. He told me it was one of his favorites. This is Nick Cave’s ‘Straight to You.’”
She put her fingers to the keys and the song unfurled before me. If I were a real manly sort of man, I probably would have straightened up, clenched my fist, and said something like, “Yeah! Aw, that’s awesome! You rule, Emm! You rule! Yeah!” and then would have, I dunno, proceeded to smash a beer can into my head. Something like that.
But, of course, instead I just gasped quietly, put my hands to my mouth, and didn’t quite cry the entire song but got pretty damn close. And because I was sitting behind Nichole and her friends and was thus spared such further embarrassment, I saw no good reason to hide how absolutely moved and touched I was. This was my evening, mine alone, and I was going to be as wonderfully sissified as I wanted to be. Damn it. Emm Gryner is up there singing one of my favorite songs, and all is well, all is well, and all manner of things will be well.
When she finished, I stood in my booth, King of the Concert, and applauded. Emm smiled at me from the piano, put her hands together in respect and honor, and bowed. The cellist and violinist returned to the stage, and Emm busted out “Symphonic” for her grand finale.
As soon as she left the stage, this time for real, I made my way out of the booth and through the crowds to thank her profusely, to tell her what an honor this was, and maybe even buy her a drink if she’d let me. However, as she was just within my reach, someone had beaten me to her. It took me a second to realize that my usurper was Nichole, of all people. Emm looked at her with excited recognition and they embraced as old friends.
“Hey, Emm!” Nichole said.
“Nichole! Hey! How’re you?” I stood by their side, not certain what to make of this, when Emm pointed me out and said, “Oh, hey this is John, the guy I dedicated that last song to, remember?”
Nichole blinked a couple of times in bemused amazement and said, “Oh yeah, yeah! We’ve been talking all evening!”
Funny old world, innit?
Emm graciously declined my offer for a drink, as several others were already on their tasks. My suffering pocketbook thanked me for the mercy, then I kicked it in the ‘nads and shelled out 20 bucks to buy her latest CD. More than I’d usually ever dare pay, but that evening, what the hell? Once I got her autograph and thanked her again profusely, it would have seemed that my business that evening was concluded and I could have considered it an adventure well done.
Then I saw Nichole, back with her friends. I wasn’t planning on asking for her number. Our interaction was friendly at best, and I wasn’t about to bother making an ass of myself by trying to hit on her or anything. Now was the time where we’d say it was nice meeting you and see you around, never to see each other at all. But then her eyes met mine, and in them I saw something I hadn’t seen before. A slight but distinct flash of newfound warmth. Thanks to Emm, we now shared this bond. Maybe I wouldn’t get a phone number from this girl, but all the same maybe this didn’t have to end altogether. Maybe there was another way.
I said, “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you.”
“It was great meeting you too,” she said, taking my hand.
A beat later, I asked, “Hey, do you have, like, samples of your music on-line or something? Like, a website, maybe? I’d love to hear your stuff.”
Nichole shook her head, taken aback by this unusual request. I don't imagine she often got requests like that.
“No, no I don’t.”
“Oh. Never mind, then.”
Another beat passed between us. She said, “But… I do have an e-mail address, if you’d like to keep in touch.”
“Yeah! Yeah, sure!”
So we exchanged e-mails, parted ways, and not even the discovery that my car was locked inside the parking garage could bring me back down to earth for the rest of the evening.
I had decided to wait until the next day to e-mail her, since I didn’t want to seem overly anxious or anything. You understand, I fought very hard to keep from doing this. The next morning, I visited my e-mail, ready to write a simple but polite hello how’re you doing, only to discover, waiting for me:
“I just wanted to say Hi and it was nice meeting you. I hope you had fun at the show...I LOVED IT! Anyway, i better get back to work...just wanted to say hi. Take care and have a great day. ~Nichole.”
Hot damn, I thought. Hot diggity goddamn damn! You bet I didn’t take too long to respond this time, no grace period or anything. This was it, time to swoop in for the kill. I got her phone number this time and the next evening we talked. It was a lovely conversation, not just friendly like our first but fueled by excitement, or maybe it was just on my part, who really gave a damn. I asked her when I could see her again.
Was this to be my reward for taking a chance and breaking away, heading out into the wide and crazy world on my lonesome for once? Is this what I had been missing all those nights I sat in my dorm room alone and watched Babylon 5 repeats while everyone else at school, strangers though they might have been, were out doing something with their lives? Now I was conversing with a beautiful, sexy woman after one of the best concerts of my life, a mini-adventure in a lifetime of couch potatoery, and I realized my answer.
Sure, I could have brought anyone to see this show, even those closest to me. Even Misty, once upon a time, sure I could have. And it wouldn’t have improved the experience. It might have been just as good, or their presence might even have adversely affected events. There was no way to say for certain, not of anything. Even Nichole who was right there alongside of me couldn’t understand, couldn’t truly appreciate what happened with me that night. When Emm bowed at me after that song, after everything else that happened, it was for me and me alone. And with a glow of contentment, I realized that I did not need validation for this. I knew it. It was real, it happened, and I didn’t need anyone else to say it was so. It was mine to treasure. Mine to have. That was what really mattered, even more than the potential of yet another girl. Women came and went. But not experiences like this. These were the little moments, the story-worthy adventures, that make it all worthwhile. Even if you never get the chance to tell them.
So when Nichole told me that she couldn’t see me for at least a week because she had to go out of town to see her girlfriend, it really didn’t bother me that much. Yeah, she and her met online a few months back and they had fallen in love. In fact, the girlfriend was in the process of moving up to Maryland to be with Nichole. She told me they were really happy.
“That’s good,” I said, and meant it. “There’s not enough happiness going around in this world.”
“Yeah,” Nichole said, and I swear that I could feel her smile over the phone. “It really was a great concert, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I thought so too.”
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 05:29 pm (UTC)this line was great!
there's alot more that i could say, but i had this story delivered to me personally by the man himself.. not sure what i could add to my commentary that night.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-01 02:07 am (UTC)