Barricades of Heaven (where I'm from)

I was rereading old documents on my computer today and I found this thing I wrote about the Jackson Browne concert in Noho a couple of Aprils ago. It's a little bit weird and weirdly personal, but then, so is his music. It was a perfect night that ended with me standing on a street corner, waving to his bus as it drove away. We waited outside in the wind and rain for two and a half hours. I wouldn't choose to change a single thing that happened that night. Anyway, I wrote this bizarre thing in the aftermath.





Item A: An old tee shirt from a concert years ago. Black, with the blue-purple-pink ombre of that vintage logo, "Late For The Sky" spreading across the chest.

Item B: A newer, but still old, sweatshirt (American Apparel) with the same logo much smaller, over the heart.

Item C: An album, pressed in ’76, unscathed. Jackson Browne walks through a busy LA street in high-waisted, fresh-pressed khakis and a tucked-in white tee shirt.

Item D: A new tee shirt with what will be referred to (incorrectly, but in favor of understanding) as the "Saturate Before Using" record cover screenprinted. 100% bamboo, which is mildly important in understanding what sort of man he is.

To begin. My mother and Judy (unaware of my haircut) picked me up shortly after I was released from my class on Tuesday. We checked them into the HoJo and headed for NoHo. Parking wasn’t hard to come by and we wound up right outside Faces. I brought the album, carrying it face-out so everyone could know. "Yes, yes, this is a Jackson Browne album." We wandered Faces for a bit, looking for a suitable card for Alex. It was at Fitzwilly’s (Fitzwilliam Darrrcy) that I got my first comment. I propped it up neatly so that all who passed by could see, "Oh, you’re going to the show?" Our waiter noticed and applauded our taste in music. "He’s the Pretender, for crying out loud." I smiled shyly, Mom and Judy did their meddlesome mom thing. Then Judy: "Did you tell your sweetie that you cut your hair?" Me: "I have no sweetie, unless you mean Jackson Browne."

It’s not about the boys who notice me tonight, I think, because this night is about so much more. This night is about everything. It’s about living and existing and falling in love and knowing that it’s real and he’s real and I’m real and this, right now, this beating heart and pumping blood and the lights and the guitar and the piano and his voice, it’s all real. It’s the music, not to be too cliche, but this night is about being alone in a theater with Jackson Browne.

We leave dinner at the Fitzy’s and as we walk to a packie for the requisite after-show cocktail, (pre-emption) a grinning, near-toothless drunk pointed and said, "Oh, Jackson! Just don’t take my piano, man!" We walked by him again and he begged me to leave him to his piano. Another older man, well-dressed, affluent, nodded his approval and pointed at the name that was clutched to my heart. You don’t understand, it’s not a laughing matter, I thought. This is everything.

We breeze in; I’ve got my ticket, thanks. "Is that your grandfather’s album?" "I didn’t even know kids knew what vinyl was!" "That thing’s older than you!" Tee shirts, merch, whatever. The boy is large, has multiple piercings in his face, and several tattoos. I like him. He offers me the smallest sized pseudo-vintage bamboo tee shirt he has available and I smile at him. Under different circumstances, we would be friends. I pull off my sweater and put the tee shirt on immediately, in the midst of the crush of middle-aged and older, my mother wondering what’s become of her modest little thing. ("Pretty little one," I hum to myself, but say nothing. I am not on the run.)

Josh enters, stage right. Expression of shock and delight, the awkward small talk "What are you doing here?" "Seeing Jackson." "I didn’t expect you!" Mom and Judy exchange the "Who was that?" look. I know that look. I patented that look. And I know what they’re thinking-- Josh has the prettiest eyes this side of thirty-three. He and I were never meant to be, and that is all I can say about that. I find my seat, so close and yet, so far. I can see the facebook boy from where I’m sitting. God, could it get any creepier than that? I am surrounded by people who say things like "God, such a waste of money." "Well, it would be, but I got the tickets for free, remember?" "I hope he played ’The Pretender.’" "He has to, it’s his biggest hit." "Why does he have so many guitars? Is he planning on playing all of them?" "Oh, Lord! How long will this show go? I saw the set-list and it didn’t look intolerable but Jesus, those guitars! And he has a keyboard with him, too?!"

I hope he plays through midnight. I hope he plays until his fingers fall off and the sun stops rising and setting. I hope we all die here and are fossilized in our seats, listening to the sweet soulful symphony of his voice, his words, his guitar, his keyboard. If you need something else from life, then why are you here? I can think of no better way to go.

Lights, up, down, up down, up, and down for good at last.

I do not have tunnel-vision. I know that the only people on the face of the planet at this moment when he begins, with "Barricades of Heaven," are him and me. We are alone. Not alone in the theater but alone in the world. I have not tuned other people out; they have ceased to be. He stares upwards as he plays, taking the requests from disembodied voices, interacting with people who are not me, who do not truly exist. I spend the first four songs in tears. It is here at last. This is what he is meant to be. I cannot adequately describe it. It’s like every note he plays and every word he sings floods into me and I don’t have room for anything else. Not for the flashes or the shushing crowds that I hear about later. Not for the disinterest I imagine from the seats around me, people I later realize won’t even bother to stay until the end of the show, let alone through the standing ovation and brief, too, too brief, encore. I have no room inside for anything but this music and this moment, not for Jacob or Brian or my grandfather. My father is there, he is always in the music, but there’s no mod drama or past or future there is only this present and this music. Everything is perfect. I don’t check my clock, I don’t think about class, I don’t care about anything.

Intermission and I’m back, but not really. Mom and Judy point out the cute young men around me and I acknowledge that there are some real lookers in the audience tonight but "Oh, did you hear him on ’For a Dancer’? I cried." "Mom, I’m here for only one man and his name is Jackson." Going back to my seat I pass John-from-facebook. Awkwardness? "Oh, now, you look familiar!" "Are you enjoying the show?" "It’s wonderful! You?" "It’s great."

He comes back and for the rest of the show I am in a trance. I am not waiting for any song in particular and the requests float toward me more like memories and notes than audience interaction and interruption. I know we are alone again and the audience is just another part of my subconcious. I am living in this moment, feeding on it. How many miles, how many years can this sustain me through? I’ve never felt it like this before. I’ve always loved his music, you know that. I’ve never felt the whispered desperation of "That’s the way love is" quite the way I felt it in the moment when his voice, heavy with emotion and real, deep and rich and strained and desperate whispered it into the microphone, "That’s the way love is." I will never stop looking for you, indeed. He has taken me by the hand and led me to the hole in his garden wall. He has pulled me through. I am living in his secret garden.

On stage he is like this: a loose-jointed suit of clothing stuffed with straw, a scarecrow made of music and poetry. Softly slouching shoulders, a silver beard (the only sign of age he has exhibited) and a manner of moving like a particularly secure sixteen year old. His hands are enormous, but I’ll get there. There’s an ease and a confidence, he’s the most relaxed person I’ve ever known. He glides and floats between guitars and keyboard. Eyes heavenwards, always, sharing tiny bits of himself between songs, enormous parts of himself inside the the songs. Laughing, smiling, crying, breaking me down and building me up. On stage he is the same as he was at sixteen, at eighteen, at twenty-two and twenty-four. He’s not polished or unflappable. He’s real and he’s vulnerable and he’s beautiful.

Too short an encore. There is no doubt that you’re the reason I’m still standing.

I leave, more stares and this time I know it’s not the album that I’m holding at my side. Older men, how common, who see me waiting for my mother and Judy, who assume I’m there alone, perhaps. Some people will notice the album after they make it obvious what they notice first. (Can’t anyone notice my soul, my life, the things that make me me before they notice the things that make me hate myself? I didn’t ask for this, I work to destroy this. This isn’t who I am; the vinyl is who I am.) Once The Pretender has caught their eye, they have a reason to stop and talk to me, so they do. Am I acting disinterested enough? Have I made it clear I have eyes for only one man and his name is Jackson? John-From-Facebook comes out after a while and pauses long enough to make sure I had a good time. He looks me in the eye when he asks what I thought of the show. I double-check that the show was what he wanted and he moves on. I wish he would stay and talk to me about Jackson. The same man who asked me earlier if that was my grandfather’s album reminds me that I need to now tell him [Jackson] that I brought an heirloom for him to sign.

I am not a cliche!

I finally make my way upstairs and meet up with MomandJudy. The merch boy has cleaned up and left. I catch a glimpse of Pretty Boy and keep a weather eye out for Josh. I want to know what he thought. He and I are music-soulmates, I think. Was it as transcedent, as religious, as solitary and heart-shattering for him? I never did find out.

There is a security guard downstairs who looks shockingly like the Toymaker from the Keanu Reeves/Drew Barrymore Babes in Toyland. I ask, "Is there any way you could get him me to meet him? I have loved him since infancy." He said he can’t do anything but tells me to wait by the curtain and hope they take me down with the people who have passes. I try, but a woman who works there tells me I need to leave because it’s time to clear the theater out. "Just looking," I say, "I’ve never seen a show here before and it’s beautiful." We exit the theater and turn right, down the alley. I see the bus.