3 Stories about ‘Aftermath’ and Friendship, for Adam
"3 Stories about ‘Aftermath’ and Friendship, for Adam" (For the "Aftermath" Essay Contest at ALF)
1. Why I Fell in Love with the Song:
I sing in a LGBTA choir in Boston that I lurve. For years I’ve carpooled to rehearsal with a Baritone friend, whizzing back up the Route 1 strip on a post-rehearsal buzz, telling stories, laughing at our loved ones, singing music we love, or going “Wait, wait, you got to listen this” and hitting play. If a song is really good, we’ll sometimes pull off Route 1 to sit in the darkness in a random parking lot, listening together and making little noises indicative of pleasure.
One night after “For Your Entertainment” came out, I played my friend “Aftermath.” I liked the song because it made me think of friendship, but I hadn’t figured it out yet (or fallen Down the Rabbit Hole for it as I had for "Fever," "Music Again" or "Broken Open"). But that night we pulled over and listened to you telling us to “fall into the glitter and tell a stranger that they’re beautiful.” When it was done we were quiet. Then he started talking about coming out. He’d told me all the details, gory and/or glorious, on many previous night drives. Now he said: “You know, I wish there had a been a song like this for me when I was coming out, and felt so alone. But I’m really glad to think that there is a song like it now, for all the kids who are coming out, and setting out to find themselves and each other.” Then we drove home holding hands off and on in the friendly darkness, listening to it again all the way through. “Just remember, you are not alone.” (I love this song.)
(This 1st story is between 200-300 words per contest rules. The next 2 are bonus love for the song that you might enjoy reading).
2. Wanna tell you, You'll be All Right:
I met my BFF the first day of grad school at a truly awful official function. Some Talking Head was braying things like “You must be looking at each other and wondering if you can compete” (when I was just looking around the room for a friend). I saw this small fierce looking black woman, looking appraisingly but hopefully back at me. She came up and said, “Excuse me, but are you, uh…different...too?” And when I laughed, “Yes,” she grabbed my hand and pulled me out of there and into a conversation that can last forever as far as I’m concerned. At the very best and worst moments of both our lives --victories, failures, falling in love, coming out, getting it, getting married, breaking up, binges, hangovers, births, deaths, birthdays, suicides, operations, fucked up vacations and amazing dance parties -- it has been her voice in my ear, and mine in hers, whispering the words and telling the stories that get us through.
Last summer, my BFF finally broke up with her girlfriend of 12 years (while we were all on vacation together too jeez). Blowing up lives is hard and a lot of people were mad at her because she is too loyal a person to explain. This fall I flew down and walked through the empty rooms of her new house, and read the energy as she’d asked me to do. I felt peace and possibilities, but also pockets of loneliness. So while she talked to the realtor, I found myself singing your beautiful song into the echoes and spaces of her new life. After a while I felt her there beside me listening. We walked together through every room, singing “Aftermath” softly with friendship, and with hope.
I bought her the Acoustic Live CD when it came out, and tried to play it to her when she was visiting me as her late Bday present. But she refused to listen to it at my house. She said, “I’m going wait until I’m back home at MY house and play it there, where I remember your voice singing it to me.” A week later, the iphone rang, and I heard your voice, Adam, singing “Aftermath” just pouring out of it (volume set to 11), mixed in with little bits of her voice singing along. This month I bought her the Trevor Project Billboard remix. Her review: “Sweeeeeeeet. It’s kind of smooth and funky at the same time. It’s like….‘Don’t be H8N on the Homos’ music!'" (She’s got the black & purple t-shirt.) She told me she’s going to put it on at Sweet Negritude (which is what she’s named her house) “and we can have a dance party, all up in our own worlds, but together.” (Getting on the plane tomorrow to celebrate my late Bday with her and make this happen).
PS. When she picked me up at the airport, she was blasting the “Aftermath Remix.” (She did not know I had stayed up too late the night before writing these stories.) The “Save a horse; Ride an Equestrian” truck she drives was literally shaking with the beat. LOUD. People stared up at us singing along at the traffic lights. She rolled down the window and screamed out cheerfully at no one in particular: “Yes, I’m gay! Oh god I’m SO gay! And I’m listening to my Gay music in my Gay truck! Yaaaaay!!”) LOUD and PROUD.
3) Love Song for the Beautiful Strangers on My Feed:
On March 10th you sang that simply beautiful and felt acoustic performance of “Aftermath” on idol and released the “Aftermath Remix” for the Trevor Project. My twitter friends around the world flailed and failed to trend things due to twitter filters. You ordered us to flail harder and we laughed (but also werked it). Then I stayed up buying copies for some overseas friends. I gave away others to beautiful strangers in honor of the work of the Trevor Project (and in memory of a 7th grade classmate who might have benefited from it). I was falling asleep when I noticed one of my Japanese twitter acquaintances was flipping out. Earthquake. It’s a big one. Make it stop.
When Japanese people get worked up about an earthquake, you know it’s bad. And this one just kept coming. (The Aftershocks still haven’t stopped.) People started tweeting about a giant tsunami and I started getting really worried about my family in Japan, most of whom live by the coast. I got off twitter to surf for news but what I saw was heartbreaking and terrifying (especially as one of the news reports misreported a horrifying scene as taking place in neighborhood where my Aunt lives). I called & sent emails to my uncle and aunts and cousins but got no reply. My love was in Europe and told me to sleep, but that wasn’t happening. I was up alone with my fear, watching cars and houses swept down streets that looked like my grandmother’s hometown.
I will never forget the love and support I got that night from my twitter feed during this odd vigil. Your fans from all over the country, and all over world were reaching out to friends in Japan and Hawaii who they’ve come to know through shared Glam Nation Tour stories and videos and absurd jokes about peaches -- trying to hold them steady in 140 characters or less. I had friends from all over the US and Canada, India, Finland, Singapore, England, Germany etcetera, holding my hand as well, keeping watch with me, celebrating as I finally started hearing back from relatives that were safe.
I know you feel this love coming at you from the world daily. It was just breathtaking to me. In the days since the earthquake there have been miracles -- as my aunt’s family were found & reunited, though their whole town has been destroyed - and there has also been this unceasing nuclear nightmare -- very restimulating for my mother and other relatives in Japan and abroad who witnessed Hiroshima as children. Throughout it all I’ve been so moved, not just by the incredible generosity of your fans, which I’ve come to expect even as I wonder at it, but just by the strength and love and compassion in this amazing community you’ve inspired. “All you feel is love, love, love!”
1. Why I Fell in Love with the Song:
I sing in a LGBTA choir in Boston that I lurve. For years I’ve carpooled to rehearsal with a Baritone friend, whizzing back up the Route 1 strip on a post-rehearsal buzz, telling stories, laughing at our loved ones, singing music we love, or going “Wait, wait, you got to listen this” and hitting play. If a song is really good, we’ll sometimes pull off Route 1 to sit in the darkness in a random parking lot, listening together and making little noises indicative of pleasure.
One night after “For Your Entertainment” came out, I played my friend “Aftermath.” I liked the song because it made me think of friendship, but I hadn’t figured it out yet (or fallen Down the Rabbit Hole for it as I had for "Fever," "Music Again" or "Broken Open"). But that night we pulled over and listened to you telling us to “fall into the glitter and tell a stranger that they’re beautiful.” When it was done we were quiet. Then he started talking about coming out. He’d told me all the details, gory and/or glorious, on many previous night drives. Now he said: “You know, I wish there had a been a song like this for me when I was coming out, and felt so alone. But I’m really glad to think that there is a song like it now, for all the kids who are coming out, and setting out to find themselves and each other.” Then we drove home holding hands off and on in the friendly darkness, listening to it again all the way through. “Just remember, you are not alone.” (I love this song.)
(This 1st story is between 200-300 words per contest rules. The next 2 are bonus love for the song that you might enjoy reading).
2. Wanna tell you, You'll be All Right:
I met my BFF the first day of grad school at a truly awful official function. Some Talking Head was braying things like “You must be looking at each other and wondering if you can compete” (when I was just looking around the room for a friend). I saw this small fierce looking black woman, looking appraisingly but hopefully back at me. She came up and said, “Excuse me, but are you, uh…different...too?” And when I laughed, “Yes,” she grabbed my hand and pulled me out of there and into a conversation that can last forever as far as I’m concerned. At the very best and worst moments of both our lives --victories, failures, falling in love, coming out, getting it, getting married, breaking up, binges, hangovers, births, deaths, birthdays, suicides, operations, fucked up vacations and amazing dance parties -- it has been her voice in my ear, and mine in hers, whispering the words and telling the stories that get us through.
Last summer, my BFF finally broke up with her girlfriend of 12 years (while we were all on vacation together too jeez). Blowing up lives is hard and a lot of people were mad at her because she is too loyal a person to explain. This fall I flew down and walked through the empty rooms of her new house, and read the energy as she’d asked me to do. I felt peace and possibilities, but also pockets of loneliness. So while she talked to the realtor, I found myself singing your beautiful song into the echoes and spaces of her new life. After a while I felt her there beside me listening. We walked together through every room, singing “Aftermath” softly with friendship, and with hope.
I bought her the Acoustic Live CD when it came out, and tried to play it to her when she was visiting me as her late Bday present. But she refused to listen to it at my house. She said, “I’m going wait until I’m back home at MY house and play it there, where I remember your voice singing it to me.” A week later, the iphone rang, and I heard your voice, Adam, singing “Aftermath” just pouring out of it (volume set to 11), mixed in with little bits of her voice singing along. This month I bought her the Trevor Project Billboard remix. Her review: “Sweeeeeeeet. It’s kind of smooth and funky at the same time. It’s like….‘Don’t be H8N on the Homos’ music!'" (She’s got the black & purple t-shirt.) She told me she’s going to put it on at Sweet Negritude (which is what she’s named her house) “and we can have a dance party, all up in our own worlds, but together.” (Getting on the plane tomorrow to celebrate my late Bday with her and make this happen).
PS. When she picked me up at the airport, she was blasting the “Aftermath Remix.” (She did not know I had stayed up too late the night before writing these stories.) The “Save a horse; Ride an Equestrian” truck she drives was literally shaking with the beat. LOUD. People stared up at us singing along at the traffic lights. She rolled down the window and screamed out cheerfully at no one in particular: “Yes, I’m gay! Oh god I’m SO gay! And I’m listening to my Gay music in my Gay truck! Yaaaaay!!”) LOUD and PROUD.
3) Love Song for the Beautiful Strangers on My Feed:
On March 10th you sang that simply beautiful and felt acoustic performance of “Aftermath” on idol and released the “Aftermath Remix” for the Trevor Project. My twitter friends around the world flailed and failed to trend things due to twitter filters. You ordered us to flail harder and we laughed (but also werked it). Then I stayed up buying copies for some overseas friends. I gave away others to beautiful strangers in honor of the work of the Trevor Project (and in memory of a 7th grade classmate who might have benefited from it). I was falling asleep when I noticed one of my Japanese twitter acquaintances was flipping out. Earthquake. It’s a big one. Make it stop.
When Japanese people get worked up about an earthquake, you know it’s bad. And this one just kept coming. (The Aftershocks still haven’t stopped.) People started tweeting about a giant tsunami and I started getting really worried about my family in Japan, most of whom live by the coast. I got off twitter to surf for news but what I saw was heartbreaking and terrifying (especially as one of the news reports misreported a horrifying scene as taking place in neighborhood where my Aunt lives). I called & sent emails to my uncle and aunts and cousins but got no reply. My love was in Europe and told me to sleep, but that wasn’t happening. I was up alone with my fear, watching cars and houses swept down streets that looked like my grandmother’s hometown.
I will never forget the love and support I got that night from my twitter feed during this odd vigil. Your fans from all over the country, and all over world were reaching out to friends in Japan and Hawaii who they’ve come to know through shared Glam Nation Tour stories and videos and absurd jokes about peaches -- trying to hold them steady in 140 characters or less. I had friends from all over the US and Canada, India, Finland, Singapore, England, Germany etcetera, holding my hand as well, keeping watch with me, celebrating as I finally started hearing back from relatives that were safe.
I know you feel this love coming at you from the world daily. It was just breathtaking to me. In the days since the earthquake there have been miracles -- as my aunt’s family were found & reunited, though their whole town has been destroyed - and there has also been this unceasing nuclear nightmare -- very restimulating for my mother and other relatives in Japan and abroad who witnessed Hiroshima as children. Throughout it all I’ve been so moved, not just by the incredible generosity of your fans, which I’ve come to expect even as I wonder at it, but just by the strength and love and compassion in this amazing community you’ve inspired. “All you feel is love, love, love!”