Last Night On Earth

Something weird has been up for the past month or so. The story is not the same. It doesn’t have the same pull. Everything in life is in transition and the story that has been with me for a decade and a half feels like it’s ending. 

The Gaslight Anthem was the soundtrack of our whole life together. Every road trip with the top down, every camp site across the country, every summer and every dark winter. Stress of university times and starting the wrong career. Breakdowns and glow ups. new puppies and old fights. Births, almost births. Deaths. All of it. 

Brian Fallon’s home concerts were our date nights during COVID. Being on the west coast and still “at work” workers, we’d rush home with a bottle of wine so we could watch live. There was magic in the invisible connection to everyone else watching. Singing along at the same time as all the other people watching in isolation felt real and spiritual. 

It’s all over now. 

The Gaslight Anthem and all of Brian Fallon’s music was so much of this life and I have to let it rest for a little while. Every note and every lyric has a specific physical memory of the past 15, almost 20 years.

I can’t be more grateful for the timing of Brian’s new album because it's a clean slate for visceral memories.

Enter: Bleachers. On page 33 of 33 of what is currently saved under the name "The Summer of George."

The Road to the Last Night on Earth

They came to Mae via Baby Goya. 

She's been on the rollercoaster of endless peaks and valleys lately. She often gets through those times binging old sitcoms and movies on Netflix.  She had just watched that Sally Field movie with the octopus and Netflix suggested Hello, My Name is Doris. 

She had a brief thought, “This movie is going to change my life.” How, she wasn’t sure yet.

Doris was a sweet 60 something woman just trying to live her best life. She was trying to connect with a young dude at work and she was testing out the music she knew he was into. 

There is moment where Doris puts on the Baby Goya CD and dances in her poodle skirt to Dance Rascal Dance. That moment changed something inside of Mae. Doris’ freedom and joy entered her bloodstream and Mae wanted more of what she had.

Google: Bleachers. From New Jersey, of course. Where else?

Inspiration had been so scarce lately but now, here she was painting and dancing listening to a fictional band on repeat. 

She had to hear more Bleachers.

(In a story for another day, the writer had no idea the rabbit hole she was about to enter.)

Fast forward: There is a video on YouTube of Bleachers playing The Stone Pony, the mecca of this tale. 

Sometimes in the deep valleys we can resist the things that make us feel good. She was resisting music.

But, it's how Jackson communicates with her. Does she resist because she doesn't want him to see her that way? He kept pulling so she pushed through the resistance. 

And she watched. 

She could feel the people in that room. They were different. Their energy was so pure she could feel it over the recording, even weeks after it happened. I hope everyone who was in that room got to spread the joy they found there. She thought.

She watched in VR so she could feel a little more like she was there too. She cried and danced along. "Crying out the crazy."

There was a person in the front row wearing a T shirt where Mae could only make out the words Come, Jersey, Home. The message is clear.

Later she saw the rest of it and it said “Welcome to New Jersey Now Go Home.” She loved that and it made her laugh. The message was no less clear. 

She cried with Jack as he sang Isimo. 

(The writer has a sudden moment of awareness of the magic as she realizes making this Mae’s scene instead of real life has Jack and Mae crying together at The Stone Pony in VR. 

I know there will only be a handful of people, who will ever really get this story and have the patience for the inconsistent, out of order telling of it. Like Bleachers, it’s for anyone, not everyone. 

There might be 59 people who will truly connect with this, there might be 1. But the 59 or the 1 will cry with me when they see the magic of that moment.)

The girl in the Welcome to New Jersey shirt was crying too, and even though it was weeks apart and in VR, it felt like we were all crying together. 

I get the sense she made it out, too. Look at us. 

**

In the rabbit hole I found Jack Antonoff on the Dax Shepperd Podcast. At the end Dax moves the furniture to dance to Upstairs at ELS. Did you know el is god? Jack left out the periods and it looks like it could be said like El’s and not E. L. S. Upstairs at God’s. 

The dance was so beautiful in such a weird way. Dax was Doris in her poodle skirt dancing to Baby Goya, not knowing exactly where it was going but just feeling it, the discomfort, and all the way through it to something wonderful. Freedom and joy. Dance, Rascals, Dance.

New bucket list item: Dance with Dax at a Bleachers show.

Back at The Stone Pony during I Wanna Get Better at exactly 1:17 (and another eerie story for another day) the camera zoomed in on that same girl. She had heart shaped glasses and sang the words “now I’m a stranger.” She represents something. Something that’s a stranger, for now. A Stranger Desired. Mae knew this was always about finding her people.

Jackson and Mae communicate through the music. Always. She hears him so clearly right now. She thought to herself: I don’t know when I’ll see them but my people are in that room.

And We’re Gonna Know Each Other Forever.