Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Everything that happens will happen December 12th

David Byrne is performing at the Tampa Theatre on Friday, December 12th. The other night, I sent him an email in which I said:

Hi David, I'm looking forward to your show in Tampa on December 12th at Tampa Theatre... I've been a fan of you and your work for a long time but have never had the opportunity to see you perform live so this will be a very special
occasion for me. Speaking of special, Tampa Theatre itself is a pretty remarkable venue. It originally opened in 1926 and still looks almost exactly as it did then. I've visited lots of old movie theatres and they're always great,
but Tampa Theatre is truly unique. I know concert tour schedules are extremely
hectic but I hope you'll have a little bit of time before the show to look around and see for yourself. Here's a link with the history and a few photos.
http://www.tampatheatre.org/history.php

Take care,Clark


He has yet to reply, but here's what I see happening as a result:


The house lights go down and David Byrne and his band take the stage. As the applause dies down, he addresses the crowd. "Before we begin, I'd like to take a second to thank someone who took the time to extend me an invitation to explore this wonderful venue, which I did. Is Clark Brooks here?" I stand up and a spotlight hits me. I wave shyly. "Come up here, Clark, please", David says. I walk up to the stage and he says "Clark, I really appreciate you telling me about this fantastic theatre and making me feel so welcome in your town. This bass was played by Tina Weymouth in 'Stop Making Sense'. I'd like you to play it tonight and keep it afterwards...if you want." The crowd applauds and I strap it on. "Gee", I say, "this is...just...so incredible. I don't know if I..." and then start plucking out the bassline to 'Psycho Killer'. The band falls in and we sound amazing. We play for two solid hours with three encores, one of which is the entire 'Rei Momo' album. The crowd is euphoric, their lives chaned forever by what they've witnessed. The post-show reviews are even more enthusiastic, with the St. Pete Times' Sean Daly gushing (literally) "Forget tears; I was moved to orgasm". Rolling Stone writes a feature about it. Barack Obama is quoted as saying missing the show is the first disappointment he's had to deal with since the New Hampshire primary.
David invites me to fly back to New York with him after the show to meet his artist friends, many of whom are exotic brunettes with impossibly long legs. I do so and become an immediate sensation in the New York art world where my frustration with my inability to exists as even a marginally capable or slightly significant human being in any way in modern society is taken as 'wry and satirical socio-political meta-commentary' and 'kinda cute'. Later that day, David pleads with me to stay in New York, offering to help me establish a place in which to live and be creative but I refuse. I put my hand on his shoulder and say, sadly, "Home is where I want to be/Pick me up and turn me round/I feel numb - born with a weak heart/(So I) guess I must be having fun/The less we say about it the better/Make it up as we go along/Feet on the ground/Head in the sky/It's ok I know nothing's wrong . . nothing." He nods and says, "you know, when you put it that way, in song lyrics I wrote almost thirty years ago, I understand perfectly what you're trying to say." "Besides, Dave", I say, "I can't live in New York. I hate the fucking Yankees." We embrace warmly, he says "don't call me Dave", and I'm home in time for that night's episode of Conan (who had also been at the party the night before). But I accidentally leave the bass behind at David's place and am too embarrassed to ask him to send it to me.
Damn it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

So, what is David byrne's email address?

Unknown said...

I sent him a message via his MySpace page: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=119709231