U2 is Coming for Me

U2 is coming to Los Angeles. And they are coming to play for me. This is a simple truth.

Yes, I'm being dramatic, but it's substantiated drama. I can prove that the act of four men I've never met who bang on things, shimmy around on a stage, and yell loudly at a group of strangers coming to play music 30 miles away from my house is so comprehensively, cut off all my hair, think about getting a tattoo, thrilling that I have to devote one or ten paragraphs exploring why this is so.

I can tell you that my older brother introduced me to U2 when I was in grade school. I used to fall asleep listening to their music with big, puffy, 80s style headphones covering my ears. I'll reveal that as a high school graduation gift, one of my closest friends gave me a thick, oversized book devoted to the band which still sits on my bookshelf. I might say (like many others could) that some experiences during my formative years occured to the soundtrack of a U2 song.

10th grade trip to Europe
Driving from Switzerland to Germany. Napping sporadically on a tour bus full of exhausted high schoolers who spent the night dancing badly at a local discotech. A heavy portable CD player is warming my bare thigh. I got the window seat and I listened to a group of Irishmen tell me a story about God's Country as the white-capped Alps approached from a distance:

Desert sky
Dream beneath the desert sky
The rivers run but soon run dry
We need new dreams tonight

16th birthday party
The furniture in the living room has been moved against the walls. My brother's massive stereo system is set up in the corner--a receiver, tape deck and CD player stacked together with two three-foot speakers guarding them. My parents are out of site. My brother's friends lounge around lanky and laconic inciting my girlfriends. We dance and feel the words of a group of Irishmen who tell us a story about the end of the world:

Haven't seen you for quite a while
I was down the hole just passing time
Last time we met was a low-lit room
We were as close together as a bride and groom
We ate the food, we drank the wine
Everybody having a good time
Except you
You were talking about the end of the world

Freshman summer in Jamaica
On the veranda of my sister's freshly built house. It's almost twilight. My feet are dusty from walking in the red earth all day. I hear the bells from the church down the lane ringing. A woman rides by on a rusty bicycle. Her skirt flutters against the wheels. I look out at the Lighthouse on a nearby cliff named Lover's Leap--the place where two lovesick slaves supposedly jumped to their deaths. And I listened to a group of Irishmen tell me a story about uncertainty:

Don't worry baby, it's gonna be alright
Uncertainty can be a guiding light
I hear voices, ridiculous voices
Out in the slipstream
Let's go, let's go overground
Take your head out of the mud baby

She's gonna dream up
The world she wants to live in
She's gonna dream out loud
She's gonna dream out loud

years later...

Wedding reception 2006, cutting the cake
There are tables and chairs and familiar faces in them. People I've loved forever and people I've just learned to love. I'm wearing all white, made whiter by candlelight. I'm faced with three, tall, sugary white blocks bathed in red flowers. I have a knife in-hand. And I listen as four Irishmen tell me a story about a beautiful day:

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
See the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colours came out

It was a beautiful day

Tonight, April 8, 2009
On the couch with a patch of light coming in from the kitchen. It's hot and the air in my apartment is still. There's a pillow against my back and a laptop warming my legs. The scent of freshly made rice is in the air. I'm typing. I'm thinking about how soon I can get into bed. And I remember the words from a group of four Irishmen that never fail to send me to sleep:

Sleep
Sleep tonight
And may your dreams
Be realized
If the thundercloud
Passes rain
So let it rain
Let it rain
Rain on me

No you know why all the drama.