The Gospel According to Bieber

Mid-morning on a Tuesday, I am sitting in Well Grounded Coffee trying to get my morning pages done. At once, I am surrounded on all sides by people. The first is a man in his mid-40s, taking a seat at a table just to my right. He opens his laptop and starts typing on a corporate messaging app. In short order, he has minimized the app and is now hosting a full-blown meeting via video chat. To his credit, he has headphones in, but that doesn’t do much for the rest of us who can hear his half of the meeting.

At the counter, an older gentleman has pulled out his phone while waiting for his coffee. He dials a number, and the ring bursts from his speaker. A woman answers. This guy is easily in his mid-70s, and the woman who has answered on the other end sounds both young and interested in his call. From the sounds of their voices, she is probably his daughter. He begins by telling her all the latest medical procedures he has undergone. Then he follows up with news of the recent “gully washer” that we had all endured the night before.

“How about all that lightning waking us up last night?” the corporate guy says to his meeting attendees.

“It hasn’t rained that hard in months,” the older man says.

They are each having two sides of the same conversation.

A third man stands up from his tall stool, laptop propped beside a wall.

“Hello, this is Dave,” he says into the microphone of his headset.

Aren’t I in a public place? I think. Not wanting to give up my primo writing spot before finishing my coffee or my pages, I put in my earbuds to drown them all out.

The playlist I choose? All Bieber.

I was not born a Belieber. I am a recent convert. Like many adults who join a religion later in life, I converted after attending a particularly moving service. In this case, it was Bieber’s one night in Dallas on his current JUSTICE tour.

Also like many religions, I was brought to the faith by a friend. Christie has been a Belieber since his documentary was in theaters. I had always heard his songs on the radio, but never dived in much further than that.

It was a warm Sunday night in early May when I joined the congregation. Walking from a nearby Tex-Mex restaurant in Victory Park, Christie and I approach the front steps to the American Airlines Center.

At the bottom of the steps, we are greeted by a group of people ranging from their mid-20s to mid-40s, standing in a semi-circle. If one of them wasn’t holding a sign warning us about hell and the other wasn’t commanding me to repent via a handheld bullhorn, I might have thought they were there to see the show. Or maybe to drop their kids off to see the show. But no, they aren’t dropping off any son. They are here on behalf of the Son - or at least they claim to be.

“The Bible is the word of God,” the man shouts through the bullhorn. It sounds harsher than what it could have had he just been speaking normally. I am no expert proselytizer, but I think he should maybe invest in a more updated sound system. Heck, a good portable karaoke machine would do the trick. The way his voice sounds coming through the bullhorn, it sounds like at any moment he may add to the end of his sentence like a drill sergeant, “You little maggots!”

“Do what pleases God,” he says, and my mind completes the sentence, “Then drop and give me twenty!”

We continue inside toward our seats. Coming from a quick stop in the bathroom, we can hear the audience screaming for JADEN - Jaden Smith, whose stage name on all the tour literature is written in all-caps.

Just a few minutes before Bieber is set to take the stage, we take our seats. The lights go out and some intro music begins. The crowd’s screams are the loudest sounds I’ve heard in my whole life and I once stood on a runway next to a departing B-29 bomber. Based on the preemptively titillated screams, I prepare myself for what I am assuming will be a pretty sexual show.

I settle back in my seat and stick my VIBES concert-specific earplugs in. Biebs is a one-man boy band after all. People (mostly women) in the audience concentrate the amount of energy normally reserved for four or five band members into just him. It’s a laser beam of devotion, the sound of which fills every one of the 1.4 million square feet of this building.

The lights have been out for a few moments, and there’s still no Bieb in sight. The crowd screams in darkness, louder and louder, until the lights go up. A video board spanning the width of the stage begins playing a video.

It’s Bieber. At the sight of his image, the impossibly loud screams somehow get louder. The video shows him in a field of grass, walking with arms outstretched. A voiceover - his own voice - narrates along with subtitles. The words sound like the platitudes you find on wooden signs at Hobby Lobby or under #quotes on Instagram.

“Life is hard,” he tells us in nearly a whisper. “It’s a lot of pressure on us every day. The world needs unity and hope. If you feel alone, just know - you are loved.”

If these words were coming from anyone else, I imagine at least a percentage of people in the audience would reject this saccharine mess. But it’s not anyone else. It’s Bieber. From his mouth, it’s gospel. Even with my own Bieb-ignorance, I feel sucked in.

Maybe it all will get better, I think.

Then the message shifts from general platitudes to specific encouragement.

“All we have to do is lean on our savior. God will protect us.”

Okay, that was unexpected, but it’s your show, buddy. We’re a captive audience. Preach on.

And he does.

What looks like a giant discarded pool toy on stage begins to move. It’s a deflated airplane that is now filling with air. Once full, it levitates in the air. The video screen goes dark. The hatch above the cockpit pops open, and there he is.

From our seats in the 300 section, Bieber seems tiny. A skinny man-boy in a red polo, black slacks, white sneakers, and a black fitted ball cap turned backwards. Part of his trademarked beautiful face is obscured by wraparound sunshades. He is wearing black leather gloves on both hands.

Without greeting the audience, he launches into “Somebody” off the album Justice for which the tour is named. Soon, the overt mentions of God from the video intro make tons of sense. The first line of the first song talks about thanking God. The next song promises that Heaven is a place not too far away. After that, he sings about praying that he doesn’t go back to who he once was. Song four is straight up called “Holy,” and he sings it with six giant neon-pink crosses behind him that look like a rave graveyard. A raveyard.

I should clarify, none of this is a criticism. Each song is one bop after another. I don’t even know these songs. I have never heard most of them, but I am dancing along, stomping my beer-soaked feet to the beat.

What gets me is each song, framed in religious imagery, is also real horny. For instance, “Holy” includes a tambourine percussion beat that would be at home in a gospel church rhythm section. Backed by a piano and full choir, this could be a Sunday morning service rather than a Sunday evening concert. At the start of the song, I wonder whether the love he sang of could be his love for God. Then I hear the words.

The way we love in the night gave me life.

I sure hope that’s not about God.

The lyrics make it clear that the subject is a girl, likely his wife, Hailee. They’re married, so from a strictly moral perspective, it’s fine if they make love in the night. From a musical perspective, it’s even better. You feel the song from head to toe — the percussion, the softness of his voice that dips into a deep wail. Soon my hands are up. I am singing along: On God, Running to the altar like a track star.

The music is working on all the people around us, too. The row of gal pals behind us has not stopped screaming since the show’s start. They have commented on his hot body. They have chugged their Truly cans and spilled their Bud Lights. One called out, “I am so fucked up, Briana!” She didn’t have to holler that. We already knew based on her loud, off-key scream-singing.

About halfway through the set, he begins giving an extemporaneous speech on race relations in the United States. It is the kind of speech you can tell right from the start does not yet have a middle or end.

“Our world right now is in a tough place,” he tells us. “Racism is a disease taking over our planet. We have to be the change makers. We have to step up and have those conversations with our friends and family.” I nod along with him. Somewhere behind me I hear a distinctly drunk female voice say, “Yessssss!” I am not sure if it’s Briana or the one who told Briana that she is fucked up.

I hope the “Yesss” is in response to his speech, but more likely Brianna handed her another Truly. After finishing his homily, he plays hit after hit, eventually removing his sunglasses.

“Oh my God,” the woman behind us says. “He took off his sunglasses. I was going to go to the bathroom but not now. Maybe he’ll take off his shirt next.”

If he did strip off that red polo, I think Briana and company would be disappointed. Based on what I have heard, he is certainly wearing a full priest collar underneath. It’s the only possibility. We wouldn’t see abs. We would see vestments.

Towards the end of the show, he plays his mega-hit “Baby” then leaves the stage. Moments later, to another round of deafening screams, he reemerges from beneath the stage floor playing a white piano. As he tinkles out a melody, he lets us know that if we’re having a hard time, we should know we are not alone.

“Things in the world are leaving us depressed. You guys aren’t alone. You’re not alone. Sometimes we feel like we’re the only people going through it. We look around, and it feels like everyone else has got it together. But this is just not true,” he says.

He plays more. Women scream. He tilts his head and puts his lip right up against the mic and whispers to us.

“There’s hope, you know, because God says he’s near to the broken-hearted. He’s near to the broken-hearted. He’s near to the broken-hearted. That’s how he moves,” he says with what sounds like the utmost sincerity. I believe that he believes every word he says.

The camera cuts from Justin to a woman in the audience. She’s in her mid-30s, arms wrapped around herself, her face is contorted. She lets tears fall down her cheeks.

The camera is back on Justin. He continues to comfort her and all of us.

“Don’t be ashamed of your brokenness. Just give it to Him. He’ll take care of it. He’ll take care of you. He says He clothes the lilies with splendor and wonder. He’ll take care of you. He’ll take care of you.”

Head down, he plays more. More screams. He shifts to introducing the band members, one by one, then the opening acts and dancers. He also thanks all the people who put the stage together. Again, he sounds as if he began talking with no real plan of where he was going. Gratitude just spills out from his lips. He thanks us, too, for being there.

Then, gently – just as gently as he told us God would take care of us – he begins to sing:

I get my peaches out in Georgia
Oh yeah shit
I get my weed from California
That’s that shit
I took my chick up to the North, yeah
Bad ass bitch
I get my light right from the source, yeah
Yeah that’s it

It breaks me. I let out a laugh. He had just quoted John 3:16 and now has blessed us with this jam.

Justin isn’t wrong, after all. The good Lord made everything, I suppose – peaches, weed, bad ass bitches, and all.

He ends the set with a song called “Anyone,” a declaration of forever love that starts out illustrated with a video collage of his wife and ends with photo after photo of fans.

You are the only one I’ll ever love, he promises us, as our own faces splash across the enormous screen. If it’s not you it’s not anyone. Looking back on my life, you’re the only good I’ve ever done.

As he leaves the stage for the final time, the screams reach a fever pitch. Finally, they die down into a euphoric murmur of exiting parishioners.

On the way to the car, we see the protestors again. Tired youths sit on the steps before the hellfire and brimstone signs, waiting for rides and ignoring the man on the megaphone. Their faces in their phones, the Beliebers scroll the pics and videos of the sermon they’ve just sat through, tuning out the one going on in front of them.

One member of the protesting flock paces back and forth, thrusting bright yellow pamphlets into people’s unwilling hands. He leans his face close to a young girl who is crafting a Snapchat and asks her if she knows Jesus. I interrupt him.

“Can I have a pamphlet?” I ask. He hands me one without looking up.

As we walk back to the parking garage, I read a few lines to Christie.

Heaven, it turns out, has a few design flaws if this street pamphlet is to be trusted. “Gates never close.” Ok that’s called space. “No sun or moon. No hospitals. No ambulance services.” Note to self: don’t get injured and leave the sunscreen at home.

The back side is all about Hell. Two cartoon figures writhe in a burning fire, hands on either side of their faces, mouths agape with regret.

“Don’t let this happen to you,” the caption reads. Printed beneath the drawing is a long list of everyone who will be “thrown into this ETERNAL FIRE.” The list includes “male prostitutes” specifically and “those who don’t produce fruit.”

And should you end up there? You should know that Hell is “not a place where you will party with your friends,” just FYI. Not sure about everyone else, but I have never been promised that. I have, however, been to some parties that have felt like an eternity in Hell.

The sheet also warns us that Hell is not “this present life,” though after these past two years, many of us would beg to differ. It is also not only “for people like Charles Manson, Adolph Hitler, bank robbers, or murderers.” This list is so strangely out of order my brain breaks. It’s not listed most worst to least worst. It’s not in chronological order. It’s not alphabetical. It’s nonsense like most of the page.

The bottom part of the pamphlet could have been a transcription of what we heard inside the concert: “He who has the Son has life.” That part tracks. The rest, not so much.

Inside the parking garage elevator, stuffed shoulder to shoulder with other concert goers, I ask: “Did y’all get your pamphlets?”

I hold the yellow paper up. They laugh.

“Is that a drawing of Hell on the back?” one woman asks.

“I think so,” I tell her, holding it for her to see.

As the door opens, the man with his arms wrapped around her asks, “Don’t they know we got a dose of that inside the show?”

“Right?” I say walking out into the garage.

I’m no biblical scholar, but I know a little something about messaging. One of the messages that went out this night made it through. It had people crying and singing and believing. The other made it as far as the pile of trash on my car’s floorboard.

Back in the coffee shop, my Bieber playlist rolls on. In my ear, Justin sings a sweet message: Take me as I am, swear I'll do the best I can.

I look around at the bedlam in the coffee shop. The owner wiping sweat from her forehead. The new employee behind the counter studying the buttons on the register. The businessman encouraging his employees in his video chat. The older man sipping his coffee and connecting with his daughter about gully washers and bone scans.

I do as the Biebs tells me. I take them all as they are. I choose to believe they’re doing the best they can. We all are, aren’t we? Still, I turn up the music until it’s all I can hear, glad to hear both the melody and the message.

***

This piece first appeared in Sunday Morning Hot Tea. Subscribe so you don’t miss another piece.

Sobbing and Rocking

I should be watching the concert in front of me. I can’t. I can’t focus on anything but the couple across the aisle. A diminutive pair, the man is wearing a short sleeve white shirt with a blocky black floral print. His jeans are skin tight. His hair is slicked back. I am across the aisle from him in a full arena, but I am convinced I know exactly what he smells like. He is glued to the woman in front of him, and she loves it. Her jeans are also painted on, so tight around her thighs and backside that I’m sure the couple can feel one other’s tiddly bits through the fabric. 

They’re swaying to the beat, then without warning, they’re grinding. This isn’t too crazy given we are in the middle of a John Mayer concert. We all feel the various grooves in our own ways. During, say, “Your Body Is A Wonderland,” this level of grinding is to be expected. But that song is not what is playing.

I find myself looking over again and again. At first, I chalk their horniness up to not knowing the song. It has a sultry beat, and to be fair, it wasn’t one of his most mainstream hits. Probably because of the heavy imagery. “Belief” is intense. 

What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand?
Belief can, belief can
What puts the folded flag inside his mother's hand?
Belief can, belief can

If you just heard the funky bass, you might expect a sexier song. That has to be what is happening here. They heard the riff and got to crushing.

But then I see it: their mouths moving. Oh no. They are mouthing right along with the rest of us. They know the words, and don’t seem to care. The woman even pulls her phone up and films them together singing along. The grinding has reached a fever pitch. I am convinced that somewhere down in the darkness of the fabric, they’ve achieved full penetration. 

Like I said, we are all feeling the music in our own way. Every single song so far, I have sung out loud, at the top of my lungs. I have lifted my hands. I have danced. I am proudly wearing a hat I got from the merch stand even though it does not match my outfit whatsoever.

It’s 2022, twenty years after my first John Mayer concert. On August 27, 2002, my mom dropped me and a friend off at the now-demolished Bronco Bowl to hear this new John Mayer guy play his music. We were in the cheap seats, though in the 3,500 seat venue, no seats were really that bad.

I had first seen John — yes I address him by his first name, not because we are friends (yet!), but because he has been with me, at least sonically, throughout every era of my life. Also I made him laugh when I met him a few years back, so we’re cool.

I had first seen John back in March 2002 on the short-lived but funny Late World with Zach, hosted by a pre-The Hangover Zach Galifinakis. By that time, John had released 1999’s Inside Wants Out, his debut EP. It had some good jams, but his first major hit was “No Such Thing” from 2001’s Room for Squares. That's the song that hooked me, up well past midnight watching VH1 on a Friday night. Yeah, I was a super cool high school sophomore. 

After hearing him perform the song on TV, I did what any self-respecting music lover did in 2002: I went straight to Limewire and downloaded every song I could find. Then, in an early aughts show of loyalty, I drug myself to CD Warehouse and paid full retail price for both the EP and the album. 

I wore Room for Squares out in my blue Sony Discman. Fifteen-year-old Heather could not get enough of the songs like “Why Georgia.” In retrospect, singing about a “quarter life crisis” sounds far bleaker at 15 than it did for John's 24 years at the time. Still, I felt every chord in that song in my still-growing bones. Hearing it live was more than I could handle. I left the Bronco Bowl show a changed woman - or, rather, kid, teenager, whatever. 

It wasn't my first concert ever. I had seen the Backstreet Boys live and watched pop acts at KISS FM’s End of Summer Bash before. My mom had taken me to a Bon Jovi show. But this was the first concert where the music felt like mine. John was up there letting us know it was okay not to be the coolest kid in school. Even if it wouldn’t all turn out perfect, it would be okay. We’d make it out alive, and there would be art and freedom and music on the other side.

At 15, I needed to hear it would all be okay from someone who had recently been there. It didn’t always feel like things would work out. I felt, like so many of us do when we’re that young, that it was a requirement for me to become fundamentally different from who I was to survive. I tried on goth clothes — all safety pins and fishnets and combat boots. I tried on funny t-shirts. I tried on cool clothes from Rue 21 and hand-me-downs from my sister. None of them ever felt like they fit.

The feedback I got back from other kids didn’t help matters much. I know now I was not alone in bearing the brunt of teenage judgment. Still, at the time, it stung. The boy who told me he would be my boyfriend only if I would “lose a hundred pounds and get cool.” The girl who told me my crush on a cool classmate would go permanently unrequited because he liked “soccer girls, you know? Girls in soccer shorts.” This was shorthand for girls whose thighs didn’t touch when they walked. 

I had an inkling that maybe I wasn’t completely bankrupt when it came to love interests or self-actualization, but I couldn’t be sure. I thought it was possible I had something to offer even if no one was biting yet. I was suspicious that, despite all evidence, there was something there, like I was flush with cash in a foreign currency with nowhere to exchange it and no way to spend it.

John on VH1 that late March night felt like a call from the other side. It was a message from my home planet.

I’d like to think the best of me
Is still hiding up my sleeve

I thought, Sameeeeee.

But wait, there was more. 

Something's better on the other side, he promised. Like a late night infomercial, I was ready to open my wallet and make however many easy payments to buy whatever he was selling.

Those transmissions were key. For me — for all of us who were listening — we got the message. It’s fine, he told us. Or, at least, it will be fine someday, and someday is maybe not so far off. He sang about high school, but even better, he sang about his ten-year reunion.

He had made it out. He was on TV. He was singing me songs on stage at a concert.

I am invincible as long as I’m alive, he sang, adding in live versions of the song, You are invincible, we are invincible, as long as we're alive.

I did not feel invincible at that time. I actually felt pretty worthless. But that became a mantra, even if I didn’t know what a mantra was back then. I just knew I could sing it over and over and maybe if I sang it enough times, it would make it true.

The truth is I’m not invincible. John isn’t either. Neither are you. Maybe the better word would have been “impervious,” but that doesn't sound as good in a pop song. I worse those lyrics like armor. I had his music, and so I was invincible — from mean comments or from being told I wasn’t good enough or from that sinking feeling that I was still cooking and not done yet.

When my ten-year reunion came around, it was time to put his promises to the test. Everything was not perfect, though, to be fair, he had never promised that. It was better though, that much he was right about.

It’s vindicating to hear him now, knowing he was right all along. Something better was, indeed, on the other side. Not just for me, but for him, too. Twenty years later and we are both still here. Far from the Bronco Bowl’s 3,500 seats, he has filled up the 20,000 seat American Airlines Center. 

I’m not surprised when he leaves “No Such Thing” off the set list. Really, with all the incredible songs he has written in the interim, no one can blame him. He throws us old timers a bone, though. He tells us he knows the oldies are important to us. He recognizes that they got us through high school and college and that they’re part of our lives.

For us, he plays “Why Georgia”. I sing along, arms outstretched, palms up. Now, singing about a quarter-life crisis, I realize crested the hill where the lyrics went from bleak to fitting to now impossible. Even with modern medicine, I don’t see myself making it to 140 years old. Still, it feels good to hear this one live again. He medlies “Georgia” into a cover of “Forever Young” and “Shouldn’t Matter But It Does” off his newest album, Sob Rock. 

I am happy to hear the new stuff. Unlike the chumps nearby who hoot and holler at “Your Body Is A Wonderland” and look around confused during the new songs, I like the most recent record. Paris and I chose one of the tracks “Carry Me Away” as our first dance. A new song for a new era, this one makes no promises of the future. It’s focused squarely on the present, on promises realized.

You know I need you, and that’s for sure,
You’re just the kind of crazy I've been looking for.

We sway together, Paris with his arms wrapped around me. Just over a month married and still in the honeymoon phase. There's nothing left to promise, nothing I have to wait for. It’s all right here.

Along with the couple making love in their seats beside us, there are thousands of other people in the arena singing and clapping along. Some as old as me or even older. Others are younger — college kids, high schoolers. In the lobby, we see a tiny boy, in maybe second grade, wearing a Sob Rock ball cap and matching t-shirt so long it nearly touches his ankles. 

As we leave the arena, I feel so grateful for the show. So grateful that John is still making music — not just for me, but for all of us. All of us who hoped for something better on the other side and who have now crossed over. Whether we've been hoping for twenty years or just found out today. Legions of us pouring out the doors onto the streets, feeling invincible and so very happy to be alive.

***

This piece first appeared in Sunday Morning Hot Tea. Subscribe so you don’t miss another piece.

Real Characters

For awhile in the late twenty-teens (what do we even call the years between 2010 and 2019?), I was miserable. Just absolutely down-in-the-dumps, ready to drive my car into a highway median. I didn’t want to die, exactly, but I just wanted to shut it down for awhile, spend a little time laid up in a hospital bed, away from life.

I finished law school (whoopee) and passed the bar (huzzah), yet neither of these accomplishments magically solved all my problems. Shocking, right? I was in a relationship where I felt utterly alone. I worked a job I was good at and where I liked the people, but I didn’t feel particularly fulfilled. I hadn’t started doing comedy again. I was just sort of floating.

One of my only escapes was my notebook. It was an extra large black Moleskine with ruled pages. I don’t remember when I got it. The first few pages are nonsense, just bits and scraps of ideas and thoughts. The first real dated page is April 19, 2016.

I took that notebook and a Pilot Precise V5 in either blue, black, or pink ink if I was feeling wild, and sat at a Starbucks every morning from 7am until 7:55. When my time was up, I would head to work around the corner. I started at the Starbucks in Addison, Texas off Belt Line Road and the Dallas North Tollway. Then, when my office moved, I switched to the one at Preston Road and Alpha. On Fridays, I went to the Original Pancake House where I sat at the bar and had three gluten-free pancakes alone. I called it Pancake Friday. It was one of my most sacred joys.

Neither the restaurant or Starbucks themselves were important. They didn’t need to serve coffee or breakfast. They just needed to be anywhere but my home.

In those pages between the soft black covers, I didn’t usually write stuff like this — stories about my life or true stuff. Instead, I wrote fiction. I wrote suspense novellas and romance novels. I wrote ghost stories and love stories and disaster stories. I was out of my head for an hour a day, somewhere I desperately no longer wished to be.

Sitting in a Starbucks that often, I came across my fair share of characters. Real weirdos and oddballs. Two men with loosened ties, so early in the day, arguing about politics. A man in a work shirt with a name tag that read Freddy sketching the baristas’ faces on a store-copy of the Wall Street Journal. A frazzled lady in sweatpants and no shoes, leaving her car running to come in and grab her drink.

Mostly I would ignore them, but sometimes they were so disruptive or interesting, I just couldn’t. When that happened, I wrote about the strange people around me instead.

This particular morning I remember is cloudy and gray. I’m sitting in my usual table in this shotgun-style Starbucks. It’s the table furthest from the door. My back is to the window, my left arm so close to a rack of coffee mugs I could hit them, and I am facing the pick-up counter. I am wedged in my corner so I can either focus on my work or spy on everyone. The perfect spot.

It has been raining for several hours, but the man in the bright orange shirt sitting one table removed from me is wearing white-framed sunglasses indoors. His brown paper bag from Trader Joe’s is filled with paperback books.

Just a few minutes ago, he had placed his order, then headed back out into the rain to retrieve the load from the trunk of his enormous white Cadillac parked straddling the lines in the parking lot. I am impressed that the rain did nothing to his spiky, blonde hair. His skin looks impenetrable, either by water or anything else. It is as thick as the covers of the book he has retrieved from his car and just as weathered.

He is now standing beside his café table, facing the bar - the same direction as me. In a few seconds, I decide he is a weirdo and that I am going to watch his every move as a writing exercise. So engrossed in his own business, he has no idea, with my pen in my hand, I am taking notes on him.

He has started to remove each book from the bag in turn. Once out of the bag, he first removes the dust jackets of the few hardcovers, wiping their fabric covers with brown paper Starbucks napkins. After wiping them, he stacks each one on top of the last, careful not to knock over the single shot of espresso in the tiny white ceramic cup on the table. One by one, he separates yellowed magazines from the books.

“Tsk tsk,” he says at one book, as if it has been naughty and disappointed him. He resumes whistling a tune that falls in rhythm with the Billie Holiday song on the speakers above. But then, he deviates from the piped-in music's beat with his own offbeat snaps. Without warning, he has started whistling rapidly, repeating whistles that almost exactly match the tone and speed of the Starbucks food oven announcing another breakfast sandwich is done.

“Ecto spimadorium perfectum,” he says and slams a book down.

Jenna, a pretty brunette nurse in fuchsia scrubs, has been waiting at the café table beside him. When she realizes the unsettling behavior beside her, her body tenses up like water dropping on a paper straw wrapper.

“Jenna, I have your grande peppermint mocha,” the barista says. Jenna snatches it from the bar, looking over her shoulder to be sure the man in the orange shirt has stayed with his stack of books.

“Thanks,” she says. Before the word is over, she’s gone, out the door and into her Kia.

“You talk like my brother sometimes,” one barista says to another, pulling a shot from the espresso machine.

“I know!” cries the man in the orange shirt, answering an observation that was not directed at him. “Don’t mix us up!”

Over the scream of the steam, the burble of the espresso, and the voices of the drive-through employees, the baristas do not notice.

The books are now all removed from the paper sack and standing in three stacks on the small round café table. The man in the orange shirt pushes his white sunglasses up on his face further and sits down to go through each one, page by page. With the delicate way he handled them and the time he spent wiping off the covers, I figure they must be pretty valuable.

He makes it three pages in the first volume before he begins tearing pages from the first book, each tear on beat with the horns in “New York, New York,” which has begun playing above us. Ok, I guess I was wrong.

An older gentleman, about sixty years old, with red, tired skin and a mop of gray hair walks in. He is bent at the waist and walks head down, straight toward the pastry case.

“I want a piece of that coffee cake,” he says, pointing into the case. “Not an end piece.”

The barista at the register does not have the chance to say “Hello,” “Good morning,” or “I have poisoned all the pastries.”

The older man follows his head, bent at the waist, past the glass case toward the register where he orders a drink. Just as he starts to speak, the milk steamer goes off and I miss what he ordered. No matter, I can wait.

This man appears fairly normal from the waist down – wrinkled linen khakis and brown leather shoes with sensible socks. But he has topped off his outfit with a mint green sports coat, just as wrinkled as his pants. His white button down is split in the middle with a necktie. It has thick candy-cane stripes, alternating periwinkle and dark burgundy. His black-framed reading glasses are down low on his nose, which only cause his head to point down further as he looks over the top of the rims to see.

The older man turns and passes by the man in the orange shirt just as the latter is mid-page rip.

“Pardon me, sir,” the man in the orange shirt says.

My heart races. They’re going to talk.

“Yes?” the older man replies over the rim of his glasses.

“I just wanted to compliment you on your ensemble.”

“Thank you,” the older man says, unfurling his newspaper and settling down at the café table one removed from the man in the orange shirt.

“Are you a haberdasher?” the orange-shirted man asks. A fair question, given the ensemble. He could be a haberdasher or a farrier or a cobbler, whatever occupation he could get in the era from which he has time-traveled.

“No,” the older man says, without looking up. “And it’s quite unusual for me to be dressed this way.”

It is quite unusual for anyone to be dressed that way. Did he wake up, find some dirty khakis from the laundry bin then say, “Oh no, no clean sport coat. Better grab my trusty ol’ Kentucky Derby outfit instead”?

The man in the orange shirt is so impressed by the ensemble he has paused ripping the books.

“The combination of colors, that dark wine color on your tie. The mint jacket,” the man in the orange shirt says, trailing off. I expect him to do a chef’s kiss motion. He doesn’t. He just starts ripping pages again.

When the older man says, “Thank you,” I realize his voice sounds exactly like Charles Grodin. I smile and write that in my notebook.

“I just wanted to say top of the morning to you, and thank you for your fastidious approach to fashionability,” the man in the orange shirt says.

“Thank you,” Charles Grodin repeats. He presses his face down toward his newspaper. Soon, the barista calls out his order. It’s go-time. I am so excited to hear what this bizarre time traveler has ordered. I hold my pen at the ready.

“Venti non-fat latte for Ross,” she says.

Venti? Non-fat? Latte? For Ross? I desperately wanted to hear, “Earl Grey in a mug for Arthur” or “Extra hot Americano for Winston” or “Verona pour over for Clarence.” Anything but this.

Let’s be clear, I’m not hating on a non-fat latte. That’s fine. I am also not judging the fact that he got a venti. Some days are venti days for sure. But that coat calls for something whimsical and Ross - ugh, Ross - has let me down.

Ross ditches his newspaper and walks head-first toward the bar to get his drink. He returns and shuffles through the pages of the paper once more before leaving. He takes all sections with him and leaves behind only an advertisement for Sprouts Grocery Store. My illusion of him is wrecked. He’s not some eclectic haberdasher. He’s a doofus in an ice-cream colored jacket who doesn’t like vegetables.

“Thanks again,” Ross says to the man in the orange shirt.

By this point, Orange Shirt is intermittently snapping, flipping through an ancient Highlights for Children magazine, and conducting an invisible orchestra.

“You’re a modern inspiration,” Orange Shirt says to Ross’s back as he walks out. 

They both were modern inspirations. Taking me out of my own head for awhile. Giving me a chance to track their every move. Two oddballs just feet away from the normal girl at the far table, eavesdropping on strangers, scribbling page after page in her notebook until the ink runs out. Just a couple of characters haunting this Starbucks, so early in the day.

***

This piece first appeared in Sunday Morning Hot Tea. Subscribe so you don’t miss another piece.

Showing Up

It’s after midnight, eastern time. I am sitting in a hotel room in Philadelphia, listening to Bo Burnham’s INSIDE. Kolchak: The Night Stalker is muted on the TV. I am going to send this out to you all in the morning.

I usually like to draft this newsletter during the week. At the very worst, I write it early on Saturday then spend the day editing. Still, it gets done on time. I like sending something out every week because it feels like a nice way to connect with you.

Some pieces I write turn out better than others. Some turn out worse That’s the nature of anything we create – half of the product will be below average. That’s just a fact. I’ve come to terms with that. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.

There are times the words flow like water. I have to turn on the faucet and get some rust out, but still they come.

Other times, I feel like a character in that movie/TV trope where the person types something on the typewriter, pulls the page out, crumples it up then throws it in the trash. The problem with laptops and traveling is I don’t have the dramatic gesture of crumpling up a sheet of paper and tossing it out. Instead, I can only highlight and press the delete key – a much less impactful action. I guess I could drag the file to the little virtual trashcan. Just doesn’t feel the same, though.

Today is one of those paper-crumpling days.

So, here we are. I am writing to you with nothing to say. That’s pretty scary. You may think, Why are you sending anything then?  Because I said I would. I gave this little thing a name that had a due date in it so I would have a date to shoot for each week.

It seems like a dying concept to do something just because you say you would. This can be good. You say you’ll do a thing, then you do it. It’s called Sunday Morning Hot Tea, so that’s when you’ll get it.

I also like to believe we as a society are becoming more understanding. We’re all trying to be kinder to each other and to ourselves. If someone cannot physically do something that they said they would, I hope we give them a little space and a little grace. For instance, sometimes I send y’all a note saying there will be no newsletter because I got engaged or because I baked myself in the sun on July 4th weekend.

This week, there was no reason for me not to do this. Sure, I’m on a short vacation to Philadelphia, but that’s not the problem. There have been a hundred and sixty-some-odd hours between last Sunday and right now. I spent a lot of those hours working on the show. I went to Pure Barre. I did some fun stuff, like having lunch with my mom, going on a dinner date with Paris, and getting my nails done with LeeAnn. I also watched Loki and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season one (have y’all seen “The Dinner Party From Hell” episode? Unreal!)

What I didn’t do? Work on this. At least not directly. I did my morning pages some days, but not every day. Then I flew to Philadelphia to see my friend, Elyse. I tried working on this a little during the trip, but things got in the way – like visiting with her, meeting her family and friends, enjoying a classic Philadelphia sandwich called the Schmitter, and taking a satisfying hotel nap.

That left me with a choice – should I tap out, send you all a message saying, “Sorry, y’all! I’m on vacation!” and go to bed? A part of me wanted to. The other part – that driven part of me that keeps the train moving forward at all costs – said no. It told me to grab a La Colombe draft latte and crank out a meaningful and thoughtful piece for you.

Well, that didn’t happen. I had a few ideas, but I crumpled up everything I started and threw it into the virtual trash can. Still, I decided to send this because of that driven part inside me that won’t let me not.

Here’s the question I keep coming back to: is that driven part a good part of me? Is that what we want – to do what we said we would do no matter what? On the one hand, it makes us reliable. People know we’ll be there for them when we say we will. On the other hand, is it ok to tap out if we just want to? Where is the line between obligation and selfishness?

I don’t have an answer yet, but I’ll keep thinking. Maybe I’ll figure it out somewhere over the next hundred and sixty eight hours. If it comes to me by then, I’ll send you a note and let you know.

***

This piece first appeared in Sunday Morning Hot Tea. Subscribe so you don’t miss another piece.