Third Coast Participation

*The morning following, though, we four all got up, Marcus coming down the stairs mentioned previous, Jarvis coming up another set of stairs from the basement, both to the main room where Kevin and I’d been laying on the couches and, as we all got around to throwing on the attire for the festival we were taking off to in the next little bit, we’d all snapped pins representative of the piece we were winning the award for, ones Jarvis said he’d had made for each of us, to our jackets as well and, by the time the eight of us – Marcus, Jarvis, Eliab, Bailey, Caleb, Corbin, Kevin, and I – met in the lot behind the ballet studio, as I guess it was to be considered, where the festival was being held, we all had them on; on the way there, though, we’d stopped along the way then to pick up Eliab and Bailey, both of them from their respective locations, Caleb and Corbin having come in a separate vehicle then, the girls, Heather, Mason, and Emily arriving somehow other as well… After the group of us had congregated and discussed the supposed events of the day, prior to their having taken place, we all walked around the corner from where we were, as they all stepped into the entrance of the building, and then we all crowded into the elevator – the one Kevin and I rode down again shortly after with our friend, Deg, to step right outside, down the sidewalk a tad, just to the side of the building and have a cigarette together – to make our way up to the next floor where everything was happening; as we all got off the elevator then and stepped across the way, into the registration room, things started narrowing in my intentional mind as I began making my way around, picking up my nametag from one of the higher-ups, June, meeting an older lady named Jocelyn who I’d supposed to be a fellow producer, and buying a Third Coast Pidgey shirt, picking up a similarly themed pin from NYU student, Celeste, the girl I was most struck by, taken with, that day, as I’d mostly sat there, by the table where she was, that morning, having got her email address from her and all, in the process and the most exciting thing, that which gave me cause to even feel a little bit silly, about that was the fact that the three of them were already familiar with the name, smiling at me while I introduced myself, laughing, even though I’d not met them before. Stepping into the next room, the lounge situated before the door that led into the hall with Studios A, B, and C – the one where we all did the active presentation we were there to do –, the ones being used for the day by all of us, as we were sitting, listening to the radio stories as they were being presented to the masses, Kevin bought us both breakfast bagels before running into and introducing me to a girl named Leslie and, as he stepped out of the room to go do something or other, he told me to be on the lookout for Jad, telling me then some of his features, even though I’d not seen him while Kevin’d disappeared, before introducing Deg and I as the three of us went down to the bottom floor to have a cigarette, talking during that time about Deg’s upcoming travel plans, that being yet another reminiscent moment for me, looking out to the street and all that was in front of us, being in Chicago once more. My two favorites, out of all the pieces heard that day, the two most piercing ones in my opinion, were a Wiretap piece, to start off with, called First Steps, hosted by Jonathan Goldstein, who’d actually gotten up for a question/answer session in the studio where the piece’d been shown after that segment of time and stories had finished, a Canadian chap, one of the apparently larger names in radio, Kevin and I’d run into and chatted with a bit on another of our cigarette breaks that afternoon, and another Radiolab piece, which, I’m about certain Jad had gotten up and gone to the front of the room for the same reason Jonathan did at the end of that segment, about a couple who Kevin and I’d run into, stepping off the elevator and onto the yacht later that night, and had made some small talk with as well, called Lost & Found, both of which still bring tears to my eyes and, ultimately, I think I can say sitting up at the front, as I was both of those times, in the darkened rooms, hearing those pieces particularly, was, most likely, the highlight of the whole experience for me, being among those people, my people. Incidentally, as I’m pretty sure was the case, Celeste, June, and Jocelyn were in Studio C with us during the segment when we did our live performance and we then had our own question/answer time to close that one out, however, going into that room I felt Jocelyn had taken a comment Marcus had made to me about not walking even when I could snidely even though that’d been the joke among the lot of us the whole day and, honestly, that finished souring my already somewhat soured opinion of her because, along with the fact she’d not even known about it – the joke –, I’d picked up the tinge of a threat I was sensing from the watchful vibe she’d been putting off toward me all day, a negative aside; I felt kind of stupid, too, if we’re going to be honest here, simply from the fact of being paralyzed the rest of the day around this girl, Celeste, only being able to look and gawk at her all the other times we’d come across each other after having sat with her that morning, as I’d been able to talk to her then, but she sat somewhere behind me in the room during that segment.
*Thinking about us all being in that room now, though, is somewhat comical because Brandon, the guy I’d mentioned before who sat behind me at the VFW party, and his crew had their award-winning piece presented during that time as well and, I mean, just with their having been the last group of people at the ceremony that night to have won an award and then, with our being the first group, it’s just a funny thing to look back on and consider now… When our moment in the spotlight had ended, though, after we’d all vacated the room we were in for the past hour or so, there was an hour-and-a-half or so break in the festival day as most of the people who’d attended that day dispersed from the building to go grab some dinner I’d suppose, but, as we were all leaving, there were these dancers dressed in costumes, covered, head to foot, in bluish purple fur, doing, I guess, some kind of African dance, so, it seemed, we all congregated there for a brief while in the lobby, watching that performance, with the chatter filtering its way throughout the crowd; after making our way out from that, though, the eight of us went down the sidewalk a little ways after coming out the entrance to the building and went around the corner then, making our way to a hotdog place, where, though the pickings were slim for Kevin and I, both of us being vegetarians, we still were able to make out alright with the meals I covered for us then, but, again, just before going into the food joint, as we all were standing outside, laughing and joking, the joke about me sitting, being pushed here and there when I could’ve been up, walking around, continued with one of Kevin’s legs perched on one of the wheels of my chair, an arm rested on his perched knee, as I was in it and he was situated in a thinkers’ pose while a snapshot was being taken of that moment. After eating – all of us –, though, we’d all gone back to the place where we’d come from and, shortly after getting back, the selected assortment of us who were still there all shuffled into the auditorium where the awards ceremony, which was hosted by Peter Sagal, the official host of Wait. Wait. Don’t Tell Me!!!, was about to take place and once everything’d gotten settled, people taking their seats and all, the short bit of the piece for which we’d won the award played and we were called up to the podium afterward and I’d had the first word, being followed by Marcus who then handed the microphone off to Kevin after he was done speaking, Kevin then making a laughable speech, hinting, rather unsubtly, about the possibility of getting a job with WNYC in New York and, apparently, probably not as an afterthought, though, that worked because, at some point in the ceremony then, possibly even right after we’d all gone back to our seats upon receiving the award, I think it was Jocelyn who’d told Jad, from up behind said podium, to watch out because Kevin might take his job, at which point the whole room chuckled; that was actually the first time I’d ever really been nervous, finding myself at a loss for words initially, to speak in front of a crowd, allegedly asking Kevin what I should say, to which he just smiled and replied by telling me to be myself, though I doubt I showed a moment’s hesitation once Peter’d handed me the mic, but Mason told me, at some point after the whole of it, that she thought I’d done well up there. As it all then came to an end, before the whole crowd of us started to exit and make our way to the yacht, a place where Kevin’d initially told me in an email, at some point shortly before I’d flown in, that we’d be able to get drunk on a boat, which, for me, brought the initial reaction to mind of, “I’m on a boat!!!”, both Mason and Heather, as I recall, and perhaps Emily, too, gathered us all – the eight of us – together for a picture in front of the stage, podium, and powerpoint presentation screen in the room as I began making small conversation, talking and laughing with Peter, who I saw again briefly at the party and who Kevin then referred to as my boy, which was pretty nice and, honestly, made me feel kind of cool and good about myself, further confirming my fresh connections within the industry, we then made our way out of the building and back to the garage where Marcus’d parked the car earlier that morning, debating, however, whether to even go to the party, but when we’d all shown up nearer to the pier, walking along the sidewalk to get to the yacht, Kevin started joking, making plans, comically suggesting about all the things he’d be saying at my funeral, which, oddly enough, was actually kind of an enjoyable contemplation for the time being because… Coming onto the yacht, though, we ran into Jad in the basement there and we’d all formed a line then – Jad, Kevin, me, Marcus, Eliab, Caleb, Bailey, and Jarvis -, Kevin handing me the radio placard as we all stood while Emily and Heather both took pictures of us, but Corbin and Mason weren’t there, them having already gone home or something, before we’d all gone up to the top and, as Kevin and I were stepping off the elevator, we ran into the couple from the Lost & Found piece and talked to them for a bit, their having heard Kevin’s and my voice in the clip just played in the room where we’d all come there from, and I was so pleased to have met them before the day’d gotten over; when the two of us’d stepped out from the elevator entry, into the main space, I’d sat back in my chair just observing the crowd, smoking cigarettes as they were handed to me, merely sipping on some wine, not really intending at all to get drunk that night, but, as the night wore on, Bailey came up to me, asking me about how many drinks I’d had and, upon my response then, she’d told me that they were going to stop serving free drinks after 10:30, telling me something along the lines of, “Drink up!”, and, I guess, taking that as the silly, fun suggestion that it was, I started gulping things down more fluidly, so, after I’d finished my fourth wineglass, I started to wrap my right hand around a beer bottle and the rest is lost to me, but, apparently, as I’d found out the next morning, waking up on a mattress on the floor of Marcus’s, Jarvis’s, and Neil’s apartment, my night had ended quite a bit sooner than most of theirs.
*That night, though, was the first of my blackout drunk experiences, so, I guess, I’ll just go ahead and aide memoire here in repeating about how it’d already been initially pointed out that we’d be getting drunk on the boat and get drunk I did, so, as I came out of the bathroom the morning following, Kevin sprawled, but awake, on the shorter of the two couches, I sort of shouted out to him, “Dude!!! What happened to my face?!”, asking him, at some point in the conversation, if the bust had happened before or after the yacht party, which he told Jarvis about sometime in the day, and we all sort of laughed then at my expense, but, as I’d think would be pretty needless to mention, most of the other particulars are pretty faded and tucked away in my mind, however, there are a couple memories that I can vaguely recall, along with a phone conversation I’d had with Jarvis some months later, that I’m somewhat hopeful will be enough to map out these shady details of the story for you. There was mention pending from Marcus, too, that day, as we all were laughing, reminiscing, about the bathroom incident the night before and it really is sort of funny how, as I’d hope would be the case for each of us, there appears to be this kind of definite distinction between memories coming out of a drunken state and the lighting of such instances that stands in direct opposition to the same surfacing from one of sobriety, something noticeable still able to be contrasted, but I could picture myself struggling to work my stomach hard enough to lean forward and coordinate my legs at the same time to stand up, getting out of my chair, and, somehow, steady myself in front of the urinal with, probably, one or two guys on either side of me, upholding me by the arms, as I was then focused on urinating; the thing that was so great about Marcus’s description of those moments, though, was in the way we all then started poking fun at me for just undoing my belt and zipper, just letting my pants fall to my ankles then, as a child would, all the while with them keeping me from falling backward, laughing in response to my helplessness, so that’s one… The other of the, I think, only two vague memories I have came in relation to the state of my face just then and is a story I still tell and laugh about whenever the subject arises, but, as the group of us were heading back to the car from the yacht, apparently, and I remember this part quite well, we’d all burst out in the song, “Wake Up,” by Arcade Fire while walking down the ramp there, in the parking garage, and, as I was being pushed in my wheelchair by, as I’m pretty sure it was, Marcus, my foot caught the ground, during an interjection interlude in the song, and I collapsed directly as a result, smacking my nose against the smooth pavement, and – pause… The five, still coherent at that point, all picked me up off the floor and helped me back Into my chair, crowding around me, panicked, yelling, “Allie! Allie! Are you okay?”, and, after the few moments’ silence on my part, all just looked around at each other, chanting in unison, “Oh, no! Oh, no! We killed Alan!” –, after the few minutes it took for me to catch my wind again, I opened back up, shouting, right at the place where I left off. It’s a funny consideration, though, I think, to think about the things our minds choose to latch onto and why, not really knowing the reason behind the things we can’t remember compared to those we can, but I remember it being, to an extent, regrettable, on the phone a few weeks later, when Jarvis and I were talking, laughing, about my aforementioned state of drunkenness, but, more particularly, about the time, I guess, after I’d grabbed the beer because, as he’d put it then, people were coming up to me, inquiring, curious to hear about my input on the piece just shown, but my mind was already completely gone and I was just staring blankly ahead while the questions were being tossed at me, before I set the drink down, sort of spilling what was left of it across the table and onto my lap. These are all things terribly loosely and unsteadily based on the momentous glimpses I possibly might’ve even imagined and, apart from that, from the things I’ve been told, so, I guess, I’m pretty proud of the fact I was able to get up when I did the next morning and go to brunch with Kevin, Jarvis, and some other producers before they all parted to, for the most part, fly back to each of their respective locations, after which the three of us went to a local bookstore to meet up with a fellow producer from London, Elisabeth, who we all then spent a good portion of, who Kevin and I then spent the whole day with, before dropping her off at her hotel that night so she could catch her plane back In the couple hours following, where the three of us – Kevin, Jarvis, and I – stumbled upon a classic comic, so to say, a children’s book in some regard, that she started making fun of us for looking at and finding enjoyment with, which I then bought and kept with me.