Rent

When I was 17 I read an article about Jonathan Larson who had written the musical RENT. I didn't really know anything about Broadway musicals. I have never seen one. I'm not really one for musicals either. Aside from the classics like "Sound of Music" & "Fiddler on the Roof", the only two musicals I have ever seen and liked are "Grease 2" & "Moulin Rouge". (Nevertheless, musicals always made me think that if you really love someone, you'll just bust out into song about it...) The story of Larson got me. Just 35 years old, Larson died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm and never got to see his vision take the stage. The article mentioned the musical had to do with bohemians in the 90's. Living off nothing, suffering from HIV, bisexuals, transexuals... These characters represented to me people who really live every day with diseases or prejudices or a complex of other issues that we out here in the midwest probably wouldn't know anything about. I always wanted to know about them... It was a picture in my mind of something I'd always wanted to see. It personified New York City to me. Living without just to live at all. I know that New York is more than that now, but sometimes I wish I didn't. Now, RENT is coming to theaters and for some reason (you know how much I love trailers) I just can't get enough of the trailer. Years ago I bought a CD of the broadway cast to see if I could get into it...I couldn't then, but I'm warming up to it now. I think it's the message... For some reason I'm drawn to people who struggle...who are cast out. But it's a bit more than that, I guess... How do you measure/measure a year?/in daylights/in sunsets/in midnights/in cups of coffee/in inches/in miles/in laughter/in strife... Those words make me flip backwards to moments that probably don't last more than an hour, or a few minutes... A good joke or a hug or a shake of the head. Even that split second when you realize that love, may not be love at all... or vice versa. Marriages, divorces, babies and funerals... Apartments & houses, living rooms & garages, backyards & cubicles, trains, back seats and front seats... 525,600 minutes/525,000 journeys to plan/525,600 minutes/how do you measure the life/of a woman or a man?/In truths that she learned/or in times that he cried/in bridges he burned/or the way that she died... I used to think that my dreams were a downfall of mine. Always dreaming and never doing...but I guess I'd rather have dreamed of doing - and be remembered that way some day - than never having any dreams at all... Arguments and grudges, tears and laughter are all just products of soul that is neither all good or all bad or all perfect or all wrong - but a soul that just is. Mine. So I guess I'm gonna be a sucker for this musical...but maybe it's just because I don't know how I'm gonna pay rent either.