Rent is my Star Wars

I went to see Rent last night at Lloyd Cinemas, it was the play version on the big movie screen in honor of its final curtain call. I love Rent and loved watching it on the big screen seeing so much detail of the set and expressions. I was totally able to sprawl out because I'm guessing the 20 buck admission kept people away, not to mention people aren't really doing the whole Rent thing anymore. Or I guess people are into Rent, but it seems to be not the supposed "right" people. I did a quick search on youtube and found people really attached to the "Will I/Life Support" song using it for apologies, memorials, relating to their favorite "High School Musical" characters and my favorite which is a compilation of touching Disney moments. Who can blame them "Will I/Life Support" is one of my absolute favorite songs and I cry right after he sings the phrase "reason says I should of died 3 years ago."
Watching the play on the big screen and just hearing the first few "Season of Love" chords I felt a sudden lump. Even though I know Rent is very pedestrian, I cry every time, several times. And I know better than to just disregard it just because everyone knows it, I don't know how I ended up thinking my feeling was somehow less authentic because it's shared. I've loved Rent for a very long time, but within the last 5 years I've really really loved Rent.

(Here comes the part of how Rent touches me similar to the above mentioned apologies, memorials, and Disney moments.)

Whenever I start explaining/describing what I'll call my alternative perceptions, which I'll describe a bit below, I always start racing through the experience, so if it's not completely cogent please understand. When I started to hear, see, and feel (tactile) things others couldn't and I began to lose some of the thinking/process ability I had always had this is when I started to really connect with Rent's themes. Nothing worked. Medications did nothing to silence, MRI's showed nothing, and neurologists couldn't help either. It was my last year of college and everything had been going very well and I really felt I was on track for my future academic goals. I saw my GPA slip a bit, not as much I had thought it would, but it still slipped, but what did wain was my confidence in academic settings. I could hear professors, old friends, family members, and acquaintances from non-profits, work, and school just like they were right in front of me. Most of the people I only knew minorly. All of them questioned my originality, authenticity, and overall ability tapping into my feelings of confidence and achievement. Accusations from them ranged from plagiarism to murder to having a traveling reality show called Red Star's Traveling Roast House.

I totaled it out at 110 distinct voices; it was pretty bad. During this time I also could see pixeled like bodies move about around me and it felt like I was was being shocked almost like those ultra sound machines with the electrical pads used by chiropractors. Not to mention how I could always feel things crawling in my bed like snakes, rats/mice, and people stepping around me and lying next to me. It was always the worst when I tried to work on the computer because for some reason the scenario was that the computer affected the virtual reality sort of machines I was hooked up to in order to have the experience of return back to 2003 from whatever time I was really living. I think I was supposed to be around late fifties or so, could be older, who cares. Reading was incredibly difficult because while I read I was being read back to as a round, like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." I was able to pick the voice that would read to/with me in the round, but it was still incredibly distracting. I would almost always pick my cousin Grasi's voice because he has a lower yet metallic tone that wasn't as distracting. Usually I would read with music blaring incredibly loud and totally found peace in it. Although all of the above experiences happened at it's very worst and I no longer have these experiences quite as much, it still left me pretty exhausted even when it reduced. I can still see blue light sort of objects occasionally and sometimes it still feels like something is moving on my bed or sitting next to me, it's not nearly as distracting or shocking as it used to be. I'm sure I'll share more about the experience at a later time.

While all of this was happening I found a lot of comfort in Rent. Maybe it's the whole "No day but today" mantra or the idea that even though there isn't a solution that maybe there's hope or at least support. It was a hard thing to share with others. I didn't tell anyone in my family for about the first 9 months until it was very debilitating, who I should mention are incredibly supportive. I told work only to get my serving job back because I walked out on a busy Saturday night thinking I was going to be "transported" back to the future where my real body and real life were. I didn't like telling people because I didn't want to be treated with kid gloves, but mainly because I didn't really think anything that was happening around was the real reality or what Tom Collins refers to "actual reality".

One of the many funny moments during this period was at the end of November 2003 and I'm walking around campus and hearing a ton of voices and I go to 7-11 to get a drink or something and when I get change back I notice the year on the money is 2004. I thought to myself that maybe it's not really 2003 and maybe this is all some reality t.v. game show kind of like This Is Your Life mixed with being hooked up to a virtual reality gizmo and I get to meet again all of the people that I used to know in '03. I start chuckling like I've finally gotten a clue that none of this is real, so I ask the clerk what year it is and he looks at me oddly like it's a trick question and says it 2003. I take my clue, the 2004 dollar, and put it in my pocket and realize that nothing that I'm doing is real and that I would eventually go back to where my body is, most likely someplace hooked up to a spinal/brain tap sort of machine as seen in the Matrix. What's the point of studying if I already have, hopefully, a career and a life I'm pleased with or one that I can't change anyway being purposely stuck in the past.

Nonetheless, I'm still here. I haven't returned to a future time. Loving and connecting to Rent not wondering as much if I will die with dignity and if someone will care. I think it's the being close to the edge that makes me really enjoy and appreciate Rent. Although if the characters weren't in NY and mostly gay dealing with the AIDS epidemic I don't know if I would connect as much.

Some think of Hans Solo and I think of Roger and Mark. Others mention Princess Leia and I think of Angel and Mimi. And of course the Dark Force is the judgement and fear the majority of people had toward those that were going through a really difficult time. For my experience, unlike the AIDS epidemic, it was more the imagined judgement because everyone was so incredibly accepting and non-judgemental.