My first year of college, I was a young 18 and unsure if I wanted to continue in my projected career of theatre arts, or if I wanted to pursue psychology (a subject that fascinated me, though I never saw myself as a therapist) or if I was just clueless what I wanted to do. At the time, I was taking some theatre and psych courses as well as American Sign Language. During high school I had taken German but barely made it enough to learn it at a conversational level. The only things I was certain of at the time was that I was confused, preparing to leave for a semester in London (the city I'd wanted to visit the longest) and as in love with music as I ever was. Nothing else was certain at that point.
One morning, I was taking a bath before school and had the radio on. Now as a music lover, you may think, this wouldn't be an odd thing to read about me. But at the time, it was. Napster was a huge deal at the time and I had grown sick of the radio's corporate agenda and excessive talk and advertising. However, this particular morning, the mood struck me and I turned on KNRK. After a couple of songs, the DJ of the morning announced that later on in the day, they would be giving away a trip to Berlin to see The Cure. I remember thinking to myself how nice it must be to win prizes like that. And at times, I didn't think anyone ACTUALLY won them, they just claimed that people did to entice people. I had never met anyone who ever won a prize that big, usually people won tickets to a local show or a free CD or something. I thought of how much I'd love to see the Cure, but knew that the time they were planning to run this contest, I would be at school. I had an ASL test that day.
By the time I got to class, I had long forgotten about this prize that I was sure was to elude me. I took my test, and like I did so many times before, finished first. I was excused and headed outside to catch the long trimet bus ride home. As I was walking toward the usual bus stop on campus, I saw the bus was already there and even with my best sprint, I wasn't going to make it. I remembered another stop located at the exit, which was closer and started running toward it. At that moment, it started to pour BUCKETS of rain. I got to the corner and was waiting, shivering for the bus to slowly creep around the corner and pick me up. As I was waiting, a gold buick style car pulled up to exit. The window rolled down and a latina girl with curly brown locks leaned over her passenger seat and asked me if I wanted a ride. I had never seen this girl in my life (and would never see her again), but I HATED the bus so much and the rain was freezing. So, despite everything I had been taught my whole life, I accepted a ride from a total stranger.
However, nothing dramatic to report. She took me home, safe and sound and I thanked her several times for her generosity. I got inside, changed into warm clothes and headed to the living room to do my homework. And for some reason, I was compelled to tune into the radio again. I turned on KNRK at first, then switched to KUFO when a song I didn't like came on... Then KUFO hit commercials so I started to check the stations again. Landed back on KNRK and continued my homework. Then I heard it. The opening notes of "Just Like Heaven."
I thought to myself, "Hey. I'm home way earlier than usual, I wonder if this is when you're supposed to call in for that trip..." So, for the hell of it, I put down my homework and picked up the phone and started calling.
"Hello! You're caller number 4, try again!"
Dialed again.
"Hello! You're caller number 14, try again!"
Dialed again.
"Hello! You're caller number 24, try again!"
Now, you're supposed to be caller 94 to win. So, I'm thinking, if I can keep this pace up, I might have a shot! But after I was called 24, I kept getting the busy signal. But, I kept dialing and dialing and dialing. Until I remembered, I was waiting on a call from the Theatre department about tickets for a show that night. I realized that my relentless dialing would keep them from being able to get through to me. So, I told myself... Okay. One more time...
It rang.
and rang.
and rang.
At this point, I was pretty sure they had found their winner and this call would ring forever. Then... an answer.
"Hello, NRK!"
"Oh, did you get your winner?"
"Are you 18 or older?"
"Yea..."
"Do you have a valid passport?"
"Yea..."
"YOU JUST WON A TRIP TO SEE THE CURE IN BERLIN!!!!!!!"
"That's so not funny."
"IM NOT KIDDING!"
"Oh my God. Really??? I... I never win ANYTHING."
"WELL YOU WON THIS!!!! CAN I GET A WOOOOO?"
"Oh my God.... uh... WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"
I was in total shock, I didn't think it was possible. I was in total shock... At that moment, my mother came home from work and as I was trying to talk to the radio station, I was trying to my mum what was going on. My mum eventually had to take the phone and explain that my passport was in the mail and that I would already be in London during the time of the show so they didn't have to fly me from Portland, they could fly me and my friend from London instead. (Which I have no doubt delighted the record company, who were footing the bill for all this)
While preparing for my trip to London (and now Berlin) I was trying to figure out who was going to go with me. I didn't know a single person in the group that was going to the London study and the record company was insistent that whoever joined me for the show had to be flown out from the same place as me, so I couldn't have one of my Portland friends flown out from PDX and meet them in Germany. I had no idea what I was going to do. Then, my close friend from High School, Mary and I were talking. And she suggested... What if she came up with the money to get to London... Would I take her? Um. DUH! I was THRILLED at the idea of having my friend join me in this adventure. I checked with my host family if Mary could stay with me for a week or so and they were fine with it... And I don't even know how she did it, but she came up with the money and it was set. Mary and I were going to see the Cure in Berlin together after she joined me in London.
Fast forward to the weekend of. I took a train out to Gatwick and picked up Mary at the airport. When I found her, she immediately informed me that shortly after I was returning from London, Nine Inch Nails and Perfect Circle were playing the Rose Garden and that she had gone ahead and picked up the tickets anticipating that I would want to go. I nearly broke down, after so many years of being a HUGE NIN fan, I was finally going to see them. The same year that this amazing trip was happening. I couldn't be more excited.
The morning we were to take off for Germany, we overslept some and hustled to get ready and get to Heathrow as quickly as we could. When we got to the airport, the check in for our flight had already closed and we were devastated. But we were told we could come back that evening and standby for a later flight. We agreed and headed back to the house, cursing our stupidity. Later that night, we returned to Heathrow, sat down in the terminal and waited. The very first flight had openings and we boarded the little one hour flight to Germany.
I don't remember much from the flight except that they served a greek salad and at the time, I detested everything on my plate and was grumpy that I was hungry and didn't have a thing substantial to eat. But all those feelings went away when we began our decent and I started to see the lights of Berlin in the night sky. I started to think of those German classes I took and how Mrs. Pope and I started to have conflicts and she pulled that awful cliche crap of "You'll never get to Germany and even if you did, you'll never be able to get around!" Yet there I was... descending right into beautiful Berlin. A tear or two quietly streamed down my face as we landed.
We then got a taxi to the Hotel, where we had a nice late check in. We started investigating the room immediately, watched some German Baywatch, had some laughs and passed out. The next day, we walked around, had lunch at the Hard Rock, and shopped. We found a liquor store close by and picked up some real German jager and a couple other things while we were there. Turned out it was a smart idea, as that night was a very amazing lightning and thunderstorm that kept us holed up in our hotel room, watching MORE German TV and drinking the strongest Jager I have ever had. (It was at this time that I discovered a little band called H.I.M., but that's another story for another time)
The next day, it was BLAZING hot, as if the night before had never happened. So, Mary and I hit the town again, this time eating at Planet Hollywood and hitting some CD stores so I could find some H.I.M. cds. That night, we took a cab to the address we were given for the venue, which was known only as "The Arena."
When we got there, we had to ask a couple locals to point us in the right direction because the Arena was essentially nothing more than a giant empty warehouse. We stood in line for a couple of hours, talked to a few locals and finally started filing into the venue. We were only 3-5 people back from the front row railing, so we were very pleased. We had brought in the poster of Robert Smith that I had gotten from Tower Records before I left for the trip. Prior to the concert, we had used highlighter pens to write on the back of it that we had come from the US to see the show and that we loved the Cure. We had intended to hold it up during the show, not realizing that in a dark ass room, highlighter writing was for sure, no matter how big the block letters were. While we waited for the show to start, we had gotten wind of the fact that there would be no opening band, just two solid hours of the Cure. We were so excited, no insufferable opener... just the band we were there to see.
When the lights came up and the band came out, the screams were deafening. And I don't know if it was the venue's lack of air circulation, the health of the audience, or just the presence of Robert Smith, but after only a few songs into the set, I started to notice people were dropping like flies in the front rows... Which moved Mary and I up to the front very quickly. I don't think we were ever totally up against the railing but we were damn close. So for what it's worth, I thank all those sweet little goth girls who were passing out with roses in their hands and being carted off by the security.
Mary started to encourage me to hold up the sign. When I opened it, we realized you couldn't read the writing for shit. So, Mary and one of the guys near us started telling me to roll it up tight and throw it onto the stage, along with all the other gifts being thrown at the stage for the band. I decided, nothing to lose... So, I wound it up tight as i could and chucked it like a spear toward the stage. It immediately unraveled. And my memory of what happened next is always in totally slow motion...
It started to drift back and forth slowly toward the floor where the security stood... When suddenly, a totally random, unexpected gust of air flipped the poster and pushed it right toward the stage... We watched in complete disbelief as it started to drift back and forth... down, down, down... landing, writing side up, in front of Robert Smith's microphone. Perfectly. We looked at each other when it landed like... how did that even just happen?
We looked back and saw Robert coming back to the microphone after playing on the sidestage with his gutar... He walked up... and we saw him cock his head to the side, squint his eyes some to read it, and smiled. We screamed and jumped up and down, along with our friendly stranger. We couldn't believe it. It wasn't really acknowledged in any way other than that, but that was enough for us.
During their intermission, the friend of the stranger grabbed our arms and pointed toward the dark side of the stage shouting "LOOK LOOK, THEYRE ALL READING YOUR SIGN!!" I couldn't see a thing but I could see in his eyes that he was confident in what he witnessed.
Another hour of amazing music passed by and we ate up every second of it. After it was over, we spent copious amounts of money on merchandise and went back to the hotel.
Today, Mary and I are no longer friends, which makes me sad. To share something as incredible as an international trip and be split up by petty boy troubles and untrue rumours is a tragic thing. But I still remember the trip fondly and remember that time of our friendship fondly and wish that we could find a way to resolve the dumb crap that drove us apart all those years ago. But if she ever read this, I hope she knows that whenever I hear "Just Like Heaven" I think of our time at that show and how happy and young we were.
