We Have The Records/We Have The Proof

I’m very pleased to introduce a new feature to the site today. A series of essays discussing the impact of Cameron’s films and what they mean to you, the readers. These will all be your submissions, so I encourage you to share your thoughts. First up, site reader Dan Pulliam’s ode to “In Your Eyes” and Say Anything… This is a very personal and heartfelt story and I appreciate Dan’s contribution to the site.

“In Your Eyes” by Dan Pulliam

“Accepting all I’ve done and said, I want to stand and stare again ’til there’s nothing left out.  Oh, it remains there in your eyes.  Whatever comes and goes, I will hear your silent call.  And I will touch this tender wall ’til I know I’m home again.”

For the uninitiated, that’s how Peter Gabriel’s ‘In Your Eyes’ was always meant to start.  Ironically, those words get right to the heart of the song in ways that the released version never did.  And with that in mind, I’ve decided to take the bull by the metaphorical horns with this first article and get right to the heart of Crowe.  To go beyond the face value of a more conventional critique and look at what make Crowe’s films so great: individual moments.  In what just may be the most ‘almost famous’ of these, I’m starting today with the boombox scene.

For me, the boombox scene began in the winter of 1998.  I was lying on an admittedly cramped bed at the Georgia State Village with my then-girlfriend, Barbara.  She lived in the next building over from mine on the sixth floor, and one day I’d chanced to walk her home from class.  Now, almost a year later (and six months into a relationship), I won’t say that at the time my mind was on the film.  Barbara had forced me to rent ‘Say Anything…’ and I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of a night swooning over yet another teen romantic comedy.  I spent most of that first showing fixated on her and not the film which, I was to learn, was more than merely appropriate.  Only one thing caught my eye during that hour and 40 minutes.  She suddenly got this glazed look in her eyes that caused me to look at the television.  There was Lloyd in all his glory, standing there holding up that boombox in silent, deafening defiance.

I took a moment and absorbed it fully.  It had meant something to Barbara, and it was starting to mean something to me.  I vaguely remember her saying that if she were to make love in the back of a car, it would have to be to that song.  That in mind, I did what any good man had to do at that point: I made a blind purchase of the ‘So’ album just to have that song in my possession.  I popped it in my CD player and listened to it on repeat until I got back to the dorms.  As fate would have it, she never got that CD.

It wasn’t until much later that ‘Say Anything…’ re-emerged in my life.  Barbara and I had a running joke between us that should we ever break up, I’d have to recreate the boombox scene for her.  “No,” she would say, “I would be way too embarrassed.”  But this, I thought, was the whole point.  I made up my mind to be as good as my word.

May 10th, 1998 was the day it happened.  Barbara left me, consequently proving herself to be the one who really got me.  The emotions I felt that day were a tangled mosaic of sorrow and happiness.  The sorrow was deeper than any I had ever felt, and the happiness emerged reluctantly out of the absolute certainty that I had just breathed my first true breaths in being with her.  I had never known the boundaries or limitations of my heart until then and, as I sit here letting it wash back through me, I wonder if I ever will again.

We’d had our share of ups and downs.  We’d broken up once before, that February.  After a day of staring out a window through a mirage of my own altered perceptions, I resolved to write her a letter.  I started typing, more as a means of having something constructive to do than anything.  That night, I called her and started reading.  The letter was four pages typed in 8-point font.  I remember that so well because I was crying too hard to make a lot of it out.  She was totally silent the whole time I read aloud, and it was on the last line of the last page that she finally spoke up.  I was literally five words away from finishing it and she stopped me.  “Daniel,” she said with a voice that trembled with emotion, “just get over here.”

I don’t even remember dropping the phone, but I must have because it was off the hook when I came back later on.  The first thing I do remember was running.  Running with the sense of purpose one can only have at moments like that.  When I got to her building, I made a mad dash to her door and, without thinking, walked right in.  Her roommates were all there, and she stood there in the center of the room, staring at me, as if she’d been waiting for days.  We hugged for five minutes without letting go, and when we pulled apart, I saw a different person in her eyes.  Every inch of her face was red and streaked with tears.  I’ve never felt so loved in my life.

And so it was with the eyes of blind devotion that I looked at her the day she told me she wasn’t happy anymore.  To be honest, she didn’t have to.  I knew the moment I opened my door that whatever was hiding behind her face wasn’t anything I was going to like.  She laid it all out, and for a brief moment (up to this point, the only moment), I let my composure crumble.  I looked at her with a seriousness only hinted at in the past year and asked her to stand aside.  As she did, I unloaded six months worth of frustration, doubt, and insecurities onto a fortunately very sturdy clothes cabinet.  With the last effort, I felt all semblance of strength swept out of me and the pain seeping in through the anger.  I felt my weight pushing me down and collapsed on the floor.  I’ll never forget Barbara’s eyes tearing up looking down and me.

And then came that everlasting moment that lives in everyone’s life who’s ever lost someone who meant more to them than themselves.  Barbara started to leave.  She stood half in and half out of the door.  It was then that I realized that I wasn’t in any way prepared for that door to close.  I began to stand up and walk toward her but she held up her hand and said something I will never forget.  She said “don’t come any further.  If you come any further, I’ll remember all the things I love about you and I’ll stay…and I have to leave.”  I let her go.

I spent the following few hours in a daze until I finally fell asleep, and when I woke up, I wasn’t the same person.  It was a Thursday, that’s all I remember.  I paced my room all day.  I didn’t want to talk to anyone or do anything.  I knew it wasn’t a healthy way to be, but I didn’t have a choice.  Somewhere along the line, I had decided that having pain was better than having nothing.  The pain was all of Barbara that I had left, and so I relished in it.  I let it pull me into the darkest corners of myself and consume me because to let that go would be the only lasting proof to me that it was all over.

It was around this time that I realized I had to do something.  That if I didn’t find a release, I wasn’t going to be around much longer.  That scared me to no end.  I was staring out through a veil of my own tears and happened to notice something on my desk.  It was the CD I had bought of ‘So.’  Somewhere in a part of my mind that had temporarily forgotten about being crushed, I smiled.

It was 1:30am by the time I climbed with my boombox to the top of the South parking deck, which gave me the perfect view of her room.  All the dorms were laid out in front of me, but they all seemed to fade with the first note of ‘In Your Eyes’ into that one window on the sixth floor.  I began to shake all over from exhaustion and the strain of holding that boombox over my head, but I knew this was something I had to do.

About this time, I started to realize that my stunt had woken up virtually the entire building.  Light after light switched on, and I was certain I was going to be hauled away any minute.  But that didn’t happen.  To this day, I can’t tell you whether I laughed or cried that night, but I remember feeling more in a single moment than I ever had.  The song eventually ended, and her window had long since closed as I watched.  I lowered the boombox down to my side and began to walk away.  Somehow I wasn’t defeated and that felt good to know.  But then I heard it.  Slowly, rising little by little, the entire building of Sparta started to cheer for me.  It was the craziest thing I had ever done and, as of now, still stands as a high point in my life.

The next morning, I resolved to do three things: to let the pain diminish, to find every version of ‘In Your Eyes’ ever recorded by Peter Gabriel and to learn all I could about Cameron Crowe.  I went back and watched that scene in ‘Say Anything…’ again and realized for the first time what Crowe was trying to say.  That it went so far beyond what I originally took from it that I’d completely missed the point.  I stared again and again at Lloyd’s face as he held that boombox and saw in his eyes the feelings I knew all too well.  As it became more and more real to me, I started to see how much beautiful simplicity there was a scene that ran 1:26 and said everything that was in my heart.  From that point on, as I began to heal, I knew I would always love Gabriel’s music and Crowe’s films.

As it stands today, I’ve amassed 63 versions of “In Your Eyes”.  And as for Crowe, I’ve watched every film so deeply and intently as to border on obsession.  I’ve studied every nuance and meaningful glance until the very beats between dialogue are like familiar friends.  The great thing about friends like that is they never turn their back on you.  And like true friends, they never falter or change their basic character, and yet they still somehow have the ability to surprise you over and over again.  These are a few of those moments.