Is This Real Life?

Yesterday my friend Jodie and I walked around the city for quite a long time. At one point, we came upon this somewhat old looking diner. There was something familiar about it and it didn't hit me until we were on our way back and we passed it again. I had seen pictures of this diner in my Rent book. This was the diner where Jonathan Larson worked when he was struggling to make it as a writer. I suppose almost ten years since he died, most people wouldn't care anymore.

But it struck me particularly because Jonathan's story has always intrigued me. At least since I've learned of it... He died when I was 15 and all I knew was that this writer of a show that was up for Tonys had died. Then I watched the Tonys and the cast performed a number from Rent and I was hooked.I was promised tickets for my 18th birthday but didn't go until my 19th. I got the CD and listened to it almost everyday. I can't really describe why I find Jonathan Larson's story so compelling. Maybe it's because he was an immensely talented and passionate writer who conveyed such emotions in his music. Maybe it was the mystery of "what would he have become?" Maybe it was the fear of every writer, every artist that they would die before their work was recognized by the world at large.

I don't write music, but Jonathan Larson influenced my writing in the incarnation of the doomed Jonny Adams, AIDS patient and guitar prodigy. I hadn't originally named Jonny after Jonathan Larson; he was named 'Jonny' after Johnny from "The Outsiders" and Johnny from "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn." At the time I began writing, it seemed as though characters named Johnny were doomed characters. However as my writing grew and Jonny's role grew, he became the incarnation of the doomed talent; the talent discovered when he was gone.

I have seen Rent twice and now wait for the movie. I hope it lives up to the material and to Jonathan's vision.