The story of two men who found themselves as strangers in a strange land, not knowing why they were there or what they were called there for, wondering if perhaps they were simply there to meet each other...
It all began with a photograph of a cake. It was a photograph of a cake with Elmo on it. There were no people in the photograph. It was just a picture of an Elmo cake stapled to a bulletin board.
Mark had come to Orlando after being led to believe that his career with the Muppets, which began many years earlier, would benefit from being in Orlando and working at Disney. Keith had come to Orlando for his own reasons, and when he met Mark, he had reached the lowest point in his journey and did not know how to do anything other than survive.
There was a mixed collection of people on the night shift at the job they both worked. There was something interesting about each of the eight people on the shift, but these two knew there was a reason why they had come into contact with each other. Keith wondered who Mark was. He wore sweater vests, ridiculous shoes and a wide smile, prompting Keith to wonder if Mark had Down's syndrome. Mark wondered if Keith was a homeless man, as he was worn out and had long, dirty hair. Then, one night, Mark looked at the photograph during a silent moment on the night shift and asked, "What is the deal with this Elmo cake? Why is there a picture of an Elmo cake up here?"
Keith just started laughing uncontrollably. It was a strange beginning to a friendship that meant everything.
Mark's career with the Muppets had been derailed by the person who performs Elmo, and so it was a slap in the face to have this photograph in front of him as he tried to revive his career unsuccessfully at Disney. His father had pushed him to make something of his talent with puppets his entire life. Keith's father had pushed him to succeed and needed to step in to help him as everything fell apart around him just prior to his being hired for this job. They were destined to meet.
Awake on my airplane
Awake on my airplane
My skin is bare
My skin is theirs
I feel like a newborn
And I feel like a newborn
I feel so real
Keith had been missing something since he had separated from his best friend of nearly two decades. All of his friends were female and he had not been close to a person of the male nature for a long time. Mark would change that. He would become the best friend he had ever known. It had to do with more than just a photograph of an Elmo cake. That was just the spark that started the fire.
Mark was the performer and Keith was the writer. Together they would conceive, write and perform as they tried to put together a show that would deliver them both into the ranks of the successful and idolized. They never quite made it there, but it was not for a lack of trying. In the end, Keith would try to convince Mark that it did not matter. They knew who they were and what they were capable of. Selling the drama wasn't as important as knowing they could do anything together.
Could you take my picture
'Cuz I won't remember
Each of them had a great love in their life from whom they had been separated. For Mark it was Claudia, a woman who was intent on destroying him but from whom he could not stay away. For Keith it was The Muse, from whom he was separated because she believed she would destroy him. They were inspirations to the two of them, but what was more than that, they were each inspired to prove their fathers wrong. They could succeed on their own terms and not on the limited terms their fathers told them they needed to follow to find success.
Mark and Claudia would come together first, placing a rift between him and Keith as Keith felt and saw that Claudia would destroy Mark. She sapped his creative talent. She turned him into something almost not worth knowing. She drained him like a vampire. When she finally made her latest effort to destroy him, Keith was there. He knew he needed to do the right thing. There was no other way.
I don't believe in
Your sanctity
I don't believe in
Your privacy
I don't believe in
Sanctity
Or hypocrisy
Could everyone agree that no one should be left alone
Could everyone agree that
They should not be left alone
And I feel like a newborn
Kicking and screaming
Keith told Mark the time had come to make himself whole again. He needed to move beyond his attachment to this woman who did not accept him as the person he was and wanted to mold and control him and defeat the essence of what made him Mark. The struggle went on, and as Mark worked to make his puppet career soar, Keith looked beyond at how he needed to make himself whole first. Eventually, these things would come, but life demanded he complete himself before he could do anything more.
Eventually, Keith would fall in love with Mark's cousin, The Nightingale, who would inspire him to reclaim the person he really was. He would come to love her beyond words, but it was her words that drove him to reclaim that which he had considered lost. The Muse, who had inspired him, and for whom his love had no boundaries, would continue to haunt him and The Nightingale would insist that he find a way to make it happen or find closure. She broke his heart in an instant with nothing more than a look. When she knew he was leaving to be with The Muse, she did not try to interfere, she simply looked into his soul and told him that to her he would always matter more than he could ever understand.
Hey dad, what do you think about your son now?
Hey dad, what do you think about your son now?
These days, whenever they get together, they always listen to this song as the night comes to a close. It means something and it always will. At the end, they scream out those last lines and embrace. There isn't anything wrong with that. It is how they remember.
Lyrics sample from lyrics by Richard Patrick
Copyright 1999 EMI April Music/Happy Ditties from Paradise (ASCAP)
As appeared on the album Title of Record recorded by Filter.
Used without permission.