Common

The drive-thru barista at Starbucks asked, “Hey, do you guys know Barenaked Ladies is coming to the Pageant?” (Mind you, at the time we were listening to the Traveling Wilburys. Gary’s tales of the cruise must have made an impression.)

The barista is evidently going to be there too, and he was concerned because he had just heard the lead singer was gone. “Which one is the lead singer, like on ‘One Week?’”

“Chickety China, that’s Ed, he’s still there. ‘It’s been one week -‘ that’s Steve, he’s gone.”

“Who sings the theme song to Big Bang Theory?”

“That’s Ed.”

“Okay, because that’s who I think of when I hear Barenaked Ladies. Will it still be a good show with the other guy gone?”

We assured him it would. And it will. It just won’t be magic.

Gary and I had just been talking earlier at dinner about BNL and Steven and the breakup almost two years ago, much as I imagine you all discuss world trade policy at dinner with your spouses. I’d mentioned there had been a dustup this past week, because Steven was interviewed in anticipation of his new CD and evidently said heartbreaking things that suggested that Ed was not his BFF (they hadn’t much “in common,”) and that he couldn’t see how BNL could go on, since it was his baby.

BNL fired off a testy twitter about how if you don’t cherish and encourage babies they grow up and REJECT YOU, and then I think everybody set themselves on the high road again.

It was the “in common” remark that Gary and I were discussing. “That’s what made them special!” he said. “Steve and Ed were so different, yet they seemed to like each other.”

“It was like an ensemble comedy. It was like Friends.” (I wish I could have referenced some German theatrical ensemble-tragedy there, but it was Friends that came to mind.) “Phoebe didn’t have anything in common with the rest of them, but they loved her anyway.” That’s what’s so lovely about ensembles. We can all believe we would fit in too, we would be accepted. even if we have nothing in common.

I think “in-common” is over-rated. A relative just encouraged my half-Pakistani niece to join the Muslim students association, so she’d find friends she’d have more in-common with. “Shush,” I thought, “I’ve been telling this girl she’ll blossom in college because college is where being different changes from a liability to an asset.” In high school you must be all the same, then suddenly in college common people are boring.

And, who on Friends did not have a college education? Yes, Joey. Did Joey go off on his own and get his own sitcom with a new ensemble and it tanked? Yes. Perhaps his new friends had too much in common with him.

This is not to say I won’t hear a great show when I go to Albuquerque for BNL or Chicago for Steven Page. It just won’t be a fantasy ensemble. But, there is much to be said for reality, and the Behind the Music episode to come, and watching performers be honest instead of taking the high road.