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He flew in from a cloud of smoke atop a grand piano.

An orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen welcomed him as he landed. 

And so Aerosmith celebrated the 10th anniversary of MTV way back in the fall of 1991 with their classic ‘Dream On’. 

Every time when I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It went by, like dusk to dawn
Isn’t that the way
Everybody’s got the dues in life to pay

I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it’s everybody’s sin
You got to lose to know how to win

For her homage to MTV’s anniversary Madonna had contributed a psychotherapy session in black-and-white cinema verite style, French beret, suspenders and the whole smoking vibe. Without any backing music, however, it is this song and not Madonna that recalls the haunting fall of 1991. 

Suzie was in Denmark that year, and the upcoming holidays would be the first we did not spend together. It would also be the first without her father helming the festivities. So many reasons for sadness, so many days of darkness. That was November, though, no surprises there. I couldn’t pinpoint whether my depressed countenance was typical seasonal sorrow, or something deeper. It didn’t much matter. Whether it was the moment or something more sustaining, destruction beckoned to my wayward  sixteen-year-old self. What sixteen-year-old hasn’t contemplated giving up? When November’s wind and rain crush the summer’s leaves beneath your feet, and you walk alone in the woods eyeing every sunken patch of earth as a possible grave, death strikes you as neither frightening nor unwelcome. 

Half my life’s in books’ written pages
Lived and learned from fools and from sages
You know it’s true
All the things come back to you

On certain nights, just to get away, to feel something – anything – be it cold or chill or danger or dark – I would sneak out of the house when everyone was in bed, and I would run – as fast and as hard as I could – running as furiously as my body would allow, pushing and daring it to give up, to take and tear me down, rip up my muscles, ravage my bones, slice through my skin and render my shell from my soul. Most of us want to run into oblivion eventually. 

It never worked. My brain gave in before my body did, and I’d return, panting and catching what was left of my breath, as much as I fought for it to leave me. In the driveway, beneath the thorny Hawthorne tree that brought us such happiness in its spring bloom, I paused, kicking off the dried and dead berries from those very blooms, now stuck to the bottom of my shoes. This was life, I thought. It always turned to shit. Nothing beautiful remained. Nothing good would last.  

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter and sing for the tear
Sing with me, just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord’ll take you away…

Back inside, I clicked on the basement lights and put in this MTV tape, mostly to watch Madonna again. No matter what happened, there would always be Madonna. Whether Aerosmith was before or after her, I somehow always managed to see a bit of their ‘Dream On’ performance, and the song became part of my teenage life, as it did to so many others before and since. The classics never die. Steven Tyler had been to hell and back and still managed to scream and screech and work that magic like it never left him. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe you couldn’t kill that artistic glory – not even in death. This song would live on. This music would continue to sound. This moment, shared by the audience and the listeners then and now, will keep going. There was comfort in that. Some small seed of inspiration had been dropped into my sub-conscious. And so I kept going. Not because I didn’t want to die. Not because the world wasn’t cruel and rife with misery. Not because I had any breakthrough realization. No, I kept going because… I didn’t really know what to do. And if you’re not sure about something that big, I find it best to wait and consider. One day. One night. Then another day. Another night. And another. And I made it through. 

Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream until your dreams come true…

And so November’s days ticked away. Thanksgiving came to the Ko home. My brother and I haunted the attic and its secret passages, but it wasn’t the same without Suzie or her Dad. We sat on the stairs remembering things instead of making new memories. I never liked adding sad rooms to my memory castle, but there it is, all these years later. November tends to unlock it. I’ll take a quick look, do a bit of dusting, then carefully lock it up again.