Ameera Chowdhury - School Night

 

 

When I was a teenager, in spite of being a straight-A student, I had delinquent tastes in music. I loved 1970s punk rock, like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, who, if you don't know, are the spiritual ancestors of bands like Nirvana and Green Day. [audience chuckles] Of all these bands, my absolute favorite were those godfathers of punk, Iggy Pop and the Stooges. Nobody epitomized sex, drugs, and rock and roll the way they did. 

 

It was 1997, and Iggy's record company had just released a greatest-hits compilation called Nude & Rude to coincide with his 50th birthday. Being a delinquent, I skipped class to listen to the CD at my mall's Blockbuster Music. But then, being a straight-A student, I wrote a review of it for my local paper, the Sun-Sentinel. [audience laughter] [audience applause]

 

When the article was published, I clipped it and sent it to Iggy's record company, hoping they would deliver it as fan mail. And they did. A few months later, I got this envelope in the mail. No return address, New York postmark, and a Georgia O'Keeffe flower postage stamp, [audience laughter] which my artist friend Carlos later explained was supposed to represent lady parts. [audience laughter] 

 

So, I tear open the envelope, and inside is this card with this absurd photo of Iggy on the cover wearing a crown. When I open it, I realize that it's a personal note from Iggy himself. 

 

[cheers and hollers] 

 

Iggy wrote, "Ameera, hi, I got your letter. When you get this card, give me a call if you want to, please. 212 [beep] 91. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

There's a machine, so leave a number if I'm not there. I'll be in South Florida quite soon," which is where I lived at the time. "It'd be nice to meet you. Iggy." [audience laughter] I was nervous and flipping out, [audience laughter] because Iggy Pop was my idol, my teenage fantasy, and he wanted to talk to me on the phone. I was sure I was going to pass out, so I begged my boyfriend Eric to phone the number on a three-way conference call for moral support. [audience laughter] 

 

Eric dials the number and the answering machine picks up. The message on the machine isn't something normal and comforting like, "Hi, I'm not here, leave a number after the beep," but rather Iggy's sneering, "This is that thing you throw peanuts at. Take a shot, sucker." [audience laughter] So, poor Eric is awkwardly leaving a message when Iggy, who screens his phone calls like Gwen Stefani, picks up. [audience laughter] Now, Eric is stammering and calling him Mr. Pop. [audience laughter] And somehow Iggy smoothly talks him into hanging up. And then, Iggy and I are alone together on the phone. 

 

I'd like to think that after reading my review, Iggy must have thought I was older and worldlier than I was, because we hit it off really well. He was in the process of getting divorced. Was on the rebound, [audience laughter] leaving New York, moving to Miami, and he wanted to meet me. He told me that he liked my exotic name. So, although we never explicitly discussed it, I was pretty sure I'd get to live out my wildest rock-star fantasies with Iggy Pop. Iggy and I spoke a couple of nights in a row. And in the meantime, I persuaded my friend Carlos to drive me to Miami. Everything was set except for a time and a place.

 

Let me stress that this was happening in 1997, when people still talked on the phone and didn't just text all the time. [audience laughter] Also, I only had one line in my house, and the kind of family where everyone picks up the phone in the other room and listens in or interrupts as they see fit. [audience laughter] So, when I called Iggy the next night to arrange a meeting, my mom, who had gotten word that I was spending a lot of time on the phone with an older man, [audience laughter] picks up the other line and says, "Ameera, time for beddy-buys, [audience laughter] it's a school night." [audience laughter] The game was up. [audience laughter] I awkwardly confessed that I was only a high-school student, and Iggy politely explained that he couldn't meet me anymore or every male member of my bloodline would come after him with swords. [audience laughter] I am not going to-- [chuckles] That was the last I ever heard from him. 

 

At the time, I was absolutely mortified that this had happened. Because the coolest thing that had ever happened to me had just ended in the most uncool way imaginable. [audience laughter] But after years of therapy, I've come to see [audience laughter] that the real hero of this story is not me or Iggy Pop, but my mom, who, despite working two jobs, still had the attention span to save me from my inner teenage delinquent. While I didn't get to live out my rock-star rebound fantasies with Iggy Pop, she got to live out every mother's fantasy. My mom told Iggy Pop that it was a school night.