Matthew
We forget
most of the time
that when we watch TV
especially the news
No one is looking
directly at us.
No one is making direct eye contact.
That is nothing more than an illusion.
A parlor trick of electrical intimacy.
All the newscasters see are
bright white lights
the kind that interrogators use
to wear people down
and a blinking red camera light
which navigates them
towards the general direction of
wherever the beam of light
falls on you.
To them, you are nothing more
nothing less than
the teeming masses
yearning to be free to watch.
The people who populate sitcoms
are like the ghosts in evening clothes
who cut 78s
in the 1920s
when jazz flew like martini-soaked doves
from the basement of Smokey Club Nowhere
that somehow managed to touch your heart
90 years later.
Sitcom characters are
the product of pure invention with a drizzle of whimsy
who are no more real
than that man
or woman
who turned and smiled at you
at the traffic light
right before
they drove off into the
way beyond you
before you could say
I love you.
Matthew Perry
was not your friend
He was not even Chandler
Chandler was the alchemy
created by writers
who live in the shadows
of a poorly lit room
who create mythology
and pass it off
as possibility.
Chandler was armed
by them
for a make-believe war
that in the real world
no one can win.
But for 30 minutes
21 if you count the commercials
Chandler empowered you
Like a hipster, know-it-all-Jesus
who wrote the book
on how to take on the world
with sugar-coated ridicule
We all knew that the essence of
Chandler was pure sweetness
that he was desperate
to be loved
But so were we all
And so are we still.
We haven't lost Matthew.
We lost Chandler
who would have swooped in at the very last minute
and saved himself
like a quipping Spider-Man
Or a guest at the table in Dinner at 8.
Instead
Chandler
just like you and I
watched Matthew
fade out
the way too many Hollywood actors do
when their bodies can no longer
take on the responsibility
the pain
or the
power
That you wish they had.
This touched me deeply. As a former intern at a tv show, I got to see a glimpse inside the belly of the beast. Decades later, i'm still glad I said no.💔
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