Different Names For The Same Thing

When I was seven-years-old, my parents took Chris and me to “Annie” at Chicago’s Schubert Theatre.

Two things stuck: Annie’s “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” (reprised in every song I’ve written since), and Miss Hannigan. Miss Hannigan scared the living shit out of seven-year-old me. (My mother loves to remind me of this.) Heck, I’d avoid her in a dark ally to this day.

But here’s what really stuck: Miss Hannigan screaming at the orphans, “You’ll stay up till this dump shines like the top of the Chrysler Building!”

Gives me goose bumps to this day.

I’m sitting in a conference room on the twenty-eighth floor of The Mighty Viacom (aka “The Death Star”). It’s nearly eight o’clock. The meeting is in its second hour. My brief vacation has long since faded from memory.

“So what you’re telling me,” a Fairly Major Dude says, “Is that we’re going to go onto this plot of land that has nothing but light rigs and putting some of the most advanced technology on Earth in 120° heat during hurricane season?”

I stifle a laugh, and look out the window over my shoulder. The sky is deep blue, almost purple. The Chrysler Building is glowing orange in the sunset. And it’s shining. I smile, and I think to myself, ‘Everything’s in its right place, dude.’