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Group Therapy

I tell him I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“It’s like holding a fish, putting your finger on the stuff that really matters. You hear the great ones and just try to understand them.” He looks out over the lobby, opens and closes his mouth as if despairing of getting it right.

“Like music videos,” he says finally. “They really hurt the song. It’s like the movie and the book—when you hear the song, you think about the video, which is good for selling it but not how I want to think of the experience of music. It would be better to have your own idea of the song.” He seems to reconsider. “It’s fine,” he says, in a forget-everything-I-just-said tone. “It’s okay, it’s totally cool. I feel slightly confused about certain things. Practical and tactical things. When you try to make everyone happy . . . in the end you’ve got to make yourself happy.”

I feel like I’m trying to decipher the lyrics to one of his songs, which are suggestive and elusive. In “Juicebox,” the current single, the words go

Everybody sees me,
But it’s not that easy,
Standing in the light field,
Standing in the light field,
Why don’t you come over here?
We’ve got a city to love.

When he sings it behind the bass, drums, and two guitars, loose expressions like these create their own argument, but right now, without any booze or melody or the other Strokes, it makes for awfully cryptic conversation. I tell him he’s going to have to be more specific.

“My opinion is that huge iconic success seems to damage people. Some people got damaged by drugs. Some got destroyed by being on top of the world. I saw this TV movie about Michael Jackson tonight,” he says. “What do you think? Do you think he’s guilty? I don’t know. He’s got enough evil forces working around that you’ve got to wonder.”

I think it’s interesting and weird that he identifies with Michael Jackson.

“I think,” he says, “I will always be desperate to figure these things out.”

At this point he goes off the record. Two hours later, it’s 5:30 in the morning. I’m exhausted, but Julian seems refreshed, and in the putrid predawn light of the hotel lobby, he looks serene and youthful. As we take the elevator up to our rooms, Julian says he feels better, having divested himself of a litany of doubts and complaints and fears; everything will probably be fine, he says. It was like listening to a stranger talk about his marriage for a few hours—ultimately the details aren’t that important, but you can’t help hoping they work it out and stay together in the end.

When we get to my floor, Julian surprises me by giving me a hug. “Later, man,” he says, and the doors close between us.