Moonlighting

He was too short to be a real rock star. Though not obvious at first, it didn’t take long to notice his five inch, electric blue, platform shoes. They weren’t there to mask his lack of stature, rather they embraced his height and accessorized accordingly. He was bald. He had shaved his remaining hair to make it look like a choice rather than an act of God, but the five o’clock shadow on the sides of his scalp betrayed him. As he sang he held the microphone directly above his head, up-turned face alive with passion and blue aviator sunglasses gleaming in the spotlight. Knees slightly bent, chest thrown out, eyes closed, he was every inch a pint-sized Bono, singing U2’s greatest hits with passion and fervor.


It’s been a month since I saw The Bloody Sundays (U2 That Can Play Your Party or Corporate Events!) and I’m still wondering about that Tiny Bono. I wonder what he does when he’s not performing in a cover band. I imagine him, practicing his Irish accent, working out new dance moves in front of his bedroom mirror, maybe singing into a hairbrush held aloft. Do his coworkers know that he moonlights as a cheesy U2 impersonator? Do his parents? How could one keep that a secret?

There’s no doubt about it, Tiny Bono was ridiculous. Yet, I found myself charmed by him. I am somewhat in love with his gusto! In love with the energy and honesty he brought to his performance. I am in love with the way he went all in and if he knew we were laughing at him, he didn’t care.

I have realized that I have much to learn from Tiny Bono. I wish I could do that. I wish I had the guts to moonlight as something potentially ridiculous just because it made me happy. We all have silly ambitions—those things we’d do if we won the lottery and could quit our jobs, or the hobby we’d take up if only it was not so absurd or impractical. Why must practicality always get the better of us? If practicality and pride would stay out of the way, I know exactly what I would do with my life. If no one were to find out what I was really up to, I know the career path I would follow. I, Erin Moore, would become a world famous romance novelist!

A romance novelist! What could be a more entertaining way to spend your day than to write those hilarious bodice rippers, replete with adventure, romance, intrigue and illicit sex with the stable hand? I would never leave my desk, concocting secret identities and kidnappings and heroines born to a life of privilege who fall in love with a blacksmith, forcing her to chose between the life she knows and the love she can’t live without! The adventure! The escapism! The wonderful absurdity of it all! Maybe Lifetime would buy the rights and turn it into a made-for-TV-movie starring Andie MacDowell and Rob Lowe! Maybe they would have a special marathon of my movies like they do for Nora Roberts. Maybe they would have introductions that feature me sipping a glass of red wine in front of a crackling fire, talking to the camera about the inspiration behind A Love Forbidden (He loved her desperately, but would it be enough?) the latest in my Strong Women, Strong Love Series.

Obviously, I’d have to come up with a pseudonym so that my mom wouldn’t know what I was up to. Maybe I could be Anastasia Petrov or Molly O’Shandy? Obviously, my heroines would be strong-willed women ahead of their time, who only want for a man strong enough to handle her! Obviously, I would have to pick up a few cats and grow my hair down past my butt.

It would be the most fun and embarrassing job in the entire world. Embarrassing. The word stops me short as it always has. This is why I’ve never taken to my eagle feather quill to weave a tale of deception and adventure. It’s embarrassing. My friends, who are so well-read and intelligent, who have always challenged me to know more and learn more, what would they say if this was my calling? My sisters, who are so smart and practical and insightful, what would they think of me? What would my parents say to a book that contains pirate sex?

Tiny Bono has opened my eyes to my own hypocrisy. Can I know that something is silly and ridiculous and do it anyway? Is it better to know how terrible the genre is and yet become a part of it? Or to know that I love it, yet abide by a strict no literary junk food diet? Can I still believe that words and books have the potential to change our lives and open our minds, and yet spend my days writing stories that have no depth or socially redeeming qualities? Can’t someone else challenge our minds while I provide escape? Having always been a firm believer in the simple, incalculable value of escapism, I think I could step into this roll quite nicely. Escapism is why I love Jimmy Buffett so much and cooking shows and Harry Potter. It would be an act of kindness to try and provide this distraction to others.

If Tiny Bono can do it, I can too! If he can strap on his giant shoes and matching shades, I can face my friends and family as someone who honestly likes this crap. The real me. Today I begin. Today, I answer the calls of the swashbuckler and con-artist and headstrong woman trying to succeed in a man’s world, for they are all waiting patiently in my imagination.

Today is my coming out. Mom, Dad. I love you and nothing has changed. I’m still the same Erin I was before, I just…I just write romance novels now. I know it’s not what you dreamed for me, but it’s who I am and if you loved me before you can love me now! Can you love me now? Because if you don’t then I don’t stand a chance at my high school reunion.

How strange. How perfectly ridiculous that a five foot man in five inch platform shoes singing twenty year old hits can inspire me to embrace who I really am— just your average assistant meeting planner who dreams of publishing books that feature a half naked man on the cover. Thank you Tiny Bono. Perhaps in tribute my first novel will feature a woman who falls for the lead singer of a cover band, believing him to the real thing. Can she love him when she discovers the truth of who he really is?