Being John Norris: An Essay

Williamsburg, Brooklyn---In the mid 80’s, a small southern boy with big city dreams descended upon New York with one goal in mind: to change forever how pop culture news would be reported. John Norris, not to be confused with Kurt Loder, graduated from NYU with a degree in Journalism and went on to become one of MTV’s most recognizable and influential VJ’s. Whether he was pounding the pavement in search of hard news, or lounging on a comfortable leather couch across from Madonna, Norris’s calm, sweet, and permanently hip demeanor earned him the respect of tweens and parents alike. I had nearly forgotten about John Norris until I ran into him in a Williamsburg bar, and like a one hit wonder from before my Bar Mitzvah, remembering him in the now made the memories come rushing back in a disarming deluge.

What was so disarming—or impressionable—about seeing John Norris in a hip, 20-something bar, wasn’t that he was just a MTV superstar. No—what made seeing him so powerfully maddening was that despite everything he has seen, heard, and been through, John Norris has aged backwards. His jeans were as tight as his thinning hair was dyed blonde. He was wearing a super tight jacket so restrictive I couldn't fathom how his arms were moving. The last time I had watched him was probably in 1999, when I was 17. The modern day John Norris looks 16. He is now younger than I was when he was almost 40.

At first, this chronological paradox eluded me like any other miracle or piece of temporal sorcery. How, I asked, could John Norris have become a Peter Pan? How, I wondered aloud, has this man discovered the fountain of youth and gotten away with it? But then, like a weight lifted from my shoulders, I realized that John Norris had done exactly what MTV has done, and that the two are inextricably linked to one another, symbiotically feeding each other’s lifeblood and fulfilling the other’s destiny. Just as MTV has regressed into serving those between the ages of four to eleven, so too has John Norris. Just as The Real World has given way to the Surreal Life (VH1, I know, but it’s all Viacom…damn you Viacom!!!!), so too has John Norris gone from pioneering music newsman to a nimble sprite whose dreams are as enchanting as a child’s careless laugh.

In the bar, John Norris was surrounded by a few young guys. He smoked cigarettes and cocked his head to the sky as he daintily blew the smoke towards God in the stars. He reached out and touched one of the guy’s shoulders, flirtatiously laughing as my friend next to me said “Wow, John Norris is so gay.” John Norris sipped a PBR as he rapidly sent a text message to whoever it was who has in his phone a contact for “John Norris.” I imagine that person, sitting in an apartment, looking at his phone as the message pops up “New Text Message From: MTV’s John Norris.” I’m jealous of this person, but I don’t know why. Maybe because he’s friends with John Norris, the Man Child of MTV who only has a few short years left before a full regression into painful adolescence.

When John Norris walked past me and my friends, a girl sitting beside us, who’d also recognized that it was John Norris, patted him on his arm as he passed and chirped “Hey! Hey!” John Norris kept walking towards the bar but casually responded “Hey! I’ll be right back!” We all giggled like excited school girls.

But John Norris didn’t come back. He disappeared at the bar, buying another 2 for $5 rounds of PBR cans, and slyly returned to the corner where he was talking to the 4 boys. They looked so enamored by him. There are some celebrities who look so much like how they look on TV that you want to congratulate them. You want to say, “Dennis Hopper---wow---you know what, you really do look just like Dennis Hopper!” It’s almost stunning how someone can look exactly like how they look.

Not John Norris. John Norris looks like a photocopy of a photocopy of John Norris. He looks similar, but entirely otherworldly, and strange. In another time, I would have gone up to John Norris and said something awkward like “wow, I’m such a big fan of your work.” Or tried to ask a poignant question that would lead him to believe that I was an abovely average intelligent fan, something like “how have you seen MTV change since 9/11?” I would have killed to be one of those cropped hair Elvin boys surrounding the age defying VJ, hanging on his every word while already having hatched complex plans to murder all those who wanted to take time away from me and John Norris.

But we leave the bar without approaching him. It seems like we’ve all gotten older, and the allure of John Norris, even with his magically youthful transmogrification, holds little appeal. It’s almost sad. On the subway ride home I wonder who, if anyone, I would run up to and say “I’m a big fan.” Or ask a contrived, complex question. I can’t think of anyone. Well, almost anyone. There is one person.

Kurt Loder.