CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Getting in the Game
THREE MONTHS LATER, AUSTIN, TEXAS
We stepped toward the nightclub and approached a line so chaotic it looked like a mob. Matt Michelsen, the founder of Lady Gaga’s social network, pulled me close and led me through the crowd. Broken beer bottles littered the ground, the moonlight glinting off the shards. A pack of bouncers guarded the entrance.
“The party is at capacity,” one said, stepping forward.
“We’re with Gaga,” Matt replied.
“She’s already inside. No one else is getting in.”
There was a brief silence, then Matt stepped forward too. He said something into the guard’s ear. The guard hesitated—then stepped aside.
As soon as the door opened, the thump of techno music made my whole body vibrate. Matt and I pressed through the crowd on the dance floor. Hundreds of people were gawking in one direction, holding their phones in the air, taking pictures. Standing on an elevated VIP platform, under a glowing white light, was one of the most famous pop stars in the world. Lady Gaga’s platinum-blond hair dangled past her waist. She balanced on shoes at least ten inches high.
The VIP platform was packed and a bouncer guarding the stairs said there was no way in. This time, Matt didn’t bother talking to the guard. We moved to the front of the platform, directly below where Lady Gaga was standing.
“Hey, L.G.!” Matt yelled.
She looked down and her face lit up. “Get up here!”
“It’s too packed,” Matt replied. “They won’t—”
“Get the fuck up here!”
Seconds later, two bodyguards grabbed us by the arms and led us up the platform. Matt headed straight to Gaga. I stayed back, giving them space.
Minutes later, Matt pointed in my direction. A bodyguard gripped my shoulder, pulled me through the crowd, and planted me next to Matt and Lady Gaga. Matt put his arms around us both, pulling us in.
“Hey, L.G.,” he shouted over the music. “Remember that thing I told you about called the Third Door?”
She smiled and nodded.
“And remember that story I told you about that kid who hacked The Price Is Right? The same kid who went with his friends to Warren Buffett’s shareholders meeting?”
Her smile grew bigger and she nodded even more.
“Well,” Matt said, pointing at me, “he’s standing right here.”
Gaga’s eyes widened—she turned to me, flung her arms up, and gave me a giant hug.
Ever since Elliott introduced me to Matt at the concert in New York City, Matt had become a mentor. I’d stayed at his guesthouse for weeks at a time, traveled with him to New York and San Francisco, and when I’d found myself in trouble with Zuckerberg, he immediately tried to help. Even when it came to setting up an interview with Lady Gaga, I didn’t have to ask. Matt brought it up himself and offered to make it happen. He’s that kind of guy.
The afternoon after I met Gaga in the nightclub, I was on a couch in Matt’s hotel suite when he walked in, his phone to his ear. Matt paced across the room. When he hung up, I asked who he was talking to. He said it was Gaga—and she was in tears.
Matt sat down and explained the situation. Gaga’s first two albums had been blockbusters and catapulted her to the top of the music industry, but then, just in the past year, she had broken her hip, underwent emergency surgery, been confined to a wheelchair, and had to cancel twenty-five dates of her tour. She then fought with her longtime manager over the direction of her career, and when Gaga fired him, it made headlines. Her manager, the one who had rejected my interview requests in the past, told his side of the story to the press, but Gaga remained quiet, which only raised more questions. And then just weeks later, Gaga released her third album, ARTPOP, which critics ripped to shreds. Rolling Stone called it “bizarre.” Variety labeled some of the songs “snoozeworthy.” Gaga’s previous album sold over a million copies in its first week. ARTPOP didn’t sell a quarter of that.
That was four months ago, and now Gaga was about to step back into the spotlight. In two days she would film a segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live in the afternoon, perform a concert at night, and give the South by Southwest Music keynote the following morning.
The keynote worried her most. It wouldn’t be a short speech in front of her fans. This would be an hour-long interview in a ballroom full of music executives and journalists, many of whom were friends with her former manager. Gaga feared some would be hoping to see her fall flat on her face. It wasn’t hard to imagine the kinds of questions she might be asked: Do you see ARTPOP as a failure? Was firing your manager a mistake? Will your crazy outfits work against you now that your album sales have dropped?
That’s why Gaga had called Matt in tears, asking for help. She felt misunderstood. She knew she had been true to herself when she’d made ARTPOP, but she couldn’t find the words to explain what the album meant. The next few days were Gaga’s chance to start a new chapter in her career and she didn’t want the baggage of the past year weighing her down.
After Matt finished explaining this to me, he called one of his employees and within an hour they were sitting beside me in the hotel suite, brainstorming a narrative Gaga could use throughout the week. Matt’s employee was in his late twenties. I knew he had studied business in college, and all I heard coming out of his mouth were buzzwords: “ARTPOP is about collaboration!” “Synergy!” “Connection!”
I wanted to scream, “That’s not how you describe an artist’s soul.” But I felt it wasn’t my place to say anything, especially after how generously Matt had treated me. He was arranging for me to interview Gaga later this week, and on top of that, he was letting me stay in the extra room in his hotel suite. So I remained quiet.
But ideas rumbled within me. I had already read Gaga’s biography, buried myself in articles about her, and studied ARTPOP’s lyrics endlessly. As I listened to Matt and his employee, I felt like a basketball player sitting on the bench, legs twitching, dying to get in the game.
An hour into their brainstorm, Matt looked at me, frustrated. “Don’t you have anything to contribute?”
“Well…” I said, trying to hold myself back; but instead, almost uncontrollably, lessons I’d learned from my journey combusted with everything I’d read about Gaga and it all erupted from my mouth. “Art is emotional architecture, and if we view Gaga through that lens—her foundation, her wooden beams—it all traces back to her childhood. When she was a kid, she went to Catholic school and felt stifled. The nuns measured her skirt. They made her follow their rules. Now when Gaga wears dresses made out of meat, she’s still rebelling against those nuns!”
“Everything Gaga stands for is creative rebellion!” Matt said.
“Exactly! The founder of TED once told me, ‘Genius is the opposite of expectation,’ and now that makes perfect sense! Whether it’s her music or outfits, Gaga has always gone against expectations.” I jumped off the couch, feeling alive in a way I’d never felt before.
“Gaga’s hero is Andy Warhol,” I went on, “and using a Campbell’s Soup can as a subject is also the opposite of expectation! Critics slammed ARTPOP for being too fringe and not resonating with the masses like her last album, but what if that was the point? Gaga’s album had to come out the way it did! All of her art is the opposite of expectation. It only makes sense that if she was at the peak of Top 40, she had to do the opposite. ARTPOP wasn’t Gaga losing her touch. ARTPOP was Gaga being completely herself!”
I kept going and going until I fell back on the couch to catch my breath. I looked up at Matt.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You have twenty-four hours to write that up.”
It was past midnight. Matt was out at an event and I was alone in the hotel suite, my eyes glued to my laptop. The river of words that had flowed earlier had dried up. By morning I had to give Matt a one-page document of the talking points, plus a PowerPoint that he would present to Gaga.
When I’d been on the couch earlier watching Matt and his employee, I had visualized everything I would do if I got in the game. But now that I was in, it felt like no matter how hard I tried to jump, my feet were glued to the court.
Minutes stretched into hours. I went to bed, hoping I’d find inspiration in the morning. Though as I lay under the covers, I couldn’t sleep. My mind kept churning, and I don’t know why, but I began thinking about a video of Steve Jobs I’d watched on YouTube years earlier. He was introducing the “Think Different” marketing campaign and talking about the importance of defining your values. It was one of the most brilliant speeches I’d seen. I pulled the covers off and reached for my laptop. I rewatched the speech and again it blew me away. All I could think was: I need to show Gaga this video. This has the magic I’m missing.
But I wouldn’t be in the room with her the next day. And even if I would be, I couldn’t force Lady Gaga to watch a YouTube video. So I emailed Matt:
This is it…trust me on this and watch all seven minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keCwRdbwNQY
A short time later, Matt walked into the hotel suite.
“Did you watch the video?” I asked.
“Not yet. I’ll watch it now.”
Finally, it felt like things were back on track. Matt disappeared into his bedroom and I could hear him watching the video through the open door. Then Matt emerged with a toothbrush in his mouth and his phone in his hand, barely watching as the video played. When the speech ended, Matt didn’t notice. He returned to his room without a word.
I yanked the covers over me. Not only had my plan not worked, but it was the fourth quarter, and I was all out of ideas.
I woke up before dawn and headed to the lobby to continue writing. As much as I tried, the words just didn’t have the impact I knew they could. Then Matt called.
“Come to the room,” he said. “My meeting with Gaga moved up. We only have two hours now.”
I hurried to the suite, opened the door, and that’s when I saw Matt standing at the kitchenette counter, his laptop in front of him and headphones in—watching the Steve Jobs video in full screen. His eyes were fixed. When the video finished, Matt slowly turned his head.
“I have an idea,” he said.
I stayed silent.
“I’m going to sit Gaga down…and show her this video.”
“YESSSSS!” I shouted.
The exhilaration of the moment overtook me and I whipped out my laptop and rewrote the entire page of talking points within a minute, perfectly channeling everything I’d said the day earlier. Matt knew Gaga in a way I never could, so his edits lifted the words to new heights. Now all we needed was the PowerPoint.
Matt had to be at Gaga’s house within the hour, so I stayed behind to finish. There was something thrilling about being under this kind of stress, as if the game clock was counting down 10…9…8…As Matt called to say he was walking in—the buzzer sounded—and I hit send.
An hour later, my phone vibrated. It was a text from Matt.
Home run. Everyone crying over here.
The next two days were a whirl. Late that night, I went to a Snoop Dogg concert to join Matt and Lady Gaga. After grabbing a Red Bull from the bar, I spotted them on a sofa in the VIP section. Matt motioned for me to sit beside Gaga. I plopped down and she put her arm around me. With her other arm she reached for my Red Bull, took a gulp, and handed it back.
“Alex,” she said, “sometimes…sometimes something is so deep inside you, you can’t express it yourself. For the first time, you expressed it for me in words.
“And that Andy Warhol line,” she added, smiling and swirling her hand in the air. “Incredible.”
After Gaga and I finished talking, Kendrick Lamar came over and sat beside me on the couch. Snoop Dogg continued performing on stage, rapping my favorite songs. I got up and danced, feeling freer than ever.
The next evening, as Matt and I headed to Gaga’s concert, I checked Twitter and saw she’d changed her profile name to “CREATIVE REBELLION.” She tweeted:
ARTPOP is creative rebellion. I don’t play by the nuns’ rules. I make my own. #MonsterStyle #ARTPOP
In what felt like a second later, I heard the thunderous cheers of thousands of fans as Gaga danced on stage. While she sang, a woman beside her chugged bottles of a green liquid. Gaga stood still under a spotlight and the woman gagged herself, throwing up on the pop star. Gaga called it “vomit art.”
As I watched green liquid hurtling out of the woman’s mouth and splashing onto Gaga’s body, I cringed. Matt laughed. “Talk about the opposite of expectation, huh?”
Later that night, Gaga’s interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live aired. Kimmel opened with a jab at Gaga’s outfits, then he took another shot at ARTPOP. But Gaga didn’t miss a beat. She hit back with the “opposite of expectation” line and the audience roared with applause.
In another blink, I was sitting in the front row of the keynote speech the next morning, right between Matt and Gaga’s father. The houselights dimmed. Gaga stepped on stage in an enormous dress made out of plastic tarps. One of the first questions was about the “vomit art.”
She explained how the idea originated and then said: “You know, Andy Warhol thought he could make a soup can into art. Sometimes things that are really strange, and feel really wrong, can really change the world…It’s about freeing yourself from the expectations of the music industry and the expectations of the status quo. I never liked having my skirt measured for me in school or being told how to do things or the rules to live by.”
Before I knew it, applause enveloped the room. The keynote was over and the audience was on its feet. Gaga received a standing ovation.
Matt headed straight to the airport and I went back to the hotel to pack. As I gathered my things, Matt sent me a screenshot of a text he had just received from Gaga:
I don’t even know what to say. I’m so grateful for everything u guys have done. U really supported me and I had wings today because of u. Hope I made u and Alex proud.
As I finished reading Gaga’s text, another popped up on my phone. A friend from USC invited me to a party on campus. The friends I’d started college with were in the final semester of their senior year, celebrating graduation. I felt like, in my own way, I was too.
As I stared out of the airplane’s window, watching clouds floating below, I couldn’t stop thinking about how this Gaga experience came to be. In a way, it just seemed like a series of little decisions. Years ago, I chose to cold-email Elliott Bisnow. Then I chose to go to Europe with him. I chose to go to that concert in New York City where Elliott introduced me to Matt. Then I chose to spend time visiting Matt’s home and building a relationship with him.
As my thoughts continued to unfold, a quote came to mind, from a seemingly unexpected source. It was from one of the Harry Potter books. At a critical moment in the story, Dumbledore says, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
It’s our choices…far more than our abilities…
I thought back to my conversations with Qi Lu and Sugar Ray Leonard. The message of that quote was the underlying lesson I learned during those interviews. While Qi Lu and Sugar Ray were both born with remarkable abilities, what made them stand out in my eyes were their choices. Qi Time was a choice. Chasing the school bus was a choice.
Different images began coming to mind, rolling in front of my eyes like a slide show. When Bill Gates sat in his dorm room, pushing through his fear and picking up that phone to make his first sale, that was a choice. When Steven Spielberg jumped off the Universal Studios tour bus, that was a choice. When Jane Goodall worked multiple jobs to save money to travel to Africa, that was a choice.
Everyone has the power to make little choices that can alter their lives forever. You can either choose to give in to inertia and continue waiting in line for the First Door, or you can choose to jump out of line, run down the alley, and take the Third Door. We all have that choice.
If there was one lesson I learned from my journey, it’s that making these choices was possible. It’s that mindset of possibility that transformed my life. Because when you change what you believe is possible, you change what becomes possible.
The plane’s wheels hit the ground in Los Angeles. I carried my duffel bag and made my way through the terminal, feeling a gentle calm I’d never known before.
I stepped outside of baggage claim. When my dad pulled his car to the curb, he got out and I gave him a long hug. I tossed my duffel bag in the trunk and climbed into the passenger seat.
“So, how did the interview go?” he asked.
“It never happened,” I said.
As I told him the story, my dad let out a big smile, and we headed home.