After a few minutes of chaos Randy stepped onto his stage, masked as usual. The audience assumed the show would get on, but Randy announced that the rest of the show would be cancelled out of solidarity with the comedian and that such behaviour was unacceptable in any situation, comedy show or not.
After a bit of grumbling within the audience people started to leave the auditorium. I wasn't sure what to do as I had taken the afternoon off work for the show and had no other plans. After the auditorium emptied out and I was alone, I decided to walk around and kill some time.
Right outside the auditorium, there was a bunch of people, young people - looked like students... but there was also a load of camera and photography equipment. I was curious about what was going on and watched from a distance. They seemed to be recording some sort of music video and it involved positioning people behind pillars and they had to move out as the singer passed them.
Just then someone from the crew approached me. She asked me if I was free and happy to help out with the video. I said sure, I have nothing else to do today. She explained what I had to do, and reassured me I didn't have to dance or anything and they would edit the shot to figure what would work as they were running behind schedule or something.
I was positioned behind a pillar, heard the "action" call, and at the correct time (they were calling out the names of people as their cue) I put my left hand out, the singer slapped my palm, and I stepped out turned around, and walked behind and to the left of her, as another person opposite me did the same to her right. for the rest of the shot, we had to stick out hands out and slap the palms of everyone down the passage (not sure what they had to do, but we were the only people who had to follow the singer down the passage) and at the end of the video, the singer had to turn around and give me and the other lady who was walking beside me a hug. The song was something about touch, and basically every person behind each pillar had to do something related to what she sang at that line. Only me and the other volunteer walking behind her didn't have to do any specific moves - just skip along in step with the beat. It was only while we were actually recording that I paid attention to the song. The song was about how human contact impacts us and the catch line (or word) was touch. As the shot ended the words of the song hit me and for some reason I got very emotional. When I heard "cut" I felt tears running down my face.
As the singer let go of the hug (the closing shot) I apologised and said I was feeling very emotional because the words of the song really struck a chord. The singer was like awww and gave me another hug and said she's very glad it was so well received and that I was struck by it despite it being such a light hearted and cheerful song.
She said she hoped I was okay and I'm welcome to sit with the crew for a bit to regain my composure and also that I'm welcome to connect with her on her social media profile if I felt like it. She thanked me for helping out with the video and they really needed a guy who was about the same height as her for that part and they were really lucky I happened to be about.
As we walked to the chairs that were kept out for the crew she asked me if there was something about my childhood that caused the song to get me so emotional - some sort of trauma or repressed memories. I told her that actually, no, I don't think there was any such thing I could remember about my childhood - unless those memories were truly repressed!
That's when I woke up, crying, and asked Shruti to give me a hug. I told her I had a weird dream that got me emotional. As she hugged me and I tried to fall back asleep, I thought back about my childhood. Various flashbacks of cycling, making obstacles of all my toy cars and trucks and lego and then making pretend scenes of action movies with my toy G. I. Joe action figures, running around on sunny beaches and jumping down stairs with my friends. Yep, all happy memories!