Endless Summer

When I interviewed Summer Lin back in 1984, I was struck by her absolute fascination with every aspect of our production. Sound, cameras, light meters, and the myriad of people it takes to make eight minute television segments all seemed to delight her, and she was full of questions.

“How many people watch your show?”

“How much does that camera weigh?”

“Who decides what guests you have?”

“Why do you have to take sound with that boom if we’re all wearing microphones?”

Summer was then the lead singer for Inverter, a pleasant but forgettable entry in the androgynous American New Wave genre that produced so many one- and two-hit wonders in the early 80s. A beautiful, pixie-ish 17 or 18 year old, sporting a drastic, angular hairdo in an unnatural platinum and pink color, various mismatched and slashed clothes, and a smattering of punk accoutrements. Essentially, an utterly typical representative of her species.

Or so I thought.

“So, Summer, you are originally from New Mexico, correct?”

“I escaped.” She laughs, along with the rest of the band, including feather-haired Val Anderson, the guitarist and founding member. I remember a brief look of concern crossing Anderson’s face, and I thought I understood the dynamic. One member of every band I interviewed had been forced into the parent role for the rest. It was a time filled with drugs and alcohol and any interview could explode into a PR disaster. That member always fretted over every comment made by the others, particularly the star, and Summer was definitely the star.

“What was growing up there like?”

“I didn’t grow up.” Another general laugh. “I’ve never had a driver’s license, even.”

“And how did you and Val get together?”

At this point, Val interjected, “Mark and I had been playing together with another guy for a couple of months. That guy left, and neither of us could sing, so we put up flyers, and Summer answered one.”

“People put up flyers a lot,” Summer observed. “Lost cats. Need a drummer. Have you seen me?”

More general laughter, some questions about their hit single. Thanks and cut.

In 1991, I was doing my show on MTV. Interstitial interviews. Four minutes rather than eight. Reality television was still a year or two away from taking the M out of MTV and Summer Lin was a solo act. 

When she sat down, I was impressed. Seven years of obscurity had passed without changing her looks much at all, though her keen interest in the details of production seemed to have been satisfied in the interim.

I was more socially conscious, now. It was making a comeback. 

“So, Summer, how do you feel about the end of the war in Iraq?”

“I’m glad to see the fighting stop,” she said. “Humanity has enough problems to deal with without actively trying to kill one another.”

“Don’t you think we had an obligation to defend Kuwait?”

“Well, Iraq defended Kuwait during the Iran-Iraq war when Iran violated Kuwait’s attempted neutrality, and then found itself crippled by debt to a nation they had just defended. And then, rather than accede to Iraqi requests that OPEC reduce production to raise oil prices so they could have the revenue to pay that debt, Kuwait resisted, as its interests were much more vested in downstream petroleum production...”

I just nodded. None of this would make it to air, of course. It wasn’t exactly MTV material. Something about the way she spoke disturbed me. This sort of analysis, coming out of the mouth of a woman who still looked like a teenager, was unsettling.

“So, your new album, ‘Masquerade’ -- any relation to the Berlin song of the same name?”

On December 27th, 2004, I was segment producing on Late Night. Summer would have been in her mid thirties by my reckoning, but she still looked like a kid to me. She’d put out three albums in the interim. She should have either been a washout or a huge star, but she was neither. She’d drifted in sort of a goth-folk direction that didn’t exactly have a huge fan base.

It was a subdued episode. A catastrophic tsunami had hit southeast Asia the day before. Conan had wanted to cancel taping entirely, but had been convinced by the network to go ahead.

“Summer, wow, you look fantastic!” Conan observed, good-naturedly. “It must be really annoying for you to get carded every time you order a drink.” 

“I don’t get carded,” she quipped. “They ask me if my mom knows I’m out this late.”

The audience ate it up. Conan was smitten in his good-natured way. 

I shook my head. She didn’t just look young. She had not aged. At all.

Then, in the middle of an anecdote about working on an album with William Shatner, Summer stopped. Right there, in mid-sentence, she just slowly looked up into the air.

“Are you channeling Mister Spock right now?” Conan asked, with a quick, questioning glance at me.

Summer blinked, smiled, and shook her head. “No, sorry. I thought I heard something.”

We had already been running late and her interview was cut for time. When I watched the show that night, there was a news segment just before. The largest gamma ray burst ever recorded had washed over the earth earlier that evening. 

By 2018, Summer should have been in her late forties, at least. The internet had noticed, and she routinely appeared in clickbait proclaiming, “You won’t believe how she looks today!” The blood of virgins jokes were rolled out.

Summer had taken small roles in movies and become an indie darling, but there was definitely a vibe out there. Something wasn’t normal about this woman.

I was producing drama series at the time, every one set in Chicago because that’s what tested well. Summer was cast in one of them as a rock star who gets murdered but keeps showing up in one character's PTSD hallucinations. I got a call. There was some issues with the show runner, and I stepped in to smooth things out.

“She doesn’t look old enough,” she told me. “The whole goddamn show could be about how weird it is that she looks like a child!”

“So we make her look older. Christ, we have a makeup department. What’s the problem?”

“The problem? The problem is that we have a part written for a woman in her forties and I don’t think she looks old enough to drive a car.”

That stuck with me when I left. All the way back to that first interview.

I had told the director that I’d speak to Summer. I didn’t even know what I’d say to her, or what my options were. She was on the lot for a readthrough. 

“Hi Summer,” I said. We exchanged a hug in the commissary. “It’s been a while.” 

I looked in her eyes and was nearly floored by the sense of sadness there. 

“What’s wrong?”

She gave me a sad smile.

“It’s been a while,” she echoed. “But it’s almost over.” 

The conviction in her voice sent a shiver down my spine. 

“I’ve been watching, participating a little, for a long time, now,” Summer said. “Ever since I got here.” She shook her head. “Things have really gone downhill for you people.”

“Who?” I asked, feeling hollow, “Hollywood?”

She smiled indulgently and shook her head. “No, people,” she said. “Humans.”

The effort it took to force my laugh would have won me an Emmy on the other side of the camera. “You are definitely not human,” I said. I’m not sure why. It didn’t really need to be said. 

Summer merely arched her brows a bit. All I could think was, not one scandal. Not one notable relationship. Not one wrinkle.

“What do you mean, ‘almost over?’” I asked.

Her eyes were sympathetic and she sighed. “We’ve seen this kind of trend before,” she said. “Many times.” She drank from the Styrofoam cup like a person might, grimaced slightly, like a person might, and shook her head. “Too many things are lining up,” she said. “Too many obstacles. And humans … well, our projections don’t see humans making it past the next few years without getting into what you’d call a cultural tailspin. ‘The Great Filter’ -- you know the concept?”

I shook my head, mute.

“Every culture that develops, that is lucky enough to make it past the whims of geology and astronomy, that looks to the stars and begins the process of becoming one with them, faces a moment where their opportunities to move forward are compressed. Disease, war, famine, or simple inertia cause some to dwindle rather than thrive. The ones that thrive go on to join Society. The ones that don’t …” she shrugged, “don’t.”

She looked out the window at people walking back and forth, each on their way to something important to them.

“Humans have rejected science in favor of opinion, peace in favor of continual war, preparedness in favor of living in the moment. You have a looming catastrophic climate crisis and you can’t muster the will to do anything about it. You have massive suffering supporting a tiny, privileged minority.”

I rubbed my temples, trying to clear the weird haze that had begun to swirl in my head. Then I gave a short laugh, and the tension abated.

“Jim thinks you look too young for the part and he wants to recast Maggie,” I said.

Summer smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “That's okay. I have a feeling the show isn't going to last."