At least one thing always bothered me about Forrest Gump. On the bench, he relates that his “mama always said life was like a box of chocolates.” She may well have said that, always. But in the scene on her deathbed, when Forrest sits next to her, she says, “Life is a box of chocolates.” The simile has become a metaphor.

There are a few ways to rectify this: 1) We can let it slide, which we won’t. 2) We can think she always did say what life was like, and changed it up at the very end, which I don’t buy if it’s a saying of hers. 3) We can take Forrest as an unreliable narrator, which I also don’t buy because of the humor that shines through his modesty, his being straightforward in his reporting with the people and things we know are famous that he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care are famous, with the undertstanding that tweaking the truth undercuts his charm. It’s all an unresolvable conflict to me.

I bring that up because I was thinking of how TV relates to life. For many people, TV is life. For the anxious or withdrawn, they watch TV more than they live, or they work in TV and their hours are long, or they are TV critics and their passion spills over into their career, the bastards. That “TV is life” for these folks is a hyperbolic but understandable phrase. Oddly, reversing the equation, “Life is TV,” makes less sense than its opposite, for whatever that’s worth.

Now, to say “TV is like life,” or “Life is like TV,” is another animal altogether. The two are more at a remove and the distancing of the two by the literal addition of another word is echoed in the perspective offered in the context of the phrase. The passionate of the earlier phrase gives way to the observer, intensity to quirkiness. With “TV is life,” little further description is necessary, it’s implied and gotten.

“TV is like life” is often followed by one clarifying example, if not more. For example, “TV is like life. It’s always on.” Or, “TV is like life. The good is rare and the bad is everywhere.” Or, “TV is like life. The excitement of one day will subside before giving way to the excitement of another.” This last one further applies to shows that air all week, talk shows and soap operas and game shows.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a week, but last Monday I was invited by an old co-worker and friend to see Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, for the first time. And that many hundred word preamble was to address the enjoyment but transience of it. I had a fantastic time and saw great guests. But while I remember it and will remember it, I wonder how different it was versus the other 345 episodes that had preceded it, I mean in the memory of those involved daily. I’m sure it or other episodes may stand out but as with everyone, for what is daily there is a dangerous line between constancy and mundanity.

Constancy was all at my old job at a daytime television show, a serial drama, a soap opera. For those years, TV was life, and TV was like life because in both cases it was something you needed to get through, however difficult or dreary it might have seemed at the time, but also something that would pass quickly, however much fun it might have been. The show ended but the world kept turning. Now, months after that fact, returning to a TV studio, not unlike one I worked ten feet from for four years, had suddenly exciting but familiar meaning. It was a world within a world and I enjoyed visiting.

And not just because I shared a stage with the Roots. That’s a technicality beyond technicalities, but it’s a feather in my cap that will temporarily displace genuine personal achievement. My friend signed up for special tickets, those with band bench access. We’d watch the show with the audience as usual, but for the musical guest, we’d single-file it up onto the stage and onto one of three platforms: One set of risers right behind the band (and fully on TV), and two small stages seven and ten feet up on either side of the band (somewhat on TV). I wore my finest plaid shirt and hoodie combination and luckily sneaked up the spiral staircase and onto the platform at stage left as the final one to arrive, tucked way in the back out of the way of the cameras’ invasive glances.

Walking across the stage, I have to say, was very cool. There a couple feet to the left was Jimmy Fallon himself, having a touch-up and fielding some questions, there in the middle were the two or three cameras. Everyone was doing their thing, getting ready, not caring who we were in particular because they’d often see folks like us coursing through like that. I was totally excited but also delusional, not that I deserved to be there but that I belonged there and that that walk spoke to a couple of dreams, if not completely filling them on their own terms.

We stood mostly in the dark until and after Jimmy Fallon, way over there at the desk, introduced the band, Grinderman. And then they started, and we all bopped and swayed, and saw these pros go at it just below us. I looked over and was happy to see Jimmy leaning forward to see around a corner of the stage, hammering on the desk along with the rhythm, and as he was in the dark, not just for show, either. But Nick Cave and the guys played a good, good song, a fun one to hear live, a great one to hear from that vantage point, “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man.” And then they were done, and so were we. The Roots had returned from leaving their side of stage, and were set up again and playing the show out. We walked right past them and all of it happened so quickly but I knew and know how special these moments are but also that it’s a good thing for that kind of fun to be any kind of normal for anyone.

Here, after many commercials, is the footage of Grinderman’s performance: