My daughter suggested that to avoid embarrassment I do some research on Justin Bieber before heading down to Macy's on Thursday. The teen heartthrob was going to be making a personal appearance to promote his new perfume, called Someday. I wondered what she was worried about. Was she afraid I was going to embarrass myself in front of a bunch of screaming teenage girls by coming up blank if they grilled me about Justin's pets or hobbies?
And speaking of teenage girls, Lucy warned me that reaction to Justin was equivalent to Beatlemania, not that she was suggesting I wear protective padding or that the 17-year-old was writing "A Day in the Life"-caliber material. Perhaps I should have taken her advice and done some homework. But I had a feeling this was going to be one of those self-explanatory columns—that I was but a conduit to bring the teen idol and his fans ever slightly closer together, or at least that I was an innocent shill, a cog in the Someday perfume (and matching lotion and hair spray) merchandizing machinery. In other words, everything I needed to know I could learn off a press release and a scent strip.
But where were all the 15-year-old girls? Oh, there they were! I hadn't noticed them at first, perhaps because they were ubiquitous; they were everywhere—squeezed behind barricades in the handbag department, lining the mezzanine-level balcony in front of Starbucks. Through the Macy's windows I glimpsed hundreds, perhaps thousands, more of them outside on 35th street, being restrained by NYPD cops and Macy's security.
I tentatively approached several young ladies behind one of the handbag department barriers—Maggie, 15, and her friends Brianna, also 15, and Alexa, 13. "Can you try to get Adam to come over here?" Maggie pleaded. "I know Adam."
"Who's Adam?" I asked.
Maybe my daughter was right; I should have done a Justin Bieber internet search before heading down to the store.
"Adam Braun."
Mr. Braun, it turns out, is the brother of Justin Bieber's manager, Scooter Braun. He runs a nonprofit that builds schools in the developing world.
"I met him through Pencils of Promise," Maggie explained. "If he comes over here he'll recognize me. I just need"—the word need delivered in a plaintive yet throwaway tone—"him to come over here."
There's something at once chilling and yet moving about hundreds of teenage girls shrieking in unison, as they started to do now, even though their hero was nowhere in sight. ("They're on 37th and Park," I heard one operative wearing an earplug whisper to another.) You'd even be forgiven for believing that all that adolescent energy and yearning could raise the dead, change the world, perhaps even melt the Midtown traffic that was making Justin 40 minutes late.
I pointed out to Maggie that once Justin—not to mention Adam—arrived, all would probably be chaos. Did she really think that Mr. Braun, as well-intentioned as he undoubtedly was, would be able to break away from the star's entourage (as well as the security cordon), saunter over, remember Maggie and compliment her contribution to Pencils for Peace, or Promise, or whatever the organization was called?
"Yes," she insisted. "If you try."
The crowd launched into "Baby," Justin's biggest hit—indeed the mainstay of his nascent oeuvre. Next, the Fire Department rushed in with a defibrillator. A few minutes later they departed pushing a teenager in a wheelchair. She was clutching a water bottle and looking pale and sheepish. Mannequins and potted plants that Macy's had neglected to remove and were now being crushed by the throng were passed to safety overhead by Macy's employees.
Needless to say, Adam Braun, if he was even there, never made it over to Maggie. All was chaos, or at least grand disorganization, from the moment Justin Bieber passed through the department store's 35th Street and Broadway entrance. He looked out of sorts, his body language all wrong. I don't know what the problem was, but it might have had something to do with being swallowed by a sea of adult handlers, publicists, Macy's executives and perfume-brand representatives. There were also dozens of Macy's workers, recruited to hold back the crowds in case all hell broke loose. "If it gets too serious," one of them had confided a few minutes before Justin's arrival, "I'm going up the escalator."
The small-for-his-age teen idol mounted the stage, somehow managed a billion-dollar smile, this Canadian's All-American features more than up to the mayhem. Then he took the microphone and shouted, "What's up, everybody?" The response was predictably ecstatic, even though the children couldn't see him posing with a bottle of "Someday," their view utterly obscured by the media viewing platform and Macy's merchandise-laden aisles.
Perhaps it was to ameliorate their disappointment that Mr. Bieber apparently decided to make an unscripted, spur-of-the-moment visit to his fans outdoors, just behind the stage. I couldn't see what happened next, except he was back a moment later nursing his arm. Apparently, pandemonium had ensued at the sight of him, the barricades were breached and Mr. Bieber's security started to scuffle with a plainclothes cop who tried to come to his rescue but was mistaken for an assailant.
The heartthrob appeared unhappy but also uninjured, and was promptly whisked upstairs to the eighth-floor fine-china department, where he was to meet and greet fans who'd camped out overnight for the privilege of paying $135 for the perfume, the matching Touchable body lotion, Swept Away hair mist and a photo with Justin.
I wondered what Macy's was thinking by sequestering hundreds of panting teenage girls among displays of fragile Waterford crystal and Lenox dinnerware. Fortunately, all went smoothly—if you can count waiting another hour for the star to reappear a productive afternoon. I assumed he was backstage licking his wounds, or reading the riot act to his handlers. But apparently he was giving media interviews. I can't say I felt disappointed I'd missed the sign-up sheet. What would I have asked: "How's the arm?"; "Is that the delicate scent of jasmine I detect in the hair mist?"
Justin eventually reappeared, introduced by Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren. He said a couple of nice things about the fragrance and had his photo taken with all 325 lucky perfume purchasers, some of them with tears streaking their cheeks. Given a choice, I think I'd prefer to peak in my 50s.
Source: The Wallstreet Journal
