Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose

Where to go when you can't stand the scene

You already know it’s election day.   You either live in a place where it matters, or you don’t.  I voted early a couple of days ago, and I was so worn out, I cancelled the rest of my plans for the night.  But I am not telling you this in a pique of self-righteousness.  I was on the Brooklyn College campus, where I passed by William James Hall and entered Roosevelt Hall and the volunteers were exceptionally kind.  The streams of thought led me to a New Deal, but what kind of deal awaits?  I understand that this could all be over in a couple of years, maybe another cycle.  I did my minimal civic duty.  Please clap.

“Los Angeles is a terrific place to live… it's right on the edge of destruction. The ground itself is trembling. The landscape is about to blow apart. The social fabric is about to tear, and many novelists have documented the fragmentation of the psyche. So it's a place right at the edge of things where everything is about to fall apart, and it's a very nourishing place for that reason.”

Leonard Cohen said that around the time he wrote these lines:

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the USA

Here we are—trembling ground, edge of destruction, and it’s all about to blow apart.   For now, in the words of Stephen Sondheim, I’m still here.  And if I may mix my Sondheim with my Cohen, I’m still here holding up this wild little bouquet. 

Where to go next? I will be taking in the next cultural moment at a speakeasy for the new 20s.  I have been asked to participate in a group performance at Beckett Rosset’s loft at 432 Hudson. Beckett was named after Samuel Beckett—his father was Barney Rosset, Samuel Beckett’s American publisher.  Sometimes artists think it is beneath them to be part of group shows, but I actually prefer it, because I am a fan of the people who will be up there with me.  Writing can be lonely business, and this is the moment where you get to convert the barn into a stage.

I don’t know everyone on the bill, but Cassidy Grady will be dancing, and seeing her dance is a trip, because, if you know her, you can appreciate how she puts her entire personality into every move, and everything that she does in her body shows up in her facial expressions and her floppy hair.  She could have been a silent film star with that face and all she does with it.  When we see each other, sometimes our entire conversations consist of the word, “What??” but at varying tones. 

Christian Lorentzen will be brutal, and I mean this in the most admiring sense.  When we first met—last year, at the Park Slope bar Commonwealth—we talked about a book he ripped apart in a scorched earth review.  I had reviewed the book, too, and my tone was of admiration.  But I loved his review!  It didn’t change my mind about the book, but there was something so vital about what he was doing, and, most importantly, there was that undeniable voice, the thing no one can teach you—you either have it or you don’t, and he has voice to spare. It was like a third rail of the mind, and it was delectable.  He’s just as intense as an actor, which he started doing recently in Matthew Gasda’s Dimes Square, where it was all coke and literary competition and insane descriptions of books that don’t exist.

Gasda will be on the bill.  We go way back—over 10 years now. I go to most of his plays, sometimes more than once, and he keeps on being disturbing and dark, yet you find yourself laughing.  He meets at the intersection of pleasure and discomfort, and, in my writing, this is my kind of fun, too.  His plays won’t be in lofts and apartments for much longer. He will move on to bigger stages.  And that’s where I want him to be, but I will look back fondly for this moment of intimacy and availability.   

I’ll be up there, with words, with an original song, sung by Allie Chipkin.  Allie is a phenomenal talent, as a songwriter and a singer, and I’m on honored she’ll be singing mine. She was just on Jimmy Fallon, and this is her next stop. 

The votes may not be counted by Thursday night, but whatever happens—if our system of government is on final markdown--we will still be doing our thing as long as we can.  Remember when freedom was a cool word?  It was associated with Ornette Coleman and Martin Luther King, Jr. “I do not want my freedom when I’m dead,” wrote Langston Hughes. Let’s celebrate the not yet dead version.  It is also the freedom to be a critic, to be a dancer, to be a playwright, a songwriter, someone putting words together to disturb and caress.  We will be there to hold a mirror to nature, even as objects in this mirror are closer than they appear. 

There’s something out there trailing us.  We speed up, but it stays right on us.  We exit, we find a dark country road, and it’s still there.  We turn up the music.  We find a song we like, a song that will keep us awake, a tune beyond us, yet ourselves.  We are driving into endless night, and we are being tailgated.  There is nothing we can do about it.  A song comes on.  We know all the words.  Kafka said that when one person follows another in a song, it is like being drawn in on a fishhook.  Here we are.  We have a lot of road ahead of us, and it could get rough. Is there gas in the car? Yes, there’s gas in the car. You could get pulled over if you speed up, but you could get pulled over if you don’t.

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

That sounds like freedom, Walt Whitman. Keep driving. It’s not over yet.