Gumption (31 page)

With age, my fascination with the topic of semantics has only grown, because I still deal in language as my stock-in-trade. These very sentences, word by word, I am composing with care to do my best to communicate what’s in
my
brain into
your
brain. Neato, right?

Words, though, much like a devastating virus, can be so powerful
in the way they afflict a population. For example, there’s a six-letter word containing an
n
, two
g
’s, an
r
, and a couple of vowels that is so powerful that my publisher “really thinks I had better not type it,” no matter the context. That’s pretty crazy, isn’t it? What a couple of sounds can signify to a group of people? In a very real sense, I suppose that word is so powerful because it contains the crushing weight of the sin of American slavery. No matter; I don’t have a need for that word here today, but I would like to examine a few others.

Let’s talk about pussy. Let’s also talk about balls. No, things are not about to get pornographic, I’m sorry to say, but hopefully they will remain juicy. There is a deeply encoded tendency in our society to describe negative concepts with female terminology, and vice versa. For example, in the sports locker room we might say to a weak team member, “Don’t be a pussy.” Conversely, should a woman distinguish herself, utilizing her talents and gumption, we might say of her, “she’s got balls.” I’m sure you can think of more examples—“Don’t be a little bitch,” for instance. (The same goes for “faggot” and “gay,” obviously, but that’s another chapter.)

Every time this sort of imagery is utilized, it subtly but firmly reinforces negative gender stereotypes. This usage must be extirpated from daily use if we are to progress in a substantial way. We have enough trouble with the patriarchal foundations of the language to begin with, without worrying about our naughty bits being misrepresented. For example, a few paragraphs back, I accused Ms. Anderson of exhibiting showmanship, which is anatomically incorrect. However, that’s how the dudes who created our words set it up. We don’t have the word
showwomanship.
This is clearly bullshit.

One of my favorite pieces of Laurie Anderson’s writing (and performance) comes from the song “The Dream Before” on the
Strange Angels
record. Here is the last verse, but you really must listen to it, preferably in a comfortable, meditative state for optimal brain-pan impregnation:

She said: What is history?

And he said: History is an angel

being blown backwards into the future.

He said: History is a pile of debris

And the angel wants to go back and fix things

To repair the things that have been broken.

But there is a storm blowing from Paradise.

And the storm keeps blowing the angel

backwards into the future.

And this storm . . . this storm

is called Progress.

Now, this is clearly evocative on many levels, and when I first heard it on that night in the beautiful auditorium at the southern end of the quad at Illinois, I thought that I would never know a greater feeling of catharsis in my life. Her poetry, combined with the delectable noises by means of which she delivers it, is like an extremely luxurious and pleasurable brain massage, like an opiate that taps into your language facility as well as your pleasure center.

In the verse’s first line, she gently emphasizes the “his” in her
pronunciation of “history,” which was the first time I had been presented with that particular twist. It has been followed by countless similar examples, fertilizing an endlessly growing awareness of such iniquities in place the world over. Just yesterday, Megan and I toured the astonishingly beautiful Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul (aka the Blue Mosque), where we learned that the men prayed on the main floor, or “the good seats,” while the women were required to remain out of sight around a second-story catwalk or behind screens at the back of the main floor, or “the shitty seats.” Megan was required to cover her hair with a scarf to be permitted entry, which she excitedly said was “just like Carrie on
Homeland
!,” but it was not lost on us that I, as a penis owner, was allowed to bare my tawny locks for all the world to gaze upon.

It’s complicated, to be sure. The cultures of the world, including ours in America, are steeped in centuries of tradition and bad habits. Plus, there
are
important, significant differences between men and women that also must be paid fealty, in the realms of health care and childbearing, for example. All we can do is continue to unravel this intricate puzzle in which our patriarchs have ensnared us until everybody is earning a wage commensurate with everybody else. There will always be assholes, and there will always be saints, and both can oftentimes be found within each of us. If we can make things equal based on gender and race and creed, then we can be free to just focus on the asshole/saint ratio.

My first meeting with Laurie Anderson in person was at her apartment in 2014, and she couldn’t have been more friendly and welcoming—a good thing, since I was somewhat freaked-out to meet
her. I’ve met a lot of famous folks whom I admire, and I’ve generally become inured to being starstruck, but as you can tell from the content of this chapter, she was an artist whose work had profoundly shaken up my life in the best way.

We launched into a cordial “get to know ya” chat, and I described the idea of this book and the sorts of notions I was hoping to convey. I’m not certain if she was even aware of her brattiness, or if it is just her nature to be devilishly inquisitive, but my planned interview of her quickly became an interview by her, of me. She kept me at ease while peppering me with questions about my book and my life. Of course, this was very seductive to me, as I would love nothing more than a person I so admired to have any interest whatsoever in my story. It was like a much more benevolent version of Edmund Pevensie’s first meeting with the evil witch Jadis in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
, wherein she plies the helpless lad for information with Turkish Delight and flattery. Laurie was probably not even aware of my pathetic situation, but I was nonetheless under her power.

“It’s a list of Americans who inspire me,” I managed. “The kind of people you wish would run for office but are too smart to ever do that.”

She told me that I seemed like a pretty all right sort, and that maybe I should consider running for office.

“Um. Okay, thanks,” I laughed, “but the book—”

“I’m thinking, like, a depressed American city . . . once great, that you could bring back to its former glory. . . . Huh . . . what about Detroit? I think you would make a great mayor of Detroit. I’ll tell you what,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “I’m happy to answer questions for your book, you know, give you an hour or two. But if you
would run for mayor of Detroit, I will get fully behind your campaign.”

I have to admit to taking a considerable pause to think about this idea before coming a fair distance back around to my senses.

“Well, I had better, you know . . . stick to acting and writing and stuff. I’m probably not really cut out for politics.”

“Suit yourself,” she replied, her grin as impish as that of Robin Goodfellow. It just occurred to me that she would be an amazing casting choice for Peter Pan, perhaps as adapted by Caryl Churchill.

Our second meeting was arranged after a few instances of passing in the night like ships, one or both of us on the road, away from New York City. I asked Laurie if she could get together in the first week of December, to which she replied, “Hmm . . . I could meet late Wednesday after the Dylan show at the Beacon if you’re uptown—should be elevenish—could meet at the top of the Time Warner building where there’s a good view at that hour of paper shredding in surrounding offices. . . .”

Done. That Wednesday turned out to be the day that a grand jury decided not to indict New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the choking death of Eric Garner that had occurred on July 17, 2014. The verdict of “no indictment” sparked nationwide outrage and protests, coming as it did on the heels of Michael Brown’s similar case in Ferguson, Missouri, outside of St. Louis. Eric Garner’s murder-by-cop was the case about which media factions were up in arms—not over how in the world there was to be no trial, but over whether the term
choke hold
was the appropriate language to describe Pantaleo’s arm, crooked around Garner’s neck from behind in a “hold” that was clearly
“choking” him. I say “clearly,” because the whole episode was played ad nauseam on news outlets for days, leaving little question as to the officer’s unnecessary violence, which the grand jury blithely exonerated.

As I made my way on foot up Eighth Avenue toward my meeting with Laurie, I found myself wading upstream through ten blocks of marching protestors chanting “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” (Garner’s final words as he was dropped to the sidewalk by police) and “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” (in reference to the Michael Brown case). It was an intense reminder of how incredibly racist certain aspects of our society can still be, particularly in the relations between some black civilians and white police, particularly concerning these two cases, in which all apparent evidence, of which there was no shortage, pointed to malfeasance. Yet both cases were dismissed without further investigation.

Laurie’s phrase “meeting on top of the Time Warner building” had conjured images of sheltering from the wind in the lee of large air-conditioning units, trying to light our cheroots with our last remaining wooden matches. Fortunately, the rendezvous she had in mind was of a considerably more indoor nature, in the swell lobby bar of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, located on the thirty-fifth floor of the Time Warner building. The windows of the room look out across Columbus Circle to Central Park, delivering one of the finest views of Olmsted’s (and Vaux’s!) masterwork for the price of a cocktail and a couple of sliders. (Note to the management: The sliders used to include three small burgers with varied cheeses and sauce, but they are now only two in number, with standard toppings on both. Please return to the original, vastly superior preparation.)

We got a sweet table right by the windows and ordered: bourbon
and grilled cheese for her, sliders and Lagavulin for me. Moving through the topics of Bob Dylan, Wendell Berry, and boatbuilding, and Laurie’s rendering of a relevant joke—“Why is there no woman on the dollar bill? ‘Cause it’d only be worth seventy-seven cents’”—we finally came upon the quarry of my seeking: Laurie’s ideas.

I think parents should buy their kids a house. They should go to college later—I think right now, they spend all their time, the first ten years of their lives working up to knowing what they want to do, so they can get a job, so they can get a house. Give ’em a house . . . it’s pretty arbitrary to go to college . . . to do what?

We agreed that in most American neighborhoods, you could get your kids a fine house for the price of one year of college at a high-end school, or four years at most state colleges. In a very Wendell Berry turn of conversation, we discussed the prudence of one getting one’s feet underneath one before committing to the debt that comes with a college degree that often ends up useless.

The talk turned to the protest down on the streets of Manhattan, and Laurie said, “I’m glad people are realizing—I don’t want to say something mean here, but the police are really brutal. They’re really entitled, you know?” I agree with her. The thing that frustrates me is the inaction, the seeming helplessness of the people. Two clear cases, representing a great many more similar episodes of injustice, have outraged the public and caught the nation’s attention for a lingering moment. Both cases have been stridently protested but then summarily dismissed. The white guys are apparently not going down without a fight.

This talk provoked more treasure to spill forth from the fecund imagination sitting across from me. She described an acquaintance of hers who is suffering terribly from post-traumatic stress disorder and is unable to reenter society because of his affliction.

So this is my campaign. What I want to propose is a sort of reverse boot camp. So [the army] believes in indoctrination to kill. Then they should believe in indoctrination
not
to kill people. When you join the army, boot camp’s at least two months, [because] a lot of people really can’t just pick up a gun. So the idea is, on the other end is two months, they’re still paid, they’re still in the army, they’re still employed by the US government, and in this boot camp they teach us how to
drop
the gun. Drop the gun. Drop the gun and try and pull back into wherever they were coming from.

My admiration continued to swell. Laurie Anderson has attributes that are reminiscent of other characters exalted in these pages; for example, she always seems to be thinking about how to train her particular weapons of empathy upon some sort of need she perceives in the humanity around her. Part of her technique seems to come from a fascination with the myths that each culture creates to explain the unexplainable parts of the world around us.

Laurie made a very compelling case for religion in general, versus science, pointing out that science redefines its “absolute truth” every six months. She said, “Think of science like Aristotle or somebody. Let’s make something really perfect. Let’s conceive the universe as thirty-five spheres. Then everything has to happen perfectly, but then Kepler said, ‘Guess what? They’re not spheres; they’re ellipses!’ And people said,
‘That’s not as perfect as spheres!’” Her point being that humanity scientifically craves perfection, but the natural world of course is imperfect; it is not symmetrical. Therefore, the elasticity or ambiguity of myth can more comfortably encompass all our fears and questions. Again, finding comfort is not knowing.

Furthermore, many of my heroes generally eschew the modern fashions of social media and overconsumption of technology-based entertainment; whether it’s in the woodshop or writing by the light of day, they lean toward “unplugged.” Laurie gets her kicks in the opposite direction—she has been a self-proclaimed “gear geek” for decades. She is responsible for musical innovations like the tape-bow violin, the talking stick, and her special voice filter for the “voice of authority” (Fenway Bergamot), which she refers to as “audio drag.” She now carries an iPad that she uses to record music, using a plethora of apps to achieve her various effects. She said, “Yeah, it’s more than a studio. Just every instrument ever made, every filter ever made, every groove ever made . . . I love new stuff.”