Show's Over
Early 2020 in the West Village
JANUARY 23, 2020
The final months before the world shut down, and New York City never was so fun. It felt like that delicious final semester of high school; my friends and I were nearing 30, all bound by creative ambition, but few had really made it. We were still playing around, recording podcasts, trying on ridiculous outfits. Soon, the pandemic would set us on new paths: some would get sober, some would start Instagram Live series. But not yet.
In the fall of 2019, Melissa and I gathered at my place, took mushrooms, and put on Public Speaking, the 2010 Fran Lebowitz documentary (you can watch it for free here). Neither of us had really been exposed to Fran before, besides a few clips here and there.
It was like facing God, or watching the Statue of Liberty speak. She woke me up. For years, I had been writing about my performer friends, and had attended every solo show and stand-up experiment in town. I’d performed little bits and pieces, but not announced myself as a creative force like the rest of them. Melissa had made a few big shows, even taking them to the Kennedy Center. With her, and Fran, beside me, I knew it was my turn. I pitched a show to the Duplex. They agreed, and the date was set: January 23rd, 2020.
The preparation for the show was purifying. I was working as a waiter in SOHO, lifting weights and pounding out pages to send to my director. I’d start the morning with an episode of Buffy, just like I had every day of middle school, and end the night with Six Feet Under.
In the days leading up to the 23rd, my immune system started shutting down. I thought of the end of All Star Superman, when, in order to save the dying sun, Superman has to fly straight into it, his solar-powered cells functioning as power batteries to relight the star. I was firing into the event horizon, and everything extraneous burnt away like ash in the periphery. I lost my voice the night before the show, and texted Lulu, desperate for advice. Her ancient showbiz secret: gargle with Chloraseptic.
There is an unspoken rule among performers in New York. If you know someone who is putting on a show, you go. You hang out in the back, kibbitz with your friends, and when it’s over, you get into your fake furs, smoke a joint, and head to the afterparty. You do not offer any feedback unless the performer asks you. This is what community is. They would do the same for you.
That night in January, in the dead of winter in the West Village, Society came out for me, not knowing what they were about to be exposed to: a confessional, even harrowing reading, which divulged an entire life’s story in 60 dense minutes. I’d recently talked to Ruby, after she saw Shia LaBeouf’s Honey Boy. She told me that it was less a movie than an Al-Anon qualification. I’d done the same: it was clear I was crying out for help.
And yet, they got a show. I was decked out in a shimmering silver jumpsuit, my arms looked stacked, and I gave it my all.
Our crowd headed to Julius. I hadn’t realized, but that night was also Mattachine, the long-running vinyl-only dance party. The legends were there, the downtown council: Amber Martin, Angie DiCarlo, Sammy Jo, Michael Cavadias. They played Bette Midler’s “My Knight in Black Leather;” another revelatory first for me and Melis.
I was just a pilgrim in the hot pursuit of love/
Wandered from disco to disco/
That's all my life was/
Suddenly you danced up against me/
It felt warm and smooth/
I knew in an instant/
That you were my moment of darkest truth
Jake Shears was at the bar. I’d interviewed and hung out with him before; he was my first rock star crush. I told him where we’d just come from, showed him the outfit I’d worn. If this was an initiation, a Bar Mitzvah, he was my Rabbi, and his grin of approval made me a man before my people.
After an hour or so, most of the girls headed home. Those of us who stayed were here to dance. Marie, holding court at the bar, pulled out a tin of mints from California: one for me, for Melis and for my friend Jack Bartholet, the cabaret powerhouse. The three of us took our communion, and now we were bonded. No matter what happened, I knew they’d take care of me. I’d earned this afterparty.
It hit before we knew it. There was an impossibly beautiful young man flipping patties at the bar’s burger station. His skin glistened, making even the grease shimmer with the light of God. We stood silent, gaping at him like hillbillies, for what could have been three minutes, or an hour, until I finally asked: how long have we been here?
The opening stomps of “The Chain,” by Fleetwood Mac, snapped us out of it. I raised an eyebrow towards Michael Cavadias, at the DJ booth. Really? This song? But he was right. As Lindsey and Stevie began their vocal showdown, Spirit entered the room, a sonic presence gliding in and encircling us. We were soon enraptured, possessed, pounding our feet in pagan ecstasy.
It was a perfect high. It was also 3am, and I felt ready to eat a table. There was only one place to go: The Waverly Diner.
Late at night, the West Village often becomes a demon feeding ground, where sobbing J.A.P.s and wannabe Mansonites coalesce. But the streets we crossed were silent, pristine, like a Hollywood set of the West Village. We spun around in awe, inside the cinematic snowglobe of our own lives.
The bliss was broken upon entering the diner, an assembly hall of ghouls yelling for more ketchup. We did our best to ignore the wails of the dead and dying all around us. Then, we ordered the entire menu.
It was the best meal I’ve ever had: a panoply of waffles, eggs, pancakes, french fries, rye bread, cream cheese and Coca Cola.
There is a sort of loyalty among friends which often expires after our teenage years, our hearts harder, our time more monitored. But with Melissa and Jack, I felt like a theater kid again, going to the pancake house after opening night. I dissociated through my high school graduation, college was a dud, and I didn’t see myself ever getting married. This felt like so much more, because it was mine, populated by the people of my choosing, and I was actually there for it.
MARCH 10, 2020
It all went down from there. A cousin invited herself to the show, and had “notes” to share with me. The criticism was unsolicited and shattering, violating the rules hallowed among actual performers. I’d grown up under castrating surveillance, and this ambush felt like the mafia had found me out in my hiding place. Nothing could be mine again.
A week later, I was recording my podcast at the studio, which was essentially a cubicle in a midtown office building — this was when Zoom interviews were inconceivable — when another aunt texted me. It was harmless, but something in me snapped. I blacked out, coming to in one of those sushi-smoothie hybrid gas chambers that only exist on 14th Street. I made my way to gay Al-Anon and breathed again.
The confessional nature of the show had been cathartic, but all exorcisms leave exit wounds. My solar will had evaporated. I’d been groped by another waiter, and the restaurant did nothing. I was sliding back, out of the picture of my life, and I didn’t know what else to do but trudge along. I scheduled another date with the Duplex, for March.
Rent was way, way overdue. I had to ask my brother for a loan. At the first of March, I moved into a railroad apartment in Bushwick. The moment I met my roommate Harry, it felt relieved, like I could crash the spaceship for good. This was home now.
My director was in another show that night, so I’d be on my own. Ticket sales weren’t as iron-solid as the last time, and by the tenth of March, there’d been talk of a virus going around.
I was broken before I made it onto the stage. Half of the ticket-buyers didn’t show up, on account of this novel virus, which I took personally. The new video component of the show, which I’d invested so much in, didn’t work. There were problems with the sound system. My dance breaks, once triumphant, were now set to barely-audible music. I dissociated to get through it.
Because so many people hadn’t shown up, I had to cover the bar’s drink minimum. My debit card was in overdraft, and Melissa had to step in and save the day. It felt like a deserved humiliation; I’d pushed too far, and this is what I got.
Nevertheless, we went to toast the night. On March 10, 2020, Julius was not what it had been two months before. Was something really going on? The Village had been silent last time, but tonight it was muted—a more unsettling feeling entirely.
We didn’t stay long. Harry, Melissa and I walked to the train, Harry wearing a jumpsuit worthy of Jackie Collins. As we passed the Waverly Diner, Melissa grabbed me.
“It’s her,” she gasped.
Like a king of Hell, Fran Lebowitz scorched past us, savage exhaustion marking her face as she trudged through the dreck of humanity. She had come to close this night, this chapter, this era of human civilization.
Looking back, we agree: she knew.
Of course, the next morning, all theaters and public spaces were shut down. I spent the next few days serving in an empty restaurant, where only the French had the chutzpah to dine. One day, two losers ordered take-out, then decided to eat in the restaurant, with the plasticware. “This is the future of dining,” another server said to me, grimacing. If only she knew. By the time the restaurant closed, I’d certainly caught the virus, and would spend the next few months in bed.
It was a relief. The convalescence was certainly long, but I knew that something had broken in me when I did that show. The next months were spent taking long baths, watching movies like Vegas in Space and What’s Love Got to Do With It? with Harry, buying fancy loaves of bread from the French bakery. Unemployment allowed me to sleep, to smoke pot and stare at the ceiling, watching the rays of light pass.
That first summer after high school was one of reinvention. “Let’s Dance” and “I Kissed a Girl” had just debuted. I got my first magazine job. I lost my virginity and discovered the dancefloor. The sudden embrace of sex and dance and danger were necessary to mark a new chapter.
And so, the last semester of my twenties now complete, I’d do it again. The world had blacked out, allowing me to ditch my history and cruise around in the dark, exploring my authentic sexual desires through the anonymous portal of Sniffies. I discovered astrology, then changed my name, then got into recovery.
I never wanted to think or talk about that show again. I was ashamed of who I’d been, what it had represented. But it had to big, celebratory, pyrrhic, traumatic, even, to burn away all that had been before. But now it can be fondly recollected, a chapter in a history of a person, and a city, which no longer exist.
