The Dude That Cries
Butchie is a judo target and t-shirt model for the Manly Fireplug’s barbershop, though he’s been guarding its basement now for several months. Just so we’re clear: he’s in the basement. I know he’s in the basement. Yet every time I go down to the basement he scares the crap out of me.
Butchie stoically presided over last night’s frenzied literary reading preparations, as I dusted off the folding chairs, iced the drinks, and searched for that damn corkscrew. An hour later, after the folding-chair-up-the-basement-steps bucket brigade (thank you volunteers and Fireplug!) I ducked outside to try and air out my damp shirt. I sweat a lot before every barbershop reading.
So I expect the sweat. But I didn’t expect the tears. Last night at the podium, in front of the capacity crowd, I got choked up reading a chapter about my father from the end of my book. Last year, at the Queer Arts Festival reading, I got choked up reading a chapter about my mom’s first girlfriend.
Both times took me by surprise, and embarrassed me. I find myself aspiring to a particular writerly image, the dude who reads, say, at the 92nd Street Y in New York, and sells just enough books to stay – with the help of the requisite side jobs – just above poverty.
That dude writes literature, which requires emotional distance from the subject matter. His work isn’t a barely-digested therapy session thrown on the page.
An emotional distance I thought I’d acquired. By now I’ve written nineteen drafts of my book, and have read through each draft at least ten, but more often twenty or thirty times, tweaking the stray word. I must have read the chapter on my mother’s first girlfriend, and the chapter on my father, at least fifty times each.
So the tears felt like the mark of an amateur, or worse, some kind of performance trick I was pulling on the audience. A schtick.
I used to be the kind of kid that others called sensitive. Code word for homo, maybe, but I’ll admit that I was ruled by my feelings.
In recent years I’ve tried to lean a little more often on my thoughts, if only to reach for a bit of balance, and to become a better writer. And in some cases my lack of emotion began to surprise me.
During those dreary few months when the Fireplug and I split up, for example, I seemed to only feel cold disappointment. I never cried.
But then one day I’m driving to work, listening to a Death Cab for Cutie album I’ve just downloaded, and the sad opening piano chords of their song, “Brothers on a Hotel Bed” throws a hook into the depths of me, and reels up tears. Tons of them. I spend the next few weeks driving around the city with that song on repeat, endangering countless San Franciscans with my blurred-vision driving.
Last week, as the Fireplug and I drove down to Palm Springs, listening to my iPod, up pops that song, and up come the tears. Again. Tons of them.
“Oh G-god,” I said. “I’m sorry, I f…forgot it was on this p…playlist!”
After we’d got back together I’d told him all about the song, so he knew what I meant.
“That’s okay,” he said, grabbing my hand.
“I don’t know why it still m-m-makes me cry. It’s st-st-stupid!”
“It’s not stupid,” he said. “We almost lost this.”
He was right, and really, the only stupid thing is to pretend like you’re someone you’re not. To jam yourself inside an image of a writer that doesn’t fit. We can’t all be Butchie.
So yeah, I cry, and maybe the only thing that’s changed since I was a kid is that I let my tears surprise me. I was embarrassed at first, last night, but then I got over it. Time’s wasting. I’ve got two last chapters to get right, and if I’m lucky, a slew of future readings at which I can freely bawl my eyes out.
I must say, the perfect record to cry to with dignity. I’ve done so myself, driving down Highway 1. They wrote it to serve that function, I’m fairly sure. But just to be clear: at that reading last night I was sharing your emotions rather than spectating at them. A roomful of rapt witnesses can help us understand what we’ve made as writers, and you’ve made (okay, are still making) something very beautiful and affecting.
October 12th, 2011 at 3:39 pmSorry I missed it – tears and all. I always look forward to dogpoet spidering as an update to me.
October 12th, 2011 at 4:29 pmIf it makes you feel any better, I just teared up reading this blog post. Partly cuz that song kinda gets me too. Partly cuz I cry easily too – I can, for example, give you a list of the several moments in the “Lord of the Rings” movies that make me bawl Every. Single. Time. On cue. (Sample: “I made a promise, Mr. Frodo. A promise! “‘Don’t you leave him, Samwise Gamgee.” And I don’t mean to. I don’t mean to.” Oh, hand me the box of Kleenex dammit….)
It took me years to begin to see this as a point of pride. If I feel certain things more deeply than others, then, well, others are missing out. I’d rather feel more deeply than feel nothing.
October 12th, 2011 at 4:57 pmBig boys *do* cry.
October 12th, 2011 at 11:20 pmThanks guys. I’m not surprised I’ve got company when it comes to that song.
Michael, it was great having you at the reading, since you had read an earlier draft of the book. And you put into words what I couldn’t, about reading in front of people. There’s something inherently different about inviting people into something you’ve revised 50 times, all the while aiming to share it with the reader but still, at that point, being alone with the work. Reading it out loud was like going from the 2nd to the 3rd dimension. It was exhilarating.
October 13th, 2011 at 5:31 pmThe one I’m always embarassed by is the opening sequence of “The Sound of Music”. Julie Andrews runs over the hill–and the tears start rolling down my face. Even while I’m laughing at myself.
Love the post. Sorry I missed the reading.
October 17th, 2011 at 2:08 pmWell, I’m a old softie who teared up at “Blaze’” and “Up”, both sappy cartoons..
October 18th, 2011 at 1:25 pmAnd this Sunday, the local community theater, the play “Grace and Glorie” (a two woman show: suicidal New York transplant works hospice and learns life lessons from a cranky old mountain woman who “just wants to die at home.”
My friend Greg is din the process of dying (bladder cancer, complicated by HIV and strokes) and that is what he want’s desperately. I’ve tried to be a good friend, but the play and it’s parallels overwhelmed me. I needed to cry..
I, too, teared up at reading your post. You inspire me to be me. More and more. Thanks.
November 18th, 2011 at 9:38 amMichael, We miss you. But we keep our chins up hoping your blog isn’t shut down. X
December 2nd, 2011 at 7:26 pmDon’t ever be ashamed of crying, Michael. It means you are human and one with a sensitive, wonderful soul who feels things very deeply. That’s the true heart of an artist. Keep shining your Light!
December 16th, 2011 at 7:35 pm