Last Night's Reading ("Me and My Shadow")

Here's below is the text of my reading last night. I was tremendously nervous about it, built it up in my mind for a week, but, ultimately, I had a great time. Things just clicked and my laugh lines were met with pleasant laughter, which was good. As I made for a quick shyguy exit (TM), I got to briefly meet the very pretty Ali Z, and just missed La Depressionada and Alexis T. Sorry I wasn't in a more talkative mood, guys; the build up and the post-high of reading left me spent. Anyway, here's the text:

This suave gentleman who stands before you now exhibiting in equal parts dynamic sangfroid ... a devilish charm ... roguish wit and ... raw manliness was not always such a superlative slab of beef. That's just one of those unfortunate misunderstandings that this reading is about to clear up.

Unfortunately, my blog reinforces the misunderstanding that I am, a superhumanly ... juicy USDA Prime Choice cut of Grade A meat. This was not always the case.

Permit me to explain by way of a randy tale as we are on the subject of meat. Once upon a time -- in Autumn 1991, to be exact -- under luminescent Van Gogh starlight, a few friends and I sat busy making disappear a "bold, yet unpretentious," concoction called "Old Crow Bourbon" just outside a student/faculty Waltz Party in the main building at St. John's College, The Great Hall.

Offensive Lawrence Welkish "Champagne Music," of the sort played at The Overlook Hotel in Kubrick's masterful The Shining wafted through the Quad, interrupting our communion with the fiery waters. Under the pernicious influence of Old Crow, I began to free associate out loud my options -- What if I streaked this so called Waltz Party, Wouldnt, aesthetically speaking, my brown skin contrast brilliantly against the trappings of the Ivory Tower? And as one of the half dozen African-Americans at the college, couldnt shuck streakage be properly construed as poststructuralist discourse? I might even score an NEA Grant.

"No," shouted a drinker, confronting me with the worst possible word, when saying, "you cant!"

Can't? I cocked an eyebrow archly, observing with contempt this alien contraction. We know not Can't. What does Can't mean? It sounds negative, vaguely prohibitive, waay too Thou-Shalt-Nottish for my naturally rebellious tastes, thank you very much. Looking backwards now I realize The Old Crow had distorted reality, turning my winehead's innocent appeal to my morality, into a challenge against my manhood, which it clearly was not. But then again ... who was she anyway to say I Cant get buck naked and streak if the mood strikes my fancy? Can't? Oh no, darling -- we permit ourselves.

It's astonishing in retrospect how quickly and cleanly plans fall into place when one is venturing at throwing down some subversive shit. Its almost as if the universe were decidedly pro chaos, granting fortune to its agents. Within one hour of the hatching of my devious plot to streak the Great Hall Waltz Party, we had all sorts of reconnaissance teams operating at the margins under deep cover, casing the joint, providing detailed logistics and surveillance as to real and apparent threats, the legwork was done mostly ambitious freshman who had done their readings early; but their work for "The Agency" was greatly appreciated. Their jobs included scoping out the most efficient ways to enter and exit the Great Hall, where to stash my clothes, etc. Oh yeah, this shit was going down.

The dreaded campus security rent-a-cops were to be avoided at all costs; they were the greatest threat to national security. Many of them were retired suburban Baltimore and Virginia police types, and, well, if youve ever had the pleasure -- Charmed, I'm sure -- youll know at once that they wouldnt appreciate the trangressive image of a drunk naked black man busting up a upper crust tea party in quite the same manner that, say, a sophisticated PS 122 audience might. They tend to have a conservative view of the Arts.

What came after is all a golden liquid blur with abrupt sharp edges, like Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase (looks to the Heavens) : I blame the Old Crow; I blame the MOMA; I blame my drinking buddy who made it categorically imperative that I streak by bringing up Can't. Whatever the case, finding myself in the chill September breeze, naked except for high top Adidas, socks and my boxers, I was surrounded by denizens of chaos cheering me on. I remember stepping inside the heated ballroom alone with a lingering existential Risky Business feeling of What The Fuck. It was on like Gray Poupon ...

A melancholy Sinatra song had finished as I enetered, so I stripped down to just my high tops and socks. I remember with Vermeer-like sharpness and clarity the sounds of the audible gasps that escaped from the Waltzer's lips at the sight of The Naked Black Man! A Professor of Greek, who looked not unlike Joe Penny on that significant 80s cultural phenomenon "Jake and the Fatman," was perhaps the only one who seemed to get the joke. Maybe a little too much, okay, quite frankly, judging from his lascivious smile, the condensed moisture about the lips, and the disturbingly steady crotch-level gaze yuck -- but ... he got it, nonetheless.

"Come, come ye sons of Art," I rallied, nude, pitching forward, carrying the banner of rebellion, hopeful, not unlike Jobeth Williams at the end of the poppin 80s film, "Teachers," when she tries to get Nick Nolte to fight against the corrupt administration. But ... no buzz. Nothing. Where was the love? Had I entirely misunderstood that word again the reception that I would get? Why werent they greeting me in the streets with flowers and chocolates? Had I been fed the wrong information?

As I continued sprinting nakedly through the Great Hall, that St. Elmo's Fire Song began playing professional strippers get Kid Rock, Motley Crue, Metallica, amateurs like me, we get stuck with Elmos -- and, no, I dont mean the sappy Love Theme, but, rather, the gritty, earnest tune "Man in Motion,"-- so ably sung by: John Parr -- which was a kind of pornographic coincidence, as, locomoting forward, my very own little man was -- ahem -- oscillating wildly, so to speak, casting a single, dark ... tremendous ... shadow ... on the pristine .. alabaster walls of the ballroom of the Great Hall.

I sprinted briskly past the Academic Dean in an Old Crow haze, she looked not unlike the chaste and pristine Betty White character in that significant cultural artifact of the 80s, the Golden Girls. As I passed by her, briskly, swaying � to the left on my own momentum, she exclaimed, in horror, "Dear Lord!"

"No -- just Ron Mwangaguhunga, His faithful servant. A common mistake," I replied. Now � of the Great Hall had been traduced. By now the Promised Land -- the back exit -- was in full view. I was going to make it. Triumph. I would go through the back exit, then into a ladies dorm immediately across the street where, in the common room, would be my clothes and a raucous celebration brimming with portable freezer chilled Old English 800. But I was getting ahead of myself. Maybe seven full yards ahead of me was the final leg of my journey. As I weightlessly marched those final steps, milking every moment, giving a wildly arrogant House of Windsor wave, two rather beefy Security Guards came up out of nowhere to obstruct my progress. And they didnt look like performance art aficionados.

"Just what -- the fuck -- do you think -- you are doing, here: huh: hot pants" Grunted the alpha male of the two, who looked, in retrospect, not unlike the Oscar Goldman character, Jamie Summers' OSI advisor in that 70s cultural phenomenon, "The Bionic Woman." As I tried to answer the security guard, the last lines of Man in Motion could be heard fading into the sad landscape, "Burnin, burnin in me ... I can feel it burning."

The other Security Guard, the beta male, had bad intentions in his eyes, not that the Oscar Goldman guard didnt, but he clearly had issues with the fact that I was bare ass naked. It threw him off. He didn't know where to rest his eyes. He reminded me of a cross between Steve McGarrett on the hugely influential Hawaii Five-O and, because I detected some Cherokee in him, Sheriff Elroy P. Lobo of the unburied and unsung "BJ and the Bear" TV series. "Let's take this inside one of the dorms," Lobo whispered gruffly. And so, Hotpants -- me, Lobo and Oscar Goldman retired to the ladies dorm directly in front of the Great Hall. Already the small campus gossip had escalated the incident. Later I would hear that a rumor mill said that the incident involved eight guards and a Taser to bring me down. But the rumors of my stun-gun-to-the-ass-cheek were premature.

Inside the female dorm were my clothes sitting on the common room table. Everyone else had retreated when word spread that I'd been popped by the fuzz. But I wasn't ratting; I knew "The Code." Walking naked through the chilly September wind, dead leaves winding in the air, compassionate gazes following my incarceration, I was like like an inmate on Oz getting horded into "Gen Pop".

Add to the mix that the chill had had all but -- ahem -- thoroughly subtracted from the sum total of my ardor, if you know what I mean. As the dorm entrance door closed, my now hardly threatening "manhood shadow" cast itself against the walls, faintly. As luck would have it, several very attractive women came downstairs to witness what can only be described as my -- ahem -- "shortfall." I believe one of the girls remarked, in passing, "So it isn't true what they say about black men."

Bitch. If only she knew ... If only she had witnessed my manly triumph several minutes previous in the -- I must note here -- well heated ballroom. My l'espirit d'escalier was so rudely interrupted by Sheriff Lobo, barking, "Okay, hotpants, get dressed." They took my name and, in the mail a week later, I got a fine from the Dean of $100, which was pretty harsh, considering that my campus dishwashing job was barely more than minimum wage, and there was no way I was going to ask my parents for the money and explain it to them. They too have a conservative view of the arts.

Any way, there you go, that's my misunderstanding, between Performance Art and indecency, which I thought might particularly go over well here, with this audience at PS 122. Certain points in the story were exaggerated, for comic effect, but ... that part about the "big ... tremendous ... shadow.?" So true!