Stages

Back home in New Orleans, at CRISP Farm, we have a stage with electricity where microphones and speakers can be piped in. I get a lot of ideas. According to something I once read, over sixty thousand a day. But this is a good one. We should have a monthly talent show for all ages. Five minutes each. There will be no judging or prizes awarded. No critiques. The experience will be about the experience.

            There is something that happens when someone can feel the joy he is giving to those watching him. The energy shifts. This cannot even be controlled. Take a look at Lemon Boy D in this attached video. Watch the way his shoulders move. I believe he is feeling everyone and everything around him. There is no fear. Not everybody is this way. It is my belief that by getting together and sharing laughter we can let go of those sides of ourselves that we hide from others for fear of being laughed at and mocked. In the moment none of this matters. And even if you don’t get up there, you will appreciate what the ones who did have done. You may not say so.

            Which leads me to another question about how I need to be seen, and, because I can only see the world through my own perspective, how others need to be seen as well. And did I ruin a popsicle relationship with a woman who once wanted all of our basil and cucumbers because I was trying to sell her friends nutria tacos? And was I selling the nutria tacos because I needed to be weird or because I needed to make a statement to the Eat Local Challenge people about how much food is being wasted when nutrias are shot for three bucks a tail and their carcasses left to rot in the spot where it was cut off. And then I have to ask myself what is the greater issue here? Is it my need for attention or is it the fact that we as humans have been conditioned to only eat certain things that all must be hygienic, that the very shampoo we use is killing the bacteria we need for our skin to do what our skin needs to do? But that’s a whole ‘nother story. Let’s stick to eating. Let’s stick to the fact that perfectly good meat

is wasted daily because of the word “rat”. Rats!

            Dejuan—aka Lemon Boy D—received his nickname after eating almost five lemons in three minutes, securing his spot as champion of the weird-eating contest. The facilitators had quartered the lemons. Dejuan ate nineteen. Autumn led the women with thirteen. Even the joy in the other kids who were too cool to get up on stage or do anything even though they talked a big game could be witnessed in the way they watched and laughed and cheered on their lemon-eating friends.

            Sometimes it takes time to cross over the bridge between fear and self-confidence, and it doesn’t matter what or how much good or accomplishment is within you. Some kids just got it. Doesn’t even matter if they’re good. Others suffer from Barbara Streisandism, and it doesn’t matter how good they are. Some of these kids who are the most vocal about their skills are the hardest to be found when the talent show comes around. I believe they suffer from Barbara Streisandism. Now….what if Barbara Streisand was cheered on back in Brooklyn when she was a little girl? Would she still have had to stay away from the stage for 27 years? Is talent sliding away because kids aren’t given the chance? Is the joy of being able to laugh at yourself becoming a lost art in the computer age? Could it be rekindled at CRISP?

            This idea may not help everybody, but it will bring the people together to watch. And that’s community.

            During my years of drinking I used to try to write with anyone who would write with me. We wrote with manic hands to get as much on the page as we could because there was no pressure. In the moment. There is something that is killed by the spirit of what other people are going to think of this or that and how much has to change and….how many of you have written a piece right into the ground until the first draft was ten times better than what you have pored over for years?

            There is something in the safety of that exquisite corpse style of writing. Something that allows mistakles to be a part of the process, that allows these to be met with communal laughter rather than the scorn and judgment that comes from a need to feed the ego. The heart does not separate. The heart knows no you and me. And there is joy in coming together.

            And when I get back to New Orleans I am going to have an event. It is going to start with the neighborhood first. It need not ever grow bigger. I want to get Chief Damond and all the other Indians to lead us down the block and back to the stage. And goddamn this is gonna be fun. Just look at Dejuan’s shoulders and the way the music moves him and the excitement he feeds from the people that are watching, and sure there are kids in the chairs who will judge him and say they could have done better, but he was doing it. He will tell you, “I killed it” because he did “kill it” because he was having fun.