I Am So Popular: Of Drag Queens And Mustache Rides

Back up. A few months ago, I accepted a short-term office gig with gratitude. My previous job had dried up suddenly, and the dearth of regular paychecks was taking a toll. Further complicating matters: no insurance combined with a need for surgery. The new job meant a way to pay my bills so that I could designate income from my ten million side jobs for medical expenses.

As office work goes, mine was not a bad deal. Good money. Pretty office. Nice people. No dress code. Still, it required being in the same place, at the same time, five days per week. I’ve had all sorts of jobs for 33 years now, and in that time I have spent maybe a total of three years in offices. Not my scene, so I worried I’d fast tire of the velvet rut.

At first, the sailing was smooth. To the point I began to fantasize. Maybe I had gotten three decades of being a self-employed, odd-job-juggling writer out of my system. Maybe I could get used to free snacks and direct deposits. Maybe they’d offer me a fulltime job with insurance. Maybe I’d ask them for one.

Then came The Document. It doesn’t matter what this document was, so much as what had to be endured to get it written. The process was ongoing, convoluted, and involved more than a few cooks, though technically there was just one writer: me. It did not call for any wit or philosophical pondering on my part. At the outset, it seemed rather straightforward.

But as the holiday approached and the office closed, it became clear this document was not going to honor the time I was supposed to have off. The good news: I get paid by the hour. So I’d pull in some dough. The bad news: birthing that thing took five times longer than it took me to push a nearly ten-pound baby into this world. Different kind of labor, yes. But in the end, like childbirth, it took a similar toll. There’s a reason I only have one child. Now there’s a reason I don’t want to ever do a corporate document again.

One morning, after many hours of toiling, I set out to meet some friends, dates I’d scheduled before realizing I wouldn’t have time to keep them. But the voices told me I mustn’t cancel and reminded me of that old saying about how nobody lays on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time at work.

Though the deadline hung over me like a storm cloud, I headed off to the coffee house to first meet with a young man—now 20—whom I’ve known since he was a thirteen year-old in one of my writing classes. We shot the shit for an hour, talked art and music and writing. This man-child represented for me the Ghost of Spike Past as I recalled my own youth and energy and excitement at all there is to choose from in this world, remembering a time when I was not bogged down by producing thirty-page reports.

Next stop, a buzzing restaurant, for lunch with one of this town’s best actresses, who has, to my great relief, been tapped to play the role of Molly Ivins in an upcoming Zach performance. I had been so fearful when I heard this show was coming, worried that no actor could do justice to my old friend and mentor Molly who, cliché but oh-so-true, was so much larger than life. This month marks the fourth anniversary of Molly’s death, and I can still see myself, doubled over in grief at her memorial service.

This then, if not precisely the Ghost of Spike Present, was close enough. I sat recounting stories about Molly and all the encouragement she’d offered me, my earlier chat with my young writer friend a barely audible echo of those kindnesses. I reveled in the conversation with my actress friend about artistic process and together we concurred that Austin is surely the place to be if you want to be an artist who might not make a lot of cash but certainly will find an appreciative and supportive audience.

After lunch, I wandered into Waterloo Records. Vic Chesnutt had popped into my head earlier that day and suddenly I had to have his most recent record, At the Cut. There’s not a bad song on that record, which would still merit the description haunting even if Vic hadn’t taken an overdose and died on Christmas Day, 2009, shortly after playing his last show ever (in Austin as it happens). But the song I wanted to hear most of all was one I heard him play on Fresh Air, Flirted With You All My Life, which starts out sounding like a typical love song, until you realize the object of his affection is the death that he ultimately claims to not really be ready for. (Yes, just like Kurt Cobain didn’t have a gun.)

For continuity’s sake, I’ll go ahead and assign Vic the role of the Ghost of Spike Future. Or at least some symbol of how it might’ve gone for me if, on any one of so many pitch black Christmases, I had allowed myself to go just a foot or two deeper down the hole that so begged to consume me those times.

But listening to that song—though it made me sad for the loss of Vic—had a positive effect, too. I think any one of us who struggles to apply some sort of poetry to this crazy life certainly has moments of Why Bother? This might hinge on not feeling heard or read or seen. Or maybe it is rooted in the fact that anymore the world seems far more enchanted with talentless reality show “stars” and silly YouTube videos than anything much of substance.

Vic Chesnutt, I can only guess, certainly had such moments. And yet, unrecognized in the Big Pond, confined to a wheelchair, and in the throes of being fucked over by the “health care system,” he continued for as long as he could, putting out stunning pieces of musical poetry rendered in a voice no one could dare call inauthentic. He is so real, in fact, you find yourself inhabiting his lyrics like a second, too-tight skin.

I texted my son to tell him I wanted to gift him the CD when I was done with it, and was delighted to get a message back that he was at his internship over at Okay Mountain. He has been the recipient of so much mentoring in this town-- so many artists and musicians not that much older than him, happy to show him the ropes. This city is his university and already he is well on his way to an advanced degree.

Then came the hitchhiker, none other than our most famous drag queen, Leslie, who was three sheets to the wind and, dragging on a pint of cheap whiskey, bragged for the few blocks I drove him that he’d been successfully fighting sobriety for decades. I dropped him near South Congress and as he strolled off, his little skirt flapping, my spirits lifted higher, another reminder that in this town you really can be who you want to be.

By then, thoughts of The Document lay dormant. I saw instead the light at the end of the tunnel, a contract about to end and with it, the door swinging open on my next round of living on the edge, piecing it together, not sure where the money will come from, but positive that inspiration will be plentiful.

Then I stopped on the way home to admire my latest favorite piece of public art, an enormous pair of glasses and mustache that adorn the signpost at El Chilito. The mustache doubles as a seesaw and all day long you can find people of all ages riding it, shrieking with joy. I have no idea who put it there, or how the artist thought of it. I just know that I cannot pass it without a flash of pure joy singing in my heart.

And so I moved another step toward a new year in Austin, happily wrapped in abundant promises of something wonderful waiting around every corner.

Spike Gillespie writes for KnitBuzz, spikeg.com, and writewithspike.com, where you can find information about her upcoming writing workshops. She hopes you’ll join her on Sunday, January 9th at 7 pm at BookPeople to celebrate the Kick Ass Awards.