Peaks, Valleys and Perseverance in the City of Seven Hills

The lights went down. The sparse crowd had shuffled out. Hans (the show’s director, who is of German persuasion) and I were alone in the tiny backstage area of the Exit Studio Theater, in the heart of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. We stood amidst the smell of fresh paint, stale cigarettes and dried urine. It was just after our first show at the 28th annual San Francisco Fringe Festival and we were dejected. It had not gone as we had thought it would go. There was silence where we had expected laughs. It was clunky where it had once been smooth. I was self conscious where I had once been carefree. What went wrong? How could this happen? Didn’t we have a fish on the line? We searched for answers in the foul smelling air. But like City Services in the Tenderloin district, none came.

We decided, as many had decided before us, to go to the local pub to debrief.

“That was a fucking disaster! An out and out fucking disaster!” I proclaimed from my bar stool, finger in the air like Socrates. “That was deeply, deeply embarrassing.” I said, deflating, my head now sinking so close to the bar top that my nose almost grazed the foam atop my pilsner.

“I have led you astray,” Hans said, somewhat stoically, taking full responsibility for what had transpired. “You placed your trust in me and I failed you. This is my fault.”

“Who am I kidding,” I offered, “I wanted to cancel this fucking thing back in New York. I should have listened to my gut and called the festival and canceled. It was a turd. I’m so ashamed, Hans. I’m so deeply ashamed.”

“I wanted to cancel too,” Hans admitted, defeatedly. “I did. I didn’t want to admit it because I don’t like to quit, but I did.”

“What are we doing with our lives?”

We sat in silence, stewing in our despair, the blaring of television screens and the bustle of a downtown San Francisco bar on a Friday night whirling all around us. We ordered another round of beers and I attempted to buy a shot of whiskey, but Hans, wanting to save me from my more destructive impulses, intervened. He placed his arm across me, like mother to child at a stoplight and told the bartender, “Don’t give him a shot.”

She did not.

I received a text from a family friend who had come to see the show. I didn’t have the strength to look at it. What could she have possibly thought of that monstrosity? She either hated it and had to lie to me because we are family friends or she hated it and she wasn’t lying to me because we are family friends. Either way, she hated it, I was certain. She most definitely hated it.

That night, we traveled back home, through the bowels of the City by the Bay and up into the night time fog of District 7. We sat across from one another at the kitchen table, still distraught from the night’s events. We would see how we felt in the morning, we decided. We would get some “zzzzzzzzzs” and see how we felt. I was almost positive I wanted to cancel. But we would get some “zzzzzzzzs” and see how we felt.

***

As it usually does, the morning came. The sun shone and pierced through the District 7 fog and Hans and I sipped our home brewed coffee.

Overnight, the sharp pangs of embarrassment had subsided a bit and I was seeing things with slightly more perspective.

“One more time,” I said to him. “I’ll do it one more time. Then, if I don’t want to do it anymore, I won’t do it anymore. But one more time. I’ll do it one more time.”

“Yes,” Hans said, “One more time. Then you never have to do it again if you don’t want to. One more time.”

I mustered up the strength to look at my phone and checked the text message from the night before.

“Really enjoyed your show,” it read. “I thought you were brave and vulnerable and took risks. Wanted to meet up with you for a drink afterwards but couldn’t find you.”

“I left the theater in shame,” I replied. “I was really embarrassed. It means the world to me that you would come but I’m sorry you had to pay seven dollars to see that horse crap. Thank you and hope to see you soon.”

Awhile later, my phone pinged.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” the family friend’s text read.

Nothing to be ashamed of. One more time. Nothing to be ashamed of….one…more…time.

I think I can I think I can I think I can.

Once more into the Tenderloin, dear friends.

***

Later that night, I came offstage after show number two, the audience’s applause audible through the dressing room door. I was sweating clear through my Hawai’an “beach” shirt and it hung heavy on my somewhat wiry frame.

It had gone better! It had gone so much better!

Hans burst through the door and gave me a big, wet, smelly embrace.

“They loved it! Great work! Oh, they loved it! The two Jewish guys in front of me kept nudging each other and laughing every time you mentioned your ‘bubbie’ who survived the Holocaust and the Nixon administration! They thought it was great and so did I!”

We took each other in and beamed as bright as the California sun. In the span of twenty four hours, everything had changed. Where we were once in Visitacion Valley, we were now standing atop Twin Peaks. This is a local San Francisco metaphor for those of you following along at home. What I am implying is that we were at a low point (the Valley) and now we are at a high point (the Peak) for those of you who don’t know the area. Low to High. Valley to Peak. Get it? Got it? Good.

“Let’s go to Martuni’s and get a martini!” I exclaimed.

“Yes! To Martunis for a martini!”

We traveled through the bowels of the city by the Bay, made it to Martuni’s and sipped our martinis in the dark speak easy-esque bar, the late afternoon sun visible only through a small crack in the doorway. It was Vodka, up, with a twist- times two. One for me. One for Hans.

***

Hans left town and I was left to my own devices. The show was mine now and that felt liberating, to be sure. I have always had a touchy relationship with authority figures and, though I love Hans dearly, he was still an authority figure (and a German one at that!) and now he was gone. Here I went again, on my own. Sans authority. Sans Hans. Walking down the only road I’ve ever known.

***

The next two performances were a study the fallacy of the critical voice. And, if I had to categorize the lessons I learned from the entire experience, it would be that the critical voice, the one that exists in all of our heads, the one that proclaims that “we can’t”, “we would never dare” and we “shouldn’t”, the voice of the Devil himself, as far as I’m concerned, is a g-d damned liar. Complete and utter dookie.

The show most certainly changed. I found myself doing and talking about all kinds of things I didn’t necessarily plan to talk about: love, loss, what I wore, sick animals, the Amazon, Amazon, and Pat McCorkle. Family friends, who I was convinced would hate the show because it would be “too edgy” and because we went to church together years ago, came to see it. They stayed afterward and we hugged and caught up with one another. I think they actually liked it.

***

Why do we doubt ourselves? Why do we think ourselves into paralysis? Why are we so insecure about the the gifts that we have been given freely? Why do we want to quit?

There are no answers to those questions, though there is merit in asking them.

When faced with a terrifying proposition- an audience who doesn’t know you and may very well hate you, global climate change, political revolution or whatever the particular case may be- we are left with two choices: to continue on in the face of uncertainty or to cower away in fear. Hans and I chose generosity and perseverance. The rewards were somewhat small but they were rich, like a truffle from See’s Candies (another local shout out).

We did not guarantee City Services for the folks on Eddy Street. We did not change the dystopic trajectory of the City of Seven Hills (San Francisco), but we did win a small and significant victory, enough to nudge the needle a tad more toward life and away from despair. Like the mother to the child at the stoplight. Like me and you, choosing the bright green future over the haze and pollution and plastic of the past.

We think we can we think we can we think we can.

We did. And we will keep doing. Until we are all fog in the cool breeze, waiting to be burned off by the rising sun.