On Friday September 25th, 2007 Gordian Piec of Pitrków Trybanalski, Poland, and co-director of Galleria Off in Piotrków, phoned me to ask if I were still interested in performing in front of a Polish audience at the Galleria on Friday October 12th, 2007. I instantly answered a bold “yes”, already having in mind performance I was planning for that day.
As you may know, I had been growing a beard since my first trip to Kraków in June. I originally intended to shave the beard as soon as it fully grew in and briefly document my life with a mustache…
Not that I can even grow a full beard without it looking patchy or stringy. Growing up, I have always had dark hair, almost black, but as soon as my beard gets as full as it will ever get, one can see highlights of red and blonde. After letting it grow for a while, the highlights of color converge and manifest in little patches, mimicking the clumps of hair that I shall refer to as a beard. One clump of hair, resting over my upper lip, sadly excuses itself as a mustache, growing longer on the left side as well as fuller right under my nose. This hair is much thicker than the rest of my beard. It is a commune of straight and curled hairs and even if it grew in a semi-symmetrical manner, my asymmetric nose tricks the viewer into thinking my mustache has been hacked by a barber whose tool of choice is probably a scythe. But I grew the beard… regardless of its stunted growth. In fact, I grew it for four months straight, trimming the mustache a few times and slightly grooming the lengths of beard below my jaw line only once.
On October 12, 2007, I went to Piotrków with Agata, Mama, and Majster. I brought a new pair of shoes, a new shirt, a vest and a tie that were acquired in a second hand store, and a pair of red, yellow, and brown plaid plants that I borrowed from Majster. I packed these items along with Mama’s late father’s electric hair clippers with a copy of “Boys” version of the famous discopolo song Jestes Szalona (you’re crazy) in a red, white, and blue-plaid-nylon-plastic-bag that I bought at the ‘Chinsky’ Supermarket on Ul. Piotrkowska in Lodz.
I had conceived of this performance in my fantasies the night I rode back on the train from Minsk with Gordian and Piotr. Gordian Piec and Piotr Gaida had just asked me if I might be interested in performing in Piotrków. In my excitement, I indulgently came up with a simple and silly performance that had slightly changed the day it came to fruition. On that day, I brought a 1-liter bottle of Wybrowa Wódka to share with my audience.
This was not originally what I had planned. Not that my work ever goes as planned or is even truly planned out. But for the first time, I felt like I knew what my actions would be. Even when I introduced the 1-liter bottle of vodka as a variable, I still knew what I was going to do. Of course, after I had Agata shave my beard, leave the mustache, and powder my cheeks, and after I changed my clothes in front of the audience, and after we poured 30 cups of vodka and lined them up for the audience to come and have a drink with me, I still knew what I was going to do. But when the audience didn’t really want vodka…
Not even a third of the audience came up for a drink. Amongst those, one member came up a few times, actually. I had a couple drinks, Majster had a couple drinks, Mama and Agata had one, Piotr had one, and the lot of us consumed half of the drinks that were poured. I mean we were at a formal opening. Being an American and all, I figured we would at least have one drink at this opening. Being interested in happenings, I figured my plans would bust when everyone came up for a drink and began to socialize. My plans busted when the opposite happened and not until my work was finished did the rest of the members come up and ask if they could have a drink. I even stated my intentions, having Agata translate them for me so they all knew there would not be any repercussions. I didn’t plan on doing that at all. I didn’t know that the audience would start to walk out of the performance as soon as I personally offered them a drink. I told them ‘it would be really great if we could all share a drink and then, perhaps, share a dance’.
Then I realized they came to see me perform as if I were trapped behind a television screen or standing up on a stage with a pit between us, I felt as if I should have been dancing behind a piece of glass at freak show arcade…
I turned to Agata, Mama, and Majster and asked them if they would come up and dance with me. Originally, I was going to perform as if I were the only one in the room, aside from having my beard cut off. I would get up after the grooming, change my clothes, drink a beer, turn on the music, and dance to Jestes Szalona. Not that I can even really dance. I mean my feet move and it feels like my body is grooving to the music…
When I impulsively introduced the vodka variable, I thought about how great it would be to share a drink, possibly a toast, with the audience, make merry, and then coerce them all into dancing with me to one of the most silly and famous discopolo songs in Poland. I didn’t think I would have to coerce the audience into taking free alcohol. And when I attempted to convince them that we should all share a drink, a number of them walked out. So, I invited Agata and her family to join me on the dance floor, and the four of us danced like fools for the last 3 minutes and 58 seconds of the performance in Piotrków at Gallery Off. Me and my mustache and my nasty break-dance moves.
This particular performance has extended itself, or possibly, even segued into another performance that I am currently in the midst of. I have kept the mustache for almost a week. Anyone who can grow facial hair should try letting it grow out. Try styling it as you would a head of hair, if you have hair. Give yourself side-burns, grow a soul patch, mutton chops, a mustache, or even a goatee. Let your beard get long like Captain Cave Man’s then chop it off, leaving only the mustache. Then you can move right into having a handlebars or even a Fu Man Xu! Who knows, maybe you’ll end up like my dad, a man who hasn’t seen the epidermis over his upper lip for well over thirty years. I wonder how long his mustache would be if he never trimmed it…?
At any rate, I am keeping the mustache for now. The case being that my father is having surgery on October 19, 2007. And since we’re both baldies with similar shaped heads, I am reminded of him when I look in the mirror. And since I haven’t seen him for five months and his operation is a pretty major one, I am comforted that I can walk around the village or Lodz looking like my father did when he was my age. I mean, he’s not having a cancerous tumor removed from the center of his brain… but he’s not having an in-grown toe nail removed either. It’s serious enough, that he is taking time off of work and my mother will take time off as well, and it’s serious enough (to me) that he has been working out all summer to get in shape before he goes under the knife. So, I figure, what ever it is that is happening to his body, is serious enough that he prefers to have an operation to fix it. And I prefer to hide the epidermis above my upper lip for a little while.
Well, I will be back in the states very soon. Please remember, I will be giving a lunchtime talk on November 14th at the SMFA room B209, regarding my experience with performance in Europe over the past five months. It will start at 12:15pm and will not go longer than 1:45pm. Hope to see you there.
Sincerely,
Richard Spartos
