xx038 • 17 Reasons for 'Being Alive'

Living for the future, with 'Company'

1.

I first visited San Francisco's Mission District as a teenager in the 1990s: bright-eyed, pony-tailed, and vibrating with possibility. The city was more intimate then. Salty waters keep the same 49 square miles from sprawling, but the buildings were shorter. The city's collective ambitions were not as capitalistic. More spoken word, less software.

At the corner of 17th and Mission, above the Thrift Town where I later sourced items for my apartment, stood a gigantic depression-era metal sign touting 17 Reasons Why! ¹

San Francisco’s dramatic hills ripple the city’s architecture so that no matter where you situate, the city unrolls itself above or below. New York City is much more in your face and requires access to a sizeable elevator to establish perspective. In the flats of the Mission, you could see that massive old sign for blocks, providing ample opportunity to ponder your reasons, and what for.

2.

I read about a writer who was blocked for a full two years after the loss of her child. She explained the impossibility of writing when you no longer believe in a future. Might this work in reverse? Could I write myself into believing in one?

At the turn of the year, I decided to try. I was tired of feeling frozen. I was unsure of everything save habituating myself to sit and forge some sentences. Shortly after restarting this newsletter, an email came through promoting a week-long writer’s workshop in late May. Then a nudge from a friend to apply for a fellowship. I experimented with saying yes and practiced prioritizing time to write.

Sometimes I plant seeds without fully realizing what I am nurturing. Weeds run wild; unexpected flowers emerge. I did not know that last week would be my last working at Luminary. I was also not exactly caught by surprise. It was unclear in January how I might manage an extended time away from my family and job. There are yellow daffodils on my block now and my schedule is wide open.

3.

On every birthday—mine, hers, anyone's—my mother quotes her brother, my Uncle Mike, who bravely faced a series of health issues until he couldn't anymore: "You either get old, or you don't."

4.

This week my daughter's little brother turned four. Every birthday we get to celebrate feels like a triumph.

One bright memory of the pandemic was a weekend away to celebrate a friend's middle age milestone birthday. It was a real pleasure to sit on the beach with new people after a very lonely COVID year confined to my apartment. As we got to know each other under the sun, I asked one of the moms about the inflection points in her life. She looked at me quizzically. What did I mean? "You know...when did you hit a moment in your life, a fork in the road, where everything changed?" She wasn't sure that she'd ever had one.

I'm not sure I've had a year without at least one.

March 2019 feels particularly significant. As I wrapped up my last days at Luminary, I was struck by the season. Exactly four years ago I stood overlooking the WeWork Galactic Headquarters' atrium and took a call from a then-unknown podcast startup staffing up. Days later, my pregnant co-parent dropped off our daughter and went to the hospital to check on concerning symptoms; they admitted her immediately. While our daughter napped, we spoke quietly on the phone about the gravity of the situation. We were both scared; she and the baby were in danger. I said 'I love you' for the first time since we separated years before.

Until now, I hadn't connected the origins of my employment at Luminary with his birth. I consulted my email and calendar for clues to my emotional state. Amid the chaos that was my job prepping the WeWork IPO: a health emergency, a three-year-old needing stability, a newborn in the NICU, an emerging professional opportunity, and yet another entanglement. Out of tools to help find a resolution with an entirely different relationship, I was busy booking intro sessions with a new therapist.

5.

I listen to a lot of show tunes. A lot, a lot. Everyone has their musical genre that explains the world. American musical theater is my star chart. My preferred association with my mother's Catholicism is the original 1973 "Godspell" soundtrack.² The only Bible stories I can reliably retell are thanks to Andrew Lloyd Webber's hummable scores. My father kept "Les Mis" on repeat for what felt like years. I videotaped my little brother improv dancing to Mister Mistoffelees.³ I bought the "Rent" soundtrack on double cassette. I could keep merrily rolling along…

Despite the above, it wasn’t until my early thirties that I tuned into Stephen Sondheim. Prior, my Sondheim knowledge was limited to a South Lakes High School production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” repeat viewings of the 1957 “West Side Story” (on laser disc), and misunderstood renditions of “Send in the Clowns.”

Sondheim's “Company” first entered my orbit via a Page 1 profile of Raúl Esparza in The New York Times, just days before the 2006 Broadway revival’s opening night. Esparza was not unknown to me having seen his Riff Raff in the 2000 production of “The Rocky Horror Show” (twice!), but this feature was remarkable for its emotional depth. Joyce Wadler drew parallels between the show and its star:

"Company": The story of Bobby, a charming single man, who is unable to commit to a relationship and who may have questions about his own sexual identity.

Raúl Esparza: No longer truly married but not entirely separated, whose romantic conflicts go far deeper than that of the character he plays and have no easy fix.

I was living in Oakland, little chance I'd see this production, we're still years out from streaming bootlegged clips of shows, but the story of Bobby and the actor who played him took root in my subconscious.

6.

When I restarted this newsletter I sketched out a roadmap for the year which punted "rebranding Substack" to Q2 and left XX Libris as the working title.

This joke has amused me for years: a hat tip to my neurotic archival tendencies and a wink to my chromosomal composition.  I have pages in multiple sketchbooks with doodles of interlocking Xs. I roughed out a zine anthology series. I researched brands that had already made their "XX" marks. I landed on The Bookplate Society and scanned their annual conference agendas. I went so far as to request time at the Brooklyn Public Library to look at their collection of Ex Libris. I imagined commissioning transmasculine artists to make a limited series of artist bookplates I'd offer on a Shopify store.

I love an inside joke that doesn't exclude; a witticism that can stand proudly on its own, or even go unnoticed, but gives the exact-right audience a knowing look. But a joke that only you appreciate bombs. Read the room.

For months (years?) I tried to make XX Libris stick, but every time I sat myself down to develop the aesthetic I looked in the other direction. If I've learned anything running a marketing team, it's this: don't annoy your audience. An ambiguously pronounced pun based on an anachronistic practice is bad for business.

7.

Sondheim himself undersells the complexity of “Company”:⁴

A man with no emotional commitments reassesses his life on his thirty-fifth birthday by reviewing his relationships with his married acquaintances and his girlfriends. That is the entire plot.

Start to finish, the musical doesn't move in traditional narrative ways and disoriented audiences when it premiered in 1970. The show is a meditation on the paradoxes of marriage set against the specificity of being a New Yorker—and exists as a montage of flashbacks occurring in an instant in Robert’s mind. It’s “Inside Out” for grown-ups, with choreography and an orchestra.

Appropriately “Company” found me again, a decade later, struggling in my marriage in a Park Slope apartment. I was seeking wisdom in every direction and listening to a healthy volume of Dan Savage’s podcast. He frequently quotes the show while empathetically advising listeners that partnership is largely about holding space for feeling both “Sorry-Grateful.”

You’re sorry-grateful,
Regretful-happy.
Why look for answers where none occur?
You always are what you always were,
Which has nothing to do with,
All to do with her.

Reviewing the most recent revival, Jesse Green wrote in The New York Times that with this song Sondheim “introduced ambivalence at an almost cellular level to the American musical theater.”⁵

Unlike Bobby, my emotional commitments were numerous and not entirely compatible. I was about to turn 37.

8.

“Company” opens with Robert standing at the threshold of his apartment, his friends (the chorus) have gathered inside to surprise him. They call out:

Bobby, Bobby, Bobby baby, Bobby bubi, Robby, Robert darling… 

When the birthday boy finally speaks, he breaks through the cacophony:

Hi, this is Bob.

When I came back to “Company”, my father, Robert, had recently passed. You would have called him Bob. He made countless jokes off his name and loved a pop culture reference he could claim (e.g. Bob Parr aka Mr. Incredible, King Bob the Minion). One of his favorite things to do was drop into his trained radio announcer voice and say, “Hello, this is Bob…”

I don't recall ever discussing the musical with him, but it’s impossible to listen without thinking of my father who left his heterosexual marriage to more fully realize his sexuality. Who put in great effort to stay connected to his ex, my mother. Who developed a robust network of friends and always invited company over. He was the most charismatic man in every room, and frustratingly fragile. He spent decades struggling to overcome his depressive mind and stay alive, just in time to spend his remaining decades fighting his body’s betrayal.

9.

I went back to reread the Esparza profile this week and stopped on the date: November 26, 2006. Thanksgiving. I remembered reading the profile in print, in my Oakland house, but I had lost track of the season. My calendar reminds me that my brother and mother had just visited for the holiday. There’s also an entry to pick up my girlfriend from the airport. I can’t be certain in which order these events occurred, but the weekend I first read about “Company” I also broke up with my future wife, the mother of our now very much alive daughter.

Early 2020, the Broadway nerds were buzzing with anticipation about the gender-flipped “Company” transferring over from London. Feeling uncertain transcends gender, Bobbie can also resist vulnerability. I made some calls and secured fourth-row center seats for previews. I was beyond excited to finally see a live production of a show that frequently ran on repeat in my head. To hear Patti LuPone toast to “The Ladies Who Lunch!"

My plus one for the night was more than a friend. He is the first in my life to ever wear the label of lover effortlessly. We had crossed paths briefly on an app, but serendipitously met IRL the only time my theatrical passions ever overlapped with my Luminary professional obligations.

The night of the performance was March 4, 2020 and the city was on edge. There was already a confirmed case in Manhattan. I couldn’t relax. I had a tickle in the back of my throat. Director Marianne Elliot wove in a running prop gag where a bottle of whiskey keeps changing hands—every time a new actor took a swig from the same bottle I squeezed my date’s knee and thought: “Don’t kill Patti!” The production shut down before arriving at opening night.

I wouldn’t see my lover again indoors for another 18 months when a bunch of like-minded mourners gathered at Club Cumming to toast the great Stephen Sondheim. He died November 26, 2021.

The city shut down just weeks before my 40th birthday. I had big plans to celebrate. A big group dinner with my lesbian friends in NYC and a destination trip to Dollywood with the gays.

Instead, my milestone birthday, like Bobby’s, transpired primarily inside my apartment, and too much inside my head, punctuated with a montage of scenes that would be right at home on the stage. One friend safely dropped off balloons. Another drove in her minivan so she and the kids could wave. Two more brought over cupcakes and I blew out candles in the doorway. A former castmate of my brother’s serenaded me from a balcony across the street. There was a zoom dinner with the friends who would have dined together in person. And at 7p we opened the windows so that my daughter and I could make noise with our neighbors: we’re alive!

“Being Alive” is the climactic ending of “Company”. It is the moment that Bobby digs deeps and accepts that while no relationship can be perfect, there are benefits regardless. Sondheim explained he was inspired to write a song that “could progress from complaint to prayer.”⁶

As Esparza unpacked to Wadler:

I think the real thing that Bobby is going through is that he's trying to grow up, and that means accepting things you can't change, and it also means that in spite of all the messiness and failure you make a choice to love someone and live your life in the way that's right for you. It's messier than the pretty picture you painted for yourself.

After suffering through the pandemic monotony the song’s emotional pivot hits harder.

Make me confused,
Mock me with praise,
Let me be used,
Vary my days.
But alone is alone, not alive.

12.

When Broadway reopened “Company” was the first production I saw. This time with my brother—his middle name is Robert—and his soon-to-be husband. Same show, but a reshaped experience. We were all, as mandated, masked. There were monitors at the end of every aisle enforcing protocols. The audience was eager but skittish.

Bobbie, Katrina Lenk, wore a cast on her hand. A stage mishap the night before had injured her mid-performance. The show had gone on. Patti had, mercifully survived COVID, though she did call out sick that night.

Not everyone who was in my life before the pandemic made it with me to the other side. COVID spotlit dark corners and answered questions other methods couldn’t. It makes sense, she never appreciated Sondheim.

[KATHY]

I’ll be a good wife. I want real things. Husband. Family.
I think there’s a time to come to New York, and a time to leave. Enjoy your party.

We’re all a bit banged up from the last few years, but we’re alive.

13.

I shared with my daughter that I would need a new job soon. She informed me I should "just be an artist" or "maybe a writer!” then added, “You are a great writer." I thanked her for the affirmation. I told her I submitted some of my writing for others to review. I’ve since overheard her a few times boasting to family members that “my daddy sent away his writing to a competition!”

There's a little illustration of an imaginary book taped up in our kitchen.⁷ I like to model how to show your work, so I date-stamped and signed my name in the corner. Last week my daughter leaned in close and critiqued that my initial W looked more like an N. She grabbed a pen to address but I stopped her, "you don't touch anyone else's art without permission." I added that while I was writing fast, my signature worked for the piece.

She got very concerned and brought up the writing ‘contest’. She wanted to know exactly what I submitted. We're my W's right? I explained that I submitted sentences typed into a computer and that I would be judged by the words that I chose, not my penmanship. "Oh! That makes so much more sense."

14.

My father, Mr. Bob-O-Matic, was always an early adopter. When satellite radio was becoming a thing he installed a Sirius radio in his car along with a mess of wires. When he upgraded to a new model I moved the tangled receiver into his old Saturn to listen to Broadway’s Best (Sirius 77!) on my drive back to college. Now when I write at home, I wirelessly stream On Broadway (SiriusXM 72) to the networked smart speakers.

Earlier this month I stared at the screen numbed by the headlines detailing the atmospheric river of anti-trans legislation.

Raúl Esparza's rendition of "Being Alive" began to reverberate in every room.

Somebody crowd me with love
Somebody force me to care
Somebody let me come through
I'll always be there
As frightened as you
To help us survive
Being alive, being alive
Being alive!

15.

My friend Nick and I try to meet weekly to cheer on each other's creative endeavors. We met a lifetime ago at Pixar when he was a storyboard artist and I was the story department manager. Since then we have both produced and/or directed projects of our own. We take turns wearing each hat with the other.

For weeks I made excuses for not having the newsletter mood board to discuss. It was time to admit defeat. I started pitching new names. He dismissed them all quickly. After another unsuccessful round, annoyed but also appreciative, I texted him:

Me: working on new names
Me: this week's idea
Me: being alive.
Me: "Kyle is being alive."
Nick: Being Alive!
Nick: I love it.

I like to call Robb my "first friend in NYC." We met when I asked another former Pixarian to introduce me to some theater people. At the time Robb was producing off off off Broadway productions; he now runs the Broadway Advocacy Coalition which accepted a special Tony award in 2021 for its groundbreaking arts-based advocacy work. I now introduce Robb as my “Tony award-winning friend.”

I called Robb to tell him the new name. He gasped.

16.

On the bookshelf above my desk is a title that seems to taunt me daily—”Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution.” There was a time not too long ago when I thought no one needed to hear my/our stories anymore, that maybe we'd all moved on into some sort of post-gay liberation. We were all so very naive.

It is a curious time to commit to writing about myself when both the autonomy of trans people and the authenticity of words are up for dissection.

The large language models that are feeding rapid innovation are dependent upon their inputs. One thing OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard absolutely cannot do, well at least for now, is write your memoir.

17.

The essay I haven't been able to write all month, the one I was merely staring at when “Being Alive” came on, is about grappling with ordinary middle age existential angst while Christian nationalists execute a campaign against my right to merely exist.

Sample sentence from the New Oxford American Dictionary baked into this MacOS:

existential | ˌeɡzəˈsten(t)SHəl |
adjective
relating to existence: the climate crisis is an existential threat to the world

Exactly, Cupertino. You know what is not an existential challenge to humanity? Transgender people.

Though—hear me out—maybe we are meant to be a challenge, an offering. I once heard a transgender academic articulate that the beauty of being trans is that your body is living proof that life can be different.

Legislating away transgender people is a distraction, a smoke and mirrors manipulation to avoid the urgent change we all must undertake for any of us to be alive in the future.

---

1. “17 reasons on The L Word”

2. For sure I saw Jesus that one time I locked eyes with Victor Garber while he dined in the window of SF's Zuni.

3. Years later, I drove to Stockton to celebrate my brother’s 21st birthday while he was on the road touring with “Cats.”

4. Sondheim, Stephen. Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2022.

5. Review: In a Gender-Flipped Revival, ‘Company’ Loves Misery

6. Sondheim, Finishing the Hat.

7. A WendyMac DrawTogether prompt.